by Blake Pierce
“What about me?” Kate asked with a weary smile. “I think I sort of drifted off before Dr. Kelley could fill me in.”
“Severe bruising to your neck and trachea but none of the abrasions were bad enough that they needed stitches. They lathered you up in antibiotic ointment and put on some bandages. Doesn’t look too bad. But the knee…they don’t know yet. They have you scheduled for an MRI in about two hours.”
Kate nodded, doing her best not to assume the worst. The painkillers had done their job, but she could still tell there was something clearly wrong with her knee. Somewhere very deep inside of her, she was aware that some part of her heart wanted the injury to be serious. Maybe then the constant back and forth of family and finally letting her career go would be much easier.
“I’m worried about you, Kate.”
It was a sweet sentiment, but Kate wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. She had been assigned to assist DeMarco with the case and, she thought, had helped in that regard. But she’d also managed to nearly get killed in the process, left to watch DeMarco arrest the killer while she had remained on the front porch with a busted knee.
Sounds sort of like a curtain call to me, she thought.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Kate finally said. “I just need to realize that I’m not young enough to…well, to anything. You did a good job on this one, DeMarco. Sorry I caused some drama there at the end.”
“Drama? Kate…I was perfectly content to leave that arrest hanging on Matt Redman. It was you that had the second thought…the thought to check that house. And lo and behold, you found the killer.”
“Oh gosh,” Kate said. “What about the press conference?”
“Currently taking place. It got postponed when we found out Redman wasn’t our man. Sheriff Armstrong and her force have it under wraps. I’m on call if she should need anything else.”
“Thanks for saving my life,” Kate said with a smile.
“Of course. And hey…dangerous or not, busting through that sliding glass door was pretty awesome. Even got a few nicks and cuts for my efforts.” She showed Kate her right arm, which was bandaged up to cover the cuts.
“One more question, before I slip back into la-la land…what made you decide to come?”
DeMarco smiled, but Kate could tell that it was a genuine one rather than the playful ones she often used to keep a situation feeling light. “Because I’ve come to trust your instincts. And when you texted me to fill me in, I knew. I knew we had the wrong guy and you were on to something.”
That means a lot, Kate thought.
But the thought was never voiced. She could only smile back before the drugs pulled her back under.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
He remembered. Very big house—one so big that even as a kid, he knew his mother would never be able to afford it. They’d had to pass on so many houses due to what his mother called “financial hardships” that by the time he was thirteen, Dougie had been able to tell when a house was out of his mother’s price range.
That one house, though…there had been a bedroom upstairs that he thought would be great for him. There was a walk-in closet with an attached attic. He’d imagined the little hiding spots and adventures he’d be able to experience if he managed to get that room. The bedroom window had looked out over a big backyard. In a neighboring yard, he’d seen two kids playing basketball and thought that could be him—out there playing basketball with some new friends.
But they had not gotten that house. They’d ended up living in an absolute shithole that his aunt had sold to his mother at an affordable price. His mother had said they’d been happy there, but he had never felt it. He wasn’t sure why, but her simple love had never been enough. Shopping all those houses in those great neighborhoods, he’d felt like he’d missed something. And on some dark Saturday night when he figured he should have probably been out dating, he’d heard his mother crying. Her crying and the feeling that she had never been able to give him the life he had deserved had always killed him, but it got worse as he got older.
One night, sometime just before high school had let out, he’d dreamed of one of the real estate agents that had showed his mother those houses…the house with cool bedroom with the attached attic, as a matter of fact.
“No,” he said out loud to the hospital room. “Can’t think about that.”
He’d done some bad things. Some very bad things. He wasn’t sure if there was a God and, if there was, if that God would forgive him for all he’d done. He knew he didn’t deserve it. And really, as he lay in that hospital bed, doped up on painkillers with four broken ribs, a separated shoulder, and a concussion, he could barely remember any of it. He remembered enjoying it, but he couldn’t even remember the women’s faces or why he’d hated them so badly.
“Guard?”
Just one word, but it sounded like he was weeping. Slowly, the tall black man who had been stationed outside of his door came into the room. He looked down at Dougie like he wanted to pull out his sidearm and blow his head off.
“What?” the policeman barked.
Dougie then asked the man a question. It was apparently not a question the policeman had been expecting because he asked to hear it again. Then he chuckled and left the room, and as far as Dougie was concerned, that was likely the end of it.
But although it was nearing eleven o’clock, he also felt the night was still young.
***
The good news was that it was not an ACL tear. The bad news was that she was still probably going to need surgery anyway. Kate found out at 11:37 that night that she had torn her meniscus and severely hyperextended her knee. By the time she was back in her room and Dr. Kelley had come by for her final rounds, Kate was starting to feel the painkillers wearing off.
“Two more,” Dr. Kelley said, handing her a cup. “But try to wait another hour or so.”
“Thanks,” Kate said, taking them and wanting to pop at least one right away. The pain was coming back with force now, probably aggravated by the gentle yet insistent movements of the X-ray techs.
