by Atha, DL
Levi looked none too happy. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he answered.
In the room, one of the officers spoke up again. “Mike, there was no blood except yours at the scene. I’m not sure who you shot, or what you shot at, for that matter. But it wasn’t Dr. Annalice Creed. We have her blood type on file. She’s a doctor for mercy’s sake; she’s got a fingerprint and blood trail a mile long, so we’ve got plenty of prints and DNA to compare to. Her blood was not there.”
Detective Rumsfield, struggling to cast his web of truth, spread his arms wider as he argued with the three men gathered around his bed. Another stood by, listening but not participating. “I’m telling you, I’m not crazy. I shot her multiple times. She attacked me. Bit me even. She’s nuts, and I loaded her full of lead. So something is wrong with your forensics.”
“It’s not our forensics. It’s the state’s team, man,” another of the officers said.
The three men, each of them cops, stood awkwardly around the hospital bed. “Forensics don’t lie.” I could read the message clear in their body language. Their hands shoved deep in pockets or crossed stoically across their chests, they shifted their feet and eyes, looking anywhere except at Mike. I knew two of them. One was the young cop that had irritated me the night Mom and I had eaten at the diner, the night after I’d died as a human. He was tall and skinny and not man enough yet to grow a five o’clock shadow. The guy opposite the kid was the officer who had come with Rumsfield when he’d searched my property when I was still human. I think his name was Terry. The third guy I didn’t recognize at all, but his jacket said “Madison County Sheriff.” His name badge read “Langford.” The fourth was the sheriff of Sebastian County, John Taylor. I wasn’t sure why he was here, as it wasn’t his jurisdiction. Just moral support, I suspected. He was standing over towards the window.
“Maybe we could start back at the beginning,” Langford suggested. “Why were you at Dr. Creed’s in the first place?”
“Because she’s a murderer.” Rumsfield looked around, making eye contact with each man in the room. “Langford, there’s two people dead in Madison County within two miles of her house. And there’s that man found up near Brasshears.” He looked towards the window. “Taylor, you’ve got a dead man in Sebastian County who was talking to her when he died. Are you guys too dense to see this pattern?”
Langford, taking some offense to being referred to as “dense,” stood up taller and squared his shoulders. “Mike, were there any warrants for her?” the sheriff asked. He looked at each man in turn to illustrate his point.
An ominous silence filled the room. No one said a word. Rumsfield pursed his lips, clasping his hands roughly together. He probably lost a layer of skin cells before he broke eye contact with the sheriff. Having his answer, Langford continued, “Then you had no right to be out in her field. You didn’t have a search warrant. She wasn’t a suspect. So I ask again, why were you out there?”
The tension in the room swelled until I thought the door would bow outwards with the force. One man scratched his head and turned away from the bed. Through the window, I could see him pretending to check his phone. He was faking. He had his eyes closed. Taylor just shook his head. Rumsfield eyed them each suspiciously again, applying his own mental litmus test. Would they believe him? he was wondering. I leaned forward, knowing what he was about to say and mentally tried to force his mouth shut. Levi laid a hand on my arm. I’d forgotten he was there.
Rumsfield swallowed hard and took a deep breath, his eyes partially closing while he did. Then they opened wide, and I knew he’d forged his resolve. His voice was steady when he spoke. “I found evidence that Dr. Creed was involved in those murders the night we found that hunter’s body in the woods.”
He had Langford’s attention now. “And why is this the first we’re hearing about it?”
Rumsfield sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair. His IV got caught on the corner of the bed, and he gave it a little jerk then winced at his own stupidity. “Because I didn’t think you’d believe me. It’s crazy stuff. You know, really messed up shit.”
Langford was losing his patience. “Like what?” It wasn’t so much of a question as a demand.
Another deep breath from Rumsfield. “Guess it doesn’t matter now since I don’t have much to lose, so here goes. About two weeks ago, that elderly woman got killed. She lived out close to Dr. Creed. There’s very few houses out that way, and I went to each one of them asking about suspicious activity. The night before we found Ms. McElhaney, we got a call that a woman was being roughed up out at the Oak Grove Country store. Any guesses as to who the tags belonged to?”
