No Good Deed (8 page)

‘She left because you were unfocused?'

‘No, she left because she said she could no longer stand being married to a cross-dresser, and would I please return her lingerie.'

‘She must have been a big girl,' Sonora said.

He smiled at her. Warmly. She liked him suddenly, except he was a doctor. It took a lot of self-confidence for a man to make a cross-dresser joke, in a town like Cincinnati. People might believe you and send you to the sinning side of the river.

He winked. ‘Just kidding, of course.'

‘Darn, and me on my way to call Vice.'

‘You're funny,' he said. Frowning. ‘I'm funnier. I do my best standup in surgery.'

‘Go operate on somebody, you're wearing me out. I was up all night looking for a missing fifteen-year-old girl, and that's where I need to be right now. Looking. So—'

He put a finger to his lips and pointed upward to an imaginary sign. ‘This is a no-whining zone. But if you want to get into it, I got a kid upstairs in pediatrics—'

‘Dr Gillane?'

Sam. Laying a heavy left hand on Sonora's shoulder and shaking Gillane's hand with his right. His smile was lopsided, engaging the right side of his mouth, and Sonora recognized the universal good ole boy. ‘Nurse Roth tells me you worked two shifts straight, and we sure appreciate your staying extra to talk to us. Most doctors would have headed home and to hell with the cops.'

Gillane looked at Sonora. ‘He's good.'

‘Damn right he's good, he's my partner. Don't patronize him.'

Sam held up a hand. ‘Like I said, good of you—'

‘Do you always repeat yourself?' Gillane cocked his head to one side.

‘Over and over, till I get your attention.'

‘In that case, I'm yours. Here's my official diagnosis. The lady's finger was cut off.'

‘That official?' Sonora said. She was about to add ‘moron', but Sam squeezed her shoulder.

Gillane waved a hand. ‘I'm about to use big words, so pay attention. Whoever it was had a bloody sharp knife with a thick edge, not serrated. It went clean through the tissue and bone, no tearing, which puts to mind some kind of a post-mortem knife.'

‘Or scalpel?' Sonora asked.

‘I don't think so. Most scalpels have a finer edge to them. Which means you should be on the lookout for a butcher, a surgeon, a soldier of fortune. Which a rude person might say exactly describes me.'

Veterinarian, Sonora thought. That's what we're looking for. McCarty was a veterinarian.

Gillane shrugged. ‘Of course, anybody with money in his pocket can walk in off the streets and buy this stuff. Or order it on the Internet. Or out of a catalog. And excuse me, but if someone would make the effort to find this finger, I'd like to chance sewing it back on. The longer you wait—'

‘Does she show any defense wounds?' Sonora asked.

Over her head the loudspeaker bonged, one of those oblique hospital signals. Someone wanted security, a doctor, a cup of coffee.

Gillane was shaking his head. ‘No other marks on her. Nothing on the palms, other fingers, face. The amputation was cleanly done and straight. She wasn't struggling when they did it. No tears in the flesh, no hesitation cuts or nicks, so I don't think she did it herself. She had to have been majorly doped when …' Sonora heard the soft shush of hospital footsteps, looked over her shoulder at Roth the Ken doll. Gillane was frowning. ‘Bo, you get results back yet from the drug screen?'

‘I can check, but I doubt it.'

‘Any ideas on what they might have used to dope her?' Sam said.

Gillane shrugged. ‘Restoril comes in handy capsules, but it doesn't necessarily knock somebody out. She doesn't show any signs of respiratory distress, so that rules out a few. Chloral hydrate is an oldie but goodie that's making a comeback, for just that reason. Take a good gram to knock somebody out. She drinking coffee or anything when this happened?'

‘Budweiser.'

‘That's not beer, but that'll work. Whoever pulled this off knew what he was doing.'

‘Why so?' Sam said.

‘Stitched her up very professionally. Nylon 4–0 continuous single-lock sutures – looks like a blanket stitch. Personally I'd have used simple interrupted sutures, individually tied stitches.'

‘Why didn't this guy?' Sonora asked.

