He stared at me, almost seductively, gracing me with what can only be described as bedroom eyes. His laid-back, all-the-time-in-the-world drawl could've lulled a bear into hibernation. I made a show of looking at my watch.
"This won't take but a minute," he said, moving off toward the restrooms in a leisurely stroll. He stopped, flicked something off of his pant leg and looked over his shoulder at us. "Just wait over there. Oh, and don't talk to anyone else before I get back."
I walked Erica to a shaded bench and sat down beside her, though the last thing I felt like doing was sitting. My stomach was in knots and my fists were clenched with anxiety.
"What happened?" I asked, ignoring the people looking in our direction. In the distance, the band started to play again, but it seemed as if a pall had been cast over the entire festival. People spoke in hushed tones and I knew that as fast as news traveled in Cedar Hills, the whole town would soon know what had happened.
"I came out of the bathroom and saw him crawling toward me from the men's side. I rushed over and saw the blood. His eyes were awful — they were rolling back in his head — but I know he recognized me." Erica's lower lip trembled and I reached over, taking her hand in mine. "He could barely talk, and what he said didn't really make sense."
I waited. Then, not able to stand it any longer, I blurted, "What did he say?"
Erica closed her eyes as if wanting to get it just right. "He said, 'Don't tell anyone.' Then I said something like, 'It's okay, Tommy. You're going to be okay,' and I started to call for help but he grabbed my hand and whispered something. I could barely hear him. He said, 'Can't trust any of them. You find it, Erica.' 'Find what?' I asked. By then he was having trouble breathing and his eyes closed. He said, 'Flowers.' And then he passed out." Erica began crying softly and I put my arms around her, fighting back my own tears.
"You sure you're going to be all right?" Hancock said, startling us both. He stroked his goatee and peered down at us. Even in uniform, you could tell he was a sharp dresser. His slacks were creased and his boots were reptilian, either snake or alligator, I thought. Like Booker, he wore a black Stetson, but where Booker's looked well-worn and lived in, Newt's was shiny and new.
I knew from what Booker had said that Newt was the nephew of a prominent judge in New Mexico, an old friend of Booker's. Actually, I wasn't sure how thrilled Booker was to have him. Booker was used to running his own show, doing things his own way. But the kid seemed content to walk along in Booker's shadow, wasn't overly ambitious and didn't come charging in wanting to change things, like Booker had feared. In fact, though he never said so, I got the feeling Booker thought Hancock was on the lazy side, more interested in pursuing his off-duty pleasures than in law enforcement. I watched as he leisurely took out a notepad and began asking Erica the routine questions. It took several minutes for him to get down to the crucial issue.
"You see anyone else in the vicinity?"
"No. Just Tommy. He was crawling away from the men's bathroom. Maybe there were other men inside who could tell you more."
"Well, there musta been at least one, but I doubt he's gonna tell us much, right?" He lowered his eye-lashes and tried a smile but it was lost on Erica. "So he was still conscious when you found him. Was he able to talk?"
"No, I don't think so. I tried to revive him, but..." Her voice trailed off. "That's when I yelled for help."
"So he didn't say anything at all. And you didn't see anyone else." He put one boot up on the bench beside her and used his hand to wipe off a few blades of wet grass.
"Not very helpful, I'm afraid," Erica said.
"Please, Deputy. If that's all you need for now, we need to go check on Tommy."
Hancock looked over at me, and his eyes closed momentarily. He was either bored or I was trying his patience. "How about before you went into the ladies' room? See anyone hanging around outside?"
Erica paused, unsure. "I don't think so. I wasn't paying much attention. There was someone in one of the stalls on the women's side, but I never saw her. I mean she was gone before I got out. Maybe she saw something."
"Any sounds? You hear Tommy make a yell or anything?"
"No, not at all. I could still hear the band from inside, but no voices. The last thing Tommy said to me was, 'I'll wait for you outside.' " Erica's voice trembled and I knew she was on the verge of tears again. But even in this state of extreme distress, she was a talented liar. The last thing Tommy had said to her was 'flowers.' Obviously, she did not want to share this bit of information with Hancock.
