Passions of the Dead (A Detective Jackson Mystery/Thriller) (17 page)

“What does your doctor say about your memory?”

Lori turned back. “She thinks I have trauma-induced amnesia and my memory will come back some day. I’m having a CAT scan this afternoon to see if my brain is okay.”

“What’s your doctor’s name?”

Lori’s face was blank. “I don’t know.”

“When I was here yesterday, I asked you who hurt you and your family. You said ‘Shane.’ Did your cousin do this?”

“No.” She looked horrified. “He would never hurt me. Or anyone. I can’t believe I said that.”

“You said his name twice.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“What about Shane’s friends? Can you think of anyone he hangs out with who has criminal connections?”

Lori glanced over at the chair where her aunt had been, saw they were alone, and said softly, “Shane used to hang out with Tyler Gorlock sometimes, back when he was using. Tyler is a thief, a dealer, and a jackass but he’s never been arrested.”

“Would he have any reason to kill your family?”

Lori shivered. “My dad has guns.”

A whole new scenario played out in Jackson’s head. “How does Shane know Tyler Gorlock?”

“Tyler is Roy Engall’s stepson. Shane and Tyler both painted for Roy last summer.” Lori started to cry. “My dad never liked Tyler either.”

“I’m sorry I upset you. ” Jackson gave her a moment. “Thanks for this information. If you start to remember what happened that night, please call me.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

They were both quiet for a moment and Lori started to drift. Suddenly her eyes flew open. “Will they come back for me?”

“Probably not now, but we’ve had a patrol officer stationed outside the ICU since you arrived.”

“What happens to me after I leave here? Will the police still protect me at Aunt Rita’s house?”

Good question, Jackson thought. “We’re going to find these guys and put them in jail so you don’t have to worry.”

Lori didn’t look reassured, and he didn’t blame her. “Will you get my nurse? I need more medication.”

“Sure.”

Jackson flagged the first person he saw, a guy in gray scrubs who said he would find Lori’s nurse right away. Jackson went back to her room and stayed until a nurse came. It took seventeen minutes.

Twenty days earlier, May 10

Lori stopped at the intersection and rolled down her window. The old homeless guy with the little dog hustled over, gave her a nearly toothless grin, and snatched the dollar out of her hand. “Thanks, miss. You have a good day.”

Not very likely, Lori thought as she drove onto the freeway. Giving away the dollar and seeing his battered face light up had become the best part of her day—a talisman she hoped would keep everything else from being unbearable. Lori turned on the radio to distract herself. She had trained herself to not think about her job on the way. Walking into the restaurant feeling stressed just made Saturdays longer. She tried to start each shift with an open mind; her customers would be nice, she would be organized and efficient and make everyone happy, and her boss would be too busy to bother her.

The illusion was shattered twenty minutes into her shift. A family group of twelve sat in her station taking up three tables, asking questions at the same time.

“One at a time. Please!” Lori knew her tone would cost her some of her tip, but she had to get control or this group would turn into a disaster. They quieted down, and she answered their questions as best she could. “Yes, the Cobb salad comes with bacon, and yes we can leave it out. No, you can’t substitute onion rings for fries, and I don’t know if the dressing has MSG, but I’ll ask.”

Of course by the time she got back to the kitchen to start making their drinks she forgot about the salad dressing issue. Lori watched some of her co-workers in amazement. They were cheerful about the job and good at it. They laughed and had fun with their customers and never seemed to forget anything or get flustered. It was like watching aliens perform an incomprehensible feat. Lori knew she was not cut out to be a waitress and desperately wanted to quit.

It was not an option. Her parents were so stressed about money right now, they would freak out if she quit or got fired. Lori gave most of her tips to her mother every day for groceries. Cash that should have been going into her savings account for her move to Hawaii. Getting out of Eugene was more important than ever, but everything was working against her. The whole new scene at home was too weird. Sometimes it felt good to help her parents, like she wasn’t a needy kid anymore, but most of the time it was stressful and so not fair. Her mother had become a fanatic about not spending money, and her dad was lost. The only bright spot in her life was the time she spent with her sweetie, but things were not good for him right now either. Lori dreaded the day her parents found out about their relationship. If they could just get to Maui and start their own life together, everything would get better.

“Lori, we’re out of to-go boxes up here and it’s your station’s responsibility.” Gina, a skinny woman who looked eighty but was probably not, hollered at Lori from the dessert bar. As lead waitress Gina bossed everyone around but she also helped Lori when she got too far behind. Lori tried not to think mean thoughts about her.

“I’ll get them.” She walked away from her half-finished drink order and hurried to the closet where paper products were kept.

“Bring some napkins too!”

Another thing she hated about this job; it was too damn loud in the restaurant. The roar of the dishwasher, the whine of the blenders going all the time, food servers shouting at each other just to be heard. The constant chaos wore on her nerves.

She loaded her arms with two sizes of to-go boxes and grabbed a big sleeve of napkins. From the corner of her eye, she saw the manager slide out of his office.
Oh shit
.

“Need some help?” Greg slid up behind her in the narrow hallway and reached for the napkins she was holding. His breath tickled the back of her neck, warm at first, then cooler as he inhaled deeply, taking in her scent. His hand slid over her right breast, pausing slightly, then slipped lower.

Lori jerked away and lost her load of paper products, which tumbled to the floor.
Shit
. She shot Greg a dirty look, then squatted and started to gather up the boxes. He kneeled to help her, his face level with her breasts. “I need to see you in the office after your shift.” His voice was a slithery whisper.

Lori pretended not to hear. She gathered the last of the packages and scooted away. Her heart pounded in her ears and her legs shook. The bastard. God, she hated him. What would happen if she didn’t go see him after her shift? Would he cut her hours? Or fire her?

