Close To Home_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  He found his own pistol and picked it up, then slowly managed to struggle to his feet. Melinda was still standing in the same spot, still holding the gun out in front of her, and Tom was walking carefully up the hall behind her. Sam looked at him, and fought down the disgust that rose up at a man who would let his wife take such a risk.

  “Melinda?” Sam said. “Melinda, it’s over. Put the gun down, it’s over.”

  She shook her head. “Not with him,” she said. “With him, it’s never over.” She took three steps until she was standing almost over her father’s body, then she pointed the gun down at him and fired once more. This bullet struck him in the face, and tore it completely away.

  Sam reached out and carefully put his hand over the gun, and she let go. Tom hurried up to her and she spun and wrapped her arms around him. He held her while she wept, and then he looked into Sam’s face and saw what Sam was trying to hide.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said. “I took the gun from the cop on the floor, but she—she wouldn’t let me come after him. She grabbed it and twisted on it until I was afraid it would go off and hurt her, so I let go. She pointed the gun at me and told me to stay there, and then she came after him.” Tears were flowing down his cheeks as he spoke, and Sam suddenly realized that he was probably telling the truth. Melinda wouldn’t have wanted him to come out and face her father; it was something she absolutely had to do for herself, at last.

  “She saved my life,” Sam said. “Who cares how it happened?”

  The elevator door opened down the hall, and several police officers spilled out. They had guns drawn and aimed at the three of them, so Sam quickly dropped the three guns he was holding.

  “I’m Sam Prichard,” he called out. “It’s all under control, the shooter is down.”

  The officers swarmed around them, and all three of them were put against the wall for the moment, but Sam continued to explain what happened. The officers released them, and suddenly there were doctors and nurses all over the place. Many of them went to check on patients on the floor, while a doctor took one look at Samara and pronounced him dead.

  Sam surrendered his Glock, and the other guns were collected as well. His gun would have to be compared to the ballistic markings on the bullets that killed Samara, but it was simply procedure. The police knew what had happened, and who had actually killed him. Under the circumstances, Sam was certain there would be no charges filed against Melinda Davis.

  21

  Sam took the elevator back down to the main level, and went directly to the examination room where he had left Indie. He stepped through the curtain and was shocked to find her gone, so he grabbed the first nurse he saw and demanded to know where she was.

  “They took her to a delivery room,” the nurse said, staring at the shirtless man with the gaping wound in his chest. “Down the hall, through those double doors. I don’t know which room, but she’s down there.”

  Sam hobbled down the hall and through the double doors, then heard Indie’s voice. She was screaming obscenities, and Sam couldn’t help but grin. Indie was the type who couldn’t stand that kind of language out of anybody else.

  He made it to the door the sound was coming from and stepped inside, but a nurse grabbed his arm and forced him into a chair. “Stay put,” she said. “Doctor Miller is going nuts looking for you!”

  She stepped out of the room and was back only a minute later with Doctor Miller.

  “Mind if I finish what I was doing?” the doctor asked. “You can stay in the chair, that’s okay.”

  Sam shrugged. He was paying attention to Indie, who was so obviously in pain that it was breaking his heart. The doctor knelt down beside him and reached for something the nurse was holding, and Sam felt cold liquid running down his ribs. The doctor had washed off the wound, and was preparing a suture.

  “I had pretty well gotten everything out,” he said, “but I still need to stitch you up. Think you can hold still for five minutes while I get this done?”

  “I’ll try,” Sam said.

  Indie suddenly turned her face to look at Sam, and the thought struck him that she looked a little bit like some demon-possessed person in a movie. “You! You son of a bitch, Sam, you did this! I’m gonna kill you when this is over, do you know that? I’m gonna kill you!”

  Sam was staring at her with his eyes big and round, but suddenly her face went slack and she threw her head back. A second later, she was blowing again, breathing through another contraction the way she’d been taught in their Lamaze classes. Sam was frustrated at not being able to help, but the adrenaline of the last few hours was suddenly wearing off. He was almost gasping for breath as the doctor continued to stitch up the hole in his chest.

