Edge of Midnight (35 page)

 

44

Susan grabbed the cane and hobbled as fast as her injured leg would allow. Though she needed the cane more than she liked to admit, it wasn't as awkward as swinging herself along on crutches. When she was belted in, Parkhurst turned the ignition, hit the overheads, and stomped the accelerator.

At Kelby Oliver's house, he zipped into the driveway, scattering gravel. As she climbed from the Bronco, she gritted her teeth against the pain. He took off, his gun held alongside his leg. At the screened porch, he proceeded more cautiously. She was behind him when he went into the kitchen.

Abruptly, he stopped. “Pony in the house. One down.”

Cary Black lay slumped in a corner, propped against the cabinet. The phone receiver dangled, making the beep-beep-beep noise as a reminder to hang up. The horse nuzzled Cary's cheek, then raised its head and looked at them. They did a quick run through, room by room. No one else inside. Where was Faye Turney?

Parkhurst slipped his gun back in the shoulder holster and radioed for an ambulance. Susan knelt and put her fingertips against the corner of Cary's jaw. Pulse rapid, but strong.

“Cary?” No response.

He went outside to check the area. She waited with Cary. What the hell had happened? Did someone hurt her? Was she released from the hospital too soon and had some kind of relapse? Did concussion victims have relapses? Where was the ambulance?

Five minutes later, a siren screamed its way toward the house, up the driveway and got cut in midwail. Two young males in navy blue jumpsuits came in and stopped at the sight of the horse.

“Why is there a pony in the house?”

She told him to look at the victim. “Her name is Cary Black.”

One paramedic knelt and put a stethoscope to Cary's chest, the other slapped a blood pressure cuff on her arm and pumped it up. Plastic tubing went around her neck to administer oxygen.

“Ma'am? Cary? Can you hear me?”

Cary's eyelids fluttered. “Mitch…”

“Just take it easy. Don't try to move.”

She struggled. “Mitch … fell…”

“Just relax. You had a fall.”

“Hurt … Mitch … fell … creek … help…”

Susan knelt beside her. “Did Mitch hurt you?”

“Creek … help…”

“Take it easy,” the paramedic said. “We're going to help you.” He lowered his voice and said to Susan, “We need to get her to the hospital.”

Cary clutched Susan's hand. “Creek. Help him.”

The paramedics loaded Cary on the gurney and rolled her out to the waiting ambulance. Susan, one hand on Ginger's halter, led the horse out and to the barn.

She was headed back to the house when Parkhurst trotted up. “Did you see a creek?”

“I saw a bridge and heard water trickle.”

“Cary was saying her husband fell in the creek.”

He handed her his flashlight and went to the Bronco for another one. “Take it easy.” He shined his light on the uneven stone path. “Good place to twist an ankle.”

He took off. She followed more slowly.

“Somebody's in the water!” he called a moment later.

Carefully, she made her way to the edge of the bridge, shined her light down at the water, then up at the underside of the bridge. Old wooden bridge, but she couldn't tell much more. Too dark.

Parkhurst clambered down the bank and splashed over to the body that was facedown in the water. Mitch Black, Susan assumed.

Placing his flashlight on a rock, Parkhurst squatted beside whoever it was. She dropped her cane and picked her way down to the creek, grabbing at low-growing vegetation to keep from falling. When she reached the water's edge, Parkhurst was doing chest compressions. She waded toward him. The water wasn't deep, only five or six inches. She took over the chest compressions to give him a rest.

He shined his light on the victim's face and then out over the creek and along the bank. “Another ambulance on the way. But…” He shook his head, then resumed CPR. She went back to the house to show the paramedics where to go.

*   *   *

Cary Black was admitted to the hospital for observation and it was the following afternoon, Sunday, before Susan was allowed to question her. Cary explained why she was running and hiding, told of the bus ride, getting to Hampstead, Kelby missing. “I didn't know what to do. If I went to the police Mitch would find out where I was.”

“You assumed her name.”

