Part 16 (2/2)
”How much do you drink? Please be honest.”
”I get a little drunk on Christmas Eve and New Year's. Well, maybe more than a little drunk. And sometimes on the Fourth of July. Maybe a little tipsy on Valentine's Day. Other than that, I drink a few beers now and then, but I don't really drink much at all.”
”Do you exercise regularly?”
”Almost every day. I ran four miles this morning. I still lift weights some, but not as much as I used to.”
”Were you unusually winded after your run this morning? Unusually tired?”
”Felt the same as always.”
”How would you describe your diet?”
”Normal, I guess.”
”And it says here there's no history of heart disease in your family.”
”Not that I know of. I'm not much of a genealogist, but none of my grandparents died from heart disease. My mother had Alzheimer's, and my father was killed in Vietnam.”
”Yes, I see that here,” he said, tapping on the chart. ”I'm very sorry.”
There was an awkward moment while I waited for him to continue.
”What about stress?”
”I hate that word,” I said. ”Things happen. Things happen to everybody. I deal with it the best I can.”
He nodded methodically. If his skull had been transparent, I could have seen the gears turning inside his brain.
”Are you going through a particularly difficult time right now?”
”How should I put this? Let's just say that some unusual things have happened lately.”
”Well, Mr. Dillard, it appears that you're one of those we can't really explain. You're young, you're fit, and your lifestyle is relatively healthy. There doesn't seem to be any family history that we can doc.u.ment, at least not in the past two generations. It's possible that some plaque has built up on the inside of your carotid artery and is restricting the flow of blood to your brain. A tiny piece of plaque may even have broken off and blocked an even tinier artery in your brain, which caused you to pa.s.s out. I'm going to schedule you for a heart catheter first thing in the morning. We'll go in and take a look around.”
”Fine, but can I leave as soon as you're finished? I need to get back to work.”
A frown came over his face. ”It'll depend on what we find.”
”You won't find anything,” I said. ”This was just a. . . a. . . an anomaly. A freak occurrence.”
”I'll see you at six in the morning,” the doctor said, and he walked out the door.
Caroline walked up next to the bed and reached down for my hand.
”It would be ironic, wouldn't it?” she said.
”What's that?”
”If such a good man wound up with a bad heart.”
Chapter Thirty-One.
There was a steady stream of visitors during the evening. Bates came by, as did Sarah, several people from the office, a few lawyers, Rudy Lane and Caroline's mother. I was grateful for the visits, but I was embarra.s.sed to be in a hospital bed. The last visitor finally left around 9:00 p.m.
”Go home,” I said to Caroline, who was sitting in the chair next to the bed. ”Get some rest.”
”I'm not going home without you. There were two dead men in the driveway this morning, remember? Sarah has taken Gracie and the dogs and gone to my mother's. I'm staying right here.”
In the aftermath of what happened to me in the courtroom, I'd been occupied with doctors and nurses and tests and needles and questions all afternoon. After that, the visitor parade started. But none of the visitors had said a word about John Lips...o...b..or the murder case, not even Bates.
”You're right,” I said. ”You're absolutely right. I must be losing my mind. Have you talked to Jack and Lilly?”
”I called them earlier. I didn't want them to hear about it from somebody else. It's been all over the news. Mother said they showed footage of you lying on the floor in the courtroom.”
”How considerate of them. The kids aren't coming home, are they? It isn't serious. I'm fine.”
”They're worried. They've heard about the bodies in the driveway. That story is going national.”
”It's funny how some things just seem to take on a life of their own, isn't it? When this case first started, when they pulled that poor girl out of the water, I thought it was going to be a drowning, or maybe a simple little whodunit. You know, man and woman get drunk on their boat and get into an argument, man gets too aggressive, accidentally kills the woman, panics and drops her into the lake. But this is nuts.”
”Can you convict them?” Caroline said. ”Now that those two men are dead?”
”I don't know. I guess Bates and I will just have to keep working. Maybe something else will pop up.”
We watched television for a little while. Around ten-thirty, Caroline said she was hungry and was going to the cafeteria. I turned the television off and had just started to doze when I felt a hand pus.h.i.+ng up and down on my chest. A dark figure was leaning over the bed, illuminated only by the lights from the parking lot outside the window.
”Mr. Dillard. Mr. Dillard, wake up.”
The voice was whispering and accented, vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I stared up, trying to focus. And then I realized who it was. Andres Pinzon. The first thought that entered my mind was that he'd probably injected me with some kind of poison and wanted to let me know who was responsible for my death.
”I suppose you're here to kill me,” I said.
”We need to talk.”
”The security in this place stinks.”
Pinzon walked around the bed and sat down in the same chair Caroline had occupied a short time earlier. The place was eerily quiet.
”I need to tell you a story,” he said, and he started talking. He talked briefly about his childhood in Colombia, and then he went into a long story about his relations.h.i.+p with John Lips...o...b..and how it had evolved. He told me about their venture into the cocaine business, about a young girl who died in Lips...o...b..s room and about another young man who was murdered at Lips...o...b..s command. He talked about the fortune they'd made together and the moral compromises he'd made along the way. At one point, he said he'd sold his soul to the devil.
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