She’d stumbled into nursing here. Knowing Diana from before, April is comfortable with her. And by “knowing her,” I mean that April was aware Diana existed and thought she was a waste of space in my life. I believe her opinion has changed. I’m not actually sure.
Whatever their personal opinions of one another, they work well together. I wait while they get the IV inserted. Then April turns to me. “When I started here, I was assured that baby and prenatal care would not be required, given that children are not permitted. Yet I have treated one baby and now I will be delivering another. Delivering.”
“Don’t forget, Jen can help. She was a midwife.”
Diana mutters, “I’d sooner deliver the poor baby myself.”
“Speaking of which,” April says, “I need a full team of medical professionals, and you’ve given me…” She peers at Diana. “What are you again?”
“Human?”
April waves her hand. “Whatever Diana did for a living. You bring me cases such as this. A man brutally struck over the head and buried alive. Buried alive? You don’t think that’s a bit excessive?”
“I agree in principle, but you’d need to ask the person who buried him.”
“It is one trauma after another. One unique situation after another.”
“One challenge after another?” I say. “I know you love puzzles. And before you suggest it, I did not bury him alive to give you one. It isn’t your birthday yet.”
“I realize that is meant to be a joke. It is not funny.”
I walk over and pat her back. Not the most affectionate gesture, but it’s one she’ll allow. I understand the reason behind this outburst. It has nothing to do with her questioning our medical hiring practices or even railing against inadequate staffing. This is how April deals with stress.
My sister does enjoy a challenge. Just not the ones where someone’s life is in her hands and her hands alone. She feels inadequate to the sheer breadth of work she’s asked to do in Rockton, and it isn’t in her to simply say she’s done her best and rest easy. In that, we are truly sisters.
“I take it the prognosis isn’t good,” I say when she turns back to Conrad.
“I don’t know yet,” she says curtly. “I don’t know how long he was buried for. I don’t know how much damage was done by the blows to the head versus the suffocation. What I can tell you right now, Casey, is that he is unconscious and has shown no signs of reversing that condition.”
“He’s alive,” I say.
“For now,” she says. “For now.”
* * *
Without an MRI or CT scan, April can only guess at what’s keeping Conrad from waking, which completely freaks her out, as much as she tries to hide it. I bring in help. She might rail at the lack of medical professionals here, but as a psychiatrist, Mathias has his medical degree. He’s just never practiced medicine. There’s Anders, too, who’d been pre-med in university and started his army career as a medic. While I am not a medical professional—at all—growing up in my family means I have stellar first-aid skills. For this, we decide to leave Anders out of it. Covering his ass in case anything goes wrong.
Mathias suspects intercranial swelling from the blow, but again, there’s no way to confirm that, especially when Conrad is unconscious. For now, that’s the best thing for him—being unconscious. His body is resting, and his brain is healing, and we need to leave him be, which means I’m not interviewing Conrad anytime soon.
I’m in the forest with Dalton and Storm. We’re going over the trails again in hopes that if we reinforce the scent of Conrad’s attacker, Storm will be able to unweave that web of in-town scents. Better yet, we’ll return to town and she’ll race to the killer, barking madly. Yeah, if there’s a way to teach her that, I haven’t found it either.
It sometimes feels as if I don’t do enough tracking work with Storm. Think of all the incredible applications it has to Rockton police work! Tracking lost residents! Tracking fleeing criminals! Identifying killers! But even if she could run up to Conrad’s attacker and bark, no one would accept that as proof. I’ve already seen how quickly skeptical residents dismissed her work tracking Anders’s home intruders.
What I’m hoping for is not that she’ll expose the would-be killer to the world, but that she’ll expose them to me.
Show me whodunit, Storm, and let me take it from there.
That doesn’t happen. She seems to get the scent in town, and then loses it. Picks it up again. Loses it again. By that point, it’s time for the town meeting.
The crowd is smaller this time. I’m not sure what to make of that. It’s later in the morning, with little excuse not to be there, and surely “resident found buried alive” is a bigger deal than Anders’s sign. My fear is that fewer people means they’re losing trust in us. They want to know what happened to Conrad; they just don’t trust us to give them the truth.
I explain what I discovered last night. I say that I had reason to believe Conrad went into the forest, and that concerned me so I followed with Storm and discovered him in a shallow grave. No mention of the fact that I knew he was meeting someone there, someone who sent a note. I don’t want to spook his attacker.
What I don’t withhold is the baseball cap. I display it in a baggie and explain where I found it. Then Dalton gives his alibi for Anders, and the grumbling begins. It’s quiet at first, an angry hornet buzz that finally erupts in a single word.
“Figures.”
When Dalton surges forward, I subtly block him with a hip and shoulder.
“Would you care to elaborate on that?” I call into the audience.
“Do I need to?”
“No,” I say. “But I thought you might want the opportunity to step forward and say it, instead of hiding in the crowd.” I shade my eyes and squint for emphasis. “Is that you, Arnie? You’re questioning the validity of Will’s alibi. We anticipated that. Eric has compiled a list of everyone who stopped by the station or otherwise saw them yesterday evening. We will be confirming that with the people involved. In the meantime, if anyone saw Will alone or with someone other than Eric, please come forward. I will investigate—”
A loud snort from someone lost in the audience.
“I will investigate the attempted murder of Conrad.”
“Despite the fact you already know the killer?”
“Yeah,” Dalton drawls. “Because obviously, if a career law-enforcement officer murders someone, he’s going to leave behind his most identifiable baseball cap. He’s going to put his victim under three inches of dirt. Make no attempt to cover his tracks when he knows his colleague has a fucking tracking dog.”
“Will doesn’t need to be careful. He has you guys to cover for him.”
It’s definitely Arnie talking. When he began, he got nods and noises of agreement. But with each round of this conversation, the support dies down, and by this last line, he’s lost his cover, too, people shifting away from him, leaving him standing there, alone.
No need to say more. They’re angry and suspicious, but they get it. This was a poor frame-up job, and they aren’t buying it.
“With any luck,” I say, “Conrad will be awake tomorrow to identify his attacker.”
And with that, the meeting adjourns.
FOURTEEN