  “There you go,” Doctor Miller said. “I’m going to prescribe you some antibiotics, and I want you to make damn sure you take them. No matter how good a job I did cleaning that out, there’s bound to be some infection I couldn’t get.” He got to his feet and looked down at Sam. “I heard you got the guy,” he said. “I just want to say…”

  “I didn’t get him,” Sam said. “His own daughter shot him dead.” He looked up at the doctor. “She saved my life in the process.”

  Doctor Miller looked at him for a moment, then glanced over at Indie before looking back to Sam. “Well—congratulations on your baby, anyway.” He turned and walked out of the room.

  Sam looked over at Indie just in time to see her burst into a huge smile. The doctor who was sitting between her upraised knees, and whom Sam hadn’t even noticed before, was holding something up for her to see, and Sam pushed away the nurse who was trying to put a bandage over his stitches and staggered to his feet. He hurried the best he could over to her bedside as the doctor handed her a bloody, wet mess.

  Indie was beaming, and she took a moment to realize Sam was there. When she did, she looked up and smiled.

  “It’s a boy,” she said.

  A moment later, one of the nurses took the baby to be cleaned, and Indie collapsed back on the bed. She looked up at her husband and the demonic face was only a memory. “I love you, Sam Prichard,” she said. “We have a baby boy.”

  “Damn right,” Sam said with pride. “Sam Prichard has a baby boy.”

  The nurse had shoved the chair over to the bed and gotten Sam to sit down again while she applied the bandage. Sam took a couple of minutes to tell Indie what happened upstairs, and she reached out for his hand and clasped it to her cheek.

  “Sam,” she said, “do you ever think about getting out of the PI business?”

  Sam swallowed. “Is that what you would want?”

  Indie held his hand tightly to her cheek and shrugged. “I get scared,” she said. “I always make jokes about it when Mom or Grace says something about you falling into such dangerous situations, but I get scared. What happens if, one of these days, the bad guy gets lucky? How would I go on without you?”

  Sam gave her his best cocky look. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he said. “I’m pretty hard to kill.”

  “That’s because you’re so lucky,” she said. “The problem with being lucky like you is that you have to be lucky every time. A bad guy only has to get lucky once, and then you’re gone. I get scared, Sam.”

  “I understand,” he said. “We can talk about it, okay? Maybe—maybe there’s something else I could do.”

  There was a sudden commotion out in the hallway and Sam got up to go and look, but his knees began to buckle and he sat back down. A moment later, the door opened and a large man wearing tactical gear and holding a small submachine gun poked his head in. “You Prichard?”

  Sam grinned. “Yep,” he said. “You found us. Bring them on in.”

  The man smiled and held the door open. Grace, Kim and Kenzie came bustling through a moment later, while four other men took up positions around the doorway. Kenzie came running to Sam, and he barely managed to pick her up and put her in his lap. She looked at the bandage on his bare chest and then tu
rned her face up so she could look into his eyes.

  “Daddy,” she said solidly. “Did you get shot again?”

  “Nope, I didn’t. This is just a little scratch. Me and Mommy were in a little bit of an accident a while ago.”

  The nurse suddenly returned with the baby and gently placed him in Indie’s arms. He was wrapped in a blanket and there was a tiny little hat on his head. Kenzie leaned close, her eyes wide.

  “Is that ours?”

  “He sure is,” Indie said. “Meet your baby brother.”

  Kenzie stared at the baby for a moment, then looked up at Sam. “You said it was gonna be a girl,” she said accusingly.

  Sam made a face that said, “What can you do?” He pointed at the baby again. “A boy is okay, though, right?”

  Kenzie went back to staring at the baby. After a moment, she nodded. “What’s his name?”

  Sam and Indie looked at one another and grinned. As one, they turned their eyes to look at Kim.

  “Where is he?” Sam asked.

