In a Heartbeat (4 page)

“Thirty percent.”

Camelia stared at him, stunned. Then he got to his feet, thanked Estevez, said that he might need to talk to him again, and said good-bye.

He left with the thick green address book, which he knew would keep him up all night, and a bunch of information that would probably lead nowhere and be of no help to him. And of no use at all to poor Ed Vincent.

9

At seven the following evening, Ed Vincent was still alive. He was in a private room, wired up to a bank of monitors with tubes leading into his body. Only now there was an additional one. A shunt had been inserted into his head, draining excess fluid from his brain. His heartbeat ticked slowly on the monitor, pumped by the machine, and his pulse fluttered, weak as a sparrow’s. He was not in good shape.

Detective Camelia paced the long, empty, highly polished corridor outside Ed’s room. Twenty paces one way, twenty the other, hands clasped behind his back, head bowed, like royalty at a funeral.

Ed was not expected to last the night, but Camelia wanted to be there in case he came around again. He wanted a chance to check that name Zelda with him. Sounded like a crime of passion to him, a “woman scorned” scenario.

Last night he’d gone through every name in that darned green-leather book and there was no mention of her. And no mention either of a Melba Eloise Merrydew. Strange that Zelda’s number wasn’t in Ed’s book, though. Nor was Melba’s. That’s where a man usually kept the names of his lady friends.

Camelia stroked his bristly chin, peering out into the gathering dusk. Could the mysterious foreign bidder have wanted to eliminate his rival? This was big international business. Billions of dollars were at stake. You never knew. But so far, all efforts to trace the identity of the mysterious bidder had drawn a blank. There was a curtain of obfuscation between the United States and certain foreign countries in the Far and Middle East, as well as in Latin America, that was impenetrable. He sighed again. Life was not easy. Not for a detective. And certainly not for the poor bastard lying in the hospital bed.

Ed could hear his own heart beating. It sounded so slow he found himself waiting for the next leaden thunk, wondering if it was going to make it. Drugged with morphine to ease the pain, he felt a kind of false peacefulness, hardly aware of his physical self except for that slow-thunking heart.

He drifted between a state of conscious thought and periods of time when there was simply blackness: a dark, warm feeling, like the blood being pumped through his body by that machine. And then there was another layer under that blackness, a hidden part that never surfaced in his day-to-day life. Hadn’t for years . . . not since he was a boy and had buried those memories. . . .

He was thinking of the past now, though unwillingly, wondering if this was what it meant to have your life flash before your eyes in the final seconds.

Oh, God,
he thought,
I don’t want to remember this, I’ve buried it all in the past. . . . I want
to be back in the Cessna, my sturdy little winged
horse, flying back to Zelda again. . . . Oh, God,
Zelda, why, why . . . why?

Camelia took another sip of bitter coffee from a paper cup. Feeling that familiar acid twinge in his stomach, he tossed the cup into the trash can. He wondered how many such drinks he had consumed in twenty-six years of being a cop. Should he ever have the misfortune to end up on a marble mortuary slab, when the M.E. cut open his stomach it would look like a rusty old iron tub, brown and pitted and scarred with acid. Jeez, he should give up the stuff right now. And he would have, if only he didn’t enjoy it so much.

The uniform sitting outside the ICU was trying hard to stay awake. He was all of twenty, and right now his head kept dropping onto his chest. Camelia grinned. He didn’t blame him. Hospital duty was a boring detail.

He took out an Interdent and probed his gums. Dammit, he would have to make time to get to the dentist soon. His gums were sore as hell. The door opened and the ICU nurse emerged. The uniform was on his feet, alert in an instant.

Camelia had just found a sore spot with the Interdent. “How’s he doin’, Nurse?” he mumbled.

She threw him a withering glance and he hastily removed the toothpick.

“Mr. Vincent is still in a coma, Detective. There’s no communication with him. Right now, he’s being kept alive by machines. We can only hope for an improvement.”

Camelia nodded. “Thanks, Nurse.” He might as well go home.

“Hey, Brotski,” he said to the uniform, “take a break. Get a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Wake yourself up a bit. I’ll stay here till you get back.”

The young officer’s face brightened. “Thanks, sir. I appreciate that. It’s kinda slow out here, puts a guy to sleep.”

