He winced and jumped.

“Sorry, I know it stings.”

He wrinkled his nose. “It stings and it stinks.”

“It’s infected.”

She worked in silence. A minute passed, then another.

Donatti said, “You have a light touch.”

“Good.”

“You’re not very squeamish for a religious woman.”

“That’s a non sequitur.”

“You’ve done this before.”

A statement, not a question. “Yes.”

“Nursing the lieutenant’s gunshot wounds?”

“Actually, yes, I’ve done that. But my experience goes beyond that. When I first got married, I lived in Israel… during the Lebanon invasion, about eighteen years ago. I lived in what you people in America call a settlement way back when it really was a settlement—”

She stopped talking, needing to concentrate for a moment.

“Today these settlements are actually towns. Besides, I prefer to think of it as resettlement, but that’s my bias talking. Anyway, a group of us pioneer women decided to do our bit for our soldiers on the front lines. Six of us went up North to help out. I was all of twenty. There was this medical camp at the border—makeshift of course, but it had good equipment. There were around… oh, fifty beds maybe. The first day there was awful—the moaning, the groaning, the wounds, the smells, the injuries. The second wasn’t any better. But by the end of a week, you either leave, or you do something useful. Once you’ve learned, you never forget.”

Donatti was stunned. “So what did the lieutenant do while you were nursing soldiers?”

“I suppose he was doing police work in Los Angeles.” She threw pus-filled swabs into the garbage and regarded his eyes. “I wasn’t married to Lieutenant Decker back then, Christopher. I lived in Israel with my first husband.”

Donatti was silent. Then he said, “You’re divorced?”

“Married at seventeen, two baby boys by twenty, a widow at twenty-four.”

Donatti raised his eyebrows, then stifled a yelp.

“Sorry. I need to clean out this fold. It’s a little deep.”

The room fell quiet.

Donatti said, “So Decker’s not the father of your sons.”

“Not the biological father, no.”

“Does he get along with them?”

“Very well actually.”

“How’d you meet him? Decker?”

“My first husband and I eventually moved back to the States. We lived in an insulated, religious community. My husband died there, but I stayed on. A crime occurred and the lieutenant was in charge of the investigation. I, being unattached and tremendously attracted to the man, acted as a go-between for the police.”

“What kind of a crime?”

“Rape. Back then, the lieutenant was a Sex Crimes detective.”

“Someone try to rape you?”

She stopped. “I didn’t say anything about my being the victim.”

“I just assumed.”

Rina didn’t answer. But Donatti saw her jaw tighten. “I’ve upset you. I’ll shut up.”

“You didn’t upset me.” But she fell into silence, chewing on her swollen lip as she tried to keep her composure.

Donatti felt for her. He said, “My old man was an Irish two-fisted drunk. Used to pummel me all the time. Just beat the crap out of me. When I was seven, he got drunk and repeatedly kicked me between the legs. I lost a testicle.”