“Good.” She grinned, but her color didn’t improve. “Then let’s roll.” She shot to her feet, and as she passed him in the doorway, her expression softened. “At least they got to him in time, Jeremiah. He’s not dead.”
He inhaled sharply. “I haven’t gotten hold of him yet.”
They took the stairs fast and bolted outside, sunlight spilling out across the city. Sal had gone in, leaving the wood he was carving on his chair. Jeremiah felt as if his chest were being squeezed. He could no longer feel the pain of his cut.
Traffic on I-95 North was light. Mollie, steady behind the wheel, hit the left lane and drove fast. One after another the questions and doubts pounded, crowded Jeremiah’s thinking. One after another, he shoved them aside. Answers would come later. Now, he had to see to Croc.
“There’s a first aid kit in the glove compartment,” Mollie said. “You can change the bandage on your thumb. You cut it whittling?”
He gave a curt nod.
Her quick smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Your concentration must be off.”
By the time they arrived at the hospital, Croc had been admitted to a regular room. They went on up, running into Frank Sunderland in the corridor. He was a tall, stringy, serious officer of the law, and he didn’t look happy. “Whoa, you two,” he said. “Tabak, I want everything you have on this kid.”
The door to Croc’s room was shut. Jeremiah stiffened, refused to let his impatience get the better of him. He told Frank, “I’ve known Croc about two years. He brings me the occasional tip. Half the time it’s nothing. The other half, maybe. He does odd jobs, nothing steady. I don’t know where he’s working now. I’ve never known where he lives. I don’t know anything about his past.” He gave out the facts shotgun style, and kept his opinions to himself. Mollie, he noticed, was staying close, listening to every word. “He says his name is Blake Wilder.”
“ ‘Says’ being the operative word,” Frank said. “As far as we can tell, it’s a phony name. We’re running his prints.”
“I’m not surprised. I always had the feeling Blake Wilder was something he’d pulled off a tombstone or out of a Hardy Boys book. Croc lives in a fantasy world half the time, Frank. Spies, fairies, elves, conspiracies. He listens at keyholes. He’s not a man of action. I don’t see him as a jewel thief.”
Frank sighed irritably, his dark, smart eyes flashing. “Yeah, well, maybe if you’d told me about him sooner—”
“There was nothing to tell. Still isn’t.”
“Damned reporters. What about this jewel thief story? It’s not your thing, Tabak. What’re you doing sniffing around in it?”
Jeremiah debated a moment, his instincts on alert anytime a cop was asking the questions and he wasn’t. “Croc put me onto it.”
“How?”
“Asked me to look into it.” In Jeremiah’s opinion, there was no need to bring up Croc’s Mollie-Lavender-as-common-denominator theory. “He believed there was a single thief at work even before the police did.”
Frank frowned, suspicious. “How come?”
“He refused to say. I’ve been at his throat about holding back on me right from the beginning. Frank, I don’t have anything. If I did—” He tightened his hands into his fists. “Damn it, maybe that kid wouldn’t be in there—”
“All right, all right. Go see him. You want to hire him a lawyer?”
“Give me a minute. By the way,” he said, touching Mollie’s arm, “this is Mollie Lavender.”
Frank looked grim. “I figured. Go ahead, Miss Lavender. We can talk after.”
Jeremiah pushed open the door to the double room. The first bed was unoccupied. The second bed, along the window, held a bandaged, bruised, miserable-looking Croc. He barely made a rumple in the bed covers. Most of his head was bandaged—his neck, his right arm, both hands. His eyes and nose had swelled up, his mouth was cut and stitched, his jaw was wired shut. He was hooked up to an IV.
An attractive, fiftyish nurse was fiddling with his IV line. “How is he?” Jeremiah asked.
“He’s dozing at the moment. He’s been very restless, agitated, and he’s in a great deal of pain. His medication is helping.”
“Will he need surgery?”
“I don’t believe so, but you’d have to speak to his doctor. Right now the best thing we can do is to let him rest.”
“He’s been worked over pretty good,” Jeremiah said, more to himself than to either Mollie or the nurse. Rage clouded his eyes. Croc, he thought. Jesus. But he needed to stay focused, think, make the right moves now, before it was too late.
“Yes, I’m afraid whoever did this to him—” The nurse shuddered. “I don’t want to think about it.”
Mollie, pale and breathing shallowly, said nothing.