Dead Hunt dffi-5

by Beverly Connor

  ‘‘What’s going on?’’ a woman’s voice said. ‘‘Has something happened? If there is danger, we need to know about it.’’

  It was Veda Odell, her eccentric elderly neighbor across the hall who lived with her husband and attended funerals for recreation.

  ‘‘Just go back into your apartment, please,’’ said Officer Ellison.

  ‘‘I’ll talk to her,’’ said Garnett.

  He clearly wanted to control the situation, thought Diane, making all the information come to him.

  ‘‘Let David do it,’’ said Diane. She met Garnett’s eyes. He nodded, probably remembering that David had a special rapport with the Odells, earned from a previous case they had worked on.

  David shot her a you-owe-me-big-time glare as he reintroduced himself to Veda Odell.

  ‘‘Yes, I remember you,’’ Veda said. ‘‘David, isn’t it? We have some new photographs in our collection I’ll bet you would like to see.’’

  ‘‘I would indeed, Mrs. Odell. Do you mind if I ask you and your husband a few questions? I know it’s early in the morning.’’

  Neva chuckled under her breath and shook her head. ‘‘He’s going to get you for this,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Is any of this blood yours?’’ asked Jin. He stood staring at the red pool.

  ‘‘No,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I don’t think so.’’

  ‘‘Lord have mercy.’’

  The newest member of the law enforcement entourage to arrive was Lynn Webber, medical examiner for Hall County, just north of Rosewood. Like Garnett, she was never caught anywhere—even at a crime scene—without being well dressed. She was wearing designer jeans, a blue silk blouse that went great with her short, shiny black hair, and a lightweight brown embroidered jacket. She watched carefully where she stepped with her Ferragamos.

  ‘‘Are you all right?’’ She turned to the paramedics. ‘‘Let me see her vitals.’’

  After exchanging a brief glance, the paramedics handed Lynn a clipboard.

  ‘‘What are you doing here, Lynn?’’ asked Chief Garnett. ‘‘A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?’’

  ‘‘I heard on my police scanner that the paramedics were called to Diane’s....’’

  Garnett jerked his phone from his pocket. He looked around for a safe place to walk and finally decided it was out in the hallway where he had entered the building. Lynn and Diane watched him go. Lynn raised her eyebrows at Diane.

  ‘‘A long and political story,’’ said Diane.

  In an effort to protect the interests of the city and of the museum, Garnett had a standing order that any police business having to do with Diane, the museum, or the crime lab was not be broadcast on the police radio but should be called in by phone. That order certainly extended to emergency services.

  Lynn nodded, a knowing look glittering in her dark eyes. Garnett returned frowning. Lynn stared at the pool of blood as if she had just noticed it.

  ‘‘What happened?’’ she asked. ‘‘Did someone break into your apartment? Where’s the body?’’

  Then she saw the drag marks out the door. She lifted her eyebrows and looked back at the pool of blood. Diane knew what she was thinking, what Jin was thinking as he looked at all that blood.

  Chapter 17

  The human body has ten pints of blood. If you lose four pints you die. There were easily more than four pints on the floor. All that blood amounted to a dead body. Jin knew it, so did Lynn, so did Diane, so did the paramedics. Diane guessed that Garnett and the policemen knew it too.

  Provided all the blood came from one person. Diane hoped it didn’t. She hoped that when they canvassed the area hospitals they would find two or three very anemic people who could tell her why they decided to battle it out in her home. Why didn’t I hear it?

  Garnett sent the paramedics outside. Diane didn’t hear what he said to them. When they were gone he pulled up a chair and sat down.

  ‘‘Was this a home invasion?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘If it was, they didn’t invite me,’’ said Diane. ‘‘You slept through it?’’ If Garnett, who was both

  politically and by friendship predisposed to believe her, looked that skeptical, she was in for a difficult time.

  ‘‘Apparently I did,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘You know, if someone came in and attacked you in your home, you are entitled to defend yourself,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘I need you to try to remember. We don’t want anyone thinking you did this for any other reason.’’ He stopped as if waiting for her to respond.

  ‘‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’’ said Lynn, using her mildly scolding southern voice. ‘‘If she wanted to kill someone, she wouldn’t do it here and ruin her hardwood floors, for heaven’s sake. Besides, Diane is just like me. We both know a dozen ways to kill a person without making such a mess—and without detection, I might add.’’

  ‘‘I’m not suggesting anything like that and I didn’t mean it the way it sounded,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘I’m just afraid others might interpret things in the most negative way. You know how newspapers are.’’

  Indeed Diane did. ‘‘I know this is strange. I’m not understanding it either...’’

  The paramedics came in rolling a stretcher.

  ‘‘What’s that?’’ asked Diane. ‘‘I don’t need to go to the hospital. Neva has to process me and I have to shower and change. I don’t know if you have ever had occasion to wear bloodsoaked clothes, but it is not comfortable.’’

  ‘‘You can be processed at the hospital,’’ said Garnett. ‘‘I’ll be in charge here so there will be no—’’

  ‘‘Neva needs to stay here and help process the site.’’ Diane said site as if it were someplace other than her home.