“What have you decided about surgery? Want us to do it here?”
“I’d prefer to be back in Richmond,” she said. “No offense to you, of course.”
“That’s fine. So long as you can have your partner sign off on the responsibility of getting you back home as soon and as safely as possible.”
“I understand.”
“Well, Agent Wise, it was great to meet you. I’ll have your X-rays and notes sent to the hospital in Richmond. I don’t want you waiting too long, so I’d like for you to be on the road to get it taken care of by tomorrow. We’ll brace you up in the morning after you’ve rested and the folks in Richmond can do the rest.”
It sounded fine to Kate, though she was aware that the trip from Delaware to Richmond was going to be torment. But she wanted to see Allen. She wanted him there with her as she made it through the pain and the surgery.
With Dr. Kelley gone, Kate lay there, looking at the ceiling and doing her best to wait for the hour to pass so she could take the two new pills. She thought about calling Allen to let him know what had happened but didn’t want to worry him. It would be best to do that face to face.
By the time she had talked herself out of calling him, there was a knock at the door. She looked up and saw DeMarco peeking in. “You awake?”
“Yeah…the pain is starting to fuss at me.”
“Sorry to hear that,” DeMarco said. “I’m also sorry to come by with this bit of news, but I figured you’d want to at least know.”
“What is it?”
“Dougie Hanks is talking and coherent. He asked his guard if he could speak with us. I checked with the doctor and he said it should be fine…but that we shouldn’t push on him too hard.”
“He asked to speak with us?” Kate asked, wanting to make sure the pain and the remnants of the drugs hadn’t made her hear DeMarco incorrectly.
“That’s how I understand it.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Kate, are you sure? I know you’re in a lot of pain, and the doctor said you are going to need surg—”
“We’ll make it quick,” Kate said. “Help me into the wheelchair, will you?”
DeMarco did as she was asked. Kate felt she did a pretty heroic job of pretending the movement didn’t hurt too badly. She had to bite in one little moan but was pleased to find that once she was sitting and her right leg was elevated, the pain subsided a bit. DeMarco rolled her down the hall and then to an elevator, which they took up two floors. Neither woman spoke a word during the walk to Dougie Hanks’s room. When the guard saw them approaching, he gave a nod of acknowledgment before opening the door for them.
When Kate saw Dougie Hanks, she was alarmed at how mortified he looked. She did not think he was scared of them, but what he had tried to do to them. There was regret in his eyes, the sort of look she expected to see on the face of a driver who had accidentally run over some little girl’s puppy in the middle of a highway.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
“Mr. Hanks, please spare us,” DeMarco said. “My partner is in a great deal of pain—partly thanks to you—and I’d like to get her back to her room as quickly as possible. The only reason we’re here is because she has one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.”
“Yes…of course…”
“Five minutes,” Kate said. She found it hard to look away from him. She tried to find any trace of the anger and borderline psychopathic delight she had seen in his eyes while they had fought in the house, but she could see none.
“I just wanted to apologize,” Dougie said. “I…well, I knew what I was doing. I did for the other three women, too. I knew what I was doing and I planned it all out. But looking back on it now, I can barely remember it.”
“Are you going to tell me it’s like you weren’t even there?” Kate asked. “I’ve heard that one before, Mr. Hanks. A few times, actually. And I’ve only ever seen it work in court a single time. So if you’re going to try that…”
“No, no. I suppose if this goes to court, I won’t deny it. I know I left things behind this time. The rope…the wood. Probably enough to pin me down. And I…well, I think I’m fine with that. With the other women, though…I could not apologize. But I can now. I can to you.”
“And why should you apologize for something you barely remember?”
“Because you had nothing to do with why I did these things. I did it because of my mother and the way she was treated. Skewed justice or something. I don’t know. But it made me feel good when I did it. I guess that means something is wrong with me, but that’s fine. I think I’ve always known. But my mother would be ashamed of me. I know that now, but I lost sight of it when I was…when I was doing it. I did it for my mother, but she’d be ashamed of me.”
Kate nodded. She had been in this situation before but in this particular moment, she was much more vulnerable that she had been in the past. Sometimes a murderer would seek forgiveness from a would-be victim because they feared what was to come—be it the legal system or the afterlife. But Dougie Hanks seemed legitimate. Now that he had been caught and could only face the realities of what he had done, the weight of it all seemed to be crushing him. Kate thought she could see it in his eyes and the way his frail body slouched in the hospital bed.
“What happened to your mother?” Kate asked. She genuinely wanted to know. She thought idly of the book she wanted to write, of how she had always, at the end of the day, sought to understand the reasons people chose to murder.
“It’s a boring story and—though I am very sorry about what I tried to do to you—it’s none of your business. But I’ll just say that there were money issues after my father died. Mom wanted the best for me, and that included a nice, safe home. She became obsessed with getting us into a good home but she could never afford it and…and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
“Kate, come on,” DeMarco whispered. “This is enough.”
