But Dave Haggerty wouldn’t be taking Charlie on as a client. He’d be representing Billy, who evidently had been in Laramie when Brad Preston was murdered. Charlie might want to believe that she and Billy were in this mess together, but who knew? Once the lawyers got into the act, it would be every man, woman, boy, and girl for himself or herself, and things would get exponentially weirder and messier. This, Sally decided, was a good time to say as little as possible. “Charlie wasn’t there the day Brad was killed. She was down in Fort Collins. I don’t want to go into detail now,” she told him.
“Okay. All right. Thanks for calling,” said Haggerty, sounding disappointed at Sally’s reticence. But not all that surprised either.
Ivinson Memorial Hospital in the cold, pale dawn. Sally shivered, teeth chattering, as they walked toward the emergency entrance. In the course of her checkered career, she’d spent more than her share of time holding down a chair in the waiting area, drinking the toxic coffee from the cafeteria, trying to tamp down worry and pain and grief. The clicking of her heels on the linoleum floor stirred up all the fragments of fear and heartbreak she’d accumulated over the times she’d spent there. No wonder doctors and nurses wore soft-soled shoes. It wasn’t just to save their backs and knees. The sound of their footsteps on that rackety floor would drive them crazy.
“I had to let her sleep, Dickie,” Sally told the sheriff at the end of her story. They were sitting on a Naugahyde couch in the emergency room waiting area, miraculously unoccupied except for the three of them. That was probably good news for Charlie; they’d rushed her into the ER while Sally was still trying to figure out how to fill out the paperwork a receptionist had stuck in her hand the minute they’d arrived. “I know I should have called right away,” she explained, “but the kid was drunk, maybe high, although she didn’t really seem to be on any drug other than lots of beer.”
“Enough beer,” said Dickie, “can be powerful poison. Believe me, I know.”
“Yeah. Jesus. I hope to hell I didn’t make a terrible mistake,” Sally said.
“You mean, ‘We didn’t make a mistake,’ ” said Hawk. “I didn’t call either.”
Dickie reached for his cigarettes, shaking his head. Realized he couldn’t light up in the hospital, so he contented himself with taking a smoke out of the pack, tapping it in his palm, putting it back with a regretful sigh. “I don’t know. I’m no doctor. I can’t imagine sleeping did her any harm. From what you’ve said, she needed it pretty bad. We’ll just have to see what happens.”
Sally reached over and squeezed his hand. “She’s got an alibi, God help her.”
“But the boyfriend doesn’t,” Dickie replied. “He’s got real problems.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sally.
Just then, a doctor emerged from the ER, dangling a clipboard from his left hand. “From what we can tell,” he said, “she’s in a catatonic state. We want to get a lab workup, get an EEG, do some other tests. We’ve sedated her. Fortunately, we’ve got a pretty extensive medical history for her. I guess the good/bad news is that she’s been here a lot before.” He smiled very ruefully.
“Can you help her?” Sally asked.
“Yeah, we’re pretty sure,” said the doctor. “But we have to get permission to treat her further. Her paperwork’s incomplete. We need to notify her next of kin.”
Sally, Dickie, and Hawk looked at each other. “There are some complications,” said Dickie. “It’d probably be her stepmother, Beatrice Preston. But they aren’t exactly close.”
The doctor closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Anybody else?” he asked.
“There are foster parents,” said Sally, thinking of Mike and Julie Stark. “How about them?”
The doctor scratched at the beginning of a beard. He looked exhausted. Sally could imagine why. He’d probably pulled an all-nighter; sometimes emergency doctors worked seventy-two-hour shifts. Brutal, not to mention scary. “This is not good,” the doctor announced. “Especially given who the stepmother is. She’s liable to reject medical treatment and get up a revival in the ER waiting room, not to mention the legal stuff. Okay. What do you say, Sheriff?”
“I doubt that Mrs. Preston would turn down treatment,” Sally put in, “given what she told me about Charlie’s medical history. But I don’t think she’d be real sympathetic either.”