"How about you, Cassandra? You see or hear anything that might explain why someone would attack Tommy Green? Was he acting funny in any way?"
"It's Cassidy, Newt. And no, he seemed his normal, cheerful self. If anything he was in a really good mood. He'd been looking forward to this festival all week."
But his question made me think, and I knew I wasn't answering completely honestly. It was true that outwardly Tommy had seemed the same. But there were little things that, put together and in light of what happened, might mean something. I thought back and took a silent inventory. Tommy had been looking for girls, yet he hadn't asked a single one to dance. Had he been on the lookout for someone else instead? Even when the girls found him and practically begged him to play football, he declined. In fact, he'd stuck to me like glue, supposedly to protect me from "bribery." But maybe it wasn't me who needed protecting. Maybe Tommy was using me as his bodyguard. He'd even waited to use the restroom until someone else decided to go. Did Tommy know someone was out to get him? And why was he suddenly eager to buy everyone a beer? Had he come into money? Did someone else know about it? Had he been robbed?
"You think of something, Cassidy?" Hancock was peering at me, his dark eyes probing.
"Uh, sorry. No. I'm afraid my mind isn't focusing very well. Do you think he could've been robbed? Was his wallet missing or anything?"
"We'll have to check with the sheriff on that. Did he have a wallet on him? Can you describe it?"
"Just a regular leather wallet. He carried it in his left back pocket. He carried a little tin of Skoal in his right." For some reason, this detail got to me and I started to choke up again. "We have to go now. I really need to be with Tommy."
"I suppose we're all finished here for now." He reached up and lightly traced his moustache. "If you think of anything else, though, please get back to me."
"What a piece of work," Erica mumbled as I steered her toward the parking lot. Outside the yellow tape a few onlookers still stood gawking at the scene where Tommy's blood had stained the dirt in front of the restroom.
"Look," I whispered, pointing to a spot just beyond the men's restroom.
"What?"
"The flower bed." I started in that direction but Erica pulled me back.
"We can't look now, Cass. Everyone will see us." She was whispering but her tone was fierce. "He said not to tell anyone and not to trust anyone, and I don't know what the hell he was talking about but I'm not going to let him down."
I looked at her and was taken by her beauty. Her blue eyes were glistening with tears and her cheeks were flushed with emotion.
Without saying another word, I took her hand and together we headed for my Jeep Cherokee parked at the marina.
Chapter Three
Tommy was in the operating room, which was a good thing. That meant he was still alive. But the look on Booker's face was grim.
"I called his mother in Texas," he said. "Not sure she'll make it until tomorrow. You think of anyone else we should notify?"
"Gus?" I suggested. Gus Townsend owned the marina where Tommy worked. He was one of the few locals I hadn't seen at the festival.
"Already tried. His wife said he's up in Florence at some boat auction. Any girls?"
I gave him a look that despite his mood made him laugh. "Okay, okay. Dumb question. Besides, by now the whole town knows. I'm surprised there aren't more people here already. I at least thought the Bailey boys would be here. He's been
chumming around with them pretty regular."
"They're in the downstairs waiting room with a whole carload of girls. Rosie's there, by the way. We'd have been here sooner but your Deputy Do-little wouldn't let us go. Then the nurse from hell wouldn't let us up until we said we were family. Have you talked to the doctor?"
"No one's said anything yet. But it doesn't look good, Cass. You need to know that."
I nodded, feeling the lump in my throat tighten. "Any idea what happened? Was he robbed?"
Booker narrowed his eyes at me and tugged on his moustache. "Wallet was missing. He was hit from behind with something, probably more than once. Something with a hook or point, I'd guess, from the shape of the wounds. Either someone just wanted to knock him out, nab his wallet and run and they did more damage than they intended, or else someone intended to kill him and took his wallet as an afterthought." Booker raised one eyebrow and drilled me with a steely gaze. " 'Less you got another idea?"
"Well, it does occur to me that maybe it wasn't me he was bodyguarding, as he put it, but the other way around. Maybe he knew someone was after him."
"What makes you think so?"
Erica shot me a warning and I shrugged. Booker glanced over at her but her face went blank.
