Death in a Funhouse Mirror (30 page)

"You didn't see anything? Hear anything? Notice anything?" He sounded disappointed and disbelieving.

"Not that I remember. It all happened so fast, you see. I was inside less than a minute and then wham!"

"Do you know what hit you?"

"A large building?" I said unhelpfully.

"What time did you get home?"

"Between ten and ten-thirty. I didn't look at my watch. I was at a wedding rehearsal dinner. I left there a little before ten. What time is it now?" I had no idea whether I'd been unconscious for a minute or an hour.

"Almost eleven," he said. "Did you ask for an ambulance?"

I started to shake my head, but it hurt. "No. Well, not exactly. The person who answered asked if I wanted one, and I said I didn't think so. Do I need an ambulance?"

"I don't know," he said. "But you've got a head injury, plus the smoke you've inhaled. It would be sensible to check it out. Plus, judging from our long acquaintance, you're usually a quick, clear-headed person. Tonight you're hardly that."

His statement, meant to be helpful, annoyed me as did his next question, which was how much I'd had to drink. "So you think a night without sleep, two frightening encounters with a malevolent stranger or strangers, a blow on the head, and spending too much time in a smoke-filled room isn't enough to diminish my capacity to think clearly? Or are you suggesting I got drunk, hit myself over the head and then set my clothes on fire? What did you expect? Wonder Woman? Believe me, I'd like to be more helpful. I don't like this any more than you do. Less. I like it less. After all, I'm the one who got bopped on the head. All you have to do is show up and ask some questions."

As I talked, I got more wound up, and suddenly, irrationally, I was yelling at him. Taking out all the fear I'd felt on him because he was the only person around. "Gee golly, Mr. Officer, I hope I'm not keeping you up, or distracting you from some real important police work. I know it was damned inconsiderate of me to go and get myself knocked out and to let some bad guy set my house on fire and then not even be able to tell you who did it. I promise I won't let it happen again. I'll grow eyes in the back of my head." I wadded up the blanket, shoved it at him, and fumbled with the handle, trying to get out of the car.

He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and pressed me down into the seat. "You just sit tight," he said, "you're in no shape to be wandering around on your own, and you can't go back to your condo tonight. I'm taking you to the emergency room. You might need stitches."

I felt foolish and frustrated and dangerously close to tears but I was not going to cry in front of this guy. "I don't want to," I said. "I hate hospitals."

Ignoring me, he muttered something into his radio. "I'll be right back," he said, opening the door. "Don't you do anything foolish." I watched him cross the parking lot and speak with the fireman who was directing operations. Slim, boyish and still bandbox new, but he was already 110 percent a cop, with the kind of "Father Knows Best" superiority that made him certain he knew what was right for me. Andre wasn't like that. He would have asked me what I wanted to do. Damn Andre. If he'd been here, none of this would have happened. I would have been safe.

I couldn't help it. Thinking about Andre, and thinking about being safe, the tears started flowing, and all my willpower couldn't hold them back. Good thing Officer Bandbox was out of the car. I reached down by my feet and fumbled through my briefcase for a tissue. I wiped my eyes and nose and the tissue came away black. I tilted the rearview mirror and looked at my face. I looked like a coal miner, with spooked, red-rimmed eyes staring out of my blackened face. I must have gotten the black on my hands from the sofa, and then smeared it on my face when I tried to protect it from the flaring heat. Why hadn't he told me, or offered me his handkerchief instead of grimacing at my blood and ordering me to stay put? Last night I'd thought he was an okay guy, but my opinion of Officer Harris, boy cop, was heading right down the toilet.

Another police car, lights flashing, raced down the drive, picked its way carefully around the fire truck, and halted abruptly just a few feet away. I heard a commotion of voices. My neighbors were standing together in a huddle just a few feet from where I was sitting, staring at the scene. The officer jumped out and walked over to meet Harris.

Someone called out, "Officer, can you tell us what's going on?"

"Fire," he said helpfully, pointing at the truck.

Harris and the newcomer immediately got into an animated conversation. I decided it was a good time to make my exit. I retrieved my dress from the back seat, thanking my lucky stars— what few of them I had left—that it was in a plastic bag, and got out on the driver's side, keeping the car between me and the police. Ignoring my neighbors, who were staring openly, I crossed to my car on wobbly legs, got in, and started the engine.

