“News?”
“Yeah. Get this: She said she wanted to tell him that Richard Seeley was in town looking for him.”
John felt an instant surge of adrenalin. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I asked her to repeat it. She kind of laughed and said she didn’t think he’d be too happy.”
“Then what did she say?”
“Then the PA came in and said they were going to start a drip and I had to wait until they gave me permission to talk to her again. I think you should come down, Chief.”
“I think I should, too. She’s not in danger of running, is she?”
“Nope. Too weak. Besides, she’s enjoying it, if you ask me. I think she likes the attention.”
“I’ll be there shortly. Don’t let anyone else get near her until I see her first.”
John hung up the phone. “Becky, get hold of Jason and Steve. There’s a new twist to this thing. It appears that our potential suicide is acquainted with our number one suspect.”
“Seeley?”
“That’s what she told Cully.”
“Do you think they’re in on it together, Dad?” Mia asked.
“I can’t say that from here, but I intend to find out.”
Peter’s impatience surfaced again. “Can somebody give me a ride home? I don’t want to be here.”
John ignored him and said to Michael, “You make sure you’ve got copies of all the e-mails and blogs and message boards you can. Track as much as you can.” He turned to Becky. “I’m going to the hospital to see what information I can get out of her.”
Becky nodded. “Got it. I’ll fill Jason and Steve in. Do you think Seeley might know she’s at the hospital? Or that any of this has transpired?”
John had been feeling somewhat haggard, but this new bit of information gave him a second wind. He shook his head. “Don’t know.” He pulled on his jacket, fishing his black gloves out of the pocket.
“John, let me call State Police and get Joe Bernard to help us out.”
“You can try.”
“Dad,” Peter nagged, “give me a ride home on the way.”
“Peter, it’s the opposite direction. Can’t you see I’ve got my hands full?”
Becky stepped in. “Look, let your father go. As soon as I’ve got Jason and Steve set, I’ll turn the phone over to State Dispatch and take you and Mia home.”
Mia said, “I was going to Emma’s.”
“Well, I’ll take you there, too, then.”
“Thanks, Becky,” Peter said.
John yanked open the door. “We are going to have a major summit meeting of this family as soon as things quiet down.” He hurried out the door, closing it hard behind him. Through the closed door, he could hear Becky chastising his children.
“Your father’s upset! That was just this side of a slam, and he never slams. Now sit somewhere until I’m ready.”
Chapter Twenty
JOHN DROVE AS QUICKLY as he could toward the hospital. The roads still weren’t clear, and black ice was apt to be prevalent. He glanced at the sky ahead of him. It was cloudy and spitting snow. There was a damp chill in the air, and the gloom of the approaching evening was settling down between the hills. Soon it would wash over the river valley. He couldn’t seem to get the car warm enough.
Orville Palmer Memorial Hospital, colloquially referred to “Opie,” was a small community hospital built on thirty acres of Vermont hillside just outside town. Most of the people from Clark’s Corner had been born there. John was as familiar with its floorplan as he was his own home. He pulled up to the parking area reserved for the police and fire department just outside the emergency room door and saw Cully waiting for him.
“Any more news?” he asked as he walked inside.
“No, Chief. I haven’t been back in there. I figured it would be better with two of us listening. We could corroborate our facts that way.”
John stifled a grin as he looked at the young officer. Is he finally developing some sort of law enforcement instincts? And where did he learn the word ‘corroborate’? “I agree,” he said. “Let’s see what we can find out now.”
They walked side by side down the hall to the emergency room reception desk. The PA looked up from his papers. He didn’t wait for John to speak, but motioned for the two officers to follow him. “This way.” He led them down the hall, past the curtained-off exam areas where nurses hurried back and forth among several patients, to a small room. The PA paused before he opened the door. “She’s in here,” he said. “She was very agitated when she was brought in. We have her on a mild sedative, so she may seem spacey or even be sleeping. It will keep her calm, though, until the psych guy can see her tomorrow. She appears to be textbook anorexia, so we’re addressing that as well in the IV drip. Try not to stay too long.”