"It's just that he was sticking like glue today. He even followed Erica to the bathroom. Like he didn't want to be alone."
"Hmph," Booker started to pace the little waiting room. "You give your statement to Hancock?" he asked Erica, watching her closely. Booker prided himself on reading expressions.
She nodded, looking miserable. "I told him I saw Tommy crawling out of the restroom, but before I could reach him, he collapsed. When I saw the blood, I started yelling for help."
"But he was conscious when you first saw him?" The same thing Hancock had asked.
Erica nodded, then lied. "But only for a second."
She was saved from further fabrication when the door opened and a green-smocked surgeon in matching cloth booties entered the tiny waiting room.
"The Green family?" she asked. Her Asian eyes looked mournful.
"I'm Sheriff Tom Booker. This is Cassidy James and Erica Trinidad. We're friends of his. His mother is on her way from Texas. Right now, this is as close to family as he's got."
The surgeon nodded and glanced at Erica and me, then back to Booker. "The swelling in his brain was such that our only option was to induce a coma and wait for the swelling to go down. This may take days or weeks or longer. There's no guarantee it will work. Sometimes, with an injury of this nature, healing occurs rapidly and we can begin to address other concerns. You should know, however, that there is the possibility of impairment to his cognitive skills. It's too soon to tell. At this time the best we can do is wait and hope and pray."
"But he'll live?" I asked, feeling myself fill with unexpected hope.
"There is always a chance. It depends so much on the patient. His will to live, his state of health, his resiliency. There are so many variables with something like this..."
"He'll live," I said. I had never known anyone more resilient, with more will to live, more zest for life than Tommy. If that's all it took, he was as good as healed.
The doctor smiled at me, but her eyes were sad and some of my optimism faded away. "These next twenty-four hours are crucial. We'll know more tomorrow."
"Thank you, Doctor." Booker shook her hand. Erica and I followed suit, though I was numbly going through the motions.
"I need to get back," Booker said. "I do hope to God Newt had the sense to secure the scene properly."
"He had yellow tape around the whole area and was keeping everyone back when we left."
"Good. Listen. There's no point in you girls hanging around here. The best thing for Tommy now is to get some rest. I imagine they'll move him to post-op and then ICU."
"Someone should be here when his mom arrives," I said.
"I'll ask Rosie to wait. She'd insist on it anyway. She has a knack for this kind of thing. Let's go down and tell the others the news."
We took the stairs, none of us wanting to endure the silence of the elevator. We were all raw with emotion. Erica was still pale. I felt like someone had sucker-punched me, and Booker looked like he'd been up all night. When we reached the downstairs waiting room, the crowd had grown to nearly twenty. Some of the girls were clutching flowers from the gift shop. Booker spoke briefly to Rosie, who nodded, then he held up his hand and addressed the others. He spoke in a low voice, repeating only some of what the doctor had said. Strangely, he left out any hint of optimism.
"So how long will he be in the coma?" Bart Bailey asked. He was one of Tommy's buddies, an auto mechanic with red frizzy hair and a smattering of freckles across his face. His twin brother, Buck, would've looked just like him, save for his cleanly shaved head and propensity for facial piercing. The stud on the tip of his nose was particularly charming. Bart looked like an overgrown Tom Sawyer. Buck looked more like a beefed-up Hell's Angel.
"Could be a long time, Bart. No visitors for now. We'll know more tomorrow. Those of you who brought things, if you want to leave them with Rosie, she'll be sure they get to his room, once he's assigned one. The best thing any of us can do for the time being is just pray."
People nodded solemnly and a few of the girls in back started to cry, handing Rosie their flowers before filing out into the sunshine. It seemed incongruous to me that the sun should still be shining. Had it only been a few hours since I'd shared a beer with Tommy and Erica? It seemed a lifetime ago. I asked Rosie if she wanted us to stay with her, but she insisted we get some rest, so we walked Booker to his cruiser.
"You want to tell me why you just painted a picture bleaker than hell? Even the doctor said there was some hope."
