4 Malice in Christmas River

by Meg Muldoon

  “WHERE IS H—”

  “He’s in surgery, Ms. Peters.”

  I turned around to see Deputy Trumbow standing there, holding his hat.

  His face was bright red. Sweat had darkened some areas of his uniform. His mustache twitched and there was a large crease between his eyebrows.

  “What happened, Trumbow?”

  My mind had already gone through all the possibilities on the way to the hospital. Daniel had been run over by a drunk driver. He’d been shot by someone he’d pulled over. He’d been—

  “He, uh, well, Ms. Peters…” he trailed off, wringing his hat between his hands.

  “WHAT, Trumbow?” I said, my heart threatening to burst right through my chest.

  He looked down, unable to meet my crazed eyes.

  “It was an accident,” he said. “One of the horses got loose from the trailers. One of the broncos, uh, one of the broncos trampled him some.”

  My knees turned to butter. I almost lost it altogether, but Trumbow caught me in time. His big tree trunk arms held me up for a moment, then guided me over to one of the chairs in the hallway.

  I plopped down without feeling a thing.

  “He got a real nasty kick to the head and his leg got busted up pretty bad,” Trumbow said quietly. “Compound fracture. They’re in surgery right now trying to fix it.”

  “Is he…?” I stopped, my voice too weak to carry on.

  I looked up into Trumbow’s beady eyes, searching for an answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The doctor’s haven’t told me a thing yet.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  I wanted to sob, but nothing came out.

  Just empty air.

  Trumbow placed a hand on my back. I only vaguely felt it. Everything was still underwater, still numb. Still clouded with poison gas.

  What would I do… How could I live…

  Without him?

  Chapter 27

  His right leg was wrapped in a thick cast and was suspended in midair by a sling. A white bandage encircled his head. There were some dark red blood stains here and there, staining the wrap.

  His face was marred by bruises, scrapes and a row of stitches that started from somewhere underneath the bandage and crept down to the middle of his right cheek.

  I closed my eyes, the image of what happened playing over and over in my mind.

  The horse had come bolting out from one of the trailers, catching Daniel unaware in the darkness of the night. It had knocked him over. Then the animal trampled Daniel as it galloped away.

  Trumbow said it probably had been the thunder that spooked the horse and caused it to bolt.

  I sat in the chair next to the bed, holding Daniel’s hand. Telling him it was okay. That it was all going to be okay.

  Or maybe I was telling myself that. Just like before, with Huckleberry and the thunder. Saying the words, but not really believing them.

  How could I, when my husband looked like this?

  Daniel’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was heavy and labored. Tubes were coming out of his arm. They’d given him enough pain medication after the surgery to knock him out cold.

  The doctor had said they were able to set the leg and that if everything healed properly, it would eventually be okay. But she had been concerned about the head injury. Daniel had a concussion, and she said they would be monitoring him closely to make sure it didn’t turn into anything worse than that.

  She had mentioned that the brain could swell and cause…

  I swallowed hard.

  Though it was now dawn, and hours had passed since I got the call from Trumbow, I still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  I still hadn’t cried, either. I was just a bug, trapped in an oil slick. Helpless, unable even to express my own sadness.

  Daniel stirred slightly, moving his head. His eyes stayed closed, but I could tell by his expression that he was in pain.

  “Can you hear me?” I said, leaning closer.

  He mumbled something inaudible.

  “I’m here,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Trade—” he muttered.

  I stroked his hand.

  “It’s okay.”

  He moved his head in my direction, letting out a soft noise of pain as he did.

  “Trade winds.”

  Then he slipped into a heavy sleep again and began breathing heavily.

  Chapter 28

  “Cin, why on earth didn’t you call me sooner?”

  Kara pushed a steaming paper cup filled with coffee from a hospital vending machine into my hand, and took a seat next to me in the hall.

  Normally by this hour, I would have been throwing a fit if I hadn’t had my morning coffee yet. But I’d been wide awake in a nightmare for hours already, and coffee wasn’t going to make a difference one way or another.

  “I would have been here right away,” she said. “I would have—”

  “I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry. Things were just… It was all happening too fast. Trumbow was here for a while, and I… I’m sorry.”

  I thought back to Kara sitting on the sofa the night before with Brad.

  She stirred her own coffee with a short plastic straw and looked at me nervously.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  I told her what the doctors had said. About what Trumbow had said had happened.

  She took it all in, nodding calmly. When I had finished, she placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “He’s going to be okay, Cin,” she said. “They’re going to take good care of him here. Besides, he’s got you, and if there was ever a reason to get better and heal up fast, that’d be it.”

  I bit my swollen and chewed-up lip again, letting out a short sigh.

  “I just didn’t think something like this would ever happen,” I said. “I mean, I worry about him getting hurt out there. I can’t help but worry. But now that it’s actually happening, I just don’t…”

  I trailed off. But I didn’t really need to complete the sentence anyway. I could tell Kara understood.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she said. “Do want me to stop by the house and bring you some stuff?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe later. You being here is the best thing you could do for me right now.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, sipping our hospital coffee.

