“He’s in rough shape, but he’ll recover in a few days. He was heavily dehydrated. Another day or so and that would have been it for him. You told the duty nurse you found him the desert?”
I nodded. “I’ve been looking for him for two days now. I found some notes of his that indicated he’d been looking for something out in the desert. Felix was kind enough to help out, and it was a good thing, because I don’t think I would have found him, otherwise.”
“I see,” Doctor Morris said. His face was as thin as the rest of him, but his expression was too warm to be gaunt. He raised up a thin-fingered hand, ran it through his light-blonde hair and let out an audible hum of curiosity. “Do you have any idea how he got there?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I wish I did. He looked like he’d been—”
“Beaten?” he said, nodding. “He was, actually. Not severely, but enough to leave him with a light concussion and plenty of swelling and bruising. Judging from the marks on his head, he probably passed out at some point during it, as well.” I nodded and the doctor paused, fixing me with a stern gaze that brokered no argument. “So then, Mr. Decroux, I must inform you that in light of Mr. Rocke’s situation and condition, I have notified the police.”
I nodded, my heart sinking a little at the news.
“The actual police?” I asked, forcing myself to relax. “Or Sheriff Hanks?”
“The police,” Dr. Morris said, shaking his head. “I’m not the greatest supporter of Sheriff Hanks myself. He always was a bit of a rabble-rouser when we were boys, and I don’t think he’s changed much. Too quick to jump to conclusions. I think your situation is one where cooler heads are required.”
You have no idea, I thought, thinking back on Hanks’ negative reaction to Unusuals earlier. Then again, maybe you do. I eyed Morris for a moment, both of us silent.
“Unfortunately,” Morris said, his face somewhat apologetic, “the police would like you to stay here until they can come talk to you. They don’t think you did it,” he said quickly. “At least, not that I know of. They’d just like to ask a few questions.”
I gave the doctor another nod. The request didn’t come as much of a surprise. Granted, I’d never actually hauled a beaten, nearly-dead man into a hospital before, but I’d expected there to be some consequences. Of course, that still left one other thing to bring up.
“You did notice that he’s a spook, right?” I asked.
“Of course,” Morris replied, although from his tone I felt that he’d been waiting for me to ask. “We knew the moment we checked his identification.”
“So you’ve already contacted the NSAU?” I asked, probing a little.
He shook his head. “Not me, personally. That’s handled by another department.”
“Well, they’ll want to talk to you about his injuries,” I said, watching as his eyebrows rose. “Trust me, I know from experience. You’d better contact them yourself.” He gave me a nod but little else, and again there was a pause. Across the waiting room from us, someone sneezed.
“Well,” I said, giving him a shrug, “I guess I’ll just wait here until the cops arrive. You wouldn’t be able to tell me when I’ll be able to see Rocke, would you?”
“Well, he’s already recovering, but he needs his rest.” I nodded, and he made a note on his clipboard. “My best advice for you would be that you come by tomorrow morning during visiting hours. If he’s awake then, you can see him. If you need to speak with him and he’s not available, I’m sure we can arrange to have your number left with him. Or for the duty nurse can give you a call when he’s ready for company.”
“Really?” I asked, sitting up in surprise. “You’d do that? Give me a call, I mean?”
Morris smiled. “We’re a small town hospital, Mr. Decroux. We do what we can to make our patients comfortable here. Now, if he doesn’t want to speak to you, there’s not much I can do about that, but since you brought him in—”
“He’ll speak to me,” I said, giving him a grin. “Trust me.”
“I don’t have any reason to doubt you,” Morris said, nodding. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Decroux—”
“Just call me Hawke,” I said, extending my hand.
“Very well, then. Hawke,” he said, offering his own. I gripped it in mine, trying not to picture how his long, thin fingers felt like I was shaking warm sticks. It could have been worse, I supposed. Had they been cold, they might have felt like bone. Not a great image for a doctor.