Suddenly Harris appeared, banging on the window. "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

"To the emergency room. Isn't that what you told me to do?"

"You're in no shape to drive. I'll take you."

"I'm driving. You can follow me if you want."

"I'm going to," he said, "and you'd better be careful."

Not an admonition about protecting my health, but a warning that I'd better not do anything he could give me a ticket for. I'd hurt his manly pride and he wasn't taking it well.

It's always hard to drive with a cop breathing down your tailpipe. It's a whole lot harder when it takes most of your energy and concentration just to keep your mind on the car and the car on the road. And I was further distracted trying to figure out where I was going to go after I left the emergency room. I weighed the options. I couldn't go to Suzanne's. The last thing she needed tonight was a battered, smoky house guest. Even if I was able to make the long drive to my mother's, her censorious caring would do me more harm than good, and I'd rather sleep on the sidewalk than impose on Michael and Sonia. I needed a bed and a shower, and the solution presented itself as I drove past the Navigator Motel with its gleaming red vacancy sign. I flicked on my blinker and turned in almost too fast for my police escort to follow.

The man behind the desk looked very dubious when I asked about a room. I couldn't blame him. I'd be suspicious, too, if a disheveled, dirty woman wandered in at eleven at night and asked for a room. "I know I look awful," I said. "I live in those new condos out on the point, and I've just had a fire in my unit. I don't even have a toothbrush. I won't know how bad the damage is until morning—the firemen are still there now—and I need to be nearby so I can get back there first thing in the morning, check out my things, meet the insurance adjuster, all that stuff." I took out my prestige credit card and set it on the counter. "The best room you've got."

I heard Harris's footsteps coming up behind me and watched the clerk's eyes go over my shoulder to watch his approach. "Great idea, Ms. Kozak," Harris said, "you just get yourself checked in and cleaned up a little, and then I'll drive you over to the emergency room, just as a precaution."

He'd caught me neatly in my own trap, hadn't he? He'd given me credibility with the clerk and also ensured that I had to let him drive me to the hospital. The clerk handed me a registration form. "If you'd just fill this out... um... Ms. Kozak. Our... um... nicest room is the... um... bridal suite. It has a sitting room with a minibar, as well as the bedroom and bath/dressing room suite."

"Perfect. I'll take it. Do you supply bathrobes by any chance?"

"Certainly, madam," he said. "I'll get you one." I signed the registration card and traded it for the room key. I followed his directions to the suite and Harris came along behind, my faithful bodyguard.

Inside, I handed him the keys. "Help yourself to something from the minibar, if you want. I'm going to clean up." When I saw how awful I looked, I decided I was lucky Harris had come along, or I never would have gotten a room. I discarded the jacket, sponged as much soot and dirt as I could from the skirt, and washed my face and hands. It looked like my smart new suit was beyond repair. When I came out I didn't look a whole lot better, but at least I was recognizably human. I was tempted to just crawl into bed, but my bodyguard was waiting, set-faced and inflexible.

Reluctantly, I turned myself over to Harris and let him drive me to the hospital.

If there is one important truth about emergency rooms, it is that the only way to insure reasonably prompt treatment is to arrive unconscious or in the throes of a heart attack. I fell into neither category and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Maybe the soot would move them. Or my police escort. I'd rather forego treatment than hang around a dingy waiting room with frightened adults and wailing babies, surrounded by dog-eared old magazines with all the best bits torn out. In this respect, at least, it turned out to be my lucky night. They were having a quiet evening and happy to get a customer.

I went through the registration process with Harris at my side, glaring and breathing heavily. He was still mad at me, and the heat of his anger was softening the starch on his police-scout uniform. During the half hour it took to get through the preliminaries he said only one thing to me: "It was very irresponsible of you to drive." I said nothing to him. The tight little lines around his eyes and mouth said it all. I had transgressed one of the policeman's rules—that once you are a victim, you're supposed to act like one.

They put me in a little curtained cubicle and a nurse bustled by to say that the doctor would be along in a moment. I sat on the edge of the examining table, staring at the runs in my stockings. Harris leaned against the wall and glared. "Oh, come off it, Harris," I said, finally. "If something's bothering you, spit it out. I'm too tired to bear the weight of your silence any longer. If you don't have anything to say, or to ask, why don't you just go away and leave me alone?"

