John Locke - Lethal Experiment
“Could you repeat that?” I said.
“You’ve been lying in this bed, unresponsive, for…” he consulted a chart. “Three years, two months and five days.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“You know me better than that.”
I did. But it still didn’t make any sense.
“Why am I so lucid?” I asked.
“Psychosomatic comas are different than those caused by direct physical injury.”
“Come again?”
“You didn’t suffer any physical trauma to the brain or brain stem. Basically, your brain took a three-year vacation.”
The room seemed to swirl around me as the significance of my situation hit home. There were a million questions I probably should have asked. But the first thing that popped out of my mouth was “When can I get up?”
In the movies, when the beautiful starlet opens her eyes and comes out of her coma, she does so in full makeup, with every hair in place. By the end of the scene she’s out of bed, drinking champagne, dancing, and lives happily ever after. In real life it’s not as easy as you think to get out of a hospital bed after three years of hibernation.
While Dr. Howard explained all this, he addressed some other aspects of my medical condition. He said there’d be weeks of tests and physical therapy before I could safely be released. He said I could get off the feeding tube, and they would gradually introduce real food into my diet, and see how I responded.
Three years?
That means Kimberly was half-way through college! Afaya could have blown up the airports years ago. Callie, Quinn, Alison…could all be dead by now. And what had happened to Kathleen? I must have scared her to death being unconscious all this time. And Addie must be what, eight years old?
And Darwin. Why hadn’t he killed me already? His people could have waltzed into this cracker box medical room and snuffed me faster than Monika Lewinski blowing out the candle on a one-candle cake. Wait, I thought. Is that reference dated now?
I had to get up and out of here before Darwin got the news of my resurrection. I had to get my cell phone working, had to make some calls and get some help. I didn’t want to involve Kathleen in all this, but I had no choice. Unless the world had turned completely upside down during the past three years, Darwin would know my condition within hours, and my life expectancy would be about as long as a Twinkie in Kirstie Alley’s pantry. Wait. Three years has passed. Maybe she’s lost the weight again. I made a note to catch up on my pop culture first thing.
“Donovan, thank God!”
I looked up and saw Lou Kelly entering the room, followed closely by Nurse Carol.
“Nice haircut,” I said.
“Wait till you see yours!” he said.
“Lou. Turn your back to the doctor and look at me.”
He shrugged. “Okay…”
“Have I been in a coma?”
He nodded.
“How long?”
“Three years, give or take.”
The nurse joined us. Lou said, “Right. Carol, could you get me a newspaper and a magazine and anything else you can find with a recent date on it?”
“How about a movie ticket stub?” she said.
“Perfect.”
“Lou, this is crazy,” I said.
“I know, buddy. But it is what it is. At least you’re back with us. How do you feel?”
“Pissed.”
He laughed. “Same old Creed,” he said.
Dr. Howard continued his examination. The thermometer went in, then out. Th e little thing with the light went in my ears. Then he felt my lymph nodes, checked my pulse, pushed on my stomach, looked up my nose and in my mouth.
Nurse Carol returned with enough evidence to convince me I’d been Rip Van Winkled for more than three years. I tried to get to my feet.
“Whoa,” said the doctor. “You’re still on life support. You can’t get up yet.”
Lou moved to hold me down, but I waved him off .
“Can I at least sit up?”
Lou and the doctor exchanged a look. Lou nodded.
“Lie still a minute,” he said. Th e nurse helped the doctor remove several tubes. She held some gauze against the wounds to stop the bleeding.
“I think you’re out of the woods,” my doctor said, “but I’ll need to keep the rest of the equipment hooked up for twenty-four hours. It’ll help us monitor your brain activity and let us know if you start experiencing seizures.”
“Why am I still alive?” I said.
“Because you’re receiving the best medical care in the world,” Lou said.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”
“Why hasn’t Darwin killed me yet?”
Dr. Howard said, “Let us finish up so you can speak freely. Carol and I don’t want to hear anything that’s unrelated to Mr. Creed’s treatment.”
Five minutes later it was just Lou and me, with the door closed.
“Catch me up,” I said, “starting with last night.”
