by Hill, Brenda
“Wouldn’t worry about her,” Davis chimed in. “If it came down to the plague or Cooper, I’d bet on Coop.” Their laughter filled the room, but it was laughter tinged with a grudging respect. Cooper had earned her way into their circle.
Reese turned his attention back to the file. Cooper had made reference to similarities between Tracy Michaels, Cindy Harris, and a former case now inactive, Anna Mae Foster. Check it out, Cooper had written. Reese retrieved the file from Clerical and discovered that the Foster case was inactive because she had skipped. Apparently, right after she returned home from the hospital, she vacated her apartment in the middle of the night and left no forwarding address. Routine questioning of her neighbors had led to zero—no one had seen or heard anything. She had called her Denver employer, Ace Construction, and instructed them to send a final check to a nearby post office box. That, too, led nowhere. DMV had nothing current on her.
Foster’s actions resembled someone on the run, and people ran when they were frightened.
Reese compared all three files. The MOs were similar and the DNA codes matched. All except Tracy’s. The lab was still working on her samples. Reese had a feeling that when the testing was completed, her results would match the other two.
Frowning, he retrieved his wallet and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smoothed the faded crime lab report and compared it to the other two. Just as he suspected, the DNA matched.
Geographic profiling, a methodology sometimes used to determine a perp’s comfort zone when the crime scenes were within a certain distance of each other, wasn’t considered as the victims had been too scattered. He checked the victims’ addresses. All were from different areas of town, and all worked in different locations.
If they were attacked by the same man, how did the perp find them?
And what connected Tracy to the other victims?
***
Tracy called Diana again.
“Oh, honey,” Diana said, her patient voice full of sympathy, “Ritchie’s just fine. Just worry about getting well and forget this ever happened.”
Could she do that? Was it possible to go on with her life as if nothing happened?
No matter how much she wished it were different, there could be no life for her as long as Karr was out there.
Was he still working? Was he living a normal life, going to work every day, coming home, eating, sleeping, and acting as if nothing happened?
Her life was shattered. Everything she had planned was destroyed. Her only concern now was to recover enough to get Ritchie, to hold him close and never let anything bad happen to him.
Maybe then the knot in her chest would go away. Maybe then she could take a deep breath.
The door swung open and a young volunteer entered with a bouquet of flowers. She set them on the nightstand, looked at Tracy and gasped.
Tracy quickly averted her face.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the volunteer said. “I didn’t mean...” Red flushed her cheeks.
“That’s okay,” Tracy said, keeping her face slightly turned. Even though her bruised face was not her fault, she still wanted to pull the sheet over her head. Or not see anyone. The volunteer, about sixteen, looked like she wanted to sink through the floor. “You sure the flowers are for me?” she asked, trying to put the girl at ease.
“You’re Tracy Michaels, aren’t you?”
Tracy nodded. “Who are they from?”
The volunteer checked the card. “Says they’re from The Denver Victorian Museum. Looks like several people signed it.”
The gang at work. How nice. When the volunteer left, Tracy reached for the card, then froze. Had Karr signed it? Surely he would have; it would seem strange to the others if he refused.
Her hands trembling, she studied the little white card, sitting so innocently in the flowers, the little card she couldn’t bring herself to touch. Even the thought of seeing his signature unnerved her.
Linda Spencer, an aide assigned to Tracy’s floor, came in to take Tracy’s vital signs. Linda was the model nurse—in her thirties, dark-haired and motherly, yet professionally efficient. Tracy liked her.
Linda wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Tracy’s arm.
“Flowers,” she said. “How nice. Are they from your family?”
“Work,” Tracy replied, not looking at them.
Linda unwrapped the cuff, took Tracy’s temperature, and jotted down the results on her chart.
“How’s that headache?”
“Constant.”
“It should start easing at any time. If it gets too severe, let me know.”
“I can manage, thanks.” Not wanting to risk cloudy judgment, Tracy had avoided all but the necessary medications.
“Would you like me to help you to the bathroom before I go?”
“Kay helped me a little earlier. Thanks.”
“Well, if there’s nothing else.” Linda fluffed Tracy’s pillow then headed for the door.
“You could do something, if you would. It may sound silly, but would you...would you look at the card and tell me who signed it?”
Linda studied her a moment, then picked up the card, opened it and read off the signatures.
Everyone from work had signed except Mr. Madden, who Tracy knew was on vacation. And Karr.
“You sure?” Tracy asked. “There’s no more? Check the back, too.”
Linda turned it over. “That’s all.”
After Linda left the room, Tracy picked up the card. Sure enough, Karr hadn’t signed.
Why not?
She thought of several possibilities.
Maybe Rita had passed around the card before Karr started his shift. Or perhaps he had made some excuse to avoid signing it.
She didn’t think that was the case. More likely he’d sign just to taunt her, getting pleasure from imagining how she’d feel looking at his signature.
So that left one alternative. He hadn’t been there.
Could it be possible?
She had to call as soon as she figured out a way to ask Rita without sounding obvious.