He didn’t wait for them to answer. “Dr. Creed. What a coincidence, right? I knew she lived out there, so going to her place was killing two birds with one stone. But when I got to her house, something wasn’t right. I couldn’t tell you what exactly except that she was nervous. Real nervous and pale. She looked like death warmed over and quiet as a church mouse. She wouldn’t even let me in the house, man. Then I show her the pictures of Ms. McElhaney. Whoever killed her had really messed that old lady up. And despite the fact that there were pictures of Dr. Creed and her daughter all over that old lady’s house, she gave me almost no emotion. She might’ve been a tad upset at first, but then calmed down just like a pro. Got hateful. Actually, she got a little smart‐ass with me. Still wouldn’t let me in the house. So I left, but I told her I’d be back. I scoured the town for info, and I mentioned Dr. Creed to this one waitress down at the Screamin’ Eagle. Turned out she’d been in with some strange man, and Creed wasn’t acting quite right to her either. So I went back with a search warrant.”
Langford broke in, one arm folded across his chest, the other nearly pulling his short beard out by the roots. “You called in a favor with the judge is what you did. That warrant was bullshit and wouldn’t have stood up in court even if you’d found something. It had no merit.”
Rumsfield nodded. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I’m telling you. There’s more to her than meets the eye.”
“But you didn’t find jack‐crap. More importantly, you didn’t have jack‐shit to get a warrant,” Langford said.
“I found plenty,” Rumsfield said. He was sitting straight up in the bed now, which is no easy feat in a hospital bed. Plenty of ab muscles needed to manage that. Your butt sinks down. It’s just the way hospital beds are built. But he was shaking slightly. A mild tremor. Weak from blood loss. Probably a little muscle mass atrophy as well from being on the vent. The average person loses one percent of their muscle mass per day. He wouldn’t be able to hold that pose for long, and I felt slightly guilty.
“But it was stuff that y’all wouldn’t pay attention to, and no court would care about. The house was a disaster. The kitchen looked like a raving mad starving person had been turned loose. The floor was littered with boxes and trash. There was rotting food on the counter. Nothing had been cleaned up. But the living room? Well, it had been cleaned up like nothing flat. The floor mopped. The curio cabinet was practically empty, yet it was dusty and I could see the imprints of where things had been sitting but were now gone. I stepped on some broken glass she’d missed when she tried to clean it up.”
“I’m still not hearing anything that speaks to murder,” Langford said. I could almost hear his teeth grinding, and I could certainly see the muscles twisting in his jaw.
Worn out, Rumsfield dropped back down into the bed. He was breathing harshly. He needed some blood, but with the new transfusion guidelines, the doc was probably holding off. “I found something else, Langford. Something really strange.”
“Mike, we crossed the strange bridge a long time back,” Langford answered.
“You don’t get it, man. A lot stranger than anything else I’ve told you.” Rumsfield paused here. He wasn’t looking at any man in the room for support. If he went here, he was going it alone, and he knew it. “I found a wooden … I don’t know what you’d call it. A sharpene
d wooden … projectile of some sort. And some clothes—a shirt with a hole in the chest.”
Again dead silence. Anyone could have heard a pin drop.
Every man in the room was looking at him with that oddly confused expression that says, I’ve nearly got it, but I’m just not quite there yet.
“Come again?” Sheriff Taylor finally spoke.
“It looked like what you might spear a fish with. You know what I’m talking about, John,” he said towards the man at the window again. “You probably whittled a hundred as a kid.”
Taylor was rubbing his chin thoughtfully. I was about to herniate my brainstem from holding my breath. Levi was looking darker and darker, and Rumsfield was beginning to have that deer in the headlights stare.
“I’m assuming you tested these clothes and this … this wooden fish spear for blood and tissue?” Langford asked.
“Of course. But they were clean.” “Fingerprints?” Langford continued.
