Cold Cold Heart (14 page)

“I don't have anything to contribute to your case,” she said. “I don't remember anything about the man who took me. I don't have any memory of what he looked like.”

“Would you be willing to look at a photo array?”

“No,” she said flatly. “What good would it do? I have no memory of him at all. You want to put a face into my mind so I can convince myself I might have seen him that summer before Casey disappeared?”

“No, that's not—”

“Because that would make it easier on everybody, wouldn't it?” she suggested. “Everyone could assume Doc Holiday took Casey and killed her, and that's the end of it. Her body will never be found, but we'll have a conclusion to the mystery. Case closed. Everyone can just get on with life.”

“Nobody's looking for an easy way out,” he said with frustration.

“Everybody's looking for an easy way out,” Dana declared. “And why not? It's been seven years. An easy, made-up answer would be better than not having an answer at all, right? The parents of missing children always say the worst thing is not knowing.”

“I'm sure Casey's mama would sooner have her daughter alive anywhere than think she's dead,” he countered.

“Have you asked her? Has anybody asked Mrs. Grant if she ever saw that man before? Am I the only person in a town of ten thousand people who might have seen him?”

“No. Mrs. Grant moved away years ago, to Hawaii, I heard. But you and Casey were practically joined at the hip. Maybe this creep would have approached the two of you at the Grindstone or at someplace like that,” he said. “He preyed on young women. He frequented truck stops. Casey worked at the Grindstone. It's not outside the realm of possibility that he came there.

“I mean, I know you all weren't getting along right before Casey disappeared, but—”

“We weren't?”

“No,” he said. “You were having some kind of a girl spat. You don't remember that?”

“No.”

Dana tried to think back. All the ready memories of Casey were happy ones—the two of them smiling and laughing, having fun, being girls.

“It was about John Villante, as I recall. Casey and him had a big falling out; she was probably going to take him back,” he said. “That's what you and Casey usually fought about. Villante's back in town, by the way. I ran across him last night.”

“I know,” Dana said absently, still trying to dig for the memory.

“Maybe you don't recall that you and I broke up that summer,” Tim mused, flashing a comically hopeful look. “That could work out for me.”

“I remember that,” Dana said without regard for his ego.

“Dang.” He pretended disappointment, then took a sip of his coffee.

“You wouldn't want me now, anyway,” Dana said quietly. “I'm not the girl you used to know.”

He propped his forearms on the table, leaned down, and looked at her hiding inside the black hood of her sweatshirt. She felt trapped at the back of a cave with no exit.

“I think she's probably still in there somewhere,” he said softly.

Dana shoved her chair back from the table and stood up. “No. She's not. You should go now. I'm tired.”

“Okay, well, I need to be getting to work anyway,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table. He fished his wallet out of his hip pocket, pulled out a business card, and laid it on the table.

“You call me,” he said. “For any reason at all. If you have something to tell me, if you just want to talk, or . . . whatever. I'm told I'm a reasonably entertaining dinner companion.”

“I'm not very social anymore,” Dana said as they walked to the front of the house.

“That's all right. I recall we had some pretty nice times doing nothing much at all. God knows I can talk enough for the both of us.”

“You talk a lot,” Dana said. “And I blurt out things I shouldn't. That could be entertaining for someone.”

He paused on the front step. Dana pulled her phone out of her pouch and snapped a picture of him.

“It helps my memory,” she said.

He nodded but glanced away, like maybe he didn't want her to see something in his face, like sadness or pity.

“I know the circumstances aren't anything we would have asked for,” he said. “But I really am glad to reconnect, Dana. We were good friends. It's been too long.”

“Thanks for the flowers.”

“You're welcome. I'd give you a hug, but I know you don't want that,” he said. “I am a hugger, if you recall, so . . .” He pointed to his temples and smiled. “I'm hugging you up here. It's a good one. Visualize if you care to.”

“Maybe later,” she said, finding a little smile to give back to him.

“That smile is nice to see,” he said softly. “You go have a rest. And lock your doors. It's not as safe here as it used to be.”

