by Mona Marple
“No, excuse me?” Adele barks. Her hair is flyaway and her skin pale. “I thought I was going for a shower while you minded the babies.”
“I can mind them.” I offer.
“See, Connie can mind them.” Taylor says, and he’s already halfway out the room.
Adele shakes her head and smiles at me. “Men!”
“I don’t mind, let him finish up and then you go do what you need to do. I’ll be fine with these two cuties.” I murmur as I gaze at the babies. They’re both wide awake, lying on their backs on a brightly coloured activity blanket.
“It’s his job, Connie. He should be doing it. He had all the time in the world a minute ago.”
“He probably just remembered how much work he’s got to do.” I think, but I know that his sudden urgency to wash and leave would be due to my arrival. There are too many conversations he doesn’t want to have in front of his wife; from his caffeine habit to the enquiries he hasn’t been making into Emelza Shabley’s murder. “Anyway, how are you doing? I feel like I haven’t seen you much.”
“I’ve been laying low.” She says, taking a seat. She looks at me, holds my gaze for longer than is comfortable. “Ya know, we came here to escape some things. He thinks I don’t know.”
“Taylor does?”
“Mm-hmm.” She says with a nod. She rubs at one of her eyes and suddenly looks incredibly tired. “I’d have left him if these two weren’t already on the way. It’s funny, the different choices you make when you’re not just thinking of yourself. So I pushed him into the transfer really, said a new start would be good for us. Good for the babies.”
“And it will be, I’m sure.” I encourage. “This is such a great place to bring up a family.”
“Oh, I see that.”
“But I thought you wanted to leave?”
“What?” She asks. “No! I’m super bummed that we get here and the crime rate goes through the roof… but I don’t want to go anywhere. Between us, I don’t think I could handle more disruption.”
“I’m not surprised.” I say, but there’s something about her delivery that doesn’t quite convince me. She wants to leave, I can see it in her nervous energy. She’s desperate to get out of here, so why is she pretending otherwise? “Look, I know things are crazy right now, but I really think this case will be solved soon.”
She lets out a small moan. “I hope so. He won’t talk to me about it. I know that’s just him doing his job but I feel pushed out. I’m not the kind of woman who knows how to sit back and do nothing, ya know. I’m used to taking action and solving problems, and now I’m changing diapers and singing lullabies.”
“Isn’t it nice, though?” I ask. “The change of pace?”
“If I can stop myself feeling guilty for long enough, sure.” She says. “I’ll be back at work in no time. I should enjoy this time while it lasts.”
“Right ladies, I’m outta here.” Taylor calls from the hallway. We hear him step into his sturdy boots.
“Don’t I get a kiss?” Adele calls.
He appears in the doorway, flustered. “Of course, just getting everything ready. As if I wouldn’t kiss my favourite people.”
He plants a kiss on her cheek, and then bends down to the floor and kisses both babies.
“Make sure you catch him.” Adele calls.
“I’m going to.” He says, but it’s me he looks at, not her. His expression is fierce. “This case will be solved today.”
And then he’s gone.
“He actually said it would be solved today?” Patton asks.
I made my excuses to Adele quickly after she’d had her own shower. She didn’t care. She was clean, smelling of vanilla, her hair freshly dried and straightened. If that was all the time I could give her, she was grateful for every second.
I called an emergency meeting with Patton, Sage and Atticus and they’re all sat around in my attic, hanging on my every word.
“He was so determined.” I say. “Like another person.”
“Well, that’s crazy, he’s been so uninterested. What’s changed?”
“Let’s go and ask him.” Patton says. “Something isn’t right.”
The police station is in darkness, although Taylor’s car is in the parking lot.
The front door is unlocked though, and when there’s no reply to the intercom, we let ourselves in and take the stairs up to his office.
“This place freaks me out.” Patton says. “It should be a hive of activity in here, not a ghost town.”
I lead the way down the corridor and see that Taylor’s door is closed.
I knock lightly. No response.
“Maybe he went off on foot.” I say.
“We’re wasting our time on him.” Sage says. “He’s fooled us again. I bet he’s out getting lunch.”
“Okay.” I say with a shrug. “Let’s go.”
I’m about to move away from the door when I hear a noise from within. A low, muted groan.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
The others shake their heads.
“Well, I did.” I say, and I push on the door, which opens.
The office inside is a tip, even worse than normal. Piles of papers have been tipped onto the floor, the empty coffee cups are strewn around the room, the third drawer of the filing cabinet stands open, its contents removed and rifled through.
“He’s been burgled.” I say with a gasp. I’m about to shout out that we need to call the police, when I realise that he is the police. If the other towns won’t come out and help us with a murder, they’re not going to come out for a burglary.
“Someone’s gone through this place good.” Patton says as he examines some of the paperwork.
“Sheriff! Sheriff, can you hear me?” Atticus calls then , and I turn around to see what he has seen; poking out from the walk-in stationery cupboard, Sheriff Morton’s heavy duty boots.
I dial the ambulance as I move closer, so that by the time I see the Sheriff’s lifeless form slumped into the tiny room, I’m already giving the address.
