Fatal (23 page)

“She really is a babe,” Lyons said wistfully, his imagination clearly running as far amuck as it was capable of. “That’s what they were after her for? That book?”

“Exactly. Grimes didn’t mention it, so I don’t think he has it yet. If we can find it, you’ll be a hero.” He bent over and spoke man-to-man. “Plus, you’ll know which lady doctors in these parts give . . . the best exams.”

He punctuated the remark with a nudge.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Can you get me into the evidence room?”

“I have a card. We all do. I just have to swipe it.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?”

Lyons had driven his battered, grease-stained Wrangler to the hospital. Matt followed him back toward the station, but cut off a block from the building, parked the Harley, and met him by the basement door in back.

“So how many lady doctors are in this book?” Lyons asked.

“Don’t know. Dozens, I’ll bet. When it comes to admitting women students, the med schools often insist on brains
and
looks.”

“Ooee,” Lyons said, swiping the electronic lock and opening the solid oak door. “There’s an electronic record of whoever swipes in, so I gotta sign the ledger.”

There were ten large plastic baskets, but only two of them held evidence. Both were labeled
SOLARI
.

“The book is small,” Matt said, rummaging through the first basket. “It may be able to fit in the heel of a shoe.”

“Not these shoes.”

Lyons was holding up a pair of black flats—plain, closed top, no straps.

So much for an accidental sighting of the tattoo.

“So, these are the little mice who set off the evidence room warning light.”

Grimes and Steve Valenti stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway.

Matt felt his heart freeze.

Tarvis, you jerk!

“Oh, hi,” Matt said, too brightly. “I asked Tarvis here to show me Nikki’s things. We thought we might find something that would suggest who might have done this or why. I guess he forgot there was a warning light.”

“And did you?” Grimes asked.

“Did I what?”

“Did you find any undiscovered clues?”

Matt’s pulse now had gone from standstill to jackhammer. Never an adept liar, he was having great difficulty maintaining eye contact with the policeman. It was clear from the man’s tone that he didn’t believe a word of what Matt was saying. Off to one side, Valenti appraised the situation, his face an unfathomable mask.

“Oh, no,” Matt stammered. “No, actually, we didn’t find anything. At least I didn’t. How about you, Tarvis?”

Lyons looked as if he had been shot with a blowgun.

“Nothing, Chief,” he managed finally. “I, um, hope you don’t mind my bringing the doctor down here.”

“Why would I ever mind that, Tarvis? I always thought it was stupid for us to take all these precautions just to lock up a bunch of evidence.”

Matt could feel the wheels spinning in Grimes’s head, searching for an explanation—any explanation—as to what he and Lyons were doing in the evidence room. Finally, he exchanged glances with Valenti, who merely shook his head.

“Okay, Rutledge,” Grimes said, “I don’t know what in the hell you’re doing here, but I don’t think I’m going to find out from you. Mark me well, though. This is the last time I’m kicking you out of my station house. Next time you’ll be begging us to let you go.”

“Go easy on Tarvis,” Matt said. “I asked him to let me in here so I could look at Dr. Solari’s things.”

Ramrod straight, chin up, he strode past Grimes and Valenti and down the corridor to the stairs, half expecting to hear a shot and feel a bullet smack into his spine.

What he heard instead was Grimes saying, “Tarvis, get the fuck upstairs to my office.”

And Lyons replying, “I can explain everything, Chief.”

 
CHAPTER
20

MATT SPENT THE HOURS FOLLOWING HIS CLASH 
with Bill Grimes consumed by dread for the life of Nikki Solari. He was bone weary from a dearth of any healthy sleep, but over his years of training and medical practice, he had developed internal techniques for coping with that sort of exhaustion. What he was much less adept at dealing with than the lack of sleep was the lack of answers. He felt like a marionette, dancing to the commands of some deranged puppeteer. But who? Right now, the only viable candidate was Grimes. But why him? And how was he able to pull together the elements of Nikki’s abduction from the hospital so quickly and smoothly?

This is Dr. Rutledge calling. I’ve scheduled Dr. Solari for an emergency MRI and arranged for immediate ambulance transport.

Smooth.

Matt had two patients in the hospital. One of them, an elderly diabetic recovering from an arterial bypass to her leg, was in the room across the hall from Nikki’s. He was on the way in to see her when he stopped and, using the phone at Nikki’s bedside, called information and got the number for Kit and Samuel Wilson. Kit answered on the first ring.

“First of all,” Matt said after establishing that she knew who he was, “I want to tell you how sorry I am about your daughter.”

“Thank you. The service yestiddy made everyone that knew Kathy feel jes a little better.”

“I’m glad. Mrs. Wilson, I’m calling about Nikki Solari.”

“Nikki? What about her?”

“I guess you haven’t heard. I hate to be the bearer of bad news with all you have been going through.”

“Please, what about Nikki?”

“Shortly after she left the church yesterday, two men ambushed her on Wells Road. She got away from them, but nearly drowned in Crystal Lake in the process.”

“Oh, my God. Where’s she now? She all right?”

