Once a Father

In the doorway, struck by a bolt of either duty or momentary insanity, Bancroft hesitated, then said, “Chief, Westin’s gone.”

The dark look Stone gave him told Bancroft the chief was already aware of this salient piece of information. Bancroft quickly darted out the door before the second wave of fallout began.

The boy had been on Tracy’s mind all night. She didn’t think of him as another burn victim, or even think of him by his name. She thought of Jake as the boy with the sad eyes.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen eyes that sad before.

All things considered, it was a routine enough procedure for her. She’d sedated Jake yesterday before treating his wounds. He’d been bathed in cool water and moist bandages had been applied to the burned skin. Pumped full of antibiotics to prevent any infections from setting in, there was every reason in the world to believe Jake Anderson would make a full and complete recovery, given time.

Still, she’d sat by his bed after she’d returned from feeding Petunia, waiting for Jake to wake up. She didn’t want to have him open his eyes to an empty room. When he’d finally woken up, hours later, she’d gently talked to him, but there had been no response. He’d just lain there, staring at the ceiling.

At first, she’d thought he was disoriented, or frightened, but after a while she realized that he had gone off somewhere, into his own little world. A world where no one and nothing could enter. That included emotional pain. As gently as she could, though it hadn’t been easy for her, she’d told him about his parents. There’d been no response, no reaction.

She was certain that on some level, Jake already knew his parents were dead. He hadn’t cried out for them, hadn’t made a sound at all. As long as he stayed within the confines of the silence he’d created, he didn’t have to admit that he was alone.

Concerned, she’d called down Lydia Sanchez, the head of the child psychology department at the hospital, for a consultation.

Lydia had spent a half hour with the boy, reviewing his files and talking to him. There had been no response for her, either.

“It’s self-preservation,” Lydia had told her outside the boy’s room. “His mind can’t deal with the tragedy, can’t deal with the words, so for him all words are dead. He’s mute.”

“Is he traumatically deaf, too?” Tracy knew there was no physical reason for it. She’d had several tests performed that showed there was no trauma to his brain, no injuries to his auditory nerves and none to his throat or vocal chords.

“No,” Lydia had told her, looking at Jake through the glass that separated the boy from them. “He can hear you. Whether he’s processing the words is another matter. I think he is, but—” she shrugged, uncertain whether she was right or not.

“How long will he stay this way?” Tracy had wanted to know.

“Hard to tell. He might start talking again by this evening. Then again, this might go on for some time.”

“Months?” Tracy guessed.

“Possibly. But doubtful,” Lydia had said in the next breath. “He’s young. They heal faster when they’re young.”

At least she could hope, Tracy thought.

She looked at Jake now, newly changed bandages covering parts of his arms and legs, as well as his torso. His face, because it had been buried beneath his arm, had mercifully been spared. He lay on his back on the egg-crate mattress meant to alleviate some of his discomfort by redistributing his weight. Staring at the ceiling, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she was there. She talked anyway, keeping her voice as bright and cheery as possible.

“We’re going to let you slide for a little while, Jake. But tomorrow, we’re going to get you up and moving. Don’t want those limbs of yours to get soft now, do we?” She looked at him, but there was no indication on his face that he even heard a single word. “You have to exercise your muscles, you know. Use them or lose them. We’ve got a neat physical therapist. Her name’s Randi. Kind of a funny name for a girl, huh?”

There was no response, only the soft sounds of the monitors that surrounded him, keeping tabs on his vital signs.

Tracy pushed on. “But she’s very nice. She’s got a little boy a bit younger than you are, so she knows all about—”

She stopped as the door abruptly opened and two uniformed policemen, grim-faced and very official looking, entered the room.

Tracy’s voice changed to one of authority. “May I help you, Officers?”

Kyle Malloy took the lead. Shorter, stockier, he had no patience with excuses or anything that got in his way. His eyes washed over her quickly, missing nothing and lingering on the soft silhouette evident within the opened lab coat that draped the woman.

