After a pause, then a prolific hawking of phlegm, the disembodied voice said, “Let her in.” The policeman’s eyes flicked side to side, unprepared for this scenario. At last he regarded Nikki’s ID once more, handed it to her, and stood back to let them pass. As she and Rook entered the room, they could hear the policier making a call on his walkie-talkie to cover himself.
For Nikki the scene behind the curtain took her right back to February in St. Luke’s Roosevelt, where Rook had been clinging to life after his shooting. Tyler Wynn, frail and propped up on one side to keep the left half of his back elevated off the mattress, watched her through dazed, half-mast eyelids. Then he managed to bring a weak smile to his dry, cracked lips. “My God,” he said. “Look at you. It’s like I died and went to heaven and met up with dear Cindy.” And then a rascally twinkle shined through. “I am still alive, aren’t I?” He laughed, but that brought on deep, painful coughing. He held up his palm to signal them not to worry, and when it subsided, he drew in some oxygen from the clear tube under his nose. “Sit, please.”
There was only one chair, and Rook pulled it up bedside for Nikki, carefully avoiding the batch of cables snaking from under Tyler’s sheets to the array of monitors. She briefly introduced Rook as he found a path around to the foot of the bed and the windowsill where he perched. “The magazine writer,” he said. “Right. Pardon me for not getting up.” He briefly lifted both arms, which were connected to multiple IV drips. “Bad combination, three gunshots and a bad heart.”
“You’ll tell us when you need us to go, promise?” she asked.
Tyler Wynn just smiled and said, “Look at all these machines. The French sure like to make a grand spectacle of everything, don’t they? Cooking, cinema, sex scandals, les hopitaux. This country perfected modern medicine, but before that, I’m told, they used to operate without anesthetic. Didn’t even wash their hands. So I guess, all in all, I’m lucky.” He rolled his head her way on the pillow and stared. “Everybody tell you how much you look like your mom?”
“All the time. It’s a compliment.”
“You know it.” He took her in some more and then said, “I heard you tell my personal gendarme you were investigating a homicide.”
“Yes, I’m with the NYPD.”
“I read that article.” He cocked an eyebrow at Rook. “Looks like you got more than a byline, young man.”
“No complaints,” he said.
There was so much Nikki wanted to talk over with him; so many questions she wanted to get answers to in order to fill those gaps in her connection to her own mother. And there were some questions she was afraid to ask. But one look at the old man told her this wouldn’t be a long visit. She made a decision to prioritize and start with the case essentials. Crude as that might be, first and foremost, she had an investigation to conduct. Heat knew all about putting her personal needs to the side. They would have to wait for later or the next visit.
“Mr. Wynn,” she began, but he interrupted.
“Tyler. Or Uncle Tyler. Your mom called me that.”
“OK, Tyler. I’m assuming from the guard you’ve been assigned that they didn’t catch whoever did this to you. Do you have any idea who it was?”
“It’s a crazy world. Even Europe is getting gun happy.”
“Were you robbed?”
“Nope. Still got my gold Rolex. At least if the night orderly didn’t steal it.”
“Did you see who did it?”
He shook no. Then he told her, “That look on your face is the same one the police inspector had when he interviewed me. Sorry.”
From his perch, Rook asked, “When did this happen?”
The old man’s eyes found the ceiling. “Give me a minute. I was under a few days, so time is a little fuzzy, know what I mean?” Rook understood. “Tuesday night last week, late. How come?”