‘Blanket stitch is a lot faster. Slick there was probably in a hurry. He used Lidocaine on the wound – we don't usually use that on extremities, the vasoconstriction will stop the local bleeding, but he was in a hurry and he wasn't taking chances. Then he topped it off with a Xeroform gauze dressing for a non-stick covering. You know, if you guys want, we can run back in there – take the bandage off and look at it again. Take some more pictures. The uniform guy that came in with the patient took a whole roll. Let me know, will you, if any of them come out? I'd like some copies for my mom. Her son the doctor.'

Sam looked at Sonora.

‘He's a kidder,' she said. ‘Thank you, Dr Gillane.'

‘Does this mean you'll fix my next speeding ticket?'

‘Gosh, that's one I never heard before,' Sonora said.

Gillane watched her walk away, frowning and biting his lower lip. She'd gotten the last word. Sonora had a feeling he didn't like that.

Chapter Fifteen

The hospital parking lot was packed, three cars jumbled at odd angles near Admissions. A man, fiftyish, large-bellied, helped an elderly woman up to the curb. He held a powder-blue suitcase in his left hand. The woman's eyes were dull and stoic.

Sonora remembered another reason why she hated hospitals.

Sam walked beside her to the car, gave her a sideways look, the kind he always gave her when she'd been flirting.

‘I've never seen you like a doctor before.'

Sonora wrinkled her nose. ‘I didn't like him.'

‘Whatever you say.'

‘Helen's probably at the barn, Sam, looking for Joelle. Why don't you follow me over?'

‘Follow you? I need to be lost this early in the morning?' His cellphone rang. He reached into his jacket pocket, unfolded a tiny phone. ‘Delarosa. Yeah.' He looked at Sonora, mouthed ‘Crick'. ‘Yeah, I got a description of the horse last night from the Delaney woman. What? Shocky, but she'll be okay. She's not saying much. Part of that's the sedatives, but she's definitely up to something, couldn't care less about the girl, and frantic over the horse. Yeah, I've got it. Hold on.' He reached for his back pocket, pulled out the narrow spiral notebook. Flipped through some pages. ‘Okay. Brown … no, chestnut. Three white socks, white snip from left nostril, and star blaze on nose. Frieze brand on the left side of the neck, underneath the mane. That's unusual, according to Delaney, because most horses, their manes rest on the right. What? Hell if I know. Now? Yeah, okay, better have him meet me there, I don't know a snip from a horsetail. Yes, sir.' He glanced at Sonora. ‘No, I haven't seen her. She was headed to the farm. I'll catch up to her later.'

He flipped the phone shut.

‘Shielding me, Sam?'

‘He's in a bad mood. Wants me to go out to a roadblock they got on I-65. Rounded up some horse trailers that fit the description of the truck – Dually, teal green, ninety-three. I'm supposed to go look at the horses and the headlights on the trucks. Guy from the mounted police is going to meet me there. Advise me.'

Sonora looked at him.

‘Come on, they've cleaned up their act.'

‘How many teal-green Duallys can there be on the road in one day?'

‘Three.'

‘Three? All with brown horses?'

‘Chestnut, Sonora.'

She took the gravel driveway of End Point Farm slowly, veering into the grass to avoid the more cavernous of the potholes. It was farm visit number three, and the Pathfinder was coated with fine brown dust. She was glad her brother wasn't alive to see it. He'd have freaked to see the mud-caked tires, grimy wheel wells, and generalized farm dirt.

All she needed was hay bales in the back.

The weed-pocked gravel lot was empty. Sonora stood on the door ledge, staring past the barn toward Hal McCarty's house. Porch light was still on. Probably forgotten. Or maybe he was still asleep.

Sonora checked her watch. After eight. Even normal people were off and running by now – your farm types would have been up hours ago. McCarty must have forgotten to turn off the light. Her own porch lights were on more during the day than at night, same reason.

She headed around the barn, moving toward the backfields. A black horse watched her from a barred window, giving her a throaty nicker. The wind came in fits, harsh then quiet. The crime scene was still roped off, yellow tape flapping.

No sign of Helen's little Mazda pickup. Was she around? In a hospital, in premature labor?

Sonora folded her arms, shivered. Zipped up her jacket, flipped the hood over her head, looked out over the fields. The Chaunceys' mobile home was dark and mummy-silent, porch light off. Sonora pictured the children, escaping in sleep, Joelle's bed unmade, the room already collecting a coat of dust and an air of abandonment. She thought of the secret cache of papers, articles on missing children, family reunions, milk-carton kids. All tucked into a box on her desk. She would go through it again later.