“We’re Officers Malloy and Bancroft.” He gestured vaguely to indicate who was who. “We’d like to ask the boy a few questions about what happened at the Lone Star Country Club yesterday.”

She was surprised to see Jake’s eyes shift toward the men, his gaze intent. He wasn’t as unaware of things as he was trying to pretend. It was a hopeful sign, Tracy thought.

She moved protectively to the foot of Jake’s bed, blocking the policeman’s direct access to him. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Bancroft began to say something, but Malloy cut him off. His smile disappeared. “And just who are you?”

“Dr. Tracy Walker.” She saw his eyes go to the ID tag she and the rest of the staff wore on a navy blue string around their necks. She didn’t care for the time delay before he raised them again to her face. “I’m his doctor—”

The smug smile returned to his lips. “We won’t be too long,” Malloy promised her. “But the chief wants us to talk to everyone who was anywhere in the area, and from preliminary indications by the crime scene investigators, this boy had a ringside table with his mama and papa. Can’t have a bomber running around, now can we?”

Tracy resented the slight condescending tone she heard in the policeman’s voice. A lot of people had trouble taking her seriously. She knew that part of it was because, even at thirty, she looked younger than her age. That had always gotten in her way.

But part of the reason for the tone, she surmised, was because of some male superiority thing that was going on inside of Officer Malloy’s head.

Either way, she wasn’t about to allow them to badger Jake.

“No,” she smiled tightly, momentarily playing along with the role she’d been assigned, “we can’t. But Jake still can’t tell you anything.”

“That’s for us to decide, little lady,” Malloy informed her. “You never know when the slightest clue might just break open a case.”

Tired of the game, Tracy dropped her tone. It was time to get these policemen to leave. Though he hadn’t given any outward indication, something told Tracy that their presence here was agitating Jake. If nothing else, she wasn’t about to have them continue talking about the bombing. He was upset enough as it was.

“Please, Officer, I’ve seen Columbo. Spare me the hype. Jake can’t tell you anything because Jake can’t talk.”

Malloy exchanged glances with Bancroft. This was news to them.

After a beat, Malloy decided he wasn’t buying it. The woman was stonewalling him. He wasn’t about to return to the chief to tell him that he’d failed. It was a hell of a lot easier taking on this woman.

“What do you mean he can’t talk? No one said anything about the boy being deaf and dumb.”

Now she knew the man was an idiot. Tracy’s anger took in his all but silent partner as she looked at both of them.

“The correct term,” she informed Malloy tersely, “is hearing-and-speech impaired, and Jake Anderson wasn’t—until the accident.” She looked back at the still, bandaged body in the bed, giving Jake a reassuring smile he didn’t seem to notice or acknowledge. She looked back at the two policemen. “He can hear you, but he doesn’t speak.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him, is there?” Bancroft asked hesitantly. He fumbled when Tracy looked at him strangely. “I mean, there’s no chance that he had any brain damage or anything, right?”

She couldn’t read the other man’s tone. Was that concern or disappointment she heard? Or something else?

“None that any of the tests have revealed. But he’s been through a great deal of trauma caused by the bombing and the fire. He’s sustained burns to over thirty percent of his body, not to mention the fact that he’s suffered personal loss.” She looked from one man to the other, assuming that the two policemen were both sensitive enough to understand the reason for the euphemism she was employing.

Malloy frowned, negating all thoughts of even cursory sensitivity being in the man’s arsenal. “Right, it’s too bad, still, we’ve got this investigation and we need to know what he saw, if anything.”

Moving past Tracy, Bancroft approached the boy. “Did you see anyone maybe running from the scene, or anything unusual at all?”

“Maybe the two of you should be checked out for hearing problems,” Tracy suggested angrily, getting in between Bancroft and the bed. “I just told you, Jake Anderson can’t talk. He hasn’t uttered a single word since they brought him in yesterday.”

Malloy smirked at her, as if he thought that she was being simpleminded. “Maybe he’s just playing a game, honey.”