Deer Season (10 page)

“Well, I only got as far as the entryway, but it certainly looked and smelled new.”

“What did you learn?”

“The estate—I don’t know what else you’d call it—is gated. Security cameras are at the entrance, along the drive, and on the exterior of the main building. The place looks like a small hotel. I walked Marie to the door; a man opened it and invited us in. He was clearly not a member of the family.”

“How could you tell?”

“How could I tell?” Sue pondered the question. “He didn’t introduce himself, and I just sort of thought he had employee written all over him.”

“So what does an employee look like? Are they in livery?” Ray asked, amused by her description.

“They probably should be,” Sue shot back. “This guy is in his middle twenties, blond, brush-cut hair, very trim. He looked like he just walked off a Marine poster. I would guess he’s part of the security detail. Once we were inside the girls ran to greet us, and I was introduced to their grandmother.”

“What’s she like?” Ray asked. He was always interested in Sue’s impressions of people and how they sometimes varied from his own.

“Not like my grandmother. Dorothy, that’s her name, gives meaning to the phrase, sixty is the new forty. She is trim, blond, and athletic looking, an older version of Lynne. But she didn’t look that much older. I would guess her face has been redone by a really good surgeon.”

“And Lynne’s father?”

“I was told that Prescott was at the hospital. I was able to get Lynne’s mother aside and asked if we could interview her soon. She said now that Marie was there she was available at our convenience. I’ll get back to her after we establish our priorities.”

Ray nodded.

“It looks like you’ve been busy,” said Sue, perusing the carefully drawn chart. It had taken her a while to get used to Ray’s graphical way of organizing an investigation, but the longer they worked together, the more their styles had begun to blend. She knew he counted on her to bring his attention to logical errors and omissions. He recognized that she was much better at organizing the detail. And she often offered an entirely different interpretation of facts and evidence.

“Look over what I’ve done,” Ray said, gesturing toward the whiteboard. “Wrap your brain around it and tell me what I’ve missed.” Then he went silent and waited. He had learned to give Sue time. She would respond when she had digested the information, occasionally asking questions along the way to get additional details or have him unscramble his handwriting for her. He waited patiently, his own brain racing.

“So we start with Dirk,” she finally said, her eyes returning to the left-hand column on the board. “Convenient of him to be out of town and impossible to reach when his wife gets shot. We both know the statistics on this; he’s the most likely suspect.”

“The challenge here is to keep our own feelings about Dirk in check,” said Ray. “You don’t like him much.”

“And neither do you. You’re just so damn professional, you stay away from personalities,” Sue responded.

“You almost seem angry at me,” said Ray, responding to her tone.

She gave Ray a quick smile. “I just don’t like the guy. The Grecian Formula hair, the artificial tan, the spit-polished boots— not part of our uniform, and that heavy gold chain around his neck. He’s just creepy. Did you know he hit on me the first week I was working here?”

“Why didn’t you say so, it would have given me grounds to help him into retirement.”

“I was new. I didn’t know the lay of the land. But I got real nasty; he never bothered me again.” She paused for a moment, and then continued, “And now that I’ve got that out of my system, as I was saying, it’s convenient that he appears to be out of town when there’s a family emergency.”

“Yes, convenient,” agreed Ray. “Maybe the bullet was intended for Dirk?”

“He seems to have lots of enemies. But I think it would be hard to confuse the two,” said Sue.

“Here’s his Away from Duty form. I’ve just reviewed it again.” Ray passed the form to Sue. “He worked this weekend, and then he’s on vacation this week and next. The form says he’ll be in town through Thursday and then he’s going to the U.P. to do some deer hunting. Looks like he might have changed his plans without updating the form. He says he’ll be at the Four Roses Resort north of Seney. I can’t find anything by that name in the region. Do you know the area?” he asked.

“I’ve only been up to the U.P. twice in my life, family vacations when I was a kid.”