“You mean—”
“Yeah, I mean the last night I can remember. The night Tara got shot.”
Lou took a deep breath. “Okay. Look, I’ll try to keep everything in chronological order, but I might miss a detail here and there.”
“Just do your best. We can fill in later.”
“Okay.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Before you start, tell me this: is Kathleen okay?”
“She is.”
“Addie?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She’s winding up second grade.”
“Shit. I can’t believe I’ve missed her formative years. She and Kathleen must be devastated. What about Kimberly?”
“Let me save you some time,” he said. “Kimberly, Janet, Callie, Quinn—they’re all alive and well. You want me to go into detail about them now, or you want to hear about that night?”
“Both. But let’s start with Afaya. Did Darwin get him?”
“No, he never showed.”
“Alison?”
“I never thought to ask,” Lou said, “but I’ll find out and let you know.”
“Okay, so tell me about that night. I need to know if my life is in danger.”
Lou said, “I’m the one Callie called when you had the heart thing that night. She told me she’d just shot Tara, and you were having a heart attack.”
“She tell you the details about shooting Tara?”
“Later on, yes, but at that moment she was in a panic. She thought you were dying, but she couldn’t call 911 because there was no time to hide Tara’s body or clean up the crime scene. Blood spatter was everywhere, including your clothes.”
“Makes sense. The EMS guys find blood, they’d have to call the cops.”
“Exactly. Plus, all this happened in your hotel room, a room filled with your fingerprints, and—well, you get the picture.”
“She had to move fast.”
He nodded. “We were lucky this happened in Boston, where we’re thick with support. I called two cleaning crews and caught one of our doctors at home. At the time, I didn’t know about your psychosomatic thing, you’d never shared that with me. So we thought you were in the middle of a full-fledged heart attack. Since we didn’t have time to get our doctors to your hotel room, I told Callie to go up one floor and check for cameras in the hallway. If she didn’t find any, she was to set off a fire alarm.” That’s what she did. Then I told her to get the midget Victor sent to help you—”
“Curly.”
“You remember that?”
“Like it was minutes ago,” I said. “I’m still not convinced it wasn’t.”
“Let’s stay on track. Okay, so Callie stood watch in the hall, waiting until someone exited the room next to you on the far side. When the guy ran out to join the re drill evacuees, Curly broke in, dragged you into that room and called 911. While waiting for EMS, he got your clothes and luggage and put them in the new room. We were lucky, turns out the guy next door to you was alone, a businessman.”
I could see where this was going and didn’t like it.
“What happened to the businessman?”
“Callie needed his ID and other information for the preliminary report. So she followed him down the steps. When they got outside she struck up a conversation with him.”
Lou paused to make sure I caught the implication.
“When was his body found?”
“Sometime the next day.”
I shifted my body in the bed and thought about the way I plow through life, the wake of bodies I leave behind. I instinctively touched my hand to my chest.
“You okay?” Lou said.
“Surprisingly, yes.”
Lou continued: “EMS got to the hotel about the same time as the firemen, and put you on a gurney. By then, Callie was back in the room and she followed along and climbed into the ambulance with you. Curly was in his car by then, following you. Callie let them drive a few minutes, pulled a gun on the EMS guy in the back and made them stop the truck. Curly pulled up, got out of his car, put a gun on the driver, and Callie made the EMS guys load you into Curly’s car. He drove you to the air ambulance while Callie shot the EMS guys. She ditched their bodies and drove their vehicle to the airport, where she was met by the second cleaning crew. They did their magic on the EMS truck, drove Callie to the FBO, where she boarded our jet to fly here. She beat you here by half an hour, but you were in the medical chopper getting the best care possible. The Chopper landed, and you’ve been here ever since.”
I said, “I assume the first cleaning crew did a good job on the hotel?”
“By the time they finished, you couldn’t prove humans had ever entered it.”
“Where did Darwin fit in all this?”
“See, that’s the thing. Callie called me because she was afraid Darwin would blame you for Tara’s death. She wanted me to arrange a meeting so she could tell Darwin what really happened, and why.”
“And you said?”
“I told her she and Curly were never there.”
