Accustomed to the Dark (2 page)

“Which means what, exactly?”

Short and compact and tidy, maybe forty-five years old, Berger still wore his pale blue scrub suit. He sat back in his chair with his elbows propped on the chair's arms, his hands tented before his chest, the fingers slightly spread. His face was pale and oval and his thinning black hair was combed back from a sharply defined widow's peak over small pale ears that lay flat against his head. He had a pointed nose and slightly fleshy lips. There were faint bags under his eyes. He had looked tired when I first saw him, at the hospital entrance, and he looked more tired now.

On the lower left breast of the scrub suit, just beneath the pocket, there was a small dark brown stain, smeared.

He looked at me over the tented fingers. “We've recovered the bullet, as I said. It was lodged in the right temporal lobe.” He pursed his lips. “Mrs. Mondragón is right-handed?”

“Yes.”

“In a way, then, it's a blessing that the bullet lodged where it did.”

“A blessing,” I said. I tried to keep the anger from my voice but I don't think I succeeded. I could feel Hector watching me.

Dr. Berger hadn't heard the anger. He was staring off, probably watching the operation he'd just performed. His lips were pursed again. He turned back to me. “Yes,” he said. “It's a remarkable piece of luck, really. A fraction of an inch in any direction, and Mrs. Mondragón would have been irreparably damaged, or fatally wounded.” He cocked his head slightly, curious. “Was she moving at the moment of impact?”

I didn't need to think about it. I had replayed the scene, again and again, since it happened. “She was shaking her head. At something I said.”

He nodded slightly, as though that confirmed some interesting theory he'd been mulling over. “Then whatever you said, by saying it you may very well have saved her life.”

My glance kept sliding down to that small dried smear on the pale blue scrub suit. “And what's the prognosis?” I asked him.

“Well,” he said. “Naturally, it's always difficult to forecast the progress of these cases. There's no question but that Mrs. Mondragón has suffered an extremely serious injury. But I do want you to know that I'm optimistic. Guardedly.”

“Guardedly,” I said.

He nodded slightly again. “If we can keep down the pressure in the cranial cavity, prevent herniation, I believe there's a very good chance, an excellent chance, that Mrs. Mondragón will recover completely. I've seen it happen before. That's barring any additional complications, of course.”

“And if you can't keep down the pressure?”

He gave me a small, tight smile. “We're doing everything we can to keep it down. We've evacuated the hematoma—cleaned the internal area—and we've electrocauterized the wound. She's on a mannitol drip, to dehydrate her and reduce swelling. She's on a respirator. And she'll be under constant monitoring—her heart, her brain, her breathing.”

“She's still out? Still unconscious?”

“That's correct.”

“When will she regain consciousness?”

“We've no way of knowing. It could be a matter of hours. It could be a matter of days.”

“How many days?”

He frowned slightly. “Mr.…Craft, is it?”

“Croft.”

“Mr. Croft, the brain is a remarkable organ.” He swiveled his tented fingers slightly forward. “Historically, we've had cases of a patient wandering into a doctor's office, complaining of nagging headaches. The doctor examines the skull and, much to his surprise, discovers an entry wound. Later, an X ray reveals the presence of a thirty-eight caliber slug in the brain. The patient had never realized that he'd been shot.”

“A thirty-eight,” I said. “That's a pistol cartridge.”

“Yes. And this was a rifle cartridge. Had the slug been more powerful, had it been traveling more quickly, hydrostatic shock would almost certainly have proven fatal. But this slug was traveling quickly enough to create a very serious trauma. Edema has set in, the brain has swollen. At the moment, the swelling is our primary enemy.”

“In what way?”

Delicately, he untented his fingers and shaped them around an imaginary skull. “The cranial vault is rigid. Cerebral swelling could bring pressure against the medulla oblongata, at the stem of the brain.” He moved his thumbs slightly, down there at the bottom of the skull. “Herniation. And that would very likely prove fatal.”