"I need to know the nature and extent of your injuries," he said.

"You could call the hospital in an hour and I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you." He just shook his head and went on leaning against the wall. I tried again. I really wanted him to go away.

"You could get us some coffee. I promise I'll still be here when you get back." He didn't respond, so I gave up.

The nurse came back and began to fuss over me. "Now, dear, let's just get you up on this table and see what we've got to deal with, shall we?" I swung my legs up on the table, but I didn't lie down because it hurt my head. As she listened to what had happened, she gently washed my face and hands again, discovering, in the process, that I'd gotten a nasty burn on my left hand. Then she asked me to lie down on my stomach so she could look at the back of my head. "You can take your shoes off if you'd like."

"Can't," I said. "Hurts my head to bend over."

"That's okay, dear, I'll do it." As she bent over me, I caught a faint whiff of her perfume.

"Wait a minute," I said. She stopped, staring at me in surprise. "Oh, I didn't mean you. I just remembered something."

Instantly Harris was away from the wall and standing by my head. "You remembered something," he said triumphantly. "What is it? What did you remember?"

I tried to get it back. "I can't remember. When she bent down it reminded me of something. I can see it in my mind, but it's so fuzzy... like trying to read a sign through a mud-splashed windshield." I struggled with it for a while. I wanted to remember it as much as he wanted me to, but it stayed just beyond reach. He had her repeat the motion a few times but it didn't help. If looks could kill, I would have been wounded, if not dead, but I couldn't help it. He just stood there and glared at me until I couldn't take it anymore.

"Cut it out, Harris," I said, "or take your glaring and your sulks somewhere else."

"You're not even trying to cooperate," he said. "You could remember if you really wanted to."

At that same moment, the nurse probed an extremely tender spot. I sat up abruptly, almost knocking her over, and jumped off the table. "You don't know what you're talking about, Harris," I yelled, "why wouldn't I want to tell you? You think I like being hit over the head?" There was a lot more I might have said, but the world chose that moment to begin doing a strange dance, the floor and the walls and the lights all moving at once. So much movement had a disturbing effect on my stomach. The nurse, instantly understanding what was happening, tucked her shoulder under my arm and steered me back to the table. Gratefully, I lay down, closed my eyes, and worked on controlling my nausea.

"Officer, I think you'd better wait outside," she said.

"But she might remember something."

"And if she does, I'll call you. Right away. I promise." Carefully, I opened my eyes, and was treated to the sight of the small nurse firmly steering Harris away from me and closing the curtains behind him. When she came back, she bent down and whispered in my ear, "You can come out now."

"Thanks," I said. "He was beginning to get on my nerves."

"So I observed," she said dryly. "You want to flip back over on your stomach now?"

"I think a flip is beyond me right now. How about I just struggle over?"

"Whatever you can manage, dear." I managed an awkward, elephantine shift, and even that seemed like too much work, then lay there wearily while she poked and prodded. "You certainly do have a lot of hair," she said. "Maybe I can find an elastic and tie it out of the way. Be right back." She found an elastic and tied back my hair and then the doctor came in and the two of them began doing nasty things to my head.

"Do you know what hit you?" the doctor asked.

"It felt like a large building."

"Well, it wasn't a building. Something glass, I'd say, from the amount we've taken out of the wound."

Except for the needle pricks as they anesthetized the edges of the wound, it didn't hurt, but the pulling and poking as they picked out glass and stitched it shut was very unpleasant. "How many stitches?"

"This is seven," the doctor said. "One more should do it." I closed my eyes, let my mind drift, and was swept back to my childhood. To another examining table and another doctor who was giving me stitches, closing the gash on my foot I'd gotten when my father had accidentally left a paint scraper lying in the grass and I'd stepped on it with my bare foot. Even then I'd found the drama and the fuss hard to take. My mother had wrapped my foot in a towel and driven me to the doctor. I remembered bleeding all over the car and all over his office. He hadn't been nearly as gentle as this doctor, and had done the stitching without anesthesia while I clenched my fists, bit my lip, and tried not to cry, even though it hurt a lot.