Page 10 of Brain Damage

It’s a man. He’s wearing a dark suit with a tie. He’s tall with a shiny bald head that reflects the lights on the ceiling. He looks important. And scary.

The older woman looks up, then quickly murmurs into her phone: “I have to go now. That detective is here.” She pauses as the man waits. “No, I don’t know. If you’re so interested, why don’t you call him yourself!”

She shoves the phone into her purse without another word. She closes her eyes for a moment then opens them again.

“Detective Simpson,” she says. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to come here. You promised me. I don’t want to upset her.”

The man shakes his head. “I need to talk to Charlotte. I need to get a statement.”

So it turns out my name is Charlotte. Someone finally told me. Anyway, since I am Charlotte, I guess that means he wants to talk to me. Which means he is not going to go away until I do what he says or else the time is up.

“A statement?” the older woman snorts. “Does she look like she’s in any condition to give you a statement?”

“I know you want to find out who did this to her, and the trail will get colder every day we wait.”

“It’s been over a month,” the woman snaps at him. “The trail is about as cold as it’s going to get.”

They keep staring at each other, the man and the older woman. The man takes his arms and folds them across his chest so that his suit creases.

“Mrs. McKenna,” he says. “I would think that you of all people would want to see justice brought to the person who shot your daughter.”

“I told her it was dangerous to live so close to the park,” the woman murmurs. “I told her a hundred times. She never listened to me and now…”

Her eyes fill up with tears and she looks away.

“If we could track the jewelry that’s missing…” the man says.

The woman snorts. “What a waste of time. Is this what our taxpayer dollars are being used for? You should have spent more manpower when she first got shot, when there was actually a chance of catching him.”

“There were no matchable fingerprints,” the man says. “No eyewitnesses. And the weapon was your daughter’s own gun, so it wouldn’t have helped to trace it to a dealer.”

“God only knows what Charly was doing with a gun,” the old woman mutters. “She really must have lost her mind.”

“Also,” the man adds, “there’s the matter of the rather large life insurance policy that Charlotte had. You know, her husband stood to gain two million dollars.”

“No,” the old woman says firmly. “Clark never would have…”

“We just have to explore all avenues…” He pauses. “What if she’s still in danger?”

The woman is quiet for a moment, as if this possibility hadn’t occurred to her before. Could I still be in danger? I have figured out someone tried to hurt me, but I’m safe now. They can’t get me here in the hospital.

Can they?

“Fine,” the woman says in a choked voice. She turns away from both of us. “Go ahead, ask her your questions. Explore your avenues. Do what you need to do. I just… I don’t want to be here…”

The older woman races out of the room, leaving me alone with the man. His shoulders sag slightly, and he lets out a long sigh. Suddenly, he does not seem quite so scary anymore, so it’s okay that I am alone with him. He pulls a notebook and a pen from his pants pocket.

The pen has a red cap.

“Now Charlotte,” the man says to me. “What can you tell me about the night of October ninth?”

I stare at the red cap of that pen. Keep your eyes open, Charly. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t…

8

BEFORE

I had planned to run a marathon next month. That’s not going to happen. My training is completely screwed.