by Lis Wiehl
After hearing from the Shaws, it was a relief to listen to Cassidy’s coworkers, who were more accustomed to putting a spin on things, to neatening up the rough edges of real life so they could turn them into stories.
First up was Phoebe, the new co-anchor. “I only worked with Cassidy for a few months, but I saw firsthand how fierce she was when it came to pursuing a story. She wasn’t above using her charm or her high heels or both.” Laughter rippled through the chapel. “And when Cassidy walked into a room, heads turned. She owned every room she was in. Not because she demanded our attention, but because we chose to give it to her. She was so alive—and just watching her made you feel more alive too.”
Brad brought his own star power to the microphone. The room fell silent as he waited a beat before speaking. Even the fluttering programs stilled.
“Cassidy was tough and fair, yet always kind,” he said solemnly. “For those who were victimized by crime and injustice, she was sensitive and caring. So many people whose stories Cassidy covered have told me that she called them after their pieces ran. Not just to follow up, but to sincerely check on their condition. We have lost a friend who touched every one of us. Cassidy loved Portland—and as the outpouring we see here reminds us, Portland loved her back.”
The pastor took Brad’s place. “Now if you would like to share a memory of Cassidy, we have a microphone set up at the front.”
A steady parade of people came to the microphone, including a young woman with dramatic black bangs who declared, “I grew up watching her.”
Allison and Nicole exchanged a wordless glance. Cassidy would have hated to hear another adult say that. She always complained that older women mysteriously disappeared from TV, and that lines only added character to a face if you were a man.
After a couple of dozen more people spoke, someone began making his way from the back. Walking up to the microphone, he looked like a boy, but when he turned to face them, his face was that of a man in his thirties. He was about five foot five, with cropped curly brown hair. His shadowed eyes reminded Allison of a puppy that had been kicked too many times to count.
“Cassidy was an angel here on earth,” he said. “We did not appreciate her. We did not see her for what she was.” After each pronouncement, he took a laboring breath. “We all know that’s true. She was a perfect woman.”
People were beginning to shift and murmur. Allison raised her eyebrows at Nicole, wordlessly asking if she recognized him, but Nic just shook her head.
Suddenly, he pulled the microphone from the stand and then took two steps back until he was standing next to the head of the coffin. There was a collective gasp as he reached down and stroked Cassidy’s cheek. “My darling,” he murmured, “you are so beautiful. I should have saved you. Can you ever forgive me?”
Then his free hand slipped inside his jacket.
“Look out!” a woman screamed. “He’s got a knife!”
It appeared in his hand like a magic trick, glinting in the light. He held it, pointing up, about six inches in front of his face.
Leif, who was sitting on the aisle, got to his feet, saying, “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. What’s your name?”
The man didn’t answer. Instead he put the blade to his throat. The point dimpled his skin.
Allison began to pray. Asking God for protection. For all of them.
Now Nicole was on her feet as well, her hand resting on the butt of her gun. But there was no point in shooting someone who was determined to hurt himself.
A tiny red drop appeared at the tip of the knife. It trickled down his pale neck.
“We’ll be together in death, as we should have been in life,” he said, leaning down to address himself to Cassidy. “We’ll be together for all of eternity.”
A woman in the first pew stumbled to her feet, then turned and ran down the aisle, breaking the spell that had pinned them in their pews. The crowd panicked, pushing, shoving, clawing—anything to get away from the man and the knife and the corpse. Nic and Leif were trying, and failing, to fight their way forward, calling repeatedly for the man to drop the knife. Allison, Marshall, and Lindsay stayed frozen where they were, an island of calm in a river of chaos.
The next second, the man drew the knife across his throat, the white skin parting before it, the red blood streaming after. Crimson drops rained down on the white satin, as well as on Cassidy’s face and hair. It seemed to Allison that every woman in the crowd was screaming, every man shouting, but the man with the knife appeared to hear nothing as the drops became a trickle, and the trickle a flood.
