“Who’s your date?” Patsy asked with a grin.
“Have you met Pete’s dad?”
Patsy gave Harry a big smile and extended a hand. “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure. I can see where Pete gets his good looks.”
Harry beamed as he took her hand.
“Harry, this is one of my very best friends, Patsy Greene. She boards her horse at my farm and helps me around the barn.”
“Speaking of which,” Patsy said to Zoe. “I quit.”
Zoe choked. “What?”
“You should see the mess those cops are making.”
She’d forgotten about that. The search for the missing gun. “Did they find something?”
“Nope. But they dumped all the manure out of the spreader inside the arena. Look, girlfriend, I don’t mind cleaning stalls and loading that thing one time, but I’ll be darned if I’m doing it a second time. I’m nice, but not that nice.”
Zoe wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed with the idea that she would be the one cleaning up that mess—or amused with the mental picture of Nate and the county guys sifting through all that horse crap.
Harry pointed at the bouquet. “Are those for me?” He grinned. “You shouldn’t have.”
Patsy laughed. “Sorry, Mr. Adams. They’re for Mr. Kroll.” Her smile faded as she glanced at Zoe. “How is he?”
Zoe slipped her arm through Harry’s again and tugged him forward. “Pete spoke with him earlier. I guess he can’t remember what happened on Saturday, so he wasn’t able to tell who shot him.”
Patsy swore under her breath. “That’s too bad. I’ll feel a whole lot better when they catch whoever did it.”
Zoe thought of Tom back in Vance Township. Maybe they already had.
Patsy stepped in front of them and stopped. “Hey. What are you doing up here anyway? I thought your dad’s autopsy was this evening.”
“It is.” Zoe’s mind drifted down to the hospital’s lowest floor and her heart sank equally far. “In fact, it’s going on right now.”
Pete had gratefully taken advantage of the stool Franklin Marshall offered. Perched there next to the door, Pete watched the coroner and Doc Abercrombie work on the body.
Pete had no regrets about sending Zoe away. The remains on the stainless steel table weren’t something she should have to deal with even had they belonged to a total stranger. But odds were this charred corpse had been Zoe’s dad.
Through the years, Pete’d had the misfortune of seeing things. Ugly things. Tragedies and horrors beyond the comprehension of anyone outside of law enforcement or emergency response personnel. He’d seen bodies pulled from burning wrecks.
Nothing compared to this.
Marshall and Abercrombie clearly felt the same way. During most autopsies Pete had observed in this morgue, the two men played music. Head pounding rock. This evening, as soon as they’d opened the body bag, the radio had been turned off.
The door next to Pete swung open and Wayne Baronick slipped in. “How’s it going?”
Pete shrugged. “I don’t know how much they can really do with a twenty-seven-year-old corpse, but they’re working on it. How about you? Find anything at the Kroll farm?”
Baronick’s wide-eyed gaze locked on Gary Chamber’s body. “Not a damned thing. By the way, don’t make me sift through a wagonload of horse shit ever again.”
“I’m not your boss. I didn’t make you do anything.”
“Right.” Baronick blinked and scanned the rest of the room. “Where’s Zoe? I thought for sure she’d be here.”
“I talked her out of it. She’s with Harry.”
The detective shot another glance at the remains. “Good.”
A murmur passed between the two men at the table, and Marshall cleared his throat. “Chief? I believe we have something here.”
Pete gathered his crutches and pushed off the stool. “What is it?”
Doc Abercrombie turned to face him, pinching a pair of forceps.
Pete didn’t need to get any closer to see what they held.
“It’s only preliminary until I finish here, but I feel pretty safe in saying cause of death was not smoke inhalation. Nor was manner of death accidental. We have a gunshot wound. And a homicide.”
Pete wasn’t surprised.
He watched as Doc dropped the slug into a specimen jar and packed the whole thing in a plastic bag. The pathologist scribbled on it and handed the package to Baronick, who also made a notation for the chain of evidence.
The detective held the bagged jar up so both he and Pete could see the contents. “I’ll run this over the ballistics lab. I’ll bet a week’s pay it matches the others.”
Pete blew out a breath. “No bet.”
Twenty-Eight
With Harry and Patsy in tow, Zoe found Mrs. Kroll in the waiting room. The older woman’s eyes widened in delight when she spotted Patsy’s bouquet.
“How lovely.”
Patsy handed them over. “They’re from all the boarders at the farm. We wanted Mr. Kroll to know we’re thinking of him.
The green tissue crinkled as Mrs. Kroll buried her face in the flowers and inhaled. “That’s sweet of you. But he’s not allowed to have anything like this here in the ICU. Maybe once he gets into a regular room.”
Patsy’s shoulders sagged. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear. I’ll take them home with me. We’re leaving in a little bit anyway.”
Harry patted Zoe’s arm. “I want to go home, too.”
“Pretty soon,” she told him. “Mrs. Kroll, I was wondering if Mr. Kroll might be up for one more visitor.” When her landlady appeared puzzled, Zoe pointed to herself.
“I’m sorry, Zoe. They just took him down for a CAT scan. He might be gone a while.”
