I squeezed my eyes shut. “I blew it, didn’t I?” I silently asked Jack. “There’s no way I’m getting anything more out of this guy about his uncle or the rest of his family.”
Don’t sweat it. sweetheart. You took care of things for your boy. You did good. Now scram. Blow this joint.
“There’s nothing else,” I finally declared. “And I’m sure you can understand why I won’t be saying, it was a pleasure.”
Swallowing my nerves, I reached for as much dignity as I could muster, picked up my handbag, secured the strap over my shoulder, and wheeled to face the door.
Ms. Jane and Mrs. Sereno were still standing right there in the doorway. I could tell from their expressions—a striking combination of shock and awe—that I was the last person they’d expected to read Claymore Chesley the riot act.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” I said, polite as can be.
From now on, I decided, civility was going to be a gift. Something I’d gladly bestow on civil people. No more freebies for schmucks, I thought, as I pushed through the glass door and stepped into the school hall.
I heard Jack Shepard laughing and then a little boy’s voice.
“Hi, Mrs. McClure.”
I looked down to see Danny Keenan wiping water away from his mouth with the back of his sleeve. He was standing next to a drinking fountain.
“Were you just in the principal’s office?”
“Yes, I was.”
“I heard yelling. Were you yelling at the principal?”
“Yes, Danny. I was.”
His freckled face broke into a grin. “I can go tell Spencer you’re here, if you want. He’s in the cafeteria.”
“No, Danny. That’s all right. But thank you for being so thoughtful.”
“No problem, Mrs. McClure.” He waved as he headed back down the hall. “Have a nice day.”
Well, what do you know, I thought, as I struck out for the parking lot to inspect Clay Chesley’s vehicle.
What?
That ten-year-old had better manners than his principal.
Yeah, honey. That’s a fact.
CHAPTER 17
Assault and Battery
“If you have something to say at all, tell me where it is.”
“Where what is?”
—Mike Hammer, refusing to talk in The Big Kill,
by Mickey Spillane, 1951
WHEN WE WERE teenagers and still in high school, the Parker family’s rambling Victorian on Crescent Drive was a gray monstrosity, surrounded by wild bushes and an overgrown yard. The porch sagged and so did the gutters. The unpruned branches of a century-old elm butted against the three-story building’s paint-chipped walls and drafty windows.
But since inheriting the house in the early 1990s, Brainert had fully restored it to its original grandeur. Gray walls were now sky blue, the trim around the eaves and windows virgin white. Surrounding the house, the expansive lawn now resembled a manicured golf course; and, in the spring and summer, the path to the front door was bordered by an array of flowers.
The porch no longer sagged—because the rotting vertical banisters had been torn out and new ones put in. But the entranceway was what impressed me the most. Simple windows had been replaced with stained glass, and a carved oak door purchased from a bankrupt Victorian hotel had replaced the original flimsy plywood.
It was somewhere between 1:30 and 2:00 when I parked my Saturn at the curb and strode up the pathway to Brainert’s house. I noticed his front door stood wide open—but my friend was nowhere in sight.
I began to worry. Moving closer, I spied a plant overturned on the porch, its clay pot shattered, rich, black soil everywhere. Now I was alarmed. I cautiously climbed the porch steps.
“Hello, Brainert? Are you there?” I called.
No answer.
I took a few steps through the doorway and gasped. The interior hall was a total wreck—tables overturned, a framed painting knocked askew, a floor lamp tipped over and smashed on the parquet floor.
Panic mode now. “Brainert!”
I was far enough inside the house to peer around the corner, into the living room. That’s when I saw my old friend, Jarvis Brainert Parker, lying facedown on a bloodstained Persian rug.
IN MY SATURN, I hugged the bumper of the ambulance the whole way to Benevolent Heart Hospital, a stone’s throw from St. Francis College. By the time I parked my car and made it to the ER’s front desk, Brainert had been admitted and the doctors were working on him.
I used my cell to call Sadie, told her Brainert had been assaulted, that I was at the hospital with him. We both knew this was no random crime, no mugging or burglary, but we left that thought unspoken. My aunt promised to watch for Spencer, while I stayed to hear about Brainert’s condition. It was an hour before I heard any news.
Finally the tending physician, a soft-spoken man named Dr. Rhajdiq, found me in the waiting room. I was hunched in a chair, my legs curled under me, quietly praying while I twisted and unwound the handle of my purse. Dr. Rhajdiq’s darker-than-dark eyes regarded me with concern. When he addressed me, he spoke slowly and carefully and paused several times to make sure I understood what he said.
“Mr. McClure, I have moderately good news,” he began. “Mr. Parker will recover. He’s conscious now, but groggy—”
“Thank God,” I moaned.
Dr. Rhajdiq ran a hand through his thick, curly hair. The other he kept tucked in the pocket of his OR scrubs.
“Unfortunately, the man has suffered quite a beating. He has a minor concussion and the pain and discomfort that results from it. There are also lacerations to the face and scalp caused by glass. We had to extract a few shards. Fortunately there was no damage to his eyes.”
“Is he in pain?
“We’re doing what we can to manage his discomfort. But a concussion is a serious matter and can be very dangerous. We are going to keep Mr. Parker here overnight, for observation.”
“When can I see him?”
Dr. Rhajdiq smiled. “He’s asking to see you, Mrs. McClure. Right now the staff is in the process of moving the patient to a private room. In a few minutes I will send a nurse to escort you there.”
True to his word, an attractive blonde in her early twenties approached me a little while later. Slender and delicate, she looked almost ethereal in her white nurse’s uniform.
“Mrs. McClure, please come with me,” she said, her voice as wispy as her demeanor.
I rose and followed the nurse to a bank of elevators, trying to avoid thinking about how much I hated hospitals.
Me, I kind of like them, Jack said, his first words since I’d found Brainert. Hospitals got great features, like this angel who’s giving us the grand tour. She’s got gams right up to her neck.
“Gee, Jack, and I thought I was the only woman in your life.”
You’re the only one who’ll talk to me, so I guess you are, baby. But I guess the scenery ain’t bad here at the ol’ krankhaus.
“Well, I loathe this place. The smells, the sadness, the specter of death—nothing personal.”
You’re disregarding the good stuff.
“Good stuff?”
Yeah, like a brace of cutie-pie angels of mercy waiting on me hand and foot.
I tried not to laugh out loud. “You better have a look around. Half the ‘cutie-pie’ nurses in this establishment are men.”
What! I thought they were orderlies! What’s this stinking world coming to when an angel of mercy has facial hair?