Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(78)

“No,” Gomez answered flatly. “And I’m not about to either. I’ve already had my ass handed to me once, so I ain’t looking to do it again.”

“But, if there’s a chance the boy’s innocent—”

“Innocence or guilt have nothing to do with it. This is about revenge!”

“Revenge? Why would you—”

“Not me, stupid! Carmella Klaussner!”

“The store owner’s wife?”

“Yeah. She’s sure the kid’s the shooter and wants him punished.”

“Even so, how does she figure into—”

“Connections! She’s got somebody at the newspaper.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Gomez snapped. “She threatened it last time, and look what happened. I’m not messing with her again. If you do anything, it’s on your head.”





Mahoney hung up the telephone and checked his watch. It was three-forty. He’d promised Christine he’d be home in time for dinner. If he left now he could make it to the hospital and back before seven. Close enough. He called home, told the answering machine he might be a few minutes late, then left.

When he pulled out of the parking lot, he was certain Carmella Klaussner would be at the hospital. She was almost always there. Day after day she arrived early in the morning and stayed until long after the other visitors had gone home. She sat next to her comatose husband and seldom left his side.

Mahoney knew he’d find her there. What he didn’t know was that three days earlier Sidney Klaussner had opened his eyes and began to remember.





The Telling Story



Carmella Klaussner saw Mahoney when he stepped off the elevator. She’d seen him coming and going, visiting the shooter, consoling the kid, doing everything he could to set a guilty man free. “What now?” she wondered aloud.

Leaving Sidney to finish the pudding on his tray, Carmella rose, stepped outside the door, and confronted Mahoney before he got to the room.

“What do you want?” she said, her words clipped and short.

“I have a few questions I’d like to—”

“You have some nerve!” Carmella shouted. “Why, I wouldn’t give you the right time of day, let alone answer any questions!”

“It’s just that—”

“Just nothing! I know what you’re trying to do. You’re one of those bleeding hearts. You want me to feel sorry for the kid, but I don’t. He deserves whatever he gets!”

“What if he’s innocent?”

“Innocent?” Carmella’s voice grew so loud it ricocheted off the walls and bounced back as an echo. “He’s not innocent. My Sidney shot him! Sidney is a God-fearing man, never in million years would shoot someone unless—”

Mahoney interrupted. “What if Sidney was aiming at someone else, and the kid just got in the way?”

Carmella’s face turned as red as the inside of an overripe watermelon. “Get out of here!” she screamed. “Get out, and don’t come back. There ought to be a law protecting people from the likes of you!” Before Mahoney could get another word in, she whirled on her heel, stormed back into Sidney’s room, and closed the door behind her. By then Carmella’s heart was thumping with such force you could see her chest rising and falling.

Mahoney watched as she walked away. The light in Sidney’s room was on, and through the plate glass window he saw it. Sidney Klaussner was sitting up in the bed. Maybe Sidney had the answers; maybe not. It would depend on how much he remembered. With Carmella on the rampage, it would be impossible to try to question him right now, but if Mahoney waited...

Luckily Barbara Walsh was on duty. After letting Mahoney down last time, she owed him. He walked over to the nurses’ station and started up a conversation.





Sidney Klaussner had been married to Carmella for more than thirty years. He knew her moods as well as he knew the roundness of her body and the timbre of her laugh. She was a kind woman, a patient woman, a woman who didn’t anger easily—a woman whose behavior was uncharacteristic of what he’d seen outside his hospital room. He waited until she sat down and let go of a deep sigh; then he asked, “Who was that?”

Still tight lipped and red-faced, Carmella answered, “That detective from Northampton.”

“Northampton?” Sidney repeated curiously. “What did he want?”

Caught up in a burst of anger and forgetting she’d been told not to keep reminding Sidney of his experience, she answered, “He wants to get the kid who shot you off scot free. Can you imagine? The nerve—”

“What kid who shot me?”

“The robbery at the store. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember the robbery. But I don’t remember any kid.”

“He was one of the robbers—tall, lanky, sixteen or seventeen years old.”

“One of the robbers?”

Carmella nodded. “You shot this one, but the other one got away.”

Since they’d already started talking about it, Carmella saw no harm in showing Sidney the newspaper. She reached down and pulled her copy of the Wyattsville Daily from the lower shelf of the bedside table. “This is the kid,” she said, thrusting the paper in front of him.