Rude Awakening

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ Anthony said. He handed me a wallet. There was a newly minted Illinois driver’s license, a Visa card, an American Express card and around $400 in cash. The ID and both credit cards carried the name ‘Emil Hawthorne’ big as all get out. The DB was lying on his stomach, his face in the ground. What blood there was came from the head area.

  ‘You see where he was shot?’ I asked Anthony.

  ‘Yes, Sir. Two shots. One right between the eyes, and another in the left cheek area. But by the amount of blood, I’d say the first shot got him. Figuring the one between the eyes.’

  ‘How so?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, Sir, the shooter would be aiming real good the first time, and the second shot would just be like overkill.’ He stopped for a minute, grinned sheepishly, and said, ‘No pun intended, Sir.’

  I grinned back. ‘You might wanna remember it, though,’ I said, ‘in case this scenario ever comes up again.’

  ‘Yes, Sir, copy that,’ Anthony said.

  We heard a car pulling into the long driveway and waited while the ME parked and got out. Rose Church was elected shortly after Old Doc Watson had retired. She was usually an anesthesiologist, but she was still good at pointing out that somebody was dead. Me and her didn’t get along real good, but that was neither here nor there.

  ‘Hey, Dr Church,’ I said as she walked up to the DB.

  ‘Hey yourself, Sheriff,’ she said. ‘How’re Jean and your boy?’

  Well, that story was so long I didn’t dare get into it, so I just said, ‘Fine, thanks for asking.’

  ‘Who we got here?’ she asked, nudging the dead body with the toe of her shoe.

  Dr Church was a mannish-looking woman, with real short salt-and-pepper hair, a body like a fireplug and big hands for a woman. But then, who am I to say? Saying such a thing out loud would just get me in trouble with somebody.

  ‘A foreigner,’ I said. ‘From Chicago.’

  ‘Humph,’ she said at my attempted humor.

  With Anthony’s help, she turned the body over. There appeared to be no wounds other than the two shots to the face. He was a skinny guy, with gray hair and a sallow complexion. I’m not sure if that was from the coma or newly developed due to him being dead and all.

  Dr Church took out a hand-held recorder and began to speak into it. ‘Two gunshot wounds, look like twenty-two caliber, one between the eyes, the other center of the left cheek. No other wounds visible. By the lack of blood, I’d say fairly instantaneous death.’ She turned off the recorder and rolled the body back over onto its stomach. Pointing at the back of his head, she said, ‘Birds have been pecking on him pretty good back here, so no telling how long he’s been laying here. I’ll have to take him in to figure out time of death, but off the top of my head, I’d say, he’s already gone through rigor, which means he’s been laying here for at least six hours,’ Dr Church said.

  At least six hours. Emmett had found the hostages no more than four hours ago. Seemed like I needed to have me another talk with sweet little Miz Holly Humphries.

  DALTON

  Dalton had made the executive decision to take Holly Humphries to the Longbranch Inn rather than to the Motel Five out on Highway-5. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he wanted Holly to like his hometown, and there was nothing much out on Highway-5 to like. But the Longbranch Inn sat right on the square, right across from the county courthouse, and was real old and real pretty and the rooms were made up old-fashioned-like and he thought she might like it. Not that he cared, but it was nice to be nice to someone who’d been through what she’d been through. Not to mention how she probably saved his nephew’s life.

  Coming into town on Highway-5, Dalton said, ‘This here Highway Five turns into Main Street right here. That over there is the post office. The original one. Well, not really. The original one was a shack, but this is the second original one.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Holly said, staring at the Georgian-style brick building with the mismatched shingles on the roof.

  ‘That there in the middle of the square,’ he said, pointing straight ahead of them, ‘is the courthouse. It’s real old, too.’

  ‘It looks real old,’ Holly agreed. ‘But very pretty.’

  ‘County had it refurbished ’bout five years ago,’ Dalton said proudly.

  ‘That must be why it looks so good,’ Holly said.

  ‘Yeah. Across the street there,’ he said, pointing, ‘is the Longbranch Inn. That’s where you’ll be staying. They got the best food in town. And real nice rooms. Our head deputy Emmett Hopkins and his wife Jasmine, who’s also a deputy, they spent their wedding night there,’ he said, then blushed bloodred.

  ‘I’m sure I’m gonna like it just fine,’ Holly assured him.

  ‘Dalton come in,’ came over the radio.

  Dalton picked up the mic and switched it on. ‘Car Three, over,’ he said.

  ‘It’s Milt. Miss Humphries still there with you?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, over,’ Dalton said.

  ‘Bring her on back here, would’ja please?’

  ‘Before or after I check her in at the hotel, over,’ Dalton said.

  ‘Right now means right now, Dalton. Oh, and over and out,’ Milt said and hung up.

  HOLLY

  Holly liked that Dalton had started talking, and liked the way he talked about his hometown. She guessed Tulsa was her hometown, but she didn’t feel that way about it. The little parts of the city she knew she wasn’t really keen on. But when Dalton brought her to the downtown area of Longbranch, she could certainly see why he was prideful about his hometown. It was beautiful. Just like out of a movie – maybe a Western, but still and all. The courthouse in the middle of town was surrounded by centuries-old oak trees, and the lawn was green and perfect, with spring flowers bursting forth all over. Each little store had a big old pot in front of it with spring flowers. The hotel he pointed out was almost as ornate as the courthouse, and she couldn’t wait to see her room in such a place.

  But then the call came in from the sheriff, and Dalton turned the squad car around, heading back out Highway-5 to the sheriff’s department. She didn’t like the feel of this at all.