Her head pounded, shooting streaks of pain through her skull and down the bridge of her nose. She felt nauseated and reached for the pan by her bed.
After she went through some dry heaves, she lay back on the pillow and kept very still.
How could she get out of the hospital if she couldn’t even get out of bed?
***
“You still here?” Doug Chancy, a rookie detective, entered the squad room with a can of root beer and made his way around the maze of desks to his own.
Reese looked up and discovered everyone had left. He checked his watch—the museum should be open. “On my way out. Want to tag along?”
“Can’t. Have to finish these reports.” Chancy eyed the stack of paper piled on his desk with disgust. “Oughta to be a law against it. Sure never knew how much time would be taken up with this shit. Oughta be a law.”
Reese chuckled. Recently promoted, Chancy was just now facing the realities of the job. No glamour, just routine questioning, covering and recovering ground that had been covered half a dozen times before. Burn-out was a hazard. The monotony of putting in time with very little personal reward or satisfaction eventually got to even the most dedicated.
And the routine: questioning the victim’s friends and relatives, rounding up known offenders to be brought in for questioning, checking alibis, and documenting each step in triplicate.
Well, he’s learning. They all did.
Reese made a copy of the Foster file. Wouldn’t hurt to check out her last place of employment again. Maybe there was something someone had missed the first time. Matter of fact, it wouldn’t hurt to have a copy of all the files, a practice frowned on if not forbidden. Reese had a habit of ignoring the rules.
Yeah, Cooper, he’d do his job. He didn’t want another young woman lying in a hospital with that same haunted look in her eyes.
His stomach rolled and shot flames. A nice, cold milksh
ake ought to put out the fire. For now. He could grab one on his way to the museum.
***
Karr pulled back into his spot across from the museum and dug into his bag of fast-food. The overcast sky darkened. Raindrops splattered the windshield so everything looked blurry. Christ. Wouldn’t the fucking rain ever stop? The inside windshield fogged, so he used a napkin to clear a circle.
And spotted, across the street, a man heading up the museum walk.
His hand poised over the glass, Karr watched the man. He was wearing a suit that looked as if it had been worn too many times. Karr knew the look. But what he recognized was the walk, that stride of confidence he’d tried so hard to emulate.
A cop.
The bitch had talked.
***
“We’re all so sorry this happened,” Rita Franklin told Reese in the museum’s office. “When Diana called this morning, none of us could believe it.”
Reese took in her skinny frame, the lacquered orange-red hair piled high on top of her head like an old beehive, the top three buttons open on her white ruffled blouse, and thought this woman was just about as opposite of Tracy as she could be. But he liked her. And trusted her. Maybe it was the real concern in her eyes.
“Miss Franklin—”
“Rita, please.”
“All right, Rita, I’d like a list of all the male employees, say for the past year. Anyone who Tracy may have had contact with—”
“You don’t suspect someone here, do you?”
“Right now I don’t suspect anyone. It’s just routine.”
“Jeez, there’s only Ray and Mr. Madden, the manager. He’s on vacation, you know. Took his family to the Poudre River for some fishing. Can’t believe either one would do such a thing.”
Reese took his pen and notebook from his jacket and jotted down the information on the manager.
“And you mentioned a Ray?”
“Ray Carpenter, the maintenance man. He’s been here ever since this place opened up. He wouldn’t have done anything wrong, especially that. He’s almost seventy, and has great-grandchildren, for heaven’s sake.”
How many times had Reese heard the same story? He or she couldn’t or wouldn’t do that. But they did, over and over, down through history.
“Mr. Madden is as safe as an old shoe,” Rita continued. “Married with a capital M. Never anything out of the way, and believe me, I know out of the way.” She batted her eyelashes at Reese and grinned mischievously. “I don’t see any ring on your finger; do you like out-of-the-way things? Hmmm?”
Reese grinned back. “I’m afraid I’m spoken for,” he said, lying from habit. He found, to his surprise, he was enjoying himself. Perhaps he wasn’t as dead inside as he had thought.
“Too bad,” she sighed, “the story of my life.”
“Is that all the male employees?”
“Yep. That’s it.”
“What if Mr. Carpenter calls in sick? Or you? Does the museum ever use the services of a temporary agency?”
“Naa. If that happens and we run short, Mr. Madden will come in, or get his wife or daughter to pinch-hit.”
Damn, another dead-end. “No one else you can think of? Even on a short-term basis?”
Rita shook her head, then stopped abruptly, looking at him with astonishment.
“My God, I can’t believe I forgot...”
“What is it?”
“Well, there was someone, although he was just here a coupla nights. Took off in the middle of his shift.”
“When was that?”
Her mouth formed an O. Her eyes widened. “Last night, when Tracy was attacked.”
***
Weak from the dry heaves and exhaustion, Tracy drifted into a light doze, only to sense the presence of someone in the room. Opening her eyes, she saw a man standing close to her bed. She screamed, a mindless sound of terror that brought running footsteps outside her door.
The man had no sooner bolted from the room when Linda rushed in, followed by Kay, the nursing supervisor.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“A man,” Tracy cried, trying to catch her breath, “I woke up and a man was standing over my bed.”
