The young deputy read my note, then showed it to the older one, who looked right at me, his eyes green and full of something that made me look down at his arms, at the thick tufts of hair on them. “Mr. Behrani’s deceased.”
I was lying down and they were standing there but the room felt so suddenly still and quiet I started to feel too far away to see and hear what would come next. I took the pad from the young deputy: What?I wanted to ask about Lester. Why hadn’t he come back? Then I thought if they were calling me a kidnapper they had to be calling him one first, but I couldn’t be sure so I didn’t write any more. They didn’t answer me anyway. The older one seemed to be in charge. He stepped away from the bed and told me to get the facts from my lawyer. Then the younger one called Connie Walsh’s office and explained where I was and what I was being charged with. I heard the crimes again, and except for Brandishing a Weapon, pulling Lester’s pistol out of my bag at the gas station, I had a hard time matching up Kidnapping and False Imprisonment with me. The older deputy held the door open for the younger one, then they were gone.
There was another bed in my room, but it was empty with no sheets, just a white plastic mattress cover, a TV suspended in the corner of the ceiling, the dark screen watching me: The colonel was dead.On the serving table was a pitcher and a short stack of paper cups. I poured water into one and drank, each swallow a spiny sea urchin in my throat. My window shade was pulled and I could hear the sounds of traffic nearby. I scooted to the side of the bed. I was dressed in a hospital johnny with nothing underneath. I moved to the window but my legs felt shaky. I opened the shade. Ten feet down was a flat tar roof with big air-conditioning or heating units on it. And on the other side was more building and windows. In one of them was the colored flickering of a TV. I couldn’t see the sky but the daylight was overcast. I wondered if it was morning or afternoon. My neck was stiff and I could hardly look down or to the right and left. I remembered seeing the colonel’s yellowed teeth grinding together, the flare of his nostrils, feeling my feet lift off the ground. I got back into bed and lay down, but it suddenly felt like a dangerous place, as if the bed were a thousand feet off the ground and if I turned over too fast or even reached for water, it would tilt and fall to rocks below; if Behrani was dead, I was sure Lester must’ve killed him.
Less than an hour later the deputies came back, told me I’d been classified a flight risk and was being transferred to San Mateo County Hospital. The older one rode in the back of the ambulance with me. He sat across from my gurney chewing gum, looking around at all the medical equipment. Sometimes his eyes would look into mine. The sky was growing dark as they wheeled me here and at the elevator an older woman with too much blush on her cheeks held the doors for us and she smiled down at me and said, “You are going to be just fine, dear. You’ll see.” There was a smear of lipstick on her front teeth, which were perfect and false, but I wanted to believe her.
The older deputy stayed here in my room until the nurse left, then he stood close to the bed and looked down at me like he was waiting for me to finish answering a question he’d never asked. I swallowed and had to close my eyes a minute. When I opened them he was shaking his head like I’d disappointed him. “Les Burdon and I used to be partners before they divided us up into single units. He was sheriff material, but he’s all through now, I hope you know that. They’ve got him in Protective Custody, but that won’t last. They’ll throw him to the hounds.” He stepped back from the bed and moved to the door. “There’ll be a man outside till you’re okayed to leave, then you’re going right to holding in Redwood City. Think about that.”
He left and I looked up at the white rectangles of the ceiling, the fluorescent light. I closed my eyes and swallowed what felt like a dozen thumbtacks, and I wanted that sandy-haired married deputy to feel it too, feel the colonel’s thumbs breaking through his Adam’s apple like it was cardboard; I wanted this old friend of Lester’s to be at the fish camp when Lester put on his uniform and had me drive him to talk to the colonel; I wanted this friend to be in the house waking up to the whole family locked in the bathroom; and I wanted the deputy to be standing in the bedroom his father left him as Lester held his gun to the colonel’s neck in my car. None of these things I asked for. I didn’t ask for any of them.
A nurse and doctor came into the room. The nurse was younger than me. She smiled and introduced the doctor, a short man with silver hair and thick glasses that made his eyes look tiny. He read the clipboard at the foot of the bed, then came closer and put two warm fingers against my throat. My eyes began to fill up and I must’ve made a sound because the nurse took my hand and held it while the doctor looked down my throat with a tiny flashlight, then patted my shoulder and said my soft tissue was healing well and it would be best not to speak a word for at least two full weeks. Then they were gone, their white coats disappearing behind the door, and I didn’t feel mad anymore; maybe I didn’t deserve the deputy’s judgement of me for things I never did, but now I felt even more that I didn’t deserve the warmth the nurse just showed me, holding my hand like I was a victim in all this. Because I knew that wasn’t true. Neither picture of me was true.
My door opened and a round Chicana woman brought in my supper on a tray: a glass of water, a bowl of clear yellow broth, and a dish of vanilla pudding. She smiled at me and I could see a gold cap on one of her front teeth. She left the room and Connie Walsh stepped in. Her dark hair was shorter than when I last saw her, cut close to the sides of her head, which made her pretty face look older and a little harsh. On her feet were brand-new running shoes and I started to smile but my face felt funny, my lips thick and twisted, and I couldn’t look right at her.
She didn’t say anything, just stood there, and I felt her looking at me. She put her hand on my shoulder, pushed my food tray closer to me, and asked if I could sit up. I pressed the button, and once I was up, glanced at her, at her dark eyes that took me in with nothing but concern. I thought of Mrs. Behrani, how she looked at me like that too, and I felt I was with an old friend, one I was going to let down, if I hadn’t already.
Connie Walsh handed me a spoon. “How much do you know?”
I shook my head and pointed to my throat. She apologized and waved her hand in front of her face, opened the briefcase in her lap, then handed me a yellow legal pad and a pen. I pushed my supper tray to the side and wrote: They said Mr. Behrani is dead. Where’s Lester?
She read the note before I’d finished turning it to her and looked at me a second, her lips slightly pursed. I wrote: What happened?
She took the pen and pad and began to write, then stopped and shook her head at what she’d just done. I smiled and she started to smile too.
“Is Mr. Burdon your boyfriend?”
I nodded and I wished I could hear my voice as I answered yes.
“He’s in custody in Redwood City.”
I looked at her and waited.
Her eyes went to my supper. “The boy was killed.”
My whole face felt squeezed, the air pulling back in my throat.
“Evidently he’d gotten ahold of Mr. Burdon’s pistol on a busy street and was pointing it at him.” Connie Walsh’s voice was calm and controlled but she was looking at me like she’d only begun. “He was shot by police officers.”
This boy who this morning was walking so tall and straight down the hall, his black hair still mussed from sleep. I reached for the paper and pen, my fingers hot and thick: I thought Mr. Behrani was dead. The colonel.
Connie Walsh looked at me like she’d been waiting for the conversation to reach this point and now that it had, she wasn’t quite ready for it. She was leaning away from me slightly, her hands on her knees. I nodded for her to talk but even before she started to I couldn’t look directly at her anymore; I focused on her hands, on her knuckles, which were wider than her long thin fingers. Her nails were short, some with tiny scratches on them, and for a second I saw her on her knees after work digging in a garden, but then she was telling me everything, her hands coming together, her fingers intertwined, Mr. and Mrs. Behrani lying dead in my old bedroom, Connie Walsh’s voice talking of detectives reconstructing the scene. “They want to talk to you, Kathy.”