Dead Watch

hollow sounds of voices in tile hallways, and all the drawers; drawers everywhere.
    Cathy Ann Dorn was being wheeled into her room as Jake came down the hall. She lifted a hand and said, “Mr. Winter, I think it’ll be a minute.”
    “We have to get her into bed,” the nurse said.
    “She’s afraid my ass’ll show,” Dorn said.
    Dorn and the nurse went into the room, and two minutes later the nurse came out and said, “She’s got a mouth.”
    “Yes, she does.”

    Dorn was propped up in bed, a bottle of water in her hand, with a bent straw sticking out of it, sunlight slanting through the window across the bed and her covered toes. Jake said, “Hi,” and checked her out, let her see it. Her face was a mottled black, blue, and yellow, with small healing cuts still showing black. Her upper teeth were ragged: broken or completely missing.
    She said, “The surgeon this morning said that they could fix my nose pretty much, but it might not be perfect.”
    “Mmm,” Jake said. “How about the rest of you?”
    “They kicked me pretty bad, they were afraid my liver might be lacerated, but they didn’t have to go in.” She’d started picking up the surgeon talk.
    “So you’ll heal,” Jake said, pulling a chair toward the bed. He sat down and said, “When the oral surgeon finishes with you, your teeth will look better than new. You can even pick your shade of white. You ought to tell them to take it easy with the nose. Keep a little bit of a bump.”
    “What?” She was amazed at the thought.
    “You’re a pretty girl, but prettiness—no offense—straight prettiness can be bland. I could see you with a little bump on your nose; you’d be gorgeous. You’d be network-quality.”
    A light popped up in her eyes. “You think so?”
    “I know so. And I wouldn’t have minded getting a look at your ass—from what I saw down in the hallway, the first time we met, it’s pretty terrific. Another network-quality asset.”
    “It is pretty terrific,” she said. “I work on it.”
    They sat in silence for a moment, and then Jake asked, “What do you think happened? A robbery?”
    She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a robbery, Jake. Arlo did it. His fuckin’ brother, Darrell. Somebody told him I talked to you, and then when you knew about Carl V. Schmidt, they knew I told you—so they caught me and beat me up. Arlo visited and patted my hand and said they miss me.”
    “Did you tell your father that? Did you tell Goodman?”
    “No . . . I’m still thinking about what to do.”
    “Don’t tell anyone,” Jake said. “I was just in Madison, Wisconsin. You’ll be hearing about this in a few days probably . . .” He told her about the killings in Madison. “Things are seriously screwed up, Cathy Ann. Right now, you’re okay. But I wouldn’t mess with Goodman and I wouldn’t have your father mess with him. I would not mention Darrell Goodman to anyone.”
    “They’re just going to get away with it?” She was horrified, in the plain-faced way that young people sometimes were.
    “They’ll get away with it because you can’t identify anyone, and the people in Madison are dead. Knowing he did it, and proving it, are two different things,” Jake said. “On the other hand, we can get the word around to the right people, and absolutely fuck them. They won’t be able to get Goodman nominated as dogcatcher.”
    She looked at him speculatively, and then said, “You’re here for something. Other than to cheer me up.”
    “You said you were smart,” Jake said.
    “I am smart.”
    Jake had decided that the best way to ask was to go straight ahead: “I’d like to get something out of Goodman’s office. I’d like to copy the hard drives on his computer. It’d probably take ten or fifteen minutes. I was hoping you might know somebody, or know some way we could do it.”
    She was shaking her head. “I’d do it, but they won’t take me back. Arlo said that I should take it easy and get back to school and concentrate on my studies. Even if I got back, Dixie—that’s his secretary—watches everything like a hawk.”
    “Shoot.” He scratched his head. What to do?
    “What do you think’s on the hard drives?” Dorn asked.
    “I don’t know. But there’d probably be a lot of e-mail in and out, and I’d dearly love to see it,” Jake said. “I’d like to see who he’s involved with, so that maybe we can catch a couple of them in the net, and get them to talk about