In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (21 page)

Edna Mae Menke
sobbed quietly as Virgil glared with pure hatred at the telephone on his desk.

They were all there: Edna Mae, Annie, Kyle, the Muellers, Mary Bernice and her husband, Del, Kyle’s sister, Ellen, Dean Allen, Milo Afton, a few others.

They’d been there for more than two hours waiting for a phone call from the State of Florida’s forensic lab in Tallahassee with the results of an autopsy that had been done just that morning.

Annie James, dry-eyed and silent, her hand clutched tightly in Nora Mueller’s, sat looking out the window. Her body was straight as an arrow in the chair, her knees clamped tightly together, her chin up. She, like the others, didn’t really want to think the body the Florida Marine Patrol had snagged in their net in the Chattahoochee River was Gabe.

Mary Bernice was staring at the floor. Del’s arm was on her chair and now and again he would pat her back or rub her shoulder as he thumbed through an ancient
Field and Stream.

Dean and Milo were silently playing checkers. Neither really wanted to play, but both were unable to just simply sit and stare like everyone else.

Kyle and Ellen were talking quietly together.

Jake was standing in the doorway, his arms folded, his eyes staring blankly ahead of him.

When the phone rang, no one moved, but all eyes leapt to the instrument.

It rang again.

Once more and the day dispatcher answered it out front. He came to the door, smiled apologetically at Jake and nodded at his boss.

“It’s the lab, Virgil.”

Virgil flinched. He took a deep breath, another, and put out a hand he didn’t even know was trembling to pick up the receiver. Slowly he brought it to his ear, more than aware every eye in the room was glued to his face.

“Kramer,” he started to say but his voice broke. He tried again. “Sheriff Kramer.”

Kyle watched Virgil’s face carefully.

Edna Mae was looking at Virgil’s hand on the phone. The knuckles had bled of their color.

Ellen Vittetoe Harper got up from her chair and walked to Virgil’s desk. Quietly she laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Virgil said. “Thank you very much.” With infinite care he replaced the receiver and looked at Annie.

Annie lifted her eyes and looked at Virgil.

“It’s not him,” Virgil said quietly. “It’s not Gabe.”

When Jamie woke,
his head was throbbing with intense pain behind his eyes. He tried to turn his head on the pillow, but the movement made his head ache unmercifully and he stilled. He was confused, unable to concentrate, but perfectly aware of what had been done to him. And who had ordered it. He closed his eyes. They flew wide again when the door opened. Despite the agony it caused, he turned his head, and with relief, saw Patrick.

He began to cry.

Patrick shook his head. “It’s over and done with, now, Jamie. Let’s just get on with it and put it behind us.” He reached for the button that would lift his brother’s bed. “I’m going to take the stitches out today.”

Tremayne reached for his brother’s chin, turned his head, and frowned. “How did you tear these stitches in your temple?” He clucked his tongue. “Damn it, Jamie, you don’t want there to be a scar there!” He let go of his brother’s face and opened his medical bag, took out his suture scissors. He glanced sideways at Jamie. “It’s a good thing the incision is healed and held or I’d have had to re-suture.” He slid the hook of the scissors under a suture and snipped. Laying down the scissors, he took up the college pliers and carefully began to pull the suture material from his brother’s face.

“It hurt, Paddy,” Jamie whispered.

“This?” Patrick asked, his voice elevated with surprise. “I didn’t hurt you.”

Tears were sliding down Jamie’s cheeks. “It hurt.”

His conscience already pricking him, Patrick ignored the complaint and moved on to the next incision. He snipped the suture and began working it through the discolored flesh of his brother’s chin.

“Don’t let them do it to me again, Paddy.” His voice faded. “Please don’t let them do it again.”

The scowl of Patrick’s face deepened. “Don’t cause Papa any more trouble and you won’t have to worry about it.” He pulled the last stitch free. After dropping his instruments back into his bag, he took hold of Jamie’s face and carefully inspected it. “There might be a few faint scars, but they’ll heal in no time.” He glanced at the restraints around his brother’s wrists and looked quickly away. “Behave yourself, do what you’re told, and things will work out all right.”