“I didn't intend to, it just happened.” Cary explained her need for books and getting a library card in Kelby's name, getting the job of taking care of Dr. Farley. She asked about Ginger.

Susan assured her Ginger was fine. Ronny Wells had the horse at the ranch. Susan asked about Faye Turney and Cary said Faye had decided to leave early.

“Mitch?” Cary said.

 

45

On Monday morning, feeling very much an intruder, Susan slipped into the small room where Jen's mom waited with her new husband, Jen's dad, a social worker, and a nurse. The result of Jen's latest cerebral flow study showed no blood flow to the brain. She was pronounced brain dead. Terry made the agonizing decision to remove all life support keeping her daughter alive. “You were her friend,” Terry said to Susan. “She'd want you here.”

Susan wanted to be anywhere else in the world. She expected Terry to fall apart, sob and scream about the unfairness and how she couldn't go on without her daughter, but when she was pushed against it, Terry came through with dignity. Pale, hands clasped so tightly the knuckles were white, her eyes were dry and her voice quiet.

“I have to be proud,” she whispered. “Hold my head up high. For Jen's sake. I don't want her to be ashamed of me. I want her to know I love her. She'll always be with me.” Terry touched her chest with a clenched fist.

A social worker led them to Jen's room. “If there is anything I can do, if you need anything…”

Susan felt numb, movement was difficult, like she was wading through wet cement. The minister from Terry's church was there and he hugged her. A nurse rattled the curtain closed around the bed. Cables and wires connected Jen to machines that beeped and flickered, the ventilator pushed air in and out of her chest. She looked young, and peaceful.

With icy fingers, Terry took Susan's hand and drew her close to the bed. She picked up one of Jen's limp hands and placed it in Susan's. Terry went to the other side of the bed and picked up Jen's other hand. She nodded to the minister.

In a quiet, resonant voice, he said, “Jen, your job here is finished. You're going to leave this earth and go to a new school far greater than any you could choose. To keep you safe on the journey, we send with you our blessings and all our love.”

Terry said, “I love you, Jennifer. I'll always be your mother. I'm releasing you. I'll always love you with all my heart.”

Pain squeezed the air from Susan's lungs. Softly, she stroked Jen's cheek with fingertips. “Good-bye, Jen. You're a great kid. I love you.”

Terry rested her cheek against Jen's chest, as though listening to the heartbeat for one last time. She straightened and walked away. Susan kissed Jen's limp fingers and gently put Jen's hand back on the bed.

*   *   *

One week later, Susan stood on the crumbling wooden bridge. Mitchell Black had fallen, hit his head on a rock, and drowned in five inches of water. A flock of crows rose from the field filling the silence with jeering calls. She could imagine Jen saying something silly like, “Too many rooks spoil the croft.”

That night Susan dreamed, not the dream filled with dread and gunfire, but a dream of Jen on the bridge with her legs dangling through the hole in the rotted boards. Jen smiled. Feeling a great surge of joy, Susan smiled back and started to run toward her. With a shake of her head, Jen slipped through the hole and sat cross-legged on a boulder in the creek. She said something important that Susan didn't understand, because trickling water distorted her words.

Finally, Jen covered her eyes with her hands and Susan understood what she was saying. Blindness comes in all forms. Blindness where your eyes don't function, where you can't understand, where you look the other way, where you jump to the wrong conclusion.

But the very worst was promising to help a young girl and not seeing the disastrous outcome of a promise not kept.

 

Other Police Chief Susan Wren Mysteries

Up in Smoke

A Cold Christmas

Murder Take Two

Family Practice

Consider the Crows

Winter Widow

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin's Press.

EDGE OF MIDNIGHT.
Copyright © 2006 by Charlene Weir. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weir, Charlene.

Edge of midnight / Charlene Weir.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34797-0

ISBN-10: 0-312-34797-9

1. Wren, Susan (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women police chiefs—Fiction. 3. Police—Kansas—Fiction. 4. Kansas—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.E39744 E34 2006

813'.54—dc22

2006046583

First Edition: December 2006

eISBN 9781466834477

First eBook edition: November 2012