John nodded and opened the door. The girl lay in the bed, covered with a light white blanket. Her eyes were closed. Her hair was matted underneath her neck, and there was a sickly pallor to her skin. She wore a hospital johnnie. One bony arm, the one attached to the drip, lay at her side on the outside of the blanket. Her nails were long, professionally manicured, with French tips.
“Kayla,” John said.
Her eyes remained closed, but she answered, “What do you want?”
“It’s John Giamo. I spoke to you in the room at the inn. I carried you down the stairs. I’m here with my officer, Tim Cully.”
The girl repeated drearily, “What do you want?”
“Are you feeling well enough to talk?” Suddenly, all he could think of was the fact that here he was again, within a matter of two days, at the emergency room with another young girl. True, he reflected, this one was very different from the sleek, rosy beauty who was his daughter, but this girl was not very much older than Mouse. And who was to say that, given proper love and care, this poor thing would have bloomed in a similar way? He shuddered slightly.
“I’m not feeling anything,” replied the girl. “Just say what you want.”
He felt Cully shift on his feet behind him.
Before he could ask a question, the girl spoke again. “Where is Gabriel? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“He’s not dead,” John said flatly. “He’s still under police protection.”
“If he’s not dead, he will be soon. That’s what I came to warn him about. That’s why I was tracking him down.” The girl rolled her head away from them, her eyes still closed.
John and Cully exchanged glances. John motioned with his head to the other side of the bed. Cully stepped around the foot of the bed and pulled up a chair. John did the same on his side.
Leaning forward slightly, he said, “Kayla, Officer Cully said you had news for Gabriel Strand. That’s why we’re here.”
The girl’s eyes opened, and she tried to focus. “That’s why I’m here, too,” she said in a slow, anguished voice as she struggled against the effects of the sedative. “I knew there was going to be an attempt on his life, so I followed him here to warn him. I tried to blog about it, and I posted it on the message board. I even e-mailed him about it. I didn’t know whether anyone believed me, so I had to come in person.” She seemed to be running out of breath. She gasped at the end of every statement.
Cully said, “Take a rest, Kayla. No need to hurry.”
John looked at him and immediately felt ashamed that he had not spoken first. They waited. The only sound was the girl’s breathing.
Finally, John spoke again. “We tracked all your postings and e-mails. We thought you were doing the threatening. That’s what they sounded like.”
The girl’s eyes were closed. She wouldn’t look at them. “I tried to warn him through a sort of code I thought we had together. I thought we really had something going on between us. I really tried to keep a close eye on him. When he didn’t reply, I couldn’t be sure, so I came here.”
“Why don’t you tell us about Richard Seeley and anything else you know about Gabriel Strand?”
There was a long
silence. John and Cully waited motionless in their chairs. The girl lay on her back in the bed, her eyes shut. She gave a little hiccup, and John saw a tear slide down the side of her face. He glanced at Cully as the girl tucked her arms underneath her and struggled into a half-sitting position.
She cleared her throat, her ability to focus growing stronger. “I’m going to make a statement, okay?” she asked, her voice still slow. Another shift caused her to wince. “My arm hurts.”
“Would you like me to call a nurse?” John asked. Both the chief and his officer sat, pencils and pads ready.
“No, I guess not. Can I make my statement?”
“Please. Anything you can tell us will be helpful. One man is dead, and Gabriel’s life is still on the line.”
The girl nodded and wiped the tear off her cheek. John fumbled at the bedside table and handed her a tissue. She accepted it gratefully and with an almost flirtatious smile.
