“She’s in the ER waiting area.”
I make a stop at the vending machine for two cups of coffee and then head toward the ER waiting room. I find Abigail Kline sitting on an orange Naugahyde bench paging through a Good Housekeeping magazine.
She startles upon spotting me and rises abruptly. “Chief Burkholder. Is it Jeramy? Is he all right?”
Her face reveals stress piled upon a sleepless night. Her eyes are bloodshot, and the circles beneath them are the color of a bruise. I hand her one of the coffees. “I stopped by to check on Jeramy and see how you’re doing.”
“Oh.” She looks down at the coffee and takes it. “Thank you. I’m fine. It’s Jeramy I’m worried about.”
“What happened?”
“He just … got sick last night. It happened so quickly. I’ve had four children who spent their fair share of time with fevers and whatnot. But this … I didn’t know what to do or how to help him. I’ve never been so scared.”
I nod. “Can you take me through what happened to him?”
“It was a normal evening,” she tells me. “We had dinner and then we walked down to the creek. Afterward, we sat on the porch with some pie. We went to bed around nine thirty or so.” She closes her eyes briefly. “He woke me around midnight. He was in the bathroom, throwing up and … you know. I went in to check on him, and he was terribly sick and shaking. I thought maybe it was the stomach bug that’s been going around, so I fixed him some mint tea. It didn’t help. Nothing would help. He got worse and worse. And then he just … fell to the floor and started convulsing. I thought he was going to die.”
“What did you do?”
“He’s too heavy for me to move. I couldn’t get him to the bed, so I put pillows around him and I ran to the neighbor’s house to call the emergency number.”
“How’s he doing now?”
“I don’t know. The doctor came out and asked me a bunch of questions. I only got to see Jeramy for a few minutes. They put a tube in his mouth to help him breathe. He couldn’t talk to me. He was so pale.” Her face screws up, and she puts her hand over her mouth. “He couldn’t breathe on his own.”
“Does the doctor have any idea why he got sick?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s been hours and no one will tell me anything.”
I nod. “What was his frame of mind last night?”
“He was fine. Same as always.”
“Did you have any guests last night? Did the two of you see anyone else?”
“No, it was just us.”
“Did you go anywhere?”
“No.”
“I hope he’s better soon.” I touch her shoulder. “I’ll check in on you later.”
“Thank you, Chief Burkholder.” She clasps her hands, her knuckles turning white. “I’m just praying to God it’s nothing too serious.”
*
I’m puzzling over Jeramy Kline’s mysterious illness when I climb into my borrowed Crown Vic and start toward the station. It’s probably an innocent case of stomach flu or food poisoning or maybe even the misuse of or allergic reaction to some prescription drug or unprescribed herb. But the timing of it niggles at my cop’s sensibilities. Even if his malady doesn’t have some benign explanation, I can’t come up with a motive for why someone would want him out of the picture. Unless, of course, the illness is self-inflicted because I’m about to find out about something he doesn’t want me to know.
I’m barely out of the parking lot when I hit the speed dial for Glock’s cell. “You up for an adventure?” I begin.
“I get to bring my gun?” he counters.
I try not to laugh but don’t quite manage. “I want you to run by Axel Equipment Rental over on Third Street and rent two metal detectors for a couple days.”
“Sure. I’m not too far from there now.” He pauses. “Kind of wondering why we need them.”
“I thought we might take them down to that abandoned hog facility and see if anything interesting turns up.”
“You mean like a titanium plate?”
“And everyone says I hired you for your marksmanship.”
“I’m sort of an all-around guy, I guess.”
I grin. “Meet me there in an hour, will you?”
“Roger that,” he says, and we end the call.
*
An hour later I’m southbound on County Road 24 northwest of Coshocton. On my right a cornfield stretches west to a precipitous hill and runs alongside the road. I descend a hill, cross a small creek, and the cornfield gives way to pastureland. A quarter mile past the creek, I come upon a wooded area of new-growth saplings and brush and small trees—nature reclaiming what’s rightfully hers.