by Ron Fisher
“My guys saw that,” he said. “We’re tracking down the delivery guy right now to see if he saw or heard anything.”
Bagwell was giving me an uneasy look. “Mr. Bragg, Detective Chapin here will need to take a sample of anything that might be under your fingernails, and we’re going to need your shirt. We’ll round up a hospital gown for you to wear.”
“You think I did this?” I asked, surprised.
“Honestly, no, I don’t. I know you, and I don’t believe you would do something like this. But you’re covered in her blood, and as a matter of procedure we need to eliminate you as a suspect. Detective Chapin here has a fingerprinting kit, and we’ll need to get those too.”
“You know my fingerprints will be all over her place,” I said. “I’ve only been there a thousand times. And I’m the one who found her lying there, for God’s sakes. Of course, I’ve got her blood on me.”
“I know, I know,” Bagwell said, appearing genuinely sorry. “But it’s standard procedure, and I know it’s hard, but let us do it. By eliminating you, we can put all of our efforts toward catching and convicting the real perpetrator. And we will catch and convict him.”
He was right, I guess, but I didn’t have to feel good about it. I tried to calm down and react logically. But it was hard not to get emotional over being tested for beating senseless the woman I loved.
“But I’m not wearing any hospital gown,” I said. I’d seen them, and they were covered in pink and purple flowers. I had to maintain some dignity. “Before you get the shirt off my back, someone will have to bring me my suitcase from Kelly’s house. It’s sitting in the foyer.”
“We can do that,” Bagwell said and nodded at Bates, who pulled out his phone and stepped aside to make a call. Chapin was taking a fingerprint kit out of a briefcase.
I sat in the waiting room while Bagwell’s men took scrapes from under my fingernails, hair follicles, swabs from my cheeks for DNA, and my fingerprints. A voice in my head kept saying that I was stupid not to get a lawyer. But one, I was innocent. Two, I didn’t know any defense lawyers. And three, I just couldn’t believe Sheriff Arlen Bagwell thought I was guilty.
Right now, I couldn’t think about that. The only worry I could focus on was whether Kelly’s injuries were fatal.
CHAPTER THREE
An hour later, Eloise burst into the waiting room with Mackenzie right behind her. They were both wearing concerned looks and made a beeline for me. After they hugged me and expressed their shock and horror at what had happened, Eloise stood back and looked at me.
“Have you talked to the doctor about her condition yet?” she asked.
“No, I’m still waiting to see him.”
“Oh my God,” she said, staring at my shirt. “Is that . . .?”
“Kelly’s blood, yes.”
“Oh, John David, it must have been horrible finding her like that.”
“I should have been there earlier. Maybe I could have prevented it.”
“Don’t you dare blame yourself,” she said. “This isn’t your fault.”
I glanced over at Sheriff Bagwell, thinking he might not agree with that.
Eloise followed my look and only then did she acknowledge his, and his men’s presence. I was sure I saw Eloise blush when their eyes met.
He spoke to her, and I swear Bagwell blushed too. Eloise needed to give the guy a break and go out with him, I thought. Then I had another thought. Maybe she already had.
Eloise opened a large bag and took out a covered plate along with a thermos. She took off the aluminum foil covering the plate and showed it to me. It was the fried chicken and biscuits she’d promised.
“The coffee should still be hot,” she said. “And I’m sure there’s a microwave in the cafeteria you can use to heat the food.”
“Thank you, sis,” I said. “Wrap it back up, and I’ll eat it later. I don’t feel very hungry right now.”
As she put the food away, a uniformed sheriff’s deputy walked in, delivering my suitcase.
I took the bag from him, set it on the floor, and removed a fresh shirt. When I took my bloody shirt off, Eloise reached for it.
“Here,” she said, “I’ll take that home and wash it.”
“I need to give it to Sheriff Bagwell,” I said.
“Why does he want it?” Eloise asked with a frown, looking first at me then at Bagwell.
“Because he and his people want to do some tests.”
“What kind of tests?” The crease between her eyebrows deepened.
“Blood tests, DNA, fingerprints, things like that.”
The realization of what I was saying came ominously across her face like an approaching storm cloud. She turned to Bagwell and gave him such a look of anger and disappointment that he flinched.
“Arlen Bagwell,” she said. “You can’t think John David did this terrible thing to Kelly. That’s preposterous.”
He said, “Of course I don’t, Eloise. As I explained to Mr. Bragg, this is simply the standard procedure—not to accuse him, but to eliminate him from any evidence we may find at the scene.”
“He’s right Eloise,” I said. “As much as I don’t like it, he’s just doing his job.”
She held her disapproving gaze on Bagwell. He wore an expression like he was seeing any chance of ever capturing Eloise’s heart disappear. I actually felt sorry for him.
Eloise was usually a mild, easygoing person, but if you attacked one of hers, she could exhibit the fury of an avenging angel. And I was the younger brother she helped raise.
We all went quiet for a moment, and I watched as the anger in her eyes slowly subside. After a moment, she smiled at Bagwell. I got the feeling that she liked him more than she let on. He seemed very relieved and smiled back at her.
