Rude Awakening (22 page)

I grinned. ‘Watch a little
CSI
, do you?' I asked.

She grinned back. ‘All three of them! I think they should set one down here. Though they'd probably put it in Houston. But that would be OK, don'ja think?'

‘Hate Houston,' I told her, getting out the kit to do the gunshot residue test. ‘Maybe New Orleans?'

‘Oh, hey!' she said, all excited. ‘That would be great! Never thought of that!'

‘Did you ever see Mr Smith talking on the phone with anyone? Here or in Tulsa? Talking to anyone on the street in Tulsa? Anything like that?'

Holly shook her head. ‘No,' she said. ‘He did have a cell phone, though. Did you find it?'

I shook my head while I swabbed her hands. ‘No,' I said, ‘he didn't have one on him. But speaking of finding things. We did find your purse and your knapsack. They're behind Gladys's desk.'

‘Oh, wow, great!' Holly said. Then her face fell. ‘But I already spent all that money at Wal-Mart.'

What can I say? This kid was a sweetheart. And her hands were clean, at least of gunshot residue. ‘You're clean,' I told her, handing her a wipe to clean her hands. No way in hell was she involved with Smith. OK, maybe that was just wishful thinking, but still it was there. ‘Don't worry about Wal-Mart,' I said. ‘Our treat.'

Holly started to stand up then sat back down real quick. ‘Can I go now?' she asked.

‘Unless you can think of anything you haven't already told me,' I said.

I could actually see the girl thinking. ‘Nooooo,' she said slowly. ‘Nothing I can think of.'

‘Well, you still need to stick around Prophesy County for a few days, so have Dalton take you on over to the Longbranch, get you checked in.'

She stood up and held out her hand, a smile on her face. ‘Thanks, Sheriff. You've been really fair with me and I appreciate it.'

‘Long as you tell me everything you know, Miz Humphries, no reason to get excited.'

She shook my hand, or rather pumped it, and said, ‘Call me Holly.'

I nodded and she hightailed it out the door.

THIRTEEN

I
t wouldn't have been a pleasant experience had Emil Hawthorne been alive. He was cut down the middle, his organs weighed and put in jars, the bullets excised from his head, and his body endured many more indignities. But such is death, and Emil Hawthorne was irrevocably dead.

Me and Emmett were in my office with Charlie Smith, discussing the late Emil Hawthorne. ‘He had a cell phone Holly said,' I told them. ‘But one wasn't found at the scene. Not even Holly's cell phone was found. She said Hawthorne confiscated it when he tied her and the boy up. So what happened to the cell phones?'

‘Whoever shot him took 'em?' Charlie offered.

‘Why both?' Emmett asked.

‘'Cause they didn't know which one was Hawthorne's?' I suggested.

‘Don't they say the number on them somewhere?' Emmett asked.

Charlie and me both shrugged. ‘But there would be a list of numbers that number called, right? That's how I find my wife's cell – I don't even know what her number is, I just scroll down through my phone until I find her name,' Charlie said.

‘Yeah, and if Hawthorne was talking to whoever killed him, then that person's name or number would show up on the memory, right?' I asked.

‘Sounds good,' Emmett said, and Charlie nodded his agreement.

‘So maybe whoever shot him was in a hurry,' Charlie suggested. ‘Didn't have time to stop and figure out which cell phone was Hawthorne's. Erred on the side of caution.'

Emmett and I nodded.

‘So, Hawthorne wasn't alone in this,' I mused. ‘But who would he be partnering with? I mean, the man was in a coma for eight years. How come all of a sudden he's got a partner? And who would partner up on what was basically a personal revenge thing against Jean?'

We all thought on that for a minute. Then Emmett said, ‘OK, the man wakes up from a coma eight months ago. Let's say he spends, what, three or four months doing rehab. A lot of shit would atrophy in eight years, know what I mean? So we're saying two to three months to plan all this shit against Jean.'

‘Yeah, first he's gotta find her,' I said.

‘Not hard. She's an MD, Milt. It would take about two seconds to find her on the Internet,' Charlie said.

That made me a little queasy.

