by Blair Howard
“I think he wouldn’t last five minutes in my department. Harry, we have a real problem here. We have Padgett’s death, which is officially my case now, but the other three cases are out of my hands. I’m not sure where I fit into them, if at all.”
“That’s what you have me for. I don’t have to fit in. All I need is Johnston’s request for my aid, which I have, and you to back me up. That’s it. I can go where I please and do as I see fit.”
“Maybe, but I get the feeling it’s not going to be that easy. You’re right about one thing though. There was no investigation into those two missing girls, and there’s not a whole lot we can do for them now after so long, except maybe bring their folks a little justice. But I do have a feeling they’re connected to the other two deaths. I also have a feeling that website is a part of it all.”
“Oh yeah, that’s a given. And one more thing: we also need to interview Michelle Scott. All four dead women were involved with her and her department. That can’t be a coincidence.”
I checked the time. It was already after five.
“Look,” I said. “I need a few minutes at the office before Jacque locks up shop.”
I drove the couple of blocks to my offices. The sky was blue and dotted here and there with fluffy white clouds. It looked like it was going to be a beautiful evening, and my thoughts turned to what I was going to do for dinner. I needn’t have bothered. No sooner had Kate left and I’d dropped into my chair than there was a knock on the door. It opened, and Jacque stuck her head in.
“Hey, boss. You got a minute?”
I looked at my watch. It was almost five thirty.
“For you, always.”
She came into the room looking every inch the professional woman she was. Her dark gray skirt was accentuated by a loose-fitting white blouse, and her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail.
“I heard back from Artemis,” she said, sitting down on one of the guest chairs in front of my desk.
“Er… you’ve lost… oh, okay, the woman on Kalliste. How did it go?”
“It went well. I actually heard from her yesterday. She called. We talked for a few minutes. Mostly she asked me questions, about my sexuality and how I reached her. I dodged that one. At least I think I did. I told her I couldn’t break a confidence since my friend was married. She seemed to buy it. She asked if I understood that she was an escort, and expensive. She also told me that she was available for business dates, parties, or just a quiet dinner.” Jacque smiled. I wasn’t sure why until she said, “She made a point of telling me that sex was not an option. I’m not sure I believed her. Maybe she was being guarded, in case the call was being recorded. I don’t know. Then she asked me to e-mail a photo, said she would look at it and then call me back. I’m pretty sure she, or someone, ran a check on me.”
“And she did, right? Call you back?”
“She did. Just a few minutes ago,” she grinned at me. “I have a date.”
I put my hands behind my head, rocked my chair back, and stared at her, slowly shaking my head.
“What?” she asked. “It’s what you wanted.”
“I don’t know, Jacque. It could be dangerous. You had a narrow escape last time. That hit and run nearly killed you. I don’t want to put you at risk again.”
“Well, aren’t you one to talk. I can look after myself, especially where a woman is concerned. And besides, I like the look of her.”
And that bothered me even more.
“That’s just it,” I said, letting my chair tilt back to its proper position. “This Artemis, she’s going to have a minder. You’ve already arranged to meet her, right?” I leaned on my desk, arms folded, and looked sternly at her. It made not a bit of difference. She just crossed her legs, folded her arms, tilted her head to one side, and looked me squarely in the eyes.
“For tomorrow night. Very public. Dinner at Porters. She said I should book a room there. I already did. Oh, and I’m going to need some money. She charges $250 an hour, so let’s say $2,000.”
That was about what I’d expected, but… “Why did she want you to book a room?”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t ask.”
She was right about the location being public, at least. Porters is one of Chattanooga’s nicest restaurants. It’s located in the Read House Hotel downtown.
“Whew… I dunno, Jacque.”
“Oh come on, Harry. What can go wrong?”
Okay, so that’s only the second time I can remember that you’ve called me by my first name.
I smiled at her. “Jacque, you have no idea. Okay. Here’s what we’ll do….”
