by Lisa Jackson
Amy was already turning into the hallway to get more help, but her own heart was pounding double-time at the thought of losing this patient, who just happened to be the sheriff of Pinewood County.
Chapter 5
Hearing the sound of another vehicle approaching, Pescoli looked up and squinted through the curtain of falling snow. She and Alvarez were about to leave the O’Halleran ranch as they’d already taken statements and looked around as much as they could in the frigid conditions. The victim’s body had been taken to the morgue, the emergency workers had left, and the O’Hallerans had returned to their house. A guard was still posted near the front gate and the crime scene team was still finishing up gathering trace evidence, but her work was done.
A Jeep emerged, twin headlights cutting through the gloom, big tires kicking up snow. The driver parked next to the crime scene van, cut the engine, and emerged swiftly. Blackwater.
“Just what we need,” Pescoli said under her breath. Half expecting to see the KMJC news van following in his wake, she glanced to the ruts cut into the snow where half a dozen or more vehicles had come and gone, mashing the snow beneath dozens of tires.
But Blackwater was alone, no entourage of reporters following.
A first. Well, that wasn’t really the truth, but she wasn’t in the best of moods after losing her breakfast and dealing with the bitter cold as, potentially, another nutcase of a killer was making his presence known in this part of the Bitterroots.
Blackwater’s expression was grim as he strode through the powder to her vehicle.
“We’re just about done here. Wrapping things up,” Pescoli told him.
“Good. I need to talk to the both of you. In person.” A muscle worked in his jaw.
“Something up?” Pescoli asked as Alvarez’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
He hesitated, glanced at the woods for a second, then forced his gaze back to the two detectives standing before him. “Bad news,” he said.
Pescoli felt her back muscles tighten. “What?”
Beside her, Alvarez drew a sharp breath as if she guessed what was coming.
“It’s the sheriff,” he said solemnly, the corners of his mouth twisting downward. “He didn’t make it.”
“What?” Pescoli exploded. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, God.” Alvarez leaned hard against the front panel of Pescoli’s Jeep, her knees buckling. Her face had washed of all color and she was shaking her head. Even as she did, she made the sign of the cross over her chest.
“No!” Pescoli stared down Blackwater and fer vently shook her head. “Not Dan Grayson. There must be some mistake.”
“I wish there was.” Blackwater seemed sincere, holding back his own emotions. “Grayson’s heart stopped. A Code Blue was issued, and as I understand it, the team was there in seconds, trying to get him going again. Spent nearly forty minutes trying to get a pulse—defibrillation, epinephrine, whatever it is they do to bring someone back, but it was over. They couldn’t revive him.” He glanced from Pescoli who’d gone numb with disbelief to Alvarez who turned her head away, probably to hide her tears.
“What the hell happened?” Pescoli demanded, gesturing angrily. “He was getting better. Stable, that’s what the hospital and his damn doctor said. They even moved him out of ICU because he’d improved, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He was shot in the head, not the heart, for Christ’s sake! His heart was fine. Strong.” She swung back to look at Alvarez for confirmation, but her partner didn’t respond. To Blackwater, she snapped again, “What the hell happened?”
“The hospital is checking. Could be that the injuries he sustained were too much for him and his heart just stopped,” Blackwater said without his usual bluster. To his credit, he seemed genuinely disconsolate. “I don’t know. No one does. Yet. He’d been through a lot.”
“Through a lot and out the other side!” Pescoli insisted, though the truth, like the steadily falling snow, was cold and bleak as it settled over her. “Oh . . . oh Jesus,” she finally said in a rush as she started to believe what Blackwater was saying.
“I came out to tell you myself, so you wouldn’t hear it on the police band or the news or from someone else.”
Alvarez let out a soft moan.
“They told us he would be all right,” Pescoli said. “And those bastards lied.” Turning to Alvarez, she said, “Let’s go.”
