Chapter 11
  WHILE THE SLATS of ash-gray light slowly lost their meager luster, and sable shadows 
metastasized in sinister profusion, the sentinel silence remained unbroken between Junior 
Cain and the birthmarked man.
  What might have become a waiting game of epic duration was ended when the door to the 
room swung inward, and a doctor in a white lab coat entered from the corridor. He was 
backlighted by fluorescent glare, his face in shadow, like a figure in a dream.
  Junior closed his eyes at once and let his jaw sag, breathing through his mouth, 
feigning sleep.
  "I'm afraid you shouldn't be here," the doctor said softly.
  "I haven't disturbed him," said the visitor, taking his cue from the doctor and keeping 
his voice low.
  "I'm sure you haven't. But my patient needs absolute quiet and rest."
  "So do I," said the visitor, and Junior almost frowned at this peculiar response, 
wondering what was meant in addition to what was merely said.
  The two men introduced themselves. The physician was Dr. Jim Parkhurst. His manner was 
easy and affable, and his soothing voice, either by nature or by calculation, was as 
healing as balm.
  The birthmarked man identified himself as Detective Thomas Vanadium. He did not use the 
familiar, diminutive form of his name, as had the doctor, and his voice was as 
uninflected as his face was flat and homely.
  Junior suspected that no one other than this man's mother called him Tom. He was 
probably "Detective" to some and "Vanadium" to most who knew him.
  
  "What's wrong with Mr. Cain here?" Vanadium asked.
  "He suffered an unusually strong episode of hematemesis."
  "Vomiting blood. One of the paramedics used the word. But what's the cause?"
  "Well, the blood wasn't dark and acidic, so it didn't come from his stomach. It was 
bright and alkaline. It could have arisen in the esophagus, but most likely it's 
pharyngeal in origin."
  "From his throat."
  Junior's throat felt torn inside, as though he'd been snacking on cactus.
  "That's correct," Parkhurst said. "Probably one or more small blood vessels ruptured 
from the extreme violence of the emesis."
  "Emesis?"
  "Vomiting. I'm told it was an exceptionally violent emetic episode."
  " He spewed like a fire hose," Vanadium said matter-of-factly.
  "How colorfully put."
  In a monotone that gave new meaning to deadpan, the detective added: "I'm the only one 
who was there who doesn't have a dry-cleaning bill."
  Their voices remained soft, and neither man approached the bed.
  Junior was glad for the chance to eavesdrop, not only because he hoped to learn the 
nature and depth of Vanadium's suspicions, but also because he was curious-and 
concerned-about the cause of the disgusting and embarrassing episode that had landed him 
here.
  "Is the bleeding serious?" Vanadium inquired.
  "No. It's, stopped. The thing now is to prevent a recurrence of the emesis, which could 
trigger more bleeding. He's getting antinausea medication and replacement electrolytes 
intravenously, and we've applied ice bags to his midsection to reduce the chance of 
further abdominal-muscle spasms and to help control inflammation."
  bags Not dead Naomi. Just ice.
  ice bags. I almost laughed at his tendency to morbidness and self dramatization. The 
living dead had not come to get him: just some rubber ice bags.
  "So the vomiting caused the bleeding," Vanadium said. "But what the vomiting?"
  do further testing, of course, but not until he's been stabilized at least twelve 
hours. Personally, I don't think we'll find any physical cause. Most likely, this was 
psychological-acute nervous emesis, caused by severe anxiety, the shock of losing his 
wife, seeing her die.'
  Exactly. The shock. The devastating loss. Junior felt it now, anew, and was afraid he 
might betray himself with tears, although he seemed to be done with vomiting.
  He had learned many things about himself on this momentous day-that he was more 
spontaneous than he had ever before realized, that he was willing to make grievous 
short-term sacrifices for long-term gain, that he was bold and daring-but perhaps the 
most important lesson was that he was a more sensitive person than he'd previously 
perceived himself to be and that this sensitivity, while admirable, was liable to undo 
him unexpectedly and at inconvenient times.
  To Dr. Parkhurst, Vanadium said, "In my work, I see lots of people who've just lost 
loved ones. None of them has ever puked like Vesuvius."
  "It's an uncommon reaction," the physician acknowledged, "but not so uncommon as to be 
rare."
  "Could he have taken something to make himself vomit?"
  Parkhurst sounded genuinely perplexed. "Why on earth would he do that?"
  "To fake acute nervous emesis."
  Still pretending sleep, Junior delighted in the realization that the detective himself 
had dragged a red herring across the trail and was now busily following this distracting 
scent.
  Vanadium continued in his characteristic drone, a tone at odds with the colorful 
content of his speech: "A man takes one look at his wife's body, starts to sweat harder 
than a copulating hog, spews like a frat boy at the end of a long beer-chugging contest, 
and chucks till he chucks up blood-that's not the response of your average murderer."
  "Murder? They say the railing was rotten."
  "It was. But maybe that's not the whole story. Anyway, we know the usual poses these 
guys strike, the attitudes they think are deceptive and clever. Most of them are so 
obvious, they might as well just stick their willy in a light socket and save us a lot of 
trouble. This, however, is a new approach. Tends to make you want to believe in the poor 
guy."
  "Hasn't the sheriff's department already reached a determination of accidental death?" 
Parkhurst asked. "They're good men, good cops, every last one of them," said Vanadiuin, 
"and if they've got more pity in them than I do, that's a virtue, not a shortcoming. What 
could Mr. Cain have taken to make himself vomit?"
  Listening to you long enough would do it, Junior thought.
  Parkhurst protested: "But if the sheriffs department thinks it's an accident"
  "You know how we operate in this state, Doctor. We don't waste 'A energy fighting over 
jurisdiction. We cooperate. The sheriff can de not to put a lot of his limited resources 
into this, and no one will blame him. He can call it an accident and close the case, and 
he won't get his hackles up if we, at the state level, still want to poke around a little.
  Even though the detective was on the wrong track, Junior was beginning to feel 
aggrieved. As any good citizen, he was willing, even eager to cooperate with responsible 
policemen who conducted their investigation by the book. This Thomas Vanadium, however,