3 The Chain of Lies (24 page)

“I’d like to check on Jerry Banderas. Would it be possible for me to see him?”

“Sorry, no.” She shook her head. “It’s way past visiting hours, dear, and I’m quite certain he’s asleep. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” She returned her gaze to the papers on the desk in front of her.

“Can you at least tell me how he’s doing?”

“Are you family?” she asked, not bothering to look up.

“No, but—”

The woman raised her eyes and peered at her again over her rims. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out that information if you’re not family.”

Isabel slapped her FBI badge down on the raised counter a little harder than she intended, causing the woman to jump in her seat.

“Sorry, ma’am, but this is important. I’m with the FBI and I need to question him regarding a case.” It may not have been an FBI case, but it was an open police case.

The hefty nurse stood to her feet, placed her hands on her desk and leaned forward, staring into Isabel’s face. “That kind of bullying might work on other people, young lady, but it doesn’t fly with me. You either come back tomorrow during normal visiting hours or you bring me a warrant.”

“Can you at least tell me if his daughter was here earlier?” Isabel toned down her attitude.

“Like I said, warrant.”

Isabel backed away from the nurse’s station, clipping her badge back onto her belt. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.” She headed to the elevator and pushed the button, keeping one eye on the nurse. While waiting for the doors to open, she noticed the nurse was called away to one of the rooms in the opposite direction from Jerry’s room. Once she was out of sight, Isabel snuck down to Jerry’s room. “Stop me now, Nurse Krachit.”

Finding room four twelve, Isabel slowly pushed open the door. The room was dark except for the dim nightlight plugged into one of the walls.

“Jerry,” Isabel whispered, walking nearer to his bed. “Are you awake?”

He did not respond.

“Jerry,” she tried again. He moaned something indiscernible. She hoped in a half-asleep state that he might be unguarded and candid with her. She walked to the side of his bed and gently shook his shoulder. “Jerry.”

“Go away, nurse. Let me sleep,” He mumbled and shrugged one shoulder, his eyes still closed.

“Jerry, it’s Isabel. Wake up. I need to talk to you.”

“Isabel?” he slurred, not yet opening his eyes.

“Do you remember David Gerard?”

“Gerard?” he repeated quietly as if he was floating between being asleep and awake.

“Yes, David Gerard.”

Jerry’s face had been relaxed as he slept, but at the name Gerard it began to contort into an angry scowl.

“What did David Gerard do?” Isabel asked in her calmest, most soothing voice in response to the change in his facial expression.

“Gerard, he killed my baby.”

“Natalia?”

“Natalia,” he mumbled. “My baby.”

“Did you kill Gerard?”

“Kill Gerard,” he repeated in a dreamlike voice.

Now we’re getting somewhere
.

“Yes, that’s right. Did you kill Gerard?”

“Kill Gerard,” he said again.

Isabel was uncertain if he was simply repeating what she said, or if he was answering her. She decided to come back to that question later. “Is Delia your daughter?”

“Delia?” His eyes were still closed as he shifted in his bed.

“Yes, Jerry. Is Delia your daughter?”

“What are you doing in here!” the large nurse screamed from the doorway in the loudest throaty whisper Isabel had ever heard. “Do I need to call security?”

“I’m leaving.” Frustrated, Isabel knew there was nothing more she could do until the morning.

As she turned to leave, she felt someone grab her hand. She looked back and saw Jerry clinging to her. “Isabel?” The boisterous nurse bursting in must have fully awakened him, she suspected.

“Yes, Jerry, it’s Isabel.” Her voice was low and soft. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. I’ll be back in the morning.” Isabel patted his hand lightly and pulled her fingers free knowing the insistent nurse with angry dark eyes was impatiently holding the door open for her.

~*~

Isabel returned to the waiting room. The air was thick with anticipation and anxiety as her friends sat hoping for news from the doctor. Jonathan and Camille had not returned yet from Molly’s room. Peter and Maggie sat beside each other, huddled quietly in what appeared to be serious conversation. Colin snuggled up to Emily with his arm around her, as she leaned against him silently.

Alex stood and approached Isabel as she entered the waiting room. “I need to shove off, Is. I’ve got court in the morning. Are you going to stay?”

“For a while. No news on Molly, I’m guessing.” Isabel looked around at the gang.

“No. It could be quite some time before they know anything.”

“I’m not ready to call it a night, hon. I have my own car.”

“All right. Call me if you need anything.” Alex kissed his wife lightly and left.

Isabel took a seat beside Emily.

Emily sat up straight in her chair and turned to Isabel. “Any luck?”

“Not much. The nurse up there was a real peach.” Isabel grimaced.

“That’s too bad.”

“I’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Do you mind if I tag along?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know. Jerry might be more forthcoming if I can talk to him alone.”

“You’re probably right.” Emily patted Isabel’s leg. “Let me know if he gives you anything of importance.”

“You know I will.”

“And I’ll get that gun to the county lab first thing tomorrow,” Colin said.

“What are you talking about? I have the gun,” Isabel said, looking confused. “I’m taking it to the FBI lab in the morning.”

“The other gun, Is,” Emily replied.

“What
other
gun?”

“I’m sorry, Isabel, but I think in all the drama over Molly and the Jade Thai Spa, we haven’t kept you in the loop about the other gun,” Emily said.

“A neighbor of Delia’s found a gun by the river Saturday, a Ruger P345. Emily and I interviewed him Saturday night and we had the man show us where he found it.”

“You think it might be the weapon used in Evan’s murder?” Isabel asked.

“It might be,” Emily replied with a nod. “It’s been mostly submerged in mud for the past year, but we’re hopeful the lab can get some prints off of it.”

