“Lady, he doesn’t have a forehead!” I say it a bit more abruptly than I mean to, but it is the only way I can think of to break through this woman’s automaton frame of mind.
There is a moment of startled silence. Then, in a high, squeaky voice, “What did you say?”
“I said he doesn’t have a forehead. Not much of one anyway.”
“He doesn’t have a forehead?”
I hear more papers rustling and stifle a bizarre urge to laugh. “I don’t think your instructions will tell you what to do if someone is missing a forehead,” I say calmly. I hear her swallow—a big, echoing gulp—followed by a little cough. “You’re kind of new at this, aren’t you?” I say.
“Um, yeah. Is it that obvious?”
“Probably not to everyone. But I spent several years working as a nurse in the ER, so I’m kind of jaded.”
I hear a noise and turn to find a uniformed police officer standing in the doorway to the showroom. It is Brian Childs, one of the cops I know from working in the ER, and he looks wired and ready to jump. As soon as he sees me he relaxes a little, though his hand hovers close to the gun strapped to his side.
“Mattie, hi,” he says. “Are you okay?”
I nod. He looks around the room warily.
“Are you alone?”
“Far as I know,” I tell him, to which the 911 operator says, “Pardon me?”
“Sorry, I was talking to an officer here.”
“An officer is there?” She sounds greatly relieved.
“Yes. Brian Childs.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name?” She sounds shocked that I would ask such a thing. “It’s Jeannie. Why?”
“I just wanted to know. Thanks for your help, Jeannie.”
“I wasn’t very good, was I?”
I realize then that she probably thinks I want her name so I can file a complaint about her. “You did fine, Jeannie. Honest. The first few times are always rough.”
“I guess.”
“Hey, someday I’ll tell you about a few things I bungled back when I first started working in the ER. It will make you look like a pro.”
She lets forth with a nervous little laugh but I can tell her tension has eased some.
“Look,” I say, seeing Brian signaling to me, “I need to talk to Officer Childs, so I’m going to hang up.”
“Okay.”
“And, Jeannie?”
“Yeah?”
“Hang in there. It gets easier.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” she says. “But thanks.”
Brian speaks to me as soon as I disconnect the call. “Dispatch said there was a shooting here?”
I point to the bathroom door and say, “In here,” though I could have saved my breath since he is already heading in my direction, his nose wrinkling at the acrid smell of blood.
“Whoa!” he says, sticking his head through the opening in the door and looking inside. “Guy did a number on himself, didn’t he?”
“He did that,” I agree, peering over his shoulder to see if it is as awful as I remember. It is.
Brian lifts a walkie-talkie to his mouth and hits the button. “All clear in here, Junior.”
Junior, I know, is Jonathan Feller, another cop about my age.
“Shit, Mattie. This is a mess, ain’t it?” Brian says.
It certainly is, enough of a mess that my lunch begins to churn menacingly in my stomach. I gulp in a breath of air and not only smell the thickening blood that suddenly seems everywhere, I swear I can taste it. My stomach lurches, tossing a burning dose of acid up my throat, and I swallow hard several times, hoping to convince my GI tract that down is the only way to go. I get a brief reprieve when I hear the door to the front showroom open. I turn, grateful for the distraction and expecting to greet Junior.
But it isn’t Junior; it’s Steve Hurley. He sees me and frowns, not quite the response a girl hopes for from the man who kissed her silly just the night before. He walks toward me, and I can’t help but wonder if he is remembering the kiss, too.
The mere sight of him gets my pulse racing, and when he stops and looks at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, my legs begin to shake. My stomach gets this odd, squishy, butterfly feeling and his closeness seems to rob me of all self-control, leaving me stunned and senseless.
All thought escapes me. As does my cheeseburger, the remnants of which splatter all over his shoes.
Chapter 25
As Hurley reveals his impressive knowledge of profanity, my mind clicks back into detached clinical mode as I eye the mess I’ve just barfed all over his shoes. A pickle slice, whole and intact, rests on his laces and I make a mental note to try to chew my food more thoroughly in the future.
“Jesus Christ, Winston!” he says, shaking his foot. “Couldn’t you have tried to make it to the bathroom?”
“Well, I suppose I could have,” I say crossly. “But there’s the little matter of a dead body in the only bathroom I see here, which is what made me lose my lunch in the first place.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Hurley mutters. “How the hell am I supposed to clean this off my shoes if I can’t use the bathroom?”
“Try this,” I offer, grabbing a bottle of sterile water and a package of waterproof bed pads from a nearby shelf. I notice some bottles of mouthwash nearby and grab one of those, too, stuffing it in my pocket. I don’t normally condone theft or shoplifting, but I figure in this case it is for the greater good, a benefit to mankind…well, at least the mankind who have to share breathing space with me.
Hurley is working at cleaning the vomit off his shoes when Junior comes in through the back door. As soon as Junior joins Brian in the bathroom and I’m certain Hurley is well distracted, I head for the door Junior just came through. Behind the store is a narrow alleyway that backs up to a hill. Checking to make sure the door is unlocked, I let it close and open my bottle of mouthwash. I gulp a mouthful, swish it around, then spit it out onto the pavement. Twice more and I almost feel human again. Shoving the bottle in my pocket, I reach for the handle to head back inside, only to have the door meet me halfway, colliding painfully with my hand as Hurley pushes through it from the other side.
“Ouch, damn it!” I yell, shaking my hand and hopping around as if that might somehow lessen the pain.
“Sorry,” Hurley mumbles. “Didn’t know you were there.”
I suck at the base of my thumb where the worst of the pain seems to be concentrated while Hurley stares at my mouth with an expression of unadulterated hunger that makes me ache in a whole different way.
“What are you doing here already?” he asks, dragging his gaze up to my eyes and shaking free of whatever fantasy he’s created.
“Already?” I repeat, puzzled.
“Where’s Izzy? Don’t tell me he’s got you out on your own already. You’re hardly ready.”
“I’m not here in any official capacity,” I explain. “And how do you know I’m not ready?”
“If you aren’t here in an official capacity, then why are you here?”
It’s a good question, one I’m not too keen on answering since I don’t want Hurley to know I am conducting my own investigation into the death of Karen Owenby. “Personal business,” I say, thrusting my chin out in a way that dares him to call me a liar.
“And you just happened to find this dead guy here in the back?”
“Actually, he was alive when I got here.”
“What?” Hurley barks. “You were here when he killed himself?”
“Apparently. Like I said, he was alive when I got here.”
“Are you sure?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I say with no small amount of sarcasm. “I talked to him up front in the showroom area. Then he disappeared into the back. When he didn’t show up again for a long time, I got curious and poked my head into the back. I saw blood coming from under the bathroom door and that’s how I found him.”