“Apparently kitten has claws,” Velvet said, giving me a once over as she walked in.
“Isn’t that some kind of makeup or something?” I grunted. “I think my wife has some of it.”
“I believe it might be a shade of nail polish,” she replied. “But, I was actually talking about your face.”
I had to lift my head slightly to see her because at present I was lying back on a table in a treatment room of a hospital. Earlier, when a nurse had been asking me for insurance information, she mentioned that I was at Charity Campus or something of that sort. My brain had still been a bit muddled at the time, so I hadn’t really registered much. Not that I would have really known where it was to begin with. All I knew was that it seemed like I spent a lot of time in places like this whenever I got involved in an investigation. It was a wonder my insurance carrier hadn’t dropped me yet. If they didn’t this time, I was sure they would be raising my premiums. That was something they always did without fail.
“Yeah, that,” I muttered, reaching up and brushing my fingers against the gauze bandage now covering the wounds. I felt a tug on the back of my hand and gave it a glance. I had pretty much forgotten about the IV line taped securely to it. I gave it a half-hearted wiggle to reposition the tubing then laid my hand back across my chest. “Teeth too.”
“How is the arm, by the way?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the other appendage which was now wrapped in its own windings of sterile dressing.
“Not bad right now. But, I can already tell the local is wearing off.”
I had lost track of how long I had been here. I’d been drifting in and out for a while although I had officially regained consciousness at right about the moment they were preparing to slide me onto the treatment table upon arriving in the emergency room. Since my most recent memory at that point-other than the disembodied voice-had been that of chasing after Annalise, my body seemed to think it was something I needed to continue doing. I was told that it had taken both paramedics and a nurse to keep me from coming off the gurney at a dead run.
“Do you know if they’ve found her yet?”
“Not that I’ve heard, but I’m not really in the loop.”
I shook my head as best I could since it was resting against the pillow, and with a full load of sarcasm muttered, “Fucking wonderful.”
“Tough little bitch, isn’t she?” she stated as much as asked.
“Reminds me of my wife,” I replied but didn’t expand further.
“That’s some wife.”
“You have no idea.” I sighed then tried to reposition myself a bit so that I wasn’t talking at the ceiling. “So, where did you go back at the cemetery? I looked up and you were just gone.”
“I left my cell in my car. I ran back to call the police like you said.”
“Oh.”
“Feeling abandoned, were you?”
“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “It’s not like we know each other all that well. A lot of folks wouldn’t have wanted to get involved…especially after listening to my outlandish story and then hearing her scream ‘rape.’”
“I was already involved,” she told me. “I took you there, remember? Besides, I’m not like a lot of folks.”
“I’m getting that impression… And, believe me, right now I appreciate that more than you know.”
It grew quiet in the room except for the noises of the staff out in the hall. I rested my head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling for a long while, contemplating the acoustic tiles as I tried to ignore the various aches that hadn’t benefited from a hypodermic full of local anesthetic. After a minute or two, a curious thought flitted through my brain, and I rolled my head to face Velvet once again.
“How did you get in here anyway?” I asked. “I seem to recall a cop standing outside the door when the doctor left earlier. It looked like he was guarding it or something.”
“I told him I was your wife,” she replied.
“You did what?”
She smiled. “Calm down, I’m only kidding.”
“Okay…I just didn’t figure you for that sort of levity.”
“I have my moments,” she replied. Then, she shrugged and continued, “Actually, it didn’t seem to be a problem. I just asked if I could check on you, and they let me right in. Maybe it was because I already gave a statement and…”
She was interrupted by a quick knock then the door swinging open. A petite, dark-haired woman clad in scrubs came in then shut the barrier behind her.
“Oh, hello,” she said, noticing Velvet. “I’m Doctor Miller… You are?”
“Doctor Rieth,” Velvet replied, shaking her hand.
Doctor Miller canted her head to the side and furrowed her brow.
Before she could say anything else, Velvet offered, “I’m a different kind of doctor.” She nodded in my direction and added, “Actually, I’m only here because I’m a friend of Rowan’s. I was just keeping him company.”
Doctor Miller gave her a quick smile, “I see. Well, I need to go over a few things with Mister Gant, so…”
“Say no more,” she told her before she could finish the spiel. “I need to go get a cup of coffee anyway.” Glancing in my direction, she added. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
“Yeah,” I returned. “Do me a favor and have a cup for me while you’re at it.”
