Rude Awakening (23 page)

‘Thatagirl,' Anne Louise said, standing up and hugging Jean. ‘I've got some paperwork to do. We'll talk later?'

‘You bet,' Jean said, and watched her friend walk out the door. Suddenly, she felt very lonely.

Holly was delightfully surprised to find out how much there was to see in Longbranch and the rest of Prophesy County. There were some cute boutiques and antique shops around the square in downtown Longbranch, and Dalton even took her up on Mountain Falls Road, where the sheriff lived. She could hardly believe this was just two miles from where she'd been held captive and where she and Eli had wandered in the woods like Moses and the lost tribe of Egypt. (One of her foster ‘moms' was a lay preacher for an Evangelical church, and it was amazing how much she absorbed in what, thankfully, turned out to be a very short stay.)

‘But we won't go to his house,' Dalton said. ‘Nobody home and, anyway, I want to show you the falls. We never did get there the other night.'

They passed the sheriff's house and Dalton pointed down the long driveway. ‘See it back there?' he said. ‘White stucco with a flat roof?'

‘Oh yeah!' Holly said. ‘It looks like something you'd see in New Mexico or something.'

‘Yeah, real exotic for this area,' Dalton said. ‘But it's real nice inside.'

‘I guess I'll have to take your word for that,' Holly said.

‘Let me show you the falls,' he said, and started the car rolling down the hill.

They got to the bottom on the far side of Mountain Falls Road, and Dalton pulled into a large flat area. ‘This used to be an RV park,' he told her. ‘Until we had a real bad tornado and this whole area got flooded. It was really something.'

He got out of his car and walked around to open her door, but she'd already done that. They bumped into each other as she was getting out of the car.

‘Oh, sorry—' Holly said, just as Dalton was saying, ‘Sorry.' They both stood there for a few seconds, so close they were almost touching and then Dalton quickly backed up. ‘Sorry, Ma'am.'

‘No, that's OK,' Holly said. ‘I'm just not used to guys opening doors for me. The guys in Tulsa, at least the ones I know, don't exactly have manners.'

‘Well, that just proves they weren't raised right, Ma'am,' Dalton said.

There was an awkward silence and then Holly put on her super-cheerful voice and said, ‘Now, where did you say those falls were?'

Luckily, Jean wasn't with a patient when Eric Loeman, the oncologist from Houston, called her back.

‘Hey, Jean?' he said when her got her on the phone. ‘What the hell? I can't believe I'm hearing from you after all this time! How you doing?'

Jean wondered if he really remembered her or if he was just trying to be slick. She remembered him as being the slick type.

‘I'm doing great, Eric. How are you?' she asked.

‘Great, great. Head of my department here at Anderson. Married a Miss Texas runner-up. Got three kids. My oldest is going into medicine like his old man, and my daughter, well, if she ever gets through with all this beauty pageant business, I hope she'll get serious about a career!'

‘The reason I called,' Jean said, breaking in before she had to hear about the wonderfully planned future of the third child, ‘is about Emil Hawthorne.'

‘Good God, haven't heard that name in a while. He still in a coma or did he finally die?' Eric said.

‘Actually,' Jean said, ‘he woke up from the coma—'

‘Jesus H Christ on a bicycle! You serious? How long?'

‘Eight years—'

‘Mother Mary and Joseph! Can you beat that? So how's he doing? Got all his faculties? I mean, that would be a real shame for a guy like that to wake up and be stupid, know what I mean?'

‘Ah, well, he seemed to have all his faculties, but he's dead now.'

‘You just said—' Eric started.

‘I know. He was fine for about six or seven months, then someone shot him.'

‘No shit?' Eric said. ‘Who?'

‘We don't know,' Jean said. ‘Eric, the reason I'm calling—'

‘Who's
we
?' Eric asked.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You said “
we
don't know”. Who's
we
?'

‘Oh,' Jean said. ‘My husband and I. He's the sheriff for the county where Hawthorne was shot. Anyway, Eric, the reason—'

‘You married a sheriff?' Eric demanded.

‘Yes . . .'

‘Where?'

‘Where
what
?'

‘Where is he the sheriff?'