“Oh.” Zoe glanced at Harry. Impatient-to-get-home Harry. He’d wandered over to the alcove by the door to watch a young volunteer pour more water into the coffeemaker. How long could she keep him distracted? How long would the autopsy on her father take? “Maybe I’ll check back later. If not, I’ll stop in tomorrow.”
“That would be fine.” Mrs. Kroll buried her nose in the flowers again. “These smell wonderful. I can’t get over how kind everyone has been. Folks have been dropping off food at the house. Neighbors, farmers, have been coming by here to check on Marv and me. Even some I never would’ve thought would care. Or make the effort. Heavens, of all the people in this valley, the last person I’d expect to be so thoughtful is Wilford. Yet he’s been here every single day.”
The skin on Zoe’s neck prickled as if a toxic wooly caterpillar had just crawled from her collar. “Wilford?”
Mrs. Kroll nodded.
“Wilford Engle?”
“Why, yes. He was just here a few minutes ago.”
The man who had fallen. Who had avoided eye contact as he passed them on his way to the elevator. She hadn’t seen him in years, which explained why she hadn’t recognized him, yet he’d seemed familiar. She remembered Pete saying Harry had been with him when they’d gone to talk to James’ brother. Harry’s words, he’s not nice, echoed in her mind.
Zoe spun on her heel toward the coffeemaker. The young volunteer was refilling the bins with packets of sugar.
But Harry was gone.
Pete didn’t expect the autopsy to turn up anything else, so he followed Baronick out of the morgue. In the hall, he dug out his cell phone and called the station. Instead of Nancy, Seth answered.
“Is Tom Jackson still there?”
“Yeah, but not for much longer. His attorney is throwing a fit. Making all kinds of threats.”
“Keep him there. I’m on my way back, and I have a few more questions for our houseguest.”
“You got it, Chief.”
Baronic
k, still holding the evidence bag containing the slug, looked around. “How’re you getting back? Your driver is MIA.”
Pete grunted and dialed Zoe’s number. “Did you think she and my father were going to stand here in the hall all evening?”
Baronick shrugged. “To be honest, I figured she’d be leaning on the door with her nose pressed to the glass.”
The thought had occurred to Pete, too. But Harry had been pretty rambunctious. More than likely Zoe had to resort to treating him at the snack bar to settle him down.
“Pete?” Zoe’s voice sounded odd on the phone.
“I’m ready to go back to the station. Where are you?”
There was silence for a moment. “Um. I’m up in the ICU waiting room. I—um—don’t know how to tell you this. I can’t find Harry.”
The tightness in Pete’s shoulders from the crutches crept up into his skull. Not again. “How long has he been missing?”
“Just a couple of minutes. He was right here, and then I turned my back, and he was gone.” Her voice tap-danced up the musical scale with each word.
“Don’t panic.” Pete had been guilty of that twice already and been made a fool of both times. “He probably wandered down the hall. Check the restrooms. Check the storage rooms. He hasn’t gone far. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“About the autopsy?” Her voice trailed off.
“We’ll talk when I get there.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded lost and vulnerable as she clicked off.
Pete closed his eyes for a moment. When he looked up, Baronick was studying him. “Harry’s wandered off again?”
“So it would seem.”
“You need some sort of GPS tracking device you can slip in the old man’s shoe.”
Pete snorted. “That’s not a bad idea. He hasn’t been gone long. Zoe probably will have tracked him down by the time I get there.”
Baronick tucked the evidence bag into his jacket pocket and fell into step beside Pete. “We. By the time we get there.”
Zoe peeked in yet another patient room. Both TVs on. Both patients in bed, sleeping. No visitors. No Harry.
This was all her fault. She was supposed to keep an eye on him. Everyone knew his tendency to wander off.
She moved to the next, her heart pounding harder than if she’d run a marathon instead of simply race-walking up and down the fourth floor hallways. One last room. No sign of Harry there either. She took off, sprinting around the corner, pausing for the automatic doors to swing open.
Zoe plunged through and pulled up short before colliding with Pete and Baronick.
The detective caught her by the shoulders. “Slow down there.”
Pete nudged him aside. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you’ve found Harry.”
The weight of failing Pete crushed down on her. “Not yet. But I have Patsy Greene and Alexander Kroll checking the other wings on this floor. Mrs. Kroll is checking in ICU.”
Baronick pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call security.”
“I already did. They’re on their way.” She studied Pete. Stress showed through his poker face veneer. How could she ask about her own father when she’d just misplaced his?
“Harry does this all the time,” Pete said, his voice soothing. “He’ll turn up any minute now, wondering what all the fuss is about.”
She hoped so. God, she hoped so.
Baronick cleared his throat. “I think I’ll go call security again.” He fingered his phone as he walked away.
Pete moved closer to her. “Zoe, the autopsy’s been completed.”
“I assumed as much.” The questions she needed to ask were stuck. Pete had answers. But did she want to hear them? “And?”
“You know the standard line about ongoing cases and waiting for the lab to confirm results.” Pete paused. “But dental records matched. The body in the casket is definitely your father.”
