“Get the fuck outta my office now!”
Baudin rose and smirked before leaving. Dixon felt that he should say something—anything—but couldn’t think of a single thing. He just nodded apologetically and left the building behind Baudin.
“That’s not gonna be good for us,” Dixon said.
“I had to feel him out. What did you think? Honestly.”
Dixon spit on the ground. “I think if he didn’t know anything, he’d be more surprised than angry.”
Baudin slapped his shoulder and grinned. “See, now you’re thinking clearly.”
Dixon’s phone buzzed, and he looked at it. It was a text from Jessop saying he wanted to see them immediately. “Well, hope you like the taste of shit ’cause we’re about to eat a boatful right now.”
Dixon gazed out the window. Jessop had screamed so much he’d lost his voice. A vein in his neck looked as if it were about to pop, like a snake writhing up his neck into his head. Dixon tried not to look. He tried to keep his stare out the window, but it was difficult. Jessop was circling the office and, since he’d lost his voice, bent down to whisper hoarsely in his ear when some insult came into his head.
“Sir,” Baudin said, “we didn’t accuse the chief of anything. We just went in there to talk, and he’s the one who flipped out.”
Jessop, his voice completely depleted, picked up a pencil and flung it at Baudin’s head. The three men then sat there in silence, watching rain beginning to spot the cars outside in the parking lot.
Jessop pointed to his desk. Dixon pulled out his badge and gun. He laid them on the desk. Baudin did the same, and they stared at Jessop before he pointed to the door.
The two of them walked out of the building. They stood in the rain. It wasn’t coming down hard, just a sprinkle that would leave droplets on clothing.
“Well, that went well,” Dixon said.
Baudin was staring at his phone. “I gotta go.”
“Now? Where you gotta go now?”
“Heather’s not answering her cell. She should’ve been at Molly’s house.”
Dixon sighed. “Well, I may as well come with you since I don’t have a job right now.”
42
The car rolled to a stop in front of Baudin’s home. The truth was, Dixon didn’t want to go home. Home meant he’d have to face his wife and tell her he’d been suspended. At least, he thought he’d been suspended. Jessop might very well fire them. Despite not saying much, they had flat-out accused the chief of being involved in the death of a young girl and with the rapes of dozens more.
He followed Baudin up to the doorstep, the rain now pelting him in the face. Baudin unlocked the door and stepped inside. The house was quiet. He checked Heather’s room and then went to his bedroom.
“Heather?” he called.
As he was walking by the bathroom, Baudin’s eyes went wide. He seemed to have the wind knocked out of him, as though he were collapsing right there in the hallway.
He dashed into the bathroom. Dixon followed.
“No, baby, no, what did you do… What did you do?”
Huddled on the floor, Baudin held his daughter in his arms, both of them now covered in blood. The dark fluid spurted out of cuts in her wrists. The cuts weren’t long, but they were deep, and the girl was white. She wasn’t conscious.
“What did you do to yourself?” Baudin said, tears on his cheeks. “What did you do? What did you do?”
Dixon called it in and took off his belt and ran over. He wrapped his belt around one of the wrists and tightened it just above the wound. Baudin seemed far away. Dixon grabbed him by the back of the neck, looking into his eyes. “Hey! She needs you right now.”
Baudin, seemingly in a daze, slipped off his belt and tightened it around her other arm. Both of them held her, putting pressure on the wounds with towels. The girl responded once—she just said, “Daddy,” before losing consciousness again. Baudin wept as he rested his forehead against hers.
The ambulance was there in less than five minutes. Dixon stepped into the hallway with Baudin, both of their clothing looking as if they’d been sprayed with blood from a hose. As the paramedics hauled her out on a stretcher, Baudin cried again. He buried his face in his hands.
Anything Dixon said right now would be cheap. So instead, he put his hand on his partner’s shoulder and followed him out as he got into the ambulance.
“I’ll follow behind,” Dixon said.
Dixon had never liked hospitals. As a kid, his grandmother was a hypochondriac and took him in for the most minor cough or ache because his father didn’t care enough to pay attention to illness. He’d come to despise the smell of antiseptic and the stale taste of tongue depressors. Once, a doctor pierced his eardrum to drain an infection. The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, Dixon swore he’d never go to the doctor again. Since then, he’d only been twice.
The waiting area was nice, as far as waiting areas went, decorated with paintings of sunflower fields, plants on the side tables, a rug with intricate designs beneath their feet. Baudin had been rocking gently back and forth for the past hour. His eyes were red-rimmed, and every once in a while tears would stream down his face. Dixon leaned forward on his knees.
“My daddy told me kids are the best and worst thing ’bout life.”
Baudin shook his head, his unblinking gaze directed at the floor. “This is my fault, Kyle. She was trying to tell me she’s lost, and I didn’t hear her. She reached out to me, and I slapped her hand away.”
“That’s horseshit. We do the best we can with what we have, man. Raisin’ a girl on your own without a mother around… I can’t even imagine it, man. Hillary knows when Randy is hungry, when he’s sleepy, when he has gas, all that just from the way he cries. I don’t know nothin’. It’s like dealing with an alien.”
