The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [252]
“Osborn’s here, McVey. He’s all right,” Remmer said,
Pulling off his own oxygen mask, Osborn moved to take McVey’s hand and saw the detective staring up at him. “We’ll be to the hospital soon,” Osborn said, trying to reassure him.
McVey coughed, his chest heaved painfully and he closed his eyes.
Remmer looked to the German doctor.
“He’ll be okay,” Osborn said, still holding McVey’s hand. “Just let him rest.”
“The hell with that. Listen to me.” Abruptly McVey’s grip tightened on Osborn’s hand and his eyes opened. “Salettl—” McVey paused, breathed deeply, then went on. ‘—said—Lybarger’s physical therapist—the girl—would be on—”
“The morning plane to L.A.!” Osborn finished for him, his words coming in a rush. “Jesus Christ, he said it for a reason! She’s got to be alive. And here, in Berlin!”
“Yes—”
128
* * *
THE PRIVATE room on the sixth floor of Universitäts Klinik Berlin was dark. McVey had been checked into the room and then taken to the burn unit, Remmer had gone to have his broken wrist X-rayed and set, and Osborn had been left alone. Dirty and exhausted, hair and eyebrows singed so short he thought he could have passed for Yul Brynner or a marine grunt, he’d been examined, bathed and put to bed. They’d wanted to give him a sedative but he’d refused.
Berlin police scouring the city for Joanna Marsh, Osborn should have simply drifted off, but he didn’t. Maybe he was overtired, maybe a minor case of cyanide poisoning had a side effect that nobody knew about and worked like an adrenaline rush that kept you pumped up. Whatever it was, Osborn was wide awake. He could see his clothes along with McVey’s rumpled suit hanging in the closet. Past them, through the open door, he could see the central nurses’ station. A tall blonde was on duty, talking on the phone and at the same time making an entry into a computer workstation in front of her. Now a doctor came in making late-night rounds, and Osborn saw her look up and wink as the doctor stopped to scrutinize some paperwork. How long had it been since he’d made hospital rounds? Had he ever? It seemed he’d been in Europe for eons. A doctor in love had, in quick turn, become a pursuer, a victim, a fugitive and, finally, a pursuer again with policemen from three countries as allies. And in that he had shot to death three terrorist gunmen, one of whom had been a woman. His life and practice in California existed only in vague memory. There, but not. In a way it mirrored his life. There, but not. It had all happened because he had never been able to put to rest the death of his father. And after everything, it was still not done. That was what was keeping him awake. He’d tried to find the answer on the bodies of Scholl and Salettl. There was none. And it had seemed to be journey’s end until McVey had remembered what Salettl had said. He may or may not have been telling them to find Joanna Marsh. She might have some kind of answer, she might be completely innocent. But she was a piece still hanging, as Scholl had been after the death of Albert Merriman. So the journey was not yet done. But with McVey down and out for who knew how long, the question became—How to continue?
129
* * *
BAERBEL BRACHER, her small dog tugging at his leash, Stood talking to homicide inspectors from Polizeipräsidium, Berlin’s central police station. Baerbel Bracher was eighty-seven and it was 12:35 in the morning. Her dog, Heinz, was sixteen and had bladder problems. She walked him as often as four times a night. Sometimes five or more on a bad night. Tonight had been a bad night; she’d been out for the sixth time when she’d seen the police cars and then the policemen and teenagers gathered around the parked taxi.
“Yes, I saw him. He was young and handsome and wearing a tuxedo.” She stopped as the coroner’s van arrived and the coroner and white-coated assistants got out and approached the cab. “At the time I thought it strange a good-looking man in a tuxedo should