Watchers

scent of disinfectants that filled the hall, and the sight of a white-robed nun gliding past was enough to make Lem uneasy. Suddenly, he was afraid that the girl was in far worse condition than he had been told, and he voiced his concern to Selbok.
    “No, no. She’s in pretty good shape,” the doctor said. “I’ve sent her parents home, which I wouldn’t have done if there was anything to worry about. The left side of her face is bruised, and the eye is blackened, but there’s nothing serious in that. The wounds along her right side required thirty-two stitches, so we’ll need to take precautions to keep the scarring to a minimum, but she’s in no danger. She’s had a bad scare. However, she’s a bright kid, and self-reliant, so I don’t think she’ll suffer lasting psychological trauma. Still, I don’t think it’s a good idea to subject her to an interrogation tonight.”
    “Not an interrogation,” Lem said. “Just a few questions.”
    “Five minutes,” Walt said.
    “Less,” Lem said.
    They kept at Selbok, and at last they wore him down. “Well . . . I guess you’ve got your job to do, and if you promise not to be too insistent with her—”
    “I’ll handle her as if she’s made of soap bubbles,” Lem said.
    “We’ll handle her as if she’s made of soap bubbles,” Walt said.
    Selbok said, “Just tell me . . . what the devil happened to her?”
    “She hasn’t told you herself?” Lem asked.
    “Well, she talks about being attacked by a coyote . .
    Lem was surprised, and he saw Walt was startled, too. Maybe the case had nothing to do with Wes Dalberg’s death and the dead animals at the Irvine Park petting zoo, after all.
    “But,” the physician said, “no coyote would attack a girl as big as Tracy.
    They’re only a danger to very small children. And I don’t believe her wounds are like those a coyote would inflict.”
    Walt said, “I understand her father drove the assailant off with a shotgun. Doesn’t he know what attacked her?”
    “No,” Selbok said. “He couldn’t see what was happening in the dark, so he only fired two warning shots. He says something dashed across the yard, leaped the fence, but he couldn’t see any details. He says that Tracy first told him it was the boogeyman who used to live in her closet, but she was delirious then. She told me it was a coyote. So. . . do you know what’s going on here? Can you tell me anything I need to know to treat the girl?”
    “I can’t,” Walt said. “But Mr. Johnson here knows the whole situation.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Lem said.
    Walt just smiled.
    To Selbok, Lem said, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I’m not at liberty to discuss the case. Anyway, nothing I could tell you would alter the treatment you’d give Tracy Keeshan.”
    When Lem and Walt finally got into Tracy’s hospital room, leaving Dr. Selbok in the corridor to time their visit, they found a pretty thirteen-year-old who was badly bruised and as pale as snow. She was in bed, the sheets pulled up to her shoulders. Though she had been given painkillers, she was alert, even edgy, and it was obvious why Selbok wanted to give her a sedative. She was trying not to show it, but she was scared.
    “I wish you’d leave,” Lem told Walt Gaines.
    “If wishes were filet mignon, we’d always eat well at dinner,” Walt said. “Hi, Tracy, I’m Sheriff Walt Gaines, and this is Lemuel Johnson. I’m about as nice as they come, though Lem here is a real stinker—everybody says so— but you don’t have to worry because I’ll keep him in line and make him be nice to you. Okay?”
    Together, they coaxed Tracy into a conversation. They quickly discovered that she’d told Selbok she’d been attacked by a coyote because, though she knew it wasn’t true, she didn’t believe she could convince the physician—or anyone else—of the truth of what she’d seen. “I was afraid they’d think I’d been hit real hard on the head, had my brains scrambled,” she said, “and then they’d keep me here a lot longer.”
    Sitting on the edge of the girl’s bed, Lem said, “Tracy, you don’t have to worry that I’ll think you’re scrambled. I believe I know what you saw, and all I want from you is confirmation.”
    She stared at him disbelievingly.
    Walt stood at the foot of her bed, smiling down at her as if he were a big, affectionate teddy bear come to life. He said, “Before you passed out, you told your dad you’d been attacked by the boogeyman who used