“I’m afraid we don’t know where she is right now, Mrs. Wilson. Someone—not me—called in an order in my name, sending her to Hastings Hospital for an MRI. Then they kidnapped her from the ambulance on the way.”

“Oh, my God. How awful. Why’d anyone do such a thing?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Can you remember anything from yesterday that might help us figure out what happened? Anyone she spoke to?”

“Not that I kin recall. She read at the service, then played music most a the afternoon. She never left the churchyard ’cept ta walk a spell with Sam an’ me. She did speak with Chief Grimes for a time on the bench under the big willa ’cross the churchyard. Oh dear, this is jes terrible news. Nikki and our daughter were very close. Kathy was teachin’ her ta play the fiddle.”

Matt had heard what he needed to.

“Mrs. Wilson,” he said, now anxious to go, “please call me if you or your husband think of anything, anything at all, that might help us figure this out. I promise to keep you posted.”

“I begged her ta stay with us,” Kit Wilson said.

Matt wandered out to his bike, lost in thought over the significance of what he had just learned. Kit Wilson’s information certainly suggested that, although they might have spoken at some length, Nikki and Grimes were never in a place where she would have taken off her shoes. Assuming that, and knowing her feet remained covered when Grimes came to the ER, what was left? He must have seen the distinctive tattoo after she was abducted from the ambulance. No other conclusion fit the facts.

Also supporting that theory was something Kit Wilson did not say—specifically, that she already knew about Nikki. The news took her completely by surprise. Twenty-four hours had passed since the woman was nearly killed, and Grimes hadn’t bothered questioning the Wilsons. True, he had been at the service and could have made his own observations there, but he should certainly have wanted to know if Nikki had said anything to Kit or her husband, or if they knew of any reason why someone might have wanted to harm her. The man was smarmy, but he was hardly dumb. The only explanation Matt could think of for him not bothering to call the Wilsons was that he already knew what had happened.

At an unobtrusive pace, Matt cruised through the lengthening shadows along Oak Street parallel to Main, heading across town toward the police station. Bill Grimes’s love of flashy cars was commonly known, as was his latest trophy, a fire-engine-red Dodge Viper. Earlier in the afternoon, Matt had noticed it parked in the staff lot behind the station. From the corner of Oak and Waverly, Matt could see that it was still there. He backed up his bike until he could just see the car, then rested it on its stand and took out his tool kit, just for appearances. Twice over the next hour, while he was puttering around the engine, patients of his stopped to offer him a hand. Two cruisers left the lot, and later a minivan. Dusk settled in. The strain of staying fixed on the Viper only added to Matt’s burgeoning fatigue.

Finally, just as he was considering packing it in for the night, Grimes came striding through the gloom to his car. Matt stowed the tool kit, mounted the Harley, and waited until the door of the Viper had closed before punching the electric starter. The powerful engine rumbled to life. His pulse racing, he felt instantly energized and alert. Grimes was single and could have been headed home or on a date or out for dinner. But without any better options, Matt was determined to play this one out.

Instead of turning left toward Main, the Viper, lights on, swung right, directly toward the corner where Matt was waiting. He had only time to pull on his helmet and lower his face before the car sped past no more than thirty feet away. His Harley was as well-known around town as the Viper, and Grimes was certainly a keen enough policeman to have noticed him. Clearly he was distracted. Matt’s tension increased a notch. Grimes lived south of town, on the banks of the Belinda River. Now, in addition to being preoccupied, he was driving north, into the hills. This wasn’t a purposeless evening jaunt.

Matt stayed as far back as he dared. The waning evening initially provided enough light for him to see, but with his headlight off, he had serious doubts any oncoming drivers could see him. Fortunately, for nearly ten minutes, there were none. The roughly paved road angled steeply upward. It was one Matt had ridden when he was much younger, but rarely since then. To the best of his recollection, it turned into gravel, then dirt, and eventually petered out in the forest. Its final incarnation was as a narrow, heavily rooted trail favored by dirt bikers.

Shadows from the dense woods brought the night on prematurely. The lights of the Viper were still fairly easy to spot in the distance, but the soft shoulders were invisible and posed a constant threat. Matt didn’t dare flick on his lights or take his eyes off his quarry.

From time to time, on one side or the other, a rusted mailbox or a rutted dual path marked the entrance to a dwelling that could have been fifty feet into the forest or five miles. It was into one of those driveways that Grimes suddenly turned. Had Matt been looking down at the road, he would have missed the move completely, but as it was, there was a brief jounce of the taillights just before they began moving at right angles to the road. By the time Matt reached the drive where he thought Grimes had turned, the lights were gone.

Helmet off, he rolled cautiously through the ebony forest. Though he was keeping the RPMs down, his engine noise still reverberated like heavy equipment. Had Grimes stopped? Had he set up an ambush somewhere up ahead? Matt cut the engine and listened. Nothing. For a time, he tried pushing the heavy bike ahead. Finally, realizing he really had no choice, he hit the starter and rumbled forward, his legs stretched out off the pegs for balance. The Kawasaki would have been a little quieter and easier to maneuver at slow speed, but he had needed the storage capacity of the hog for all the drugs and equipment he had brought out to the Slocumbs.