“Where?” her partner asked and even as she did, she seemed to stiffen her spine, to gain control, her mask of always cool detachment slipping back into place.
“To the hospital to get some damn answers. To find out what went on, why they lost him.” As she said the words, the full truth hit her like a ton of bricks. Grayson was gone. Forever. She’d been there when he’d been shot and in her mind’s eye, it was Christmas morning once more and she watched in horror as the bullets from a hidden assassin’s rifle had struck the tall man with kind eyes and a thick moustache.
Grayson’s body had spun with the first bullet, his ever-present Stetson flying off his head, the split kindling he’d been carrying flying end over end to land on the snow-covered earth. With the second shot, his head had snapped back and he’d fallen to the snowy ground and lay inert. Pescoli, who had been driving to his house to ask about cutting back her hours, never got the chance.
She’d been the first responder, viewed his blood, prayed like she’d never prayed before and then had sworn vengeance on his assailant, that coward who had hidden in the snowdrifts with a high-powered rifle aimed straight at Dan Grayson.
“Son of a bitch!” she said angrily and kicked one of the Jeep’s tires in fury.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Blackwater said. “You’ve got a new case to investigate with the Jane Doe found right here, so I suggest you start.” He frowned. “Hell, I know this is a blow for the two of you and the whole department. That’s why I came out, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t have jobs to do.” Snow was collecting on the brim of his hat and shoulders of his jacket. Though there was a trace of compassion in his eyes, he remained rigid, ever in charge. “The Missoula police are on the scene and the hospital is double-checking every procedure, all of his vital signs records, every report and notation. Of course, there will be an autopsy.”
“Fuck the autopsy!” Pescoli said, her anger exploding. “I’m going to the hospital, whether you like it or not!”
“Detective,” he warned.
But Pescoli was already around the Jeep and behind the wheel.
Alvarez slid into the passenger seat. “Let’s go,” she said in an out-of-character display of disobeying her commanding officer.
“What?” Hattie Grayson dropped the jar of jam she’d been holding. The small container shattered on her kitchen floor, shards of glass flying, sticky strawberry jam spraying in thick clumps. “No. Not Dan. Not Dan!”
She stared into the tortured gaze of Dan’s brother Cade, who had just driven over to give her the news that cracked her world in two. Disregarding the spilled jam and shards of glass, she fell into his arms. Tears welled and she felt as if they’d started in the center of her soul. She’d known Dan all her life, been married to Bart, one of his brothers, and had half-fancied herself in love with him before reuniting with Cade. The Grayson brothers—all four of them, including Big Zed—had been the center of her universe.
Now two of the brothers were gone. Bart’s death had been ruled a suicide, though she was certain that he’d been killed. Dan had been murdered by a maniac as well, someone he should never have trusted.
“I don’t want to believe it.”
“Me neither.”
“The bastard who did this—”
“Will pay.”
That much was true. Dan’s assailant was already captured and behind bars, fighting his own injuries.
Still, the rage at the man who’d snatched Dan’s life away burned deep. “I hope he rots in hell.”
Cade’s strong
arms folded her tight against him. “I know.”
Thank God he didn’t say “it will be all right” or any other platitude, because deep in Hattie’s heart, she knew that it would never be. With Dan Grayson’s easygoing strides no longer walking the earth, the planet would be an emptier, colder place. He’d been so good to her, to her twin daughters, to everyone in Grizzly Falls. At least she had time to pull herself together before she told her girls. Mallory and McKenzie would be as devastated as she was. A coldness settled over her and she shivered in Cade’s embrace.
“First Bart, now Dan,” she whispered, drinking in the smell of the man holding her so close. The scents of leather and horses clung to him and filled her nostrils. “I don’t want to believe this, Cade. I just . . . I just can’t. There’s got to be a mistake.”
“I wish, darlin’,” he said, his own voice rough, his warm breath ruffling her hair. His jaw was scratchy with beard-stubble, his eyes a deep, somber gray, all of the carefree, bad-boy attitude gone. He squeezed her a little more tightly and his voice cracked as he said, “God, don’t I wish.”