  “I think everything’s going to be just—” she started saying, but then my phone started buzzing.

  I fished around in my jean pocket, pulling it out, looking at the screen.

  A feeling of disgust instantly coming over me as I read the name.

  “Who is it?” Kara said.

  I shook my head, rejecting the call.

  “Erik Andersen,” I said. “The reporter. And I’m pretty sure he’s not calling just to see how I’m holding up.”

  Chapter 29

  When a sheriff gets trampled in a town this small, at a rodeo, no less, it becomes pretty big news.

  Not only was Erik calling me, but the nurses at the counter were busy answering calls from the local TV station and stations clear out of Portland. Thankfully, the nurses couldn’t say much due to patient privacy laws, other than that Daniel Brightman was still a patient at St. Charles Hospital.

  I tried not to pay much attention to the media attention. I spent the day sitting in Daniel’s room, watching him sleep, bargaining with God in my head. Asking that if Daniel made it out of this, then I’d stop taking everything in my life for granted, the way I had been doing.

  I held onto Daniel’s hand, vowing that things would be different from here on out. If only he would get better.

  Being in this hospital had a way of putting things in perspective. I was sure the walls of this place had heard all of this bargaining before.

  At one point, I decided to stretch my legs. I went out into the hall and called Warren’s cell.

  As much as I didn’t want to interrupt his Scottish
adventure, I knew he’d want to know about the accident.

  But the call went to his voicemail, and I couldn’t find the words to tell him what happened in a message.

  I hung up and went back into the hospital room.

  I stared out the window, listening to the mind-numbing beeps of the heart rate monitor, watching as the sun sank lower and lower in the smoke-filled sky.

  Everything was a sickly shade of red.

  Chapter 30

  “Now, Ms. Peters, I don’t want you dealing with anything else but your husband’s recovery,” Trumbow said over the phone. “But as the former Sheriff of Pohly County, I want you to know that I’m takin’ charge. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”

  I paced the ammonia-scented hallway of the hospital’s third floor.

  It was now evening. Kara had been a real friend to me these past few hours. She’d spent all day with me and was on a run back to the house to take Huckleberry to her place, and to pick up some things for me to spend the night here.

  Erik had called me two more times. On the last attempt, I’d half thought about answering and giving that slimy, no-good reporter a piece of my mind. But the reaction seemed like it would require more energy than I had, so I instead just let it go to voicemail.

  But when I saw Trumbow’s name pop up on my screen, I slipped out into the hallway and answered.

  “I also want you to know that I’ve sent out a news release about…, about, uh, the situation,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Believe me. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that this is the only way to get those media dogs to stop jumping. They won’t stop hounding us until we give them something to go on.”

  I sat down in one of the free chairs. An old man in a hospital gown slowly wheeled his walker past me, his empty eyes sticking to me like glue.

  I rubbed my face.

  “Do you think a news release was really necessary?” I said. “I mean…”

  “He’s an elected official,” Trumbow said. “We had to.”

  Maybe if I hadn’t been awake for almost two days straight I would have put up more of a fight. But as it was, I was tired and disoriented. And frankly, at the moment, it didn’t seem like there was much I could do about it short of holding a press conference myself.

  “Okay,” I finally said, letting out a sigh.

  “Now, if any of them media people try to talk to you, you just call me, okay? You don’t have to say a darn thing to them.”

  In some ways, this was laughable.

  Imagine, Trumbow protecting me. After the way he’d almost arrested me for murder two and a half years ago.

  The tables had sure turned. And if I’d been in a better state, I might have seen the humor in it. But just like I couldn’t muster any tears, I couldn’t muster any laughs either.

  “Now, it’s all going to be fine, Ms. Peters,” Trumbow said. “You just focus on helping Daniel get better.”

  I noticed how he’d just called him Daniel and not the Sheriff, the way he’d done since Daniel got elected.

  I half wondered if Trumbow wasn’t enjoying being back in the saddle again.

  But I pushed the thought out of my head. I had nothing to hold against him. Trumbow was being good to me.

  “Trumbow, can you tell me again how you figure it happened?” I said. “I mean, I just… I’m trying to find some sense in it I guess, and I just can’t seem to.”

  I could hear a controlled sigh from the other side of the line.

  “I’ve been a lawman for nearly 35 years, Ms. Peters,” he said. “And I’ve learned that sometimes, there ain’t no sense in why things happen. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s what happened here. Just a bad moment Daniel got hisself into. That’s all.”

  I nodded silently.

  Trumbow wasn’t all that intelligent when it came to a lot of things. But he had a point here.

  Sometimes, bad things just happened for no reason.

  “Now try and get some sleep, Ms. Peters. I’m sure you could use some.”

  He was right. The exhaustion had settled deep into my bones, and I felt like more of a zombie than the old man with the walker who had just passed me by.

  “Thanks, Trumbow,” I said. “I mean, thanks for—”

  “It’s my job,” he said. “Just call me if there’s any news about Daniel’s condition.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up the phone. I went back into the room.

