Harry
Natalie nudged Harry and he grumbled. “Tired…sleeping.”
“Your phone’s ringing.”
“Wha…not home.”
“Harry, answer your phone.” Natalie laughed quietly. “Seriously?”
He flipped onto his back in bed. “What?” he yawned. “I’m tired.” His phone vibrated off the night stand. Damn, he had zero interest in whoever or whatever was calling. Harry left the cell on the floor and glanced at the glowing blue digits on the clock. 12:14 AM.
“Better see who it is,” Natalie said.
Should he? Yeah. But that didn’t mean he wanted to. He groaned while leaning down to get his phone. The voice mail signal chirped and he looked at the missed call number. It was a number from down at the station. He listened to the voice mail. Rudy’s low voice rumbled through the speaker.
“Harry, I think you may want this one. A woman was struck by a pick-up in the Lodge’s parking lot…someone beat her pretty badly beforehand.”
Harry sat up in the bed and listened more closely.
“She wasn’t wearing any shoes. The woman’s out of it, couldn’t talk, but someone at the bar recognized her.”
Harry’s chest tightened. He glanced over at Natalie’s concerned face.
“What is it?” she asked, turning on her bedside lamp.
“Woman was taken to the hospital, beat to shit and hit by a car.”
“You going in?”
Harry moaned and laid back again. He stayed in bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. The last thing he wanted was to be heading to the hospital in the middle of the night, except he had a nagging feeling the girl had just escaped a worse fate than getting hit by a car. “Fuck…yeah, I gotta go.”
Natalie nodded and set her lips into a thin line. He rose from the bed and put on the clothes he’d left on the chair in the corner of her bedroom. His shoulders tensed the more he thought about the woman. Clearly, she’d been attacked. It could be some sort of domestic thing, but there weren’t many houses nearby. In fact, the closest home was two miles away from the Lodge. And she was barefoot. Damn, he hated his job sometimes. He went to Natalie’s side of the bed, leaned down, and kissed her cheek. She rolled onto her side away from him. “Sorry…I wouldn’t go if it weren’t import—”
“I know,” she said. “It’s always important.”
“Nat, I…” Christ, maybe this could wait after all. The bad thing about being in a smaller community was he was the only detective. And when duty called, he felt an obligation to show up at least. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Fine.”
“Hey.” He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s fine. You have to go, right?” She stayed on her side.
Without saying anything else, he turned off her lamp and left the room. When he started the engine of his Buick, he cursed under his breath. What he needed was a partner he could take turns on call with. The department had the funds and he used to have one several years ago. Maybe he’d ask for one. Rudy would make a great detective. Although more than once, he’d indicated he wasn’t interested in the added stress.
Harry arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes later. Ellison waited at the ER doors for him. “What do we got?” he asked the uniformed cop.
“Woman’s name is Sarah Donaldson.” Ellison took out a field notebook and rattled off more details. “Guy named Zeke backed into her pulling out of a parking space. Didn’t see her…came out of nowhere.”
“Did she come out of the woods?” Harry asked, not expecting there to be an answer.
“Don’t know, that’s what Zeke thinks.”
They walked toward the triage desk. “He the one that ID’d her?”
“Yes.”
“He still here?” Just then, Harry caught sight of the lumberjack guy he’d talked to behind the Lodge about the snowshoes.
Tell me that’s not Zeke.
The large man in the red flannel lurched toward them.
“Detective Hunter.” He nodded once. His voice reminded Harry of a double bass, playing only the lowest notes.
Harry looked way up to the towering man’s face. “Zeke, is it?” He didn’t wait for the guy’s answer. “How do you know Sarah? I was told you recognized her.”
“Uh huh. We used to see each other.”
“You know anyone that might want to hurt her? You maybe?”
“Don’t have any reason to hurt her.” He crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “She’s a good girl.”
“But you hit her with your car.”
“It was an accident. I was already backing out when she ran up behind me.”
Harry believed that. The lighting at the Lodge wasn’t the greatest. An accident sounded plausible.
