by David Wind
“Steven—”
“Damn it, Chuck, why are you doing this to me?”
Latham’s expressive face altered again. The intensity left his eyes; the furrows on his forehead cleared. “The next twenty-four hours are crucial. If she survives them, and remains in stable condition, there’s an excellent chance for recovery.”
Latham’s words were a hand closing around his heart. His anger drained; the doubts raised by Latham’s earlier words disappeared as his neatly ordered world fell apart.
Like a blind man trying to cross an unfamiliar street, he let Latham guide him across the lobby and into a waiting elevator. “And the coma?” he finally asked.
Latham rubbed his palms together in a nervous gesture. “Let’s wait until we’re upstairs. The neurosurgeon can explain it better than I.”
On the fourth floor, Latham took him to the ICU section of neurology: five windowed double rooms surrounding a central nurses’ station. There, Latham introduced him to Daniel Skolnick, the neurosurgeon who had performed the emergency surgery on Ellie.
Skolnick was a short man with a high forehead and brown intelligent eyes. After shaking hands with him, Skolnick said, “About Miss Rogers’ condition—”
Steven cut off the neurosurgeon. “I’d like to see Ellie before we talk,”
“Of course,” Skolnick agreed.
The two doctors accompanied him to Ellie’s room, but hung back when he went to the side of the bed.
He stared at her for a moment, trying not to believe the bandaged shape in the center of the bed was Ellie. Just looking at her hurt more than he could ever have imagined. Overlapping bandages hid most of her features, which left only a small pale oval from her lower lip and ending at her eyebrows.
Her eyes were closed; the left swollen and purplish black. Three jagged scratches marred the surface of her left cheek. A narrow, white line of teeth showed between her pale lips.
The tube of a clear plastic oxygen line ran upward from her nose. Three IV bottles hung from a stainless steel pole, their contents blending into a single line ending in her right arm. A bank of monitors was set on the wall. Wires ran from the machines to Ellie’s head and chest.
She was so still that if he hadn’t seen the slight movement of her chest pushing against the covers, he would have believed her dead, no matter what the instruments above the bed claimed.
He was numb, lost, afraid for her, and for himself. He reached for Ellie’s hand. Behind him, Latham and the neurosurgeon waited.
Steven pressed her hand between both of his. Her skin was cool, her hand unresponsive. Still holding her hand, he turned to face the doctors. “Tell me.”
“She was in the water about twenty minutes,” Latham said. “Luckily, she wasn’t fully submerged. When they brought her in, they were able to stabilize her before surgery.”
Steven focused on the surgeon. “The surgery?”
“Was successful,” Skolnick said, his voice professionally unemotional. “We were able to clean out the bone fragments imbedded in her brain. We joined the break in her skull and the bone will knit. But I’m afraid there’s no way to judge fully the severity of the physical damage to the brain.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
The neurosurgeon met Steven’s stare. “Barring death, and utilizing what knowledge we have of the human brain and its abilities to regenerate and compensate, I believe in all likelihood, when Miss Rogers emerges from the coma, she will have no long-term or short-term memory. Random fragments at best, nothing more.”
“Amnesia?”
Skolnick shook his head once, sharply. “Only in the broadest sense. The brain trauma Miss Rogers suffered was more than just a simple blow to the head. Small bone splinters went into the brain, destroying quantities of brain tissue. In Miss Rogers’ case, the damage is in the area that controls memory, and a few minor motor functions.”
Steven’s vision blurred. He tightened his hold on Ellie’s hand. “Are you positive she’s lost her memory?”
“As certain as I can be. I’ve had a great deal of experience in this area of trauma. Mr. Morrisy, I’m truly sorry.”
Steven massaged his temples with his left hand. “I won’t accept that.”
The surgeon grasped Steven’s shoulder and pressed gently before leaving the room.
“I wish there was some way to say it isn’t true, but it is,” Latham said after Skolnick was gone.
There was a knock on the door, followed by a nurse calling Latham’s name. “I’ll be back.”