“I just checked NOAA, blizzard conditions along the southern Lake Superior shoreline.” Ray put a map of the U.P. in the center of the table, orienting it for Sue. “Dirk said he would be north of Seney,” Ray leaned over the table pointed to a dot on the map. “Three counties come together there: Luce, Schoolcraft, and Alger. I’ve called the sheriffs in all three. A snow emergency has been declared across the whole region. And no one has heard of the Four Roses Resort. Two of them suggested the name came from the whiskey of that name, long a popular drink in the deer camps.”

“So it doesn’t sound like they’re offering immediate help in finding a fellow officer.”

“You got it. The consensus was that it would take several days after the snow stopped falling before they started plowing secondary roads. If we hadn’t heard from Dirk by then, they would do what they could.”

“Did you ask about cell phones?”

“Yes. The coverage is spotty. And many of these deer camps are off the grid and don’t have landlines. They heat with wood and use propane or kerosene for lights.”

“How about the State Police?” Sue asked.

“Same response.”

“So,” said Sue, “we know things aren’t good in the marriage, they’re heading for splitsville. But Dirk can’t be so dumb to think he could get away with this, even if he could get the boys in the deer camp to give him an alibi.”

“Dirk has an almost inexhaustible supply of hubris, but you’re probably right, he wouldn’t be that stupid. Even with an alibi, he knows he is going be suspect number one.”

“And what would be his motive?” asked Sue. “Like it’s not the first time he’s been divorced.”

“We need to get him in here and let him give us his story. And once we get in contact with him, you would think he’d want to be with his kids. I’ve left two messages, so if he turns on his phone or gets someplace with a signal….”

“The other items you think we should pursue immediately?” started Sue, looking at the whiteboard.

“The letters that Lynne got. Anything from the State Police lab yet?”

“No,” said Sue, opening a notepad and starting a list. “I’ll call them as soon as we’re done and let them know this has become a priority. What’s next?”

“I would like to talk to the station manager and see if he’s got any ideas. I want to know if there is anything more on those letters, and then I want to question him about other possibilities like professional jealousy and office romances.”

“Psychiatrist?” said Sue, pointing to white board. “What’s that about?”

“When Lynne came in with the letters, she told me she was seeing a psychiatrist. There’s a chance he might have some useful information.”

“Did she give you a name?”

“No, but based on her description of the man, I’ve a good sense of who it is.”

“Description? Why didn’t she just tell you his name?”

“Lynne was telling me about problems in her marriage. Dirk didn’t like the au pair and accused her of having an affair with her psychiatrist, who she said was in his late sixties. Dr. Ruskin fits that description. I’ll call him and confirm that she was a patient. And then I’ll see if he….”

“Aren’t you going to get into a physician/patient confidentiality problem?”

“I don’t think so, given what’s happened and the kind of information we’re seeking.”

“Sounds like they have a wonderful marriage,” said Sue. Her gaze returned to Ray’s diagram, “And next you have family. I assume you’re referring to Lynne’s”

“Yes. I think we need to see if she’s told her parents anything. If she and her mother are close, perhaps Lynne shared something that might be useful.”

“I’ll set up an appointment to talk to her mother,” Sue said.

Ray pointed to an area in his chart. “I’d also like to know more about the family. Might there be a sibling or relative who would benefit by Lynne’s death? I’d like you to work that angle. And would you carefully peruse this chart and see what I missed?”

“What are you going to do?” Sue asked.

“I’m sort of stir-crazy. I’m going to the hospital. I’ll see if I can learn anything about Lynne’s condition, and if I can find him, perhaps have a word with her father. I’ll also try to visit with Dr. Ruskin.”

“You okay?” said Sue, noting the fatigue in his voice.

“Why do you ask?”

“You just seem tense and very tired.”

“The cold weather, my leg has been uncomfortable today, and this….”

Sue cut him off, “There are certain parallels.” Her sentence hung briefly.

“We better getstarted,” said Ray, using his arms to help lift his body out of the chair. After Sue left, he stood for a long moment looking at the chart and thinking about what Sue had said, the parallels. He pushed those thoughts from his mind. He needed to keep his focus on the case at hand.

