Anger rose in my throat. I swallowed it and drank some more of the cooling coffee, but it just made me more nauseous. There was a water fountain by the coffee machine. I got up, drank some water, then dumped the coffee into the drain and refilled the cup with water.
“Sorry,” I said when I’d returned to my seat, not sure what I was apologizing for.
“It’s me who should apologize,” Matthias said, running his hand through his hair, which was the colour of wet sand. “I forget sometimes that not all my friends are cops.”
I found it strangely reassuring that Greg Matthias thought of me as a friend, even though I didn’t know him all that well. It made me feel as though my world was a slightly safer place somehow, until I remembered why I was sitting in the emergency waiting room of the hospital.
We turned at the sound of a commotion by the entrance to the ER. The two uniformed cops were confronting a heavyset, middle-aged man who was waving his arms and shouting, trying to push his way past them. It was Norman Brooks. He’d put on weight since the last time I’d seen him.
“That’s Bobbi’s father,” I said to Matthias.
“Yeah,” Matthias said. “Christ, is he drunk?” He got up and went to the entrance. I followed. “It’s all right,” Matthias said to the uniformed cops. “I’ll handle this.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Norman Brooks demanded.
“Greg Matthias. I’m a detective sergeant with the Vancouver police. I’m also a friend of Bobbi’s.”
Brooks glared at me. His chin was stubbly and eyes were bloody and a match would have ignited the alcohol on his breath. Did he drive to the hospital in that condition? I wondered, with a feeling of horror.
“McCall,” he barked. “Where’s my daughter? What the hell’s going on?”
Bobbi’s father and I had never got on. The very first time we’d met, he’d evidently taken an instant dislike to me. I had no idea why; I’d always treated him with deference and respect, but to no apparent avail.
“Mr. Brooks,” Matthias said, taking the older man by the arm, leading him toward the chairs. “Try to calm down, please. Would you like some coffee?”
“Take your hand off me,” Norman Brooks said, trying unsuccessfully to wrench his arm from Matthias’s grasp. “I want to see my daughter, goddamn it.”
“Then settle down,” Matthias said sternly. “Okay?” Brooks glared at him, face flushed. Matthias gave his arm a squeeze that made him wince. “Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Brooks said.
“Because if you don’t settle down, I’ll have these officers arrest you for being drunk and disorderly and you’ll spend the night in jail. Understand?”
“Yeah, yeah. I understand. Now let me see my daughter.”
“Wait here,” Matthias said to me, then led Brooks through the automatic doors into the examination area.
While I waited, the waiting room began to fill up. A man and a woman came arm-in-arm into the ER. They were in their fifties, I guessed, well-dressed and both more than a little inebriated. The knees of the man’s light grey trousers were torn and bloody. They spent a few minutes talking with the triage nurse, then took seats in the waiting area. The woman asked the man if he wanted a cup of coffee. He said, “Yes.” I wanted to tell him not to bother.
A few minutes later a scruffy-looking man came in, wearing filthy jeans, a ratty leather jacket, and a toque that looked as though it had been used to wash floors pulled down over his ears. He cradled his left hand, which was wrapped in a grease-blackened rag that dripped blood on the floor as he spoke with the triage nurse. He too was consigned to a seat in the waiting area.
A woman came in with her son, who looked about eight, and threw up twice while his mother shouted at the triage nurse. They were admitted immediately.
Matthias and Bobbi’s father came back into the waiting room. Norman Brooks looked as though he wanted to kill someone. I couldn’t blame him. Except that evidently the someone he wanted to kill was me. He lurched at me, lifted me out of my chair by the lapels of my jacket, and shoved me hard against the wall.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled into my face, breath sour, spittle flying. “This is your fault.”
Matthias pulled him off me. Although he was shorter than Brooks, and not as heavy, he didn’t have any trouble handling the bigger man. “Mr. Brooks,” he said, marching him to a chair and pushing him down into it, while the middle-aged couple and the scruffy man watched cautiously. “I don’t care if you used to be a cop. I will have you arrested if you don’t pull yourself together. Mr. McCall had nothing to do with your daughter’s attack. If you lay a hand on him again, I will make damned sure he presses charges against you for assault. Do you understand me, sir?”
“It’s all right, Greg,” I said. “He’s upset. So would I be if it was my daughter lying in there.”
“No, it’s not all right. He’s not doing anyone any good acting like a drunken bully. Bobbi or himself.”
Brooks sneered. “I s’pose you think I should be grateful for your sympathy, eh, McCall? Well, I’m not. It’s your goddamned fault she’s in there.”
“How is it my fault, sir? I didn’t attack her.”
He jerked his chin at Matthias. “He said she was working. You should’ve been with her.”
“She’s gone on dozens of jobs on her own,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s just this one that counts, isn’t it?” He waved me away. “Get out of here. Go. You’re not needed here.”
Anger boiled up in me. I wanted to hit him. “If anyone’s not needed here, it’s you,” I said, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached, fists knotted at my sides. “When was the last time you saw her? When was the last time you even spoke to her? She told me the other day she hasn’t seen you in months and that the last time she did see you, you were drunk and feeling sorry for yourself.”
Suddenly, he was on his feet, in my face again, before Matthias could stop him. “She’s still my daughter,” he shouted as I backed away from him. “There’s fuck all you can do about that, you pissant faggot punk. Get out of here. You, too,” he added to Matthias. “Neither of you has any right to be here.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that I had just as much right to be here as he did, maybe more, but Matthias put his hand on my arm.
“Tom, there’s nothing to be gained by arguing with him. Let’s go. I know the staff here. They’ll call me if there’s any change in her condition.”
Brooks smirked as Matthias led me toward the exit.
“Does he know you and Bobbi are seeing each other?” I asked, still seething, as we left the hospital.
“No, I don’t think he does. Although I doubt right now it would make much difference to him.”
“He must’ve been a hell of a cop,” I said.
“Don’t judge a man till you’ve walked in his shoes, Tom. As you said, what if it was your daughter in there?”
My anger evaporated.
“What’s the problem between you and him, anyway?” Matthias asked.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” I said. “Mine seems to be him.”
We rounded the corner onto Oak Street. His personal car, a Saab 950 Turbo, was parked in a restricted zone. I couldn’t remember where I’d parked my Jeep Liberty, which I’d bought to replace my venerable old Land Rover. It was a few minutes