  ‘‘I’ll go with you,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘I process bodies all the time. They’re dead, of course. But I can do yours, no problem. You need to go to the hospital. I don’t like some of your readings, and any hit to the side of the head like that needs to be looked at more closely. And I don’t like that nausea you’ve been feeling.’’

  In the end, they won. Before Diane left on the stretcher—which she was sure Garnett ordered in case any reporters were lurking outside—she directed Neva to process outside the apartment and have Jin do the inside. Neva was only too happy to let him take care of the blood. Diane expected Neva would find a dead body somewhere around the apartment building. It was still the early hours of the morning, so with good luck, it would be one of her crew who found it and not one of her neighbors.

  Fortunately there were no reporters waiting outside. She was embarrassed to be riding to the hospital, taking up valuable ambulance space and the paramedics’ time. She was fine. Garnett simply wanted Diane to appear as the victim in case anyone was watching. Which was true, she was a victim, but not in the way he was staging it. She didn’t know how he would spin the presence of all that blood and no body.

  As for Lynn, she was going along with Garnett. Lynn knew her way around politics, had sized everything up quickly, and fell easily into helping Garnett. Diane doubted that Lynn would be riding to the hospital with her under different circumstances. But then maybe she would have. Lynn wasn’t a brutally scheming person any more than Garnett was—but she was a player. Diane might have felt better about all this attention if it had actually been about her well-being. It wasn’t. It was all about the crime lab and maintaining its reputation.

  The ride to the hospital was uneventful. Thank goodness they didn’t use the siren. Diane was rolled right into an examination room and the paramedics left, taking the gurney with them. She removed all her clothing and sealed it in a plastic bag for processing by the crime lab. It was a relief to get out of bloodsoaked clothes, even if it meant putting on one of the skimpy hospital gowns.

  Lynn Webber did know how to process a body. She looked for bruises, defensive injuries, and bloodspatter patterns, and she took numerous photographs.

  ‘‘With all that blood you couldn’t have stabbed
anyone and not have cuts on your hands. The knife would have been too slippery to hold,’’ said Lynn.

  She was right. Diane’s grip would have slipped on a knife and sliced her palm or her fingers, assuming the weapon was a knife. But the victim, whoever the victim was, could have been bludgeoned with something like a tire iron. It would also have made castoff spatters and a lot of blood. Diane wanted to see the spatter pattern up close. She hadn’t been in a position to do much from her dining room table. Now that she was thinking more clearly, she realized that the castoff was very high, too much of an arc across the ceiling to be from stabbings; more like a beating.

  Lynn took a blood sample from Diane and had her collect a urine specimen.

  ‘‘We need to find out why you slept through a massacre in your home,’’ said Lynn.

  ‘‘I don’t know when I could have been drugged,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Well, obviously someone had access to your house. Did you eat or drink anything before you went to bed?’’

  ‘‘I drank a bottle of green tea,’’ said Diane.

  She remembered grabbing it out of the refrigerator. She had to think about that. Could someone have spiked it? She remembered that the lid was on tight. Did she hear the little clicks of the perforated plastic breaking as she unscrewed the cap? She didn’t remember.

  ‘‘How would anyone know I would drink that bottle of tea?’’ said Diane. ‘‘For that matter, what’s the point of this—to use my tiny apartment for an ultimate fighting ring because they weren’t able to find anyplace else?’’

  Lynn laughed. ‘‘I suppose we’ll have to wait until we find a body to answer that. But tell me, what all do you remember? Do you remember going to bed?’’

  Diane nodded. ‘‘Yes, I remember changing clothes and climbing into bed. I remember everything leading up to that. I went to sleep thinking about the Egyptian artifacts. The next thing I remember is the police banging on the door.’’

  ‘‘When you got up to answer the door, did you feel any pain anywhere?’’ asked Lynn.

  ‘‘No. Just a drowsy feeling.’’

  ‘‘If we find anything in your blood,’’ Lynn said, ‘‘the lab can test everything you came in contact with until they discover how it got into you.’’

  When Lynn was done it was clear that Diane had no bruises other than the one on her head. The blood patterns on her body and her clothing were consistent with a fall. All that was good. A member of the hospital nursing staff showed Diane to a shower, where she scrubbed the blood from her body and hair.

  ‘‘Okay,’’ said Lynn when Diane came out. ‘‘Let’s X-ray your head.’’

  Diane thought Lynn was enjoying this far too much. After having her head examined, Diane was sitting on one of the examination tables waiting for the doctor and Lynn to come with the X-rays. She knew what they would show. Nothing. She had hit her head on a plaster wall on the way down. She had been dazed, but that was all.

  As she sat holding the back of her hospital gown closed, she realized she didn’t have any clothes with her. Why did I let them talk me into going to the hospital? This was absurd. She didn’t even have her purse with her.