Her voice was quiet and steady, without the hysteria of the last few hours. “Last June, I met Gabriel Strand for the first time. I had always been a fan of his music. I’d even been to a lot of their smaller gigs, really, right from the beginning. When they opened for Lady Gaga, that was special. I could see it in his face. Anyway, when they got their first hit, their managers got them a tour, and they were on their way. I tried to get to every show. Little by little, I got to know the road crew, you know. They’re a great bunch of guys. They let me watch from backstage and then, in June, I got invited to the party at the hotel after the show.” She was smiling broadly now. “It was such a thrill. And they were all so very nice. At first, the drummer tried to pick me up, but Gabriel had seen me from the stage, and he wanted me for himself, so he just came right over and took me by the arm and led me away into a private little corner of the party. He’s such a gentleman. He got me a drink and a plate of the food. He sat with me. He really wanted to get to know me. I felt the connection right away. That was such a wonderful night. He brought me to his hotel room.” She smiled and plucked at the sheet. Then she looked up again, right at John. “Ever since then, I’ve been going to every concert and making myself easily available to him.”
“How do you know Richard Seeley?”
“When I first met Gabriel, he lived with his mom and sister in a small town outside LA. I started driving around, and I found the house. I thought it was important to know where he lived.”
Cully quirked an eyebrow at her. “Didn’t you think it might be an invasion of privacy?”
Kayla regarded him, dumbfounded. “No, of course not. How else would I get there when he called me if I didn’t know where he lived? I was just being prepared. Actually, I’m sure he was flattered when he found out I knew the house. Anyway, I noticed that there was another car there often, and I knew it wasn’t Gabriel’s or his mom’s because I had their license plate numbers memorized. Then, once when I was driving by, I saw a guy get out of the car. He looked kind of old, so I thought it was probably a friend of Gabriel’s mom. I took down the license plate number just to be sure.”
“Sure of what?” asked John. The pitiful pathology harbored by this girl was depressing him more by the minute.
“Well, for a positive identification if I saw him with Gabriel or something. You know, just to be sure.”
“Oh. All right. Go on.”
“Anyway, I think it was at the concert in Phoenix last August that I saw this guy again. I had just left roses at Gabriel’s hotel room. I try to do that at every concert. It makes him feel good. I was coming out of the hotel, and Gabriel’s mom and this guy were going into the hotel. He was talking away to her; I thought maybe it was her boyfriend. Then, I saw him again, at another concert, in Denver in October. I saw him in the hotel again. He was standing in the lobby. Gabriel’s mom wasn’t with him. I thought it was kind of weird, so I went up to him and asked him if he was with the band, and he said he wasn’t, then asked if I was. Well, I just laughed and said I was always with the band. Kind of a joke. Then I asked him why he wanted to know. He said he was a friend of Gabriel’s and just wanted him to know he was there. I told him I’d be seeing Gabriel later and I would pass the message along. I asked his name. He said Richard Seeley.”
John said, “How do you get to go all these places? Don’t you have a job? Isn’t it expensive for you?”
Kayla laughed harshly. “I got a trust fund when I was eighteen. I can do what I want. I still live with my parents, but not really because I’m with the band most of the time. Sometimes living in hotels with a band is better than living with your mother and father. My father’s a television producer in Los Angeles, so they’re busy all the time. They hardly know if I’m there or not.”
John nodded and said, “So, to get back to Richard Seeley. Was that the extent of your conversation with him?”
“Yes. Then it was weird, because about a month later, I saw a blurb in one of the tabloids that said Gabriel had gotten a restraining order against this guy. I remember it gave me goose bumps.”
John thought ruefully that everyone must have seen that blurb in the tabloid except him. “And did you see him after that?”
“Yes. New Year’s Eve. The band had just played Atlantic City. When the show was over, I sneaked in backstage because I wanted to see Gabriel. I knew that girl wasn’t with him this time. I left the flowers at the hotel like I always did, and they told me at the desk that the band was traveling alone. That means just themselves and their roadies. Well, I saw him.”
“Richard Seeley?”
“Yes. Backstage. The band members had gone back to the hotel. I was headed there myself to the party. They always have a party.”
“What did he do?”