Steven looked at her. But he didn’t see the Ellie who lay in the hospital bed, comatose; he saw the Ellie he had always known, the Ellie he loved.
He looked down at her hand. Her emerald engagement ring was missing.
“Steven,” Latham called from behind him, “Sheriff Banacek wants a word with you.”
“In a little while.”
“It has to be now, Steven.”
Caught short by Latham’s curt tone, he turned to his friend. “Why?”
Latham shifted his feet uncomfortably, his troubled expression deepening. “I’m sorry, Steven. Where were you last night?”
Steven’s breath whistled from between his lips. He was no longer able to dismiss the subconscious warnings he’d been ignoring since Arnie Savak’s call. He stood to face Latham. Anger controlled his movements.
He took a step toward Latham. “You son-of-a-bitch. We’ve known each other since...since we could walk. You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“You know damned well I am,” Latham retorted, red-faced and defensive. “Which is why you have to answer me.”
He stared at Latham, but saw another person, a shadow out of his past. “I was home.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Don’t push me, Chuck. Not now.”
“Damn it, Steven. Haven’t you worked it out yet? Don’t you understand? Ellie wasn’t in an accident. She didn’t end up in the lake because her car went off the road. Someone put her into the lake. Steven, someone tried to kill Ellie last night.”
Steven recoiled. The thought of anyone trying to kill Ellie sickened him. He sucked in a ragged breath “I was home all night, working. I was alone, except for a couple of hours when Sam and Larry came by.”
“Lomack and Londrigan?” Latham asked, the tension draining from his features.
Steven jabbed a forefinger into his friend’s chest. “I want you to tell me what the hell happened to Ellie. I want to know all of it.”
Latham went to Ellie’s side. He pulled the light covers down to her knees and raised the hospital gown, exposing her from mid-thigh to below her breasts.
A large gauze bandage covered her stomach, held in place by micropore tape. Latham glanced at Steven. Their eyes locked, and Steven thought Latham was trying to tell him something without speaking. Then, slowly and carefully, Latham peeled the tape from her skin. A muscle pulsed on the side of Latham’s jaw.
Steven was surprised to see Latham’s fingers trembling as the doctor drew the bandage down. The instant the first angry red line came into view, Steven knew exactly what Latham had tried to tell him with his eyes.
Bile flooded his mouth. He wished he were somewhere else; but made himself look at Ellie’s abdomen. Some of the cuts were short and precise lines not more than an inch long. Others ran for several inches. One went from hip to hip, curving like a nude model’s gold chain. There were dozens of cuts.
He closed his eyes. His mind spinning backward, leaping over the years to a past he had spent over a decade trying to forget. He smelled rot and decay, and felt lice crawling over his skin. Then a scream began to build in his mind.
His eyes snapped open. He wiped a hand across his lips, wanting a drink of water to wash away the foulness. In the background, a code blue issued from the loudspeakers. He heard the rattling of a crash cart, and the quick cadence of rushing feet. He grabbed onto the sidebar of Ellie’s bed and held it tight to help him keep his balance.
“A razo
r was used on her stomach,” Latham said. “We found salt residue on her skin. She was tortured, Steven.”
Steven stared at the hideous red lines crisscrossing Ellie’s stomach. He wanted to turn away, to hide, but he was caught in a grip of such horror he could only continue to look at the violation of Ellie’s skin.
“I’m sorry, Steven,” Latham said, replacing the bandage and covering her.
“Her stomach, Chuck. It’s just li—”
“I know,” Latham said sharply, while casting a warning at him. “The sheriff will explain it to you. We can use my office.”
Steven shook his head. He wouldn’t leave her alone, not yet. “Send him up here.”
“It would be better in private.”
“Here.”
Latham gestured toward the window facing the nurses’ station. A warning prickle at Latham’s unexpected movement raised the hackles on his neck. He looked through the observation window and saw a large man in a khaki sheriff’s uniform.
“He’s been out there all this time?” At Latham’s nod, Steven glanced at the two-way speaker above Ellie’s bed. He looked back at Latham, feeling betrayed by his closest friend. “He heard us too, I suppose.”