He dropped his hands and the skull disappeared. He sat up in his chair, smiled a tight, brief smile. “But Mrs. Mondragón seems an extremely healthy woman. And, as I said, we've done everything possible for her. I have good reason to be hopeful.”

“But you don't know when she'll regain consciousness.”

“That's correct. Today, perhaps. Perhaps tomorrow. No one can say.”

“Perhaps next month. Perhaps never.”

He shook his head slightly. “As I said, I
am
hopeful. I've seen many, many people recover from wounds that were very nearly identical to this one.”

“With no residual effects. No permanent damage.”

“None.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Well.” He considered whether to speak, decided to go ahead. He looked at me. “You know that some people consider the right frontal lobe, in right-handed people, to be the seat of the unconscious.”

“
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
.”

“Exactly. There's a school of thought, not so much in this country as in Europe, which believes that damage to the right frontal lobe may possibly affect certain … aspects of the personality.”

“Which aspects?”

“The subconscious. Creativity. The so-called artistic impulse.”

I thought of Rita's watercolors. Sometimes on summer evenings she sat out on the patio, brush in hand, and she slowly filled sheets of paper with soft, subdued views of the town, of the stands of juniper and piñon, of the distant purple mountains.

“But that's speculation, of course,” said Berger. “And it is, as I say, a European school of thought. French, for the most part. In my own experience, and I do have fairly extensive experience with trauma of this type, I've never witnessed any such change.”

“Were any of your patients artists, Doctor?”

He pursed his lips again. “Mr. Croft, I assure you that there's every hope of Mrs. Mondragón making a complete recovery. I wouldn't say so if I didn't believe it to be true.”

“But no guarantees.”

He produced the small, tight smile again. “There are never any guarantees, Mr. Croft. As I told you, however, I believe that Mrs. Mondragón has an excellent chance.” He stood up. “And now, gentlemen, forgive me, but I'm afraid I've things to do.”

Hector and I stood. “When can I see her?” I said.

He frowned, as though displeased by my failure to understand that the meeting was over. “She's still in recovery,” he said. “She'll remain there until we're certain that she's stabilized. At which point we'll move her to the ICU.”

“And when will that be?”

“A few hours, perhaps.” He glanced at his watch. “I'm sorry, but I really must be going.”

“I can't see her until then?”

“No. That's impossible, I'm afraid.”

As he came around the table, Hector stepped forward and offered a hand. Berger took it. “Thank you, Doctor,” Hector told him. “I'll be getting back to you.”

Berger nodded, released Hector's hand, held out his own to me. I took it.

“Mr. Croft,” he said. I nodded. I glanced again, not wanting to, at the stain.

He escorted us out the door and then he went down the hallway alone.

“A cold sonovabitch,” I said to Hector.

Hector looked at me. “And if he weren't?” he said. “Doing what he does? How long would he last, you figure?”

He was right, but I wasn't ready to surrender my dislike. I changed the subject. “Who's in charge over at the state police?”

He looked at me. He frowned. “There's not much point in telling you to stay away from this, is there?”

“No.”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Hernandez,” he said.

“Hernandez? He's a foot soldier.”

“He got promoted.”

I nodded. “Okay, Hector. Thanks.”

“Don't do anything stupid, Josh.”

“Right.”

3

T
HE
S
TATE
P
OLICE
complex was out on Cerrillos Road, past the commercial district but before the entrance to the Interstate. I parked the Cherokee in the visitors' lot and I stalked along the sidewalk to the entrance, a two-story box of black glass set midway in the long beige wall. I stepped into a small lobby and faced another door, this one locked. To my right, behind a wall of reinforced glass, a young woman with blonde hair took my name and dialed Hernandez. She spoke briefly into the phone, then hung up and told me to go on in. She buzzed open the interior door.

The place was busy. Cops, uniforms and suits, were sprinting up and down the stairs, pacing quickly through the corridor on the second floor. The door to Hernandez's office was open. He was sitting back in his chair, waiting, and he stood up when I walked in. “Croft,” he said.

