Bring Her Home

by David Bell

  Was there anything normal going on?

  Bill turned away from the rack of reading material and saw Teena Everett walking into the hospital lobby. The girl looked around the open space, wide-eyed, as though not quite sure where to go. Bill walked out of the gift shop and headed toward her. When he was close enough, he said her name.

  She jumped.

  “Oh. Mr. Price. You scared me.”

  “I didn’t mean to. You looked like you needed help.”

  “Oh . . . I came here to see Haley.” She paused for a moment, playing with the zipper of her winter coat. She zipped it up and down with one hand, her eyes averted. “Kids are saying that she woke up. That she can talk now and everything.”

  “She’s awake—that’s true.” Bill moved slightly to the right, trying to catch the girl’s line of sight. “But she’s still pretty weak. The police are up there now.”

  “Oh.” Teena seemed disappointed. Her lips turned down in a pout. “Will they be done soon?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not sure how many visitors Haley can have yet. Like I said, she’s weak, and her memory isn’t even really back. She’s still piecing together everything that happened, and that could take a long time.”

  Bill knew he hadn’t managed to keep the disappointment out of his voice, and Teena picked up on it.

  “A long time?” she asked.

  “Could be. Why?”

  Teena shrugged, an exaggerated attempt at being casual. “I just wanted to talk to her. You know, tell her I hope she feels better.”

  “I think you’ll have the chance soon,” Bill said, trying to sound reassuring. “She’s out of danger. It’s just a matter of getting back to normal as best she can.”

  “How long?” Teena asked quickly.

  “How long what?”

  “How long until she’s able to talk and remember stuff?”

  “Nobody knows,” Bill said. “I wish I could tell you. You should come back in a couple of days. She might be up for visitors then. I’m guessing, of course.”

  “A couple of days?” Teena looked skeptical, as if Bill had said a couple of years.

  “Is something wrong, Teena?” he asked. “Do you need to tell her something now?”

  “No, that’s okay.” She kept zipping the zipper, up and down, up and down. And she started backing away. “I just wanted to talk to my friend.”

  Then Bill remembered something. “Did you talk to Brandon Cooke the other day? He said you came by his house.”

  “I’ll see you, Mr. Price,” she said. “And I’m praying for Summer. Still.”

  Bill started to follow her, but he heard the elevator ding. He spun around as Hawkins stepped off, the phone to his ear again.

  He wasn’t talking to his wife. He was talking to someone in an official capacity, another cop or even one of his superiors.

  “We’re going to keep at it,” he said. When he ended the call, he looked at Bill. “She’s fuzzy, Bill, but she remembers getting into a car. And she’s pretty sure the car was driven by a woman, but she couldn’t identify her. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know her. The doctor said her short-term memory is going to be affected the most, so the events surrounding the attack will come back more slowly.”

  “Did she describe this woman?” Bill asked.

  “No. This may not even have anything to do with the attack. Maybe someone just gave them a ride. It was cold. . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we’re sending this information out. If the person who drove them hears and comes forward, maybe we’ll catch a big break.”

  “Right.” Bill’s mind raced, scrambling to think of possibilities. An awful one popped into his head. “Unless . . . unless the person who picked them up . . .”

  “Is the dead girl,” Hawkins said, on the same wavelength. “Or is involved somehow with the attack. We’ll see, Bill. We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Bill returned home in the early-evening darkness.

  He’d spent the afternoon at the police station, trying his best to feel useful as he watched a series of press conferences and phone calls and bulletins being issued. Bill spent time in a room with Hawkins and a handful of other officers, answering and then answering again every possible question they could think to ask about Taylor Kress. Bill felt like a kid who hadn’t studied for a test. He knew very little about the woman, had spent only a short amount of time with her, and believed they were all spinning their wheels in mud while his daughter remained lost in the world.

  But they hadn’t been able to locate Taylor. Or Doug Hammond.

  They located the dentist in Ariel and subpoenaed the dental records to see whether Emily Kress was the dead girl, the one who may have picked Summer and Haley up the day they disappeared.

  When they were done with Bill, Hawkins warned him to stay out of their way, to head home while the police searched for Taylor and Doug.

  “We’re reaching out to the state bureau of investigation,” Hawkins said. “We need more manpower to search, but you won’t help anybody, least of all your daughter, if you interfere.”

  “How soon until the cavalry arrives?” Bill asked.

  “Soon,” Hawkins said. “Tomorrow, maybe. But you should go home.”

  But Bill didn’t. He spent a couple of hours driving around Jakesville. He went out to the memorial again, hoping against hope he’d see Taylor again. But, of course, he didn’t. He drove past the cemetery where the unidentified girl had once been buried. He drove around and around, growing increasingly frustrated, the news on the radio a constant reminder—as if he needed one—of how little any of them knew.

