Come Dark (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

The university hospital was rush-hour busy, but Estelle chalked it up to her own culture shock. Five people in Posadas constituted a traffic jam. Here, everyone appeared to be going
somewhere
altogether too fast, and at the same time urgently talking with
someone
on a handheld gadget.

A girl tagged as Melanie at one of the information desks looked hard at Estelle's belt hardware and then asked to see her credentials. Seeing that this visitor wasn't with APD, Melanie took her time reading the ID and commission card, then handed them back without comment. She pulled a small map over, and like a desk clerk at a motel telling a patron where to find the room, penciled the route through the various rabbit warrens. This time she smiled as she handed the map to Estelle. “Have a good day.”

“You bet.” In due course, the undersheriff reached bed 3-C in the intensive care unit. Other than various beepings from a fleet of monitors, the place was spooky quiet, with people talking in hushed tones.

A woman whom Estelle took to be a senior nurse, gray hair wound into an old-fashioned bun, stocky and efficient in her movements, was adjusting a drainage tube that issued from Efrin Garcia's thin, bruised chest just below a long incision, the stitches like miniature railroad cross ties wrapping around the ribs on his left side. Adelle Sturges, RN, straightened up with a satisfied, “There.” She turned to see Estelle standing by the foot of the bed.

“Hello, whoever
you
are.” She gave Estelle a quick up and down survey. “Give me a minute to fix his dressings.” She tended to the task, and in a moment Efrin lay quiet, freshly bandaged, intubated and sheeted, hooked to at least half a dozen machines that all agreed: the boy was alive.

Estelle extended her hand. “I'm Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman from Posadas County. I really need a few minutes with Efrin, if that's going to be possible.” Ms. Sturges' handshake was perfunctory but firm.

“Oh, my sweetie is doing just
fine.”
The nurse grabbed a handful of sheeted toes and waggled them from side to side affectionately. If Efrin was doing fine, he didn't summon up the energy to agree, or open his eyes, or cause a little twitch in the monitor feeds. He looked very much like an overly thin, beaten kid who hadn't decided whether or not to step through death's door.

Estelle picked up the chart from the end rail of the bed. Nurse Sturges didn't appear to think much of that. Her mouth went prim and tight, one hand now protectively on Efrin's forehead.

“Elbow, spleen, various contusions and abrasions. One twelve-point-seven-centimeter laceration behind the right ear, possibility of a mild concussion.” Estelle glanced up after reciting the chart and surveyed the wreckage. Sure enough, bandages covered the right side of Efrin's head, his ear hardly a bump under all the mummy wrappings. His left arm was cocked awkwardly in its fiberglass cocoon.

“What's the surgical schedule on the elbow?”

“I think you should talk with Dr. Chabra on that,” the nurse said. And then, as if embarrassed to be stonewalling, she added, “I know they haven't done any surgery on it yet, because of the issue with his spleen.”

“He's off transfusions now?”

“As of earlier this morning. But my goodness, what a time he had.”

Estelle read the notes that reported, in their typical multi-syllabic style, that a fractured rib had lacerated the spleen.

“A lucky young man,” she said, and slid the chart back in the keeper. Advancing up the bed, she put a hand on Efrin's right knee, leaning close until her face was only inches from the boy's. “Efrin, are you with us yet? Can you understand me?”

His shallow breathing hiccoughed.

“You're going to be okay.” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully, aiming at what the boy would want to hear, not couched in threats. “No one is going to get even close to your mural while you're here, Efrin. Mr. Waddell is so proud of what you've done. He showed it to us last night.”

His black eyebrows twitched a little.

“He wishes you well, and wants to stop by to see you a little later. Maybe that's silly, huh, Efrin? Maybe after all this, the last thing you care anything about is some unfinished mural up on the mesa. But we all want to see it finished, Efrin. We want to see
you
finish it. And then we want to see you go on to even bigger projects.”

His lips moved, and he lifted his right arm ever so slowly, carrying the array of tubes with it. He turned his head slightly and reached across to itch the corner of his left eye. His lips moved again as his hand relaxed onto the sheets.