“Will do.”
After Velvet left, the doctor turned her attention back to me.
“So, how are you feeling, Mister Gant?”
“Pretty much like I was run over by a truck,” I replied.
“The way I understand it, you almost were.”
“Yeah, there is that.”
She opened a chart and scanned the papers inside. “I wanted to ask you something. You mentioned earlier that the only medication you had been taking lately is aspirin?”
“That’s right.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “A few times a day I guess.”
“How many is a few?”
“I don’t know… Six… Maybe eight.”
She frowned. “What dosage?”
“Just a handful.”
She looked at me and frowned even harder, “Seriously?”
“Well, not a big handful. I guess maybe six or seven. Or ten or twelve. Depends on when I was taking it and how bad I hurt.”
“At a time?”
“Yeah.”
“Eighty-one or three hundred twenty-five milligram?”
“Whatever regular old aspirin is. Three twenty-five I guess.”
“Why?”
“Chronic headache.”
“Have you seen a doctor about it?”
“Trust me, it’s not that kind of headache.”
“Really. What kind of headache is it then?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I sighed.
“So, you haven’t been taking the aspirin on doctor’s orders?”
“Not unless I’m now a doctor.”
“Honestly, I had you pegged as more intelligent than this, Mister Gant. You do realize that OTC meds are still drugs, don’t you? Self-medicating is extremely dangerous. Especially the way you were doing it.” She huffed out a disgusted breath before continuing, “Did you even bother to read the directions on the bottle?”
“Of course. Take two, yadda, yadda…”
“Mister Gant,” her tone remained serious. “Do I have to spell this out for you? The reason you collapsed is that you are severely dehydrated and have dangerously low blood pressure; both of which are symptoms of severe salicylate poisoning.”
“So, what you’re saying is I overdosed on aspirin?”
“To put it simply, yes. Given the amount you said you were taking, I’m surprised you aren’t in much worse shape.”
I let my head fall back on the pillow. “Doc, you have no idea.”
“What do you mean?”
I lifted my head back up. “I mean I just let a killer get away because of a goddamned headache. You can’t imagine how that feels.”
She thumbed through the papers in the file then looked back at me with a confused expression. “Are you a police officer?”
“No,” a new voice answered for me. “But, he likes to pretend he is.”
Doctor Miller turned and at the same time, I looked over toward the door. Neither of us had noticed the new arrival until now.
“Detective Fairbanks,” I said with a dispirited sigh.
“You done with him, Doctor?” he asked, flashing his ID.
“Actually, I’d like to admit him for observation. Will that be a problem?”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stay,” I interjected.
“You shut up,” Fairbanks instructed, glancing at me. “Right now you’re in custody, and what you want doesn’t matter.” Looking back to Doctor Miller, he continued, “If you need to keep him, that’s no problem, as long as he doesn’t go anywhere. But, right now I do need to talk to him if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest,” she replied. “I’ll go get the paperwork started.”
The detective waited for her to leave then looked back at me with a stoic expression. After a moment of playing stare down, he said, “I thought we had an agreement. So I’m sure you can imagine my utter dismay at finding out you were still in town.”
“You didn’t really expect me to leave, did you?”
“Yes, actually I did.”
“Well, sorry about that, but I wasn’t finished here yet.”
“What? You just aren’t happy with your visit until you cause a multi-car pileup on one of the busiest streets in the city?”
“That was unfortunate,” I replied.
“Unfortunate?” he harrumphed. “I was thinking more like unconscionable. You’re just lucky no one got hurt. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up getting sued by a couple of people, and I wouldn’t blame them a bit if they do.”
“I was chasing the killer,” I said.
“That’s what your friend out there told us in her statement,” he agreed with a nod. “But, tell me this-how do you know you were chasing a killer and not just some frightened woman who thought you were going to rape her or something? We have at least two eyewitnesses who claim they saw her running from you screaming just exactly that.”
“You wouldn’t…”
He held up a hand to stop me. “Yeah, I know, I wouldn’t believe you if you told me. That seems to be your excuse for everything.”
“It’s not an excuse, it’s the truth.”
“Yeah, whatever. Sounds like an excuse to me.”