He pursed his lips and leaned down, as if he were the prince whose kiss could wake up the enchanted sleeper. But his face was pale, and his head suddenly seemed too heavy, drooping forward like a flower. The microphone slipped from his fingers and landed on the floor with a loud thump and whine that made people cry out even louder. It was followed by the knife.
And then the man collapsed on top of Cassidy’s body.
CHAPTER 18
Any remaining decorum was shattered. The aisles flooded with people shoving and shouting, desperate to get safely outside, away from the atrocity behind them. Away from the blood. Away from the corpse. Away from the man with the knife who, they all knew from horror movies, despite collapsing might prove not to be quite so dead after all.
Nic staggered as a man elbowed her. A young woman bulldozed her with a shoulder, nearly knocking her off her feet. Then Leif grabbed her hand and yanked her back into the safety of their pew.
Why had the guy asked for Cassidy’s forgiveness? What did he know?
Nic tried to see him through the crowd, but after collapsing on top of Cassidy he had fallen to his knees and then crashed to the floor. Now all she could glimpse were his feet in dark dress shoes and white tube socks. Was he still alive? Nic stepped up on the pew to raise herself above the crowd. The man lay in a rapidly spreading pool of bright scarlet, curled on his side, his face turned away from her, one arm outstretched.
As she watched, his fingers twitched.
Even standing on the pew, Nic wasn’t that much taller than Leif. She leaned down and put her mouth next to his ear. “I’m going to try to help him.”
Before she left home she had stuffed a shawl in her purse, thinking—or hoping—that the chapel might be chilly. Now she yanked it out. But how could she reach him? The aisles were clogged with desperate people. There was no way she could swim upstream.
But the pews—the pews were now half empty. Nic draped the scarf around her neck, then leaned forward and grabbed the back of the pew in front of her. Slinging one leg over, she scissored the second to join the first. As fast as possible, she repeated the process, over and over. Leif followed her, and a couple of pews behind so did Allison, not quite as nimbly. Some of the remaining mourners, taking a hint from Nic, began clambering over the pews in the opposite direction. Toward the exits.
Finally Nic reached the first pew. She kicked the knife out of reach and then dropped to the floor beside the man who lay next to Cassidy’s open coffin. Her hand slipped in the pool of warm blood, and she landed on him, his shoulder painfully bruising her ribs. Her nose was filled with a rich, meaty stink. Gagging, she pushed herself upright. After tucking one corner of the scarf under his neck, she rolled him onto his back. The blood was coming so fast she didn’t see how much longer he could live, but it wasn’t spurting. By sheer dumb luck he seemed to have missed any arteries or a jugular vein, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t die right here, just as he had wished.
Keeping her back to the coffin and Cassidy’s corpse, only a few inches away, Nic sat on the floor in the middle of the mess. She propped the man’s head on her right thigh so that the cut closed its gaping mouth and was at least a few inches above his heart. His face was so white against her black pants, his lips a pale violet. She pulled both ends of the scarf tight and then cupped her right hand and pressed it against the cloth over the wound while she supported his neck with her left hand.
<
br /> His life pulsed under her fingers. Tony had said that Cassidy’s killer had felt her die. Nic didn’t want the same experience. She had to stop the bleeding. Obviously she couldn’t apply a tourniquet or press so hard that she closed off his airway, but she didn’t know where that line lay or how she would know if she crossed it. Rivulets of hot blood ran down her hand and dripped off her wrist. She pressed harder.
Leif crouched beside her. “The ambulance is on its way.”
Allison leaned over them, her hand across her mouth.
“Do either of you recognize him?” Nic asked.
A voice she didn’t expect answered her. “It’s that guy. That Roland Baxter. The one who was stalking her.”
Nic craned her neck to look over her shoulder. The speaker was Brad Buffett. And behind him was Andy, the cameraman Cassidy had worked with most, the one who had been stationed in a back corner of the chapel.
