by Nancy Bush
The woman said into the headset, “Dr. Knudson will be back on Monday.” By her tone it sounded like she may have already delivered this information to the caller at least once. “Yes. Monday.” A pause. “You can leave a message on his voice mail. Yes. I’ll connect you.” She quickly stabbed a few buttons and then darted Liv a look. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a doctor who once worked here. Maybe still does. Dr. Yancy?”
“Dr. Yancy retired.”
Liv absorbed that. “Is there someone else I could talk to?”
“I’m afraid not. Our director will be in Monday.”
“Dr. Knudson?”
She smiled tightly. “Yes.”
“Maybe there’s someone else on staff I could speak to?” she asked, but the woman shook her shaggy gray hair.
“It’s Saturday. I’m sorry,” she stated flatly in a tone that suggested she wasn’t in the least. “Dr. Knudson is the one you should talk to.”
Realizing she wasn’t going to get any information by going through the correct channels, Liv thanked her and turned away. She didn’t want to draw too much attention by being a nuisance. She was just going to have to wait.
She returned outside and felt a rush of relief at the sight of the Jeep. Letting herself in through the passenger door, she slammed it shut. The interior still smelled like sausage and hash browns from their breakfast on the go. It took her a moment to realize how tense Auggie was.
“Thanks for waiting,” she said. Then, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What happened? Something happened?” She looked around the car wildly, her gaze falling onto the glove box. Without any clear thought she pressed the button and it snapped open, the wires of an electric charger popping up.
“Don’t—panic,” he warned.
“What is this?” Her brain wasn’t connecting. “You had the glove-box key?”
“It . . . was under the mat.”
He was staring at her, and she realized he was expecting her to say something else. And then she finally woke up. “That’s your cell charger. It was in the car all this time?”
For an answer he pulled his phone from his pocket. “I plugged it in while you were inside,” he confessed.
“And made a call?”
“You didn’t give me enough time.”
“I don’t believe you. Hand it to me.”
“It doesn’t have enough power. I had to rip it out of the charger when you came back.” He placed the phone in her hand, and she stared at it, wishing she knew one damn thing about cell phones. She pushed the green button and nothing happened.
“You have to hold down the red button to turn it on, but it’s not going to work until it gets some power,” he said.
“You were going to turn me in.” She felt betrayed. Ridiculous, but true. She sank back against the seat and covered her face in her hands, struggling for composure.
“No, I want to help you,” he said again.
“If I had any energy left, I’d laugh,” she said behind the protection of her hands. She was moving to a strange psychological place, she realized distantly, the place where you just give up completely.
“I think there’s something there,” he insisted again. “With the package the lawyers sent you from your mother.”
“Why would you help me?”
“Because you need it.”
He sounded sincere and she dropped her hands to look at him through eyes that were watering. She wasn’t crying, exactly. She was just . . . done.
He reached over and caught a bit of the liquid that fell from the corner of one eye. “I’m kind of a sucker for women in need,” he admitted. “Just ask my last ex-girlfriend. It was on the top of her list of complaints. Well, at least number three or four. She also said I was uncaring, uncommunicative and dog shit, not necessarily in that order.”
“Don’t be cute. I can’t stand cute.”
“One thing I’m not . . . is cute.”
His blue eyes regarded her with warmth. Kindness, even. In another time, she might have argued that fact. He was a hell of an attractive guy and she was pretty sure he knew it.
“I thought it was an ex-wife,” she said.
“That,” he admitted, “was a lie.”
The starch just went out of her. Surrender. Capitulation. The aftermath of too much adrenaline. Whatever the case she felt her body start shaking as if she had the palsy and her watering eyes flooded in a rush of tears she found embarrassing.
“Hey . . .”
“Shut up,” she said through a thick throat. “I mean it.”
Silence fell between them. Fighting emotion, she lowered her gaze, focusing on his cowboy boots. “Go ahead and call the police. Charge your phone and call them.”
He didn’t answer, just started up the Jeep.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t worry. I’m not turning you in,” he said, on a long-suffering sigh. “We’re going back to my house. Then, we’re going to take it from the top. Figure out what to do. We’ll start with what happened at Zuma. That’s where it all began. That’s why you and I are together now.”
The mood around the station was tense, and Lieutenant D’Annibal had actually said, “Damn,” which was way outside his usual vocabulary. He was the face of the authorities and looked good on camera, and he was as careful off camera as on.
It was a testament to his own anxiety when he used the word, and he used it when September questioned him, a bit tensely, about her brother.
“I just got a text from him,” the lieutenant told her and Gretchen after September asked to speak to him and Gretchen followed her quickly inside his office, as if she’d been invited. “He’s been with Olivia Dugan since about five o’ clock last night.”
“With?” September asked. “What does that mean?”
Gretchen said, “So, she wasn’t involved with the Martin murder?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” D’Annibal said.
“Well, where are they?” September demanded. “Why doesn’t Auggie bring her in for questioning? What’s the big secret?”
