“Now Earl… what on earth would you need with the Benson file?”
“I, um… I was checking into something for Deputy Cope,” said Earl with an innocent enough stare.
“Oh really?”
“Deputy Cope, what’s this all about? Why would you need a file that hasn’t been cracked since ’82?”
“I don’t know what he’s talking about…”
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me…” exclaimed DiNolfo.
“I am going to tell you two jackasses one last time, do not think that you are smarter than me. I could run circles around the two of you in my sleep. Now what the hell do you need the goddamn file for?!”
Her voice was raised, her eyes stern, and her demeanor utterly cold. She was quite intimidating to the two lame-witted deputies. They didn’t answer; just stared long and hard at their Sergeant. Shaking her head, she yelled at them once more, “Get out of my sight, and do something useful for a change! I will find out what you wanted with that file, and if it’s not on the up and up, you’re going to be two sorry sons of bitches!”
Quickly, they fled from the office, hoping to escape her wrath for the rest of the evening. After they had let the door slam behind them, DiNolfo screamed out, “Idiots!”
Scribbling on a yellow notepad on her desk, she reminded herself to pull the Benson file to see what was so important. That is when she saw her phone blinking rapidly, the red alert signaling that someone had left a message was flashing. She hoped it would be something useful.
DiNolfo grabbed the phone and pressed the angry red button, and waited patiently to hear what she predicted would be yet another prank call or conspiracy theorist.
The people in this town seriously need to get some hobbies, pronto.
A voice that she immediately recognized came over the line. She scrawled the information immediately on her yellow note pad. When she was finished she slammed the phone down, grabbed her coat, and drove to 10 Farringer Drive, to check if the anonymous tip held water.
* * *
Jack couldn't believe his ears. She was found. His prayers were answered. He slammed the phone back into its cradle with force so great that it bounced off, and hit the floor. Jack didn't care. He'd put the phone back on the hook later. He had to get to St. Benedict’s. He grabbed his keys off the hook by the kitchen door and walked quickly to his car. Adam, Blake and Tommy were following, fast on his heels, determined to go with him. Jack eyed them suspiciously, and sped off without them. He wanted to do this by himself.
The usual half-hour drive took Jack twelve minutes; throwing caution to the wind as he tried to get to the hospital as fast as he could to see Tristan. Road rage took over as Jack cursed at drivers who, heaven forbid, adhered to the speed limit. It just wasn't fast enough for him. Finally, he pulled the truck into the parking lot of St. Benedict’s Hospital for the Infirm. When he got to the front desk, there was no guard to check him in, so Jack flagged a nurse that was whizzing by, and she told him where to wait. Jack made his way over to the waiting room, patiently waiting on Dr. Branson to give him an update.
Jack wasn't a very patient man to begin with, so this was utter torture for him. He watched in agony as the clock on the wall ticked away the minutes. Finally, about forty-five minutes later, Dr. Branson came through the double doors of the emergency room with a frazzled look on his face.
"Are you Mr. Morrow?" asked Branson, as Jack rose to his feet.
"I am... How is she?"
"She is being taken back to radiology now to get an x-ray of her ankle. I think it’s a sprain, but we just want to take the extra precaution."
"Can I see her now?"
"Once she's out of radiology and back in her room. I must warn you though, she is still exceedingly belligerent."
"Belligerent?"
"Angry. She does not want to be here. She is jumpy, like she thinks she is still in danger."
"Did she say anything about where she was?"
"She won't speak to anybody."
"Okay. I'm sure this was all a shock to her. The important thing is that she is alive."
"After her x-rays are complete, I will have a nurse come grab you."
"Thanks, doc..."
Jack slumped back down in his chair biding away his time, fighting off the urge to go back to her patient room himself.
* * *
DiNolfo pulled her squad car up to 10 Farringer Drive in Elkhart and came to a halt. She double checked the address on the notepad, just to make sure she had the right place. It was definitely the right address. She walked up to the door and rang the bell, but there was no answer. A moment later, a young woman opened the door.
“Excuse me,” she said as she pushed her way through the doorframe, “Oh, were you ringing the bell? It’s broken you know...”
“Oh, it is? Do you live here?”
“Yeah... Going on two years now.”
“So you’re familiar with the other tenants?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Mrs. Matheson on the first floor is okay, but the guy that lives on the third floor is a real weirdo.”
“What is his name?”
“The mailbox says Kendricks, but he never introduced himself. I think he’s a teacher at Steeplechase. I wouldn’t know. I never went there.”
“Why do you think he’s weird?”
“He just is. Very odd. The postman mixed up our mail the other day and I walked a letter up to his apartment as a courtesy, just to be nice, and he looked at me like I was crazy. Then this morning around 4 A.M., he came barging in the apartment building cursing and making a lot of noise. Like I said, he’s really weird.”
