Blind Spot (3 page)

Too early…

Leesha was in the hall. They looked at each other and Leesha came over and gave Claire a pat on her arm.
Too early.
Claire knew what that was like as well. Life was full of unexpected pitfalls, and today Claire was revisiting all of hers.

“Dr. Norris?”

The tight male voice was familiar. Claire’s stomach tightened as she turned and faced the frowning visage of the insufferable Dr. Freeson as he made his way toward them. One of the psychiatrists at Halo Valley. Her immediate superior, in some ways, though he thought he was in all ways.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I called her,” Leesha jumped in. “She was good enough to come on her day off.”

“Well, you’re not needed.” He gazed at Claire hard. “I was in a meeting with Avanti, or I would have been here earlier,” he said primly, his Vandyck beard bristling. Forty-something with sandy-colored hair and eyes and a blotchy complexion, he wasn’t exactly God’s gift but he sure thought he was. He’d made a casual pass at Claire when she’d first joined Halo Valley and when she didn’t jump for joy, he’d been irked and somewhat embarrassed. It hadn’t helped their working relationship.

“I’m already here.” Claire forced a faint smile. It was better to treat Freeson like she was impervious, but sometimes she just wanted to smack his smug, supercilious face.

“Tomorrow, when you’re back at work, Avanti wants to talk to you.”

So what else was new? Dr. Paolo Avanti, Freeson’s immediate superior, loved giving daily lectures about anything and everything. He was at least as much of a prick as Freeson, though he had better social skills in front of the public. But neither Freeson nor Avanti had come to Claire’s defense when she really needed them, and they would both prostrate themselves in front of the head hospital administrator, Dr. Emile Radke, if they thought it would help their positions at the hospital.

“Okay,” Claire said neutrally.

“Where is this patient?” Freeson demanded.

“The staff’s in with her now,” Leesha answered. “You’ll have to wait.”

He eyed her frostily from head to toe. He was a fairly slight man and Leesha’s stolid form seemed to nonplus him a bit. He wasn’t used to being thwarted, wasn’t used to anything but complete capitulation. “Then I’ll wait.”

Claire knew Freeson didn’t give a damn about the patient. This was all about jockeying for position within the hospital, and this patient provided media attention, something Freeson went after like a heat-seeking missile. He seemed to also have made it his personal mission to keep Claire in line.

It was such utter bullshit. A means for everyone to believe that they were doing everything possible to rectify the fact that Melody Stone had been attacked on their hallowed grounds, in front of one of their own doctors, by another patient whose wealthy parents had coerced his release from those selfsame doctors and therefore helped set up the very events that led to Melody’s death.

Why was she the only one who saw it?

She answered her own question: hospital politics and money.

The nightmare scene of Melody’s death tried to play across Claire’s mind again, but this time she resolutely stuck it inside a box in her mind and tied it tightly. Not now. Not today. She knew grief and shock took their own sweet time in relinquishing their grip, and so she was trying to let nature take its course and heal her. She’d made good strides and was beginning to understand and process Melody’s death. She was also almost managing to forgive Heyward, knowing he was at the mercy of his own disease, though that was happening much slower.

The team of nurses and Dr. Blount came out of Jane Doe’s room and Leesha hurried over for a quick consult. Freeson breezed past them and entered the room. Claire felt compelled to follow him as he stood over the now peacefully resting patient.

“Not labor,” Leesha said near her ear. “Some other pain. Maybe mental.”

“She was attacked,” Claire reminded her.

They were all silent for a few moments, then all left together. Claire said to Leesha, “Keep me informed.”

“She’s not your patient,” Freeson told her, but Claire ignored him as she walked rapidly down the hall in the opposite direction that she’d arrived. By design she’d chosen a different exit. She had no interest in speaking to Freeson any more than she had to, and since he was likely to leave by the front, she would hit a side door. If he wanted her to wait for him, he could just go ahead and be pissed off that she’d avoided him.

“Hey!” He called after her before she could turn the corner.

Claire increased the length of her strides, pretending she didn’t know he was calling for her. She hit the stairs and hurried down the steps, pushing through a door to a small walkway that circled the building. Turning toward the front of the hospital and the parking lot, she bent her head to the chilly, drizzling rain. The Passat was still parked in a reserved spot. The hovering newspeople barely gave her a passing glance as she climbed into the car. She hadn’t left by the main entrance. She wasn’t wearing a lab coat. They couldn’t connect her to the patient and didn’t know who she was.