“I don’t know.” I say in between sobs. “There’s a lot of blood. I don’t know what’s happened.”
“Gunshot wound.” Patton calls, and I repeat his words into the handset.
“Taylor? Can you hear us?” Atticus asks, his face inches away from the Sheriff’s. The Sheriff’s face is ashen, his eyes closed, and Atticus looks towards me and shakes his head a few moments later.
Adele answers my call on the fifteenth ring, right as I’m about to hang up. A baby screams in the background as she barks a harried hello into the line.
“Adele. I need you to get the babies ready and meet me at the hospital. It’s Taylor.”
She drops the phone. I hear the bang of it hitting her kitchen floor, and her own sobs ring out together with the screams of her child.
I think back to my younger days, when I was friends with a military wife. She opened up to me once about how, every single time the phone rang, her heart stopped and she expected it to be that call. The call that told her, your husband isn’t coming home. I’d never rang her after that, not wanting to add to those times when the fear gripped her. I tried to talk about it again with her a few weeks after, but she shook her head, refused to speak of it again.
I wonder if Adele has felt the same way, that her law-enforcement husband might only be hers for a limited time, until he’s taken from her. From her and their babies.
The sirens of the ambulance approach and I manage to walk, calmly, through the building so that I am in the parking lot to greet them.
“He’s up here.” I say, as they dash across the lot, arms full of equipment.
“Who is he?”
“Taylor Morton, he’s the Sheriff. He’s working a murder case right now. He told me this morning he’d be solving the case today.” I explain as we make our way through the building. The paramedics dive into action when they see his slumped body, taking his pulse, checking his vitals, then quickly making the decision to transfer him on
to a stretcher.
“Is the building secure? Could the perp still be present?” One paramedic asks me and a chill runs through me.
“I don’t know.” I admit. “It didn’t occur to me.”
The paramedic speaks into his radio. “We need police back up, building unsecure, perp may still be on site.”
“Lift.” Another paramedic says, and they lift the stretcher in perfect unison, carrying Taylor out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the ambulance.
“What shall I do?” I ask them, feeling lost and helpless. Sage, Patton and Atticus watch with me, but the paramedics can only see me.
“The police will need to talk to you. You can come to the hospital, though.”
I climb into the ambulance and sit across from Taylor, cupping my head in my hands.
“He have a next of kin?” A kindly walrus of a paramedic asks me as he jots notes down on a clipboard. “That you?”
“No, no. He has a wife, Adele. I’ve rang her.”
“She comin’ here? Cos we’re not waiting.” He says, and right on cue, the ambulance starts up and speeds through town, sirens blaring.
“I told her to meet us at the hospital.”
“Good, good.” He says. “And you know him how?”
“Well, he’s the Sheriff, so everyone knows him. I’m friends with his wife. They have two little babies, twins. I try to help out with them a bit.”
“Childminder?”
“Oh no, just as a friend.”
“Mm-hmm.” The paramedic says. “You know anything about his health? Any allergies?”
“I couldn’t say.” I apologise. “Does it matter?”
The paramedic smiles. “We don’t want to give him medicine he’s allergic to, that’s only gonna make things worse for him, ain’t it?”
“Is he…?” I begin, and notice that I’m shaking.
“He’s alive.” The paramedic says, noticing my shivering body. He pulls a foil blanket from a container and opens it up, wraps it around my shoulders. “You’re going into shock, keep that around you. You see what happened?”
I shake my head.
“You see anyone else in there?”
I shake my head again.
“Alrighty then, the police are gonna have some more questions for you. They’ll probably see you at the hospital. You tell ‘em everything you know, okay?”
“Yes, sir.” I say, pulling the foil blanket around my body tighter as I watch Taylor’s lifeless body.
Adele has no babies with her, that’s the thing I notice first.
She throws herself at the stretcher with such force it takes three members of hospital staff to remove her.
“Mrs Morton, please, we need to get your husband into surgery.” A staffer says, pulling on her skinny arm. She bats him away with superhuman strength.
“Adele.” I plead, and it’s my voice she listens to, my voice that reaches her through the fog. “Come on, let them help him. Every second counts.”
She steps away from the gurney, arms raised, as if she’s showing them she means no harm, she’s done. I lead her down the corridor and grab two empty chairs, the metal cold against our skin as we sit down. I grab her hand and hold it tight.
“Who has the babies?” I ask.
She looks at me as if she’s never seen a baby in her life.
“The old witch.” She says then, alarm in her voice, as if she’s only just realised she’s left her children.
“Violet? Violet Warren?” I ask. “Okay then. They’ll be fine with her. Don’t worry.”
“She saw me, or heard me. She came over. And I just… I left. I left my babies.” She says quietly.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I soothe. “Let me give her a call.”
Violet answers on the first ring, and laughs when I ask how she’s doing.
“What’s going on?”
“Sheriff Morton’s been shot.” I whisper.
“Goodness.” Violet breathes into the handset.
“Are you ok with the babies?”
“Absolutely.” Violet says. “Tell Mrs Morton not to worry. I’m a bit out of practice but I’ll handle it!”