“Thanks, Miss...”
“Benson. Lisa Benson.”
DiNolfo raised her eyebrow. In a small town like this, the surname was no coincidence. She would have to remember this later.
“I recognize your name from somewhere.”
“Yeah, you and everybody else. My father was a popular guy back in the ‘80s around here. You should ask Deputy Cope more about him. He’s the one who got him locked up in the first place.” Lisa spoke in a tone that was wrought with anger and sarcasm. “As if anybody around here believes that my father really did anything.”
“I’ll have to take a look at that case file.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Nice to meet you. Please, take my card, and call if you have any information for me.”
With a nod, Lisa was gone, and DiNolfo was climbing up the first flight of rickety steps in the apartment building. The inside of the building was in serious disrepair. The spackle on the walls was cracking, the yellowing drop panel ceiling was missing several tiles, and the staircase looked as if they hadn’t been vacuumed in years. This was exactly the type of run down establishment you would expect to see in a mountain town like this with no real economy or strong financial foundation.
Finally, DiNolfo reached the third floor landing. There were two doors, one unmarked and another labeled simply with a number three, where an older man stood knocking. The cream colored rug had mud-caked footprints leading up to the labeled door. At first glance, DiNolfo thought it looked like a men’s hiking boot, size nine or ten. Quietly, she walked up the hallway, careful not to disturb the tracks. She finally reached the door, and approached the gentleman who stood before her.
The portly gentleman faced her. He was a pleasant man, dressed in a gray morning suit with a nervous look on his face. In his hand, he held a brown leather briefcase, and an index card in his left hand with Bernard Kendricks’ address on it.
“Hi there…” Dr. Lapidus said to DiNolfo, surprised to see another person in the hallway looking for Bernard.
“Good day to you… I’m Sergeant DiNolfo, and you are?”
“Dr. Walter Lapidus.”
“Are you a friend of Bernard’s?”
“No, I am his psychiatrist.”
“Making a house call?”
“Of sorts. He had called me quite distressed two days ago, but I was out of town on business. When I got the message I came here straight away, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is home.”
“I must tell you that Bernard is wanted for questioning in relation to the disappearance of a local girl. We have been trying to locate him and have not been having much luck.”
“A local girl?”
“Yes. Tristan Morrow.”
Dr. Lapidus looked stunned and alarmed.
“Oh dear… That is my colleague’s granddaughter. I will try to help where I can.”
DiNolfo nodded as she looked at the doctor surreptitiously and she proceeded to knock on the door. As her knuckles grazed the wood, the hinges groaned open, and she was face to face with the interior of her lead suspect’s apartment.
* * *
Jack's patience was wearing out in the waiting room as he slowly got to his feet again. He asked a nurse who was passing by when Tristan would be back, and she told him, “Any minute now.” He wondered if the nurse even knew what patient he was referring to. Letting out a disgusted sigh, he began wandering down the hallway towards the patient rooms.
To hell with their rules, they left me waiting long enough.
He watched as an orderly pushed a patient bed down the hallway and out the emergency room corridor. Jack walked down to patient room 7 where an elderly security guard was standing in front of the entryway. He had a miserable look on his face, and appeared to be more bark than bite.
“No one is allowed to enter except hospital personnel,” the guard said to Jack.
“And what about the patient's father?”
“Oh, they didn't say nothing about that.” Jack raised an eyebrow at the guard.
Seriously. This is the sort of incompetence I have to deal with today? I just want to see my daughter!
“Please let me in to see my daughter.”
“Well she's not here anyway. Off to radiology to get her x-rays.”
“That was over an hour ago.”
“She actually just left about twenty minutes ago, she'll be back soon.” Rolling his eyes in disgust, Jack slowly retreated back to the waiting room.
* * *
“Stay here,” said DiNolfo to the aging doctor, her eyes wide and alert. She entered the apartment, keeping her back to the door. Stealthily, she moved around the apartment, gun out, with a perplexed look on her face. The apartment was immaculate. There wasn’t much in terms of furniture, just a tan couch with the shipping cover still on it. There were no pictures or decorations on the walls. The kitchen was bare. The rugs looked brand new. This looked like an apartment that was never lived in before.
DiNolfo continued scanning the apartment, careful not to touch anything. She opened the bathroom door and ripped back the shower curtain, but there was no one there. Her senses had risen to an alert state. She listened intently, trying to determine if she was alone. She could hear construction workers talking outside. A bird chirping on a telephone wire. She could hear her heart beating and her lungs taking in the stale air. She was definitely alone. A bit more relaxed, she moved to the door at the back of the apartment. She assumed this would lead to a bedroom. She was right. A barren room with no furniture and black-out curtains. This was so bizarre. Who lives like this? She pulled a curtain to allow the sun to shine in, giving the room some light. Finally, she turned around and shock hit her like a ton of bricks.