Good.

She’d had enough of them six months earlier. Oh, brother, had she! As she backed out, she glanced through the window at their news van and the smattering of people milling around. She could see the dark, slickly combed head of Pauline Kirby.

Claire made a growling sound as she twisted the ignition. That woman had been particularly invasive. Between her insinuations, the accusations from Melody Stone’s family, and the abandonment of her colleagues, Claire had been under lethal assault.

And when she thought about it—really thought about it without all the underlying sorrow and horror—it really kind of pissed her off.

Turning the wipers on, she wheeled the Passat out of the lot. The interior was warm and she could smell her own body scent, dampened by rain. Lavender Mist. The body gel she’d washed with that morning in the shower. Today’s flavor, after lemon, apricot, and that horrible sea foam, was a fresh, almost minty scent that had been as ineffective as all the rest. Nothing could wash away the feeling of guilt, though she knew rationally she had nothing to feel guilty about.

In her rearview she saw Freeson step from the vapor-locked portico in front of the hospital. His gaze searched the parking lot, the impatience on his face a tight mask. But he didn’t focus on her car as the news horde bore down on him.

“Pretend you know something, Freeson,” she muttered, turning onto the main road. “Like you pretended to know what drove Heyward Marsdon to kill Melody Stone.”

“Heyward Marsdon killed my sister and nobody did a damn thing about it,” Langdon Stone stated flatly as he tipped up a longnecked beer. He swallowed a third of the bottle, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and added, “I’m not coming back to the department. I’m not doing a damn thing until that sick, privileged bastard is behind bars. Prison bars.”

“We know,” was the long-suffering response. His ex-partner, Detective Trey Curtis, dark-haired, lean, gruff, and still at the Portland Police Department, waved for the bartender to send over two more longnecks. “I’m not trying to get you to come back. Everything’s been better since you left.”

Lang snorted.

“Celek’s been doing a helluva job. I couldn’t ask for a better partner. And he’s better-looking than you are. Gets all the chicks. They swoon.”

Curtis almost made Lang smile. Almost. He knew Curtis’s new partner, Joshua Celek: a chubby, freckled thirty-year-old with a sunny disposition and a belief in human nature that couldn’t be hammered out of him no matter how much depravity he encountered on the job. He looked and acted like a kid out of a fifties sitcom. He’d been elevated from robbery to homicide after Lang unceremoniously walked away from the job he’d worked for nearly a decade.

“Swoon,” Lang repeated.

“Yeah, swoon.”

“Well, that’s good, then, ’cause I’m not coming back.”

“Who says there’s a job waiting for you? You’re out. The chief…the captain…Lieutenant Drano…they’re all glad your pain-in-the-butt attitude is gone.”

“Drano called me yesterday. Offered me more money and a new partner if I had problems with you.”

“Drano’s on vacation in Mallorca.”

“Yeah, he got back last night and phoned me as soon as he touched down at PDX.”

“You’re lying. Good one, though.”

Lang did smile now, and Curtis reached over and knocked Lang’s baseball cap off his head. They locked their arms around each other’s necks, alarming their waiter, who’d already seemed to want to comment on their choice of beer with breakfast. It was a long-standing rule with Lang and Curtis: whenever they met, whichever one saw the other first, that one would buy the first beer. Lang had spotted Curtis and had ordered two Budweisers and they’d been enjoying them with bacon and eggs.

Curtis shoved Lang away from him and said to the waiter, “You don’t have to call the cops. I got a badge. Just off duty and trying to knock some sense into my friend here.” The waiter nodded slowly but the consternation on his face didn’t quite leave. “Really,” Curtis said.

“Okay. Can I get you anything else?”

Lang said, “Scotch and water, hold the water.”

“No. Thanks.” Curtis waved the waiter off. “Not until after nine thirty.” As the waiter turned away, he admitted to Lang, “Okay, butthead, Drano does want you back. We all do.”