“Every word, Mr. Morrisy,” Sheriff William Banacek said when he entered the room.
Banacek was a bear of a man, gray-haired and a few years past middle age. He stood well over six feet and was barrel chested and wide shouldered. His full features, ruddy complexion, and sharp eyes bespoke Slavic ancestry. Steven knew Banacek by reputation only. The sheriff was said to be a decent man.
“I heard what you had to say, Mr. Morrisy.” Banacek’s gaze rested heavy on Steven. “And as Doctor Latham has already explained, Miss Rogers was not supposed to be in this hospital bed. She was supposed to be in the morgue.”
Steven remained silent, keeping his questions, and his pain, to himself.
“I spent two hours at the scene last night. I went back when the sun came up. Our preliminary findings confirm Miss Rogers was in the lake before the car went in.”
“There’s no reason for anyone to want her dead,” Steven said at last. But the cuts on Ellie’s abdomen could not possibly have come from an automobile accident. They were proof Banacek and Latham were right. “Why?”
“There usually is a reason, Mr. Morrisy, even if we don’t know what it is yet.” Banacek looked at Ellie’s face. “And there are a lot of crazy people in this world.”
“You think a psycho kidnapped and tortured Ellie?”
“I don’t know who did it,” the sheriff said bluntly. “Even before we knew about Miss Rogers’ wounds, we were certain it wasn’t an accident. As I said, Miss Rogers was in the lake before the car went into the water. My deputy found her hanging onto the passenger-side mirror.”
Steven stared at Ellie’s bruised and discolored eye while he listened to the sheriff. He used his anger to give him the strength to keep listening.
“The initial fingerprint dusting picked up only her prints, and primarily on the passenger side of the car,” Banacek continued, “but forensics dug up a second set. The technician found grain patterns left by leather gloves. They found the same prints on the driver’s side of the car, the emergency brake, and the steering wheel. Miss Rogers wasn’t wearing gloves.”
“Which doesn’t mean much,” Steven said. “She could have been thrown out of the window, or the door could have come open.”
“There’s always that possibility in an accident, but it’s not what happened. Whoever tried to kill Miss Rogers was sure that no one would find either she or the car until next spring. The section of the lake where Miss Rogers was found is not only deep, but the ice conveniently thin. Mr. Morrisy, the driver’s window was two-thirds of the way up. There’s no possibility of her going through it. The door was locked and secure.”
Banacek raised his hand to stop Steven’s objection. “I know. Freak occurrences are within the realm of an accident. But even if she was in the driver’s seat, and she had somehow been thrown out the window, how did she manage to shut off the ignition?” Banaacek paused.
“She didn’t. There wasn’t a single one of her fingerprints on the steering wheel. However, her prints were on the passenger window and door handle. Did you know her car had one of those ignition locks? Sure you do. All cars have them nowadays, ones that lock the steering wheel when the ignition’s turned off.”
Banacek scratched absently at the stubble on his jaw, producing a sandpaper sound. “Which brings up another interesting detail. The tires were dead straight, but the tracks in the snow, leading from the edge of the road, curved at one point.”
“Which means what?” Chuck Latham asked, speaking for the first time since the sheriff’s entrance.
“The car was driven off the road and onto the embankment. Then the driver maneuvered it into a position that pointed toward the lake and straightened the front wheels so the car would track directly to the water. He turned the ignition off so the steering wheel locked into place. Then the emergency brake was released.”
“But something went wrong.” An ethereal sense of calmness, underscored by a gripping tension, washed over Steven. It was the way he’d always felt in Nam—just before going into action.
“Which was lucky for Miss Rogers…for us too. Because of the embankment’s incline, and the ice and snow, the car slid. Its rear fender hit a tree, slowing it enough for the back tires to hang up on the old roots leading into the lake. The car ended up on an angle, the front end in the water. Instead of disappearing into the lake, Mr. Morrisy, where the blood on the fender would have washed off, it hung up. Which gives us the evidence we need to prove attempted murder.