  Kim looked at them for a moment, confused, and then she broke out in a smile. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Beauregard says he’s going to be staying where he is for a while. But he says he feels honored.”

  “Honored?” Grace asked. “What does the old spook have to be honored about?”

  Sam looked at his mother and smiled. “Believe it or not,” he said, “even though I’m pretty sure Beauregard is just some sort of alter ego of Kim’s, he’s kind of a part of the family. Indie and I had talked it over, and on the off chance that it might be a boy, we decided to name him after that old soldier. Mom, Kim, Kenzie—I’d like to introduce you to Beauregard Samuel Prichard.”

  “Oh, my God,” Grace said, “you’ve got to be kidding. Why on earth would you saddle him with a name like Beauregard?”

  “Relax, Mom,” Sam said. “We’ll call him Bo, for short.”

  Grace shook her head. “Oh, I feel sorry for this kid. Do you know how many times he’s going to be called Bo Peep?”

  “He might,” Sam said. “Other kids can be pretty cruel when it comes to picking on your name. On the other hand, getting called ‘Pam’ and such as a kid is probably one of the reasons I turned out as tough as I am. It won’t hurt him.”

  Kim laughed. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.

  A nurse came in suddenly, holding Sam’s jacket and holster. “You left these down in the ER,” she said, “and your phone has been ringing.”

  Sam thanked her and took the jacket, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He checked the call history and saw that he’d been getting calls from his mother, from Kim and from the main number of the DA’s office. That one had called several times, which surprised him since the office would be closed. He hit the button to call it back, and put the phone to his ear.

  “Sam Prichard? Is that you?”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed, because he didn’t know the voice. “Yes,” he said. “Who is this?”

  “This is John Pemberton,” the man said. “I’m the chief deputy district attorney. I’m calling because I was called in tonight on the case Will Burton had been working on, Karen Parks.”

  A sense of dread suddenly hit Sam. “What happened to Will?”

  “Will Burton was at the jail when Daniel Samara made his escape,” Pemberton said. “Apparently he was just coming through the door and tried to stop Samara. He was shot once, through the heart, and died at the scene.”

  Sam let out a sigh as his family watched him. “I am so sorry to hear that,” Sam said. “Will was a good man.”

  “Yes, he was. Unfortunately, he’s gone and I have to take up his caseload. I don’t mind that so much, but this case about Karen Parks—I’ve been going over his notes, and he seemed pretty certain that she was innocent. Everything I’ve got, though, says he’s basing that on you. I’ve been trying to get hold of you to set an appointment for us to meet in the morning. I want to know what you’ve got that backs up his theory. Can we get together?”

  “Absolutely,” Sam said. “I can be there around ten, if that’s okay?”

  “That’ll be fine, Sam. Listen, I understand you were there at the hospital when Samara was killed. I want to get a statement from you on that, as well.”

  “No problem, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Okay. Ten o’clock, then.”

  Pemberton cut off the call and Sam dropped the phone back into his jacket pocket. None of his family had ever met Will, so Sam simply said that Samara had killed another victim, and the DA wanted to talk about it in the morning.

  By this time, it was nearly midnight. Sam was not being kept overnight, but Indie and the baby would be. Sam needed to go home and get cleaned up, he said, so he kissed Indie and his new baby son, then asked his mother to give him a ride home.

  Forty-five minutes later, clinging to the handrail, Sam slowly and carefully managed to walk a very sleepy Kenzie up the stairs and got her tucked into bed. He hobbled back down the stairs to his own room and decided a shower could wait till morning. He fell down onto the bed and was asleep within minutes.

  His phone woke him at seven thirty in the morning, and he answered it groggily. “Sam Prichard,” he said.

  “I hope so,” Indie said with a giggle. “I’d hate to think I was calling the wrong husband.”

  Sam forced himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey, baby,” he said. “How are my babies doing this morning?”

  “Very well, actually,” Indie said. “Your son is trying to drink me dry. Oh, Sam, he is so adorable.”

