The Pain Nurse - [8]

“Can I wheel you somewhere, so we can talk? Where’s that pretty wife of yours?”

“She’s working. I can wheel myself.” And Will could, until he started hurting too badly. “There’s a Starbucks down by the lobby.”

“How are you two doing? You and Cindy.”

“We’re okay. We’re good.”

“That’s good.” Mueller sounded skeptical. Then: “Love conquers all, huh?”

After a few minutes, they had navigated the crowded hallways, out of neuro-rehab, down the corridor behind the emergency room and into the bright, glassy expanse of the main concourse.

“So Dodds is working this homicide?” Will asked after they had coffees. He clutched his cup in both hands.

“How you doing?” Mueller countered.

This innocuous question had assumed the complexity of quantum physics. Before the tumor, Will could give the expected answer without a thought. Nobody really wanted more. Doin’ fine. Now everything about his life was contained in the unstated. No matter how hard he worked, he could barely move his left leg, his most violent command from the brain translating into a murmur in his toes, like a broken clock pendulum. Vast tracts of his belly, buttocks, and right leg were dead to the touch, as if a deranged dentist armed with Novocain had repeatedly attacked him. He was put in the shower so rarely, and getting in was so painful, that he could smell himself like some street person he used to roust. He was constipated. He hurt for hours. Every movement was difficult. Nobody wanted to hear all that.

He said, “I’m okay. The docs seem pleased. The tumor was not malignant. They think they got it all. I need to get into rehab.” He knew he was lucky or blessed to be alive, that he could have been killed or put into a wheelchair permanently. Yet he felt exhausted. He was working hard to keep it from showing.

Mueller half nodded. Will’s mind went back to the homicide, an easy leap from thinking about pain, a dead leg, and Judge Judy.

“Dodds needs to follow the MO,” Will said. “This woman was killed…”

“I know. On the surface it appeared similar to the Mount Adams Slasher. Dodds told me he saw you. You know, big guy, I had my appendix taken out last year, and for the first day I hardly knew where I was. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you were probably kind of out of it that night…”

Will put the coffee on a table and shifted in the wheelchair. The maneuver required him to push down with his arms and swivel his hips. Instantly his back flared in agony. He whispered, barely in control, “I know what I saw. If Dodds…”

“I don’t want to hear about you and Dodds. You’re like an old married couple fighting. He feels like you deserted him when you left homicide. Anyway, that detail’s got its hands full right now. Three nights ago a P &G executive was shot and killed on a street in Over-the-Rhine. You know Procter rules this town. Mayor’s going nuts. Dodds’ partner, Linda Hall, she’s off on maternity leave. So he’s working solo. This doctor was probably just a victim of a random crime. I see the street people just wandering through the halls. Gangbangers. Dodds will clear it.” He looked around. “Should you even be out here?”

“Who knows?” Will said, forcing a conversational voice. “Better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.”

“An interesting statement from an Internal Investigations cop.” Mueller didn’t smile. “I talked to your doctors.” He paused as a loud procession of family members went by, bearing stuffed animals, headed to the children’s wing. He nervously scratched the back of his right hand. As a patrolman, Mueller had been nicknamed Scaly, because of some kind of skin ailment that made him itch constantly. Officers complained that the seats and steering wheels of patrol cars inhabited by Mueller on a previous shift always had a dusting of flaked skin. At some point, he had gone to a doctor, but the name had stuck: Scaly Mueller. Now he only scratched when he was in uncomfortable situations.

“I talked to your doctors,” he repeated.

“They say I will walk again.”

Mueller lowered his eyes and sucked in his lips. “Come on, Will,” he said finally, “you’re in a wheelchair. I know that’s hard to accept. I can’t even imagine… Best case, you’ll always use a cane. And that’s okay. My gosh, things could have been so much worse. But you face a tough rehab and you’ll never be able to be…”

“You talked about a desk job,” Will quickly interposed. “Why not? We have wounded officers who are technically disabled, but the department finds a place for them. I can still do internal affairs, white-collar crime. I’m good at what I do.”

“You weren’t wounded,” he said. “Those guys, they have a story to tell, the public loves them and we benefit from their continued service. You know the way of the world. Why are you so fired up to keep mucking out this sewer anyway? Had a deal down in Walnut Hills last night. You see the paper? Dispatch lost contact with two uniforms on a domestic. One of them ends up shot dead. Young guy, twenty-three, one kid. Jeez. Now the hospital killing is yesterday’s news. There’s going to be hell to pay at communications. Chief is already all over my ass for a report. Why would you miss that? Hey, today is the first day of the rest of your life.”