Camelia watched him striding away. His uniform seemed too big for his skinny frame, and his pale orange hair had an unruly cowlick. He looked very young. He sighed. They weren’t making cops the way they used to when he was a rookie. Then, everyone had been over six feet, big and burly. Except himself, of course.

He took Brotski’s seat outside the ICU. Arms folded, head tilted back, he stared at the ceiling, thinking about Ed Vincent. He wondered why he was such a reclusive kind of guy in his personal life. And why he never talked about his past. Did he have something to hide?

Down the hall, the elevator
ping
ed and the doors slid open. Camelia turned to look. A woman was hurrying down the long shiny corridor, half walking, half running. She was tall, slender, awkward as a teenager in her high heels. Short-cropped golden-blonde hair, huge anxious brown eyes, long, suntanned legs, and a very short skirt. Definitely not New York. He stood as she approached.

“Is this the ICU? Where Ed Vincent is?” She hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and tugged at her short skirt. She was breathing heavily and looked tired and disheveled.

“Why do you want to know that, miss?”

“Are you the doctor?” She clutched his arm, gazing beseechingly at him. “Oh, thank God, I need to talk to you. Just tell me Ed’s going to be all right. Tell me he’s going to live, Doctor.
Please.
”

Camelia glanced at her left hand. He saw no wedding ring. In fact she wore no jewelry at all, and her clothing was simple and inexpensive. “I’m not the doctor.”

Her knees buckled and she almost fell. He helped her onto the chair, where she slumped, head bowed.

Thinking she was about to faint, he hurried to get her some water from the fountain. She must be a relative, he thought, offering her the paper cup. Or a devoted employee. She was certainly concerned. “And who exactly are you, Miss . . . ?”

She lifted her long golden lashes and looked at him with those big soft amber-brown eyes.

“I’m Zelda,” she said.

10

Camelia hid his stunned smile with a little cough. He introduced himself. “Homicide Detective Marco Camelia.”

She stared at him. “
Homicide?
Ed’s not
dead,
is he? Oh,
please
.” She jumped to her feet, ran past him, and pushed open the door to the ICU.

The nurse’s head swiveled as she passed her, then she too was on her feet. “Hey, wait one minute . . . ,” she began angrily. But Zelda was already at the bedside.

Ed’s face looked like a stranger’s, coldly pale and without his usual beard. His eyes were closed, and for a big man, he looked horribly fragile.

Mortal,
Zelda thought, slipping to her knees and taking his hand carefully in both of hers. Her heart was a leaden lump in her chest. It had slowed so she could hardly breathe.
Those could
have been her blips on that screen—plummeting
lower and lower. She was dying with him. . . .

“Young woman, you have to get out of here,” the nurse ordered in a furious whisper, grabbing her arm. She didn’t seem to hear, she just stared at the patient.

“ ‘I told you so’ would be appropriate, you great oaf,” Zelda said, sniffing back the tears. “Dammit, Ed Vincent, maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”

Marco Camelia indicated to the nurse to leave her alone.

“I’m in charge here, Detective,” the nurse whispered angrily. “You are disturbing my patient. He’s in extremely critical condition; he needs to be kept quiet.” She glanced anxiously at the monitors as the minimal peaks and valleys changed suddenly to irregular zigs and zags. “Just look what she’s doing to him.” She ran to summon the doctor.

Camelia was looking. The agitation was there for all to see. Ed Vincent was reacting to the presence of his killer.
Would-be
killer, he reminded himself. They did not have a body. Yet.

Zelda.
Camelia’s hand was firm on her shoulder and she turned to look at him. Her face was pale, bruised-looking, and her eyes had the dilated pupils of a person in shock. He said, “We have to let him rest now.”

Her eyes followed Camelia’s to the jumping pattern on the monitor. She scrambled clumsily to her feet and stood for a moment, looking at the man lying motionless in the bed. Then she bent and gently kissed his cheek.

Soft as a feather, Camelia noted, just as the on-duty doctor swung through the door, summoned hastily by the nurse.

“What the hell is going on in here?” He spoke in a low voice, but his anger was clear. “Who are you? No, don’t tell me, just get out.”

Camelia hurried Zelda from the room, urging her out even as she turned for one last look at Ed Vincent.

It occurred to him that if Zelda were really “a woman scorned,” she certainly seemed to care about Vincent. Cared enough to kill him rather than lose him, he guessed. That was the way of the world. They should run an ad campaign like they did for drugs—
Domestic
Violence Kills
. Much good it would do, he thought wearily.