She watched his eyes, and saw that they appeared to focus.

He groaned and flexed one knee. “What happened at the school, Efrin?” Estelle's mouth was no more than two inches from Efrin's bandaged right ear. “We know you weren't able to finish the panel.” When there was no response, she added, “Tell me what happened that night. Tell me how it happened.”

“He pushed the ladder.” Efrin Garcia's voice was surprisingly strong, then regressed into scarcely a whisper, as if someone had turned down a rheostat. “He came out and saw me and yelled at us.” He hiccoughed again. “I fell, I broke my arm. I got…” he pulled a long, shuddering breath. “all tangled up in the ladder.”

“You said, ‘yelled at us.' Who was with you, Efrin?”

With no indication that the boy had heard her, Estelle leaned closer, reaching around his head to caress his cheek, to keep his head from lolling away from her. “Who was with you, Efrin?”

Still no response.

“He drifts in and out,” the nurse said.

Efrin's eyebrows furrowed again. “He never liked me 'cause of my…” That was as far as he got before his eyes first refused to focus, then closed as he drifted off.

Even as Estelle straightened up, Efrin jerked, and his eyes opened briefly. “She saw what happened,” he rasped. His mouth lolled, and his eyes remained open just enough to expose the bottom arch of color of his irises. He drifted away from the unfinished thought.
She
witnessed? Who was
she?

“Has he had any visitors?”

“Just his mom,” the nurse said. “She flew in with him, and has been here the whole tour. All yesterday, all last night. I talked her into going down to the ICU lounge just a bit ago for a nap.”

Ms. Sturges sighed and patted Efrin's left ankle as she surveyed the monitors. “Rest is what
he
needs, at this point. The lounge is just down the corridor to the right if you want to visit with her.” She frowned hard at Estelle. “And the same applies to you, Sheriff. You look beat.”

Estelle smiled at the mothering. “Time for all that,” she said.

***

Eustacia Garcia had appropriated the entire yellow couch, her shoes neatly stowed on the floor at one end and a hospital-issue blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Estelle felt a wash of sympathy when the woman turned slightly to look at her. Despite being up all Thursday night, followed by a long, sleepless day on Friday, then a second restless night, she was finding rest elusive.

“Mrs. Garcia, do you remember me?” For years, the woman had worked at Trombley's Pharmacy, and when that business had closed, Eustacia Garcia had moved one door south on Grande to Posadas Home Builder's Supply, selling nuts and bolts instead of pills and potions. A husband hadn't been in her life for a dozen years.

Her face screwed up with the effort of swinging her body from prone to sitting, and she mashed the blanket in one corner of the couch, then held out a limp hand. She allowed her fingers to be pressed, but offered nothing in return. She looked at the badge holder on Estelle's belt as if surprised to find out that the Posadas County Sheriff's Department might take an interest in her son.

Black eyes in a round face—that would be the description that Estelle would find most apt for Eustacia Garcia—regarded the undersheriff wearily. “Did you see my son?” Her face was unlined, but puffy.

“Yes, I did.” Estelle sat on the couch beside Mrs. Garcia. “He will recuperate just fine.”

“They had to take out his
spleen
.”

“I understand that. That's a serious thing. But he's young and strong.”

“Yes. And now,” Eustacia Garcia's voice sounded far away, “they have to operate on his elbow.”

“That's what I understand.”

“We don't have that kind of money.”

“That's not something to worry about just now, Mrs. Garcia. What's important is that he heals up strong and true.”

“Such a time he's had. Just so terrible.” She looked up at Estelle. “You know his work?”

Both kinds,
Estelle thought. “Yes. Mr. Waddell showed us the mural at the new facility on the mesa.”

Eustacia's eyes brightened. “I haven't seen that yet. But from what Efrin says, it must be something. That's all he talks about now.”

“You need to go out and see it.” The image of the old, beaten Lincoln negotiating the narrow access road didn't inspire confidence. “The easiest way now is the train, Mrs. Garcia. Mr. Waddell will be most happy to provide you with a pass.”