“He came up behind me and said, ‘Will you be seeing Gabriel?’ I jumped, then I recognized him. I tried to act like I didn’t know anything about the restraining order. I said, ‘You’re Gabriel’s friend, aren’t you?’ And he said, ‘Yes, I’m his mother’s fiancé. I need to give him something. Will you take it to him for me?’ I said I would, and he handed me an envelope. He thanked me, and then we had a short conversation about how the band was headed to New York and then to Dartmouth College for the winter carnival. I asked if he knew where the band was staying in Vermont. I was trying to get information to give to Gabriel. He said Dartmouth was really in New Hampshire and they were probably staying right there in the town. Then he said he had to get going and he left.”
“What did you do next?”
“I went back to my hotel room. And—and I sat on the bed, just looking at the envelope. I didn’t know what to do.”
“What do you mean?”
The girl started to cry again. John handed her another tissue. “I didn’t have an invitation to the party. I couldn’t get in. They wouldn’t let me in to see Gabriel, even when I told them who I was and that I had a letter for him.”
John nodded sympathetically. “Go on.”
“I opened the letter.”
“The envelope Richard Seeley had given you to give to Strand?”
“Yes.”
“You read it?”
“Yes.”
Cully could not contain himself. “Well, what did it say?”
Kayla dabbed at her eyes with the tissue and motioned toward her purse. “It’s in there. You can read it yourself. I’m too tired. I’m tired of everything.”
Cully looked at John, and John nodded. “Get the letter out of the purse, Cully.”
The young man opened the leather bag and carefully withdrew an envelope. He put the bag back on the floor and took the letter out, unfolding it.
“Read it,” John said.
Cully glanced at the girl in the bed. She lay back against her pillow, her eyes closed. He cleared his throat and read: “This is a warning to make it more sporting. I have a plan. It’s a plan to take you out of the equation once and for all. All you do is confuse the issues at hand and make everyone’s life miserable. You are important no longer.”
“That’s it?”
/> “Yes, Chief.”
John wiped his hand over his face and sighed. “Hmm.”
Kayla sat up, her eyes wild. “Don’t you see? He’s going to kill Gabriel. That’s what the note means. That’s why it’s so important for me to talk to Gabriel. I have to warn him. If you’re telling me the truth and he’s still alive, then I have to warn him.”
John put his hand on the girl’s arm in an attempt to quiet her. “That’s what the police do, Kayla. We’ll warn him. You rest. That’s the best thing you can do for yourself. You’ve probably saved his life just by telling us this. I’m going to take that letter, and we’re going to find this guy.”
Kayla lay back down, a look of worry on her face. This time, her voice sounded weak as she spoke. “He’s here. He’s here waiting to strike. I saw him in New York. He was hanging around the Garden, where the band was, and he was talking to this guy, this Bruce Blake. I talked to him, too. He was kind of a bossy, self-important little guy. He bragged to me that he was going to have a private meeting with Gabriel here in Vermont. He said he was going to make Ragged Rainbow the biggest band ever, because after this meeting, he was going to be their manager. That’s how I knew he was here. He even told me the hotel. I’m sure that’s how Richard Seeley found out Gabriel was staying here. From backstage. From Bruce Blake. He was such a loudmouth.”
John and Cully exchanged glances. John said, “We’re going to go now and let you rest. The people here are nice. They’ll get in touch with your mother and father.”
“Oh, great. That’s all I need.” The girl sighed and closed her eyes again.
“Have a good rest,” John said. He left the room quietly, Cully at his heels.
“This just gets weirder and weirder, doesn’t it?” Cully said, quickening his pace to keep up with his chief.
“What’s that?” mumbled John, thinking of six things at once.
“I mean, we’ve got two stalkers, and one of the stalkers ends up stalking the first stalker and tries to outstalk him.”
John gave a little laugh. “If it didn’t involve life and death and a real murder, that’d be funny.”
Keeping the Peace Page 21