Kate nodded and said, “I don’t accept your apology, Mr. Hanks. Maybe year ago, I would have but I’m old enough now to appreciate every year I have left. Every day. And you nearly took all of that from me. You have taken it from at least three women. So, no…I don’t accept.” She wanted to say much more, to lay into him in a way she might regret later. But she knew that would only be the pain talking. Instead, she ended with saying: “DeMarco, let’s go.”
Again, DeMarco did as she was asked and backed Kate out of the room. Kate had no idea why she felt the need to cry, but it was there. She looked down to the little cup of pills she had been holding the entire time and tossed them back into her mouth. She swallowed them right now, along with the urge to weep.
***
There was no fanfare or big send-off when DeMarco and Kate left the hospital. When DeMarco stopped back by the Estes police station, there was very little fuss made. The parking lot was packed with traffic—including a few news vans—as DeMarco parked behind the building, out of sight from any prying eyes and cameras. She left Kate in the back seat, leg stretched out, as she went in to finalize some paperwork and to call Duran to fill him in on everything.
When someone tapped at the window a few moments later Kate was nearly completely dozed out by the tide of the most recent round of painkillers. Through hazy eyes, she saw that it was Armstrong. When Armstrong realized that Kate recognized her, she opened the driver’s side door and peeked her head in.
“I just wanted to thank you for your help,” Armstrong said. “And I’m so sorry about your leg. DeMarco said it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, though. So I guess that’s good.”
“It is,” Kate agreed. “But at my age, any injury like this could be the last injury, you know?”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Armstrong asked.
Kate shook her head. “You’re doing a good job here,” she said. “Even DeMarco and I almost made the mistake of assuming Redman was the killer.”
“But in the end, you knew better.”
Kate knew it was meant as a compliment, but something about it did not sit well with her. You knew better…
She supposed some of it came from guilt. She had known better, all right…she had known better than to come rushing into this case, far too excited to prove herself after sitting on the sidelines for six weeks. She had known better than to once again place her job above Allen. But she had done both of those things.
And now she had a busted knee to show for it.
She meant to say thanks, but DeMarco was suddenly standing right there beside Armstrong. Kate was barely aware of the women talking as the tide of medicine came sweeping back in. Slowly, it started to take her over. She heard DeMarco talking to her, and then she was vaguely aware of the car moving.
Painkillers, the lull of an engine, and the movement of a well-tuned car all cradled her and pulled her into sleep. She dreamed distantly, like watching TV through someone else’s window. In the dream she was in a poorly lit public park. Somewhere ahead of her, she knew her husband was about to be shot. She called Michael’s name and tried to run after him, but her bum knee wouldn’t let her.
She fell in the dream and heard the gunshot that had taken her husband’s life.
And though she had no way of knowing it (and DeMarco certainly wasn’t going to tell her), she moaned considerably in her sleep for the next fifteen minutes.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Two weeks later, Kate’s orthopedic doctor made the call that she was going to need surgery. There had been the smallest glimmer of hope that she might be able to heal without it, but two weeks following her exit from Estes, the only thing that had changed had been an increase in the amount of pain she was experiencing.
The prospect of surgery did not bother her. She’d had two surgeries over the course of her life—Melissa’s C-section birth, and the removal of her wisdom teeth.
No, what scared her was that she knew a surgery of this scope, at her age, might mean the end of many things.
As she lay in her hospital bed, waiting for the surgeon to come in to discuss, she recalled a moment back in Estes where she had actually hoped the knee was blown out because it would make the decision between a normal retired life and one last hoorah with her career an easy one. But now that she was faced with surgery on her right knee, that hope had become a reality and she was finding that she was not quite ready for the decision to be made for her after all.
Allen sat next to her, holding her hand and looking at her thoughtfully. Things were different for them now. The past two weeks had dealt them good and bad news alike. First, Allen’s trip had gone well. After some basic paperwork and one last meeting, he’d be bringing home a very nice chunk of money and he would officially be retired by the end of the year. The bad news, of course, had been that Kate would indeed need surgery on her knee.
“When they take me back,” Kate said, “I’d like for you to text Melissa.”
“Of course.”
Melissa had fallen into a new job in the past few weeks, one that looked to be very promising. She still had a few semesters of college to finish up and was finally coming to terms with the fact that she was just going to be one of those people who didn’t graduate until they were twenty-six. Kate had been her cheerleader through it all, always brushing aside any mention of how she had graduated from college and then the academy by the time she was twenty-three.
God, that seems like a lifetime ago, Kate thought.
Before she could go down that rabbit hole, her doctor came in. He was a young man by the name of Dr. Foster. He ironically reminded Kate of Dr. Kelley. Looking at them, it was easy to think they might be brother and sister.
“So, it’s time,” Dr. Foster said. He was smiling, maybe a little too brightly. It made Kate think he knew something that she did not. “But before we take you back to get started, I’d like to speak with you in private.”