Sin City Homicide (24 page)

43

Mindi Morgan sat in the hospital waiting room at the Sunrise Medical Center for two days. She ate at the cafeteria, although she was rarely hungry, and it was an infrequent occurrence. She had been given a blanket and a pillow. She’d stretched out on several chairs to rest during the day. At night, the hospital staff brought her a cot to sleep on. In the middle of the night on both nights, she woke with a start. The second night, it was accompanied by a scream, and one of the nurses came over to check if she was okay.

O
n the third day, a doctor, a young woman with reddish-brown hair and large brown eyes, came to her and put a hand on her shoulder while Mindi stared absently at the television on the wall.

“Ms. Morgan?”

She looked at her, startled. “Yes?”

“Well, I think you’ll be able to go home tonight. Mr. Stanton is doing very well. Our main worry was infection, but he seems to have fought that off. He asked for a Mormon
bishop to visit with him, and he’s almost done. Would you like to see him?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll have a member of the staff come and get you. We only allow one visitor at a time.”

“Thanks.”

Mindi watched commercials as she waited. She contemplated going to the bathroom to freshen up but decided against it. She didn’t want to miss her chance to visit Jon. Instead, she took a hair elastic from her purse and pulled her hair back. She took a few tissues from the box on the table next to her, dabbed some water on them from a bottle, and wiped her face clean.

“Mindi,” the nurse said, “he’s ready for you.”

She followed the nurse down the corridor. It was large, white, and empty.

The nurse opened the door to room 202 and stepped inside. “You have a visitor eager to see you.”

Stanton was lying on his back in the hospital bed. He had dark circles under his eyes and two IVs in his left arm. A man in a suit, holding a couple of thick black books, stood in front of the bed.

He was smiling
as he said, “It was very nice to meet you, Brother Stanton. Next time you come to Vegas, please stop by the congregation for service.”

“Thanks, Bishop. I think it’s going to be a while before that happens.”

The bishop left, nodding hello to Mindi. She walked closer to the bed and placed her hand over Jon’s. They stood quietly as the nurse straightened a few things. When she left, Mindi sat on a stool by the bed.

“I keep thinking about it
.” she said. “All the blood. The sounds. I can’t get it out of my head.”

“You will. Time’ll push it out
, and eventually, it won’t even seem real anymore. You’ll start asking yourself if it really happened.” He shifted a little to the side, a grimace contorting his face. “How’s Alma?”

“Both bullets went into his bicep and out the back of his arm. He’s going to be okay. He said he wanted to come visit you as soon as you were better.”

Stanton hesitated, feeling the cloth of his bed sheets between his fingers. “How did Alma know to come to your house, Mindi?”

She didn’t say anything.

“I figured that’s what it was. How long were you wired?”

“They told me I didn’t have a choice. I could do it
, or I could go write traffic tickets the rest of my career. I’m so sorry, Jon. It was a mistake. I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore.”

“No
. If I turned away everyone I knew who made mistakes, I wouldn’t have anybody left.”

She gripped his hand tighter. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’d like to visit Orson’s family. I want to talk to his kids, but I think they’ll hate me. I don’t know if they would understand what happened. They’re going to have a hard life ahead of them now. Everyone is going to tell them that their father was a monster. I want to tell them that he had good qualities and he loved them very much.”

“Well, you can worry about that later. For now
, you just work on getting better.” She leaned down and kissed his lips. “I’m going to go home and take a shower.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“I stink, don’t I?” She chuckled lightly.

“Little bit.”

She kissed him again then left the room.

EPILOGUE

Stanton sat on his surfboard
, letting the waves lap against his legs. The water was warm, and he wished he didn’t have to wear a wetsuit. He enjoyed the sensation of water against his skin.

He waited for his set and caught a good wave that rocketed him back to shore. He hopped up on the board and cut across the wave before spinning back around to go the other way. He had to crouch to get under the wave
, and eventually, it swallowed him. His world spun, and his ears filled with the sound of rushing water and the heartbeat of the ocean. The ocean was alive. It fed, nurtured, reproduced, and could die if it wasn’t looked after.

He didn’t move at first. He was face
down, looking at the clear blue water below him. He wondered how far down he could swim before his lungs burned and he was forced to come back up for air. He had the sudden urge to dive down and put his feet in the sand at the bottom, to bury them and walk along the bottom of the ocean just to see what was there.

He popped back up to the surface, taking a large gulp of air, and found his board. He got on and paddled back to shore.

Ocean Beach Park was his favorite place to surf in all of San Diego. The locals weren’t rude, but they disliked outsiders just enough that few novices wanted to surf there. It wasn’t a difficult beach, and the waves were always manageable, but there was something about the enjoyment of surfing that correlated directly to how many people were out there. Surfing was meant to be enjoyed alone, as a time to re-establish a connection with nature that people lost as they grew older and more civilized.

Stanton found his beach towel and lay down, feeling the hot sun on his face. His cell phone was tucked under the towel. He pulled it out and checked for missed calls. There was one from “MM.” He called the number back.

Mindi answered on the first ring. “Hey, handsome.”

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. How’s the surfing going?”

“How’d you know I was surfing?”

“What else would you be doing?”

“It was good. You told me the other day you really wanted to go. When are you gonna come out here so I can teach you?”

A shadow fell over Stanton. He put his hand over his eyes and saw Mindi standing there, the phone to her ear.

“Soon,” she said.

He jumped to his feet. She smiled, kissed him, and put her arms around him. He looked out over the ocean as she held him. A heron dipped into the waves and came back out, slick and wet as it flew away. The ocean was alive, and it held the promise that all living things held: no matter what, tomorrow would always be better.

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Copyright 2012 Victor Methos

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Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.