Change Of Heart Part 22

The voice was unfamiliar, halting. "Is Maggie Bloom there?"

"Speaking." I geared up for a zinger to put a telemarketer in her place for disturbing me on a Sunday morning.

As it turned out, she wasn't a telemarketer. She was a nurse at Concord Hospital, and she was calling because I had been listed as Shay Bourne's emergency contact, and an emergency had occurred.

Lucius

You would not have believed it possible, but when CO Smythe came back to life, things actually got worse.

The remaining officers had to give statements to the warden about the stabbing. We were kept in lockdown, and the next day a team of officers who did not normally work on I-tier were brought in on duty. They started our one-hour rotations on the exercise yard and the shower, and Pogie was the first to go.

I hadn't showered since the stabbing, although the COs had given both Shay and me a fresh set of scrubs. We had gotten Smythe's blood on us, and a quick wash in our cell basins didn't go very far to making me feel clean. While we were waiting for our turns in the shower, Alma showed up to give us both blood tests. They tested anyone who came in contact with an inmate's blood, and since that included CO Smythe, his his blood apparently was only one step removed from questionable. Shay was moved in handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a belly chain to a holding room outside the tier, where Alma was waiting. blood apparently was only one step removed from questionable. Shay was moved in handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a belly chain to a holding room outside the tier, where Alma was waiting.

In the middle of all this, Pogie slipped in the shower. He lay there, moaning about his back. Two more COs dragged in the backboard and handcuffed Pogie to it, then carried him to a gurney so he could be transported all the way to Medical. But because they were not used to I-tier, and because COs are supposed to follow us, not lead, they did not realize that Shay was already being brought back to the tier at the same time Pogie was going out.

Tragedies happen in a split second in prison; that's all it took for Pogie to use the handcuff key he'd hidden to free himself, jump off the backboard, grab it, and slam it into Shay's skull, so that he flew face-first into the brick wall.

"Weiss macht!" Pogie yelled-White pride!-which was how I realized Crash-from where he was still being kept in solitary-had used his connections to order a hit on Shay in retaliation for ratting him out and giving his hype kit to the COs. Sully's attack on CO Smythe had just been collateral damage, meant to shake up the staffing on our tier so that part two of the plan could be carried out. And Pogie-a probate-had jumped at the chance to earn his bones by carrying out a murder sanctioned by the Aryan Brotherhood.

Six hours after this fiasco, Alma returned to finish drawing my blood. I was taken to the holding cell and found her still shaken by what had happened, although she would not tell me anything-except that Shay had been taken to the hospital.

When I saw something silver winking at me, I waited until Alma drew the needle from my arm. Then I put my head down between my knees.

"You all right, sugar?" Alma asked.

"Just feeling a little dizzy." I let my fingers trail along the floor.

If magicians are the best at sleight of hand, then inmates have to be a close second. As soon as I was back in my cell, I pulled my booty out of the seam in my scrubs where I'd hidden it. Pogie's handcuff key was tiny, s.h.i.+ny, formed from the fastener of a manila envelope.

I crawled beneath my bunk and wriggled the loose brick that concealed my prized possessions. In a small cardboard box were my bottles of paint and my Q-tip brushes. There were packets of candy, too, that I planned to extract pigment from in the future-a half-empty pack of M&M's, a roll of LifeSavers, a few loose Starbursts. I unwrapped one of the Starbursts, the orange one that tasted like St. Joseph children's aspirin, and kneaded the square with my thumbs until the taffy became pliable. I pressed the handcuff key into the center, then reshaped a careful square and folded it into its original wrapping.

I did not like the thought of profiting in some way from an incident that had hurt Shay so badly, but I was also a realist. When Shay ran out of his nine lives and I was left alone, I would need all the help I could get.

Maggie

Even if I hadn't been listed as Shay Bourne's emergency contact, I would have found him quickly enough at the hospital: he was the only patient with armed guards standing outside his door. I glanced at the officers, then turned my attention to the nurse at the desk. "Is he all right? What happened?"

