The trip to the hospital was quick. A little quicker than was comfortable, since I had to follow in the wake of the ambulance the whole way there. Rafe drives like a bat out of hell under most circumstances. He wouldn’t have had any problems. I’m usually a pretty cautious driver, and getting more cautious the more pregnant I get. The baby is closer to the surface now than it used to be, and just the idea of having to stop fast, and slamming my stomach into the steering wheel, is scary.
When we arrived at Vanderbilt Hospital, the ambulance shot, screaming, into the ambulance entrance. Aislynn and I had to go around the building to the ER. I let her out at the doors, and took off to find a parking space. By the time I made it inside, she was arguing with the nurse at the duty desk about wanting to see her girlfriend.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the nurse kept repeating. “Only family allowed. And not yet.”
We’d been here before, Aislynn and I. In this place, and this situation. This was where Kylie had ended up after the traffic accident in December, and the hospital staff hadn’t been helpful about giving Aislynn information then, either. Now it was six months later, and gay marriage had become legal, but Aislynn and Kylie weren’t married. Guess it was up to me to save the day again. I sighed—silently—and went to the rescue. “I’m Kylie’s sister. She was here six months ago, after a traffic accident. You should have her in your records from then. I’m probably there, too. Savannah Martin.”
I showed her my driver’s license while she pecked at her computer.
“You have different last names,” she told me.
“Marriage,” I answered, flashing my brand new wedding ring.
It must have satisfied her, because she didn’t say any more about it. “Any changes in her insurance since the last time she was here?”
I glanced at Aislynn. She shook her head. “No,” I said.
She tap-tapped some more. “If you’ll take a seat, someone will be out to talk to you shortly.”
“Thank you.” I grabbed Aislynn by the arm and hauled her away. “They probably don’t know anything yet. She just got here.”
We ended up in two uncomfortable plastic chairs over by the wall, where we had a good view of the swinging doors into the ER. Aislynn got busy gnawing on her fingernails. Since they were lacquered black, I didn’t imagine it could be good for her, but I didn’t say anything about it. We were in a hospital. If she poisoned herself, presumably they’d know what to do for her.
It got on my nerves after a few minutes, though, and I cast about for something to say. “Kylie’s been married once, right?”
Aislynn nodded, but didn’t take her thumb out of her mouth.
“Did you ever meet him?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“It was before we met,” Aislynn said. And promptly stuck her finger back in her mouth.
“She told me about him. Although I can’t remember...”
“Damian,” Aislynn said.
I nodded. “Was Mitchell her married name? Or did she go back to her maiden name after the divorce?”
“Does it matter?” Aislynn wanted to know.
Not really. I was just making conversation to pass the time, and to stop her from her cannibalism. Although it might be helpful to know Kylie’s maiden name when I was pretending to be her sister.
“Mitchell was Damian’s name,” Aislynn said when I explained my reasoning, but not without an eye roll. “Kylie’s maiden name was Williams.”
“Is Damian here? Or did she move to Nashville after they got divorced?”
“Kylie’s always lived here,” Aislynn said, which I took to mean that yes, the marriage had been local and Damian was still around. “But he doesn’t need to know that she’s in the hospital. They aren’t married anymore.”
That hadn’t been on my mind at all, actually, but now that she mentioned it, and sounded adamant about it, I was curious. “Do they see each other these days?”
Aislynn shook her head. “Kylie felt bad about leading him on. When she married him, she didn’t realize she was gay.”
I nodded. She had told me that. And that it had been a remark of her ex-husband’s—about how she seemed to prefer her girlfriends’ company to his—that had spurred the realization.
“He wouldn’t be behind this, would he?”
Aislynn looked shocked.
“Is he still upset about what happened?”
“I don’t think so,” Aislynn said.
“What do you think happened?”
“To Kylie? Someone broke in and hit her.”