During all this, Mackenzie said very little. My niece was no longer a child, becoming a beautiful young woman right before our eyes with long dark hair and a full figure like her mother. She was a senior in high school now, and according to Eloise, was leaving a trail of broken-hearted, lovesick boys in her wake. A straight-A student, and with the experience she was getting at the Clarion, she was talking college and a major in journalism. With her looks and brains, I could easily see her anchoring the TV news one day.
I placed my hand over hers on the arm of the chair and said, “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Is Kelly going to be okay?” she asked, concern flooding her face.
“It’s out of our hands, but I hope to God, she will be.”
“Is that whose hands it’s in?”
“God and the doctor’s, I guess,”
“I love her like she’s another mother, J.D.,” she said, and placed her other hand over mine, her eyes welling with tears. “She has to get well. She just has to.”
“I love her too,” I said and looked over at Eloise. She was weeping, listening to us.
With the drama over, Bagwell introduced Eloise to Chapin and Bates and began asking her the same questions he asked me. Did she know who could have done this? Had Kelly mentioned anyone strange hanging around her? Had she made any recent enemies, and so on.
Eloise didn’t know any more than I did and didn’t even know if Kelly was pursuing a story that might place her in danger. Eloise offered that there might be something on Kelly’s computer.
“Maybe she has notes on there that will show if she’s working on some story we don’t know about,” I said.
“We have the laptop from her house,” Bagwell said. “Does she also have a computer at work?”
“No, she doesn’t,” Eloise said. “She uses the laptop as her office computer and takes it home every day.”
Bagwell said, “We will look at it and her cell phone, for any emails or texts of a suspicious nature. Do you know if there’s a password for either of these devices?”
“There’s a password for the laptop,” I said. “CherokeeGirl. I’ve used it a couple of times. I don’t think there’s one for her cellphone.”
“We also ne
ed to get her cell phone records,” Bagwell said, turning to the Detectives.
“What’s the number?” Detective Chapin asked.
I told him, and he entered it into his own cell phone.
Bagwell gave Eloise a tentative look. “Would you give me permission to look around Ms. Mayfield’s office tomorrow? Check any notes, appointment calendars? Maybe there’s something there that would help.”
“Of course,” Eloise said. “If John David agrees.”
“I want to be there too,” I said, and half expected Bagwell to say no suspects allowed. But let him try to do it without me. I owned the damn place—at least the majority of it. If the Clarion were a major newspaper like the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the cops would never get a free hand to look at its records. The AJC would demand the right to protect the confidentiality of its sources. I just hoped my journalistic peers would never hear that I was allowing it.
Bagwell didn’t mention my suspect status, and said, “I’ll bring the laptop and cell phone. I doubt if the phone company will have given us Ms. Mayfield’s phone records by tomorrow. It usually takes a little while. But when we do get them, you two can help me look at those, too”.
Eloise and I agreed to meet Bagwell at the Clarion at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. He and his detectives finally ran out of questions to ask and left, perhaps to go back to the scene at Kelly’s house.
I turned to my sister. “So, you really don’t know what Kelly was working on? How could you not?”
“I got the feeling she was chasing something,” Eloise said. “But I don’t know what. She’s got this thing about keeping her stories completely to herself until she has enough to start writing. Believe me, she hasn’t said a word about it to me. I would have told Arlen if I’d known.”
The three of us sat quietly for a moment, alone in the waiting room, worrying about Kelly. I tried to hold on to positive thoughts that she would be okay, but the fear that she wouldn’t, kept getting in the way.
CHAPTER FOUR
We saw a doctor coming down the hall and stood up to meet him. I couldn’t read his expression well enough to guess what kind of news he was bringing.
“I’m Doctor Mathis,” he said. “Are you Kelly Mayfield’s family?”
I nodded. I didn’t think he needed more introduction or explanation than that. All three of us stayed silent and focused on his next words.
“She’s breathing normally and appears to be stable now,” he said.
Eloise said, “Thank God.” Mackenzie burst out crying.
Somehow, I knew there was a “but” coming. There was.
He said, “However, she’s suffered severe injuries to her head, and sustained some neurological damage. She came to us in a state of unconsciousness, and we’ve put her in a medically induced coma to keep her that way. That will support the healing process by allowing the brain to rest and decrease swelling. If we can relieve the pressure on the brain, hopefully, it will prevent further brain damage from occurring. She will remain in ICU while we do that.”
I could see the wind go out of Eloise and Mackenzie. I guess it was up to me to ask the questions. “How long will she be in a coma?”
“When the swelling comes down, and she’s ready, we gradually reduce the anesthetic drugs until she regains consciousness.”
“And how long before you do that?”
“We do it as soon as we can. In most cases, a coma is induced for a few days, perhaps for up to two weeks. Induced comas longer than a month are extremely rare.”
I asked the tough question. “What are the chances she never wakes up?”
He looked at me for a moment. “That’s always a possibility of course, but in her case, I believe it’s improbable unless her condition were to change for the worse.”
It wasn’t as definite as I wanted to hear, but at least there was hope.
