Odd Thomas Part 29

County General, the oldest hospital in the region, features an impressive porte-cochere with limestone columns and a dentil-molding cornice all the way around the building. At first sight of it, you know that nurses and doctors work inside, instead of sales clerks.

The main lobby has a travertine floor, not industrial carpet, and the travertine face of the information desk boasts an inlaid bronze caduceus.

Before I reached the desk, I was intercepted by Alice Norrie, a ten-year veteran of the PMPD, who was running interference to keep reporters and unauthorized visitors from advancing past the lobby.

"He's in surgery, Odd. He's going to be there awhile."

"Where's Mrs. Porter?"

"Karla's in the ICU waiting room. They'll be taking him there pretty much straight from the OR."

The intensive care unit was on the fourth floor. In a tone meant to imply that she would have to arrest me to stop me, I said, "Ma'am, I'm going up there."

"You don't have to bust my badge to get there, Odd. You're on the short list Karla gave me."

I took the elevator to the second floor, where County General has its operating rooms.

Finding the right OR proved easy. Rafus Carter, in uniform and big enough to give pause to a rampaging bull, stood guard outside the door.

As I approached through the fluorescent glare, he rested his right hand on the b.u.t.t of his holstered gun.

He saw me react to his suspicion, and he said, "No offense, Odd, but only Karla could come along this corridor and not get my back up."

"You think he was shot by somebody he knew?"

"Almost had to be, which means it's probably someone I know, too."

"How bad is he?"

"Bad."

"He's a fighter," I said, echoing Sonny Wexler's mantra.

Rafus Carter said, "He better be."

I returned to the elevator. Between the third and fourth floors, I pressed the stop b.u.t.ton.

Uncontrollable trembling shook the strength out of me. With my legs too weak to stand on, I slid down the wall of the cab and sat on the floor.

Life, Stormy says, is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.

After all, in her cosmology, this life is boot camp. If you don't persevere through all its obstacles and all the wounds that it inflicts, you cannot move on to your next life of high adventure, which she calls "service," or eventually to your third life, which she a.s.sumes will be filled with pleasures and glories far greater even than a bowl of coconut cherry chocolate chunk.

Regardless of how hard the winds of chance might blow or how heavy the weight of experience might become, Stormy always stays on her feet, metaphorically speaking; unlike her, I find that sometimes I must pause if ultimately I am to persevere.

I wanted to be calm, collected, strong, and full of positive energy when I went to Karla. She needed support, not tears of either sympathy or grief.

After two or three minutes, I was calm and half half collected, which I decided would have to be good enough. I rose to my feet, took the elevator off stop, and continued to the fourth floor. collected, which I decided would have to be good enough. I rose to my feet, took the elevator off stop, and continued to the fourth floor.

The dreary waiting room, just down the hall from the intensive-care unit, had pale-gray walls, a gray-and-black speckled vinyl-tile floor, gray and mud-brown chairs. The ambience said death. death. Someone needed to slap the hospital's decorator upside the head. Someone needed to slap the hospital's decorator upside the head.

The chief's sister, Eileen Newfield, sat in a corner, red-eyed from crying, compulsively twisting an embroidered handkerchief in her hands.

Beside her sat Jake Hulquist, murmuring rea.s.surances. He was the chief's best friend. They had joined the force the same year.

Jake was out of uniform, wearing khakis and an untucked T-shirt. The laces in his athletic shoes were untied. His hair bristled in weird twists and spikes, as if he hadn't taken the time to comb it after he'd gotten the call.

Karla looked like she always does: fresh, beautiful, and self-possessed.

Her eyes were clear; she hadn't been crying. She was a cop's wife first, a woman second; she wouldn't give in to tears as long as Wyatt was fighting for his life because she was fighting with him in spirit.

The moment I stepped through the open doorway, Karla came to me, hugged me, and said, "This blows, doesn't it, Oddie? Isn't that what young people your age would say about a situation like this?"

"It blows," I agreed. "Totally."

Sensitive to Eileen's fragile emotional condition, Karla led me into the hallway, where we could talk. "He got a call on his private night line, just before two o'clock in the morning."

"From who?"

"I don't know. The ringing only half woke me. He told me to go back to sleep, everything was fine."