And Andy was filming.
It was this side of the news that Nicole hated. Voyeuristic. Media people who would film an atrocity rather than stop to help. “Get that camera out of here,” she snapped.
Andy didn’t move.
Leif stepped in front of the lens, towering over Andy. “You heard the lady. Turn that off and take it outside. Now move.”
With a put-upon sigh, Andy let the camera drop to his side and slowly turned away.
“You too.” Leif pointed at Brad.
Brad looked peeved, but he didn’t argue, which made Nic wonder if he figured they already had enough for the nightly news. The chapel, she realized, was now nearly empty. Lindsay and Marshall were still in the same pew they had been in when the whole thing started. But Lindsay was doubled over, weeping, and Marshall had his arm around her.
“Marshall,” Allison called out. “Could you take Lindsay home, and I’ll meet up with you later?”
“Okay.” Marshall’s face looked a little green.
Nic started when a hand rose from the floor and grabbed her right wrist.
It was Roland. “Just let me die,” he whispered.
“No.” Her right hand was cramping.
Roland’s lips moved again. Nic leaned closer.
“It’s my fault she’s dead. All my fault.”
“Don’t talk,” she said, even though she wanted to shake him and ask exactly what he meant.
The sound of sirens filled the chapel, and then two paramedics burst in through the rear doors on the run, carrying bags of equipment and pushing a portable gurney. In a few seconds Roland was being strapped down while one of them applied steady pressure onto the wide white gauze wrapped around his throat.
“Are you taking him to OHSU or Portland General?” Nic asked as she got to her feet. Both were Level I trauma centers.
“Portland General,” the second paramedic answered, not looking up from where he was threading a needle into Roland’s arm. A moment later the gurney was rattling down the now empty aisle and out the doors, its wheels leaving bloody tracks.
Now it was just Nic and Leif and Allison. And Cassidy, her hair now matted with blood, her white dress covered with scarlet splashes and drips like a monochromatic Jackson Pollack painting. If her family had hoped to leave mourners with one last memory, it certainly wasn’t this.
Nic swayed. She was, she realized distantly, about to pass out.
Leif put his arm around her and turned her so she faced the doors. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Wait,” Nic said. “Did you hear what Roland said? He said it was all his fault that Cassidy was dead.”
“That’s because he’s crazy.” Allison looked nearly as pale as Roland had. “He also thought he could spend eternity with Cassidy if he killed himself over her coffin.”
“But why would he think her death is his fault?” Nic couldn’t shake the guilt she had seen in his eyes. “Maybe he knows something.” She thought of Rick’s claims that he couldn’t remember harming Cassidy. “Maybe he even did something. We need to make sure that knife gets processed as potential evidence.”
Leif looked dubious. “He wasn’t thinking straight.”
“But, Allison, remember what Jensen said? About that voice mail Roland left her?”
Allison looked up, thinking. “Roland said that he loved Cassidy no matter what, but she needed to be true to him.”
“Right. What made him think Cassidy was ‘cheating’ on him? Maybe he saw Rick with her that night. We have to talk to him.”
“First things first, Nic.” Leif gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s get you cleaned up. You can’t go anyplace like that or people will be calling 9-1-1 for you.”
She looked down. Her hands and forearms were tacky with already drying blood. Her pants were sodden. “I’m going to have to go home to change. And I just hope you have something I can sit on.”
“Don’t worry, there’s a tarp in my trunk with your name on it,” Leif said. “And there’s no point in hurrying. We won’t be able to talk to Roland until after they stitch him up.”
Nic had taken her memories of Portland General and put them in a box, and put the box in a closet, and then locked the closet door and thrown away the key. But here she was, less than a year later, smelling that sickeningly familiar mix of urine and industrial antiseptic, and the memories were threatening to bust the closet and the box wide open, key or no key.