Jacque left some ten minutes later, but I stayed to make a couple of calls. Once that was done I did a quick search on Google, got the answer I was looking for, gathered up my iPad and phone, and headed out the door.
I was already in my car with the motor running when my cell phone rang. It was Amanda.
Chapter 19
“Harry! Oh my God. I’m so glad you answered. Bob—he got shot while we were up there; he’s in the hospital.”
Shot? The pit of my stomach hit the back of my throat. I felt like I’d been hit by a Mac truck.
“What? How the hell did he get shot? Christ! Don’t answer that. I’ll—God, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Where are you, Erlanger?”
“The emergency room, yes.”
Shot? He’s been friggin shot? What the f...? My mind couldn’t grasp it.
I’d been to the ER at Erlanger before—several times in fact, and three of them on my own account—so when I got there I knew exactly where to go.
There was a uniformed sheriff’s deputy seated outside his door. They’d just finished prepping him for the OR when I arrived. He was on top of the bed, and he didn’t look good. His face was the color of old newspapers and he looked like he’d swallowed an onion. His chest was bare, and there was a large dressing covering most of his right side. Amanda was seated beside the bed, looking unusually disheveled. Her hair was a mess, the blouse under her jacket was torn to the waist, and her mascara had run. She’d been crying. She was holding his hand.
“Christ. Look at the two of you.”
They both looked at me. Bob’s eyes were bleary and he was obviously in a great deal of pain.
“Can you speak?”
He nodded.
“Where were you shot, and what with?” I asked.
He pointed with his finger. “Right here.”
I could barely hear him.
“Glock 17,” he said, “9 mm. Don’t think it was a hollow point. Christ, Harry. I feel like I’ve been kicked by a horse. It hurts like hell.”
I sat there, just staring at him, not knowing what to say or even think. This was serious shit.
“What the hell happened?”
Bob tried hard to grin at me, but it didn’t quite work. “You should see the other guy,” he whispered.
“The silly fool took you at your word and tried to protect me,” Amanda said. “One of those damned security guards—there were four of them—grabbed the mike from me and tore my blouse. Bob grabbed him. Next thing I knew, one of the other guards pulled a gun and shot him.”
“What the…. And?”
“I went down,” Bob whispered. “Jerked the Sig as I fell and nailed the bastard. He ain’t dead but he should be, would be if I hadn’t been rolling around on my back. Got him in the upper right arm. I was aiming for his chest. Son of a bitch.”
“You shouldn’t talk, Bob,” Amanda said. “It’s okay, Harry. We have it all. The camera was rolling. It was self-defense. The other man is in a room just down the hall. He’ll live, but his arm… oh my God. What a mess. The bullet hit the bone pretty high up. He’ll probably lose it.”
No shit. Bob’s weapon is a .45 loaded with hollow points. The guy was damned lucky it was only his arm.
“Transport’s here,” a voice behind me said. I turned around to face the nurse and nodded.
“Can I have another quick word?�
� I asked.
“Very quick, and then we have to get him to OR.”
“Okay, buddy,” I gripped Bob’s hand. He almost broke my fingers as he gripped them—a good sign—and grinned up at me.
“Get outta here, Harry.” He could barely speak, and his voice sounded bubbly, as if his chest were full of liquid, which it probably was. “I’ll be back in the office tomorrow morning, bright and early.” He was trying to make a joke, but it wasn’t funny and we both knew it.
“Sure you will, but I’ll be right here when you get out of surgery.”
He nodded, closed his eyes, and let go of my hand. It flopped down on the bed beside him.
“You’ll let me know when you’re done?” I asked the nurse.
“Of course. There’s a waiting area just down the hall. I’ll come and get you.”
There were only two other people in the waiting area. We found a couple seats in the corner and sat down.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked.
Amanda shook her head.
“Me neither,” I said, more to myself than to her. “So, you want to tell me about it while we wait?”
“About what happened up there?”