Obviously. Or more likely, someone broke in while the house was empty, and Kylie came home and found him or her in the process of ransacking the office, and then he or she hit her. Most burglars have enough sense not to break into a house when people are home.
Aislynn and Kylie’s house had sat empty all day long, though. It made a lot more sense to break in then, when they were both at work. Anyone who knew anything about their schedules would know that Kylie worked regular business hours and Aislynn’s waitressing job was in Brentwood, a thirty minute drive from the house. It wouldn’t have been hard to check that she was there. Just stop by and look.
Yes, late morning would have been a much safer time for a foray into the house than evening. Especially since the backyard was fenced and private for someone to come and go without being seen.
And that reminded me... “Do you know a guy in a plaid shirt?”
Aislynn stared at me.
“Blue and green plaid. Sort of light.” And yes, I did realize how stupid the question was. All someone in a plaid shirt had to do, was take off the plaid shirt, and he’d no longer be someone in a plaid shirt.
“I’m sure we do,” Aislynn said. “I think Kylie has a plaid flannel shirt that she uses in the winter. And I have a plaid skirt.”
Not quite what I’d been looking for. But rather than telling her the reason I asked—since I didn’t want to worry her any more than this incident with Kylie already had—I just thanked her and didn’t say anything else about it.
Chapter Ten
The doctor came out a few minutes later, to update us on Kylie’s condition. He turned out to be the same ER doctor who had been here in December, when she had her car accident, and also the same guy who had been here when Tim was shot in February. His name was Simon Ramsey, and he was a good-looking guy in his thirties who either recognized us, or pretended well. His smile was warm and familiar and reassuring.
“She’s stable. Still unconscious. Lost a bit of blood but nothing extraordinary. She has a concussion, of course.”
We both nodded, although he addressed most of his remarks to me. I was pretty sure he had figured out, last time were here, that I wasn’t really Kylie’s sister, but maybe he didn’t remember that part.
“We’ll be keeping her sedated for a while to give her brain time to recover. We’ll probably bring her out of it tomorrow morning, and we’ll see if she regains consciousness on her own.”
“What if she doesn’t?” Aislynn wanted to know, gnawing on her bottom lip.
“Then we’ll just have to wait a little longer until her body’s ready. But there’s nothing too badly wrong with her that I can see. We gave her a CT-scan to rule out brain injury, and it came back clear. We’ve stitched her up. It looks to me like it’s just a matter of time before she wakes up on her own, but we’ll give her until tomorrow to rest.”
We nodded. Doctor Ramsey looked from me to Aislynn and back.
“You can see her if you want, although she won’t know you’re here. And there’s no sense in staying with her. Come back in the morning.”
I nodded.
“Can I see her before we go?” Aislynn asked.
So we went and saw Kylie, who was pale and bandaged and unconscious, and hooked up to various beeping and whooshing machines. Then I took Aislynn out of there and put her back in my car. “She’ll be all right. You heard what he said. He was the same doctor who patc
hed her up last time, and he did a good job then. She’ll be fine.”
Aislynn nodded, sniffing into another tissue. “I feel so bad. If I hadn’t gotten upset yesterday...”
Then it might have been her in a hospital bed right now, and not Kylie. But since I’d already said that, I didn’t bother repeating it.
“You can’t think like that,” I told her instead. “Kylie would probably prefer it this way. I’m sure she’d rather be hurt than have you be hurt. And anyway, if she had been answering her phone, or if she’d called you before going home, she might not have been there alone. She might have picked you up first, and then it would have been the two of you coming home together.”
And if so, the burglar might have heard them coming and decided to book it out the back door rather than waiting for Kylie to walk in and then bash her over the head with something.
I wondered whether she’d gotten a look at the guy—or girl. Head-bashing is an equal opportunity crime, and once she woke up, maybe we’d get lucky and she’d be able to tell us something about whoever had done this to her.