  “Yes, he is. I think he gets that from you.”

  Indie sighed. “Sam, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. About what I said last night, I don’t really…”

  “Babe, you’re not the only one who’s been thinking about these things. There’s a part of me that thinks it’s time for me to slow down a little bit, start to take things a little easier. Kenzie kinda got to me last night. A little girl shouldn’t have to wonder every time her daddy gets a boo-boo if he got shot, you know what I mean?”

  “I know, but I also know this is something you love to do. I don’t want to ever make you feel like you have to give up what you love to make me happy. That’s not what it was about, Sam.”

  “Honey, I never thought it was. I’m serious, I’ve already been thinking about this. Even before this last case, to be honest.”

  “Well—you could always go back to singing. I’m sure there’s a dozen bands around here that would love to have you out front.”

  “Nah, it’s like Travis said. I’m a good singer, but I’m not a great singer. Real stardom was never going to come my way. I don’t think I want to give that another try, I had my fifteen minutes of fame from music.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Then, what would you do? If you gave this up, I mean.”

  “Well, Ron Thomas has been trying to offer me a job for a while. They do mostly corporate and industrial stuff, and they could always use a good investigator. I thought about talking with Ron, maybe taking him up on it.”

  “But would you be happy? Trying to figure out who stole the pencils and where the missing formulas went?”

  “You know what? My work isn’t what makes me happy. What makes me happy is my family. You, Kenzie, now Bo—even our mothers and that stupid ghost. That’s where my happiness comes from, Indie. I think I can be every bit as happy chasing down an industrial spy as I possibly could chasing down an international spy.”

  “Well, I guess it could be worth a try. You don’t have to give up your license, so if it doesn’t work out, you could always go back to being a PI.”

  “I’m planning to give Ron a call and talk about it,” Sam said. “This morning, I need to go try to close the case for Karen. I’ll be up to see you before too long, because I need to try to talk to Freddie Pilsner this morning before I go see the DA. Let me get a shower, and I’ll get Kenzie off to school and head up there.”

&n
bsp; “Okay, babe. We can’t wait to see you.”

  They said goodbye and Sam went to take a shower. He had to peel the bandage off his chest, but the stitched injury was small enough that he figured a couple of Band-Aids would work just as well. After he had gotten out of the shower and dried off thoroughly, he dug in the medicine cabinet until he found a box of big ones, then managed to get two of them over the stitches.

  He got dressed for the day and then went to wake Kenzie, who was sleeping in after being up so late. She yawned but cooperated, and the two of them decided to go out for breakfast, so they went out and got into the Honda Ridgeline Sam had bought for their family car. There was a nice little restaurant not far away, and the two of them had waffles and orange juice. They finished up in plenty of time to get Kenzie to school, and then Sam headed toward the hospital.

  When he got up to the fifth floor, where Freddie Pilsner’s room was found, he got another surprise. There were two rooms with deputies gathered around them, and several of them recognized him.

  “Sam,” one of them said. His name was Garner, and Sam had known him for several years. “I heard you were almost killed last night. Everything okay?”

  Sam grinned. “Pretty good,” he said. “I was looking down the barrel of Samara’s gun when his daughter took the gun from one of the deputies he had killed and ended up shooting him. Hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

  Garner’s eyes narrowed. “You said he killed the deputy? Who?”

  “Who? The ones who were guarding the daughter, and Jenkins.”

  Understanding suddenly dawned on Garner, and he broke into a smile. “Sam, they’re not dead,” he said. Jenkins is in this room, he’s in rough shape, but he’s gonna pull through. Markhurst and Baumgardner, they were in a little better shape than him. Both of them got it in the gut, so they’re going to be off work for a long time, but they’re going to live.”

  Sam’s own smile spread from ear to ear. “Man, that’s good to hear,” he said. “Tell Jenkins I’ll stop by to see him in a while. Right now, I’ve got stuff I got to get done.”