Jean sighed. She'd forgotten what a prick Eric Loeman was. ‘Prophesy County, Oklahoma. Now, Eric—'

‘Oh, Jesus!' Eric said and laughed. ‘You mean Baja Texas, don'ja? I can't believe you live in Oklahoma! You were so good! I thought you'd be in New York by now. You still in psychiatry?'

‘Yes, I'm still in psychiatry. I run the hospital's psych wing here and have a private practice—'

‘Bet you got a lot of nuts in Oklahoma, huh?' Eric said and laughed again.

‘Eric,' Jean said, her voice a little more abrupt than she meant for it to be, ‘I've got a patient in just a few minutes and I really need to ask you some questions. It's for the case.'

‘No shit. Shoot!' Eric said.

‘You remember that girl who had been Hawthorne's assistant before me? Greta Schwartzmann Nichols?'

‘Oh, yeah! She was banging him. You didn't ever bang him, did you?' Eric asked.

‘No, Eric, I didn't! Now, do you know where Greta might be now? I couldn't find her on the Internet . . .'

‘That's 'cause she changed her name,' Eric said.

‘She got married?' Jean inquired.

‘So to speak. She's now Sister Mary something-or-other. Last I heard, she was working at some Catholic hospital somewhere.'

‘You're not sure what her name is now?'

‘No. Wish I could help you. Can't even swear that it's Mary something. Just that it's not Greta anymore.'

‘Well, thank you so much, Eric—'

‘Hey, it was great talking to you, Jean! We need to stay in touch. Give me your numbers—'

‘Oh, damn, my patient's here! I've got your number, Eric. I'll give you a call!'

‘Great—'

Jean hung up the phone.

It was beautiful. Oak and pine and other trees Holly didn't recognize surrounded a crystal-blue pool. She couldn't believe she'd been so close to this the other night, but then she figured, under the circumstances, she probably wouldn't have appreciated it the way she did now.

Large boulders rimmed the pool, some flat enough to sit on. What with spring rains and snow run-off, Mountain Falls Creek was swollen this year. The falls themselves, while certainly not Niagara quality, were running hard and fast, filling the pool to capacity and running off to the lower part of Mountain Falls Creek, which changed its name to Lazy Creek a half mile down.

Holly sat on the flat rock next to Dalton, their bodies almost touching. She was beginning to really like this big, slow-talking deputy. He had a sweetness she wasn't used to, and an old-fashioned way about him that made her feel like a lady, a feeling she usually only got when acting.

Wild flowers filled the grassy areas around the pool, and she saw Dalton lean down from the rock for a moment, then come back up with a daisy in his hand.

His face turning its usual red, he handed the flower to her without a word.

For the first time in her memory, Holly felt her face grow hot, and wondered if Dalton's condition was contagious. ‘Thank you,' she said.

Dalton nodded his head.

Holly decided they needed to leave, right that minute. Because otherwise, she figured, in about two minutes she was going to jump his bones.

Jean called me with the information about Greta Schwartzmann Nichols. Looked like a dead end to me and I told her so.

‘You forget I'm a Catholic in good standing, Milt,' she said. ‘My dad and the Archbishop of the Chicago Diocese are golfing buddies. If Greta did take her vows, I'll find her.'

I shook my head. ‘Babe, I don't doubt you for a minute,' I said. ‘Call me when you can.'

We said some mushy stuff and then she hung up. I wandered into Emmett's office and sat down.

‘Talk to me,' I said to my oldest friend and head deputy. ‘Tell me what the hell's going on with our dead perv.'

Emmett leaned back in his chair, elbows out, hands clasped behind his head. ‘Well, now, what do we have here? Jean discovers a doctor who's doing it with under-age patients and turns him in. He goes tooling off in his Corvette – ain't that always the way? Some dumb-ass doctor gets to buy a Corvette, and law-abiding peace officers such as ourselves get stuck with Jeeps and Tauruses? – Anyway, he wraps his Corvette, vintage I found out, around a tree or a lamp post or something, ends up in a coma for eight years and comes out of it like it was the next fucking day. Then decides he's going to seek revenge against the woman who turned him in and caused all his problems, as far as he's concerned. Am I up to speed so far?'