I smile to myself. Violet Warren wouldn’t be my first choice of person to look after my babies, but she can definitely handle whatever life throws at her. She’ll be fine.
“Everything’s fine.” I say as I return to Adele’s side. “Violet loves babies.”
“Oh, good.” Adele says.
Look, sometimes a lie is needed, okay.
“What happened down there?” She asks me, eyes wide, as if she knows she can’t handle the details but needs to hear them, anyway.
“I don’t know.” I say. “The office was a mess, I thought it was a burglary at first. Then I saw him…”
“Who would do this to him?” Adele asks.
“I think it was the same person who killed Emelza Shabley.”
“But why?”
“He said this morning, he was going to solve the case today. I think the killer wanted to shut him up.”
“Oh, wow.” Adele says. She curls her legs up under her and begins to cry. “Well, they’ve done that.”
The doctor is a stunning Arabian woman, green eyes, high cheekbones, tight smile.
“Mrs Morton?” She calls, disturbing both me and Adele from a light sleep. The world has grown dark during the time we have sat on the metal chairs, and it hurts to move from the foetal positions we’ve adopted as best as possible.
“Yes!” Adele says, and struggles to her feet.
“Follow me to my office?” The doctor asks, and Adele holds her arm out for me. I struggle to my feet too and take her hand in mind, and together we follow the doctor down an artificially lit, empty corridor, every step we take echoing through the medical maze that surrounds us.
The doctor’s office is small, functional. The type of office that’s given because her status requires one, without really being used. She sits behind her desk, where her computer and nothing else stands, and we take seats opposite her.
“I’m Dr Abaza.” She says, eyes thick with mascara. “I’ve been overseeing the surgery for your husband. He came in this afternoon with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, the terminus of his collarbone specifically.”
“The shoulder? People survive that, right? Isn’t that what you aim for to not really hurt someone?” Adele asks, speaking rapidly.
“TV has a lot to answer for.” Dr Abaza says. “Any gunshot wound is serious. The difficulty here, is that it’s caused a pneumothorax.”
“A what?” I ask.
“Collapsed lung.” Dr Abaza says. “It means that the space between the chest cavity wall and the lung itself has filled with air, and a portion of the lung has collapsed. We’ve removed the air, and your husband’s going to need a chest tube to remain in place for some days.”
“I don’t understand.” Adele says.
“He’s stable.” Dr Abaza says. “Your husband is going to be okay. He’s not awake yet, but you can go and sit with him for a little while.”
“He’s going to be okay?” I repeat, squeezing Adele’s hand.
“He’s a strong, fit, young man. He can recover from this. It’s going to take time.”
“Did the person mean to not kill him?” I ask.
Dr Abaza gazes at me, unsure how to answer this question. She’s a medic, not a detective. “It’s impossible to say.” She answers, finally. “Some people are just bad shots.”
It’s hard to believe that Taylor isn’t dead, as we go into his hospital room, where the only noise comes from the beeps of the machines around him. I don’t know if the machines are keeping him alive, or just monitoring his vitals, and I don’t want to ask.
Adele begins to cry again at the sight of him there, but she doesn’t go to him. She remains near me, by the door, as if she can’t quite believe it’s her husband in that bed. Or as if she’s scared close contact might hurt him.
“I can’t believe I was moaning about him
taking a shower this morning.” She whispers. “And talking about his mistakes. We promised to leave that in the past, and there I am, as soon as his back’s turned…”
“Adele, stop it. You love him and he loves you. Marriage is hard work. You’ll get through this like you got through everything else.”
“He looks so weak.” She says, and it’s true. “I can’t believe he’s survived a gunshot.”
“You’ll need to let him rest now.” A young nurse with a kind smile says as she walks into the room. “Get some rest, and come back in the morning.”
“He’ll be okay until then?” Adele asks, and I sense the pull she feels, between her husband and her babies.
“He’s stable, no reason to expect that to change.” The nurse says.
Adele lets out a breath. “Okay. Goodnight, Tay.”
I walk out before she does, giving her a moment’s privacy with her husband, but she follows me out almost instantly.
“I’ll look after the babies tomorrow so you can come back.” I offer, and then I notice the police officers appear. “Looks like it’s time for me to give my statement. I’ll see you in the morning?”
She pulls me into a huge embrace, and I manage to think mainly of her heartbreak and not how squishy I must feel to her, and then she disappears out towards the parking lot.
17
Sage
“None of this feels right.” I say, for what must be the millionth time.
Patton, Atticus and I remained at the police station after Connie went in the ambulance with Sheriff Morton. We hovered around and watched the police make cursory checks around the building before the forensic squad came in and photographed the scene and took samples, and then we watched them all disappear just in time to get back across town in time for a barbecue lunch.
We’ve turned the whole place upside down, and we can’t make sense of it.
“We should make notes, plot out our thinking.” Atticus suggests.
“Good luck finding a pen in this mess.” I say.
“How can a Sheriff not have a pen?” He asks, but after fifteen minutes he realises I’m right and gives up.