Page 24

TWENTY-THREE

SHERIFF HUDSON

The sound of a ringing phone stirs me awake, but maybe I was already awake to begin with. Stress and anxiety will do that to you. They’ll make you feel like you haven’t slept a wink, no matter how long you’ve been lying in bed with your eyes closed. I splat my hand against the nightstand, my fingers tapping around in search of my cell. Finally, they touch the cold metal, and I hit Accept before pressing the phone against my ear.

“Sheriff Hudson,” I whisper, my voice croaking. I glance over at Pam. She’s sound asleep beside me, her long hair spread across the pillow.

“Sorry to wake you, sir. It’s Deputy Morrow. But... umm... I figured you would want to hear this right away...”

“Spit it out, Morrow.”

“Stevens is dead, sir.”

My eyes widen in disbelief, and I swing my legs out of bed, planting my bare feet on the floor. I rub the side of my temple, wondering if this is a dream.

“What the hell do you mean he’s dead? His doctor told me yesterday that surgery went well, and he’d make a full recovery.”

“This isn’t from natural causes, sir.” Morrow goes quiet on the other end, save for his labored breaths. “Stevens was murdered,” he finally adds.

* * *

Less than twenty minutes later, Olson and I arrive at the hospital. As soon as she heard me getting out of bed, she was up and ready to go before I was, insisting she come with. I didn’t argue because I know once she’s made up her mind, there’s no changing it. We make our way to Ryan Stevens’s room—or is it his former room now? Does it stop being his room if his body still occupies it, even with no life inside? Deputy Morrow is standing watch. Not sure why he wasn’t doing that before Stevens was murdered. There’s police tape stretched across the doorframe behind him, so it seems he’s done one thing right, but that doesn’t make the wrong he did any better.

“Sheriff Hudson, I don’t—” he says with a look of fear.

I put my hand up, stopping him. “Save it. I’ll deal with you later.” He steps aside, and I lift the police tape for Pam to duck under first.

A doctor seated in a chair in the far corner of the room is on his feet as soon as Pam and I enter.

“Hello, Officers,” he says, walking toward us with a clipboard clutched in his hand. “I would say good evening but...” He trails off, looking to the lump lying under the blood-soaked sheet in the hospital bed.

“Yeah, helluva way to spend a Saturday night, Doc,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m Sheriff Hudson, and this is Chief Deputy Olson.”

“I’m Dr. Boyd. It’s nice to meet you both, although I wish it was under different circumstances.” He pulls his lips in.

I nod and cross the room, pausing at the side of the bed. The sheet is soaked red just under Ryan’s head, so I already have a good idea as to what I’ll find underneath. There’s no Schrodinger limbo here. I know he’s dead, and that’s not going to change by waiting. I slowly pull the sheet down, revealing the face of a man I’ve known for many years, but I’ve never seen him like this. His eyelids have disappeared up into his forehead. He must have opened them in shock, his last agonizing seconds spent staring up at the person who had just taken his life. Farther down is the wound that ended everything for him—a long, deep gash beneath his chin, spanning from ear to ear. Blood trickles down his neck. The white sheet has absorbed a great deal of it, allowing the stain to grow and spread even farther.

A thought creeps into my mind. The deputy said it was homicide, but I can’t be sure that’s true, at least not yet. I retrieve a pair of latex gloves from my utility belt and stretch them over my large hands. Given why Ryan was in the hospital in the first place, he might not have even been murdered. Honestly, as horrible as it is to think, suicide would be the better cause of death here. Otherwise, we’ve got a killer on the run. I glance over at Deputy Morrow for a moment, squinting at him in displeasure. His face is as white as the sheet used to be.

“Who found him?” I ask.

Morrow clears his throat. “I did, sir.”

“Did anyone move anything?” My eyes swing between Morrow and Dr. Boyd.

“I checked for a pulse and then pulled the sheet over his head to cover him,” the doctor says.

I bend down and look under the bed to see if any objects were dropped, say a scalpel. But there’s nothing. I then lift the pillow and Ryan’s head, sliding my hand beneath the tops of his shoulders, finding nothing.

“Olson, can you help me lift him?”

“Sure.” She puts on her own gloves and helps me with Ryan, tipping him to the right and then to his left.

“It’s very unlikely he would be able to do that on his own,” Dr. Boyd says.

I open Ryan’s hands, examining them for any marks or objects. Nothing there either.

