shadow of the room and only stepped toward the door when I saw her waddle by. I watched her reflection in my mirror as she opened the door to Lynch’s room and closed it again behind herself. Now I knew it wasn’t locked.
Still watching, I waited patiently for three or four minutes until the nurse exited the room with a half-empty IV bag. She nodded at the guard, who didn’t look up, and exited via the stairway to the side of the elevator.
On my cell I dialed information to get the main hospital number and asked to be patched into the nurse’s station on the third floor. When the nurse answered, I said, “This is the Tucson Police. Would you please put Officer Joe Btfsplk on the line?”
“Do you mean the policeman standing guard at four-twenty-six?” she asked.
“Yah, that’s the one. Thanks.”
In a moment I heard her, “Officer Bit … Officer there’s a call for you on the hospital phone.”
He looked puzzled but took the bait. I grabbed a rolling intravenous rack from the room on my way out, and hung by the wall as I approached, just a patient getting a little exercise. I slipped through the door before the deputy could find out whoever was on the phone had hung up. He would take a little time calling the office and trying to find out who wanted to talk to him.
Lynch was resting with the back of the bed slightly raised, his head rolled a little to one side, his hands on the cover. He was thin when I first saw him at the body dump site, but prison food followed by twenty-four hours of nothing by mouth had made him a mere sliver of a man. Tubes ran fluids in and out of him, including one leading to a colostomy bag that might or might not be permanent depending on the seriousness of his wound. A tube for oxygen led from his nose, and an IV was attached to his hand that was providing him with hydration and megadoses of antibiotics to stave off peritonitis. Besides the monitors that allowed the nurses to keep tabs on him from their station down the hall, he was also hooked up to two machines that dispensed painkillers, one a morphine pump he could press himself, and the other an epidural.
I recognized it all; I had been in this position once myself. If infection didn’t set in, he’d live. I threw my tote on the single chair near the bed, shrugged off the hospital gown, rolled down my jeans, and pulled out the logbook.
He appeared to be sleeping. “Hey, Floyd,” I said, reluctantly nudging his shoulder. There was something about this man I didn’t want to touch.
He looked up at me, groggy. “Wha?” he said. The morphine was going to make this a little harder. “Who’re you?”
“Brigid Quinn. We’ve met. I’m working with Agent Laura Coleman.”
“Now I’m shot, everybody wants to see me,” he said.
That gave me pause. “Who else?”
“My father was here yesterday. He didn’t care I was attached to this shitbag, all he wanted to know is what I did to his fuckin’ dog. Christ, you don’t think I’ll have this thing hanging out of me forever, do you?”
“I didn’t think you were allowed to have any visitors.”
“He got in. The cop threw him out.”
Lynch giggled, a hiccupy kind of laugh that appeared to hurt. “My hand hurts,” he said, and fumbled for the button of his self-administering morphine pump.
Rather than continue talking about his father or his ongoing medical condition I held the logbook in front of his eyes. “I need you to look at this. Do you know what this is?”
His eyes grew a little more alert, either from the mysterious presence of this woman in his room or rising pain. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and then licked his lips. “I’m thirsty.”
“That’s because you’re not allowed to drink anything. Answer my question and I’ll get you a wet swab for your mouth.”
“Where’s the guard?” He reached for the nurse call button but I got there first and covered it with my hand.
“Wait a sec. Look, Floyd. I’m not here to hurt you. I don’t care one way or the other about you anymore. I don’t care about you fucking mummies, or about your colostomy, or even whether you go to prison for life. There’s something more important for me just now.”
He made contact with dull eyes that were still a little