Every Move She Makes (19 page)

Remain calm. Get the gun.

He drove with one hand on the wheel, like a maniac, his other wrapped
like steel around my wrist. Finally, wheels screeching, he stopped at
the back of a building.

Double doors slid open. Two men strode out.

Run.

But I couldn't move. They forced me from the car.

"Why?" I screamed. Torrance never answered. Just watched from the car as
they dragged me away. A gurney stood just inside the doors. they lifted
me onto it while another man strapped me. I felt as if I were sinking in
white, the gurney melting around me, paralyzing me. He was having me
committed so I couldn't testify.

Nurses hovered over me as the ceiling swam by.

Something tearing, then something tight around my arms. I felt cold and
wet on my chest, saw them talking, all in white, white and more white.

Then shattering pain in my temple, the smell of blood. Voices around me
faded as though I were hearing them from a tunnel. Or entering one, not
unlike falling asleep, aware of bits of conversation at a distance. Not
really a part of it.

I'd trusted him.

The next thing I knew, I stood over a hospital bed. My brother's.

Deathly white. This was how he went. I tried to reach him. And then my
father took his place. The machines at work, trying to keep him alive,
doctors and nurses working quickly, efficiently. "Heart rate is
slowing." Blip, blip, blip-lip-lip. "Slowing." Just no tone. I didn't
want to hear the tone. Then I saw Torrance, standing at the head, his
hand reaching out. What is he doing here in my father's room?

Where's Scolari?

"It's okay," I felt Torrance say through rippling white, his voice
turning into a rainbow of color. When I awoke, I was alone. Enveloped
between white walls, white acoustic ceiling, white fluorescent lights. I
closed my eyes. I wanted to die. "Gillespie?" A voice. Or was I
dreaming? I opened my eyes, saw darkness in one corner. Like a bull.

Solid, dependable. Ferdinand, the gentle bull in a book my father read
to Sean and me. Flowers. He didn't want to fight like the other bulls.

He wanted to sit, smell the flowers. No one ever sits to smell the
flowers anymore. The bull moved. Came closer. Taurus. As my vision
focused, the darkness took the form of a man. Not Taurus. Torrance.

"Torrance?" My voice sounded raspy, not my own.

"You're awake." "What happened?" A white-coated doctor entered, picked
up my chart, came over and checked the monitors behind my bed.

"How are we feeling this morning?"

"Morning?" He smiled and went about his duties with the efficiency of
someone who was used to confused patients. I looked at Torrance. Noticed
the dark circles beneath his eyes. "How long have I been in here?"

"Since yesterday," he said.

I tried to sit, panicked momentarily that I was paralyzed.

"Can we loosen the straps now?" Torrance asked.

The doctor checked the chart before answering. "It's been over twelve
hours. I don't see why not." He undid the straps and raised the bed for
me. "So far, everything looks good, but I think we'll keep you one more
night at the minimum, for observation. That's quite a concussion you
have."

"Concussion?"

"You tried to run off. Fell. Six stitches," he said, pointing to his own
left temple. He took a penlight, shined it into first one and then my
other eye. "You'll be dizzy. For the next day or two, I don't want you
walking around." Fragments of my experience floated about in my
conscious mind while I tried to piece it all together. I kept thinking
mushrooms-who didn't like mushrooms?

Everything around me started to move. "Run off?"

"The pizza," Torrance said. "It was drugged." The pizza. The pizza that
Sam sent. The drug in the pizza that Sam sent. Great. Someone had tried
to kill me, and here I was composing nursery rhymes. Exhaustion overtook
me. "Tell me later," I said, closing my eyes. "The paint on the walls is
starting to melt." The doctor held my wrist, checked my pulse. "You may
still have quite a headache, but by tomorrow, I suspect you won't even
know you were under the influence." No, but Torrance would, and the
thought bothered me more than I cared to admit. according to the doctor,
I was lucky. Had I not spit out Athe drug-laden pizza, or rinsed my
mouth, I might have OD'd. Apparently, enough had been absorbed through
the membranes of my mouth to send me into the state of psychotic
paranoia that Torrance now described to me. When I learned how I drew my
weapon and tried to jump from the car, I felt sick. My life was spinning
out of control. And it wasn't just the drug-laden pizza. I'd lost it at
the Twin Palms-and almost shot an innocent woman. I was a psychological
mess, even without the drugs in my system. In that moment, I thought I
understood how some cops ended up eating their guns. Had Scolari reached
that point, taken out his wife instead? Could he have snapped?

Killed the property clerks?

The questions swirled in my head like the hospital walls yesterday when
Torrance brought me here. Somehow I had to regain control, recover what
I'd lost. I wondered if I ever could. Torrance watched me carefully, as
though checking for signs of flashbacks. As it was, I couldn't be sure
that what I was feeling wasn't a part of that process. I wasn't normal.

I hated that he had seen me like that, even if any psychosis was drug
induced. Still, I wondered how much of it was the drug, and not me.

These past few days, the murders, everything had taken their toll,
whittling away at my nerve, my resolve, to a point where I didn't know
if I could trust myself or even my own instincts anymore. Again the Twin
Palms came to mind, and I thought of the way I drew down on that woman.

