Swope's Ridge

by Ace Collins

  “So he’s a drunk?”

  “A very good one, but no longer a good lawyer.”

  “Thanks, Janie, I’ll pass this on to Heather. In circumstantial-evidence cases, this would probably be enough to get us a good chance at an appeal.”

  “Yes, but when the evidence is stacked as well as it is in this case, I don’t think what I’ve found will make a dent. You need the man who really did it to give Jones a chance.”

  “I know that.”

  “And,” Janie added, “he wasn’t in Mexico. At least not where our guys went.”

  “So you’ve heard from Lije.”

  “They landed two hours ago. He called. Told me Curtis was doing something in Batesville tonight and he was coming straight home. Did you know the office phone rang only once all day? I’m starting to miss the death threats.”

  When McGee failed to laugh, she said, “Lije would’ve been here an hour ago, but I ordered him to visit his Aunt Mildred at the nursing home in Ash Flat. She’s been begging for him to come for weeks. So I put him on a guilt trip. And if you’re fishing for information, he didn’t tell me any more than I just gave you.”

  “Beals will be back in Little Rock tomorrow,” McGee added. “I’ll get what I need from him. Thanks for your work, Janie, and have a good evening.”

  “I think I will.”

  She placed the phone back in the cradle and rolled her neck. What a day!

  As she stretched her arms, her chair creaked. If Lije were here, that would drive him crazy, but as he was still not home, no use in getting out the WD-40 and fixing it. She hit a button on her watch and a mechanical voice announced, “Seven-fifteen.” Almost time. She got up from her chair, moved to the front door, and reached down to twist the lock to allow Dr. Young to walk right in.

  That’s strange. The door was already unlocked. She was sure she had locked it at five. Standing very still, she listened. The old wind-up clock was marking each second, her computer was humming, one printer was still turned on, and the ice-maker in the small break room was dropping a fresh batch of cubes. But there was something else. The fluorescent lights were on. She could hear the hum. She hadn’t switched them on when she came in. No one else had been here.

  Her hand found the light switch. She gently moved it down and walked back to her desk. If only Harlow were here. The dog would know what she was missing.

  With no one to guide her, her survival skills came into play. Act as if nothing is wrong. Concentrate. She had to concentrate so her ears could see.

  There it was—a squeak. She could barely hear it, but it was there. She heard it again. A floorboard. That was it! There was a section of wood in Lije’s office that gave under any kind of weight. There it was again.

  This time there was something else too. It was a kind of squishing noise. It was faint, but it was there. It seemed to be getting closer. It sounded like a new athletic shoe.

  Should she act as though she didn’t know anything was wrong? If she did, would they leave her alone? And why were they here? What were they after? Had they already found it or were they still looking?

  Janie reached down and hit the button on her watch, “Seven twenty-one.” If ever Dr. Young needed to be early, this was the day. But were doctors ever on time for anything?

  Nine minutes…Got to stay safe for just nine more minutes.

  She reached for the phone and yanked it from the cradle. Holding the receiver in her left hand, she began to tap in a nine, but there was no dial tone. She punched the second line and the third. They were all dead. They’d been working earlier.

  She knew the lights in the reception room were off, but what about the hallway? She clicked the power button on the computer. That was one light she was now sure was out.

  Where was her purse? She reached down beside her chair, but it was gone. She’d picked it up and carried it with her when she had gone to the front door. She had set it on the small bench. She had to get it.

  Rising slowly, she tried to look casual as she moved around her desk and to the door. She found her purse, picked it up, and felt for her cell. It wasn’t in its pocket. Her nimble fingers pushed by her billfold and checkbook. It wasn’t in the main section of her purse either. Where was it? Had she left it on the desk? No, she’d dropped it back in her purse when she spoke with McGee. She would’ve heard it if it had fallen out. That meant the intruder had taken it.

  Squish. There it was again. It was behind her and to the left. She yanked on the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t budge. Someone was holding it! She could hear breathing right next to her.

  She again hit the button on her watch. “Seven twenty-eight.”

  Two minutes! Got to do something. The back door was at the end of the hall. There was nothing in her way, she knew that, so she could run with no fear of tripping over something. It was now or never!

  Janie made her break. She was out of the reception area in three quick strides. The hall was thirty feet long, so she could cover it in ten steps.

  Squish! Squish!

  “I know you’re here,” Janie yelled as she flew down the hall. “Help’s on its way! You’d better get out of here before it’s too late! “

  Was that the seventh step or the eighth? The next one slammed her into the door, her face striking the antique oak just before her knee met the barrier. She should’ve crumpled to the floor, but fear managed to hold her upright.

  Squish!

  Ignoring the pain, she grabbed the knob with her left hand and worked the tricky latch with the other. It was stuck. It was always stuck. Leaning against the door freed it. A second later the latch moved. Yanking the knob, she stepped back and threw the seldom-used door open. She’d won! She could smell the night air, the flowers, and hear a cat meowing.

  Squish! Squish! Squish!

  “Ooof.”

  Janie’s legs wobbled. Her hand dropped from the door. She felt a warm liquid run down her head and neck.

  Then nothing.

