Cold Heart

by Karen Pullen

  “Of course,” I said, thinking I might quiz her about Nikki Truly. “What’s a good time?”

  “After work tomorrow? Around six. I’ll fix your Lemon Zinger!” Drinking tea in Dr. Soto’s office—a good memory.

  “Excuse me? Agent Lavender?” said a man’s voice behind me. I turned to face Dr. Newell and Zoë Schubert. Zoë had changed the clothes she’d worn to the funeral, into a tailored charcoal-gray suit and matching shoes, livened up with an apple-green scarf. Her board look. “We were glad to hear the Mercer child has been found,” Dr. Newell said. “What happened to her?”

  I shrugged, hating how little I knew. “It’s a mystery.”

  “Stella, my friend,” Dr. Soto said, slipping her arm around my waist and squeezing, “see you tomorrow at six. Gotta run now.” She walked quickly through the lobby, her curls bouncing.

  “I thought you might be here because of the child,” Zoë said to me.

  “I was visiting someone.”

  “Oh?” She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows a millimeter. I could almost hear her wondering who it was.

  “How’s Nikki doing?” I asked.

  “Well, you know. She’s glad about Paige.”

  “She’s found somewhere else to go,” said Wesley. We all looked at him. “She’s been hanging out with Bryce.”

  Zoë’s face turned pink. “What?”

  “My son. The two of them were together yesterday afternoon. I saw them leave his place together.”

  “That was Bryce who spoke at the service yesterday, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “He seemed like a nice young man,” Dr. Newell said. “Perhaps they are a comfort to each other.”

  The rest of us looked at the floor.

  My cell phone chimed and I stepped away from them. It was Clementine, her voice panicky. “Stella, you still here? They think Lincoln’s stopped breathing!”

  I ran back up the escalator and down what seemed a mile of corridor to the ICU. Through the door I could see a crew of nurses and doctors surrounding Lincoln’s bed, inserting tubes and needles with a hushed urgency.

  Clementine and Sue huddled just outside the ICU. Clementine patted her cheekbones rapidly; Sue leaned against her, peering through a glass window.

  “What happened?” I asked, trying to catch my breath.

  Sue must have realized that her mother was in no shape to talk, as she answered me. “After you left, we talked with Daddy for a while. He wanted to sleep, so we went to the cafeteria for a snack. When we got back, a nurse wouldn’t let us in. She said he was having trouble breathing!”

  We waited and listened, trying to assess what they were doing to Lincoln and what the outcome would be. The number of staff busy around him was reassuring. The plump middle-aged nurse who’d set up the pump came into the hall, so I showed her my ID and asked what happened.

  “I just don’t understand it,” she said. “As soon as I saw he was having trouble, I checked the morphine pump. It was fine, all settings normal. But somehow he overdosed.”

  “Who was with him after his wife and daughter left?” I asked.

  “I was monitoring the equipment, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Anyone in this room besides patients?”

  She looked around. “Well, sure. Visitors. I was getting meds ready.”

  Clementine finally stopped tapping and put her arm around Sue. “The poor man’s had some bad luck lately,” she said.

  No. Not bad luck, or bad karma, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I was paranoid, but possibly someone had tried to kill Lincoln a second time. I said nothing to Clementine, though. She didn’t even know about the severed brakes; Anselmo had wanted that kept confidential for a few days.

  It had never occurred to me that a second attempt on his life would be made in the ICU. Lincoln could blame me for not protecting him. It wouldn’t happen again. I called the police department and asked them to send a security detail. Until it was set up, I would guard him myself.

  A white coat separated from the crowd around Lincoln’s bed and came toward us. “Ladies,” said Dr. Beckert, “we pulled him back. The man was heading toward the white light, but we performed a miracle.”

  Clementine’s cold expression and mottled cheeks told me she was unimpressed by his bedside manner. “Someone made a mistake. As a lawyer, I know malpractice when I see it.”

  Dr. Beckert’s chin patch quivered as he looked over his shoulder to see who was listening. He patted her shoulder as you would a child’s. “Now, now, Mrs. Teller, calm down. The hospital will thoroughly investigate this incident.”