All across the far wall of the bedroom nearest the door was a collage of pictures. From floor to ceiling, photographs of a dark haired woman. DiNolfo approached the wall slowly, suddenly realizing that it wasn’t just pictures of Catherine on the wall, but pictures of Tristan too. Hundreds of pictures cut out and pinned on the wall. Scanning the wall, she stood in disbelief. Bernard Kendricks was a Grade A stalker, and he wasn’t just obsessed with Catherine. She wished she had remembered her camera now. She now knew, without a shadow of a doubt, whom they were looking for.
* * *
Tristan was still staring out her hospital window when the orderly arrived. She took in the black messy hair that fell around his face, wire rim glasses over his eyes, not really bothering to take in his face. She had more important things to worry about. The man didn't say a word, just pushed her slowly down the hallway to the double doors of the Emergency Room. He pushed a red button on the wall, and the doors swung open. Quietly, they maneuvered the hallways, the sound of rubber wheels moving steadily against the dated linoleum floor. Tristan allowed her thoughts to relax. She would be safe now… wouldn't she? She did the impossible. She got away, and Dr. Branson did seem awfully sure of his hospital's safety standards. Maybe it was okay to finally relax. She closed her eyes and let the repetitive sound of the wheels send her mind into a calmer state.
Several minutes had passed and they were still maneuvering through the hallways.
How far was the Radiology department?
She looked to her left at the sign on the wall that read Radiology with an arrow pointing left. This must be a really large hospital. But then, when the hospital bed continued going straight, she began to worry.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Just around this corner,” the orderly said in a hoarse voice.
“Radiology was back that way.”
“We have to go this way first.”
Tristan laid back down on her bed, and decided to trust the orderly. It was not his fault that she was on edge. She closed her eyes trying to relax again, but for some reason, her body wouldn't allow it. Sure, she had been through a lot, but there was something her subconscious was trying to tell her. It was screaming at her: “Wake up!”
Suddenly, Tristan opened her eyes and looked up at the orderly. He looked familiar, and she couldn't pinpoint from where. She stared up at him, pretending to look at the ceiling. She watched as the orderly continued to push her down the hallway, a serious look furrowing his brow. At one point he reached up with his right hand to scratch his nose. Concealing his face, it was his eyes that caught her. She knew those eyes, and no disguise, no matter how drastic could hide them. Behind the tinted contact lenses, hair dye, and fake tan, Tristan Morrow saw right through Bernard Kendricks’ disguise.
She leapt off of the hospital bed, pushing it towards Kendricks, knocking him over as she limped as quickly as she could down the hallway. She yelled for help, but she now noticed that he had led her to a section of the hospital that was under renovation. The construction crew was out to lunch, apparently. How convenient for him. She continued limping down the hallway, until she couldn't bare anymore weight on her leg. She hid behind a quiet corner far down the hall, foolishly hoping he had given up the chase. She knew he wouldn't, but she could still hope. She stood there quietly for a moment just listening, but the sound of her heart was the only audible thing she could hear. Slowly, she crept to the corner hoping to get a glimpse of the hallway, hoping that he was still on the ground where she left him. She grabbed the edges of the wall with her fingers and pulled herself so that she could peak around the corner. She would not get the glimpse she sought. The second she looked around the corner, he was there, his hand over her mouth, his other around her midsection dragging her swiftly down the hallway and towards the exit door that glared violently with sunlight at the far end of the corridor.
Try as he might to conceal her scream, a horrible shriek escaped from her lungs. It bounced off of everything, from floor to ceiling, echoing down the corridor and into the other arteries of the hospital. Though lessening with power with each square inch, the sound reached the person she intended.
* * *
Jack continued to sit in the waiting room in agonizing, excruciating pain. He hated to wait, but waiting to see his daughter after such an ordeal was absolute torture. He sat there, flicking through an Adventurer Travel magazine, not paying any mind to the words just glancing at the pictures and flicking the pages loudly, hoping to catch the eye of a sympathetic nurse or doctor, but none of them paid him any attent
ion. He continued flicking through a feature about farmers in Sweden when he heard the sound. A bone-rattling, teeth-clenching death curdle of a scream. He had heard this scream only once before, when Tristan had broken her leg when she was thrown from her horse a few years back. He recognized her voice immediately, even at maximum register. Tristan sounded desperate. She was in trouble.
Tossing his magazine onto the floor, Jack ran as hard and as fast as a six-foot five-inch man could run with arthritis of the knee. He barreled down the hallway towards the source of the scream. A security guard followed behind him, walking quickly, with his hand on his belt.
Shadow Dancer (The Shadow Series Book 1) Page 19