  I can stay at the museum, she thought. Her office suite had a bathroom, a shower, and a comfortable couch. She had stayed there many times. She even had a change of clothes there. She would go look for a phone. That meant walking around with absolutely nothing on but an open-backed thin cotton gown. Diane slipped down from the table and looked around the white curtain for a nurse.

  She was in a large room lined on two sides with a row of cubicles like the one she was in. Some were probably occupied. She padded across the room, holding the back of her gown closed with a hand behind her back. The floor was cold on her bare feet. Just down at the other end of the room was an empty nurses station. No nurse? What if there is an emergency in one of the cubicles? she thought.

  She walked toward the station. She passed a stack of neatly folded gowns on a trolley. She swiped one and put it on backwards. At least now she didn’t have to hold the back closed. At the nurses’ station she looked for a bell to ring. There wasn’t one. She walked around the counter and reached for the phone. Her hand touched the receiver just as she was grabbed around the waist and mouth and pulled into one of the cubicles.

  Chapter 18

  Diane kicked at her assailant but her bare feet had little effect. She bit the gloved hand covering her mouth and tried to squirm out of his grasp. His fingers and palm were well protected with leather and padding thicker than necessary for the season of the year. She bit down hard.

  ‘‘Stop it, or I’ll break your neck.’’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  This is isn’t going to happen, she thought. I won’t let it.

  She bit harder and elbowed him in the ribs but felt the blow slide off. She reached over her head searching for eyes to poke or hair to grab. Her fingers found thick, taut material. A ski mask covering his face. She clawed at it and he jerked his head backward, sending them both against the vital signs monitor, tearing off feeds and cables as it fell to the floor. Her mouth now free, she screamed. In her peripheral vision, she saw a knife. This definitely is not going to happen.

  She entangled her leg in his to trip him. It almost worked. He fell against the bed, pushing it against the curtain. Diane reached down and grabbed one of his ankles and pulled up hard while she pushed away from him with all the strength she had in her legs. He fell but dragged her with him, twisted her over, pushed her to the floor, and pressed a knee in the small of her back. With his powerful hand on the back of her head he pressed her face into the floor.

  ‘‘You’re a dirty dealer,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Everybody thinks you’re so good, but you’re dirty.’’

  Diane reached and yanked a cable dangling from the monitor, hoping it would fall on him or distract him enough for her to free herself. She heard a voice several cubicles away calling for a nurse. She shouted for help as the monitor she was jerking at slammed against her attacker. He got up and ran as abruptly as he had come. Diane struggled to her feet to follow him.

  A door near the nurses’ station was partially ajar where he had gone through, and she headed for it. It opened into a large storage room with a door on the other end. Diane ran for it. A hallway lay beyond. She looked both ways up and down the hallway and saw nothing. She had been too slow. She hurried back to the examination room. A nurse was there, or maybe a nurse’s aide. It was hard to tell.

  ‘‘You aren’t supposed to be back there,’’ she said. The blond woman was about Diane’s age and dressed in scrubs with cartoon prints all over them that looked more like she should be in pediatrics. She stood looking at Diane in confusion.

  ‘‘There aren’t supposed to be maniacs running around the hospital either. I was just attacked in here. Get security.’’

  The nurse just stood there smiling kindly in a confused sort of way.

  ‘‘What’s wrong with you? Alert hospital security before he gets away,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘If you sit down, I’ll get a doctor,’’ said the nurse.

  ‘‘Dammit, I know one loses a lot of credibility in these idiotic hospital gowns, but I’m telling you I was attacked in that examination room—as you can see by the disarray inside. Call security—now.’’

  ‘‘I think if you just sit back down.’’ The nurse looked at the tossed examining room. ‘‘We’ll have to find you another bed.’’

  ‘‘I have one over there.’’ Diane pointed to the cubicle she was previously sitting in. ‘‘I’ll go back there.’’ She paused and looked the woman over. She wondered if she was a volunteer or maybe another patient who liked to dress in scrubs and wander about the hospital. ‘‘Do you work here?’’

  ‘‘I’m a nurse’s aide,’’ said the woman, straightening her shoulders.

  ‘‘My attacker is probably long gone, but let me explain something to you. That room’’—Diane pointed to the curtained area that the attacker had pulled h
er into—‘‘is not to be touched until my crime scene people have processed it for evidence. My name is Diane Fallon and I’m director of the Rosewood Crime Lab. Are you understanding this?’’

  A worried looked crept into her eyes. ‘‘Yes, but I thought you were just bleary from a procedure. Patients get like that sometimes—you know—confused,’’ she said.

  ‘‘I didn’t have any kind of procedure. I was waiting on X-ray results,’’ said Diane.

  ‘‘Diane, look who I found.’’

  Diane turned toward Lynn Webber’s voice. Frank was beside her carrying a suitcase.

  ‘‘Frank,’’ said Diane. She smiled at him. Relief flowed over her like fresh water. ‘‘How—’’

  ‘‘Neva called,’’ he said. ‘‘She collected some of your things for you and said you would need a place to stay.’’

  ‘‘I’m glad you’re here—’’ she said.