  “Calm down?” She gripped the doctor’s arm with both hands. Her voice carried down the hall and people turned to look. “Lincoln Teller nearly dies in your hospital, and all you care about is calming me down?”

  He blanched and pried at her fingers. “Please let go of me. He’s going to be all right. We injected naloxone and he’s being closely monitored. You can see him in a few minutes.” He finally succeeded in loosening her grip and trotted down the hall.

  Clementine sagged against the wall and stared at the floor, rolling her head from side to side. Sue crept into the ICU, to her father’s bedside, and took his hand.

  Once more I had to tell Clementine I was sorry. This time, I felt personally responsible. I should have known Lincoln was in danger.

  A police officer arrived and I filled her in. She promised to vet every person who came near Lincoln Teller’s bed, but anyone with a white coat could walk into the ICU, stick a syringe into an IV port, and walk out. The setup was ideal for murder.

  An hour later, I sat on Fern’s rickety porch steps as a soft gray mist fell gently. For a few peaceful minutes, entertained by Merle out in the field, I forgot my worries. He was pouncing and digging feverishly, probably after a mole, one of the thousands heaving up tunnels every spring. From the hemlock next to the porch steps, a Carolina wren warned me with a raspy buzz to keep my distance from her nest. A slow drip, drip into a bucket reminded me why I was here—to meet a contractor for a bid on the repair work.

  Axles squeaked as a truck bounced over the driveway ruts. Sam Norris General Contracting, it said on the side. Sam Norris himself emerged, sturdy and rugged as ever, though his brown curls that once begged to be tousled were now thinning a bit. I’d had a serious crush on him in senior high, post−Biker Cheek, but the only time he’d ever noticed me was at a party after too much beer. We both lay on the floor and talked about me. I didn’t remember much of the conversation, just that he said I would have an interesting life. He was kind and hunky and I wanted to kiss him, but his girlfriend Emma was passed out behind us on the couch and someone would have told her.

  Sam was now affluent, I’d heard. I shook his hand. “I didn’t think you’d come yourself,” I said. He had a sixty-home development going up near Big Pine Road, and I’d seen his sign on the site of a recently completed office building in Verwood.

  “I’m glad you called. I wondered when you were going to get around to the repairs on this place. It’s such a great old farmhouse,” he said. We wandered around and he took lots of notes. “I can have a crew here tomorrow, if you want to get started. You and Fern go to the plumbing supply showroom, tell them you’ve hired me. They’ll give you the contractor price.”

  “Tomorrow? That’s amazing. Usually it takes weeks to get remodeling started around here.”

  “There’s an open window for one of my crews right now. And if we wait another day, this place might fall down.” He seemed in no hurry to leave and accepted my offer of iced tea. He told me he got a divorce a year ago. “I hate it, Stella,” he said. “I feel like such a failure sometimes. Twenty-seven and already divorced.”

  I didn’t want to be nosy but he seemed to want to talk. “What happened?”

  He shook his head. “Emma started grad school, and I was building my business, and both of us got to where we liked working more than we liked being together. The only time we talked was to fi
ght over who would watch our son, Garrett.”

  “Bring him over here. He can help Merle find gopher holes.”

  Sam laughed. “I heard you’re with the SBI. I was right about the interesting life, wasn’t I?”

  “I can’t believe you remember that conversation.”

  “You told me you were poor and would have to work hard. I remembered, because my folks didn’t have money either. The working hard part is still true, isn’t it? And you had the sense to stay single.”

  “Not for want of trying.” I told him about Hogan, our engagement, our breakup. My phone chimed, rescuing me from recounting miserable details. I told Fern I’d call her back in a few minutes. Sam took the interruption as a cue to leave. He promised to phone me with a bid the next day. I watched him drive away, pleased that my high school crush now felt more like warm friendship.

  The rain had stopped and a rainbow of coral, gold, and plum dressed the sky. I called Merle in from his hunt. He was wet and muddy so I splashed him with rainwater, then rubbed him down with an old towel—he loved it.