Father Michael had called me after the attack on CO Smythe and told me Shay hadn't been hurt. Somewhere between now and then, however, something must have gone drastically wrong. I had tried calling the priest now, but he wasn't answering his cell-I a.s.sumed he was on his way, that he'd been called, too.

If Shay hadn't been treated at the prison hospital, whatever had happened must've been pretty awful. Inmates weren't moved off-site unless absolutely necessary, because of cost and security. With the hoopla Shay had generated outside the prison walls, it must have been a matter of life or death.

Then again, maybe everything everything was when it came to Shay. Here I was literally shaking over the news that he'd been seriously injured, when I had spent yesterday filing motions that would streamline his execution. was when it came to Shay. Here I was literally shaking over the news that he'd been seriously injured, when I had spent yesterday filing motions that would streamline his execution.

The nurse looked up at me. "He's just come back from surgery."

"Surgery?"

"Yes," said a clipped British voice behind me. "And no, it wasn't an appendectomy."

When I turned around, Dr. Gallagher was standing there.

"Are you the only only doctor who works here?" doctor who works here?"

"It certainly feels that way sometimes. I'm happy to answer your questions. Mr. Bourne is my patient."

"He's my client."

Dr. Gallagher glanced at the nurse and at the armed officers. "Why don't we go somewhere to talk?"

I followed him down the hall to a small family waiting lounge that was empty. When the doctor gestured for me to take a seat, my heart sank. Doctors only made you sit down when they delivered bad news.

"Mr. Bourne is going to be fine," Dr. Gallagher said. "At least in terms of this injury."

"What injury?" injury?"

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew-apparently, it was an inmate fight. Mr. Bourne sustained a severe blow to the maxillary sinus."

I waited for him to translate.

"His maxilla's broken," Dr. Gallagher said, and he leaned forward, touching my face. His fingers brushed over the bone below my eye socket, tracing toward my mouth. "Here," he said, and I absolutely, positively stopped breathing. "There was a bit of a trauma during the operation. As soon as we saw the injuries we knew that the anesthesia would be intravenous, instead of inhalational. Needless to say, when Mr. Bourne heard the anesthesiologist say that she'd begun Sodium Pentothal drip, he grew quite agitated." The doctor looked up at me. "He asked if this was a dry run for the real thing."

I tried to imagine how it would feel to be Shay-hurt, aching, and confused-whisked away to an unfamiliar place for what seemed to be a prelude to his own execution. "I want to see him."

"If you can tell him, Ms. Bloom, that if I'd realized who he was-what his circ.u.mstances are, I mean-well, I would never have allowed the anesthesiologist to use that drug, much less an IV tube. I'm deeply sorry for putting him through that."

I nodded and stood up.

"One more thing," Dr. Gallagher said. "I really admire you. For doing this sort of thing."

I was halfway to Shay's room when I realized that Dr. Gallagher had remembered my name.

It took several cell phone calls to the prison before I was allowed in to see Shay, and even then, the warden insisted that the officer inside the room would have to stay. I walked inside, acknowledged the CO, and sat down on the edge of Shay's bed. His eyes were blackened, his face bandaged. He was asleep, and it made him look younger.

Part of what I did for a living meant championing the causes of my clients. I was the strong arm, fighting on their behalf, the bullhorn broadcasting their voices. I could feel the angry discomfort of the Abenaki boy whose school team was called the Redskins; I could identify with the pa.s.sion of the teacher who'd been fired for being Wiccan. Shay, though, had sent me reeling. Although this was arguably the most important case I would ever bring to court, and although-as my father pointed out-I hadn't been this motivated in my career in ages, there was an inherent paradox. The more I got to know him, the better chance I had of winning his organ donation case. But the more I got to know him, the harder it would be for me to see him executed.

I dragged my cell phone out of my purse. The officer's eyes flicked toward me. "You're not supposed to use that in here-"

"Oh, p.i.s.s off," I snapped, and for the hundredth time I dialed Father Michael, and reached his voice mail. "I don't know where you are," I said, "but call me back immediately immediately."