“Make sure they check to see if there are any bullets left in it. Maybe they’ll be able to get a print off of one of them,” Isabel suggested.

“I had that same thought,” Colin said.

“As far as the gun I have, I’m planning to ask the lab to put a rush on it,” Isabel remarked. “Jerry doesn’t have much time left, so if the Beretta pistol from Evan’s safe deposit box was his, I’d like to get a confession out of him before he passes away.”

“Good idea,” Colin agreed.

Emily grew silent and pensive, staring blankly off to nowhere, her thoughts somewhere else. She felt Isabel take her hand.

“I know the handgun you left with me isn’t the one that killed Evan, but it could get us closer to the truth.”

Emily nodded, bringing her gaze down to meet Isabel’s.

“On the other hand, the Ruger found at the river might actually reveal the killer,” Colin added. “Then we can finally put an end to all the questions surrounding Evan’s death.”

Emily looked into Colin’s kind hazel eyes and saw how much he wanted that for her, to put an end to the investigation so she could move on with her life. She nodded again. “Once and for all.”

Everyone jumped to their feet as Camille and Jonathan came back to the waiting room.

“How is she?” Emily asked, but her words were drowned out by Maggie’s abundant exuberance.

Maggie rushed in and threw her arms around Camille. “Oh, Cam, did Molly wake up?”

“She’s still not conscious,” Jonathan replied.

“She looks so peaceful, like she’s sleeping,” Camille answered, dabbing a tissue under her eyes once Maggie released her.

“What does the doctor say? Anything new?” Isabel asked.

“No change yet. They’re doing all they can to find out what’s in her system and counteract it.” Jonathan wiped his moist, red eyes with his fingers. “She may simply have to let the drugs wear off, the doctor said. Apparently her kidnappers were trying to keep her sedated.”

“What can we do?” Emily asked.

“You’ve done enough,” Camille replied flatly to Emily.

Emily wondered what Camille had meant.

Camille turned her attention to the rest. “You should all go home and get some rest. There’s really nothing to do now but wait.”

“Camille and I are staying the night.” Jonathan put his arm around his wife’s shoulder. “They’re bringing a cot into Molly’s room and we’ll take turns in the chair.”

“If you’re stayin’, we’re stayin’,” Maggie insisted.

“That’s right,” Peter agreed.

“No, no, go on home, please,” Camille pleaded. “We appreciate your wanting to stay, but we’d feel better knowing you all went home. We’ll phone you if there’s any news in the night.”

CHAPTER 21

Emily’s cell phone beeped on her nightstand, alerting her to a new text message. She rolled over in her bed and felt for her phone. Through bleary eyes, she could see the time on her digital alarm clock—which she purposely did not set—read eight thirty-five. It was almost three in the morning when she had finally crawled into bed, and she was having a hard time opening her eyes and focusing, even in the bright morning light.

Pulling herself up against her pillows, she worked to get her tired eyes to adjust to the tiny screen on her phone. The text was from Isabel.
Took gun to lab. Results asap.

Flipping the comforter back, she dragged herself out of bed and wandered into the sunny kitchen, in her bare feet and oversized t-shirt, to make her morning coffee. Her phone buzzed again. Her eyes were still adjusting to the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window over the sink, but she was beginning to focus.

The text was from Colin this time.
Morning, Sleeping Beauty. Gun in lab, will have results today. R U up?

Emily texted back.
I’m up. Not awake, but up.

She pulled herself up on a stool at the breakfast bar, ran her fingers through her curls, and waited for the coffee machine to do its thing.

Be there in 10 minutes,
his next text read.

“Shoot!”

No time for coffee.

As she sprinted down the hall to throw on some clothes and a dab of makeup, the tone on her phone signaled another text. It was Colin again.

She paused in the doorway of her bedroom and looked at her phone. His text read
Gotcha! LOL! Stuck at work. Meet 4 lunch?

We’ll see,
she shot back, bristling with annoyance as she padded back to the kitchen to get her cup of coffee.

Opening the cabinet, she pulled a coffee mug out and poured the steaming dark liquid into it. Since Colin was stuck at work for the morning and Isabel apparently was too, Emily decided she’d drop by the hospital and see if there was any news on Molly.

She ripped open a packet of sweetener and emptied it into her cup. As she swirled it around with her spoon, she thought about Jethro, who was also in the hospital. Should she call him Jerry, now that she knew who he really was? Should she pay him a surprise visit? Terminally ill or not, if he was Evan’s murderer, she had to know.

How could she approach him without seeming insensitive to a dying man?

Her thoughts flew back to the gun Evan had hidden away at the bank and the note she’d found bundled in the center of a banded wad of money he had kept secret from her. She recalled the handwritten note said he had wrestled the gun away from someone who had tried to kill him but slipped away when Evan fought back.
Could that someone be Jerry Banderas?
Had he returned and finished the job? Did he blame Evan for his daughter’s death and so took his life as payback?

The Beretta was now in the hands of the FBI lab, Isabel saw to that, and she would have some answers soon.

As she sat on a stool, drinking her coffee, her phone shrilled on the counter and she jumped at the noise. She had been lost in her thoughts, but she was instantly pulled back to reality by the ringing. She picked up her phone off the breakfast bar, noticing the caller was Maggie this time.

“Good morning, Maggs,” Emily answered brightly. “Any news on Molly?”

“That’s why I’m callin’. Peter and I stayed at the hospital all night, hopin’ that girl would wake up—and she finally did.”

“Oh, Maggie, that’s great news!” Emily slid off the stool and stamped her feet in a little happy dance, spinning around with joy and relief. Abruptly, she stopped. “She is going to be all right, isn’t she?”

“The doctor believes so, but they want to keep her another day or two for observation. She had some heavy-duty sedatives in her system.”