  When I called Fern back, she reminded me about a dance Saturday night, a fundraiser for the schools’ arts program. “Remember, Stella? At the Mill? You bought a ticket. Also, can you make some dip? We’re getting people to bring appetizers so all the money can go to the schools.” I had pushed the event out of my short-term memory because it meant dress-up for the second time in a week.

  “Everyone who’s anyone will be there,” she said. “And I made you a dress.”

  “What does it look like?” Fern was an excellent seamstress, though her taste in formal wear was bolder than mine. I hoped it wasn’t strapless, backless, and slit to the hip.

  “It’s red, very conservative. It’s here at Temple’s.”

  Even though the dance was a fundraiser, I wasn’t sure whether my appearance at a public frolic was wise, with no arrests in Mercer’s murder and two attempts on Lincoln Teller’s life. I guess I could claim I was working, even carrying a bowl of guacamole. You never know what’s going to happen at a dance when everyone who’s anyone is in attendance.

  CHAPTER 14

  Thursday early evening

  Dr. Emilie Soto had asked me to drop by at six. Her office occupied a small frame house on a quiet Verwood street, across from a graveyard dating back to the Civil War. I looked forward to seeing her, telling her that her guidance had put me back on the right path. So much had changed in the last ten years. Back then, at sixteen, I had been poised to escape—to just about anywhere, as long as it took me away from Fern’s flirting and paint-dabbing and bills she couldn’t pay. I had wanted to attack life with the outrage and anger I had carried since I was five, since the day someone abducted my mother while I, unwitting, waited in her car.

  Some grain of self-preservation made me listen to Dr. Soto when she told me to turn my rage into a positive force. I listened, and decided to make homicide investigation my life’s work. If that sounds melodramatic—well, it was.

  I arrived just as a group of women of varied ages was leaving. “My relationship group,” Emilie told me. She wore a mango-colored linen dress and a necklace of shells—tiny shrimp-and pearl-colored conches. Today her silver curls were pulled back into a shell barrette. She was round, colorful, and I loved her. “A support group. I try to keep them focused, remind them what’s healthy.”

  “I should join.”

  “You’d be welcome. But that’s not why you’re visiting! Here’s your Lemon Zinger. Sit down and tell me all about yourself. I must tell you how happy I was to see you yesterday. You looked so professional, so successful.”

  “Fooled you, did I?”

  She clasped her hands over her heart. “I knew you’d achieve your goals. Fern must be proud.”

  “I think she’s reconciled to it.”

  “And you chose law enforcement.”

  “Not exactly. It’s the investigative part I like, the search. That’s why I wanted to join the SBI rather than a police department.”

  “Finding the bad guys. And hopefully removing them from circulation.”

  I had removed my shoes out of habit, and now, curled up in the overstuffed chair, I sipped my tea. The antique clock ticked softly in the corner, and I smelled vanilla and some other spice, cinnamon or nutmeg, from the bowl of potpourri on her desk. What a safe-feeling place she’d created. “I probably never told you how grateful I was for you, back then,” I said.

  “No need to say it. You trusted me, such a gift. Tell me, how did you get into the SBI?”

  “I was lucky.”

  “No, you worked for it.”

  “I got a BS in criminal justice from State, and then I interned with the SBI. I guess I made a decent impression. That’s the lucky part.” I told her about the training, my assignment as an undercover drug agent. “And now I’m working on the murder of Kent Mercer.”

  Emilie’s smile faded. “Ah, yes. I have been following that case. The missing baby, such a worry. And a relief, when she was found. Her poor mother . . . what she’s been through.”

  “Do you know her? Temple Mercer?”

  She nodded. “I do.”

  Temple might be a client, but I knew Emilie wouldn’t confirm it. “Funny thing,” I mused. “Fern told me the child was okay. I don’t know if she knew something, or was just an optimist.”

  “This is a small town, Stella. You can’t keep a secret around here.”

  “You must know secrets.” I sipped my tea.

  “But I can’t ever share them, unless I think someone’s life is in danger. I do know a secret connected to your case.”

  I set my mug on the table. “Tell!”

  “I’ll talk with my client. Perhaps.” She clasped my hands in both of hers, pulling me closer. “Be patient?”