The hospital hallway—the entire world—tilted. Zoe closed her eyes for a moment, but that only made it worse. Pete grabbed her by the arms. Kept her from spinning off into oblivion. He drew her against his chest. She leaned there trying to remember how to breathe.
Her father...her dad...was gone. For good. He hadn’t run off. He hadn’t entered the witness protection program. He hadn’t disappeared in order to protect her. He was dead.
As she struggled to process reality, she realized Pete wasn’t so much holding her in his arms as he was bracing her.
There was more.
Zoe eased back. “What else?”
He released her arms, taking her hands instead. “Abercrombie found a bullet. Baronick’ll take it to the county lab.”
Another bullet. Not only was her dad dead, he’d been murdered. “It’s going to match, you know.”
“That’s what I figure.”
The world around her that a moment ago had been whirling out of control became very still and focused. “You go with Baronick. Do what you need to do to track down who—whoever killed my father. Don’t worry about Harry. I’ll find him.”
Pete tipped his head, eyeing her.
“You asked me to trust you. Now I’m asking you to trust me. I’ll find Harry. I promise.”
After Pete and Baronick left, Zoe headed back to her headquarters of search operations—the ICU waiting room.
Alexander Kroll shrugged and held up his hands. “I checked every men’s room on this floor. He wasn’t in any of them.”
What if something had happened to Harry? She’d lost him. She had. And she knew what it was like to lose—really lose—a father. She wouldn’t let Pete go through that. Not yet. Not like this. She’d given him her word.
Mrs. Kroll wrung her hands as if applying lotion. “I spoke with the nurses in ICU. No one has seen him.”
A rapid thud thud thud of footfalls in the hall grew louder, and Patsy skidded around the bend into the room. “I looked in every room in the south wing.” She paused, breathing hard. “All the storage and linen closets are locked with keypads, so he couldn’t get in them. I checked both the men’s and the women’s restrooms. And none of the staff have seen him. I told them to keep an eye out.”
Zoe turned a full circle, scanning the room, thinking—hoping Harry might suddenly reappear out of thin air. Where was security? She’d phoned them at least fifteen minutes ago.
As if on cue, a pair of uniformed guards ambled through the door. Zoe leaped to meet them. “Have you heard anything yet?”
“We need more information.” The older guard, who carried himself like a retired cop or military officer, studied his notebook. “All I have is a missing elderly man with dementia wandered away. Can you give us a description?”
“He’s about six feet tall,” Zoe said, “white hair, blue eyes, athletic build. I’d guess late sixties, early seventies. His name is Harry Adams. He’s Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams’ dad.”
The older guard nodded and scribbled notes. The younger one waved a walkie-talkie. “I’ll report it.” He turned and strode away, speaking into the radio.
“How long has he been missing?”
Zoe looked at her watch. “About twenty minutes.” Crap. Harry could have covered a lot of ground in twenty freaking minutes. And she couldn’t quite shake that look Wilford Engle had given Harry when he’d spotted them. What was that all about anyway?
“Has he done this sort of thing before?”
She nodded. “But he doesn’t usually go very far.”
“I’m sure he hasn’t this time either.”
The younger guard returned. “I’ve put out an alert,” he told them. Turning to Zoe, he asked, “You said he’s alone, right?”
“Right. Why?”
“Because one
of the volunteers at the front desk reported seeing two elderly men arguing in the lobby about ten minutes ago. One matches the description you gave us. Although that description could match any number of people.”
Zoe’s mind swam in a sea of muck. Two men arguing? “Did you get a description of the other man?”
“Approximately eighty years old. Tall, very thin. Very pale.”
Wilford Engle. Zoe reached for her throat to claw away the invisible hand choking her. “You have to get someone down there to hold them.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” the young guard said. “The volunteer didn’t know about your friend being missing. She said the two men in question left the building.”
Twenty-Nine
“Either charge my client or release him.” Anthony Imperatore didn’t bother with bluster or theatrics. He was all cool-headed, down-to-earth business.
Pete respected the man, grateful for his legal savvy and determination those times when someone Pete cared about—Sylvia last winter, for instance—was being unjustly accused. But right now, in the hallway of Pete’s police station, the attorney reminded him of a pit bull guarding his territory. “I need five minutes with Jackson. That’s all. Afterward, I’ll cut him loose.” Or formally arrest him. But no use mentioning the obvious to Imperatore.
The lawyer eyed Pete askance. “Five minutes. And I will be present during this interview.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
With a miniscule nod, Imperatore agreed.
Minutes later, Pete once again faced Zoe’s stepfather across a table. Jackson’s demeanor hadn’t improved. “I’ve just come from Gary Chamber’s autopsy.”
Jackson lowered his face. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I’m sure.”
Jackson’s face came up again. “Not for the reason you seem to think.”
“Oh?”
Imperatore tapped the table. “Mr. Jackson, be quiet.”
He tipped his head toward his lawyer. “I have nothing to hide.” His voice was a growl. “I didn’t do anything.” He met Pete’s gaze and held it firm. “I gather you saw Gary’s body.”
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