Booker tugged at his moustache and looked over my shoulder at some of Tommy's friends who were still milling around in the parking lot. "You said it yourself, Cass. Maybe someone was after Tommy for some reason. If they wanted him dead, Tommy probably knows why. And there's a good chance he knows who tried to kill him, even if he was hit from behind. You think whoever did that is gonna be happy to know Tommy might pull out of this?"
"You're saying you think they might come back and try to finish the job once they find out he's alive?"
"It's been known to happen. As long as Tommy's in a coma, he's probably safer than if he wasn't. Rosie knows not to let anyone near him but his mama, at least for now. This might just buy me a little time to figure out what's happening."
I started to say something but Erica, who was standing right behind me, poked me in the back.
"Anything we can do to help?" I asked.
"Get her back home and fix her something with a little kick in it. She looks like she could use it. You too, for that matter. Rosie will let us know if anything changes."
"Thanks, Tom." Seething, I led Erica back to the Jeep and climbed in. "Booker's my friend, Erica. We can trust him, for God's sake."
"Tommy said 'Don't trust anyone.' He didn't say, 'Anyone except the following people.' He meant anyone."
I looked at her sideways and started the engine. "You sure you can trust me?"
She reached over and punched me in the arm.
"Ow!"
"You deserved that. And anyway, if I didn't think I could trust you, I wouldn't keep coming back to Cedar Hills, would I?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ah, forget it, Cass. Just drive. Sometimes you make me crazy."
I pulled out of the hospital parking lot and floored it.
"Where are we going?"
"Tommy's. Somebody's got to feed his cat. Might as well be us. Besides, I think we ought to have a look around. Don't you?"
Tommy Green lived on the north end of town in an old double-wide mobile home that abutted Rainbow Creek. Just across the creek was a cow pasture and beyond that the forest. His only neighbor was a quarter-mile back toward town where the pavement ended on Creek Street. We bumped along the final stretch.
"
Quaint," was all Erica said when we stepped out of the Jeep.
"Nice and private. Good view, too," I said, feeling oddly defensive about Tommy.
"Probably grows pot back here. Who would know but the cows?"
"Probably. Come on. I'll bet you ten bucks it's unlocked."
A few minutes later, and ten bucks poorer, I went back to the Jeep for my lock picks. I tended to keep them handy, though I knew that having them near only encouraged my fondness for breaking and entering. It was a bad habit and a dangerous one, but one I felt drawn to time and again. Probably a burglar in my last life, I thought, clicking the pick into place and gently easing the front door open. Erica was grinning.
"What?"
"You get off on that, don't you?"
"Shh! Come on!" I pushed the door the rest of the way open and tiptoed into the mobile home. I wasn't sure why I was sneaking around. There were no neighbors to hear us and Tommy lived alone. We stood in the entryway and listened, looking around. The place was empty.
"Besides the cat, what are we looking for?" Erica asked.
"I'm not sure. Anything out of the ordinary. Something that might tell us what Tommy's been up to lately. Here, kitty, kitty," I called softly.
"Probably keeps the cat outside during the day," Erica said. "What's its name?"
"Pepper. She started out as Paprika because she's orange, but Tommy's allergic to her and decided to call her Pepper." Erica looked at me blankly. "Because she makes him sneeze."
"Oh. Right. Pepper! Here, Pepper!" She moved off toward the kitchen and I walked through the house, room by room, looking under beds and tables, wondering what it was that Tommy had wanted Erica to find. Would we find it here? It would've helped if we'd known what to look for.
I was surprised at how neatly Tommy kept things. I'd expected casual disarray with beer bottles strewn around the place, dirty underwear hanging from doorknobs, that kind of thing. But except for a haphazardly stacked pile of books on the floor next to a worn ottoman, the place was fairly tidy. Not immaculate. The sinks could have used some cleanser and the furniture some dusting, but for a single guy, the place wasn't bad. There were window boxes with red begonias outside the bedroom window and a hanging fern in the corner. He'd even made his bed, a waterbed with red silk pillowcases, and when I looked beneath the spread, matching sheets. I smiled and understood the general neatness of the place. Tommy brought girls here, and regularly.
7th Heaven Page 2
