Esther couldn’t think of anything to say.
The doctor was just getting started. “I know it’s not my job to insert myself into your investigation,” she went on, “but this is a hate crime if I’ve ever seen it. And I’ve seen plenty. My own brother’s gay, and he got ambushed by a couple of drunken teenagers a few years ago. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, just went out to meet a friend. They beat him with a metal pipe. Knocked out his front teeth. Never caught the guys.”
Esther said she was sorry. “I hope your brother recovered.”
“It was a while ago,” she said. “He’s fine now. He says so. As fine as anyone could be if you live in a world in which some random person can just come and beat the crap out of you for fun.”
“Did he make a report?”
“No,” Dr. Cortez said. “Cal just wanted the whole thing to blow over. My brother’s that kind of a guy. I begged him to tell the sheriff, but he just wouldn’t. Didn’t think it would matter to anyone.”
“It matters to me,” Esther said. “It matters to the other officers I work with every day.”
The doctor nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Times have changed. Or rather, they are changing. Don’t let that happen to this guy. Okay? Find out who did this and put the bastard away.”
Esther didn’t tell the doctor that she was pretty sure this flavor of hate crime was directed at Mr. Collins because of his past record as a pedophile.
“I better notify his family,” she finally said.
A nurse came in, and the doctor gave her some instructions while Esther waited.
“Good idea about the notification,” she said. “I hate making those calls, but someone has to. Just between you and me—and them, I guess—I suggest they get out here as soon as they can. No telling how long he’s going to last or what he’ll be like if he survives.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s very likely brain damage here, Detective. He may not be able to tell us who did this. If he survives, he might not even be able to tell you his name.”
Esther went downstairs to check with hospital security. A young man in a dark blue security uniform with shoes that had been shined to a mirror finish greeted her with the kind of earnestness that indicated an interest in putting on a real uniform one day. Dr. Cortez had been right: there were no working cameras in the hospital. There hadn’t been any for months.
“We’re switching over to a new system in the first quarter of next year,” the officer said. “Hospital administration didn’t want to upgrade a system they were about to shut down.”
She thanked him for his help.
“Hey, don’t tell anyone about the cameras, okay? Administration doesn’t want the word to get out. Thinks that we’d be a target for break-ins. I told them no one wants to come to a hospital unless they have to. But they remind me every day that we’re a target for addicts who’ll stop at nothing to feed a habit.”
Esther sat in her car in the hospital parking lot as an elderly man helped his unsteady wife into their car. It was a touching moment, and she was glad for it. The world was turning upside down. She dialed Jake, feeling sick about what had happened to Brad Collins. She told him she was going to take a look at cabin 22 at the Pines to see if there was anything there.
“I need you to do something for me, Jake,” Esther said. “I know this will be hard, but there are a lot of moving parts going on right now and we need to act quickly. I need you to call Brad’s mother and let her know that her son’s in very bad shape. She’ll need to talk with Dr. Cortez to get the particulars. You let her know that we’re going to do our best to find out who hurt him.”
Jake took it all in. “All right,” he said. “I’ll call her.”
“Thanks. Be sure to get the hospital’s main number and give her Dr. Della Cortez’s name.”
“Esther?” he asked before hanging up. “What if this is related to what happened to Charlie Franklin?”
“I’m not following.”
“Like maybe he got caught messing with some other kid. What if someone saw him do something really, really bad and just worked him over in some kind of vigilante move?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess, though again, his record doesn’t suggest he’d do anything of the kind. Even if it did play out like your scenario, would that justify this beating? We still need to work this assault just as hard as any other case, Jake. Even the bottom of the barrel deserves that. Our job, thank God, isn’t to judge. That’s for the courts. We’re in this to round up the people who have no regard for the law, no matter how distasteful we may find their victims.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I knew that. Sorry.”
Esther started to drive toward the Pines.
“Call his mom,” she said. “Meet me at the office later.” She hung up.
Jake looked up the hospital’s phone number so he’d have it ready as Esther had instructed. Then he started to dial. The phone rang about ten times before Mrs. Collins picked up. He’d hardly gotten a word out beyond the fact that Brad was in the hospital when Mrs. Collins let out a wail that he was certain could be heard from Ohio to Oregon. It was so loud that he pulled the phone from his ear until she stopped.
“I’m really sorry to bring you this news,” he said.
She cried a little more.
“Really, I am,” he said. “I have the hospital’s number right here. Let me give it to you so you can call. Okay?”
“Thank you,” the woman said. “I appreciate it. What happened to him? Was he in a car accident? He’s not a very good driver.”
“No, as far as we can tell he was assaulted. We don’t know what happened but we’re going to do our best to find out.”
“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?” she asked, spitting out the words one at a time as she caught her breath between her sobs.
“All I know is that it’s very serious, Mrs. Collins,” Jake said, trying to wind down the call. “You’ll need to talk to the doctors at the hospital.”
There was a slight pause on the line, long enough for Jake to wonder if the victim’s mother had dropped the phone.
“Mrs. Collins?” he asked.
When she finally spoke, her words were choked with tears. “Did someone hurt him because of the way he is?” she asked, calming herself with a deep breath. “Is that what happened?”
“We don’t know,” Jake said, wondering if she meant because of her son being gay, or a pedophile. He couldn’t see anything to be gained from asking for clarification.
Another longer pause. Mrs. Collins stopped crying. She said she was a caregiver for an elderly sister with cancer and it would take her a couple of days to arrange things to come to Oregon.
“It’s pretty serious, ma’am,” Jake said. “Doctor says to hurry.”
She reiterated her responsibilities with her sister and said she’d get there as quickly as she could.
“He’s a good boy,” she finally said. “He really is. I don’t think it’s anyone’s business who my son runs around with.”