Lieutenant Draden was called Drano because his craggy, world-weary face and dispirited manner made him seem drained of life. He was, in fact, savvy, smart, and surprisingly full of ideas, but you had to get to know him a while to see the man behind the persona. So far Celek hadn’t clued in. Curtis had told Lang a story about the newbie homicide detective and his penchant for keeping the gory details from Draden, as if it might somehow spiral him over the edge, that almost made Lang chuckle. Almost.

“Celek thinks if he tells Drano anything but sunshine and lollipops that Drano will jump off a bridge.”

“Tough to keep details from your lieutenant.”

“Oh, he writes up these bang-up reports—way better than yours, except for spelling and punctuation, your specialty—”

“Thank you.”

“—and then he tries to make me turn them in. Like Drano won’t see his name at the bottom. Celek’s got all kinds of weirdness. Nicety-nice stuff that takes up so much time and energy that you want to knock him sideways.”

“You’ve controlled yourself so far?”

“No thanks to you. When are you coming back?”

“I told you: I’m not.” Lang shoved back his chair. “Let’s go somewhere with a pool table.”

“Too early. Besides, you got enough money off me last time we played.” Curtis threw some cash on the table and said, “My treat.” Lang threw the same amount down and walked away. Swearing, Curtis picked up Lang’s cash and followed him onto the street and into a pouring rain, surprisingly chilly for September. “I’m giving this to charity,” he said, waving Lang’s bills at him.

“To the Neglected Children of Strippers Named Taffy or Sugar or Cinnamon.”

“Only if they’re my kids,” Curtis agreed, playing along. Their relationship was long and deep. “When are you going to give up the vendetta? Marsdon’s behind bars.”

Lang frowned and shook his head, rainwater collecting on his black hair. “That facility is a hospital, not a prison.”

“Damn near a prison. And at the risk of getting my head bit off, the man’s sick.”

“Sure, he’s sick. But he killed my sister. And now he gets to stay at the very hospital where he slit her throat? Why not send him to a five-star hotel?”

“He’s in the lockdown section. With all the other super crazies who are incapable of standing trial.”

“He should be in prison,” Lang insisted, his jaw tightening.

“Not according to the courts and the doctors,” Curtis reminded him quietly. They were getting into dangerous territory, and even being the good friends that they were, Trey Curtis was completely aware of the depth of his friend’s anger, misery, and need for retribution. He didn’t want to get in the way.

“Doctors,” Lang sneered. “She’s dead because of them. Because of
her.
”

“I’m not going to argue with you.”

“You’re sure as hell doing a good job of it.”

“I’m just lobbing out little facts. Doesn’t mean I like any of it.” He lifted his hands in surrender.

“He could stand trial,” Lang insisted again. “Heyward Marsdon the Third is at Halo Valley because of his grand-dad’s money.”

“He’s a paranoid schizophrenic, Lang. He’s probably where he should be.” Lang looked ready to argue. He certainly wasn’t going to capitulate, so Curtis went on, “You’re too good a man, too good a cop, to let this define your entire life. Do what you can in the matter, but do it on the job. Drano wants you back. I want you back. Hell, even Celek wants you back.” He paused, then added, “No matter what you think, Halo Valley ain’t no summer camp.”

“I want him dead,” Lang said then.

“So do I, man,” Curtis agreed. “For you. I wish he’d hang himself, or throw himself in front of freeway traffic, or put the barrel of a forty-four in his mouth. But it’s not gonna happen, and neither you nor I is going to make it happen. So, let’s move on.”

“Move on,” Lang repeated, his eyes taking on a faraway look as he gazed over Portland city center’s morning traffic. “I got a job offer from the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department.”

“Which you haven’t taken yet, either.” They were standing under a narrow awning and had been speaking in fierce, if partially hushed, tones. “So, okay, I got a different job for you,” Curtis said. “Something I want you to look into.”

“What, am I your personal gofer now?”

“A body was found at a rest stop on the outskirts of Winslow County. The guy was stabbed to death, and someone tried to cut out the baby from his pregnant companion. Didn’t succeed, as far as I know. She’s at Laurelton General. He’s at the county morgue.”

“I saw it on the morning news,” Lang said, then, “Not your jurisdiction.”

“That’s why I want you to look into it.”

“And piss off a lot of people who might think I should mind my own business.”