  “There’s a murderer out there thinking up new ways to kill Lincoln Teller. I can’t be patient. I want to stop this.”

  Emilie looked puzzled. “This has nothing to do with Lincoln Teller. It’s a delicate situation. I’ll let you know if I think anyone is at risk.”

  I had to accept that promise. I stood. “Come say hello to Merle, the well-adjusted one of the family.”

  She laughed. “You turned out all right.” We walked outside. The bakery a block away had filled the air with the aroma of warm bread, making me hungry. I let Merle out of the car to greet her. He sniffed her hand politely, and wagged his tail as she leaned down to scratch his ears. The shells of her necklace swung above his head.

  “Merle’s a lucky fellow to have you as his person.” She rubbed between his shoulders.

  “You have it backwards. I’m the lucky one.”

  “What good manners he has,” she said. I felt a surge of gratitude toward her, and Merle, for being in my life.

  Then a gunshot shattered our peace forever.

  I felt the first bullet, a whoosh of air pressure inches from my head, as I heard a rifle’s crack. I dropped to the ground, pushing Merle down under me, reached up for Emilie, too late, for a snapping pop sprayed her blood everywhere and she collapsed. The three of us lay in a gasping whimpering knot for an instant. We couldn’t stay there. I had to get us to the other side of the car, to put it between us and the shooter across the street in the graveyard.

  I dragged Emilie around the car, waiting for the next gunshot to finish her, or hit me, or Merle, who bounded into the open, barking angrily at the sound of the gun. I screamed his name but he wouldn’t come, and I had to go out there and pull him, angry now because he was being a stupid dog, risking us both. Then someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat—at least that’s what it felt like.

  I lay on the ground, stunned, not sure what happened until I touched my forehead and my fingers came away bloody and I realized a bullet had grazed me. Adrenaline took over and I scuttled around the car, dragging Merle after me. He whined and wriggled and I took deep breaths. I knew my injury had to be superficial—I was conscious, rational, terrified.

  But Emilie’s injury
wasn’t superficial. Her breathing was a harsh choking, and no wonder—she’d been shot in the throat and I guessed blood was running into her lungs. There was blood everywhere, filling the little conch shells of her necklace, sprayed onto her silver curls. I eased her onto her side, thinking it might help her breathe.

  I slid into the backseat, onto the floor, reached for my phone, and called nine-one-one for officer down, backup, and an ambulance. I pressed my jacket to Emilie’s neck, listened to her bubbling attempts to breathe. I stroked her hair and watched her eyes. “Hold on,” I whispered, “they’re almost here.” She looked up, into the clouds.

  What just happened? She wouldn’t die, would she? Where was the goddam ambulance?

  After a short eternity I heard sirens, and Anselmo called on my cell.

  “We’re here. Are you all right?” he asked. “Where are you?”

  “In my car. I’m OK. Hurry, Dr. Soto needs help.”

  “We have to secure the area before the ambulance can come in, so hold on. We’ll keep talking.”

  “Hurry. Thanks. Please,” and it was true, I was grateful, more than he could possibly realize, to have another human being who could hear me if I had anything to say like help come get me. Emilie’s breathing had become harsher. I whispered meaningless encouraging things to her. You’ll be okay soon. Here they are. Just hold on.

  “We’re encircling the graveyard across the street now,” he said. “Did you see a person or a car?”

  “No, with the first shot I got down.”

  “We’re not seeing anything over here. It’s deserted. The shooter is gone.”

  I heard the vehicles pull up. Paramedics began to work on Emilie with skill and urgency. One asked me, “Are you hurt?” I held up my hand and shook my head, no.

  Anselmo gently pulled my hair back. “It’s just a graze, right at the hairline,” he said. I could feel the blood trickling down my face. I was still jumpy, and wanted to tell him to drop and hide, so that no bullet would pierce his chest and dull his warm black eyes. I kept my cowardice to myself and slowly pulled myself out of the car. I looked over the EMTs’ shoulders at Emilie. Her eyes were open, her breathing ragged. I knelt and took her hand, her plump, freckled, warm hand.