Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 38: 45 Minutes Later…

Kane arrived back at his apartment after spending two hours having dinner and a couple of drinks with Ravenwood at the Chinese place down the street from the Precinct building.

He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, plopped himself down in front of the TV and wondered how the hell that ever happened. Did he bring up the idea of having dinner? That didn’t seem likely. Maybe she did. He couldn’t remember. It had been a long day. All he knew was that sometime around 7 p.m. they had both realized they were hungry and one of them said, “Chinese?”

The next thing he knew, they were walking down the street on their way to the Dragon Palace. The thing that mystified him more than the fact that he’d just had dinner and drinks with the one woman whom he’d often wished he’d never met, was the fact that he’d actually enjoyed those two hours. Maybe the first two hours he’d enjoyed in weeks. Months? Their conversation started with talk about the case and about Cowl and something about that Cromwell character but soon, somehow, they were talking about music––what they liked, what they didn’t like––and, before he knew it, he was bragging about his daughter, Sarah, and that she was due home from music camp in just a couple days and how he couldn’t wait to see her. The rest was a bit of a fog.

He slouched back into the couch and took a swig from the bottle. Ravenwood’s not so bad, he thought. A little weird. Great legs. He reached for the remote to click on the TV, then the phone rang.

“Yeah, Kane here. What? Are you sure? What hospital? Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

He grabbed his cell phone and called Ravenwood as he flew out the door.

***

Ravenwood was waiting outside the front of Virginia Mason Hospital when Kane arrived.

He pushed the door open for her and followed her in. “How the hell do you always manage to show up ahead of me?”

She flashed him a wink. “Broomstick.”

They hurried down the hall toward the elevator. When they got there, the doors slid open and Wheeler stepped out.

“Hey, Lieutenant,” Wheeler said. “Glad they got hold of you. I was just leaving.”

“So what’s the story?” Kane asked. “Is it Cowl?”

“Yeah, it’s him all right. Gunshot wound to the head. He’s in a coma.”

“A coma?”

“Yeah. That’s all I know. There’s a doctor up there with him right now. Dr. Halverson, I think his name is.” He pulled his note pad out and checked it. “Yeah, Halverson. He’ll fill you in. You got the room number?”

“Yeah, thanks. Go home. Get some sleep.”

Wheeler left and they took the elevator to the second floor and headed down the hall to room 207.

“Even the room number fits,” Kane said.

Ravenwood turned and looked at him as their hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. “What?”

“Two plus seven. Nine.”

“Why, Lieutenant. I am impressed.”

Kane paused when they got to the room. “Yeah. Scary, ain’t it? You must be rubbing off on me.” He pushed the door open.

The doctor looked up from his patient’s chart and Kane flashed his badge.

“Lieutenant,” the doctor said. He hung the chart on the end of the bed and walked over to greet them. “I was told you were coming.”

Kane introduced Ravenwood and cast a glance over the doctor’s shoulder. “Well, well. The magickal musician. Sleeping like a baby.”

Cowl was hooked up to the standard array of machines and the top of his head was wrapped in crisp white bandages.

“So,” Kane said, “what’s the prognosis? He gonna live?”

The bottom line of Dr. Halverson’s long and complicated reply was that Cowl’s comatose condition was not a direct result of the gunshot wound as the bullet had only grazed his temple. The more likely cause was the blow to the head when he fell onto the hardwood floor. After administering a series of tests, Cowl’s condition registered a fairly high mark on the Glascow coma scale. The doctor explained that meant the chances of recovering from his unconscious state were fair to good.

Kane shook his head. “Fair to good. So what does that mean, exactly?”

The doctor ushered them out of the room as he explained that the patient could wake up as soon as tomorrow or the next day or it could be weeks, possibly even months. There was no way to know for sure.

After a few more questions, Kane and Ravenwood thanked the doctor and took the elevator back down to the lobby.

“Well, this is a hell of a development,” Kane said. “But it might turn out to be of some benefit.”

Ravenwood nodded. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“There you go again.”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious. If Cowl’s still in a coma two days from now, and the day goes by without another incident…”

“It would be a good indicator that Cowl is, in fact, our killer. But if some preacher does keel over that day, branded with weird symbols, his pants down to his ankles and a Batman coin in his mouth…”

“Then we’re back to square one without a suspect.”

“Except maybe Cromwell.”

Ravenwood pursed her lips. “Hmm… I don’t know.”

“Well, in any case, now we’ve got another problem.”

“Yeah. Who shot Rye Cowl?”