Back at the house, there was a lot more activity than there had been when we left. Rafe’s Harley was gone, but Detective Mendoza was there, overseeing a group of crime scene techs in white coveralls. A Metro PD crime scene van was parked at the curb along with a gray sedan. I assumed the latter was Mendoza’s. And in spite of it being Saturday, he was dressed in another killer suit, complete with shirt and tie. Aqua shirt, teal tie today.
When he heard our footsteps on the porch stairs, he turned, and gave us a killer smile. “Ladies.”
Aislynn liked women and I’m happily married to the greatest guy in the world, but I’m sure we both sighed appreciatively. He was just so very pretty.
Then I shook it off. “Detective. We’ve been at the hospital.”
Mendoza nodded. “So your husband said. Everything OK?”
I gave him the rundown. Aislynn, meanwhile, was peering around the doorjamb, watching the crime scene team at work. I could have told her that she’d have a mess to clean up once they were done—fingerprint powder takes a lot of vacuuming—but I was more interested in whatever Mendoza had to say. “Any idea what happened?”
“No more than you do, I imagine.” He glanced at Aislynn. “The door was locked when you arrived?”
Aislynn nodded.
“Did you check the back door?”
We hadn’t. We’d just walked in, found Kylie, and raised the alarm.
“Is something wrong with the back door?” I asked.
Mendoza shook his head. “But if the front door was locked, it’s possible the culprit left that way.”
“That reminds me...” I glanced at Aislynn. She was still more interested in the crime scene than the conversation. I took a step to the side and lowered my voice. Mendoza followed, looking politely interested. “Yesterday afternoon, when I was driving by here, I saw a man in the yard. Or maybe a woman. Wearing a plaid shirt.”
Mendoza arched his brows.
“I didn’t get a good look, OK? He was just on his way around the corner of the house when I saw him. Or her. I pulled over and went into the backyard, but I didn’t see anyone. I figured he might just be a neighbor cutting through the yard, but now I’m not sure. It could have been someone casing the place, I guess. Although if he was, why didn’t he just break in then? The house was empty.”
“It was broad daylight?” Mendoza suggested.
“The backyard is private. And fenced. Nobody can see what’s going on.”
“Then that’s likely where our burglar entered,” Mendoza said. “I’ll make sure we dust for prints in the back of the house.”
There was a pause.
“Did you find the weapon?” I asked. “Whatever Kylie was hit with?”
He nodded. It was nice of him to be so forthcoming, actually. He didn’t have to. Then again, maybe he figured Aislynn would tell me everything later. And he probably planned to tell her. “Snow globe.”
“The one with the Eiffel Tower in it? That’s too bad.” I had noticed it the other night. It had been nice: big and sturdy.
“It was intact,” Mendoza said. “Sitting on the bookshelf on the other side of the room.”
I blinked. “He put it there after bashing her over the head with it?”
“Must have. Unless you moved it?”
I shook my head. “Last time I saw it, it was on the desk. That was two nights ago.”
“It was on the shelf this morning. With blood all over it. We’ve packed it up to be tested, but there’s not much doubt it’s the weapon.”
“Virgil Wright wasn’t killed with the snow globe, was he?”
“No,” Mendoza said. “The murder weapon in that case was a rock. It was found at the scene. Too rough to take fingerprints. We’ll try for trace DNA, but by the time we’re likely to get anything useful back from the lab, I’m sure we’ll have the murderer in custody anyway.”
Must be nice to be so confident.
“But you think you can get fingerprints from the snow globe?”
“Unless the burglar was wearing gloves,” Mendoza said. “And since he was in fact a burglar, it’s quite likely he was. But we’ll check.”
“Are you planning to go to the visitation?” I glanced at my watch. It was already past noon. With the trip to the hospital, the time had totally gotten away from me.
“I was,” Mendoza said, “until this. Now I have to talk to Ms. Turner. Are you going to the visitation?”
I told him I thought I might.
“If you learn anything you think I should know,” Mendoza told me, “give me a call.” He nodded. “Excuse me.”