He was in his early thirties and he wore a military crew cut along the top of his square red head, and a pale gray chambray shirt that fit snugly against his broad shoulders. A brown tie, khaki pants. Beneath the desk, he would be wearing a pair of cowboy boots. He always did. “I heard about Mrs. Mondragón,” he said. “I'm sorry. How is she?”

“When did you people know that Martinez was out?” I asked him.

He pressed his lips together and nodded toward the door. “Close that,” he said.

I stepped back, closed it.

“Take a seat,” he said, and waved a big-knuckled hand toward a straight-back wooden chair.

“I'm fine where I am.”

Hernandez stared at me for a moment. He looked down at his desk and then he looked back up and he sighed. “You gonna feel any better if you dance with me for a couple of rounds?”

“Maybe.”

“Yeah, well, you'll have to wait in line.” He frowned impatiently. “C'mon, Croft. Don't be a hard-ass. Take a seat and we'll see what we got here. The two of us.”

I crossed the room and sat down.

With another sigh, Hernandez lowered himself behind the desk.

He glanced at his watch. “I told them to hold my calls,” he said. “We got about fifteen minutes.”

I said nothing.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She's in a coma.”

“What do they think? The doctors?”

“If she's lucky, she'll pull through.”

“Jesus, I hope so.” He pressed his lips together and then he leaned back against the swivel seat, lay his arms on the arms of the chair. He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “We blew it. I blew it. The Captain—Captain Gold—he tells me to make sure Mrs. Mondragón gets a warning. This is last night, maybe an hour after the breakout. He knew all about Martinez. I didn't. Before my time.”

I felt my face stiffen.

He waved a tired hand, as though trying to wipe away what he'd just said, and knowing he couldn't. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “So what. Anyway, about then—it's nine, nine-thirty, and I'm up to my kneecaps in shit. I'm in charge, right? I'm ‘coordinating' all this. And I'm liaising with the PD and the sheriff's office. We got reports coming in from all over. From everywhere. Santa Fe, Pecos, Taos. Denver, for God's sake. I got twenty, thirty guys out there, on foot, in cruisers, in the chopper. And that's just from this office alone.”

He took another deep breath. “Okay, so I'm the one makes the first mistake. I lateral the call. Pass it on. And what happens then, the trooper who's supposed to handle it, call up Mrs. Mondragón, he makes the second mistake. He gets sidetracked. The call gets lost.”

He frowned. “Okay, so I'm here all night. A shower, some clean clothes this morning, I'm ready to start all over. Superman. But I never check with the trooper. Then the Captain hears about Mrs. Mondragón—before I do—and he's in here reaming me a new asshole.”

He shrugged. “Fair enough. I deserve it. But a reaming, that's like a dose of clap. It's something you can spread around. So I track down the trooper and I ream
him
out. He's a good cop, a damned good cop, but he takes it. Just like I took it.”

“Who was the trooper?”

He looked at me across the desk with tired eyes. “You wanna talk to the guy who screwed up, you're talking' to him. I'm sorry about what happened, Croft. It makes me sick. If I could go back and fix things, change them around, God knows I would.”

“Yeah. I'll tell Mrs. Mondragón.”

He took another deep breath, filled up his cheeks, let the air out between puckered lips. “You wanna take a pop at me? A free swing?” He shrugged. “Go ahead. Get your rocks off.”

“Tell me about the breakout,” I said.

He stared at me for a moment. He glanced down at his watch and looked back up. He shrugged again. “Six guys. We picked up three of them already, all within five miles of the pen. Picked 'em up right away. We'll probably grab the fourth guy sometime today. He's a nothing. A bookend, like the other three. We figure Martinez and Lucero brought 'em all along to act as decoys. Set 'em loose on the ground, to keep us busy, and then took off. They had a car waiting. We figured they used the car to get out of town before the roadblocks went up. Looks like we figured wrong.”

“Looks like it,” I said. “Who's Lucero?”

“Luiz Lucero. Not a local. From Denver. From Cuba, originally. A Marielito. One of those guys who landed here when Castro was tossing out the garbage. He's a bug.”

“How?”

“He's a psycho.”