The doctor breathed deep. “Okay. We probably have to call her anyway. In the meantime, would you happen to know if there’s any chance that this girl might be pregnant?”
Sally, Hawk, and Dickie stared at the doctor. Sally said, “You examined her, right?”
“Yeah,” said the doctor. “What are you getting at?”
“She had an abortion, followed by some kind of sterilization procedure, within the last three weeks,” Dickie told him. “What is it you people do for a living?”
The doctor made a note on the clipboard. “Pelvic exams aren’t standard procedure when we get somebody in here with a neurological emergency. We deal with insurance companies, you know, and they’re getting pickier and pickier about authorizations. Hell, you don’t even know if this girl’s got insurance. It’s a problem,” he admitted.
“Oh well, at least we know that you guys are screwing up because of greed, not incompetence,” Sally said.
The doctor glared at her. “You want my job?” he asked.
“Sorry,” said Sally.
“I’m going back in there,” said the doctor. “Thanks for the information. We’ll get in touch with Mrs. Preston.”
Sally waited for the doctor to leave. Then she pounced. “You said Billy had problems,” she told Dickie. “What?”
Dickie shook his head. “You want to know something we see all the time? Stupid dumb-ass criminals who can’t keep their damn mouths shut. Maybe they figure they’re safe, because most of their friends are other stupid dumb-ass criminals who’d never run to the cops. Maybe they’re so disconnected from society that they figure they’re untouchable. Or maybe they’re just friggin’ out of it.”
“You’re saying Billy blabbed to somebody about Brad Preston?” Sally said. “Why would he do that? I mean, from the little Charlie told us, he was worried about her, trying to protect her.”
“And since when would worrying be proof of innocence of a crime?” Dickie asked. “If we acquitted every defendant who ever admitted to worrying, the streets would be jammed with cutthroats and maniacs,” Dickie pointed out. “Who’s got better reasons to worry?”
“Yeah,” said Hawk. “In fact, that worrying might have been what drove him to do the deed.”
“Who came to you?” Sally asked Dickie.
“One of his sweet little roommates. Touching story— they met at church. Another pathological liar and thief. And where do these kids get those tats? My God, can you imagine sitting still while somebody turns you into a human pincushion, just so you can go around looking like something the circus left behind?” Dickie said.
“Do you mean to say that Billy told this kid he was going after Brad Preston?” Sally asked. She didn’t know a lot of murderers personally, but if she were one, she didn’t think she’d go around talking up her homicidal plans.
“Nah. He says he overheard Billy and his girlfriend talking about how they were going to rip off her old man. Said the girlfriend told Billy he didn’t have to be gentle with the dad on her account. Said they were loaded when they had the conversation, and they didn’t seem to care particularly who might be within earshot.”
“What’s this guy’s name?” Sally asked.
“Alvin Sabble,” Dickie replied.
“Like the singing chipmunk?” Sally asked.
Dickie considered. “Not quite. But there’s definitely a rodentlike quality to him,” he said.
“Roommates and vermin,” said Hawk. “An all-too-common combination.”
“Was the informant one of the kids who got evicted?” Sally asked Dickie.
The sheriff nodded.
“Where is he no
w?” Sally asked.
“Staying at the Waldorf Astoria. Why do you ask?” Dickie retorted.
“Consider backing off, Sal,” Hawk said, putting his arm around her.
Sally gave him a look.
“Don’t give me the stubborn look,” said Hawk.
“Okay. You win,” she conceded to Dickie. He clearly had his reasons for discouraging her from trying to get in touch with Alvin Sabble. But, she thought, she and Hawk were college professors, after all. They had plenty of students who probably did their share of partying. Laramie was a pretty small town. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out a thing or two about the inhabitants of a recently evicted party house.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the clicking of heels on the linoleum. Bea Preston, grim and thin-lipped and perfectly coiffed, was coming down the hall. “Where’s the attending physician?” she asked them, wasting no particular effort on giving them the time of day.
