Cross Current - Kling Christine - Страница 22

“What the hell do you mean, you didn’t see anything? Somebody was just in there.”

The female Haitian nurse who had been so kind yesterday hurried into Solange’s room.

“Is she all right?” I asked.

“She seems to be okay,” Rusty said, not taking his eyes off the other cop.

“I mean I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” the duty officer said.

“Maybe you were distracted by something else.” Rusty thrust his chin toward Jenna.

“People have been coming and going all day,” the officer said. “I’ve been watching. Hell, you were in there. Why didn’t you see anything?”

Rusty turned away without answering that question. No matter how he worded it, it wouldn’t sound good.

I left them arguing and tried to go into Solange’s room. The Haitian nurse waved me off, motioning me back outside. She had the blood pressure cuff on the child’s arm.

I crossed to the desk and slipped behind the counter. “Jenna, do you know a guy who works here named Todd?”

She rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth. “Yes. What did he say now?”

“Nothing really, I was just wondering, what does he look like?”

“Oh. He’s like really old, and he’s always telling people I’m his ‘honey.’ He’s too gross.”

The Todd I’d seen was no more than fifteen years older than me, but then again, that might qualify as “really old” to this girl. “Can you give me more of a description? Is he tall, short, white, black?”

“He’s like this little old retired white guy, and I think the only reason he volunteers here is to rub up against me every chance he gets. Old pervert.”

Definitely not my Todd. “Any other guys here with that name? How about an orderly, a tall Haitian guy about forty?” She shook her head so that her blond hair flew out in a golden arc, then smiled at the cop, who had turned his attention from Rusty back to Jenna. “No, nobody here like that unless he’s new,” she said to the cop, who nodded as though he understood what she’d just said.

I grabbed Rusty’s arm. “Come on.” He was striding next to me, trying to keep up without breaking into a trot to match mine.

“Where are we going?”

We rounded the corner into Mrs. Johnson’s room. She sat there alone in the wheelchair, nodding off.

“Mrs. Johnson?”

She jerked her head up, startled.

“Where’s the orderly who was just in here with you?” I asked.

“He said he’d be right back,” she assured me. “I think he might have had to go to the little boy’s room, you know. He just left real sudden, like he had to go, if you know what I mean.”

“What’s going on, Seychelle?” Rusty asked.

I stepped out into the hall and looked in both directions. “Which way did he go, Mrs. Johnson?”

“I’m sorry, dear, I wasn’t paying much attention. Is something wrong? I did think it was a little odd. I didn’t remember anything about radiology today, but you know how it is, when you come into this place, you just stop asking questions after a while.”

“That was him,” I said, and slapped my hand against my thigh.

Rusty sighed, shook his head, and started walking back to Solange’s room. I followed him. This time we were allowed back in. Solange was now on her side in a fetal position, facing the window, her back to the room. When I got to the foot of her bed, I saw her eyes were open, staring out the window. The Haitian nurse looked very troubled as she placed a moistened cloth on the child’s brow.

“How’s she doing?” I asked.

The nurse shrugged.

I turned to Rusty. “I thought you said she was okay.”

“She was just like that when I got to her,” Rusty said. “She doesn’t look hurt.”

I turned to the nurse. “What happened? What did that guy do?”

“What guy?” Rusty asked.

When I explained about seeing the feet under the curtain, Rusty’s face told me what he thought of my story. Typical cop reaction—he didn’t want to believe he’d missed something.

“She is right, that Jenna,” the nurse said. “We have many Haitians working here, but no one by that name.”

I moved in closer, next to the nurse, and asked her, “So what did he do to her? Why’s she like that?”

“It is difficult to say.”

“We heard her cry out, like he was hurting her.”

“I checked her all over, and I cannot find any injuries, no injection site, and the symptoms came on too quickly for it to be something she was given by mouth. I have called for her doctor. She will give her a more thorough examination, but I don’t think she will find anything.”

“What happened, then? Why is she like that?”

“I think . . .” She paused, as though choosing her words very carefully. “He hurt her here.” She pointed to her head. “He said something, and now it is in her mind, and it frightens her. She is from Haiti, and we are very superstitious in Haiti. Our beliefs are very different from yours.”

“Are you saying he put a curse on her?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Something like that. We must let her sleep. We hope she will be better when she wakes.”

The duty officer stepped into the room and motioned for us to follow him outside.

“Collazo’s on his way over. He said to tell you not to leave. He wants to talk to both of you.”

I pointed down to the waiting area on the far side of the nurses’ station. “I’ll be right back. I need to make a phone call.”

After scrounging thirty-five cents out of the side pocket of my shoulder bag, I dialed Jeannie’s number. Disappointed when I got her answering machine, I left her a message explaining about the incident at the hospital and telling her to keep it very quiet about Solange staying with her. “Somebody out there definitely wants to get to her,” I said before hanging up, “and we’d better keep her whereabouts a secret.” Rusty was buying a soda out of the machine, and he held it up to me with raised eyebrows.

“No thanks, I’ve had enough.” The junk food congealing in my stomach felt like an indigestible lump. I sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting area, and Rusty joined me. The silence between us stretched out until I felt the impossible happen. I was actually looking forward to seeing Collazo.

The elevator doors finally slid open, and Collazo stepped out with an attractive light-skinned black woman in a dark suit. She looked too confident and competent and “in charge” to be a local cop.

“Hi, Maria,” Rusty said, and he stepped up to shake her hand. Manicured, buffed nails, no polish.

“Rusty, what a pleasure.”

Something passed between them, a look or a spark. I could feel the heat. Out of nowhere, I wondered if they had slept together. He turned to me. “Seychelle Sullivan, this is Special Agent Maria D’Ugard, FBI.”

Her grip was beyond firm. Her grip said Wonder Woman. “Sullivan. You’re the tug captain who found them.” She flashed me a two-second smile showing perfect white teeth that contrasted beautifully with her flawless cocoa-colored skin. Standing in front of her in my jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, I felt like a kid in the principal’s office.

“That’s right.”

The uniformed officer brought over a couple of chairs and then returned to his post, but not before checking out Agent D’Ugard from head to toe. At least I was glad to see he had moved his chair just outside the doorway to Solange’s room. Collazo did not remove his jacket as he and the woman sat down opposite us, but he did take a handkerchief from his breast pocket, ready to mop the sweat. D’Ugard crossed her legs to put her rock-hard calves on display. “Tell us what happened here,” she said.

Rusty jerked his head up, and we both started to speak at the same time.

“Go ahead,” I said. “You tell them.” He gave them a fairly straightforward version of what happened.

Collazo said, “You’re certain there was someone in the room who did or said something to frighten the girl.”

“No doubt,” Rusty said. “The girl’s safety was my first concern, however, and by the time I got to the corridor, the perp was gone.”