“No,” Dana said. “Turns out it never was.”

He pulled the cruiser
to the curb in a yellow zone on the curve near the ER entrance and parked.

The Liddell Regional Medical Center was a bigger name than facility. While the name brought to mind a sprawling complex, the medical center was in fact a respectable modern small hospital that served the basic needs of the area. If you needed your appendix out, this was the place. If your wife was having a baby, the maternity ward was nice. If you got your lip busted in a bar fight, the ER staff could stitch you up just fine. Aside from the normal maladies and misadventures, all major and exotic diseases and traumas were deferred to one of Louisville's many outstanding medical facilities just a short helicopter hop or ambulance ride away.

“Hey, Deputy Carver.”

“Hey, Jeannine,” he said, waving to the plump middle-aged redhead at the reception desk as he came through the ER doors.

“Are you stopping by to keep me company?”

“As pleasant as that would be, I'm afraid I'm here on business,” he said, but he went to the counter nevertheless. It always paid down the road to cultivate friendships in a small town. He was a frequent visitor to the ER, coming in to interview drunken brawlers,
overdose cases, accident victims, and the like. He made it a point to treat the staff well.

Jeannine Halston frowned, leaning toward him, arms on the counter. “That poor girl from last night,” she said, her voice hushed so as not to be overheard by any of the bored, uncomfortable people sitting in the waiting area. “I heard she got beat real bad. Kay O'Dell said she looks like she went five rounds with Floyd Mayweather.”

“I didn't know you and Kay were boxing fans.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

“I can't tell you that.”

“I don't know what she was thinking, walking home at that hour,” she said. “Nothing good happens around the Grindstone after midnight. Hookers in and out of those truck cabs. Drug deals going down in the parking lot.”

Tim arched a brow. “Sounds like maybe we should deputize you, Jeannine. You've got your finger on the pulse of crime in Liddell County.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Can you tell me what floor my victim is on?”

“She's on two. I heard you answered the call. I was off last night. Was it as bad as they say?”

“I don't know what they're saying, but there's sure as hell no good kind of assault. No matter what it looks like, it's all bad for the victim.”

“Did she see the man? Did she know him?”

“All will be revealed in the full measure of time,” he said, drifting away from the counter. “You'll probably know before me, anyway. See you later, Jeannine.”

He took the stairs to the second floor because he didn't want to end up looking like the man who was standing at the nurses' station, scowling as he read over a report.

“Isn't the maternity ward on the third floor?” Tim said, winking at the nurse behind the counter. “Oh, Walt, that's you!”

“Very funny, Carver,” the detective said. “I'll have you know this belly runs in my family.”

“I gotta think that belly don't run anywhere.”

Tubman patted his stomach like it was a faithful dog. “This here is a lifelong achievement, son.”

On the high side of his fifties, Tubman looked like a cross between Teddy Roosevelt and a walrus. He had come to the Liddell County Sheriff's Office from Indianapolis about the same time Tim had, looking for a less hectic pace on the downside of his career.

“This belly represents the accumulation of years of expertise in the culinary arts of fried food and pastry.”

“A man should have something to show for his efforts,” Tim said. “How's our victim?”

“She's been sedated most of the day, but Trish here tells me she seems fairly alert now.”

“She's just about due for her pain meds,” the nurse said. “You should talk to her now because she'll be out of it after that.”

“Let's do it,” Tim said.

The nurse preceded them into the room, speaking to her patient in a soft voice, explaining who the men were and why they were there, then slipped out quietly.

April Johnson lay propped up in the bed, her head best resembling a giant rotting tomato—misshapen, discolored, oozing. She had taken a beating like a punching bag in a boxing gym full of rage-a-holics.

She was—had been—pretty enough in a plain sort of way. Young and not terribly bright, she had poured coffee for Tim at the Grindstone on many occasions. Tim had to think she made decent tips because she had a cute figure and she liked to flirt a little in a sweet, innocent way.