The girl behind the information desk wore a blue polyester uniform blouse and a gold name tag that read Kenya. Her relaxed hair was pulled back into a stubby ponytail. She didn’t look much older than Makayla, and suddenly Nic missed her daughter, missed her fiercely. When she was fighting cancer, it had been the thought of leaving Makayla alone that had frightened her the most.
“We’re here to see Roland Baxter.” Nic’s voice sounded normal, and she was proud of that.
Kenya typed into her computer, then looked up at the three of them. “He’s on 3NW. But he’s not allowed any visitors.”
“We’re not visitors,” Nic said, showing her badge. “We’re with the FBI.”
“Oh.” Kenya’s eyes got wide. “Okay.”
In her head Nic heard Bond’s voice. Don’t be a distraction, Hedges. Don’t be a liability.
But she couldn’t let this go. She just hoped this visit wouldn’t get back to Bond, that she wouldn’t end up in Butte with her career in the toilet.
As they walked toward the elevators, Leif touched her arm, and she jumped. “What?”
“Nic. Don’t forget to breathe.”
Obediently, she sucked in a breath.
“From the abdomen,” he reminded her.
She let her belly expand and felt how it loosened even her shoulders.
They found Roland’s room. There was only one woman at the nurses’ station, and she had her back to them. In a second, the three of them had slipped inside his door.
Nic couldn’t tell if Roland was asleep or unconscious. He was on his back with his arms by his sides, nearly as pale as the white sheet on which they lay. They looked posed. Other than the thick bandage around his throat, he was an eerie echo of Cassidy.
She and Allison went over to the bed, while Leif stayed by the door, ready to alert them if someone came. Roland’s lips were still that odd shade of pale violet, and his skin looked almost translucent.
His eyes opened. He focused on Nic, blinked a few times, and then looked at Allison. In a raspy whisper, he said, “You two. You’re Cassidy’s friends.”
Nic jerked her head back. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen you with her. Usually eating.”
A tiny laugh escaped her, even though it was creepy. How many times had he been lurking in the background as they’d gone about their lives unaware?
“Why did you say her death was your fault?” she asked. “Did you hurt Cassidy? Is that what you meant?”
“I would never hurt her.” He grimaced. “Cassidy and I had a secret understanding. Just between us.”
“What kind of an understanding?” Nic asked, ke
eping her expression neutral.
“She sent me messages through the color of the blouse she wore on air. She had communicated to me mentally that she wanted me to be the father of her children.”
“Really?” Allison said in a noncommittal voice. “So why do you feel guilty?”
“Because I didn’t protect her, even though I was there.” He swallowed, grimacing again. “The night she was killed, I followed her home. I just liked to look up at her and imagine what it was going to be like when she could reveal our love to the world.”
“Look up at her from where?” Nic asked.
“There’s a Dumpster across the street. If you stand behind it at just the right spot, you can see straight into her windows. Wednesday night, after she came home, I watched for a while, but I didn’t see her. I was just about to leave when she appeared. She was facing the window. There was a man behind her. His hands”—Roland’s voice broke—“his hands were on her shoulders.”
Roland lifted his own hands and gingerly rested them on either side of the bandages, where his neck met his shoulders. “It looked like he was whispering in her ear. I couldn’t believe she would cheat on me like that. When he pulled her away from the window, I left.” He hesitated, his voice shaking. “But now I know that he wasn’t her lover. He was her killer. I saw it happening, and I just walked away.”
“What did he look like?” Allison asked. All three of them were staring at Roland, waiting to hear him describe Rick.
“Tall. Cassidy is five foot five”—he was right, which made Nic wonder exactly how obsessive he was—“so he had to have been about six one or two. He was thin. And bald. And there was something . . . off about his face. Like it was lopsided.”
Nic and Allison looked at each other, wide-eyed. Rick was five foot eleven, stocky, and had brown hair so thick it looked like a pelt.