“If I told you, you would think I’m insane.”
“Hell, Gant, I already think you’re insane.”
“Look, you said you’d talked to Ben, and he filled you in on this case.”
He nodded. “You mean this case that you aren’t actually working? Yeah, he did.”
“That’s not the point. What I’m trying to tell you is that the woman I was chasing is Annalise Devereaux. She’s your killer.”
“No, Mister Gant, she is a person of interest to the Major Case Squad in Saint Louis,” he corrected.
“Call her whatever you want, I’m telling you she killed two men in Saint Louis, at the very least one here, and who knows how many more. She’s been implicated in…”
He cut me off. “You aren’t telling me anything I don’t already know. We cops actually know how to work telephones. Some of us even go so far as to use fax machines and email you know.”
“Then why wasn’t someone watching the cemetery? If you knew about her then all of this could have been avoided.”
“Mister Gant, in case you haven’t noticed, we have our hands full around New Orleans. Hell, I’m just down here as a volunteer. I was actually expecting to shuffle papers for a few weeks to help out, but I ended up on the streets working a homicide, and somehow that managed to get me hung with you. All I can figure is that I’ve done something to piss off God because my life normally doesn’t go like this.”
I ignored the sardonic remark and told him, “I’m not the one you need to worry about.”
“Right,” he nodded emphatically. “We need to worry about the mystery woman you chased through traffic.”
“Annalise Devereaux.”
“So you say.”
“She hasn’t come forward and pressed charges, has she?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“She won’t.”
“Statistically, you might be correct. Whoever she is, she’s probably scared shitless to even come out of her house after what you did.”
“That’s not the reason. She won’t come forward because she’s…”
“…Annalise Devereaux, evil killer woman. I know. You’ve told me. So what? You still assaulted her.”
“What I was going to say is that she knows you’re looking for her.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
“You told her we’re looking for her?” he asked calmly, although his expression didn’t fit his tone.
“Yes.”
“Mind if I ask why? And, don’t tell me I wouldn’t believe it if you told me.”
“I don’t know,” I told him.
“Well that’s new and different,” he hmmphed. “Assuming that you are correct, and this woman actually is Miz Devereaux, did it cross your mind that telling her we’re looking for her might make her harder to find?”
“Not at the time, no. Besides, don’t you give that sort of info to the media so it can be broadcast on the news?”
“Not always. And, definitely not right away,” he replied. “This time was one of those definite not yet situations.”
“Well…I guess I screwed up then.”
“You guess? Holy crap, Gant, you’re just a goddamned joy to have around, aren’t you?” he said, his sarcasm expanding to fill the room. “Do you do this sort of shit to Detective Storm too? Because if you do I’m surprised he hasn’t killed you yet.”
“Ben and I work together a little better than you and I seem to.”
“We aren’t working together, Gant. You’re just getting in the way and being a huge pain in my ass.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Really? How’s that? What did I ever do to you?”
“I’m trying to help my wife. You already know that.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m just not entirely clear on how chasing after a person of interest in a murder investigation you have nothing to do with is helping your wife.”
“I can’t really explain it.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess-I wouldn’t believe you if you told me.”
Instead of responding to his sarcasm, I simply replied, “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
“I did that once already, and look what it got me.”
“Listen, Detective Fairbanks…”
“No, Gant, you listen. You’ve been in town less than forty-eight hours and you’re already vying for your own position next to Katrina as the worst natural disaster ever to hit this city. You rank somewhere on the order of an empty-handed FEMA bureaucrat at this point, so nobody is really interested in what you have to say.”
“Fine,” I spat. “So what now? Am I under arrest?”
“If I had my way, you sure as hell would be,” he barked in return. “But apparently Storm isn’t the only friend you have in high places, so technically you’re in protective custody.”
“Constance?” I asked.
“I have no idea who,” he replied with a shake of his head. “But, based on the call we received, somebody at the FBI has a vested interest in you for some unknown reason. Hell, we’ve actually been looking for you for them since this morning.”
“Looking for me?”
“That’s right. Apparently, the feds would like for you to come home.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, as much as we’d like to bury you under the jail right now, we aren’t going to. But, as soon as the doctor cuts you loose, I’m personally sticking your ass on a plane back to Saint Louis and letting them deal with you.”