I had left the emotional component of Shay Bourne's welfare to Father Michael, figuring (a) my talents were better put to use in a courtroom, and (b) my interpersonal relations.h.i.+p skills had grown so rusty I needed WD-40 before employing them. But now, Father Michael was MIA, Shay was hospitalized, and I was here, for better or for worse.

I stared at Shay's hands. They were cuffed at the wrist to the metal bars of the hospital gurney. The nails were clean and clipped, the tendons ropy. It was hard to imagine the fingers curled around a pistol, pulling a trigger twice. And yet, twelve jurors had been able to picture it.

Very slowly, I reached across the k.n.o.bby cotton blanket. I threaded my fingers with Shay's, surprised at how warm his skin was. But when I was about to pull away, his grip tightened. His eyes slitted open, another shade of blue amid the bruising. "Gracie," he said, in a voice that sounded like cotton caught on thorns. "You came."

I did not know who he thought I was. "Of course course I came," I said, squeezing his hand. I smiled at Shay Bourne and pretended that I was the person he needed me to be. I came," I said, squeezing his hand. I smiled at Shay Bourne and pretended that I was the person he needed me to be.

MICHAEL.

Dr. Vijay Choudhary's office was filled with statues of Ganesha, the Hindu deity with a potbellied human body and an elephant's head. I had to move one in order to sit down, in fact. "Mr. Smythe was extremely lucky," the doctor said. "A quarter inch to the left, and he wouldn't have survived."

"About that ..." I took a deep breath. "A doctor at the prison p.r.o.nounced him dead."

"Between you and me, Father, I wouldn't trust a psy chiatrist to find his own car in a parking lot, much less a hypo tensive victim's pulse. Reports of Mr. Smythe's death were, as they say, greatly exaggerated."

"There was a lot of blood-"

"Many structures in the neck can bleed a great deal. To a layman, a pool of blood may look like a huge quant.i.ty, even when it's not." He shrugged. "What I imagine happened was a vasovagal reaction. Mr. Smythe saw blood and pa.s.sed out. The body compensates for shock due to blood loss. Blood pressure lowers, and vasoconstriction occurs, and both tend to stop the bleeding. They also lead to a loss of palpable pulses in the extremities-which is why the psychiatrist couldn't find one in his wrist."

"So," I said, pinkening. "You don't think it's possible that Mr. Smythe was ... well ... resurrected?"

"No," he chuckled. "Now, in medical school, I saw patients who'd frozen to death, in the vernacular, come back to life when they were warmed up. I saw a heart stop beating, and then start up by itself again. But in neither of those cases-or in Mr. Smythe's-did I consider the patient clinically dead before his or her recovery."

My phone began to vibrate, as it had every ten minutes for the past two hours. I'd turned the ringer off when I came into the hospital, as per their policy. "Nothing miraculous, then," I said.

"Perhaps not by your standards ... but I think that Mr. Smythe's family might disagree."

I thanked him, set the statue of Ganesha back on my chair, and left Dr. Choudhary's office. As soon as I exited the hospital building, I turned on my cell phone to see fifty-two messages.

Call me right back, Maggie said on her message. Something's happened to Shay Something's happened to Shay. Beep.

Where are you?? Beep. Beep.

Okay, I know you probably don't have your phone on but you have to call me back immediately. Beep. Beep.

Where the f.u.c.k are you? Beep. Beep.

I hung up and dialed her cell phone. "Maggie Bloom," she whispered, answering.

"What happened to Shay?"

"He's in the hospital."

"What?! Which Which hospital?" hospital?"

"Concord. Where are you?"

"Standing outside the ER."

"Then for G.o.d's sake, get up here. He's in room 514."

I ran up the stairs, pus.h.i.+ng past doctors and nurses and lab technicians and secretaries, as if my speed now could make up for the fact that I had not been available for Shay when he needed me. The armed officers at the door took one look at my collar-a free pa.s.s, especially on a Sunday afternoon-and let me inside. Maggie was curled up on the bed, her shoes off, her feet tucked underneath her. She was holding Shay's hand, although I would have been hard-pressed to recognize the patient as the man I'd talked to just yesterday. His skin was the color of fine ash; his hair had been shaved in one patch to accommodate st.i.tches to close a gash. His nose-broken, from the looks of it-was covered with gauze, and the nostrils were plugged with cotton.

