The 7th Victim - Alan Jacobson [99]
Hancock leaned back on the couch.
“You said the senator had asked you to leave the house. What time was that?”
He squinted as if blinding sunlight was bathing his eyes. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Around seven. Maybe a few minutes after. I wasn’t looking at the clock.”
“And when did you get back?”
Hancock shrugged, looked across the room at the grandfather clock, as if he were calculating the time by working backwards. “Around eight-thirty.”
Manette consulted her notepad. “Nine-one-one was placed around eight-forty-five.”
“Then it was closer to eight-forty-five,” Hancock said, his hands turning palm up. “Look, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be left alone. I’ve had a really crappy night.”
Vail glanced at the bloody trail in the hallway and thought, Eleanor Linwood could say the same thing.
forty
The doctor stood between Karen Vail’s legs, which were spread wide and resting in stirrups on the birthing table. She had been in labor for six hours, the hospital gown matted down to her slick skin with so for six hours, the hospital gown matted down to her slick skin with so much perspiration it appeared as if she had just stepped out of the shower.
Deacon stood by her side, wiping her forehead with a cold, wet cloth, occasionally feeding ice chips into her mouth.
“Ahhh!” Vail bore down, grabbed the edge of the table, and swore under her breath.
“You can do this, honey,” Deacon said by her ear. “I know it hurts. Try to breathe through it, like we practiced.”
“Ahhh!” Vail winced, then gasped and said, breathless, “Fuck the damn breathing.” She brought her right hand up to her large, contracted abdomen, then winced again.
“It won’t be long,” the doctor said calmly. “The head is crowning. In a minute I’m going to have you push. Not until then. Okay?”
All Vail could manage between clenched teeth was a groan.
Deacon wiped her forehead, leaned close to her ear. “Hang on another few minutes, just another few minutes. Our son’s almost here.”
“Okay, Karen, here he comes,” the doctor said. He pushed his rolling stool away with a flick of his foot, then reached out and placed his fingers atop the baby’s crowning head. A nurse came up alongside and pressed a button on the adjacent monitor. “Go ahead and push,” the doctor said. “We’ll have him out in a jiffy.”
Vail bore down, the strain lifting her torso off the bed. “Ahhh! It burns, it burns!”
“He’s just about through. That’s it, that’s it . . . all right!” The doctor guided the baby’s shoulder through, then straightened up, his face a wide grin. “Congratulations.” He handed the baby to the nurse, who wrapped the child in a small towel and placed him on Vail’s chest. “Do you have a name?”
“Jonathan Taylor,” Deacon said, stroking his baby’s soft cheek.
“Jonathan Taylor Tucker, I like it. . . .”
VAIL’S EYES OPENED, locks of hair pasted to her face, thoughts of Jonathan tickling her mind. Her alarm clock glowed 4:35. She looked around, oriented herself, then began crying. Reliving Jonathan’s birth, she agonized over the life she’d had, the good-natured man Deacon once was, the joy of bringing her son into the world. How different things were now. As tears rolled onto her pillow, Vail scolded herself for never taking the time to appreciate what she had, when she had it.
She made her way into the family room and picked up a photo of Jonathan as an infant. She touched his face, then held the frame to her chest, hugging it, as if the warmth and love could somehow move through the still photo and invigorate his spirit.
“Please wake up,” she whispered.
Vail sat in the family room, sipping hot chocolate and waiting for the sun to rise. The Today Show droned from the television. She watched the small digital clock in the corner of the screen tick away, figuring she would go to the hospital as soon as visiting hours began.
Go there and do what? What could she possibly accomplish by sitting at Jonathan’s bedside? To talk to him, in case he could hear her? For someone whose work revolved around analytic logic, the concept of talking to a comatose