“In any case, Hawke,” he said, extricating his hand from mine. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to see to. You’ll be here, then?” I nodded again, and Morris gave me one last glance before turning to the other side of the room. “Mrs. Fernandez?”
I watched him for a moment as he spoke with the woman sitting across from me—the one who had sneezed—and a moment later she stood up and followed him past the orderly’s desk, or whatever it was called. It wasn’t because I was curious; I just needed something to follow with my eyes while I thought about things.
Felix had left soon after we’d arrived, citing a need to get home and check on his animals, and I’d let him go before setting up shop in the waiting room. It wasn’t the most impressive waiting room of all time. The carpet was clean and it didn’t smell, but the magazines were all about as old as the paint on the wall and the chairs weren’t built for someone my size.
It wasn’t exactly hopping with business, either, and after spending a few vaguely uninterested minutes perusing a copy of some magazine devoted to games I’d never play, I settled down, alternating between watching people go by and staring at my staff as I ran the day’s events over in my head. More specifically, the last two hour’s events.
It hadn’t been lost on me that Doctor Morris hadn’t mentioned the rope burns on Rocke’s body. The rope tying him to the chair had been thick and coarse, the kind that pricked your hands when you touched it. It’d been tied fairly tightly, too. Not tightly enough to do damage, but enough that I’d simply opted cut him loose.
His legs had been tied, too, firmly lashed to the legs of the chair. A third length of rope had been looped around his midsection and upper thighs for good measure. Luckily, it had loosened enough at some point that we’d been able to cut it away easily.
Past that, we hadn’t been able to do much. I’d burned through a good amount of the energy stored in my staff to give Rocke’s body a boost, but it hadn’t been much. Shamans were supposed to be skilled healers, but it wasn’t something I’d ever invested my time in. I’d only been able to get his awareness to center on us for a moment, at which point he’d seen my staff and muttered something about Gandalf before passing out again.
The brief influx I’d given him was just enough to wake him up and help him stabilize, but not enough to keep him awake. His words were a pretty good indication of his mental state, though—he’d been alert enough to make a joke.
After he’d passed out, Felix and I had pooled our water and dampened his clothes; Rocke’s skin had been hot to the touch, despite the cave’s coolness. Between the two of us, we’d carried him back to the road, where I’d run ahead to fetch my Rover. The sun had been setting by the time we’d pulled back onto a paved road with Rocke in the back, his life force muted but stronger than it had been when we’d found him.
All in all, the entire experience was worrying. Someone had gotten the drop on Rocke somehow and left him tied up in the middle of nowhere, quite possibly without any intent to return. I knew Rocke had definitely made his fair share of enemies over the years; no one who worked publicly as a spook was immune to that. But those enemies had left him a cautious man. Whoever had done this had either been very dangerous, or very lucky. My bet was on the former.
The waiting room doors slid open with a faint hiss, and I looked up as two police officers walked in. Their eyes met mine, and they headed right for me, not even bothering to ask the man behind the desk if I was there. I sat up, mentally bracing myself and wondering if
I was in for another round of the treatment I’d had from Hanks.
“Are you Hawke Decroux?” one of them asked, his voice surprisingly pleasant. He held out his hand, and I took it. “I’m Officer Sanchez,” he said, giving my hand a good, firm shake that seemed friendly enough. “This is my partner, Officer Carlton.”
“Hi there,” Carlton said, taking my hand as Officer Sanchez let go of it. His handshake was much the same, warm and friendly.
“You’re the guy who found Jacob Rocke, right?” Officer Sanchez asked.
“Yeah, that was me,” I said, leaning back in my seat and taking in the pair. Sanchez was shorter than his partner, probably standing no higher than the middle of my chest, while Carlton was definitely a few inches past six feet. Both looked young, almost as if they were fresh out of the academy, but Sanchez had a look in his eyes that said his youthful looks were less accurate than most would guess.
“Just you?” Officer Carlton asked, and I shook my head.