"Dear G.o.d," I breathed.

"From what I can understand, he came out on the short end of a prison hit," Maggie said.

"That's not possible. I was there there during the prison hit-" during the prison hit-"

"Apparently, you left before Act Two."

I glanced at the officer who stood like a sentry in the corner of the hospital room. The man looked at me and nodded in confirmation.

"I already called Warden Coyne at home to give him h.e.l.l," Maggie said. "He's meeting me at the prison in a half hour to talk about additional security measures that can be put in place to protect Shay until his execution-when what he really means is 'What can I do to keep you from suing?' " She turned to me. "Can you sit here with Shay?"

It was a Sunday, and I was utterly, absolutely lost. I was on an unofficial leave of absence from St. Catherine's, and although I had always known I'd feel adrift without G.o.d, I had underestimated how aimless I would feel without my church. Usually at this time, I would be hanging my robes after celebrating Ma.s.s. I would go with Father Walter to have lunch with a paris.h.i.+oner. Then we'd head back to his place and watch the preseason Sox game on TV, have a couple of beers. What religion did for me went beyond belief-it made me part of a community.

"I can stay," I answered.

"Then I'm out of here," Maggie said. "He hasn't woken up, not really, anyway. And the nurse said he'll probably have to pee when he does, and that we should use this torture device." She pointed at a plastic jug with a long neck. "I don't know about you, but I'm not getting paid enough for that." She paused in the doorway. "I'll call you later. Turn on your d.a.m.n phone."

When she left, I pulled a chair closer to Shay's bed. I read the plastic placard about how to raise and lower the mattress, and the list of which television channels were available. I said an entire rosary, and still Shay didn't stir.

At the edge of the bed, Shay's medical chart hung on a metal clip. I skimmed through the language that I didn't understand-the injury, the medications, his vital statistics. Then I glanced at the patient name at the top of the page: I. M. Bourne Isaiah Matthew Bourne. We had been told this at his trial, but I had forgotten that Shay was not his Christian name. "I. M. Bourne," I said aloud. "Sounds like a guy Trump would hire."

I am born.

Was this a hint, another puzzle piece of evidence?

There were two ways of looking at any situation. What one person sees as a prisoner's babble, another might recognize as words from a long-lost gospel. What one person sees as a medically viable stroke of luck, another might see as a resurrection. I thought of Lucius being healed, of the water into wine, of the followers who had so easily believed in Shay. I thought of a thirty-three-year-old man, a carpenter, facing execution. I thought of Rabbi Bloom's idea-that every generation had a person in it capable of being the Messiah.

There is a point when you stand at the edge of the cliff of hard evidence, look across to what lies on the other side, and step forward. Otherwise, you wind up going nowhere. I stared at Shay, and maybe for the first time, I didn't see who he was. I saw who he might be.

As if he could feel my gaze, he began to toss and turn. Only one of his eyes could slit open; the other was swollen shut. "Father," he rasped in a voice still cus.h.i.+oned with medication. "Where am I?"

"You were hurt. You're going to be all right, Shay."

In the corner of the room, the officer was staring at us. "Do you think we could have a minute alone? I'd like to pray in private with him."

The officer hesitated-as well he should have: what clergyman isn't accustomed to praying in front of others? Then he shrugged. "Guess a priest wouldn't do anything funny," he said. "Your boss is tougher than mine."

People anthropomorphized G.o.d all the time-as a boss, as a lifesaver, as a justice, as a father. No one ever pictured him as a convicted murderer. But if you put aside the physical trappings of the body-something that all the apostles had had to do after Jesus was resurrected-then maybe anything was possible.

As the officer backed out of the room, Shay winced. "My face ..." He tried to lift up his hand to touch the bandages, but found that he was handcuffed to the bed. Struggling, he began to pull harder.

"Shay," I said firmly, "don't."