Jamie nodded. His face was a sincere mask of hurt. His eyes were shining globes of promise. “I won’t cause them anymore trouble.”

“Kristen will be coming in to see you before she heads back to Gulf Breeze.” Patrick made his face stern. “Don’t ignore the woman, Jamie. She’s your wife.”

Jamie nodded again, willing to promise anything, do anything, to keep them from hurting him. A tremulous smile hovered over his quivering lips. “I won’t cause them anymore trouble, Paddy. I promise.”

“Good.” Patrick closed his bag and picked it up. He looked down at his brother. “I won’t be coming back to see you for awhile, but I’ll have someone checking on you.”

Jamie flinched. The words seemed to be a warning. “All right, Paddy.”

“Just do as they tell you, okay?”

Jamie nodded a third time, unable to ask for the warmth of comfort he wanted—he needed—from the only member of his family who had ever cared about what happened to him. Long after Patrick had gone, he lay there, wishing his brother had touched him with something less than the chill professional laying on of his hands. Wondering why Patrick wasn’t as upset with what they had done to him.

But then maybe Patrick no longer cared what happened to him.

“You tell Mr. Tremayne
I’ve got information I think he ought to have,” the man growled into the phone.

Andrew R. Tremayne’s secretary rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’ve told you, Mr. Tremayne is out of town until next week, sir. If I may take the message—”

“This is about his brother. The one he snatched!”

Pamela Westman had been Andrew Tremayne’s secretary since he had hung out his shingle. She was not only the man’s confidant, she was his mistress, his advisor, and anything else the lawyer wanted her to be. At the mention of James Tremayne, the woman tensed, and she lowered her voice knowing the phone was tapped by the FBI.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. Now, please, unless you can give me a message for Mr. Tremayne, I’d like you to hang up!”

The man cursed and slammed down the receiver. He looked at the other names on his list and angrily dialed the second number. His foot tapped rapidly on the phone booth’s floor as he waited for the long distance call to go through.

“Dr. Casey’s office. This is Nancy.”

“Let me speak to Dr. Casey.”

“Who’s calling, please?”

“Shit! You don’t need to know, girlie. You get the doctor on the phone. Tell her I’m calling about Gabe James. She’ll talk to me!”

She hung up the phone.

“You bitch,” the man shouted into the receiver. He jammed the black plastic into its cradle and fished in his pocket for more change. Slapping down a handful on the metal shelf of the phone stand, he jerked up the phone, thumbed in some coins and pounded out the third number on his list. He could barely restrain his fury as the phone rang.

“Dr. Tremayne’s office.”

“Now, you listen, lady! Don’t you hang up on me, do you hear?” the man began, his eyes bulging, his face hot with irritation. “My name is Henry DeLong and I need to talk to Tremayne about his brother Gabe. You tell him it’s urgent!”

Patty Ramsey was stunned by the man’s anger. It fairly rippled over the line. “Just a minute,” she said. Not even thinking, she put the man on hold and punched in Patrick’s office. When he answered, she told him some man was calling about his brother on line two and that it was urgent.

Patrick jerked up the phone. “Tremayne.”

“This Gabe’s brother?” came the suspicious answer.

All the color flowed out of Patrick’s face. He thought of hanging up because he knew other ears were listening in, but decided he’d just be careful what he said. “If you’re talking about James Gabriel, yes, I’m his brother.”

There was a long sigh on the phone. “Listen. My brother used to work for old man Connors, you know?” He didn’t wait for Patrick to acknowledge the remark. “Well, he got killed out here after he’d taken some photos for the old man, you know?”

“I don’t know at all what you’re talking about,” Patrick snapped. “Who is this? How do you know my brother?”