I felt I was balancing precariously, wondered if, were I ever faced with
a real shoot-don't shoot situation, would I make the right decision?

Part of me wanted to tell Torrance about the Twin Palms, gain a modicum
of reassurance that what had occurred was normal, not a sign that I was
losing it. But I couldn't bring myself to tell him. Not without crying.

No way would I ever let Torrance see me do that. It would be the
ultimate sign of my weakness, that I'd completely lost control, that no
way was I fit to be in Homicide. "Something on your mind, Inspector?" I
had the distinct impression that he could see into my head, discern my
thoughts. Ridiculous, of course, but I couldn't hold his gaze and looked
away. I tried to tell myself it was the drug, but shame coursed through
me, as though my actions yesterday were my fault. In a way, they were.

I'd led everyone down this path.

"I'm sorry," I said, for lack of anything better to say.

What could I have said in the face of all I'd done? "I'm leaving what
happened in the car yesterday out of the report." Relief flooded through
me. Still, I was curious.

"Why?"

"I don't think it's relevant. You wouldn't have done it otherwise. What
is relevant is how that pizza came to be." The heart monitor bleeped
faster. I wanted to yank the offending wires from my chest. As it was, a
nurse

walked in right then and removed them. "I don't know that part."

"Explain," he said after the nurse left. I really didn't want to.

Because now I had to admit to him that I had been speaking to Scolari.

And that Scolari could possibly be the one who sent it. which meant I
also had to admit that he was the most viable suspect. "You were right
when-" A pager went off and it took me a moment to realize it was mine.

It was hooked to my fanny pack, slung over the chair lbrrance had
occupied during my hospital stay. He handed it to me, and I was
half-surprised that he didn't read it first. After what happened
yesterday, I certainly would have.

I pressed the display. "It's a Berkeley prefix," I said.

"But I don't recognize the number." "You didn't order the pizza, did
you." I noticed he wasn't asking, and shook my head, feeling my brain
spin as if I were recovering from a hangover, and feeling as guilty as
if I'd laced the pizza myself. I thought about what would've happened
had Rocky Markowski eaten that slice he'd dropped. He didn't have the
benefit of seeing the note. He probably wouldn't have spit it out.

He would have died.

I palmed the pager. I'd return the call later. "I was talking to Scolari
on the phone. But he wouldn't have done that." Torrance's gaze darkened
with an anger I'd never seen before. Not knowing if it was directed at
me, I wanted to shrink from it, but I didn't look away. I deserved his
censure.

"What concerns me," he said, "is how to do my job

and protect you at the same time. If I were to turn in a full report,
you'd be lucky not to be suspended, much less terminated." Protect me?

"Why don't you turn in the report?" "Because if you're suspended-which
you would be-you'd have to surrender your weapon. My conscience won't
allow that." There were those in the department who would debate him
even having a conscience. "If I get killed, you mean."

"Other reasons as well," he added.

"Like what?" I wanted to sleep, but what I wanted more was to hear his
point of view on this matter. Perhaps I hoped he'd absolve me of guilt.

"You seem to have some as yet unknown connection or link. If you're off
the force, you're off the case. If you're off the case, it'll take me
that much longer to discover why someone wants you dead." His reasons
were all professional, and I found myself slightly disappointed. "You're
using me." I ignored the fact I'd done the same with Reid in the office
yesterday when I'd wanted to return Scolari's page. He folded his arms
across his chest, leaned against the wall, once more the emotionless man
I'd come to know. "I take back all the nice things I was thinking about
you just seconds ago," I said.

"We were talking about the pizza."

"I was discussing my pager." The pizza was the last thing I wanted to
talk about.

"I'm ordering you to tell me."

"Meaning what?" I asked, waiting for him to read me my Miranda rights.

In the paramilitary world of law enforcement, I could be ordered to give
a statement. If I refused, I'd be guilty of insubordination. I could be
fired. I could also be fired as a result of the statement I gave. But
even if I invoked my Miranda rights by refusing to give a Statement,
under California's Lybarger decision I would have to tell him. What he
couldn't do was use my statement against me in a criminal court of law.

Unless, of course, he read me my rights. Then I knew I'd be in big
trouble. I waited for him to start with "You have the right to remain
silent ... ' "Help me find the answers," Torrance said instead. "About
the pizza." I breathed a sigh of relief, deciding right then that the
truth was probably the best defense. Torrance knew the ropes better than
I did. If he wasn't reading me my rights, he wasn't interested in
hanging me out to dry. "Scolari paged me when we were at coffee after
the morgue incident. Back at the office after I sent Reid out to discuss
dinner with you, I called the number Scolari left." "Dinner with
Bettencourt was a ruse?" Not sure if it would make him angrier if I told
him it was, I ignored the question, continued on with my story. "Scolari
suggested I look at his wife's old autopsies. He didn't know I'd already
ordered them. When I saw Reid open the door and the two of you looking
at me, I came up with the pizza idea. Scolari never mentioned anything
about ordering it. I was as surprised as you were when it came. I
figured that'd be the end of it."