He glanced at Mackenzie and Eloise as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue in front of them. “There are no indications that she was sexually assaulted,” he said. “We’ve done a rape kit, and no bodily fluids or any signs of penetration were found.”
Despite what I’d told Eloise about this being the least of my concerns, I was hugely relieved. Can we see her?”
“You can, but she can’t respond to you. So, prepare yourself for that. And if you will, please make your visits short for the time being. Rest is a big part of the healing process in something like this.”
He paused. “Are you the one who found her?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you saved her life by finding her so early and calling it in so quickly. Another few minutes and she wouldn’t have made it.” He let that sink in as if it would be some consolation. “I’ll keep you informed on her progress.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.
He gave us an encouraging look, managing to smile. “Stay positive,” he said, and left.
A nurse showed us to Kelly’s bed in the ICU, and we all stood around it, looking at her. Kelly lay unresponsive, tubes and lines running in and out of her. I held her limp hand, wincing at the damage done to her lovely face, which was swollen and bruised, the eye, completely swollen shut. The nurse said she also had a broken rib.
I willed her to open her eyes and speak to me, but of course she didn’t. I wondered if I could ever be truly alive again if I lost her. This monster, whoever he was and whatever his reasons, had tried to beat her to death, and still might succeed. I imagined the brutality of the act she’d suffered. What kind of sick bastard would do this to her? I would find him and see him punished, if it were the last thing I ever did.
We were sent back to the waiting room. Eloise and Mackenzie both eventually fell asleep in their chairs, sprawled in contorted positions. I was still too wired to sleep, even if I could have bent my six-foot-three frame into a position in the chair that would have allowed it.
I woke them up and told them to go home. There was nothing they could do here, and I promised to keep them posted to any changes. They begged me to come with them, but I was determined to stay, although I knew there was nothing that I could do, either. I just wanted to be close, in case somehow, Kelly could sense it. The girls left, and I took my seat, staring down the hallway toward the ICU, hoping for someone to appear with good news.
I went back and looked in on Kelly, my mind turning to the beginning of our relationship—to when we met. The first time I even knew there was a person named Kelly Mayfield was when I read her name on an editorial in the Clarion. What amazed me was that it was the first time I’d ever seen someone other than my grandfather handle an editorial in the newspaper he’d ruled with an iron and non-sharing hand. The article was written a week before he died, so he had to have approved it. The second shock was when I looked at the Clarion’s employee list and saw that Kelly Mayfield was named as editor—a title my grandfather had selfishly held along with “publisher” since the day he bought the paper. What the hell was going on here, I’d wondered?
The editorial was well-written and thoughtful, and I remember thinking whoever this woman was, she was good. The first time I laid eyes on her was at Grandfather’s funeral a couple of days later. She was nothing like I expected—which was some egg-headed woman with glasses on a chain, on the road to being a spinster and with a fundamentalist view of a heroic press that some believe still exists in small-town newspapers.
Boy, was I wrong. She was beautiful. Long black hair, big dark eyes, and high cheekbones suggesting Cherokee blood in her from way back. She was taking my grandfather’s death as badly as Eloise. Certainly, worse than I was—or at least worse than I was showing.
I think I fell in love with her on the spot. But there was a problem. She despised me. I learned later, on a visit to the newspaper, that she believed I’d treated my grandfather meanly, and the estrangement between us was entirely my fault. Kelly Mayfield accused me of breaking the heart of a man whom she obviously adored and didn’t deserve having someone like me as a grandson. N
ot true from my point of view, but that didn’t get me anywhere with her. She thought me a heartless, mean-spirited bastard who only cared about selling the Clarion, firing everyone, and lining my pockets with the proceeds.
I should have left Kelly to her beliefs. Some unavoidable and inexplicable inner force drove me to want her to like me. My actions and behavior from that point on, along with my sister’s good character references, eventually softened her opinion of me somewhat. And like the quarterback I once was, I saw an opening and went for it. Now here we were, both claiming our love for one another, but neither knowing what the future held. As I studied her lying there, I only knew one thing for sure. I didn’t want to lose her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Morning came and sunshine began to peek through the ECU waiting room blinds. Nurses came and went in the hallway all night. As far as I knew, Kelly hadn’t awakened or even moved. At least no one said so when I peeked in on her on my periodic visits. I hadn’t moved much either beyond my visits to her bedside. I sat drinking Eloise’s thermos of coffee, eating a little of her chicken and biscuits, and going to the bathroom. I could feel the effect of the waiting room chair in my shoulders and back. I’d managed very little sleep with people coming and going all night, and it seemed like most of the bones in my body ached.
I went back to see Kelly again.
Doctor Mathis came in and took a quick look at Kelly and checked her vital signs. I wondered if he had slept any.
“No change,” he said to me. “Which is a good sign. She isn’t any better, but she isn’t any worse either.”
The doctor was obviously more of a “glass half full” person than I was, I thought.
He said, “I learned that none of you are actually immediate family. Is there someone we can help you contact?”
“The only family she has are both in nursing homes for Alzheimer patients in North Carolina. They wouldn’t recognize her any more than she would recognize them. We’re her family now.”
“And you’re the significant other?”