For five minutes he rolled on, every fiber tensed against a voice, an attack, or a gunshot. Then, flickering through the trees up ahead, he saw light. He turned the Harley around and with some difficulty backed it into the woods, far enough so it seemed undetectable from the road. Then he cut off some pine boughs with his Swiss Army knife and laid them across the chrome of the handlebars, gas cap, wheels, and engine. Cautiously, he advanced up the road.

The Viper was parked alongside a Land Rover in front of a dilapidated cabin. The cabin, rough-hewn with a small porch and chimney, occupied the center of a clearing that was surprisingly large—maybe four or five times the footprint of the structure itself. Two windows, both illuminated, faced the driveway, and there were more on the side.

Staying within the tree line, Matt made his way around to the side of the cabin. A shredded screen hung off one of the two windows, and several panes of the other appeared to be missing. He held his breath and tried unsuccessfully to make out the voices from inside. Then, on his hands and knees, he ventured out from his cover and across forty feet of dirt and pine needles, flattening his back against the wall of cabin. Painstakingly, he rolled over onto his knees again and pushed himself up so that he could just peer inside. Initially, he could see nothing other than the denim-shirted back of a massive man. From beyond the man he could hear Bill Grimes’s distinctive pseudo-twang.

“I know what you’re telling me, dear doctor,” he was saying, “but I don’t know if you’re telling me the truth.”

“I’ve told you all I know,” Nikki said, her voice weary and hoarse. “If you don’t believe me, that’s your problem.”

“Correction, my friend. That’s
your
problem.”

The huge man moved aside, and Matt dropped beneath the window. When he inched up again, he was looking into a grungy bedroom, no more than ten feet square. The ceiling was unfinished pine, and the walls unadorned. The gargantuan was still obstructing the view of the doorway where the chief was standing, but now Matt could see Nikki. She was unbound, dressed in green hospital scrubs, lying supine, eyes closed, on the bare mattress of a metal-frame bed. Two pillows without covers were bunched under her head, and a grimy sheet was thrown over her legs. She looked gray and uncomfortable and absolutely spent, but he could see no evidence she had been beaten.

“I want to go over this one more time,” Grimes was saying, “starting with the funeral. Who did you talk to there besides me? Well?”

Matt heard a scraping to his right moments before a man appeared. He was tall and wiry, wearing a cowboy hat and boots. A pistol was jammed beneath his broad belt at the small of his back. Matt dropped to his belly and forced himself against the cement foundation of the house. He was still in plain sight, though, no more than twenty feet away. The man tapped out a cigarette and lit it with a kitchen match he struck on his zipper. The smoke instantly wafted to where Matt lay in the shadow of the house. Desperately, his mind sorted through possible responses should he be spotted. None of them made any sense.

The smoker took a few paces away from the house, tilted his head back, and blew a cloud up toward the dark sky above the clearing. Matt steeled himself. The angle between them had changed. Now, as soon as the man turned back toward the cabin door, it would be over. Matt prepared to bolt into the trees as soon as he was spotted. At that moment, from the woods beyond the cowboy and to his right, there was the crunching of brush and rustling of branches. Seconds later, a small, white-tailed doe burst through the undergrowth and loped across the clearing, not fifteen feet away. The man took several steps in pursuit, at the same time fumbling for his gun.

“Larry,” the cowboy hollered. “Larry, get out here, quick!”

Matt could hear the huge man thump onto the porch.

“What? What?”

“Biggest fuckin’ deer yew ever saw jes ran by close enough to lick the snot offa my nose. If my gun hadn’t got stuck in my belt, we’d be eatin’ venison right now.”

“Verne, you are just a total jerk,” Larry said, with essentially no mountain accent. “Get on in here. The chief wants you to drive him to town an’ back. You an’ me are gonna stay here tonight with the bitch. We need some coffee an’ toilet paper an’ shit to eat. The chief has some stuff he wants to get from the station, too—stuff that’ll make her sing like a canary. Now get in here.”

Matt held his breath until the two had disappeared into the cabin, then scrambled back to the safety of the forest. Grimes and Verne-the-Cowboy would be taking a ride to town and back. The trip would be twenty minutes each way, maybe twenty-five, allowing for time in the store. During those forty or so minutes, he had to find a way to overpower a man the size of a bus and get a barely conscious woman onto her feet, secured on the Harley, and away to safety. He regretted now that he had rejected the notion of stashing one of the Slocumbs’ many pistols in his saddlebag. But in truth, he had never felt comfortable around guns of any kind, and he feared that this ineptness, coupled with his unpredictable temper, was a recipe for disaster.

He tried playing out a scenario wherein he somehow drew Larry outside, then knocked him out with a piece of wood or a wrench from his tool kit. The chances of actually disabling the beast with anything less potent than a hammer seemed slim, and there wasn’t one in his tool kit.