  Once there, Dalton parked on the side, and led her in through the staff-only entrance. Normally, she would have found that fairly cool, but right now she was a little upset. She really wanted to rest, to lay down in what she knew would be a four-foot-high four-poster bed in a room with old-fashioned wallpaper, and close her eyes to sweet dreams about cowboys and dancehall queens.

  The sheriff was in his office, the first door they came to. He looked up. ‘Hey, Miz Humphries, come on in.’ He stood up and ushered her to a chair. ‘Thanks, Dalton, please close the door behind you.’

  And then she was alone with the sheriff.

  ‘Miz Humphries, I need to ask you a few questions,’ the sheriff said.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ she said. ‘I think I told you everything, but anything you need.’

  ‘When exactly was the last time you saw the man you say you knew as Mr Smith?’

  Not being a complete and total idiot, Holly didn’t miss ‘the man you say you knew as Mr Smith.’ That sounded as if he didn’t believe her, and if he didn’t believe her, what was she going to do? Holly took a deep breath and then plunged ahead. ‘That’s the only way I knew him, Sheriff, I swear to God. He told me his name was Mr Smith. He never said anything else. No first name, no nothing. I shoulda asked, I know, but I was so happy to get an acting gig that I just took him at his word!’

  The sheriff nodded his head. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I still need to know, when exactly was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. OK. Uh.’ Holly thought for a moment, then said, ‘As Eli and I were running away. It was dark, I guess last night some time, and we were running along the woods near the driveway, and he shone his flashlight on us and we ran back into the thick woods behind the barn.’ Another bout of thinking, then she said, ‘At least, I think it was Mr Smith. I didn’t see his face, ju
st the flashlight beam, but who else could it have been?’

  ‘Who else, indeed?’ the sheriff said ominously. ‘Let’s go over again how you met Mr Smith.’

  So Holly painstakingly described yet again how she’d seen the ad on ‘Craig’s List’ and had emailed the address listed and how Mr Smith had called her and set up a meet. She told the sheriff every last detail of every encounter she’d had with Smith, then asked, ‘Do I need a lawyer?’

  ‘Why would you need a lawyer?’ the sheriff asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Holly said, tears building up behind her eyes and her voice getting wet. ‘You’re scaring me!’ she wailed and burst into tears.

  At which point, the sheriff’s door opened and Dalton Pettigrew burst in.

  ‘What’d you do to her?’ he yelled at the sheriff.

  Through tear-filled eyes, she saw the sheriff stand up and walk around his desk. She turned to look up at Dalton, her eyes pleading.

  ‘Let’s you and me go outside, Deputy,’ the sheriff said, and they closed the door, leaving Holly alone in the sheriff’s office.

  MILT

  I grabbed Dalton by the arm and dragged him down the hall to the now-empty lobby. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ I demanded.

  ‘She didn’t have nothing to do with this, Milt!’ Dalton said, for all the world looking like he could punch me out. I’d never seen that look on Dalton’s face before, and I must say, if you’ll excuse the expression, I was nonplussed.

  ‘You don’t know that, Dalton. And I’m not saying that she did. But I got some tough questions to ask, and she’s one of the people I need to ask them to. She’s the only one who knew Smith, she came here with Smith . . .’

  ‘And she saved Eli’s life!’ Dalton all but shouted.

  ‘No doubt she did,’ I said. ‘Maybe she changed her mind about being in on it, or maybe she didn’t know anything about it. I don’t know. All I do know is that Dr Church says Smith’s been dead like six hours. And y’all were found four hours ago. Seems like there’s leeway for Holly to have shot Smith and left with Eli.’

  ‘Don’t you think Eli would have noticed if she’d shot Mr Smith?’ Dalton demanded.

  Hum, I thought. He had me there. ‘Maybe she did it while he was asleep. Or maybe she’d already run away with Eli, left him stashed in the woods, then come back and did Smith.’

  ‘That’s stupid!’ Dalton said.

  I looked at him hard and he said, ‘Sir.’

  ‘You go swab out the cells right now, Dalton. And don’t come down my hallway until I call for you. You got that?’ I said.

  He stared at me hard for a minute and then said, grudgingly, ‘Yes, Sir,’ and headed for the broom closet to get the cleaning supplies for the jail cells. They’d been cleaned on Saturday by Lonnie Sturgis and we hadn’t had anyone in there since then, but it was a ‘keep busy’ kind of chore, and we both knew it.

  I went back to my office, where Holly Humphries was blowing her nose and drying her eyes. I sat down behind my desk and said, ‘Miz Humphries, I’m not accusing you of anything, and if you want a lawyer, you can call one.’

  ‘I don’t know any lawyers,’ she said, a sob in her voice.

  ‘I’ll call one for you, if you want me to. But I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just trying to find out what we can about this Mr Smith. And what happened after you and Eli left him. You see, Miz Humphries, somebody shot Mr Smith about the same time you say you got away from him. Shot him twice in the face. Killed him dead.’

  Holly’s eyes got huge and her mouth quivered. ‘I swear to God I didn’t kill him, Sheriff.’

  ‘It’d be best if we could prove that, Holly. How ’bout we do a paraffin test? Check your hands for gunshot residue?’

  She held her hands out toward me. ‘I’ve never shot a gun in my life, Sheriff. Have at it. Can I take a polygraph, too?’ she said, beginning to lose her fear and getting a little excited. ‘And you can swab my mouth for DNA!’

  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

  EMIL

  It 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.

  MILT

  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.

  HOLLY

  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.