Zelda dropped onto the chair outside the door as though her legs were no longer able to support her. “Why?” she demanded, staring blankly down the empty corridor. “
Why
would they want to kill him?”

Camelia made a mental note of the phrase “
they
want to kill him.” “That’s exactly what we would like to know. And that’s why I’m taking you in for questioning.”

She looked up at him, uncomprehending.

The elevator stopped on their floor and the uniformed officer strode toward them.

“Brotski, I’d like you to read Miss Zelda her rights.”

“Sir?”
Brotski’s face was a picture. He’d only been gone fifteen minutes and “Camille” was already reading rights to a strange woman outside the ICU. He’d missed it all.

“Mirandize her,” Camelia ordered, frowning.

“Yes, sir.” The woman stared, astounded, at Brotski as he told her she was under arrest and warned her that she had the right to remain silent and was entitled to legal counsel.

“What’s happening? What does he mean?” She looked back at Camelia, puzzled.

“We are taking you in for questioning in the attempted homicide of Mr. Edward Vincent.” Camelia was all business. He had his perpetrator now, he felt sure of it. Vincent had named her, and now he had her.

“Are you out of your mind?”

Sparks flew from her big brown eyes as she stood up. She towered over his five-eight, and Camelia figured, uncomfortably, she must be well over six feet in those heels.

“I only just got here, I flew in from LA,” she yelled. “I didn’t even know Ed had been shot until I saw it on TV. . . . Jesus.” Her voice wobbled as realization hit her. “You can’t think
I
did it.”

“We just want to question you, Miss Zelda.” Camelia was calm, matter-of-fact. “Maybe the first thing you can tell us is your full name.”

Her eyes swiveled between the ICU door and the long corridor. Figuring she might make a run for it, Brotski stepped between her and the elevator.

“Melba Eloise Merrydew,” she said finally in a voice like a sigh, and Brotski could almost see “Camille’s” heart hit his boots as he registered the fact that he might have the wrong woman after all.

But Camelia was remembering that huge transfer of shares. “I thought you said your name was Zelda,” he snapped.

Tears filled her eyes again, and she let them run, unmopped, down her face. “It’s Ed’s name for me. It’s what he called me.”

“Sort of a pet name,” Brotski added helpfully, then shut his mouth firmly at Camelia’s glare.

Camelia knew he had the right woman, he was sure of it. The motive was there somewhere—if only he could figure it out. That huge transfer of shares . . . Money had to be at the bottom of it. Money and sex—that’s usually what it turned out to be, and he was sure this was no different.

“Miss Merrydew, why don’t you just come along with me and we’ll talk about this. You understand I’m not accusing you of anything. We just need to have you fill us in on a few details of Mr. Vincent’s private life.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

She wasn’t as dumb as Brotski had expected from her odd appearance.

“If you wish one to be present, certainly.”

“But I
want
to help you. I’ll do everything I can. I’ve nothing to hide. . . .” She threw an imploring glance at the closed ICU door. “Just let me see him one more time, say good-bye. . . .”

Her voice broke and for a split second Camelia’s implacable surface cracked. She looked so distraught, so vulnerable, that he wondered how he could suspect her of such a heinous crime. But he knew from experience that the guilty could be as charming and persuasive as the innocent, and much more cunning.

“I’m afraid the doctor won’t allow that, Miss Merrydew. Maybe later. . . .”

He took her by the elbow, guided her to the elevator, but she swung around, suddenly. “Good-bye, Ed,” she yelled, loud enough to wake the dead. “Good-bye, honey. I’ll be back. Wait for me.”

Inside the ICU, the doctor and the nurse both witnessed the slight lift at the corners of Ed Vincent’s mouth as her final words reverberated through the room. The zigs and zags on the monitor were big as pyramids, jolting rapidly across the screen.

“You might almost have thought that was a smile,” the doctor said, awed.

He checked the patient’s vital signs, lifted his eyelids, searched with a tiny light into his pupils. Everything was still the same. Ed Vincent was still in a coma. The facial twitch had been a mere coincidence.

You found me, Zelda. You got here in time.
Don’t go away, baby,
he wanted to yell after her.
I
might not last until you get back again. . . . Stay,
Zelda. Please stay. Talk to me about what you’ve
been doing, tell me about Riley and the dog,
about Moving On . . . tell me again how we first
met. . . .