‘Then he does the whole “Craig's List” thing and gets Holly. Probably didn't take that long. Has to get all the equipment he needs to pretend he's making a movie, and all the real stuff he'll need for the kidnapping,' Emmett said.

I made a slightly disgusted sound – OK a snort. ‘So he did what he did. What good is a time line doing us?'

‘Somewhere in there he met a confederate. How much time did he have to get someone to care about helping him with this thing? There was no money payoff—'

‘Wait a second!' I said. I stood up and paced my small office, having to move Emmett's big feet to do so. ‘When Jean was telling me about how she found out all that shit about Hawthorne, she said it all started when his pet intern from the term before showed up begging him for something. She said the girl was really hung up on him. So what if it wasn't a new confederate, but an old conquest?'

‘Bingo,' Charlie said.

Dalton checked Holly in to the Longbranch Inn and then helped her carry her packages up to her room. The stuff recovered from the farmhouse, her backpack and purse, were both slung over Holly's shoulder. She hadn't recovered her cell phone. In fact, there was a good possibility that the killer had taken her cell phone, confusing it for Mr Smith's. Which, in a way, was exciting. But on the other hand, Holly thought, she could sure use her phone.

Dalton used the key the lady at the desk had given him and opened the door to room 214. Four was Holly's lucky number. She took this as a sign that things were going to get better for her. She snuck a peak at Dalton and kinda hoped that he would have something to do with things getting better.

She walked into the room and was dumbstruck. It was almost exactly how she imagined. She could see Miss Kitty, that lady from those old
Gunsmoke
reruns on TV, sitting in this room waiting for Marshal Dillon to show up. It was indeed a four-poster bed, all carved with flowers and such, and it was indeed at least four feet off the ground. In fact, there was a little stool next to the side of the bed – a two-stepper for the lady of the room to use. The beautiful bedspread was a blue willow design, as was the wallpaper. She thought some might think it a little busy, but Holly thought it was classy and beautiful. There was even a dark wood hutch against the wall, carved with the same kind of flowers as the bed posts, and the glass doors showed blue willow patterned dishes – a platter and a soup tureen, and a beautifully shaped coffee server with little matching cups and saucers.

She turned and looked at Dalton and the look on her face was pure joy. He couldn't help but smile back.

‘Oh my God,' Jean said, when Milt came home with his theory. ‘You really think it was one of his women?'

‘I don't know, honey, but it's as good a place as any to start. Anyway, can you help me find out where some of those you talked to are now?' Milt asked.

‘Let me get on the Internet, do some research,' Jean said, and headed for her office in their son's former nursery, leaving Milt to finish supper and get John settled. She wondered how Milt would manage to end up frying the salad she'd started for dinner, and smiled.

There was absolutely nothing on Greta Schwartzmann Nichols, but there was an entire website for Melinda Hayes, who was now Melinda Hayes Solomon. She was now a day trader and mommy of two, and even if she had a nanny, Jean couldn't see her following Emil Hawthorne to Oklahoma to help him wreak vengeance on an old colleague.

LeeLee Novotny had committed suicide three years ago. That information took Jean's breath away, and she had to sit for a while and contemplate her own guilt in LeeLee's demise. She'd done the best she could for the young woman, found her all the help she could find. Jean decided to lay blame where it belonged: at the feet of LeeLee's mother and Emil Hawthorne.

After searching the web for what seemed like, and was, hours, Jean finally gave up and went to bed, where Milt was already fast asleep and snoring.

The next morning, Jean called DeSandra and asked her to push back her nine o'clock appointment, telling her she'd be in late. Then, informing Milt he would be taking John to preschool, she sat down in her robe with a cup of coffee and resumed her search. The first search was of her own memory, then to her alma mater for a list of the medical school graduating class that she was in.

She wrote down three names of graduates who had gone on to be interns with her. Two had been in the psych rotation. And one of them, Jean was pretty sure, was the guy who had told the rest of the group of Greta's identity. His name was Eric Loeman and he hadn't gone into psychiatry. He was an oncologist now living in Houston and working at MD Anderson.