She ducked under the tape, heading for the splintered fence line. Nothing moving except horses, and they weren't moving much, heads down, gnawing at short, sparse tufts of sawgrass and weed. One lifted its head, watching her out of the corner of one eye, like a bird.

Who was the focus of this crime, Sonora wondered, the child or the horse? Why take the horse, if it was the child Mr Stranger Danger wanted? But why take the child if it was the horse?

She tripped over a depression in the ground, looked over her shoulder as a reflex, glad she was alone. If Helen had made it out at dawn, like she'd promised, where would she be? Where would she leave the car? Sonora shielded her eyes, squinting. No dog, no woman. No child.

The grass was wet, making the hem of her jeans go soggy.

Sonora stretched, fist in the small of her back. Bella had been a mile or two down the road when she'd lost the scent, or when Helen's contractions had become too much of a worry for the interfering Carl.

Sonora rubbed her eyes, carefully, so as not to smear her mascara. Helen had said the dog could pick up the scent from the exhaust of a car. Made sense. Joelle and the horse had likely been swept up by whoever drove the Dually pickup and trailer that had smashed through the fence, that was the only thing that made any sense.

Helen had described a two-lane road that bordered the other end of the pasture. That's where they'd be.

Easy to find, as the crow flies. In her Pathfinder was another matter. She wished Sam was around. But all she had to do was find the road, then look for Helen's car. Even she ought to be able to manage that one.

Sonora turned back, glancing sideways. McCarty's little house was quiet, but she could see a faint glow of light coming through the living room. She headed past his small eight-stall barn, peeped in a stall window. A horse, munching fresh hay. So he'd been up already, feeding his horses. Long gone, by now.

She went to the door, just to check. There was something off about this guy. She felt nosy. She rang the bell, the original ivory plastic baked yellow-brown by age and exposure. Like she would be someday.

Something else to look forward to.

Silence after the bell. Sonora knocked on the door, waited. Knocked again. Looked into the living-room window. Quiet and dusty inside. The light shone from the back of the house.

She went around the side. The ground was soggy. Sonora stood on tiptoes and peered into the kitchen window.

Light on over the sink. Same dishes on the counter as yesterday when she and Sam had given the place the once-over. She did not believe that anyone had spent the night there. So where was he sleeping? Girlfriend, maybe?

Sonora frowned, retraced her steps till she was outside the bedroom. The blinds were open halfway.

She squinted into the morning dusk. No one had slept there. Nothing had changed since yesterday. The room had an air of depression and disuse.

She still could not picture McCarty living in this house. The clutter of useless things, cheap and dated, did not seem to suit him. Much too much down on his luck for a veterinarian.

And as such, he would have access to some very good knives. He would be able to remove a finger and stitch it up, professionally, put a nice Teflon bandage on right and tight.

Was Joelle Chauncey somewhere in that house?

They'd gone through it carefully. She'd looked in every room herself.

But all of them had run across the jokers with the secret chambers, soundproofed and designed for long, sweaty torture. How many times had the police been into John Gacy's house?

She'd known one of the officers who'd been one of the first on the scene with Jeffrey Dahmer. Opened the refrigerator, routine drone, and found a head on a metal shelf.

If Joelle didn't turn up by late afternoon, she'd try for a search warrant, and get hold of that construction guy who had helped her out last month. Mr McCarty would bear looking into.

Chapter Sixteen

Sonora headed toward Donna Delaney's long, overcrowded barn, thinking that now might be the perfect opportunity to look through the barn while she knew the woman was occupied elsewhere. Her jeans were getting wet to the knees now, and going tight on her calves. Slim fit. She was resisting moving to the relaxed fit, like everyone else of her generation.

She bit her bottom lip, thinking about Helen. Maybe she should just hit the road.

She was halfway to her car, walking along the front of the barn, when a black horse stuck its nose to the window and nickered at her, a low-key, affectionate-sounding plea.

The horses were restless, calling softly. Had they been fed? Sonora frowned, walking more slowly. She had no idea what to feed horses, or how much, but with Delaney in the emergency room, slowly coming out of shock, it could be hours before someone remembered them.