The hospital was remarkably calm, Alvarez thought, almost as if the whole world surrounding Grizzly Falls hadn’t changed drastically with the passing of Sheriff Dan Grayson. Yes, there was a news camera crew outside. Nia Del Ray, a reporter for KMJC, was standing near the sign at the entrance of Northern General Hospital, snow catching on her short black hair as she was probably reporting on Grayson’s demise, unless some other story had trumped his, which Alvarez doubted.
Inside the wide hallways, the floors gleamed under bright lights, conversation hummed, and people went about their work as if nothing monumental had just gone down within the hospital’s walls. Near a placard that listed those who had donated to the hospital, she and Pescoli stepped around a woman with a cast on her leg, being wheeled down the hallway by the orderly, after which they nearly ran into an elderly man who had suddenly stopped for no apparent reason.
“Sorry,” he apologized, blinking as if he’d been in a daze.
They moved past him to the elevators. “You know what this means, don’t you?” Pescoli said, slapping the call button just as the doors to one of the cars opened and a group of three women emerged.
“Tell me.” Alvarez walked into the car.
Once they were inside and the elevator doors had whispered shut, Pescoli pounded her fist on the button for the second floor. “That the son of a bitch who took down Grayson just lost his GET OUT OF JAIL card forever. No more attempted in the charge. He’s going down for murder.”
The doors opened and they stepped into the wide hallway, again brightly lit and complete with alcoves, benches and chairs, and a wide nurse’s station at the center of it all.
They walked up to the desk and a woman seated at a computer looked up. Pescoli showed her badge and said, “Detective Regan Pescoli, Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department. This is my partner Detective Alvarez. We have some questions about . . . about the sheriff . . . Dan Grayson . . . and what happened to him. We’d like to talk to the supervisor of the floor and his doctor, whoever was in charge of his care.”
Alvarez’s gaze shifted to Pescoli, whose green eyes shifted in hue with the light.
Under the glare of the hospital’s illumination they were a light jade color and hard as stone. Athletic and tall, with sharp features and a penetrating gaze, she was intimidating. An ex-basketball player, Pescoli wasn’t afraid to get into anyone’s face and bore more than her share of battle scars as a no-nonsense police officer and single mother. She was glaring at the small, nervous-looking nurse behind the desk as if the poor woman was a hardened criminal.
“I’ll get Rinalda, uh, Mrs. Dash. She’s in charge,” the girl behind the desk said.
Before either of the detectives could thank her, a booming female voice carried up the hall. “Is there a problem, Stephanie?”
In her peripheral vision, Alvarez caught a glimpse of a slim woman quickly approaching. Tall, African-American with close-cropped hair and an expression that was as stern as Pescoli’s, she stopped at the desk. “I’m Rinalda Dash.” With her height, she actually looked down at Pescoli. “What can I help you with?”
Again, Pescoli flashed her badge and introduced them both. “We’re here about Dan Grayson, who was your patient. We’d like to know what happened.”
“We all would,” Nurse Dash said solemnly. “And we’re looking into it as we do with all unexpected deaths. There’s a place where we can talk more privately,” she said, indicating a small niche near a bank of windows. Complete with a square of carpet, a coffee table, bench, fake ficus tree, and two side chairs, the spot offered little privacy, but it would have to do.
To the nurse behind the desk, the supervisor said, “Stephanie, page Dr. Zingler, please. See if he’s still in the building. I’m sure the detectives would like to speak to him, as well.” She gave Pescoli a patient but firm smile as she led them into the alcove. “Believe me, we will find out what exactly caused the sheriff’s death.”