  55

  LIJE EVANS HAD JUST LEFT HIS AUNT’S NURSING home when his cell rang. He waited until he’d made the left turn onto Highway 62 before he hit a button on the steering wheel that opened his phone in Bluetooth mode.

  “Evans here.”

  “Lije, it’s George Herring.”

  Herring was a good family man, a fine doctor, and his bass voice added something special to the church choir. He had moved from Dallas several years before in search of a quiet place to raise his family. He’d thought he’d found it until earlier in the year when the events of Farraday Road had spilled over into his emergency room. Then the horrors of working so many years at an intense and insanely busy Dallas trauma unit revisited him in a way that was far too personal. Lije considered George a friend, but not one who called.

  “I’m guessing there’s a problem,” Lije said.

  “Janie was attacked in your office tonight.”

  The response was so straightforward that it almost didn’t resonate. Had he heard the doctor right? “My Janie?”

  “Janie Davies,” the doctor confirmed. “It happened sometime tonight while she was working in your office. Dr. Young found her about 7:45 when he was returning her dog to her.”

  Lije accelerated. “What happened?”

  “The police are working on that now. Janie has contusions on her forehead and right knee and a very bad concussion. Someone hit her with a blunt object on the back of the head. It should have split her skull open. If Dr. Young hadn’t found her when he did, it’s doubtful she’d have made it. She hasn’t come to.”

  “That’s serious.”

  “Yes, though I don’t know yet how serious,” came the honest reply. “I know she’ll live, but I can’t say if there will be any lasting brain issues. When she regains consciousness, we’ll run some tests, ask some questions, do some observations. Whoever hit her meant business.”

  This had to be tied to the case. No one would hurt Janie. Why had he left her alone? After the shootings and the car bombing, he s
hould have hired a bodyguard for her. If she suffered from any long-term disabilities due to this, it was his fault.

  “I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.”

  “Take your time, Lije,” Herring suggested. “She’s not going to wake up anytime soon. You can’t do anything for her right now. None of us can.”

  “George, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “Let Harlow stay in ICU with her.”

  “That’s not the way things work in hospitals.”

  “Janie will know she’s there. She needs that dog.”

  “Okay. Dr. Young has the dog now and he’s in the waiting room. I’ll go talk to him.”

  Lije pushed the Prius hard around the curves that led from the Sharp County seat to its counterpart in Fulton County. He alerted McGee. Ignoring speed limits, he slowed down only when he saw the squad cars parked outside his office. Lije pulled into a vacant parking spot, jumped out of the car, and raced up to where crime-scene tape had been stretched across the walk.

  “Lije,” a deputy called out.

  He rushed up to her. “Just got back into town. I know Janie’s in the hospital. I’m on my way there. Do they have any idea who did this?”

  “No, they’re dusting for prints, but it wasn’t something random. It was too clean. It appears that nothing was taken. Either Janie stopped them or she was the target.”

  Lije ducked under the yellow plastic ribbon and walked into his office. “What’s going on, Sheriff?”

  Sheriff Calvin Wood pulled the lawyer to one side and whispered, “Has anyone told you what happened?”

  “Someone mugged Janie.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know why. Can you look around and see if anything was taken? I mean, her purse had all the stuff in it except her cell phone. We found that on the floor in the corner of the reception area. Nothing in the rooms looks out of place. She wasn’t raped or anything. Maybe it was some idiot who didn’t get the word you aren’t involved in that terror thing. Or maybe it’s tied to the car bombing.”

  “Let me take a look around.”

  “Put on some gloves,” Woods said.

  Lije took a pair out of an open crime-scene box. “But my fingerprints are all over here.”

  Woods nodded. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  The reception area appeared no different than when he’d last seen it on Saturday. There was the lingering smell of burned rubber from the car bombing. He checked Heather’s office, the break area, and the conference room. Nothing seemed out of place.

  As he walked down to his office, he noted blood on the floor by the back door. It was obvious Janie had been hit hard. Why would anyone do this? A person who couldn’t see wouldn’t have frightened most people.

  Or maybe that was it. The person who broke in didn’t know she was blind.

  “No signs of forced entry,” an investigator told Woods.

  “She must have let the assailant in. Might have even known him,” Woods said.

  If the sheriff was right on that point, then there was reason to kill Janie. Still, what was the motive? Everything seemed fine.

  Lije stepped into his office. Nothing looked different. He circled his desk, studied the bookshelves. The German’s Bible was still on the right side of the desk. Wait! It shouldn’t be there. That’s where he had put it last week, but Monday morning he’d left it on the table. He hadn’t touched it since.

  Opening the top drawer on the right, Lije saw the ring and the German medal. The eBay purchases had not been of interest. Sliding open the right top drawer revealed three one hundred dollar bills. Robbery was not the motive. It appeared only the Bible had been moved.

  He opened it and flipped through the pages. Three ribbons were still there, and the other two that had been sewn together were at Janie’s house. Moving to the seventh chapter of Genesis revealed the marked page had not been taken. So why, out of all the books in the office, had this one been moved? What were they looking for?

  He put the Bible back on the desk and walked out to the hall. “Sheriff, I can’t see that anything is missing.”