I nodded. “Start at the beginning, before this happened.” I nodded in the direction of Bob’s room. I was only half interested in the answer. My mind was somewhere deep in the bowels of the hospital, with Bob. I’d asked only to try to take her mind off what was happening to him.
“It didn’t go well. I’d talked the project over with my producer and we decided I would take the direct approach. We’d done several pieces on the college before, but the missing girls? That hadn’t been covered since Marcy Grove disappeared in 2013….” Her mind was wandering. I knew what she was going through.
“I don’t know why we hadn’t done a follow up… at least one… I would have thought….” Again, she stopped talking and stared down at the floor. I let her have a minute.
“I’d planned to interview the chancellor,” she said eventually. “Mason-Jones, and some of her staff. It was really weird, Harry. No one would talk to me. It was as if they’d been warned off. I did manage to catch Edna Morgan in her office—she runs Student Affairs. She sure as hell wasn’t pleased to see me…. And she didn’t say much, either, just that all three women, including Emily Johnston, had been reported missing and that she’d filed reports with the sheriff’s department. Harry, she was nervous the whole time I was with her. She kept looking at her office door, as if she were expecting someone to walk in on us. The interview lasted all of three minutes. You can watch it, if you like. I’m not sure if she knew anything more than what she told me.”
“I’ll take a look at it. Not today, though. Jeez, I can’t believe this….” It was hard to concentrate. I kept thinking of Bob. “I dunno. Maybe we can learn something from her body language. Then what?”
“Well, I went to the chancellor’s office and met with her secretary. She let the chancellor know we were there, and why, but she wouldn’t talk to us without an appointment. So we went looking for Emily’s friends. I wanted to talk to Jessica Henderson in particular, to get some human-interest stuff. We sure got plenty of that….” She looked down the hall toward Bob’s room.
“We rolled onto the lot outside her block…. Jessica’s.” She swallowed. “And… Harry, it was as if they were expecting us. We were flanked by two security vehicles almost immediately.”
“Jones,” I said. “She probably called them.”
Amanda nodded. “Probably. Anyway we got out of the car, all three of us. Charlie, he’s my photojournalist, had his camera rolling. The men in the cars—four men in blue uniforms—got out of their vehicles. One of them approached us with his hand up, palm out towards Charlie’s camera. I stepped between them and told him why we were there and what I intended to do. He told me we were trespassing and that we were to leave. I recall asking him if he’d heard that Emily Johnston had been murdered…. And then I extended the mike toward him expecting an answer. Or not.” She paused again, and took a deep breath.
“Harry… he just grabbed the mike with one hand and the collar of my blouse and jacket with the other and began to drag me toward his cruiser. I heard my blouse tearing and that… that was when Bob stepped in. He jumped forward and punched the man in the side of his neck. He let go of me, dropped to his knees. Bob… God, Bob turned toward me, pushed me to one side, and went for his gun, but he was just a little too late. One of the men on the other side of our car fired his gun, and Harry… I felt the wind of the bullet as it went by me. It hit Bob and… oh my God. I was so close to him I heard it hit him. It—it was sickening. I’ll never forget it.” There were tears in her eyes.
I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to me. She put her head on my chest, and I held her for a moment, until finally she pushed me away.
“Bob was kind of thrown backward by the impact, and he went down. He only got off the one shot before he hit the ground, at the guy who’d fired at him. Jesus, Harry. I heard the bone crack when the bullet hit him…. I’ve never seen anyone shot, and then two all at once, and so close—but Charlie got it all. He was far enough away that he got them both. The guard had his gun aimed at Bob before he even went for his. Oh my God, Harry. Talk about the OK friggin’ Corral. The man’s arm was shattered. It was hanging like a broken tree branch. Blood everywhere, pumping out of—”
Tears were rolling freely down her cheeks now, and I pulled her to me again. I knew what she was going through. Being that close to someone when they get shot is bad enough. When it’s someone you know….