“I need to take her back. I never should’ve left California. Her friends were there.”
Dixon saw a speck of mud on his shoe. He wanted to kick into the floor to get it off, but the motion seemed inappropriate. “I ain’t no psychologist, but my guess is that wouldn’t have done nothin’.”
“Mr. Baudin?” a woman in a white coat said as she stepped out of the double doors.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Juni, nice to meet you. I’ve been treating your daughter.” She sat next to them. “First, I want you to know she is perfectly okay. She’s lost some blood, but other than that she’ll be fine. The wrists are actually a difficult place to bleed out from.”
Baudin exhaled a puff of breath, but it didn’t seem conscious. It was as if a great pain had lifted out of his body and left a quivering sack of meat and blood behind. “Can I see her?”
“She’s sleeping now. Why don’t you give her an hour or two and then head back there?” The doctor paused. “I’ve asked that our psychiatrist on call come down and meet with her. I hope that’s okay.”
“It is.”
She nodded. “Teenage suicide is usually a cry for help. She’s trying to get your attention. A real attempt is frequently successful. We’re not as hard to kill as people think. But I’ll let the psychiatrist get into that with you. Her name is Dr. Natalie Leishman, she’ll be down soon.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
When the doctor had left, Baudin rose from his chair. He stood by the window overlooking the parking lot, staring down at the cars coming and going. “I did this to her.”
“You can’t think that way, man.”
“There’s no other way to think.”
He turned and strode down the hall.
43
The closest bar to the hospital was a place called the Dirty Raven. Baudin sat at the bar and drank shot after shot, barely tasting them. He wasn’t drinking for taste, anyway.
The smoke-filled bar stank so strongly of pot and cigarette smoke that he thought he could feel the stuff permeating his skin, as if he would never get that stink off. And for a moment, panic gripped him and tightened h
is chest, then it faded away.
Baudin didn’t know how many shots he’d had. The bar wasn’t the type to cut him off. The bartender, an old man with a balding head, kept pouring the amber drink into the same glass, over and over and over.
A few construction workers sitting next to him were speaking loudly about some NCAA game. Baudin took another shot and dropped the glass on the floor, shattering it.
“Why don’t you cocksuckers shut your damn mouths?” he spat.
One of the workers, with a thick bushy beard, turned to him. “What’d you say?”
Baudin lifted the cigarette he’d laid on the ashtray. He took a final puff and then flicked it onto the man’s shirt. “I said, why don’t you cocksuckers shut your damn mouths?”
The construction worker, without a moment’s hesitation, swung.
Baudin ducked and came up with a right into the man’s kidneys. Then he swung with a hook and hit the guy hard enough that he stumbled back into his friends. One of them grabbed a bottle and came at Baudin, who jabbed him in the nose, and the bottle went wide. Baudin jabbed him four more times until his nose gushed blood, confusion on the man’s face as Baudin’s strikes came like snake bites.
Baudin kicked him in the groin just as the bearded one hopped over the bar and came up behind him. Baudin kicked out, connecting to the man’s gut, but it wasn’t powerful enough to send him sprawling. The bearded one still came at him and got hold of him from behind.
Baudin thrust his head back, smashing into the guy’s nose as the third one came up in front. Baudin tried to kick out, but the third one wasn’t new to brawls. He brushed aside Baudin’s kick and hit him so hard in the face that he thought he might pass out.
The guy kept hitting him, a flurry of punches that Baudin was helpless against. He felt himself going out and made one last attempt to get the bearded one off his back. He ducked low, using all of his bodyweight to fall, and the man’s grip loosened. Baudin came up with a left hook that sent the guy in front of him over a table.
The bearded one was swinging wildly, more with rage than anything else. Baudin was bloodied and dizzy, but he dodged as many as he could before grabbing the bearded man with both hands behind the neck. He brought the man down to chest level and came up with several knees into his groin and chest.
But that all ended in one loud crash. A glass bottle broke over Baudin’s head. There was no pain, but the noise was deafening. And the last thing he saw was the floor racing toward his face.
Baudin felt coolness against his skin. A breeze. It brought him out of his unconscious slumber and made him aware that he was now in the gutter outside the bar. He felt as though he could sleep right there, even though his back was twisted on the curb in a way that shot pain up and down his leg. But the effort of moving was too great. Instead, he closed his eyes.
“Come on, hon, let’s go.”
He felt hands on him, soft hands but firm. They helped him to a standing position. As soon as he was on his feet, he bent down at the waist and hurled a putrid mix of alcohol and bar peanuts into the gutter.
When he was through, he wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, and the hands were on him again, helping him up the sidewalk and to a car waiting on the corner.
44
Baudin smelled incense. Before his eyes even opened and he was aware that he was still alive, he smelled incense, and it took him back to college. He’d shacked up with a granola girl who believed in free love as if it were still the 1960s. Baudin would occasionally come home to find another nude man already in his bed. She encouraged him to experience other women, too, but he never could. He liked her. And one day, she was just gone. Her things were packed and the room empty. She dropped out of school and didn’t tell any of her friends why.
