By nine-thirty, I was resting quietly in a small, private room on the hospital’s fourth floor. Marino and Janet were outside the door, Lucy at my bedside holding my hand.
‘Has anything else happened with CAIN?’ I asked.
‘Don’t think about that right now,’ she ordered. ‘You need to rest and be quiet.’
‘They’ve already given me something to be quiet. I am being quiet.’
‘You’re a wreck,’ she said.
‘I’m not a wreck.’
‘You almost had a heart attack.’
‘I had muscle spasms and hyperventilated,’ I said. ‘I know exactly what I had. I reviewed the cardiogram. I had nothing that a paper bag over my head and a hot bath wouldn’t have fixed.’
‘Well, they’re not going to let you out of here until they’re sure you don’t have any more spasms. You don’t fool around with chest pain.’
‘My heart is fine. They will let me out when I say so.’
‘You’re noncompliant.’
‘Most doctors are,’ I said.
Lucy stared stonily at the wall. She had not been gentle since coming into my room. I was not sure why she was angry.
‘What are you thinking about?’ I asked.
They’re setting up a command post,’ she said. ‘They were talking about it in the hall.’
‘A command post?’
‘At police headquarters,’ she said. ‘Marino’s been back and forth to the pay phone, talking to Mr. Wesley.’
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘Mr. Wesley or Marino?’
‘Benton.’
‘He’s coming here.’
‘He knows I’m here,’ I said.
Lucy looked at me. She was no fool. ‘He’s on his way here,’ she said as a tall woman with short gray hair and piercing eyes walked in.
‘My, my, Kay,’ Dr. Anna Zenner said, leaning over to hug me. ‘So now I must make house calls.’
‘This doesn’t exactly constitute a house call,’ I said. ‘This is a hospital. You remember Lucy?’
‘Of course.’ Dr. Zenner smiled at my niece.
‘I’ll be outside the door,’ Lucy said.
‘You forget I do not come downtown unless I have to,’ Dr. Zenner went on. ‘Especially when it snows.’
‘Thank you, Anna. I know you don’t make house calls, hospital calls or any other kinds of calls,’ I said sincerely as the door shut. I’m so glad you’re here.’
Dr. Zenner sat by my bed. I instantly felt her energy, for she dominated a room without trying. She was remarkably fit for someone in her early seventies and was one of the finest people I knew.
‘What have you done to yourself?’ she asked in a German accent that had not lessened much with time.
‘I fear it is finally getting to me,’ I said. ‘These cases.’
She nodded. ‘It is all I hear about. Every time I pick up a newspaper or turn on TV.’
‘I almost shot Lucy tonight.’ I looked into her eyes.
‘Tell me how that happened?’
I told her.
‘But you did not fire the gun?’
‘I came close.’
‘No bullets were fired?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Then you did not come so close.’
‘That would have been the end of my life.’ I shut my eyes as they welled up with tears.
‘Kay, it would also have been the end of your life had someone else been coming down that hall. Someone you had reason to fear, you know what I mean? You reacted as best you could.’
I took a deep, tremulous breath.
‘And the result is not so bad. Lucy is fine. I just saw her and she is healthy and beautiful.’
I wept as I hadn’t in a very long time, covering my face with my hands. Dr. Zenner rubbed my back and pulled tissues from a box, but she did not try to talk me out of my depression. She quietly let me cry:
‘I’m so ashamed of myself,’ I finally said between sobs.
‘You mustn’t be ashamed,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you have to let it out. You don’t do that enough and I know what you see.’
‘My mother is very ill and I have not been down to Miami to see her. Not once.’ I was incapable of being consoled. ‘I am a stranger at my office. I can no longer stay in my house – or anywhere else for that matter -without security.’