“What does he think about the Martin shooting?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t know if he knows.” D’Annibal was crisp. “I told Channel Seven I’d give them an update. Maybe he’ll see it on the news.”
“Update.” Gretchen snorted. As if she were reporting, she said, “Person or persons unknown shot him in the residential parking lot of Zuma Software’s employee, Olivia Dugan, missing since yesterday’s massacre.”
“Have you tried calling him?” September asked the lieutenant. “’Cause he’s not picking up for me.”
“He’s not picking up for me, either,” D’ Annibal admitted. “For the moment, I’m going to trust he knows what he’s doing. Dugan apparently went straight to her apartment after she fled the homicide scene. Then she grabbed up some belongings and headed out on foot. Rafferty picked up her trail at that point. He was in his Jeep, and he caught sight of her and called it in. He was going to keep with her.”
“Well, that was yesterday.” September couldn’t stem the irritation in her voice. “And then he texted you today? You sure it’s him, and not her with the phone?”
“You think she took Detective Rafferty’s phone off him, found my cell number, and texted me an alibi for herself for last night’s murder?” The lieutenant gazed at her calmly and September felt her face heat up as she heard how improbable that sounded.
“From what we know of Olivia Dugan, that’s not likely,” she admitted.
“From what we know of your brother, it’s quadruple unlikely,” Gretchen said. “He doesn’t let women get the upper hand on him.”
You don’t know him as well as you think you do, September thought, but she’d said enough already.
She and Gretchen were dismissed from D’Annibal’s office and September said, “Where were you last night?”
Gretchen made a sound of disgust. �
��On a date. With a man with grabby hands. Slid ’em over my ass about ten times while we were waiting for a table. So, I ordered the most expensive things on the menu and stuck him for a huge bill. He liked the idea of taking out a cop, but got pretty nasty when he realized the night was ending at my front door. Told him I’d arrest him for sexual harassment if he didn’t let up. He believed me and left.” She made a face. “Turned my phone off. Sorry. Would’ve rather been with you. So, the girlfriend blamed Olivia Dugan?”
September had given her the highlights before they walked into D’Annibal’s office, and now she gave her a more complete report. Gretchen listened closely, then nodded a couple of times.
“All right, let’s go see Kurt Upjohn and the ex, if she’s still at the hospital.”
“Camille. What about Maltona’s boyfriend . . . um . . . Jason?”
“Jason Jaffe.” She humphed her annoyance. “Slippery bastard. Yeah, I’m gonna track him down after the hospital. When’s the interview with Channel Seven?” September shrugged and Gretchen said, “Probably soon. They’ll put it on like a teaser. D’Annibal looks good on camera and so does the viper.”
“Pauline Kirby? Wes called her a barracuda.”
Gretchen smiled thinly. “You’re bound to have a ‘moment’ with her sooner or later. You’ll find your own adjectives.”
Liv watched the landscape flash by outside the window. “Actually, this started long before Zuma,” she said to Auggie, picking up the conversation where it had dropped off. They were almost back at his place.
He shot her a look. “You’re thinking it started with your mother. Her death. Or, maybe something to do with the things she sent you?”
“Her death . . . And there were other deaths at the same time of my mother’s supposed suicide.”
“Supposed,” he repeated.
“The official version is she hanged herself, but I’ve never been able to make myself believe that. There was a serial killer, just outside of Rock Springs. Twenty years ago. He strangled them, and left their bodies in fields. And I think it’s connected to my mom’s death.”
“You think he’s responsible.”
“It’s a theory.”
He asked, feeling his way, “You lived in Rock Springs at the time of the killings?”
“Strangulations. Yes.”
He thought in silence for a few moments, then said, “I remember some about that case. They never got the guy, and the killings seemed to stop.”
“The theory is that he’s either dead or in prison for something else.”
“You don’t believe that,” Auggie guessed.
“No. I don’t. Like I don’t believe it was suicide. Mama’s death. I always thought it was . . .”
A long pause fell between them, and then Auggie said quietly, “The bogeyman.”
“The bogeyman,” Liv repeated.
The old hag put me in a rage today.
She asked about the truck.
It is hidden away, but I couldn’t think up an answer and I felt the need rise in me, hot and hard. My hands clenched. Did she know? Does she know?
I could feel the worms inside my brain, feeding on me. I’m getting sicker, that’s what the doctors will say.
Sicker and sicker.
I just need to be careful. And keep with the plan.
The bitch may have to be killed, too. It would be a pleasure.
But first Olivia.
Liv . . .
I’m coming for you.
I will throw you down and shove deep into you, my thumbs at your throat.
And you will scream.
Chapter 11
Laurelton General Hospital sat on a hillside, its north side sporting two more levels than its south. The main entrance and emergency were on level three, which was street level except for the north end where the slope added two levels beneath it. September and Gretchen walked toward the main front doors together. The outer glass doors slid back to allow entry and started closing behind them while the inside set whispered open.
