by Dawn Eastman
Katie closed out that window and scanned the list of files. Why wasn’t there one labeled SUSPECTS or MURDERER? That would have been helpful.
Knowing that Hope Frost and Brad Humphreys were on the sticky note she had found at Taylor’s apartment, she clicked on Hope’s name. There were scanned newspaper clippings of her wedding announcement and pictures that looked like they had been pulled off of social media of her graduation and her kids.
Brad Humphreys had the same type of information in his file. Katie wondered what Taylor had been thinking. Why the pictures and the announcements from their lives years after Heather’s death? Did she suspect the roommates? And if so, what was their motive?
Katie had just started writing out a list of questions when her phone rang.
She was on call and looked at the screen with trepidation. Ugh. The Baxter ER. That was never good news. She answered the call as she shut down her computer and flipped her notebook shut.
28
“This is police harassment.”
Carlson shook his head. “I’m not harassing you. I haven’t even touched you.”
He stood on Nathan’s small porch and glanced up and down the street in the fading light. Some teens were throwing a football in the street and a couple of younger kids sped along the sidewalk on bicycles. Carlson turned back to face Nathan’s tirade.
“You show up at my house and accuse me of assault.” Nathan’s face had become dark with anger. “You do nothing to protect my wife when her stalker gets out of jail. Now you’re telling me to stay away from him?”
This was not going the way he wanted, but Carlson had to admit it was going about the way he’d predicted. He held his hands up in a placating gesture.
“Mr. Nielsen, I merely asked you if you knew who might be vandalizing Mr. Lowe’s property.” Carlson had to admit that Nielsen’s response was not casting him in the light of innocence.
Nathan took a deep breath and visibly tried to control his temper. Carlson could almost see him reining it in and tamping it down. The thought crossed his mind that this was a man with too much anger near the surface.
“You’re right, Chief Carlson,” Nathan said in a calmer tone. “I apologize.”
“I know this has been a stressful time for you,” Carlson said.
“I just don’t want that guy anywhere near my wife. The whole trauma of Heather’s death took a long time for her to get over, and now that he’s back, the whole thing is being dredged up again. And I don’t trust him. I know some people thought he was innocent, but I’m sure he did it.”
Carlson cocked an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?” Did Nathan have information he’d withheld from the police at the time? He tried to remember where Nathan had fallen in the whole affair. He’d known Heather, but how well? Carlson decided to do just a touch of research when he got back to the office.
“It’s obvious,” Nathan said. “He’s a weirdo stalker type. He has no friends. Heather was beautiful and popular. He probably saw her when he was stalking Alicia and decided to switch targets.”
This was a theory Carlson had heard before—the idea that Eugene had followed Alicia to Ann Arbor that fall and had seen a girl he liked even more. But it had never made sense to Carlson. Why would a shy kid like Eugene, who had only ever cared for Alicia—if the gossip could be believed—suddenly decide not only that he was in love with another girl but also become violent about it? He would still need to look into it. Carlson knew that when emotions got involved, things didn’t always make sense to an observer.
“So, I take it you have no idea who might be harassing Eugene now?” Carlson got back to his original question.
Nathan ran a hand over his face and shook his head. He focused on a spot just over Carlson’s shoulder and said, “No idea.”
“Okay, well, thank you for your time.” Carlson made his way down the steps and to his car parked in the street.
He unlocked his car and pulled the seat belt across his stomach. With a sigh, he stared out the windshield.
Nathan Nielsen was lying about something. He could feel it.
* * *
Instead of heading home to another healthy dinner, he swung by Pete’s and picked up a grilled turkey, bacon, and cheddar sandwich and fries. He texted Linda to say he’d be home late and (somewhat gleefully) took his bag of food back to his office.
He flipped through the reports that had been left on his desk. After they had realized Taylor had been in Baxter just before she disappeared, he’d asked Linda to put a notice online asking for any information that might help the investigation. His officers had interviewed several people who’d claimed to have seen Taylor in town. Delores Munch had reported seeing her having coffee in the Purple Parrot that afternoon. She’d said she thought the girl was alone. Mike Sherman had claimed he had seen her going into Eugene’s house that evening. Since Mike lived across town from Eugene, Carlson wasn’t sure what he’d been doing near Eugene’s house, but because he was Nathan’s best friend, Carlson was suspicious that he might be one of Eugene’s harassers. He’d asked Molly Hart to follow up on that report. She had apparently found someone who could place him at the Riley’s Grill bar at the same time he claimed he’d seen Taylor. So who was he protecting?
Thinking that it was often what was not said that carried the most weight with him, he pulled his bag of food over to a clear space on his desk.
He was halfway through his sandwich when something niggled at him. The kids who had lived with Alicia hadn’t been interviewed until late in the day after Heather was killed. They’d had plenty of time to organize their alibis. Nathan had seemed so insistent that Eugene had killed Heather. Katie’s voice nagged at him. “What if Eugene was innocent and Taylor had discovered evidence?”
Was Nathan protecting someone?