“No, no. I had help. Felix Bayou was with me.” Carlton nodded and glanced at Sanchez.
“Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” Sanchez asked, grabbing one of the nearby chairs. He pulled it across the carpet with a droning whine that was matched moments later by his partner doing the same. The nurse behind the desk looked up at us in mild interest, but once he saw who it was, he went back to whatever it was he was doing, apparently unconcerned.
“You’re not a suspect or anything,” Sanchez said, shifting in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees. I had a feeling he was watching my face carefully for my response to his use of the term “suspect.” “But one of the doctors here that said the man you brought in had been beaten.”
“And tied up,” I said, noting the complete lack of surprise in their expressions as I said it. They’d known, and whether I was a suspect or not, they were definitely fishing for information. “Not to mention dehydrated after being in the desert for at least two days.” Again, no response. Clearly, this was information they already had.
“If you wouldn’t mind, could you tell us exactly how you found this friend of yours?” Carlton asked, his question direct. Maybe he was going to play the bad cop. “What were you doing out in the desert in the first place?”
“Looking for him,” I said, figuring the best answer was a straightforward one. “I was supposed to meet him at my motel yesterday morning, and he never showed up. When he didn’t show up this morning, I started get getting worried. His phone had a route to the south of the valley planned out—”
“How’d you get his phone?” Carlton interrupted.
“His car was unlocked. The phone was on the front seat,” I said. “I found it when I was tried to call him.”
“Why do you think he went to south end of the valley?” Carlton asked, interrupting me again. “Was he looking to go camping?”
“He was trying to track down the chupacabra that’s been bothering you guys,” I said. “Rocke is a spook.”
That got their attention. Both of them sat up, eyebrows rising as they glanced at one another. If they were faking their surprise, they were doing a dang good job. I held my breath as they turned back towards me. If the animosity towards Unusuals that Hanks had shown earlier was mirrored in the police force, my life was about to get very interesting.
“A spook?” Sanchez asked, taking over for his partner. “One of those guys who works for the NSAU?”
“One and the same,” I said, nodding. “I’m registered myself. Native American shaman.”
“Damn it!” Carlton said, slapping his hands against his knees and leaning back with a frustrated look on his face. “I hate dealing with you guys.” His eyes widened in realization at what he’d said, and he held up his hands, waving them first at me and then at his partner. Sanchez gave him an odd look. “Not like that! That’s not what I meant! I was talking about all the paperwork!”
“It’s fine,” I said, waving a hand at Sanchez and grinning to show I wasn’t offended. “I understand, believe me. The NSAU loves its paperwork. So you didn’t know?”
“That you guys were NSAU?” Sanchez asked, frowning at Carlton before turning back towards me. “No, we were just told that you’d brought a wounded man in from the desert and that he’d been beaten.”
“Sorry,” I said, lifting my staff up towards eye level and letting them both get a good look at it. “I guess I should have mentioned that first.”
“So you were out there looking for him, then?”
I nodded. “Yeah. He didn’t meet me when I arrived, and I backtracked what he’d done about looking into this chupacabra thing and figured he’d be looking for it in the south of the valley.”
“Any reason he’d be looking there?”
“Henderson Mining wouldn’t let him on their land,” I said. “They told me the same thing when I asked about it: dangerous mine shafts or some other excuse.”
“Alright,” Sanchez said, a pen appearing in one hand as if by magic accompanied by a small notepad in the other. “So you were trying to find him,” he said, making a note on the pad. “Did you suspect that he was in trouble?”
“I was worried he was,” I admitted, recalling how I’d examined his room at the motel. “But I didn’t have any proof that it was anything other than him being his usual workaholic self.”
“He’s a hard worker?”
“The kind you have to force to relax,” I said, nodding. “I was a bit suspicious, but none of his clients seemed worried and I didn’t have anything concrete—well, except that one of his clients went missing, too.”