She found both his home and office number and dialed the office number first. A secretary answered and told her that the doctor was at the hospital and would be returning calls in the afternoon. Jean left a short message: ‘Just tell him I was an intern with him in Chicago, and I need to speak with him urgently.' She gave her home and cell number and headed in to work.

Dalton's job this Tuesday morning was to check on Holly Humphries and to keep tabs on her all day. That's what Milt said to do and that's exactly what Dalton intended to do. That it wasn't a terrible assignment did enter Dalton's mind, but he pushed it aside with the intention of doing his job without enjoying it.

He drove his squad car up to the Longbranch Inn and parked, getting out and going into the lobby and up to the desk. ‘Hey, Mavis,' he said to the lady behind the desk, ‘could you call up to Miz Humphries room and tell her I'm here, please?'

‘Holly?' Mavis said. ‘She's having breakfast in the dining room.'

‘Thanks,' Dalton said and ambled into the dining room. The dining room, like the rooms upstairs, had been redone in the early 1990s, and it boasted a turn of the century (the
other
century) décor that included imitation gas lamps on the walls, flocked wallpaper and lacy-looking plastic table cloths. They hadn't bothered with the floor because they ran out of money after doing the rooms upstairs, and it was still the same linoleum tile that had been there since the last remodel in 1952.

It took Dalton a minute to find Holly in the large dining room, as almost every table was taken. The Longbranch Inn made a slam-bam breakfast, and that was a fact. Finally, he saw her in the corner by the stuffed five-point buck and headed her way. She looked up and saw him and smiled. He smiled back. He couldn't help himself. Besides, he was just being polite.

‘Hey, Deputy!' Holly said. He noticed she was wearing those khaki short things from yesterday and the white shirt, and they looked really good with her coloring – her olive complexion and reddish brown hair and those green eyes that shimmered like emeralds under the lights of the hotel dining room. ‘Join me?' Holly asked.

‘Thanks,' Dalton said, his face turning red as he took a chair facing the dead deer. ‘Sheriff said I was to be at your service today, Miz Humphries, so anything you wanna do . . .'

‘Oh! Don't you have more important things to do?' she asked and then her face paled. ‘Or does he still think I'm a suspect?' Tears sprang to her eyes and she put down her fork on the plate, her Longbranch Inn morning special – two eggs any way, ham, bacon and sausage, hash browns or grits and a choice of toast or a biscuit – totally forgotten.

‘Oh, no, Ma'am!' Dalton said, willing to do anything to dry the tear in her eye. ‘I think he's punishing me for causing so much trouble . . .'

‘I'm your punishment?' Holly said, the tear not drying up a bit.

‘Oh, no, Ma'am! I didn't mean that! The sheriff may think it's a punishment,' Dalton said, turning a magenta, ‘but
I
sure don't think it is.'

‘Oh,' Holly said, and smiled. Dalton smiled back. ‘Why don't you call the waitress over and join me for breakfast, Deputy?'

‘Sure thing, Ma'am, and you can call me Dalton,' he said.

Jean arrived at the office and had half an hour before her next appointment. Anne Louise was also between patients, so they sat in the coffee room discussing the horrors of the past two days.

‘I can't believe you had to go through all this, Jean. I'm so sorry,' Anne Louise said.

‘Thank you. It's been an incredible experience. I'm just so thankful no one got hurt. I mean, none of the children or . . .'

Anne Louise reached across the table and patted Jean's hand. ‘I know, honey. That louse Hawthorne's dead, but we're not counting him.'

‘Did you know him, back in Chicago?' Jean asked her partner.

‘Only by reputation,' Anne Louise said. ‘He was a genius, they said.'

‘He was,' Jean agreed. ‘But so were Svengali and Machiavelli, and hell,' Jean said, laughing slightly, ‘they say even Ted Bundy was smart.'

Patting Jean's hand again, Anne Louise said, ‘Just try to put this out of your mind. For now, anyway. When you have time to get perspective on it, then we'll sit down for real and have a session, OK?'

Jean nodded. ‘You're right,' she said. ‘I need to just let it percolate.'