Carlson flipped through the file again. The two roommates had covered for each other, sort of. As he had noticed before, Hope had likely been at the party later than she claimed. But it didn’t matter, did it? Carlson couldn’t see a way that lying about their timing could have benefited either of them. So why had they done it? Had they just been drunk and confused, or had they planned it?
Alicia had also changed her mind about the timing quite a bit. At first, she’d said she’d come back to the apartment at midnight; then she’d changed her mind and said she was home by ten thirty. The officers finally got her to admit that she had been drinking and had no real idea what time it was. But she was sure she hadn’t seen Brad or Hope until the next day. The only person she had seen at the apartment was Nathan. He’d walked her home and then stayed with her until she fell asleep.
Alicia had claimed that she and Nathan were “just friends” and that he was Heather’s boyfriend. She had later revised that to say Heather and Nathan had recently broken up.
Carlson looked at his watch and sighed. The whole thing sounded like a teenage soap opera. He had to get some sleep. He put the file in his bottom desk drawer and locked it. He suddenly felt like maybe Katie was right and something about Eugene’s case had come forward in time to threaten Taylor Knox.
29
The call from the ER had been for an elderly patient with pyelonephritis. In a young patient, a kidney infection could be treated with oral antibiotics at home. In an elderly person, it could be extremely dangerous. Katie had admitted him and started antibiotics for the infection. She probably could have left it to the nurses, but Katie wanted to be sure he was stable before leaving the hospital. By that time, it was almost two in the morning. After just a few hours of sleep, she’d doubled up on the caffeine and made it to Tuesday’s clinic only fifteen minutes late. Halfway through the morning, Katie came out of an exam room to find Debra waiting for her. She was pale and her lower lip quivered.
“I just heard from Sean,” Debra said. Sean was Debra’s husband and an officer on the Baxter police force.
Katie’s first thought, as always, went to Caleb—was he hurt?
Katie grabbed Debra’s hand. �
��What is it?”
“Mrs. Munch found a body in the woods. She was walking that yappy cairn terrier of hers and they stumbled on a body.”
“Whose body?” Katie’s heart hammered in her chest.
“Sean said it was a university student.” Debra’s voice cracked, and she put her hand to her mouth. “They found her ID in her purse. It was Taylor Knox.”
Katie felt dizzy and sat down hard in the nurse’s chair at the desk. Taylor was dead?
It wasn’t a complete surprise; after she’d been missing for almost a week, Katie hadn’t really thought they would find her alive. But still. Katie felt like she had failed this young woman with so much promise.
Katie looked up at Debra, who was wringing her hands and looking helpless. “Could he tell how she died?”
Debra lowered her voice. “He said they think she was strangled.”
“Where …” Katie cleared her throat. “Where did they find her?”
“She was in the woods at the far side of the hospital property. She was just covered in some leaves. It was like whoever left her there wanted her to be found. But Sean said it looked like she’d been dead for a while. The medical examiner thought it had been at least a few days.”
“I need to …” Katie started. But what did she need to do? There was nothing she could do now.
“I’m sorry, Dr. LeClair,” Debra said. She put a hand on Katie’s shoulder. “I know you really liked her. We all did. She had such great … energy.” Debra’s voice cracked, and she pulled a tissue out of her pocket.
Katie looked up at Debra. “I’m sorry, too.” She stood up and turned toward her office. “I have to make a couple of phone calls. Will you ask Angie to tell the patients I’ll just be a few minutes?”
Debra nodded and went in search of Angie.
Katie had to call Gabrielle and let her know. She’d want to tell Russell.
After she got off the phone to Gabrielle, she pressed Caleb’s number on her cell phone.
“Katie, hi.”
“Caleb, listen. Taylor Knox is dead.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just about to call you.”
“How did you find out?”
“Eugene. He showed up here again.”
Katie could hear muffled noises on the other end of the phone. Then she heard a door close.
Caleb spoke again. “He’s a mess. He said he saw the police cars and his mother went to see what had happened. She came home in a panic because the girl was dead and people were already muttering that Eugene must have done it.”
“And he just left his mom at the house?”
“No, she grabbed a bag and she’s headed to her sister’s house over in Denton. He came here because he figured no one would look for him here.”
Eugene was becoming a higher-maintenance patient than she had bargained for. She couldn’t hide him at her house. What if he had done it? Could she have been wrong about him all along? If the police were looking for him now that Taylor’s body had been found, she and Caleb could be breaking the law. Harboring a fugitive? Accessory after the fact? Katie didn’t know, but it was something for sure. Something that she didn’t want to do. It was one thing to advocate for a patient with the police; it was another to hide him from the police. If the police were even looking for him. But, if the police weren’t looking for him, the gang that had been harassing him certainly would be. He’d be safer in the jail than anywhere else.
“Katie?” Caleb said.
She should be focused on her phone call, but her mind was already spinning scenarios of doom.
“I need to call John Carlson. We can’t hide Eugene there. If the police are looking for him, we’ll be in trouble. If the people who have been bothering him are looking for him, we’ll be in trouble.”