Two large glass doors slid open as he approached the building. Stopping at the registration desk, Ray told the female attendant, a graying woman in a green smock, the name of the patient he needed information on. She keyed the name into the system and looked at the flat screen monitor on her right.

“That patient has been moved to surgery. Follow this hallway,” she gestured with her arm, “to the end and take one of the elevators to the second floor. Then follow the signs to the surgical information desk.”

Ray followed the directions and waited for an elevator. When one of the doors opened, Saul Feldman, his close friend and internist, was coming off the elevator in his direction. “How are you?” said Saul extending his hand. “Staying out of trouble?”

“Trying to. I stopped by to see if I can get some info on…”

“Young woman, the TV woman.”

“Yes,” Ray answered, “Lynne Boyd.”

“I was just coming from the OR, I can tell you what I heard in the doctor’s lounge. How about a coffee?”

Saul Feldman led the way to the cafeteria, and after getting two mugs of coffee they settled at an empty booth in a deserted area of the large, brightly lit room.

“So, what’s her condition, is she going to make it?” Ray asked.

“She’s still alive. And if she makes it, well, all the planets lined up for her,” Feldman offered.

“How so?”

“The newest physician on our trauma team is a young woman. In the last couple of years she’s worked both in a mobile field hospital in Iraq and Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany. She’s spent months stabilizing badly wounded GIs so they could be evacuated to Landstuhl, and then she spent time at the other end, at Landstuhl, as part of a surgical team. “So today she was on call when the shooting victim came in. I heard that the victim was almost gone by the time the ambulance arrived. Hanna Jeffers, that’s the young surgeon’s name—little woman, ninety pounds at the most, and really intense. And she’s gutsy as hell, and not afraid to take chances to save a patient. In the few months she’s been here she’s earned the nickname ‘fearless and fast’ Hanna.

“Jeffers has them run the patient to surgery, she wanted to get a CT of the wound, but the patient was too unstable. So Hanna goes ahead and cracks the woman’s chest and starts administering NovoSeven. That’s something they used in Iraq to control bleeding, but it’s not FDA approved for use here. Well, that raised some eyebrows. But that’s only the beginning. Then Hanna puts the patient on a heart-lung machine and starts repairing the damage. I talked to a couple of the scrub nurses, and they said she’s fantastic. She’s got incredible hands, she’s very fast, and she can sort of improvise as she goes.

“So she did things the military way?” asked Ray, as he visualized the scene in the OR.

“Yes. Military, that’s the perfect phrase. I guess she was ordering people around. Everyone was expected to move in double time. And she didn’t show proper deference to some of her distinguished colleagues. Some of the old boys are a bit upset by her less-than-conventional approach to surgery, but I can’t fault her. No one comes close to having the experience she has at salvaging patients with this kind of horrific wound.”

“But she’s rubbing people the wrong way?”

“The cardiac group, it’s the last exclusive boys club left in the local medical community. In the last ten years about half of the new physicians coming to town have been female. In family medicine and some of the specialties, it’s now mostly female.”

“So she’s breaking new ground,” Ray observed.

“More than that. She’s really stirred things up. The old boys, they don’t like anyone who doesn’t respect the pecking order, and Hanna, hell, she doesn’t know a pecking order exists. And they don’t like the way she’s breaking all the long-standing paradigms. Most of my colleagues have become quite comfortable doing the same thing year after year. They’re smart, competent people, and they usually get good results, but they’re slow to change. In comes this pretty, young woman who challenges much of what’s considered standard practice.”

“So what’s happening with Lynne?”

“The patient’s in intensive care. Hanna will probably be living in the hospital the next few days watching over her.”

“Prognosis?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ve been told there was a lot of tissue damage. I guess it all depends on whether the repairs hold together, and there’s no infection or other complication. This patient won’t be out of the woods for a long while. But let’s talk about you,” said Feldman. “Are you still getting physical therapy for that leg?”

“I finished last week. The PT said I was good to go.”

“How about the psychiatrist, Dr. Sandlow?”

“I’m seeing her twice a week. And to be frank, Saul, I don’t know where the therapy’s going.” Ray reflected on therapy sessions, the long silences when he didn’t know what to say.