Blackwater held a meeting in the conference room, which not only opened from the hallway but from his office as well. Everyone who worked for the department and currently not on the road was required to attend. One person in each department was to man the phones and he expected the meeting to be short, but he owed it to the officers, those who had worked under Dan Grayson, to explain the situation as best he knew it. He stood before the deputies, secretaries, volunteers, detectives, and various officers and met all of their solemn gazes with his own.
“This is a bleak day for the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department,” he began at the podium. “A difficult time for all of us, most of you more than me, as you had the honor of working with Sheriff Dan Grayson much longer than I did. We all respected him. He was a man who walked tall among men, a fair and just man, a man with a steely determination balanced by his compassion and quick wit. He would want, no, he would expect, all of us to continue working here for the good of Pinewood County, to protect and serve its citizens, and so we shall.
“That doesn’t mean that I, as the acting sheriff, will not expend every effort to find out what happened at the hospital, and if there were extenuating circumstances regarding his death. I promise each and every one of you that the person responsible for sending Dan Grayson to Northern General Hospital will be tried and convicted for his crimes. The district attorney is already updating the charges against the suspect.” He glanced around the room, letting his words settle, then added, “The best way we can honor Dan Grayson’s memory and years of service is to continue with our jobs as officers of the law. Sheriff Grayson would have expected as much, and so do I. We have cases that require our immediate and undivided attention and I expect each and every one of you to give a hundred percent in ferreting out those responsible for the crimes under our jurisdiction and bringing them to justice.”
He paused for effect. “For an as yet undetermined amount of time, I’m lowering all of the building’s flags to half mast. Everyone, please, keep the sheriff’s memory alive by continuing to provide the citizens of Pinewood County with your best service. Thank you.”
He thought about saying more, even including a quick prayer, but decided short and to the point was all that was necessary. Each officer would grieve on his or her own terms. Hopefully, the meeting would provide some closure until a funeral could be arranged and business could go on as usual.
It wasn’t that he was just a hard-ass. He believed that the work of the department couldn’t be interrupted for anything, even a commander’s death. He would back off a bit, allow a few tears and conversations, let those who were closest to Grayson have a few days to grab hold of their emotions, but he had a department to run and a sicko on the horizon, if the body discovered on the O’Halleran ranch was any indication.
That case bothered him in its brutality, but he knew that it would also raise the community’s awareness of him as the sheriff. It was an opportunity to show that he was up to the task, and was al
so a test of his mettle and skills. The Jane Doe whose body had been found in that near-frozen creek could be his ticket to the kind of fame he needed to be elected sheriff.
As he strode to his office, the one so recently occupied by Grayson, he considered that there could be an outside chance that a perfectly sound explanation existed as to why a healthy-looking thirtyish woman had ended up dead in a near-frozen pool of a creek, her ring finger recently severed. Not much of a chance, he thought, but one that had to be explored.
Walking into his office, he ignored the feeling that he was stepping into another man’s boots. More than one, if he were honest with himself. Yes, Grayson had worked here. Yes, he was beloved by the staff and citizens, but he wasn’t the first exalted leader, nor would he be the last. The long row of eight-by-ten photos in the lobby proved the point of how many had gone before Dan Grayson. The empty wall invited those who would follow.
Blackwater settled into a chair that was too big for him in more ways than he wanted to consider. He only hoped that he could finish out Grayson’s term and be elected to sheriff on his own merit, so that one day his own picture would grace the wall of the lobby.
Of course, in order for that to happen, he had to prove himself. Show the citizens of Pinewood County that he was the logical choice for sheriff.
He thought about the detectives on his staff and wondered how long he’d be able to deceive them. Alvarez with her master’s degree in psychology. A beautiful Hispanic woman with jet-black hair, full lips, and dark, suspicious eyes, she did little to enhance her looks, but she took her job seriously. She was dedicated, he’d give her that. A natural Type-A who worked out in the gym, she kept her body tight and her mind sharp, and usually reined in her emotions. Called an “ice princess” or “bitch with a heart of stone” behind her back, she was harder on herself than anyone else was.