Lori stashed the boxes and napkins in the space below the soda fountain. When she reached for the drink tray she’d started, she realized someone had taken the two chocolate shakes she’d already made.
Oh shit
. She’d have to start over. The day’s endurance contest had begun.

Jackson squared his shoulders and walked into Surgery 10 for the third time in two days. Spending this much time with the dead was unnerving. He didn’t know how pathologists handled it and was glad the autopsy was on an adult male this time. Women and children were harder to watch. Dead men often had it coming. Everything he’d learned on this case pointed to the notion Jared had somehow brought this on his family. He had stepped outside of the bounds of socially acceptable behavior, and someone he associated with had reacted violently.

Rudolph Konrad’s cheeks were flushed pink, popping out of his pale round face.
Had the pathologist slipped a little bourbon in his coffee at lunch?
Jackson had never seen the pathologist in the afternoon before. The medical examiner was not in the small room. “Where’s Gunderson?” Jackson asked, grabbing a white overcoat from the wall hooks.

“He’s out on a call.” Konrad rolled the narrow table toward the stainless steel drawers. “An older woman was found dead in her bathroom. Probably natural causes, but that’s the ME’s job to determine.” The pathologist opened the door on the left, then looked back at Jackson. “I could use a hand.”

Jackson ignored the signals his body was sending and stepped up to the sliding drawer. He had handled plenty of dead bodies. Why was he feeling squeamish? Was it the prednisone? His doctor had warned him it could play havoc with his emotions.

Using the sheet for leverage, they pulled Jared’s two-hundred-pound body from the drawer tray to the wheeled table in a quick concentrated effort. Jackson noticed Jared’s well defined stomach muscles and large quads, indicating he was athletic, perhaps even a runner. The three gaping wounds on the corpse’s chest held his eyes though. They overlapped, digging a hole straight into the man’s heart. The only other body Jackson had seen with this much knife damage had been a homeless man who’d gotten into a fight with another vagrant. None of the homeless guy’s six knife wounds would have killed him if he’d made it to a hospital.

“I’ll look for trace evidence first,” Konrad said, rolling the table under the bright overhead light. He lifted Jared’s left hand and took scrapings from under the nails. A white stripe circled the finger where Jared’s wedding ring had been, and dark grease rings filled the lower curve of his fingernails, as if he’d done some engine repair recently. The victim’s face and arms were tanned from working sleeveless outside, but the rest of his body had never seen the sun.

“The victim has no defense wounds, no blood under his nails, and no extraneous hair or fiber.” Konrad’s voice had a little more energy than it had this morning. Was he finally warming up to him?

Jackson forced himself to keep quiet and wait until Konrad had finished his inch-by-inch scrutiny of Jared’s skin and head. As the pathologist examined Jared’s torso, he said, “This is a recent wound. Maybe in the last few weeks.”

Jackson leaned in over the body. A few inches from Jared’s belly button was a roundish dark-pink scar where something small and sharp had penetrated the skin. “What do you suppose caused that?” Jackson said.

“I have no clue.”

Sixteen days earlier, May 15

Jared pulled into the driveway, relieved to be home. He’d spent the afternoon at the employment office, sitting through a class about job interviews. He’d learned a few things, such as to come prepared with questions for the employer and to answer in complete sentences, but overall it was not worth the time. The class about improving his resume had been better. Until that point, Jared didn’t have a resume.

As he trotted into the house, Nick called out, “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, son. How’s your day?” Carla didn’t like them to yell across the house, but Jared thought it was friendly. He was grateful his son still liked him.

In the kitchen Nick stood in front of the refrigerator. “I’m just getting a glass of Kool-Aid.”

“Pour me one too.” Carla had stopped buying soda after she was laid off. She said they had to save their food budget for food. Carla had also decided Jared couldn’t spend any money on beer either. She was right about the priorities but it annoyed him. Now he drank more at the bar and less at home.

“A letter from the court came today,” Nick said, pointing to the table.

“Oh boy.” Jared slid the envelope open and scanned the thickly worded paragraphs. “Your first session at Looking Glass is next Tuesday, but we’re supposed to go in beforehand and fill out the paperwork.”

“I’m sorry, Dad.” His son apologized for the tenth time. “Bringing the pot here was stupid. I didn’t even like it.”

“It’s okay, Nick. I know you’re not a stoner. And if we can’t pay for the program, they’ll just kick you out. They can’t send you to juvie because we don’t have money.”
Could they?
Jared didn’t really know, but it didn’t seem fair and he still trusted the system to be fair. Especially to kids. “How was school today?”

“The same.”

“It’s almost summer break. Let’s plan a camping trip.”

Nick’s face lit up. “Waldo Lake?”

“Sure. You can bring a friend too. We’ll leave the women home this time.”

Nick shifted from one foot to the other. Jared waited him out.

“I didn’t steal Uncle Kevin’s Lou Gehrig card. I want you to believe me.”

“I do believe you, son.” Jared smiled and tried to look convincing. This was one of those situations where he simply didn’t know what to believe and might never know the whole truth. The card had not been found and no charges were filed. Jared had decided to let the whole thing go. Nick needed his trust and he would give it to him. Jared thought it was more likely Shane had taken the card, and Kevin was mistaken about when he saw it last.

They heard Carla’s car pull in, glanced at each other, and scooted out of the kitchen. Jared grabbed a sports magazine and headed to the back porch. He wanted to sit in front of the TV and watch something mindless, but it made him feel guilty to watch television during the day when he should be working or looking for a job. He glanced at his watch: 4:12. He had stayed out there putting in applications for as long as he could.