I brought a small recorder into the Burn Unit on my second visit. Orton had bandages wrapped around his entire head, with holes for his mouth and eyes, but his eyes had cotton balls taped over them. The room was small and clean, and it smelled of antiseptic cream. The breathing tube had been removed from his mouth, and peeling skin made his lips look badly chapped. I sat in a chair next to his bed and watched him breathe for a while, labored breaths. In . . . out, pause. In . . . out, pause. I don’t think he heard me come in, or maybe he was asleep. I turned my digital recorder on and placed it on a table beside him.
“Dennis?”
He stirred, turning his head only slightly in my direction. He was awake.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Dennis, my name is Detective Max Rupert. I need to ask you a few questions.”
He swallowed hard and ran a dry tongue gently across the inside of his lips.
“Would you like a drink of water, Dennis?”
“Yeah.”
Someone had placed a cup of water with a bendy straw on his bed stand. I held the straw to his lips, and he took a sip.
“I need to talk to you about what happened.”
“I couldn’t stop them,” he said. “I tried to stop them. I couldn’t.” His voice was rough, his words passing over the early scabs from having inhaled fire.
“Stop who, Dennis?”
“The men who killed Pippa. They killed her, and I couldn’t do anything.”
“Okay, let’s slow down a bit here. What men are you talking about?”
“Three black guys. They tried to steal her car. I told her to let them have it. We were going to let them have the van. But then they started . . .” Orton stopped talking and put his lips together and carefully licked them again. “They started grabbing her. I wanted to help her, but they held me back.”
“Were you in the car? Was this all happening in the car, Dennis?”
“Yes. I was in the driver’s seat and they pulled her into the back.”
“Wait, Dennis. Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you and Pippa before this thing with the black men happened?”
“We were home. I mean . . . earlier, we were at home. We decided to go out for a bite.”
“What time would that have been?”
“I’m not sure, maybe around six in the morning. We were going out for breakfast.”
“Just getting up, or out all night?”
“What?”
“Well, are you an early riser? Six a.m. is pretty early on a day most people sleep in.”
“We were . . . um, we had pulled an all-nighter.”
“Did you go out for New Year’s Eve?”
“Does that matter?” Although still a bit raspy, his speech seemed to clear up as we went along—as he forgot his act.
“Just trying to get a full picture, Dennis. Filling in the blanks.”
“We went out for a couple drinks, sure.”
“Where?”
“I don’t . . . it was just a bar; I think it was on Marshall. I’d never been there before. I don’t remember the name. That has nothing to do with this.”
“Okay, so you and Ms. Stafford went out, had a few drinks, came home. You live together, right?”
“Right and we—”
“Did you meet anybody for drinks?”
“What?”
“When you were out at that bar, did you see anybody you knew?”
“That’s not relevant. We didn’t get jumped at the damn bar.”
“Alright, Dennis, don’t get upset. So you and Ms. Stafford went out for breakfast. What happened?”
“Okay. We’re driving along and—”
“Who was driving?”
“I was driving. I told you that already.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m driving down, I think it was Second Street, I’m not sure, and I stop at this stop sign. There’s a car in front of me and one pulls up behind me. I didn’t think much of it.”
“What restaurant were you going to?”
“What?”
“You were going out for breakfast. What restaurant? That might help us narrow down where the attack took place.”
“Um . . . I, uh . . . The Eatery.”
“I didn’t know they served breakfast.”
“They don’t. I didn’t know that. It was Pippa’s idea. She thought they were open for New Year’s Day. She wanted to check, so we went there and they were closed.”
“So then, where were you going?”
“We were just driving around. We didn’t have a plan B, so we were talking about where to go, you know? Just roaming through the streets, trying to think of who might be serving breakfast.”
“And that’s when you pulled up to that stop sign?”
“Yeah. A car in front and one in back. And these three black guys get out. I think they were gang members, because they were wearing bandanas.”
“Did you happen to see what color the bandanas were?”
“Red. Yes, red.”
“And you said three of them got out?”
“Yeah, two out of the front car and one out of the back. And before I knew what was going on, they pulled guns.”
“All three had guns?”
“Yeah, I think. The guy who came to my door had a gun. I know that. He pointed it at my face and yelled at me to get out of the car. The other two came around the passenger side. They opened the doors and one got in the back seat; the other shoved Pippa. They pulled her into the back.”
“The guy on your side, he had a gun, you said? Do you know what kind? Was it a revolver? Automatic?”
“I don’t know; automatic, I think.”
“And he ordered you out?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you get out when he ordered you to?”
“He had a gun in my face; of course I got out.”
“But, you said that they held you in the driver’s seat when they pulled Pippa into the back.”
“He . . . yeah, he grabbed my collar . . . and my arm. He grabbed me through the window so I couldn’t help Pippa. Then he pulled me out.”
“Your window was open? It was twenty below.”
“Wait . . . I . . . I rolled it down when he was walking back toward me. I thought they might be having car trouble.”
“And he pulled you out through the window?”
“He pulled me out through the door. He opened the door and yanked me out.”
“By the collar and the arm?”
“Yeah. I realized that we were in trouble, so I started fighting with him. I tried to break away. I wanted to help Pippa. He was bigger than me and—”
“Where was the gun?”
“The gun?”
“He had one hand on your collar and one on your arm. Where was the gun?”
“He must have . . . I don’t know. It all happened so fast. It was dark. Maybe he had the gun in one of his hands when he grabbed me. I just remember getting yanked out of the car. Pippa was screaming. That’s when he hit me in the head.”
“He hit you?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember anything after that. Not until the fire. I woke up in pitch black. I didn’t know where I was at first, but I could smell gas.”
My phone buzzed once in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw a text from Niki. Got Holiday footage. Very interesting. You still in town?
I typed back, Yes. Want to meet up?
Rusty’s?
Give me half hour.