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“A person could only make a quick slash across their neck in a straight line before the body would go into shock and seize up but...” The doctor walks to Ryan’s body and indicates the starting point of the cut under the ear. “This cut pattern, going from under the ear, curving along the throat and back up to the other ear, would require a steady hand throughout. Plus, I mean I’m not an expert on postmortem wounds, but this cut is very deep and consistently so. The odds that he would be able to maintain that amount of force in that curve the entire time are extremely unlikely.”

I look down at the wound, inspecting it even closer this time. It’s nearly an inch deep throughout the entire incision. Never getting any shallower, even at the ends.

“Thanks, Doc,” I say, pulling off the latex gloves and tossing them into a nearby waste bin.

“Of course, Sheriff.”

I turn my attention to my deputy. “So, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know. I was...”

“That part I already know. I already know that you don’t know what happened. I know that you don’t know who did this. I know you weren’t here and weren’t doing your goddamn job. All of that I already know. So how about you save me the time and skip to the part where you explain why the hell you weren’t standing guard at that door!” I seethe, gesturing to the entrance of the room.

Deputy Morrow’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

“I don’t have time for you to clam up. We have a killer on the loose, and I need to know everything. So, where were you?”

“I was in the bathroom, sir.” Deputy Morrow is unable to look me in the eyes, choosing to stare at the floor instead.

“The bathroom? What were you doing in the bathroom that gave someone enough time to notice you were gone, sneak in, unplug a heart monitor, slit Stevens’s throat from ear to ear, and then leave, all with you seeing nothing? Were you installing a fucking toilet?”

“It’s the vending machine food and coffee here, sir. It runs right through me. I was in the bathroom pissing out my?—”

“Enough! I don’t need the details of you shitting your brains out, Deputy. Now, what time did you leave your post?”

“Uhhh, I think around one fifteen a.m.”

“And when did you return?”

He looks down at the floor and mutters, “One forty-ish.”

“Jesus,” I groan, pushing out a heavy sigh as I take a step toward him. “You know what you’re gonna do now? You’re gonna walk up and down every hallway on this floor, and you are going to ask every single person who isn’t confined to a bed if they might have seen something while you were on your porcelain throne. And then you’re going to do the same with everyone working at the front desk and anyone who has come in or out of this building in the past three hours.”

“Sir, that’s gonna take...”

“All night, I’m aware. So, you’d better get started.” I stare at Deputy Morrow, the fire in my eyes burning right through him until he leaves the room.

I turn back to face the doctor. “What kind of surveillance do you have in the building?”

He stammers but regains his composure almost instantly. Like me, he’s in a line of work where one mistake can be the difference between life and death.

“We have cameras in every hallway, elevator, at every floor station and every exit, and there are several positioned at the front desk and in the waiting area. We also have surveillance covering the parking lots,” Dr. Boyd says.

“Perfect. Could you please have your security or IT person, whoever oversees the cameras, come meet us? I’ll need all footage pulled from this evening.”

“Of course. I’ll go call him now.” He leaves the room with much more urgency than my deputy.

“Who could have done this?” Olson asks, glancing at the bloodstained sheet covering Ryan’s body.

“Anyone,” I say, shaking my head. “I know you weren’t at the press conference, but people were furious. You should have seen them. It may as well have been a mob with pitchforks and torches. They wanted blood.” I point to the bed. “They wanted his blood.”

She furrows her brow. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Marcus. Sure, they’re angry, but this is beyond that.” Olson gestures to the former sheriff. “Whoever did this is someone who was willing to risk it all. They knew Stevens was guarded, but they came in here anyway, and they slit his throat without any hesitation. This isn’t some nameless member of the public who was so enraged they decided to take justice into their own hands. This was personal.”

I know she’s most likely right, even though I don’t want her to be. Her theory is much more dangerous than mine. If this person targeted Ryan because of something he did in the past, then anyone involved in that case or incident could also be in danger.

“If your theory’s correct, who would be pushed far enough to do this?” I ask.

“What about the family of Jackie Clarke, the woman Stevens hit and killed? Do we know anything about them? Any ex-cons or former military? Because whoever did this was very skilled.”

Again, that’s a good theory. If someone had killed a family member of mine, I would certainly want them dead. But what Olson doesn’t know is all the other filth and dirt from Ryan’s past. I don’t even know it myself. If the average person sat down and tried to put together a list of people who would be willing to slit their throat, 99 percent of them would just have a blank sheet of paper. But I’m sure Ryan would have had no problem compiling an extensive list. The question is, whose name would be at the top?