“When was the last time you saw her, besides earlier tonight?”
“A few months ago.”
“New boyfriend?”
“I’ve seen her hanging around some new guy, haven’t paid much attention to him.”
Harry pulled out a business card and gave it to Zeke. “Call me if you hear anything.” The large man strode away after pocketing the card.
* * *
Harry walked through the doors leading to the ER. A nurse’s station sat in the middle. Several nurses were on the phone behind the desk and a doctor stood at the counter jotting notes in a medical chart. He recognized the doctor from when Mikey had been brought in after Lance had stabbed him. “Can you point me to Sarah Donaldson?”
The doctor smiled. “Sure, she’s in bay three, but I’m waiting for CT to come and take her for pictures of her—”
“Is she conscious?”
“Yes. Not sure how much help she’ll be though,” the doctor said.
“Then I’ll be quick,” Harry said, striding away. He pulled back the hanging drape partition. Sarah’s left eye was swollen shut and she had several abrasions on her chin, cheeks, and forehead. He stepped closer and saw some stitches at her hairline. Only a sliver of her irises showed beneath her heavy lids. “Sarah Donaldson, I’m Detective Hunter, got a few questions for you.”
She closed her eyes. The woman adjusted her position on the bed, wincing. With a groggy soft voice, she said, “Okay.”
“Tell me what happened to you tonight…”
“Don’t…remem, remember much,” she breathed.
Harry sighed, although not in annoyance. He braced himself for an explanation about why her boyfriend had beat her, and why he shouldn’t be arrested. And why it was her fault.
“That’s all right. Tell me what you can remember.”
“My boyfriend…”
Harry inhaled deeply. Here we go.
“…he was supposed to meet me.” Tears streaked down her face. “Didn’t show.” She put her hand up to her forehead. “Things get fuzzy after that.”
“Where was he supposed to meet you?”
“Wallflowers.” More tears streaked her face.
He expected to her stay silent, yet she continued speaking.
“Someone talked to me, I only remember bits and pieces though. He hit on me and I remember wanting to get away from him. He was pushy, rude.”
“Can you describe him?”
She played with the tissue in her hand and shrugged. “Black gloves,” she croaked.
“Excuse me?” Harry brought his hand up like he was holding a cup of coffee. What was he doing? The coffee machine in the waiting room called to him.
“He wore gloves,” she clarified.
“Anything else you remember?”
“Yeah, lots of tattoos. On his arm.”
Great. Lots of people had tattoos, including his future son-in-law. “Of what, do you recall?”
Sarah shook her head.
“Do you remember his face at all?”
“Uh uh…no, sorry. My head hurts.” She put her face in her palms.
The drape slid over and a man appeared with another gurney. “Sarah Donaldson?” he read from an iPad. Cleary, the hospital had entered the twenty-first century with the fancy gadget. Damn, Harry was old. “Date of birth?”
Sarah mumbled some numbers.
The guy seemed satisfied with her response and helped transfer her to the rolling bed he’d brought with him. Harry didn’t bother handing her his card. Where would she put it anyway? “Sarah, before you go. Can you tell why you didn’t have any shoes on when you got to the Lodge?”
She looked nonplussed for a moment. “I wasn’t at the Lodge.”
“You were. That’s where Zeke’s truck backed into you.”
The woman squeezed her eyes shut. “I dunno, I don’t…remem—wait, I, I was running from something. A man. I can’t see his face.”
“We need to go,” the guy handling the gurney said. “Taking her to CT.”
Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Will she back here afterward?”
“You’ll have to ask the doctor that.” The guy released the brake on the wheels and pushed her out of the ER.
Harry spoke to the doctor, who was almost certain she’d be kept overnight. He handed a card to the doctor and walked out. Discerning much of anything from his conversation with Sarah seemed impossible. However, what he now knew was a man with tattoos and black gloves chased her into the Lodge’s parking lot, saw it was full of cars, and took off. The asshole was probably halfway to the Canadian border by now.