The pair exchanged glances. “You mean David Jefferson?” Carlton asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and they glanced at each other again. “Sheriff Hanks seems to be convinced that Rocke had something to do with it.”
“If he knows he’s an Unusual, it’s possible. He’s not exactly vocal about it, but I’ve gotten the impression our sheriff doesn’t have the greatest opinion of Unusuals,” Sanchez said dryly. His pen made a furious little tapping noise against his pad, like a woodpecker that couldn’t decide on a rhythm or a stopping point. “Did they disappear around the same time?”
“Are you guys investigating the Jefferson case?” I asked, hesitant to implicate Rocke in Jefferson’s disappearance.
“No,” Carlton said, shaking his head. “His wife went right to the sheriff, doesn’t want us to have a thing to do with it.” Sanchez shook his head. I could tell it was a sore point with them.
“As far as I know,” I said, “the last anyone saw Rocke was the same day that Jefferson went missing.” I figured they’d find out before long, even if I didn’t tell them. “But as far as it being related, I don’t know. Rocke was working for him and the other victims of the attacks, and Jefferson was the one he was asking about being let onto mine’s land so he could look for the chupacabra. Once Jefferson told him that he couldn’t, though, Rocke gave it up.”
“And you know all this how?” Sanchez asked, leaning forward slightly.
“Talking to people, mostly,” I said. “I didn’t know that Jefferson was one of Rocke’s clients until this morning. I talked with his wife, and she gave me the rundown.”
“I see,” Sanchez said, his shoulders relaxing as I leaned back. I let out a small sigh of relief that I hadn’t had to mention the chain of cell phone messages I’d found. “If you wouldn’t mind, could we get the names of the clients your friend was working for?”
“Felix Bayou, David Jefferson, and the Salas family,” I said. “I haven’t met the fourth one.”
“That’s all right,” Sanchez said, smiling as he made a few more notes on his pad. “We can ask Mrs. Salas. She give you any food?”
“A jar of jam,” I responded, and Sanchez nodded. It apparently hadn’t been a random act of kindness.
“Getting back on topic,” Carlton said, his eyes darting to his partner and then back to me. “The doctor said that one of you had mentioned you found him in a cave somewhere?”
/> “At the base of one of those buttes,” I said, nodding as I thought back on the small opening I’d stepped through. “And before you ask, he was tied up when we found him. To a chair, of all things.”
“You suspect foul play, then?”
“Who wouldn’t?” I asked, giving Carlton a look I hoped conveyed the disappointment I felt at the question. “He couldn’t have tied himself to a chair and then beaten himself up, that’s for sure.”
“Could you show us the cave?”
“No,” I said. “Not that I don’t want to. I’d just have trouble finding it again. You’d have to ask Felix.”
“Did you leave the cave like you found it?”
“Aside from grabbing Rocke, yeah.”
“Do you have any idea who might have done this to him?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. You’d have to ask Rocke. He and I are friends, but if he has enemies that followed him here or he made here, then I’m in the dark.”
Sanchez frowned. “Do you think someone might have followed him?”
“He’s never said anything about that happening before, but I suppose it is possible. You’d have to ask him to be sure, though.”
Officer Sanchez let out a sigh and sat back in his chair. “Is there anything else you could tell us?”
I leaned back as I considered the question, thinking back on what they’d asked and what I’d answered. In truth, there was something else that had happened at the cave that I hadn’t mentioned to them yet: Mercury’s strange behavior, the way she’d curled up in a fearful ball, whining and refusing to move. There had been an unsettling feeling in the cave, but not nearly strong enough to explain her reaction.
“I’m not sure,” I said, shaking my head. “But, if you guys go check out that cave, be careful, all right? Mercury didn’t like something about it.”
“Mercury?”
“Felix’s border collie,” I said. “She was the one who found Rocke, but she sort of freaked out after she did.”
“Any idea why?”
I shook my head. “No, I was a little preoccupied with grabbing Rocke, but she didn’t like something about that cave.”
Dead Silver Page 13