She wouldn't be flirting with anyone anytime soon. Even once the bruises faded and the swelling subsided, it was going to take a few weeks to get her some new teeth.

“Hey, April,” he said. “Deputy Carver here.”

He introduced himself because he doubted she could see him very well with two black eyes swollen nearly shut.

“It's good to see you awake,” he said.

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness when he had first arrived on the scene the night before. She was lucky to have been found. The assumption was that her assailant had followed her from the truck stop down a footpath that cut across a wooded lot and came out about three blocks from the trailer park where she lived. The path had been there forever. Adults had been warning kids not to cut through that lot for as long as Tim could remember. And for that long and longer, people hadn't listened. It was the shortest distance between two desired points.

The attack had taken place at the halfway point on the trail, the place where the light from the truck-stop parking lot on one end and the streetlight at the other end was dim and diffuse, the charcoal-gray light of a bad dream. That spot on the path was as far from the opportunity of a witness as possible.

April had been initially attacked on the path, then pulled off the trail behind a thicket of wild blackberry bushes, where her assailant had sexually assaulted her. He had left her there, facedown in the dirt and loam. She had dragged herself back toward the parking lot of the Grindstone, not quite making it. If not for a trucker too lazy to walk to the building to use the john, she would probably have been there all night. April Johnson owed her life to a guy who had decided to take a leak in the woods behind his big rig.

She didn't acknowledge Tim in any way.

“April, Detective Tubman and I need to ask you some questions. Do you think you can answer for us?”

She sighed. “Can-n't hard-ly t-alk,” she said, the words all but unintelligible. Her jaw didn't move. The sound had to find its way around broken teeth and swollen lips and came out in a wet whisper he had to bend down to hear.

“We'll try to keep to yes-or-no questions. If you can't talk, maybe make a gesture with your hand. Thumbs up for yes. Like that.”

“April, did you get a look at the man who did this to you?” Tubman asked.

“Nnn-o-o. D-ark. Mmmm-asssk.”

“He wore a mask?” Tubman scribbled in a little notebook. “A ski mask?”

“C-cam-mo.”

“Camouflage?”

“Y-yes.”

“Was he a big guy?” Tim asked. “Tall?”

She made an impatient gesture with her hand, calling attention to the angry red scratches the brambles had etched into her skin as she had crawled and dragged herself toward help. She was tougher than he would have given her credit for. You never knew about people until they were tested by adversity.

“Was he bigger than you?”

She raised her thumb.

“Was he heavyset?” Tim asked. “Did he have a big ol' belly like Detective Tubman here?”

“Nnn-no.”

“Did he say anything to you before or during the attack?” Tubman asked.

“Nnn-nooo. Just starr-ted hit-ting mm-me.”

“Could he be anyone you know, April?” Tim asked. “Someone angry with you?”

“Wwwhy?” she asked. “Why wwwould any-body . . . No.”

“Can you tell us anything about him, April?” Tubman asked. “Anything at all?”

She didn't respond for so long, Tim thought she might have passed out or died. Finally she sucked in a deep breath and said, “So . . . st-rong . . . Angry. So . . . so . . . ang-ry.”

She began to cry then, a strange, soft, mewling sound that was
both piteous and eerie. Her hand scratched at the bed, balling the white sheet into her fist.

“Hurts,” she said on a moan. “It hurts.”

The door opened and the nurse slipped back into the room, dragging a cart loaded with medications.

Tim and Tubman went back into the hall. Tubman scribbled in his notebook as they waited for the elevator. Tim rested his hands on his belt.

“So she was attacked by an angry, average guy in a mask,” Tubman said. “That narrows it down.”

“A camo ski mask,” Tim stipulated.

“So we're looking for a turkey hunter—or any guy with a Cabela's catalog,” Tubman said. “We've tracked down most everybody that was in the Grindstone last night. People remember April leaving because she said good-bye. Nobody saw anyone follow her out.”

“So the guy was in the parking lot.”

“Or he knew she would be cutting through that lot at that time, and he was lying in wait.”