“Oh, that was the orderly,” Linda said with obvious relief. “I saw him rushing out just now. He was supposed to mop up something in the next room and must have made a mistake. I don’t blame you for being startled. Do you want a sedative?”
“I’m all right now,” Tracy told her.
After the nurses left the room, Tracy heard Kay giving instructions right outside her door. “Absolutely no one is to enter this room without permission. Make sure that notice is posted.”
While grateful, it made Tracy even more aware that her life had changed, that she would never again be the same person who had hurried home less than twenty-four hours ago, her thoughts on no one but Ritchie. Her world would never be the same.
***
For once, Reese found a parking space near the ER doors. He hurried inside and checked with admissions for Tracy’s room number.
Finally, after all this time, he had a break in the case. A security guard. It was his guy; he just knew it. Everything fit, the mobility, the access. All he needed was Tracy’s identification. Even if she was reluctant to name him for some unknown reason, Reese could tell a lot by her reaction.
He wanted to take the five flights at a run rather than wait for the elevator, but he stood watching the needle above the closed doors like everyone else. Eight, seven, stop. Come on, come on. It seemed to stay on seven forever. What did they have up there, a convention? Six, stop. Oh Christ. Reese broke out in a sweat. Across the hall an elevator dinged and opened its doors. Reese ran across, cutting off a white-haired woman in a wheelchair.
Great. Now he was mowing down little old ladies.
“Young man,” she said in a surprisingly loud voice, “mind your manners.” Several people turned to look.
Contritely, Reese helped her over the bump, and by the time he got her facing forward, the tiny car was crowded. Oh hell, he wasn’t getting out, no matter what. He squeezed his arms as tight across his chest as possible and pressed the ‘five’ button.
After talking to Tracy, he’d take Wolfe in for questioning. He’d already run a phone check; it came back with no priors. Then he’d check with the security outfit and get a print-out of Wolfe’s assignments in the past couple of years. If they matched, which he knew they would, knew deep in that special place all law enforcement officers developed after years of investigating, arresting and interrogating, he’d nail the sonofabitch. Finally.
On the fifth floor he found Tracy’s door closed. Just as he reached out to push it open, a sharp feminine voice spoke behind him.
“Can I help you?” A tall, older nurse he didn’t recognize held a tray of medications. She was looking at him as if she caught him raiding the narcotics room.
He flashed his shield and told her why he was there.
“She’s had a distressing day.” The nurse’s tone was clipped. “Mrs. Michaels has finally calmed down and is resting easier. Dr. Cole left strict orders she’s not to be disturbed.”
“I won’t be long, I just have a couple of questions.”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant, but you’ll have to come back tomorrow. I have my orders.”
Reese watched her nostrils contract as she bristled with authority. He wondered if she managed to get any air through those tight little...
“Look, uh, nurse—”
“Arlin Comp, RN and Charge Nurse.”
“Look, Ms. Comp, this is a police investigation. If she’s not in an immediate life-threatening situation, I have the right to talk to her.”
The nurse stared at him, her mouth drawing into a tight line. Her face flushed a deep red.
Reese turned to push open the door.
“Wait!”
Reese halted and looked back at her.
“I’ll call the doctor.”
Reese slid onto a plastic
chair near the desk while she called.
“Five minutes,” she told him after hanging up. “And I’m to time it.”
Quietly, Reese entered Tracy’s room. The drapes were partially drawn, the TV off. A bouquet of flowers stood on the table next to her bed. She was curled up, the sheet pulled to her chin, held snugly in place by her small right hand. On her swollen face, blotches of red and purple stood in contrast to her porcelain skin. Her eyes were closed, the dark lashes fanning over swollen cheeks. She breathed softly, her mouth slightly open.
She was such a pretty little thing, even with the bruising. Why would any man want to smash that delicate beauty with his fists? And she looked peaceful, the frantic terror he’d observed during questioning, gone. At least at bay. Without realizing what he was doing, he was quietly backing up, moving silently to the door.
He’d let her rest for now. He would talk to her later, after he’d questioned Wolfe and checked his past employment. If some, hell, if any of Wolfe’s past assignments were in proximity to the vics, he had his man. All he would need then was an official confirmation from Tracy that it was, indeed, Karlton Wolfe who attacked her.
Reese also wanted to know why she had lied.
Chapter Twenty
A half hour later, Reese pounded on Karlton Wolfe’s door.
“Open up!” he shouted. “Denver Police Department! I want to talk to you. Open up!”
Neighbors peeked around pulled drapes. Others cracked open their doors, careful to stand inside their apartments. Babies wailed. Two little boys about three and four, stopped on the cracked sidewalk below and stared up at the officers, thumbs in their mouths, mucus running from their noses. A woman in a halter and low-cut jeans ran out and shooed them into an apartment.
Finally the door cracked open and a Latino woman in her thirties stood peering at them. She wore a long nightgown and her eyes were red and swollen.
“Mrs. Wolfe?” Reese flipped open his shield. “I’d like to speak to your husband. Is he home?”