“And then?” I asked.
“One of the other men. One of the security guards—he was a big man, wearing mirrored sunglasses—started shouting and waving his arms around. I couldn’t hear what he was yelling, but he must have stopped what was happening, pushed the other two away, and then he made several phone calls. I tried to help Bob, but he’s so damned big I couldn’t move him. He just lay there on his back, telling me he was okay, the stupid ass. Only a minute later, some guy in a blue uniform with captain’s bars arrived and began shouting orders.”
“And Charlie got all this?”
“Oh yeah. Charlie’s a pro. He’d have kept rolling no matter what, even if it had been me that had been shot. He got everything. Anyway, the police arrived first, and then an ambulance from Signal Mountain, and then another right after it, and I rode here with Bob. And… well, here we are.”
“Sheesh,” I said. “I could do with a drink. Why the hell don’t they serve alcohol in hospitals? They’d make a damned fortune.”
“One more thing, Harry. The man in charge, the captain, he demanded Charlie give him the memory card from his camera.”
“Son of a bitch. He didn’t give it to him, did he?”
“He gave him the card that was in the camera. But it didn’t have much on it. He’d swapped them out. I have the one with footage on it.”
She reached inside her jacket, took something from the pocket, and handed it to me. It was a Sony XQD memory card.
“How the hell did you manage that?”
“I didn’t. Charlie did. I told you he’s a pro. This was, as they say, not his first rodeo. He’s very proactive, is Charlie. I need that, by the way,” she said, taking the card back. “Don’t worry. It’s date and time stamped. I’ll make copies and lock this one away in the company safe.”
We sat quietly for a moment, and then she asked me, “What will happen now, Harry?”
“They’ll fix him up. Don’t worry.”
“That’s not what I meant. What about the police? Will he be charged?”
“If you have the goods, if Charlie did in fact get it as you said he did, no. Well, not Bob. He was in fear of his life, and yours—and Charlie’s, for that matter. It was a justified shooting. The other guy? I’d have to see the footage, but from what you’ve told me, I’d say there will be some charges. You can’t go around shooting people for no good reason, even if you were tre
spassing, and I’m not sure that you were.”
And so we sat there, waiting, making small talk. Amanda was in a hell of a state, worried sick that Bob was going to die. I tried to tell her otherwise, but jeez, I wasn’t even sure myself. The man is a robot, but a 9 mm to the chest….
I wasn’t watching the clock, but it must have been at least another hour before the nurse finally appeared, accompanied by a young doctor.
“He did fine,” the doctor said.
Whew. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me.
“He has a broken rib and his lung is collapsed. He has a tube in his chest, in the space between his chest wall and his lung. It’s attached to a suction device that will evacuate air and any residual blood or bodily fluids from the chest cavity, and will help to keep the lung inflated. Once the lung heals and can stay inflated on its own, we’ll take the tube out, probably in a couple of days or so. In the meantime, he needs rest. He’s awake, but barely, and you can see him, but only for a moment.”
“Will he be okay?”
I didn’t like the way he looked away as he answered. “He’s big and strong and he made it through surgery. But recovery will take time.”
I thanked him and turned to Amanda. She shook her head. “I can’t. You go. I’ll wait here.”
I hesitated, then nodded, told her I’d be but a minute, and walked down the hall to his room. The door was closed. I knocked lightly, but there was no answer, so I just went inside. Damn it if he wasn’t asleep. The right side of his chest was covered by a large dressing, and I could see the tube. The green, yellow, and blue lines on the monitor were moving steadily from one side to the other; their rhythm was steady, as was his breathing. I stepped to the side of the bed and gripped his hand.
“Hang in there, buddy,” I said quietly. There was no response.
My mood was pretty damned dark as I walked back down the hall to where I’d left Amanda. Her mood apparently wasn’t much better, because she was sitting just as I’d left her: feet apart, knees together, elbows on her knees, hands clasped. Staring at the floor.