“Dr. Creed’s fingerprints were on the spear.” For a moment, Rumsfield looked vindicated. He was looking at each of them like he’d just shared the secret to the universe.
“But nothing on the clothes?”
“No. But it has to prove something,” Rumsfield answered.
Langford was trying to put it all together. His mind was working hard to process a lot of things that in the end pointed to nothing. I could see that on his face. The big fat nothing that he, as a sheriff, knew they had and yet Rumsfield had acted on. Of course, Rumsfield was right. His internal manometer had picked up on what everyone else around him had missed.
John Taylor was looking more and more confused. “Where was the hole in the chest? On the clothes, I mean.”
Rumsfield looked more disgruntled, if that was possible. “Over the heart.”
Langford finally had it. “Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that you found a stake and some clothes with a hole over the heart in the woods, with no blood or body tissue of any kind and a few fingerprints, and that finding alone made you stalk that poor woman and then shoot something, or nothing for all we know, in her pasture?”
“Well, how do you explain it?” Rumsfield asked.
“My thinking pattern would have taken me to an old forgotten Halloween prank. Not that Dr. Creed was a damn vampire. That is what you’re trying to get at, right? You’ve finally lost your ever‐loving mind and gone off the deep end!” Langford said. In his mind, he was wondering how he’d explain that to the press.
If Langford was angry, Rumsfield was pissed. “I should have just kept my mouth shut. I’m not crazy. Why don’t you call the hospital and ask them where the hell Dr. Creed is? Why isn’t she at work? Why not go talk to her momma? She knows there’s something wrong because she took her kid and moved to town.” Langford listened, shaking his head the whole time. “I’m not saying the woman ain’t up to something, Mike. I’m saying that none of it adds to murder, and none of that nonsense is going to
stand up in court.”
“I shot her, and she didn’t die!” Rumsfield said before Langford could get anything else in. “I’m not crazy, and I’m NOT saying she’s a vampire. But I did shoot her, emptied my clip like I said, and she just got back up. And she did bite me. Maybe it was drugs. That happens to docs every now and again. Bath salts? That can cause biting behavior. I don’t know.” Rumsfield stopped, rubbed his hands through his hair and took another deep breath. “But it happened.”
Langford was having a good laugh now at Rumsfield’s expense. “Yeah. Well, show me the fang marks, and I’ll go arrest her now. Where are they? Come on, show me.”
All the men were waiting, staring at Mike like they half‐expected him to produce fang marks. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Well, why the hell not?” Langford asked.
Uncomfortable, Rumsfield looked away for a brief second. Lost in thought, he rubbed a hand across the side of his neck. “Because they’re gone,” he answered.
“Yeah. Like your damn mind,” Langford replied.
Terry had taken a step forward and was trying to placate him. “Mike, man, listen. I don’t know what happened. But you’re a good cop and an even better detective. We’ve worked together a long time, and I know you shot at something. There were shell casings all over the ground. Gunpowder residue on your hands. But I’m telling you the only blood that was found was yours. Is it possible that you got a little confused? That the long hours got to you a bit?”
“I think you were hallucinating,” Langford interrupted. “There
was no blood at the scene except yours. There were no bite marks on your neck, or anywhere else for that matter. I think we all know what happened.” His tone insinuated something that I didn’t catch. What does he mean? Whatever it was, the insinuation sent Rumsfield over the edge.
Mike jerked himself upright, curse words spewing from his mouth, and tried to get out of the bed, cussing under his breath more violently as his arms got caught in the IV tubing. Then an ankle got caught in the bed railing, and he yelped with pain.
“Mike, you’ve got to calm down. Your heart rate is sky high,”
Sheriff Taylor said. He reached a supportive hand towards
Rumsfield’s forearm.
Rumsfield jerked his arm out from under the offending hand. “Quit patronizing me, John. You don’t believe me any more than my own partners do,” Rumsfield said. “Tell me something, Sheriff. If I didn’t shoot her, then where are the damn bullets? You found the casings, but what about the bullets? Did I hallucinate them too?” Rumsfield asked, a wolfish grin on his face as he waited for an answer. He looked back to Langford. “I guess your little lapdogs forgot to answer that one for you. You know, I always thought you were too much of a dumbshit for this job, and now I’m convinced. I’ll tell you where the bullets are. They’re buried inside that bitch! Wherever the hell she is.”