A middle-aged woman sat at a semicircular desk. She looked up at the two women and September could practically read her thought: Cops. Maybe it was the way they walked, she thought. Shoulder-to-shoulder. Determined. No emotion visible. Maybe it was something more indefinable.
“May I help you?” she asked. Her hair was short, dyed dark and thinning.
Gretchen took the lead, explaining who they were and what they wanted. Both Kurt Upjohn and Jessica Maltona had been whisked into surgery at Laurelton General; Upjohn for two bullets through the abdomen, Maltona for a shot to the chest that, surprisingly, hadn’t killed her outright. Both were stabilized and had brief moments of lucidity, though the jury was still out on their long-term prognosis. No one was saying anything but September sensed it boiled down to two words: “not good.”
“Dr. Denby’s on rounds,” the receptionist told them, as she pushed a button on her phone. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
With extreme patience, Gretchen said, “He’s expecting us. Which room is Mr. Upjohn’s? We’ll meet him there.”
“North wing,” she answered sourly. “Fourth floor.”
Gretchen gave her a cold smile of thanks. Knowing she was bound to get in trouble for it, September pointed out, “You set out to piss people off.”
“Not consciously.”
“Consciously,” she argued.
Gretchen slid her a look. “I’ve been the only woman on this team until you, Nine. I’ve developed a style that works. Watch and learn.”
September didn’t respond. She’d been watching and she’d been learning, and she knew that Gretchen pissed people off, coworkers and witnesses and perps and victims alike.
Dr. Denby met them at the fourth-floor elevator. He was a short, slight man with a pencil-thin, blond beard that traced the length of his jawline and made his head look a little too large for his body. His brown eyes were stern and when they locked onto Gretchen’s blue cat-eyes, they grew sterner.
September suspected Gretchen was about to piss him off as well and braced herself.
“Dr. Denby?” a woman’s voice asked, before a word was spoken. All three of them turned to the nurse approaching in the pink uniform.
“Yes,” Denby snapped out.
The nurse gave Gretchen and September a harried look. “Four-twenty-seven. Mr. Upjohn? You said to tell you when he woke up?”
“Good timing,” Gretchen said, and Denby simply brushed past the nurse and strode with short, fast, irritated steps to Upjohn’s room, with September and Gretchen following behind. At the door to the room, Denby blocked their entrance. “Wait here,” he commanded, before going the rest of the way inside.
“Prick,” Gretchen said. She waited about a minute and then walked in the room anyway. September slipped in behind her—watch and learn—and caught the fulminating look on Denby’s face, but mimicked Gretchen, who’d already turned her attention to the patient. Denby bit back whatever he’d planned to say, though it was hard for him.
Kurt Upjohn looked at them through bleary eyes. His skin was sallow and his hair stuck out from his head. The blankets covered everything but a hint of bandage by his neck. If she hadn’t known about the surgery, September might think the man had been on a bender. She’d seen his corporate image picture: big smile, smoothed bald head, something was a little feral about his smile. Now, he just looked fragile.
“Mr. Upjohn, these women are from the Laurelton police,” Denby said tightly. “They would like to have a few words with you. If it’s too much of an effort, we can postpone it.”
Gretchen said, “These women are Detectives Sandler and Rafferty.”
Denby blinked, a bit shocked at Gretchen’s open hostility. September guessed not many people took him on, certainly not many women.
Upjohn’s tongue rimmed dry lips, then he croaked out, “Ask away.”
“The big question on everyone’s mind is why Zuma?” Gretchen began without preamble. “Why did this guy attac
k your company?”
“Don’t know.” With a pained twist of his lips, he rasped, “My son . . . is dead?”
Denby cut in, “Your wife was here. Do you remember?”
“Um . . . Camille, yes . . . she told me.”
“Can you think of one reason . . . any reason . . . for this to happen?” Gretchen persisted. “Sour business dealings? Anything personal?”
“No . . . Are they . . . is the second floor still working? The gamers?” he clarified.
“The business is shut down,” Gretchen said.
“Where’s Berelli? What happened to Berelli?” His eyes rolled around as if loose in his skull.
“He’s fine. We’ve spoken with Mr. Berelli,” Gretchen assured him.
“I want to see him.” He focused on the doctor. “I want to see him.”
“Mr. Berelli . . .” Denby repeated, nodding.
Gretchen intervened, “I can contact Mr. Berelli and tell him you wish to see him.”
“I want to see Phillip today,” Upjohn said. His voice was fading out and he cleared his throat with an effort.
Denby said, “It’s time to leave.”
“I have a few more questions.”
The doctor practically stepped on Gretchen, who stood her ground for a moment, but Upjohn’s eyes had closed and Denby didn’t look like he would be put off. She finally acceded, and September and Denby followed her into the hallway.
“Is Camille Dirkus still here?”
“I don’t know. His wife was here this morning.”
“She’s not his wife,” September said.
“Ex-wife.” He looked irked that she’d corrected him.
September wondered if they would get anything further from the officious doctor, but Gretchen wasn’t intimidated.
“What about Jessica Maltona?” she asked Denby.