  Returning home, he parked in the back, and his eyes trailed over the yard to Adam’s house. A single light burned on the first floor. Bill had yet to see any sign of his neighbor moving out, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t gone. Adam had made the whole transfer sound urgent, so the light could be on a timer, and Adam’s personal effects could be in the process of being packed to be shipped away when the house sold. Bill needed a whiskey, and for a moment, he wished for the lazy summer nights when he and Adam drank one together under the stars, a baseball game on the radio, Summer in the house with Haley watching a movie or playing a game. How far off the rails everything had gone. How very, very far.

  Bill looked around the yard, his eyes straining into the shadows beneath the trees and behind the bushes. He felt like a target himself. If Doug Hammond showed up at the park to skulk around the scene of the crime, then what was to prevent him from finding Bill’s house? His address was listed in the phone book and on every Internet site in the world. Yes, the police claimed to be keeping a closer eye on things, but how closely could they watch one house when they had other, more pressing matters on their hands? Bill remembered half joking with Paige about borrowing Adam’s gun to go after Clinton Fields and his friends, but it didn’t seem as funny now.

  Bill stopped just inside the door. He flipped on the family room lights, and everything looked perfectly normal. He set the dead bolt behind him and wished for a chain. He decided to take a circuitous route through the house, turning on every light and checking every room. The kitchen and laundry room were clear. The living room as well. The only noises were the squeaks under Bill’s feet as he walked, the clicks as he activated each light. He relaxed as he moved, his body settling down and his fears abating.

  When he came out of the living room, preparing to turn down the hallway toward the bedroom, he saw a smear of something that looked like brown paint on the floor. It was about three inches long and shaped like a sickle.

  Bill froze.

  He knew the stain hadn’t been there before. And it suddenly looked less like paint and more like dried blood.

  His feet felt like they were no longer anchored to the floor. The lower half of his body tensed as it trembled, the shock wave
s moving up from his shoes to his chest.

  He knew the door was locked—dead-bolted—when he came in. He’d felt the lock turn, felt the resistance as he stuck the key in and twisted it to the right.

  Had he created the stain when he left the house earlier? Had he stepped in something? Had there still been mud on his shoes when he returned from the park?

  But if so, why only in that one spot?

  And hadn’t he taken his muddy shoes off at the door?

  “Hello,” he said.

  He fumbled in his jacket pocket, taking out his phone. He knew he couldn’t stand there near the entrance to the hallway all night, like a scared little kid waiting for his parents to come home. Because there were no parents. He was the adult. He was on his own.

  He made a quick move to the right, reaching with his free hand, and swiped at the light switch just inside the hallway.

  The light popped on, and it took a moment for the sight before him to register.

  A man was sprawled on the hardwood floor before him, a halo of sticky, drying blood around his head.

  Bill couldn’t see the face, but he recognized the clothes. The work boots. The flannel shirt. The jeans stained by days and days of yard work.

  And, for some reason, Winnie the Pooh on the floor next to him, just far enough away to avoid being stained by the blood.

  Adam Fleetwood. And he didn’t appear to be breathing.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  Bill waited outside in the dark while police officers and crime scene technicians and a woman from the coroner’s office swarmed through his house. He’d gone outside as soon as he called the police. He knew from watching cop shows on TV that it was easy to contaminate a crime scene.

  But more than anything—he didn’t want to stand around in his house with a dead body cooling in the hallway. Was he supposed to pour himself a drink in the kitchen and wait?

  And how many other people were going to die in his house?

  Hawkins came out after an hour and approached Bill. The night wasn’t as cool as he’d expected it to be, and he’d found an old sweatshirt in his car. He’d thought of calling someone, either just to talk or for moral support, but whom would he call? His closest friend lay dead in the house. His daughter was gone, his wife dead. He thought of calling Paige again, and at some point he would, but even that seemed strange. What would it be like to call his sister and interrupt her quiet family life with news of another murder?

  On the patio, Hawkins sat down in the chair next to Bill. When his butt landed, he let out a tired sigh, and then he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with his big right hand.

  “I’m retiring in two years,” he said. “Less than that really. Nineteen months.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “If the next nineteen months continue at this pace, I may not make it.”

  Bill nodded. He felt the same way. What else could go wrong?

  “We’ll have to send the body up to the medical examiner in Louisville, but it certainly looks like homicide. Some kind of blow to the head, although the object’s gone. You didn’t see anything missing? A lamp? A piece of art? Anything that could have been used as a weapon?”

  “I didn’t look closely.”

  “Of course.” Hawkins rubbed his hands together. “Why was he in your house?”

  “I don’t know. He has a key. He’s had a key for . . . years. He used to check on the place when we went away. We’ve always had a key to his house as well.” Bill shrugged. “I wanted someone nearby to have a key in case we got locked out. He’s the neighbor I know the best.”

  “So you hadn’t asked him to come in and do something?”

  Bill considered his response carefully. “No. He and I . . . We kind of had a falling-out. We argued about something, and I hadn’t talked to him since.”

  “What did you argue about?”

  Bill knew the detective’s wheels were spinning. He knew they’d be spinning as soon as he heard about the body being found. After all, what were the police supposed to think when someone ended up dead in your house?

