“Hurley, I—”
His cell phone rings, cutting me off. He answers with a brusque “Hurley here,” and then listens for a minute. When he hangs up he turns away from me and addresses his remarks to Alison.
“It seems our Dr. Nelson has flown the coop,” he says tersely. “I’ve had the office issue a statewide APB on him so we’ll get him eventually.” He looks back at me then, his expression cold. “I listened to the tape and you were right. It’s obvious what was going on. But I’m afraid it’s not going to be usable for evidence given how it was obtained.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think things through very well,” I say, trying to convey my apologies for more than just the tape.
He stares at me for several seconds and as I struggle to read his face I try to communicate volumes with my own. Then he says, “I’m outa here. I’ll leave a couple of uniforms behind to help you with the evidence.” And just like that, he’s gone.
Alison raises her camera and snaps a picture of me, one I pray won’t show the disappointment and hurt I’m feeling. Then she smiles. “Wait for me, Stevie,” she yells over her shoulder. “I need some quotes for the paper.” She flounces out of the room, leaving me angry and alone.
I spend some time shuffling the files around but I’m too upset to focus: upset with Alison but even more upset with myself. I’m relieved when the Keller Funeral Home shows up to load Carla’s body and take it to our morgue because at least it’s a distraction. As I follow them out into the anteroom I look for Hurley, but he’s nowhere to be found.
As soon as the funeral home vehicle takes off, Izzy turns to me and says, “Arnie is still at the office so he can do the intake. I don’t plan to post Carla until tomorrow morning and I know this has been a rough day for you, so why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
Knowing I’m dangerously distracted, I take him up on his offer, stripping off my gloves and tossing them in the trash. I drive home in a somber mood, where I find Hoover curled up in the middle of my bed sound asleep. Nestled between his front paws sleeping just as soundly is Rubbish. I strip down to my undies and crawl in beside them. They waken, but when they see I’m joining them, they both settle down and go back to sleep.
Surrounded by my warm, snuggly little furballs, I curl up into a ball and start to cry.
After a fitful night of pacing, crying, and occasionally sleeping, I awaken the next morning to the ring of my cell phone. Daylight is peeking in through my windows and a quick glance at the clock tells me it’s a little after seven. Memories of the previous day’s events come flooding back as I grab my phone and I mutter a silent prayer that it’s Hurley on the other end, calling to give me another chance and forgive me for my stupidity.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” My spirits sag as I realize it’s Izzy, not Hurley.
“No,” I lie. I sit up and rub the sleep and dried tears from my eyes, then look over at Rubbish and Hoover, who are curled up together on the other side of the bed. “What’s up?” I ask, throwing the covers off and climbing out of bed.
“Have you seen this morning’s paper?”
I shake my head, then remember that I’m on the phone. “No. How bad is it?”
“Well, your picture fills the front page above the fold, right beneath a headline that reads, LOCAL WOMAN DEAD, INVESTIGATION ONGOING. You look appropriately stricken. Beneath that is another, smaller headline that says, PSYCHIATRIST ON THE LAM, with a picture of Luke Nelson. The article doesn’t say anything about the sexual abuse or that Carla killed herself, just that Nelson is wanted as a person of interest and can’t be found. Hurley said he wants to keep the details quiet for now.”
“You talked to Hurley this morning?”
“Yep, I called him right before I called you. My mother fell yesterday and she’s in the hospital so I need to run up there and see her this morning.”
“Sylvie fell? Is she all right?” I’m concerned not only because of my friendship with Izzy, but because the cottage I’m living in was originally built by Izzy for Sylvie when her health was failing. She gradually improved and moved out after a year because she’s fiercely independent and has little tolerance for Izzy’s lifestyle. She’s been going strong ever since at the ripe old age of eighty-something, but if she’s had a setback and needs to move back in, I might lose my digs.
“Not to worry,” Izzy says, reading my mind. “The hospital said she didn’t break anything. They diagnosed a mild case of pneumonia that temporarily weakened her but her doctor said she should be good as new in no time.”
I breathe a small sigh of relief.
“Anyway, because I’m heading up to the hospital, I won’t be doing the post on Carla until later today. That’s why I called Hurley. He said he wanted to be there for the autopsy so I wanted to let him know I’m not planning to start it until around eleven.”
“Okay. Anything you need me to do in the meantime?” I’ve made my way to the kitchen to start the coffeepot up and both Rubbish and Hoover have followed. They are sitting patiently at my feet, looking up at me with beseeching eyes.
“Actually, there is,” Izzy says. “We need more photos of the scene. I shot some yesterday in the room where Carla’s body was but I didn’t have time to finish because I got the call about my mother and had to head for the hospital.”
“No problem. I’ll run by first thing this morning and get the pictures for you.”
“Thanks. The digital camera is in the office on my desk. I’ll see you at eleven.”
“Tell Sylvie hi for me.”
“Will do.”
I hang up, glad for the revised schedule since I overslept. After letting Hoover out to do his morning ablutions, I fill up the critters’ respective food bowls and admire Hoover’s restraint in not eating Rubbish’s food after he snorts up his own. A shower, a cup of coffee, and a bowl of cereal later I head for the office.
I find the camera right where Izzy said it would be and sitting next to it is his digital recorder. Remembering that Hurley has mine, I grab Izzy’s, figuring I can use it if I find anything at the scene I want to note. I tuck the recorder in my pocket, put the camera and a handful of gloves inside my purse, and then make my way to Nelson’s office.
The place is locked and sealed up with crime scene tape, but Junior Feller is pulling guard duty in a squad car parked out front. I park a couple spaces away, grab a pair of gloves and the camera, toss my purse on the car floor, and get out, locking the car behind me.
Junior rolls his window down as I approach. He’s sipping coffee and reading the morning paper. I see my face plastered across the front of it and realize that Alison did, indeed, use the last picture she shot of me.
“Morning, Junior.”
“Hey, Mattie. Nice picture.”
“I guess.” He makes no big deal about my status as a headliner. In a town the size of Sorenson, just about everyone makes it into the paper at some point.
“You need in?” he says, gesturing toward the office door.
“I do. I need to snap some shots we didn’t get yesterday.”
“No problem.” He balances his coffee cup on the dashboard and climbs out of the car. We walk up to the door together, managing to attract a crowd of curious onlookers in the process. After he slices through the evidence tape and opens the door for me, he says, “Holler if you need anything.”
I thank him, don my gloves, and head inside. I take off my jacket and remove the recorder from its pocket, turning it to voice activation mode. I then slip it in its usual place, nestled between my breasts. I make a mental note to not tell Izzy where it was lest he worry it has girl cooties on it.
I snap some photos of the front room from as many angles as I can manage, making a verbal note when I shoot the corner where Luke Nelson was treated by the EMTs. Once I feel I’ve gotten what I need, I head into the office area.