Her round face crinkled. “Oh, I don't want to bother them.”

“It isn't a bother showing such work. Mr. Waddell is extremely proud of what Efrin does.”

“I would like to meet him one day. He's been so good to my son.”

Estelle smiled gently. “Be sure to do that.” The smile faded. “Mrs. Garcia, I wanted to talk to you about Efrin's
other
artwork. His tagging. The graffiti.” She opened the leather folder and withdrew the series of photos.

“Oh, that,” Eustacia said, and waved a hand in dismissal. “You know these boys.”
You know these boys,
Estelle thought. A little graffiti here and there, maybe a cross-country trip with a girlfriend in her powerful car…
maybe we don't know these boys.

“The night he was hurt, before he wrecked the truck, he was in the process of spraying this one.” Estelle held out the photo of the school location. “This is on the back wall of the school. He was using a ladder, and barely got started spraying when he fell.”

“Ay.”

“Who was with him when this happened?”

Eustacia shook her head as if the whole affair was incomprehensible to her. “No…I mean I don't know. Efrin, he comes and goes on his own, you know. With his brother now, they come and go.”

“Was his brother with him when he did these, you mean?”

She shook her head as if the comings and goings of her children were a complete mystery. “I don't know.”

“Arthur didn't come up here with you, did he?”

“No,” and her expression said,
why would he do that?
She shook her head. “I rode in the ambulance, with my son. And then we flew.” Her eyes widened. “I never want to do
that
again.”

“Was Arthur with Efrin last night?” Estelle shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “I mean
Thursday
night. When Efrin was hurt?”

“No. I don't think so. Well, maybe he was. I wasn't paying attention.” She nodded. “Efrin came home, all beat up. I heard him out in the yard. I went to look, and he was on his hands and knees, he was so bad. He couldn't even walk. And the
blood.
Por Dios,
the blood.” She turned her head and rested a hand on her own right ear. “So much blood. He tells me that he hit a deer and then crashed into that electric pole just down the road. And then he starts to throw up, right there in the yard. I was so scared.”

She looked up at Estelle, her head oscillating back and forth at the memory. “So I called the ambulance. Efrin, he's choking and crying and he can't move. He's like lying on the ground, on his right side, all curled up. I can't touch him. And then I see his elbow.
That's
all crooked, you know?”

“Arthur wasn't there?”

“No. I say, ‘Where's your brother?' 'Cause he has my car, you know. But Efrin, he can't answer me. So I just stay with him until the ambulance comes.”

“You did the right thing, Mrs. Garcia. Later, when you were at the emergency room with Efrin, did Arthur come by? Did he follow in the car?”

“No. I mean, I don't think so. I haven't seen him.” She shook her head again. “All this
blood.
I didn't know what happened.” She wrung her hands. “So they took him to the emergency room. Your husband was there, too. And Dr. Perrone. And before you know it, here we are. All the way up here.”

“Is Arthur coming to pick you up? Has he been able to reach you on the phone?”

Eustacia looked puzzled. “I haven't even thought about it. Maybe he will. I know he was thinking of taking the bus over to Tucson, to see his father.”
Whether his brother lives or dies…a little vacation time.

“Has he talked to Mr. Herrald about that?”

“I…with who?”

“Mr. Herrald. Jamie Herrald. His parole officer.”

Eustacia hesitated. “Oh. That's right. I was going to ask him that, but he acts like it's none of my business. And maybe it's not.” She shrugged. “He's twenty-three now. He comes and goes…” She raised a hand and waved ineffectually.

Estelle carefully slipped the photos back into the folder. “And during the trip north in the ambulance…you never asked Efrin exactly what happened?”

“He couldn't speak. He was what do you call it?”

“Sedated?”

“Yes. I held his hand the whole way. That's the best I could do.”

“And you're here for him now. You're right. That's the best thing, Mrs. Garcia. He's sleeping now, and so should you. Did they offer to find a motel room for you? Efrin will be here several days, I'm sure, before they can transport him back to Posadas.”