  So Bill told him. About the discussion concerning the phone call, and then Paige’s digging around into the phone bill. It all sounded ridiculous and petty in light of Adam’s being dead, but Bill knew he had to reveal everything.

  Hawkins said, “This last phone call Julia made . . . Even if Adam did answer it and spoke to her, that’s not evidence of an affair.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to ask you where you were after you left the station this afternoon.”

  “I know you do.” Bill told him about driving around and looking, even though Hawkins had told him not to. Hawkins didn’t show any anger or say anything in response to Bill’s confession. Maybe he had expected Bill to disobey. Maybe it was a tiny matter in the middle of a larger mess. “I came home from the hospital and found that.”

  A technician in a polo shirt came out of the house and whispered something in Hawkins’s ear. The detective nodded and said, “That’s fine.” He looked over at Bill. “They’re going to bring Adam’s body out now. He’ll be covered up, but if you don’t want to see it . . .”

  “It’s fine.” Bill pointed at the lit-up houses surrounding them. “Everyone else is watching us.”

  “When they’re finally finished, you can go through and check again to see if anything is missing. Anything at all, even if it doesn’t seem valuable. Just tell us. We’re going to get into Adam’s house when we leave here. Maybe something will jump out at us there.”

  “Look, this must have something to do with Summer. Right? Why else would someone be dead in my house this way?”

  “Of course it’s possible.”

  Bill’s temper rose. “It’s more than possible. That man, Doug Hammond, attacked me in the park.”

  “You chased him.”

  “Come on, Hawkins. His stepdaughter is missing, after he beat his ex-wife the same way. And then he’s slinking around the crime scene and runs away from me. Fights me off. And now . . . this.” Bill pointed back at the house where Adam lay dead. “Right? How do I know Hammond didn’t come over here to hurt me, and Adam saw him? Adam kept an eye on things here.” Bill felt horrible admitting it, since the two of them were on bad terms. But he had to consider it. “Maybe Adam saw this guy breaking in and wanted to protect me?”

  “No forced entry. And you said the door was locked when you came home.”

  “He took the key from Adam after he killed him.”

  “He killed him outside and then dragged him in?” Hawkins used the arms of the chair to push himself up. “Look, do me a favor? Leave the investigating to us. Stay away from Haley too.”

  The back door opened and two technicians backed out, a stretcher on wheels between them. A long black bag, zipped and closed, sat on top of the stretcher, carrying the mortal remains of Adam Fleetwood. Bill watched while they loaded him into the back of a white coroner’s van, the door slamming shut with finality.

  Hawkins started to walk in the direction of Adam’s house.

  “Is that it?” Bill asked.

  Hawkins looked back. “For now? That’s it.”

  “Will you let me know if you find anything over there?”

  Hawkins waved, but it seemed like a noncommittal, almost dismissive gesture.

  When he was gone, Bill felt profoundly alone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Almost three hours later, Hawkins came back to Bill’s house, startling him with a firm knock on the back door. He’d locked the house and spent the time since the other cops left down on his knees in the hallway, scrubbing the floor with cleanser. Wiping up his friend’s blood.

  The act made him gag more than once. The smell of the cleanser and the sight of the blood caused Bill’s head to pound, a pulsing that kept time with the hammering of his heart. The cleani
ng required multiple trips to the laundry room to dump out the bucket of foul water and wring out rags that had become sodden with blood.

  He couldn’t remember who had cleaned up Julia’s blood after her fatal fall in the kitchen. He knew he hadn’t. Not Summer; she had been too distraught. A merciful paramedic or cop? A friend?

  Had it been Adam?

  When Bill thought the hallway was clean, he went to the kitchen for a drink, pouring himself a healthy shot of Tennessee whiskey and then another. He had just thrown the second one down when the knock came against the back door. Bill’s entire body jumped, and if the glass had still been full, he would have spilled it.

  He was relieved to see Hawkins there. He worried it might be Doug Hammond, although it seemed unlikely the man would try to come back with such a police presence in the neighborhood. Bill let the detective in.

  “I won’t keep you long,” he said, stepping inside. He took a couple of deep whiffs of the air.

  “I’ve been cleaning,” Bill said. “They just finished here an hour ago.”

  Hawkins nodded. “Yeah, they don’t tell you on television that somebody has to clean up after these things. You know there are services that just do that? They clean up after suicides and homicides.”

  Bill shrugged. “You’ll have to get me their business card.”

  Hawkins considered Bill for a moment, trying to determine whether he was joking. Then he said, “We made a thorough search of Adam Fleetwood’s house. No sign of forced entry over there, but the place had been ransacked. It looks like someone went through the drawers and closets, probably trying to get their hands on something valuable they could sell. We can’t say for sure whether the murder happened first or the ransacking, but we could presume it was the murder. Someone killed Fleetwood here and then went over there. You had a key. Did anyone else?”

  “I don’t know. And you think it’s Doug Hammond?”

  “I’m not jumping to any conclusions.”