  Daniel’s eyes were open, and he was looking around. There was fear in them as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings.

  I immediately felt horrible for leaving his side to go out in the hall.

  When he saw me, a faint recognition flashed across his eyes.

  “Cin? What happened?”

  I ran over, burying my head in his chest.

  That’s when the tears finally came.

  Chapter 31

  I placed the phone on top of a fresh copy of The Redmond Register at the cafeteria table, wondering where Warren was.

  I had tried calling him again, but it’d gone straight to voicemail. I was beginning to worry, wondering if my life was about to turn into that old saying on the side of salt containers: When it Rains… it Pours.

  I took a sip of weak coffee. A half-eaten apple muffin sat in front of me on a cafeteria tray. I’d lost my appetite quick.

  When Daniel had come out of his painkiller stupor the night before, I’d been relieved. It seemed like a good sign. But he was out of it and didn’t seem to remember anything about what happened. He kept talking about Maui and the trade winds, which kind of broke my heart a little.

  The honeymoon was off. We were supposed to leave on a noon flight out of Portland today, and there was no way that was going to happen. Which was just fine with me right now, as long as Daniel would be okay. Maybe later, after he recovered, the pain of the missed honeymoon and the fact that we wouldn’t get another chance at it for at least a year would sink in. But right now, Daniel recovering was all I could really care about.

  And at least I didn’t have the shop to worry over. Tiana was running everything at Cinnamon’s Pies these next two weeks, the way we had arranged months ago when I was planning out the honeymoon. I just thought I’d be in Maui during this time: not in a hospital.

  I sighed and picked at the apple muffin in front of me. My thoughts returned to Daniel.

  When I told him about what happened in the accident, he had stared listlessly at the pale green hospital wall.

  “I guess that’s what happened, then,” he said, his words as numb and empty as I had felt when I got the news that he’d been hurt.

  A moment later, the nurse came around to administer some more painkillers. Daniel floated away into dreamland a few minutes later.

  I tossed and turned that night, sitting in the chair across from him. At 6 a.m., I went downstairs to the mostly-empty cafeteria to get some coffee and breakfast.

  It was little comfort.

  I grabbed a copy of the newspaper and stared at the headline on the front page.

  “Sheriff Badly Injured at Christmas River Rodeo.”

  The author was none other than Erik Andersen.

  I read the article, and then read it a second time.

  Trumbow said Sheriff Brightman was inspecting the trailer area after a complaint was lodged about some children running nearby without a guardian. Trumbow said it is believed that thunder spooked one of the horses in a trailer owned by Bill Bryerson of Meadowlark Ranch in Alfalfa, causing the animal to bolt and trample Brightman.

  Trumbow said all signs point to Bryerson improperly securing the animal, and that when tested, the owner had a blood alcohol level of .07. This is just below the legal limit.

  Brightman was taken to St. Charles Hospital. He received serious injuries, though the extent of these injuries was not revealed to The Redmond Register due to HIPAA privacy laws.

  Calls placed to Cinnamon Peters, Bri
ghtman’s wife, were not returned.

  Trumbow said the investigation into this incident is ongoing.

  I sat there, mulling it over.

  So Trumbow hadn’t been completely honest with me. The accident had been someone’s fault, even if it hadn’t been malicious.

  I shook my head silently.

  “Damn Rodeo,” I said, biting my lip.

  I had never heard of Bill Bryerson. But I had been there at the Rodeo. I saw the amount of drunkenness that went on at the event.

  And though Bryerson hadn’t been drunk outright, he still had no business handling a horse after a few drinks.

  I let out a little sigh and pushed the rag across the table. My thoughts returned to Daniel.

  It looked like he was doing better. But I wasn’t any less worried than I had been. Things could turn quickly, and I told myself that I had to be prepared in case they—

  “I’m sorry about the Sheriff.”

  I looked up from my empty coffee cup, at first happy that there was somebody else here in the vacant cafeteria to talk to.

  But any happiness I felt at having a fellow companion quickly evaporated when I saw who it was.

  “I’ll call Deputy Trumbow,” I said, grabbing my phone. “That’s what he said if any media types start harassing me. I won’t hesitate to call him.”

  “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to,” he said, taking a seat across from me in one of the plastic chairs. “I’m not here to harass you. I’m here to give you a chance to talk, if you want it.”

  I scoffed.

  “And why, on God’s green earth, would I talk to you?”

  Erik Andersen met the worst of my cold, hard stare without flinching. I was sure he’d had a lot of experience looking into the faces of angry people.

  “You’ve given me no reason to trust you,” I said. “No reason to think you wouldn’t just drag my name through the dirt, the way you did with—”

  “Look,” he said, cutting me off abruptly.

  He took in a deep breath.

  “I suck when it comes to writing about pie shops and business owners and all that small town bull that you’re all so fond of reading around here. That’s not what I do. What I am good at, what I really excel at, is covering real stories. Stories that actually mean something.”