"How many people have the night line?"

"Not many. He didn't go to the closet to dress. He left the bedroom in his pajamas, so I figured he wasn't going out, it was some problem he could handle from home, and I went back to sleep until the gunshots woke me."

"When was that?"

"Not ten minutes after the call. Apparently he opened the front door for someone he was expecting-"

"Someone he knew."

"-and he was shot four times."

"Four? I heard three to the chest."

"Three to the chest," she confirmed, "and one to the head."

At the news of a head shot, I almost needed to slide down the wall and sit on the floor again.

Seeing how hard this information hit me, Karla quickly said, "No brain damage. The head shot was the least destructive of the four." She found a tremulous but genuine smile. "He'll make a joke out of that, don't you think?"

"He probably already has."

"I can hear him saying if you want to blow out Wyatt Porter's brains, you've got to shoot him in the a.s.s."

"That's him, all right," I agreed.

"They think it was meant to be the coup de grace, after he was already down, but maybe the shooter lost his nerve or got distracted. The bullet only grazed Wyatt's scalp."

I was in denial: "n.o.body would want to kill him."

Karla said, "By the time I dialed nine-one-one and managed to get downstairs with my pistol, the shooter was gone."

I pictured her coming fearlessly down the stairs with the gun in both hands, to the front door, ready to trade bullets with the man who had shot her husband. A lioness. Like Stormy.

"Wyatt was down, already unconscious when I found him."

Along the corridor, from the direction of the elevators, came a surgical nurse dressed in green scrubs. She had a please-don't-shoot-the-messenger expression.

CHAPTER 41.

THE SURGICAL NURSE, JENNA SPINELLI, HAD BEEN one year ahead of me in high school. Her calm gray eyes were flecked with blue, and her hands were made to play piano concertos.

The news that she brought was not as grim as I feared, not as good as I would have liked. The chief's vital signs were stable but not robust. He'd lost his spleen, but he could live without that. One lung had been punctured, but not beyond repair, and none of his vital organs had been irreparably damaged.

Complex vascular repairs were required, and the physician in charge of the surgical team estimated that the chief would be in the OR another hour and a half to two hours.

"We're pretty sure he'll come through surgery good enough," Jenna said. "Then the challenge will be to prevent postoperative complications."

Karla went into the ICU waiting room to share this report with the chief's sister and Jake Hulquist.

Alone in the hallway with Jenna, I said, "Have you swung both hammers, or are you holding one back?"

"It's just the way I said, Oddie. We don't soften bad news for the spouse. We tell it straight and all at once."

"This blows."

"Like a hurricane," she agreed. "You're close to him, I know."

"Yeah."

"I think he's eventually going to make it," Jenna said. "Not just out of surgery but all the way home on his own two feet."

"But no guarantees."

"When is there ever? He's a mess inside. But he's not half as bad as we thought he'd be when we first put him on the table, before we opened him up. It's a thousand to one odds that anyone can survive three chest wounds. He's incredibly lucky."

"If that's luck, he better never go to Vegas."

With a fingertip, she pulled down one of my lower eyelids and examined the bloodshot scenery: "You look wrecked, Oddie."

"It's been a long day. You know - breakfast starts early at the Grille."

"I was in with two friends the other day. You cooked our lunch."

"Really? Sometimes things are so frantic at the griddle, I don't get a chance to look around, see who's there."

"You've got a talent."

"Thanks," I said. "That's sweet."

"I hear your dad's selling the moon."

"Yeah, but it's not a great place for a vacation home. No air."

"You're nothing at all like your dad."

"Who would want to be?"

"Most guys."

"I think you're wrong about that."

"You know what? You ought to give cooking cla.s.ses."

"Mostly what I do is fry."

"I'd still sign up."

"It's not exactly healthy cuisine," I said.

"We've all got to die of something. You still with Bronwen?"

"Stormy. Yeah. It's like destiny."

"How do you know?"

"We have matching birthmarks."

"You mean the one she got tattooed to match yours?"

"Tattooed? No. It's real enough. We're getting married."

"Oh. I didn't hear about that."

"It's breaking news."

"Wait'll the girls find out," Jenna said.