Uh-oh. Beatrice is his wife, who’s been dead for some ten years now. I’m beginning to suspect Bjorn is a sundowner, an affectionate term those of us in healthcare use for people whose confusion worsens after dark.
I take Bjorn’s keys and open his car, letting him sit on the passenger side to keep him from trying to drive off somewhere in his confusion. We settle in and wait for Hurley, who pulls up a short time later. Leaving Bjorn for a minute, I walk over to Hurley’s car and tap on the driver’s side window. He lowers it, smiling at me.
“Do you and Bjorn need a little more time together?” he asks.
“As a matter of fact, we do. Would you mind following me to his place? He can’t see well enough in the dark to drive and he’s gotten a little disoriented now that the sun has gone down.”
He grins wickedly at me but says nothing. I head back to Bjorn and drive him home with Hurley following. I help Bjorn into his house and then spend ten minutes in the bathroom with him removing his leg bag and connecting him to his nighttime bag, one that hangs at the bedside. As I steer him to his bedroom with him carrying the urine bag in one hand like a pocketbook, he stops for a moment and stares at his feet.
“I really should try to get some shoes to match this bag, don’t you think?” he says.
After making sure Bjorn is tucked in and his door is locked, I walk over to Hurley’s car and climb in the passenger seat. He pulls out, not saying a word but smiling from ear to ear. Five silent minutes later we are standing at Shannon’s front door and Hurley cuts the crime scene tape. When he opens the door, goose bumps race down my arms and the carnal odor of stale blood makes my stomach lurch.
As if sensing my hesitancy, Hurley places a hand at the small of my back and says, “It’s always hard to come back to these places. The initial horror wears off but it gets replaced by an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness.” He sighs and his breath is warm and oddly reassuring on my neck. “It’s truly disheartening to see the horrors that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another.”
I’m surprised at the level of emotion in his voice. I’ve developed an impression of him as a hardened, tough guy and this unexpected peek at his soft underbelly is both surprising and erotic. The air around us feels charged, and when I look up at his face he gazes down at me with a warmth I’ve never seen there before. The pressure of his hand at my back increases slightly and when he lowers his head I realize he is about to kiss me. A sensation like warm molten wax courses through my body, centering in my groin area. Then I remember where we are and know in an instant that this is the wrong place and time.
Reluctantly I pull back from him and sigh. “Not here.”
He holds me tight a second longer before the pressure of his hand lightens. “You’re right,” he says, matching my sigh. “Let’s get back to business.”
We enter the house and I wrinkle my nose at the smell of stale death. We pause a moment in the living room to look around and don some gloves. My gut is telling me to head back to the bedroom, that there’s something in there I missed. But I hold off and walk through the rest of the house first.
Nothing strikes me as odd until I reach the kitchen and start examining Shannon’s food stocks. Her monthly grocery bill must have been huge. There is enough here to feed a family of six and at least a quarter of it is designed to satisfy someone with a hellacious sweet tooth. There are four different flavors of Dairy Airs ice cream in the freezer, dozens of packages of cookies and cakes stashed in the pantry, and a wide assortment of candies in the cupboards.
Hurley, who followed me to the kitchen but stopped in the doorway, is leaning with one shoulder against the doorjamb, his hands in his pockets, his eyes watching my every move. I’m not sure if his close scrutiny is because he’s worried I might somehow contaminate the crime scene or if he’s reflecting on the moment we had on the porch.
I finish examining the kitchen and head for the bedroom, but Hurley won’t step aside to let me by. I stop inches in front of him and we look at each other for several seconds before his face breaks into a smile.
“What?” I ask.
“You’ve taken to your new job pretty quickly. And you seem to have good investigative instincts.”
“It comes from being nosy, which is a survival tool in a small town like this. And it’s come in handy during my nursing career, too. The ability to read the small clues can really help when you’re trying to size someone up and get a grasp of their lifestyle.”
Hurley nods. “Whatever the reasons, I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re doing a good job so far despite your tendency to get naked under the oddest of circumstances.”
My face flushes hot at his words and I feel my heartbeat speed up. Desperate to escape that penetrating gaze of his I tell him, “I’d like to move into the bedroom now.” His eyebrows arch and his smile broadens as I realize what I’ve said. “To look at Shannon’s stuff,” I add quickly. He doesn’t move at first and I tag on a beseeching, “Please?”
He finally steps aside and I hurry past him, hoping he won’t follow me. The idea of being in a bedroom with him after the sexually charged moments we just shared makes me nervous. Perhaps sensing my level of discomfort, he wanders off into the living room and starts rummaging through a corner desk instead.
Once again I am struck by the level of femininity in Shannon’s bedroom. It’s a very girly room—too girly for me—and I imagine it would prove uncomfortably girly to any man who may have entered. That gets me to wondering about the intimate moments she shared with Luke Nelson. Did they take place here, his place, or somewhere else that offered a more neutral setting? Somehow I sense that this room was something of a sanctuary for Shannon, a place where no man was welcome.
As I look at the bedside tables I remember the letters I found in there and holler out to Hurley, “Hey, I forgot to tell you that I read those letters from Erik to Shannon.” He doesn’t answer me and I assume he didn’t hear so I move closer to the door to try again. I look out into the living room and see him seated at a corner desk, his face frowning as he examines some papers.
Curious, I walk over to him. “Find something?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know if it’s all that significant but Shannon had quite a bit of credit card debt. On this one card alone she owed over ten thousand dollars and there are two other bills here I haven’t gotten to yet.”
“Hey, it’s the American way,” I tell him, feeling a twinge of guilt. I ran up some pretty significant credit card bills myself when I was living with David. Once I left him, I was afraid to use the cards since they were all in his name and I didn’t know if he had flagged the accounts to prevent me from using them. So to avoid that embarrassment, I never tried.
“What kind of stuff did she buy?” I ask. Hurley hands me the bill he’s holding and I scan the contents. There are several orders from a health food company, which seems in total opposition to the contents of the kitchen. In addition I see charges for several visits to her personal physician and a whopping charge of several thousand to a cosmetic dentist located in Madison.
I make a mental note to chat with Shannon’s doctor, a woman physician I know from working at the hospital. And though I’m momentarily surprised that someone of Shannon’s obviously modest means would spend so much money on cosmetic dentistry, I then remember her side career as a model.
I hand the bill back to Hurley and venture into Shannon’s bathroom, which is just off her bedroom. It’s a typical woman’s bathroom, full of make-up, lotions, fancy soaps, and a variety of hair products. When I open the medicine cabinet I find the usual collection of over-the-counter medications: aspirin, Tylenol, cough syrup, laxatives, and an allergy drug. I also find the reason behind all of the health store charges. The rest of the cabinet is jam-packed with vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements, most of them bearing labels that promise some type of assistance with weight loss.