“So Darwin thinks I killed Tara?”
Lou nodded. “He thought you killed her and then got the heart thing because you’d been close to her in the past. Remorse, or whatever.”
“So why didn’t Darwin have me killed?”
“See, Darwin was getting ready to kill Tara anyway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He had already approached me about having you do it.”
All this could have been avoided, I thought.
“What stopped him from giving me the hit?” I said.
“He thought you might be too close to her. He wanted to try someone else.”
“There was no one else capable of killing Tara.”
“That’s what he found out.”
“Who’d he send?”
“A couple of mafia guys. After that didn’t work, I told him I’d talk to you about doing it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I was about to, but that whole thing came up with Afaya, and he told me to wait until you got back from Dallas. Then you wanted to spend a few days with Kathleen and Addie, so I put it off .”
Timing is a funny thing. But this explained why Tara wanted to kill me. She thought I’d been sent to finish the job the mafia guys botched.
“So Darwin thinks you told me to kill Tara, and I did. So he’s happy?”
“In general,” Lou said, turning to open the door.
“What does that mean?”
Lou turned back to face me.
“He didn’t like the part about you being out of commission all these years.”
No surprise there.
“What does Darwin know about my heart issue?”
“He backtracked. He found the doctor that treated you after the Camptown incident…”
“Dr. Hedgepeth.”
“Right. And Hedgepeth led Darwin to the psychiatrist…”
“Nadine Crouch.”
“Right, and, if you’ll raise up and look over my shoulder…”
“That’s not necessary,” Dr. Nadine Crouch said, entering the room. “I’ll come closer.”
Chapter 41
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“This might come as a surprise to you, Donovan, but I’ve worked for Homeland Security longer than you have.”
“What?”
“I was on the payroll before the helicopter brought you from Camptown.”
“Dr. Hedgepeth personally recommended you. Are you saying he’s with Homeland too?”
“No. When you arrived at the hospital, Darwin was in close contact with Dr. Hedgepeth. He got the results of your tests before you did. When Hedgepeth decided you might require psychiatric evaluation, Darwin told him to recommend me. He felt it was best to use an in-house psychiatrist.”
“Your practice just happened to be in Newark?”
“Philadelphia. We had to move my practice to Newark to accommodate you. We worked a deal with Agnes Battle, the child psychologist, to sublease her back office.
My mind was swimming, but I’m a great detail guy. “The antique coat rack in the office seemed out of place. Was that yours?”
Dr. Crouch laughed. “Funny you should notice that. Homeland gave the office a complete makeover. When Agnes realized the coat rack didn’t go with it, she gave it to me as a present. I felt obligated to keep it.”
“So you’ve known all along what I did for Homeland?”
“Not specifically. Darwin told me almost nothing at first. He wanted me to report your comments to him. But he filled me in just before your last visit.”
“I remember thinking at the time that you were awfully astute, for having known me such a short time.”
“I’m still astute. For example, I can see that you’re handling your current situation with an amazing degree of calm.”
“How did you know I’d be conscious today?”
“I didn’t. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to wake up.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I arrived a month after you did.”
I laughed. “They paid you all this time to wait for me to wake up? That’s hard to believe.”
“I’m stationed here because of you, but remember, I work for Homeland, so I’ve got other duties and responsibilities. Of course, you’re quite an asset to them, and now that you’re awake, you’re my main concern.”
“How much have they told you?”
She looked at Lou. “As far as I know, everything.”
Lou said, “She knows most of what you’ve done for us. She’s got a general understanding about your work with Sal. She has specific knowledge about the contracts you fulfilled for Victor, and the thing with Tara.”
“Well, that’s all in the past,” I said.
“Is it?” Nadine said.
“According to you guys, I’ve just lost three years of my life. Three years I could’ve been with Kathleen and Addie. Three years I could’ve spent building my relationship with Kimberly. Yeah, I’m done. I’m done with all this bullshit. I’m going to get out of this nuthouse, marry Kathleen, and be a proper father to Addie.”
Dr. Crouch looked at Lou. “Should I leave?” she said.
Lou frowned. “I’m going all in. You definitely need to stay.”