Henry DeLong snarled, his teeth pulling back over his lips. “I took them pictures for my brother and he was going to send them to old man Connors. Only he got in a wreck and the car and him burned up. Connors wanted to know who was going to be coming down there to try to find Gabe James and them photographs was important to him.”

“I don’t have the foggiest notion what you’re—”

“I need money,” the man shouted. “I’m in trouble and I need five big ones, Tremayne. If I can get you the pictures and names Connors wanted, will you pay me for ‘em? If you won’t, will anyone else?”

“No, I won’t, and neither will any of my family. If Jamie has friends looking for him, I hope they find him. Their efforts can only help my brother, not hurt him.”

“Who’re you trying to kid, Tremayne?” the man bellowed into the phone. “Kyle Vittetoe wouldn’t last two minutes down there if he stepped foot near where you got Gabe James stored!”

Patrick wrote the name down on his pad. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said and hung up. For a long time he stared at the name on his pad, then picked up the phone and dialed Iowa information.

“It was someone
who was the same height and weight and all, but the fingerprints weren’t Gabe’s.” Virgil patted Annie’s arm. “I’m sorry we worried you for nothing.”

“We’re gonna take her on home, Virgil,” Jake said as he slipped his arm around Annie’s shoulder. “It’s been a rough day on all of us.”

Edna Mae walked to Annie and took her hand. “No news is good news so they say.” She put her hand under Annie’s face. “Keep your chin up, okay?”

Annie nodded. She turned her eyes to Kyle. “You’ll call if you hear anything else?”

“You know I will.”

After Annie had left, Virgil, Edna Mae, Ellen and Kyle stayed in the office. Virgil shut the door and turned to face the others. “I think it’s time some of us went down there, don’t you?”

“When is that Florida deputy coming in?” Ellen asked.

Virgil looked at his watch. “About four this afternoon. I’m thinking maybe some of us ought to go back with him. Doc Remington said we could use his plane.”

“I’m thinking the whole team ought to go,” Edna Mae told them. She looked at Kyle. “To get everything in place. We can stay at that condo in Destin. Set up shop and wait.”

“I think we should do some investigating of our own into these clinics down in Louisiana,” Kyle said. He picked up the file on Virgil’s desk. “I don’t know why, but I don’t think we got all the skinny on them from that guy in Florida.”

“I didn’t like his attitude and neither did Sadler,” Virgil agreed. He looked at Kyle. “You think he may be on Tremayne’s payroll?”

“I don’t know, but I do know I’d just as soon go down there and see for myself,” Kyle answered.

“And how do you propose to do that?” his sister inquired. Kyle ducked his head and Ellen’s sisterly instinct moved in. “Kyle? What’re you planning?”

Kyle grinned. “I’m feeling like I need a rest.”

Ellen’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of rest?”

“That’s dangerous, Kyle,” Edna Mae told him.

“I don’t see a problem,” Kyle remarked.

“Maybe
you
don’t,” Edna Mae mumbled. She looked at Virgil. “You better talk some sense into this boy.”

“What’re you planning, Kyle?” Ellen asked again, her worry evident in her face.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “You’d better tell us.” His face was rigid with distrust.

“Doc Remington said he had a friend down there who could tell them he was my doctor. He trusts the guy and I trust Doc. If the man can put me in the clinic—”

“What?”
Ellen yelled. “Are you out of your mind?”

Kyle smiled. “That’s what the Doc would tell them.”

“No,” Ellen snapped, furiously shaking her head. “Absolutely not! It’s out of the question.”

“Ellen, look,” Kyle said, trying to calm her. “If the Doc can get me in the clinic, he can get me back out again.”

“That’s not what scares me, Kyle,” Ellen told him. “What if they find out who you are? What if you pick the right clinic and Gabe gives you away?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that. The good Lord only knows what they’ve done to him by now! He may not even know you.”

“All the better,” Virgil answered. “All we need to do is find him first, Ellen Marie. Then we can worry about getting him and Kyle out.”