  “Well, then I guess Miss Davies is the only one who can give us any answers. We’ll just have to wait.”

  He looked over at his officers. “All right, let’s go. We’re done for the night.”

  56

  LIJE LEANED AGAINST THE WALL BY THE FRONT DOOR. What were they after? What had he overlooked? It was time to backtrack through the office.

  A walk-through of the reception area revealed nothing. The other rooms also appeared just as they had the first time he viewed them. That left his office. Only the Bible was out of place. Why?

  Sitting down in his desk chair, he brought the fingers of both hands together in front of his face and thought back over the past few days. Was this tied to Omar Jones? Was it tied to Swope’s Ridge? Was it tied to their trip to Mexico? Or had Janie found out something today? She hadn’t earlier when he checked in.

  He glanced over at the framed photo of Kaitlyn on the corner of the desk. Every facet of his life had spun out of control since that night when she’d been killed. Until then, everything had been so simple.

  Picking up the photo, he stared into those deep brown eyes. When he did, he felt it.

  Turning the photo around, he saw that one of the clasps on the back was out of position. It wasn’t holding down the back of the frame. When he’d hidden the formula behind the photo, he had turned each of the six clasps back into the exact position they had been in for years. The shape of each clasp had made a mark in the green felt. Now each was a bit out of position.

  His heart in his throat, he quickly moved the clasps and pulled the back off. The small piece of onionskin paper fell out and landed on his desk. It was here! So why would someone have moved the back clasps on Kaitlyn’s photo? Janie wouldn’t have. Curtis had been with him. Heather was in Little Rock.

  He turned in his chair to face his computer. No one knew about the formula but Janie and Nate. And neither one of them knew where it was. He’d been alone in his office on the morning when he’d hidden it. All he’d done was make a copy to take to OBU.

  He walked over to the HP combination printer/copier. He’d placed the formula on the glass, pushed the button, folded the copy, and put it in his pocket. Then he had turned off the printer and taken the original back to his desk, where he had hidden it behind the photo. His door had been open, but no one had seen him. He was sure of that.

  Noting the green power light on the printer, he pushed the off switch. How long had that been on? He hadn’t used it since making the copy of the formula. He was certain he’d turned it off. Only Janie was working today, and she wouldn’t have used it. Then it hit him. They didn’t take the formula because they’d made a copy of it. But who? And how did they know about it? How did they know where he’d put it? Had someone hidden a camera? Had the office been bugged?

  What they didn’t know was that it was evidently worthless. Nate’s initial tests had proven that if Hitler was going to kill the world with that stuff, he was going to have to pack it in an atomic bomb.

  He considered putting the formula in a new place. Perhaps even taking it home. But why? If they had already seen it, they wouldn’t be coming back.

  Lije put the photo frame back together, first placing the formula behind the photo. He carefully adjusted each of the clasps and set Kaitlyn’s photo back on his desk.

  Janie needed him. It was time to be at her side.

  57

  WAKING FROM A FITFUL SLEEP, LIJE GLANCED UP AT the large clock on the waiting room wall. It was almost six. He had fallen asleep in a sitting position two hours earlier. Church members had stayed all night too. A half dozen were still asleep. Others whispered to each other. Like him, they were all there for Janie.

  Lije stole out of the waiting area and headed for the cafeteria. After paying a buck for a ten-ounce soda, he walked through another deserted hallway, past a nurse’s station, and straight
to ICU. Dr. Herring was just coming out of Janie’s room.

  “Lije, glad you’re here,” the doctor said. “The signs are encouraging. The pressure’s down and she’s no longer restless. All we can do now is wait. I’ll let you know if there’s any change.”

  Lije opened the door slightly and looked into the room. Janie’s bruised forehead was darker than it had been the last time he checked three hours before, but her color looked better. She wasn’t nearly as pale. Harlow, her guide dog, was sitting beside the bed, her nose pressed onto the mattress near the woman’s hand. Janie was going to be all right; she had to be, for both Harlow and himself.

  He headed to the garden area for some fresh air. The garden, located behind the hospital, was the ongoing project of a local women’s group. It had started on an acre of land ten years ago. The trees planted that first season were almost twenty feet high. Curving beds added colors with a broad range of flowers. Shrubs added variety to the landscaping. Swings and benches had been placed along the concrete walks, providing a welcome retreat for staff, patients, and visitors—a haven in which to just be alone, to think, to try to find answers. It was answers Lije needed, but he was also hoping to find some perspective on the turmoil in his life.

  It was just light enough to see where he was walking, but not bright enough to make out the garden’s rich colors. The semidarkness set the perfect tone. He prayed for solitude, but even at this early hour, the little garden of Eden quietly buzzed with activity. He politely nodded and smiled as he passed a couple sitting on a bench nearest the building. A stone’s throw away, four people sat at a table. Farther down the walkway he passed a solitary figure sitting in one of the swings.

  “Evans,” a hoarse female voice called out. “Lije Evans.”

  He stopped and turned back toward the swing. The woman was heavyset, dressed in a robe. He didn’t recognize her in the dim light. But like a distant echo on a lonely night, the voice sounded familiar.