“He’s in the ER,” Dickie told her, and added, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Preston.”
“You have no idea,” said Bea, pressing her lips together hard. “I’ve been afraid it would come to this.”
Sally had to tell her. “Charlotte wasn’t here the day your husband was killed.”
Bea looked at her. Nodded once. “I have to get in there,” she said, and turned to go.
Hawk put his hand on Sally’s arm. “Is there really any reason for us to stick around here? They’re not going to let you in to see Charlie. Bea isn’t going to decide you’re her closest confidante. There’s really nothing for us to do here.”
Dickie put an arm around her shoulder. “He’s right. Go on home. Don’t you have things to do today anyhow? I sure as hell do. And much as I enjoy planting my ample fanny in this torture device of a chair, I’ve got to get to the office. Don’t worry. I’m going to get a deputy down here. We’ll have somebody around when the kid wakes up.”
“When?” said Sally.
“She’ll wake up,” Dickie assured her.
Click, click, click; heels on linoleum. Melba Krich, the blond lawyer Sally’d met at the Dunwoodie reception, had arrived. “Howdy, Sheriff,” she said, turning to Sally and adding, “I remember you.”
Hawk introduced himself. They all shook hands. Melba sat down. “I’ll take it from here,” she told Sally.
Take it where? Sally had no idea. They walked on down the hall, click, click, click.
Chapter 15
Victims and Strangers
Dickie was right. there were things Sally had to do, and there was absolutely nothing she could do for Charlie Preston at the moment. So she decided she might as well get her head out of her ass and spend some quiet time at her office. No one would bother her on a Sunday.
Her office was a mess. The place was a rebuke, stuffed with unread journals, unanswered mail, ungraded papers. She sighed. She had become one of those procrastinating professors she’d despised in graduate school. Worse yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tackle any of the usual tasks.
So she cleaned. Threw out ancient mail. Dithered. Made a pot of coffee. Turned on her computer and read her online horoscope. Took a look at the New York Times.
Email.
Happily, the computer in her office hadn’t caught the virus when she’d opened the attachment that had fried her home computer. The bad news was that she had forty new messages in her already out-of-control inbox.
One of which was from a sender she didn’t recognize, titled “More Family Photos.”
So much for the day job. She’d had to consider the likelihood that somebody was stalking her, but she’d tried to keep her mind away from the subject.
Sally called the cops.
An hour later, Scotty Atkins was sitting in the dilapidated easy chair, and the IT detective was running diagnostics on her machine. Sally had dragged the desk she kept in the hall into the office so she’d have a place to sit.
“Hmph,” said Scotty. “I realize I haven’t been here before. This is a pretty shitty office for the head of a big research center.”
She didn’t really feel like jousting with him. “It’s cozy,” said Sally. “And I kind of like it. It makes me feel like Jo March, scribbling in the garret.”
“Who’s Jo March?” Scotty asked.
“You’ve never read Little Women?” the IT tech asked, without stopping her clattering at the keyboard.
“The title never grabbed me,” said Atkins.
“Was it the ‘little’ or the ‘women’?” Sally asked.
“Your hard disk looks fine.” The tech clicked some more keys, sat back a minute and waited. “Okay, now ... I’m done scanning this message,” said the tech. “Looks like it’s coming up clean.”
“Open it,” said Scotty, climbing out of the chair just as Sally extracted herself from the desk. There was an awkward moment as they maneuvered around each other, moving to stand and get a view of the computer screen.
Sally felt like Pandora.
The message read, “Some recent shots.”
“Not very revealing,” said Scotty.
There were four photo file attachments.
“You’re sure those are okay?” Sally asked. “I really don’t want to screw up this machine.”
“They’re not infected,” said the tech. “Should I go ahead?”
Scotty and Sally both nodded.