He turned to walk back to Aislynn. I thought about offering to stay with her—she had that quality of making us all want to protect her; I’m sure Kylie felt the same way—but I decided against it. I really did want to get to the visitation, and Aislynn was an adult, she could handle this herself. Besides, I was pretty sure she’d already told me everything she knew. Which amounted to zilch, since she didn’t know anything.
So I told her I was leaving, and to call me if she needed anything. She looked at me with huge doe eyes, and I steeled myself. “Maybe you should run up to Bowling Green when you’re finished talking to the detective. Spend the night with your parents. You probably don’t want to stay here, and you won’t be able to see Kylie until tomorrow anyway.”
Aislynn sank her teeth into her lip, and I added, “You’re welcome to come back and stay with us again. But I thought maybe you’d like to see your mother and father.”
She turned to Mendoza. “Would that be all right?”
“As long as you tell me where you’re going,” Mendoza said, “so I can get in touch with you if I need to, I don’t see why not.”
I left them to work out the details, and headed for the Volvo.
Virgil Wright’s visitation took place at the Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home in Inglewood, where Brenda Puckett’s memorial had also taken place almost a year ago. Unlike then, there were no TV cameras, and no reporters accosting me for a sound byte as I made my way across the parking lot to the front door. And while Misters Phillips and Robinson had opened every room in the place for Brenda’s funeral last year, Virgil Wright hadn’t drawn that kind of crowd. A handful of people were gathered in a room to the right as I came into the lobby, and that was the extent of it.
I made my way there, and stopped in the doorway, looking into a room full of gay guys.
And I do mean that literally. There wasn’t a single woman in the room, and while it isn’t always easy to tell from the outside whether a man is gay, not one of them spared me a look.
That might have been partly because of the stomach. Most guys, even the heterosexual ones, usually take care not to ogle a pregnant woman. But I really think it was more a case of keeping an eye on the tableau taking place by the casket.
Kenny was there, somberly attired in a navy blue suit and tie, with a black armband. His friend fr
om last night was standing a few feet away, cracking his knuckles.
Meanwhile, another man was facing them across the coffin. He had his back to me, so it took me a second to recognize the brown hair and slight build.
In fact, it might not have been the hair and build I recognized at all. It might have been the voice.
“I have the right to be here. He was my lover, too.”
A whisper ran through the room as everyone craned their necks. I moved a few steps into the room.
“Was,” Kenny said tightly. “A year ago. Not anymore.”
“I still loved him,” Stacy said. “Maybe we weren’t together anymore, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t care. Or that he didn’t.”
“This is my memorial for my lover!” Kenny said.
“He was my lover before he was your lover!” Stacy answered. Both their voices were becoming shriller the longer they were at it. He added, “And I can’t have a memorial for him, because you took him away from me!”
“He was sick of you by then!” Kenny said.
Uh-oh.
I waited for Stacy to go for Kenny’s throat, but it didn’t happen. Instead he shot back, “And he was sick of you now!”
There was another audible gasp, and Kenny’s pale face flushed a deeper red than I would have thought possible. “That’s not true!”
“What?” Stacy said tauntingly. “Didn’t he tell you he was tired of you? He told me!”
Uh-oh.
I had joked about Kenny and Stacy getting into a cat-fight over the casket, but I hadn’t actually expected it to happen. It had been a joke. I swear.
Kenny howled something. I’m not even sure what it was, it was so high pitched and hysterical. He threw himself forward, reaching for Stacy, who danced out of range. The guy from last night grabbed Kenny around the waist and tried to haul him back, but it was too late. Kenny attempted to crawl over the coffin to get to Stacy, and in the process, the coffin tipped over. Everyone in the room screamed. I’m pretty sure I screamed, too. If Virgil could have screamed, I’m sure he would have. I winced to think about what was going on inside that coffin at the moment, and I didn’t envy the funeral home employee who had to put it right.
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