As he opened his eyes, his first thought was of that girl and where she was now. And then in the periphery of his vision, he saw Candi sitting in a recliner watching television. He inhaled deeply and turned to her, his head pounding as though he were still being punched.
“Where am I?”
“In my room, hon. How ya feelin’?”
Baudin tried to sit up, but the world spun so violently he collapsed back. “What happened?”
“Well, looks like you got into a scrape with a few fellas you couldn’t take. You lucky one of my friends was in that place and recognized you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you’re free to leave.”
Baudin tried to get up again. The pain felt as if his guts had been smashed like a bug on a windshield. He groaned.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. She lit a cigarette. “What you doin’ gettin’ in bar fights with three fellas big as bears, anyhow? I thought you was a cop.”
“I was. I don’t know if I am anymore.”
“Oh, one of those.”
“Yeah,” he said, reaching up and placing his hand on his head. “What’s this?”
“A bandage. Your head was bleedin’.”
He looked at her. “Why would you help me?”
She turned back to the television. “Few enough people I like in the world. Couldn’t very well let one die in the gutter if I could stop it.” She rose and walked over to him, sitting next to him on the bed. She took the lit cigarette and put it between his lips. “What happened?”
He inhaled deeply, letting the smoke tingle his lungs before blowing it out in a forceful gust of breath. “Just a shitty day.”
“Ain’t they all. But what happened today?”
“You are nosey, aren’t you?”
“I just saved your life. You’d think you’d be grateful.”
He lifted his arm, the pain in his shoulder radiating down to his fingertips, and removed the cigarette. “My daughter tried to kill herself.”
She nodded. “I been there. Sometimes life feels like a cruel joke. Like there’s some power behind it all just laughin’, laughin’ that you think you got control. Shit, we ain’t got control over nothin’.”
“No,” he said, and took another drag. “We don’t.” He looked at her. “Your scar’s healing.”
“It ain’t gonna go away. I don’t think I’ll be a whore much longer. I’d have to lower my prices so much it wouldn’t be worth it.”
“People that want work can find work. You’ll land on your feet.”
“I’m sure I will. So will you. You got that in you, you know. That desire to live. I think you’d live through just about anything and never even think of just offing yourself. Like most normal folk.”
“Everybody wants to live.”
“No, they don’t,” she said quietly. “Anyways, we best get you to a hospital. You took a blow to the head and probably have a concussion. She took his cigarette and took a drag before putting it out on the nightstand. “I’ll drive.”
Baudin had her drive him to the same hospital Heather was in. He got out of the car without goodbyes and turned to her. “Thanks.”
“Come see me sometime, when you get better.”
Night was already descending, and Baudin wondered exactly how long he’d been out for. He felt out of sorts, as if he’d fallen into a coma and woken up in a different time. Everything had a hazy appearance, and he hoped he wasn’t suffering from brain damage.
As he walked into the waiting area before the emergency room, he saw Kyle Dixon lying across four chairs. The man had his suit coat pulled up over his shoulder and was sound asleep. Baudin went over to him and sat down. Dixon stirred and then woke. He inhaled deeply and sat up, twisting his neck.
“You here this whole time?” Baudin asked.
“I figured you’d be back. She’s up if you want to see her.” He paused. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Long story.”
They rose together, and Dixon followed a step behind as Baudin asked to be buzzed back into the actual emergency rooms. Heather’s bed was on the right-hand side, up the corridor. When he saw her lying in that bed, bandages around her wrists, the whi
te flesh that seemed sickly, he nearly fell to the floor. She was all he had left, the only glimmer of beauty the world held for him anymore. Even the suggestion that she would rather die than be here with him…
He stopped next to her bed, and she saw him. She closed her eyes and turned away.
“Please go away, Daddy.”
“Sweetheart… I’m… I don’t even know what to say.”
“I’m so embarrassed. I can’t even kill myself right. Why am I alive, Daddy? Why am I here if I can’t do anything?”
Baudin, tears rolling down his cheeks, pulled a stool next the bed and held her hand. No words were exchanged between them, but he leaned down and rested his forehead against the back of her hand, his tears dripping onto the linoleum.
45
The doctors wanted to keep Heather in the hospital a few days for observation, and Baudin agreed. By eleven, she was asleep for the night, and Baudin sat in the waiting room. Dixon had stayed by him the entire time. He sat in one of the chairs and watched Sports Center on one of the televisions mounted on the wall.
“Her mother killed herself,” Baudin said, staring out the windows.
Dixon was silent a long time before saying, “I didn’t know that.”
“She went to the doctor and got sleeping pills. Two days later she took them with a fifth of Jack. She spent that day after the doctor’s visit with us. The whole day. It was a Saturday. I didn’t want to do much, just hang out at home. But she insisted. We saw a baseball game, went to a museum, and had a fancy dinner in Malibu at a restaurant that served fresh seafood right on the beach. I can still see her there, the way the sunlight reflected off her eyes… She’d made up her mind she was going to die, but she wanted one last day with us.”
“I’m sorry,” Dixon said. “I can’t even imagine what that would be like.”
Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) Page 18