That was my cue, and I didn’t wait for Langford, who was boiling for a chance to explode.
“I’m not sure, Detective, but the bullets are certainly not in me,” I said, walking into the room. Like thousands of times before, I went straight to the bedside and grasped his wrist, unwinding the plastic tubing from off his arm. “You’re going to pull out this IV if you’re not careful. And you’ll probably whine like a baby if the nurse has to re‐site it.”
Rumsfield looked like he’d seen a ghost. No, make that a
mass‐murdering ghost. His eyes widened and his breathing picked up. I think he’d been in some degree of denial. Maybe he’d thought that my body just hadn’t been found. Maybe he’d even questioned his own sanity.
“I hear you’ve been stirring up quite a scene, telling everyone
you shot me and all. So I came up to visit so that you’d know that I’m safe and you didn’t shoot anyone. At least, not me.” I used my best clinical but caring voice. I’d almost got his IV unwound before he pulled his arm roughly from my grasp.
“Get out of here!” he said, inching towards the head of the
bed. “Get the hell out of my room! You’ve done nothing but ruin my life from the moment I first laid eyes on you!”
He was yelling now. Out in the hall, I could hear them calling for hospital security. Didn’t they realize the room was full of cops? Levi was out in the hall, leaned against the nurse’s station, looking for all intents and purposes like a wall cloud right before the tornado drops out of it. He wasn’t happy that I’d come here. He thought Rumsfield could easily be and should be disposed of. His only question was why we hadn’t done it already.
“Mike,” I said, trying to calm him down. “You need to settle down. They’ll sedate you.” I’d seen the doctor’s name on the door, and I knew that particular physician thought Haldol was its own food group.
“The hell I will! It’s hard to calm down when there’s a psychopath standing in my room!”
The skinny kid‐cop had joined in the calming talks. “Mike, if you shot her fifteen times, do you think she’d be standing here? Look at her.
She’s fine.”
Rumsfield was looking back and forth between me and the young cop in rapid fire movements. A glimmer of self‐doubt softened his features momentarily before hardening into a mask of confidence, and his gaze froze on me. “Don’t call me ‘Mike.’ We’re not friends,” he said to me.
I shrugged at the other men gathered around his bed. “Well, Detective Rumsfield, it was you who told me we were. Remember? On the night you followed me to the bar in Fort Smith.”
“I didn’t follow you. I heard your name come across the scanner, and so I knew someone was dead,” Rumsfield answered. Still working on maneuvering his IV around the railing of the bed, he continued his tirade. “You may have them fooled, but I’m not that stupid, Dr. Creed. I know …” he started.
“You know what?” I taunted him. I hoped he’d say it because there was no way anyone in this room wouldn’t think he was a flipping lunatic. I turned towards Sheriff Langford. “I assure you, Sheriff, I have not been shot multiple times. Luckily for me, I wasn’t home the night he supposedly shot me. Thankfully, or I suspect I’d be dead.”
“You were there!” Rumsfield started. Langford held up a hand and cut him off.
Not wanting to lose ground, I jerked my shirt up to my bra line. My belly was flat and smooth and not a single flaw marked my skin. I was lying of course. The bullets had slipped out of my abdomen while in the death sleep the day after he shot me. Guilt should have been my new best friend, but all I could think was how I was going to get to go home. Mom and I could work things out if I could keep Rumsfield away from her. Not once did a shred of remorse at what I was doing to him cross my mind. Hadn’t I come here to check on him? But Rumsfield always brought out the bad stuff in me.
“Dr. Creed, with all due respect, I do have a couple of questions,” Langford said, his hand still in the air like a personal stop sign for Rumsfield. “And I can see that you’ve not been shot,” he said, motioning to my abdomen.