The first two were similar in content. Shots of Sally, Maude, and Aggie, cruising the mall in Fort Collins. The third was a solo shot of Aggie, looking coltish and innocent and gorgeous and very, very vulnerable.
“Fuck all,” said Sally.
The fourth was a rather blurrier image. It showed Sally and Dave Haggerty, having dinner at The Bra. They were leaning toward each other. Sally was sipping her drink, listening intently as Haggerty talked. The quality of that photo was poorer than the first three. Sally tried to remember where they’d been sitting, and recalled that they’d had a table by the window. Someone could easily have snapped the picture as they passed by on the street. She hadn’t noticed anybody with a camera, but then again, she’d been pretty absorbed in the conversation.
She could feel Scotty glaring at her. “What?” she said. “Nothing,” he answered.
For God’s sake, she thought. She’d have enough trouble with Hawk when he got a load of that picture. The last thing she needed was for Scotty Atkins to be getting his bloomers in a bunch over her having some ordinary business-type dinner with a political ally and potential donor to her center.
Ordinary business? Hah.
The tech sent a copies of the message and the attachments to the sheriff’s office, then suggested that Sally give them her password so that the sheriff’s office could simply access any suspicious files she received electronically. Save time and effort. Sally declined. It might be useful, but she couldn’t convince herself that it was a good idea to have cops pawing through her email. Her reaction was a little silly, considering that they’d already done so, and more. Dickie Langham and Scotty Atkins had once had occasion to go through her underwear drawer. But then, it wasn’t as if they’d actually seen her modeling silk teddies and lacy nighties. When someone looked at your email, it seemed a lot more like being seen naked.
The tech left. Sally and Scotty spent another hour poring over enlarged images of the photos, along with prints of the first batch Hawk had received. Scotty pressed. Was there anyone she remembered seeing at all the places the pictures had been taken? Anybody at any of the places, taking pictures? If she thought about it a little harder, maybe she’d recall camera flashes?
Somebody had evidently been present, damn near everywhere she’d been recently. But she couldn’t conjure up a stranger’s face. As for people taking pictures, well, yeah. There’d been several people documenting the Dunwoodie reception, and plenty of people snapping away at the demonstration. What about flashes? She closed her eyes, searched for a visual memory, found nothing. She was by nature a singer and a player and a lover of the music of words. She tended to enco
unter the world through her ears more than her eyes. If there’d been a strange sound, she’d have remembered, but when it came to the sense of sight, she relied pretty heavily on Hawk, who could spot an English sparrow flittering in a bush a hundred yards away.
She tried hard, dredged up vague images of light changes here and there, but couldn’t pin them down. It had to be one of those cell phone cameras. She said as much to Scotty.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a good possibility. So let’s try this. Do you remember anybody using a cell phone at any of those places?”
They both laughed.
It was an oddly comforting moment.
But there was no comfort in what he said next. “Some-body knows where you’re going and what you’re doing almost before you do.”
It took her a minute to speak. “I’m not so crazy about that,” she admitted. “But look on the bright side. All these pictures were taken in public places. Most of them were in crowds. Whoever took them isn’t staking out my house, invading my private space.”
Scotty inspected the photos. “Nope. Not yet, anyhow. Although you could say that this one”—he indicated the image of Sally and Haggerty, heads together over dinner—“conveys a certain intimacy.”
“Or not,” said Sally, declining to say more.
“That’s none of my business, although if I were you, I’d be a little careful what I said around Mr. Haggerty,” said Atkins. “He’s a smart guy, with his own agenda. As for the photos, it could be we’re looking at a trend, from public to private. The next time our photographer here decides to take a shot of you, or one of your pals, you could be at home, or alone, or both.”
“Take a shot?” Sally said. “I’m not sure I like that language.”
“It’s precise. And yes, I am trying to induce caution here, Sally. It pays to plan for the worst.”
She was still staring at the photographs, long after Scotty Atkins had departed.
Hello, Stranger Page 13