“Okay, but you’d better tell him. He’s not a big fan of mine. It’s like he only trusts you.”
Great. No pressure there. Katie had no idea if she was doing the right thing.
She clicked off her cell phone and buzzed the front desk. “I have an emergency at home, Debra. I’m going to ask Dr. Gregor to cover for me. Can you reschedule the afternoon patients and shuffle the rest into his schedule?”
“Sure, Dr. LeClair. Is your brother okay?”
“He’s fine. I just need to get home.”
Katie headed into the next hall and found Matt just stepping out of a room.
“Hey,” he said. He looked up and down the empty hallway and lowered his voice. “Couldn’t keep away, huh?”
Katie smiled in spite of her nerves. “I need to talk to you.”
She took his hand and dragged him down the hall to his office. When they stepped inside, she closed the door.
“You don’t look like you dragged me in here because you missed me.”
Katie shook her head and felt the tears flood her eyes. Matt took her in his arms.
“What is it?” he asked. She heard the concern and confusion in his voice.
She swallowed to stop the tears and rubbed her cheeks with her sleeve.
“Taylor Knox was found dead not long ago.”
“Oh, no. I guess it’s not a shock, but at the same time, it is. What happened?” Matt asked.
“I don’t know yet, but Caleb says that Eugene is hiding out at my house. I have to go over there and convince him to go to the police.”
“Do you think he did it?” Matt asked. And then, without waiting for her answer, “I don’t think you should be alone with him.”
“No. I don’t think so,” Katie said. But even she could hear the uncertainty in her voice. But regardless of whether he was guilty or not, she didn’t want him staying at her house. “I just don’t think it’s going to be safe for him with the vigilante gang out there. If they were after him just for moving back to town, I can’t imagine what they’ll do if they decide he killed Taylor.”
“Okay, what can I do?”
“Will you cover my clinic for me, please? I’m canceling the afternoon, but there are a few sick visits already checked in.”
“Of course. My schedule is pretty light. I’ll head over there and tell Angie what we’re doing.”
“Thanks, Matt.” She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek.
“Let me know how it goes,” he said. “I’ll take you out to dinner tonight, if you want.”
“I’ll call you later,” Katie said on her way back to her office.
She grabbed her bag and headed out to the parking lot.
30
Katie unlocked her Subaru and climbed inside. She stuck the key in the ignition and hesitated before turning over the engine. Had she been wrong about Eugene? She hardly knew him, after all. Just because he was a patient didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of violence.
If Eugene had in fact killed Heather long ago, did that mean he had killed Taylor because she had gotten too close to the truth? But that didn’t make any sense. Eugene had already served his time. Or was he some kind of lunatic who couldn’t stop himself from stalking and killing young blondes? Alicia, Heather, and Taylor were all blonde, thin, and pretty. He had been caught breaking into Alicia’s house. Katie only had his word for it that it had been a prank.
If Eugene had killed Taylor, Katie would never forgive herself. That’s what it had all come down to in that initial moment of hearing about Taylor’s death. It looked like the ‘it’s all about me’ mentality that Katie despised in others was also alive and well in her own brain. She let her head fall back onto the seat and closed her eyes.
She felt her way past the selfish concerns and tried to think logically. It had been one of the first lessons of medical school. It wasn’t taught in any specific class; it was entrenched in all the classes. Nothing was about her, the physician. It was all about the patient. And emotions, reactions, and self-involved thinking didn’t help the patient. She was very good at compartmentalizing. Watching her mother lose her battle with cancer, watching her father struggle with alcohol, feeling like an orphan as she shuttled between family mem
bers—all of it had helped train her to be “good in a crisis.”
It wasn’t until residency that she had learned the other side of that lesson. Which was that, after shoving all those thoughts into the compartment that kept them separate from the job, she also needed to let them out or they would overwhelm her. It wasn’t weakness; it was human. It was the only way she knew to be. So sometimes she had to take an evening and write everything down, or listen to sad music until she had cried all the pent-up tears of the week or the month or the year. And sometimes she had to sit in her parked car and enjoy the beauty of solitude.
She took a deep breath, turned over the engine, and steeled herself for what she would find at home.
* * *
Caleb met her at the back door. His look conveyed both irritation and concern.
“He’s in the living room.” Caleb tilted his head in that direction. “He hasn’t said much.”
“Thanks, Caleb.” Katie squeezed his arm.
Eugene sat on the couch staring at the pink beaded bracelet in his hands. He was clicking it like some sort of rosary.
“Eugene?” She stepped into the room and took a seat in the chair opposite. She sat for a moment, watching him. “Where did you get the beads?”
His hand stilled and then started up again. “Alicia gave them to me a long time ago.”
He looked down at the beads resting in his hand. “I left them with my mother when I went to prison. I didn’t want anything to happen to them. One day, after a horrible day at school, Alicia and I walked in the woods. I didn’t even have to tell her what had happened; she just seemed to know.” Eugene glanced up at Katie. “Have you ever had a friend like that?”