The elevator opened and a pair of square, middle-aged women in pastel track suits got off, one with a bouquet of flowers, the other with a bag of knitting. Coming to sit with a sick loved one. Maybe they were related to April Johnson, and they would sit in her room and watch game shows on TV, and talk about nothing, and pretend it was all normal while April breathed in and out through her broken teeth.

“Then she wasn't just an opportunity; she was a target,” Tim said as they got on the elevator and the doors closed behind them. “In which case he must know her.”

“He was wearing a mask. Maybe because he didn't want her to recognize him.”

“A ski mask is pretty standard equipment for your average rapist.”

“Maybe so,” Tubman conceded, “but I think he knew April Johnson would be on that trail. And I think you have to be from here to know about that trail in the first place.”

“So he's somebody who has it in for April. Why?” Tim asked. “She's a sweet girl. Not too bright, but not the kind to piss people off.”

“Rejected suitor?”

“She's been pining away for Tommy Lynn Puckett, whose worthless bony ass is sitting in our own fine jail right now for driving on a suspended license.”

“Does Tommy Lynn have any enemies who might want to take out their frustrations on his girl?”

Tim shrugged. “Other than April, I don't think there's a person in Liddell County—or the world, for that matter—who gives two shits about Tommy Lynn Puckett, including his own mama.”

They got off on the first floor and Tubman took a detour to the vending machines down the hall from the waiting room.

“You were on patrol last night,” he said, feeding a couple of bills into a machine and punching buttons for a cappuccino. “Was anything going on?”

Tim shook his head. “Naw. Not really. I heard there was a bit of a media circus over at Senator Mercer's house in Bridlewood. You know, because Dana Nolan came home. But I wasn't over there.”

“I saw that on the news.” Tubman sipped his coffee and made a face, though whether the look was prompted by the taste or by his memory wasn't clear. “Poor girl looks like an extra from the
Walking Dead.
”

“That was hard to see,” Tim admitted. “Dana was a pretty girl, never a hair out of place. She always had everything in her life lined up just so. She'd make a goal and have a plan, and go right down the checklist until she achieved whatever it was. No deviation from the plan, ever. Rigid, I guess you could say, but she got where she wanted to go.”

“Sounds like a bitch.”

“No, no. As sweet as she could be. Unless you rocked her boat, then, man, she'd cut a person off like a dead limb. Boom! Just like that. Done.”

“Is that the voice of experience talking?”

“Me? No,” Tim said, looking pensive. “We split up because it was time; that's all. We were each going our own directions. We were kids, for crying out loud. Who stays with their high school girlfriend all their life?”

“About two-thirds of people around here.”

“Well, me and Dana were destined for bigger things.”

“Yet, here you both are,” Tubman pointed out.

Tim shrugged. “Life takes some funny twists. I stopped by to see her today, and I asked her about the Doc Holiday thing,” he said. “Asked did she remember seeing him back when Casey Grant went missing.”

“And?”

He shook his head. “She says she doesn't remember anything that happened to her, doesn't remember what the guy looked like. Doesn't want to.”

“Not even if it helps her friend's case?”

“Does it, though?” Tim asked. “Casey's gone. If that guy took her, she's dead and gone. Either way, we don't get Casey back.”

“We could get a lead, though.”

“A lead on a dead man.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tubman said. “In fact, that would be the best of all worlds if we could put the victim with a known serial killer who is now dead. The state wouldn't even have to go to the expense of a trial. It'd be like virtual justice.”

“The best of all worlds for you is putting a teenage girl with a serial killer? That's cold, man.”

“I'm not wishing it on her. I'm just saying. If she's dead, she's dead. I'd like to close that case. That's all.”

“Well, you'll have to do it without Dana Nolan,” Tim said. “Unless I can get her to soften up.”

Tubman smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “I have faith in you, my young, handsome friend.”

Tim laughed. “I hope you're good at holding your breath. She all but threw me out of the house for even bringing up the subject today. I wouldn't expect her to change her attitude anytime soon. In the meantime, though, I did see someone last night you might want to have a conversation with.”