“There was no blood inside the vehicle, but there was plenty of it on the fender which struck her in the head. The passenger-side fender, Mr. Morrisy. That’s how we knew she was in the water first.”
Steven’s gaze strayed beyond the sheriff’s shoulder to the nurses’ station. Two women in pale blue uniforms chatted. On the wall behind them was a chalkboard filled with patients’ names and room numbers. He saw Ellie’s name and number.
“Why was she out alone last night?” the sheriff asked.
He stared at Banacek while trying to figure out a reason for Ellie’s presence in Greyton. He couldn’t come up with one. “I don’t have an answer for you, Sheriff. Ellie shouldn’t have been in Greyton at all.”
Banacek looked from Steven to Latham and back. “Why is that, Mr. Morrisy? I was under the impression Miss Rogers had been with you all week.” The sheriff’s words lingered in the silence of the room. Anger again clouded Steven’s logic. His lips compressed into a thin line. He spoke slowly and carefully. “You’re the third person today who’s told me Ellie was with me. She wasn’t. I thought she was in Washington.”
“What about you? Why are you here?”
“I live here, Sheriff.”
Banacek tilted forward on the balls of his feet. “You used to live here. Now you just visit. You live in DC.”
“Greyton is my legal address. I came here to do some work. I needed the quiet.”
Banacek nodded slowly. “Let’s say that’s true for now.”
Steven held his anger in check, refusing to be baited.
“I overheard what you said to the doctor about Sam Londrigan and Larry Lomack,” the sheriff continued without acknowledging the interruption. “How long were they with you?”
“They showed up around ten-thirty and left about one.”
“You were together all the time?”
“Except when one of us took a piss,” he snapped. “After they left, I went back to my work.”
“You’re sure about the times?”
“I’m sure. Look, Banacek, I don’t like the implications of your questions.”
“I’m not taking any pleasure in asking them, Mr. Morrisy, you can believe that. And I intend to speak to both of them and see if they back you up.”
“You do that. And Sheriff,” Steven added, his voi
ce low, “I’ll say this once, and only because you don’t know me: I love Ellie. I wouldn’t hurt her. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like a little privacy.”
Banacek’s eyebrows rose fractionally. He made no move to leave. “I’m sorry, Mr. Morrisy, but I’ll need you to come to the station with me.”
“For what?”
“A statement, initially.”
“Initially? Are you planning on arresting me?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s just say you’re coming in for a statement.”
“You’re out of your mind, Sheriff.”
“Mr. Morrisy,” Banacek said wearily, “you’re a lawyer, and a damn good one from what I hear. Please don’t say anything else. Not yet.”
Steven fixed Banacek with a cryptic stare. “Don’t do this, Sheriff. The ramifications go further than me, or Greyton.”
“I know how high they go. All the way to the Senate, right? I may be a bit of a redneck, but I’m not stupid. I’m trying to keep this as quiet as possible. I’d suggest you do the same. The best way to do that is by coming to my office and getting the preliminaries over and done. For what it’s worth, Mr. Morrisy, it’s circumstance not physical evidence pointing to you. But until I speak with Lomack and Londrigan, I don’t really have a choice.”
Banacek’s unerring reasoning tempered Steven’s anger. He went to Ellie’s side, bent, and kissed her cheek. Then he looked down at her hand. “Chuck, where’s Ellie’s engagement ring?”
“All jewelry is removed in the ER and put in a safe. It’ll be there with any other jewelry she was wearing. I’ll get it for you if you want.”
“She never wore much jewelry, only her ring. Sometimes, she would wear simple earrings, but nothing else. Is her purse there too?”
“My deputy couldn’t find her purse, Mr. Morrisy,” Banacek said. “It must have gone down in the lake.” Steven frowned. “How did you identify her?”
“From the license plates on the car. When we learned that the car was leased to Senator Pritman’s office, we called the feds for an ID. But it was Doctor Latham who recognized her when he came on duty.”