‘Doing good,' I informed him.

‘So he does his rehab, hires a – excuse the expression – actress, in what seems like an ill-conceived plot to get back at Jean. His plan being that he's going to kidnap Johnny Mac. How'm I doing?'

‘Giving me the shivers,' I admitted.

‘So this so-called genius with the ill-conceived plot winds up kidnapping the wrong kid and tries to convince the – excuse the expression – actress he hired that the kidnapped boy is all part of a movie plot. Did I actually hear the girl say she thought the kid was “method acting”?' Emmett asked.

‘She said it to my face,' I admitted.

Emmett shook his head. Then went on, ‘But she finally wises up and our so-called genius ties up both the girl and the little boy and sits around with his thumb up his ass. Why?'

‘Waiting for instructions?' I suggested.

‘My point exactly,' Emmett said.

‘Well, we already figured there had to be someone else in on this, Emmett. The man is dead, after all, and it certainly wasn't natural causes, and if it was suicide, he
was
a genius, at least at hiding the gun.'

‘No, now, Milt, we figured there was someone else in on it, sure. But didn't you think it was a subordinate? Someone working
for
Hawthorne?'

I thought about it. ‘See your point,' I said. ‘Maybe it was the other way around. Now Hawthorne was the one with revenge on his mind, but maybe the other person had other ideas. Ransom?'

‘Blackmail?' Emmett suggested.

I shrugged my ignorance. ‘You have Anthony check Motel Five and the Longbranch Inn? Make sure we don't have any strangers in town?'

‘Done,' Emmett said. ‘Holly Humphries is the only one staying at the Longbranch, and the Motel Five has a salesman that stops there regularly on his route, and an older couple on their way to Missouri to see their daughter and her kids.'

‘Don't know how the Motel Five stays in business,' I said.

‘You ever seen it on a Friday night? After the football game? I think they're surviving on by-the-hour bookings.'

‘School board know about that?' I asked.

‘I dunno, Milt. Would you rather 'em doing it on a nice soft bed in an enclosed room, or in the back seat of a car out on some lonely stretch of road?'

‘Hey, the back seat of a car was good enough for me—' I started.

Emmett laughed. ‘Yeah, but you had that fifty-five Chevy. You ever do it in a Toyota? How about a Mini Cooper?'

We had a good laugh at that image, all the while both of us, I'm sure, wondering where to go next on the murder of Emil Hawthorne.

FOURTEEN

S
ince his retirement ten years earlier, Jean MacDonnell's father, Ben, had been bored beyond belief. When Jean called with the puzzle of finding out the whereabouts of a nun formerly known as Greta Schwartzmann Nichols, he didn't waste any time. It took him less than two hours to accomplish his task.

Jean was with a patient when her dad called back, but as soon as the patient left, DeSandra ran into Jean's office. ‘Your father called!' DeSandra said, all excited. ‘He said for you to call him back immediately! Is everything OK? Is your mother sick? Oh, God, I hope it's not one of your siblings! My sister, the one two up from me – not the one I'm real close to who's one down from me – anyway, she had her appendix rupture while she was at the KMart and she almost died! This was like two years ago, and nobody in my family has been to the KMart since then—'

‘Thanks, DeSandra,' Jean said. ‘I need to return his call—'

‘Well, let me know if your mom's OK!' DeSandra said.

‘I will,' Jean replied, getting up and helping DeSandra out of her office, then closing the door behind her.

Once back at her desk with the door safely closed, she called her father on his cell phone, as the note instructed. When he picked up, she could tell by the clatter of glassware and the calls of ‘Jack and seven!' and ‘Royal on ice!' that her father was at the country club's Nineteenth Hole.

‘Daddy? You found something for me?' she asked.

‘Sure did, baby,' he said. ‘I was playing with Ted this morning anyway,' (the Archbishop of the Chicago Diocese) ‘and he just made a call to somebody who looked it up. Anyway, your girl Greta is now Sister Mary Mark and she's an internist at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows Medical Center in Cleveland. Here's the number,' he said and rattled if off.