Susan left the question unanswered. Instead, her neighbor repeated her initial query. “How many, Mary?”
Mary counted the vehicles and the people whom she could see. Most, but not all of them, were in uniform. “Five—no, six—cars,” she reported. “One white van. Looks like about… I don’t know… twelve to fifteen officers. It’s hard to say. Some of them are still sitting in their cars. It looks like they’re waiting around for something. I thought… I mean, I know it’s a horrible thing to say and all,” she continued, “but… I thought maybe they were waiting for an ambulance.” Or a hearse, she thought, but omitted this last part. In the back of her mind, she’d been worried that perhaps Ben had suffered a heart attack or even a cardiac arrest. Susan’s husband had been looking like he’d been under a lot of stress lately. He’d seemed too gaunt, too… haunted was the word that popped into her brain. Her body gave an involuntary shudder.
“—en there?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. What was that?”
“Is Ben there?” Her voice sounded tense but controlled, almost—as ridiculous as the idea seemed—as if she’d been expecting this development all along.
”No,” she said. “I don’t see Ben’s car, and I don’t see him. Maybe they’re waiting for him to get home.” A thought struck her then, and she was unable to keep the alarm out of her voice. “Oh, God, Susan! I hope it’s not the children! I hope nothing’s happened to one of the kids!”
“The kids are with me,” Susan replied.
“Oh, thank God!” she said. “Thank God for that, honey.”
The voice on the other end was quiet for a moment, then responded: “Yes. Thank God for that.”
For perhaps five seconds neither one of them spoke. It was a short pause, but within it, Mary was struck with the impression that a decision had been made.
“I have to go now, Mary,” Susan said. “Thank you for calling. I can’t tell you how important your phone call was, or how much I appreciate it.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, honey,” she replied, modestly brushing away the compliment yet pleased with herself for having been such a good friend and neighbor to the Stevensons, and to Susan in particular. Contacting her to make certain that she and her family were okay had just come naturally to Mary. It was the kind of thing neighbors used to do for each other all the time when she was growing up—and in the Midwest, she was proud to imagine, something neighbors still did for one another, no matter how disconnected and self-absorbed the rest of the country had become.
“You’ve always been a good friend to us, Mary. That friendship has meant a lot to me personally over the years. It still does. Regardless of everything else, I hope we can still have that.”
“Of course we can, Susan. You know you can come to me no matter what. If there’s anything I can do—anything at all—you just let me know.”
“Thank you, Mary. Good-bye.”
There was an audible click as the line was disconnected, and Mary returned the phone to its receptacle. She stood in the kitchen for a few moments, turning the conversation over in her mind. She realized that she’d learned very little about what was going on across the street at the Stevensons’ residence. Nevertheless, she decided that she had been able to offer them assistance, and for that she felt grateful. Humming quietly to herself, she went about setting the table for lunch.
47
The face of the sheriff’s deputy who appeared in the doorway of Trinity Medical Center’s pathology lab that afternoon belonged to Tony Linwood, a friend of the Stevensons. Looking up from his microscope, Ben recognized the deputy immediately.
“Hello, Tony,” he said, smiling. “Nice to see you.”
“Doc.” Tony nodded. His youthful, often animated face appeared neutral, his body language guarded.
Ben, who had begun making his way around the large desk to greet him, registered the officer’s tone and stopped, his fingers resting lightly on the varnished wooden surface.
“What brings you all the way down to what we in the business lovingly refer to as the ‘bowels of the hospital’?” he asked.
Tony’s feet shifted slightly, a little restlessly. “Chief Garston has requested your presence, sir.”
Ben felt his stomach clench. Not again, he thought. And so soon? He couldn’t face another one so quickly after the last autopsy. He simply couldn’t.
“Has there been another murder?” he asked apprehensively.
“I’m not at liberty to discuss things with you further, sir. I’ve just been asked to come get you.”
So formal. So guarded. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him: What if my presence is needed not as the medical examiner, but as the father of the victim? A moment of panic seized him, and he was struck with the nearly overwhelming urge to rush at the deputy, grab him by the front of his uniform, and demand to know what was going on. (“Is it one of my boys, goddamn it?! DID HE KILL ONE OF MY BOYS?!!”) If he’d taken such an approach, it wouldn’t have gone well for him—family friend or not. When Deputy Linwood had received the call over the radio, the dispatcher had said, “Possible suspect in a 187, needed for questioning.” One-eighty-seven was the radio code for homicide, and in a town that almost never saw such a crime, Tony had little doubt which series of murders the dispatcher was referring to. Any sudden rush by Dr. Stevenson would have resulted in Ben lying face-first on the floor with the full weight of the deputy’s knee pressing into the back of his neck.
Fortunately, Ben suddenly recalled that the boys were with their mother and grandparents in Arizona, and thus well out of harm’s way. Which left him with one residual thought: Who’s it going to be this time? He released a sigh of resignation. “Okay, let me get my keys.”
“You can leave your car here, sir,” Tony advised him. “I have instructions that you’re to come with me.”
Ben frowned. “I can just follow you, Tony. It’s not a problem.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I have specific instructions.”
Ben paused for a moment, considering. “I have instructions that you’re to come with me,” Tony had said. “I’m not at liberty to discuss things with you further, sir.” He’d never received a police escort to any of the other crime scenes. So, what was going on here? He was having difficulty making the pieces fit.
“Tony—Deputy Linwood,” Ben said carefully, opting halfway through his sentence for the more formal address. “Am I under arrest for something?”
“No, sir,” the officer responded. “Not at this time.”
48
The trip in the police cruiser was a short one, and none of them spoke. There had been a second sheriff’s deputy waiting for them just outside the lab, and the officer sat in the front passenger’s seat, with Tony at the wheel. Ben was relegated to the back, where the doors could be opened only from the outside. A thick Plexiglas divide separated him from the officers, and his knees were smashed up against the back of the seat in front of him.
He had no idea whether sheriff’s deputies worked in unison, or whether two officers to a car was the norm. He suspected the former, however, and wondered whether the second officer had been dispatched in case there had been a scuffle. It was hard for him to imagine—ridiculous, even—fighting with the police. What did they want to question him about? He wasn’t guilty of anything that he could think of. And yet, here he was, sitting in the back of a cruiser like a common criminal.