No One Else to Kill (Jim West Series) (14 page)

I forced myself to my knees and rolled Randi onto her
back. I felt for a pulse, but my fingers were numb and shaking. I braced her
neck with my hand and breathed into her mouth. I blew another breath again,
harder this time, and moved to press on her chest. I pressed four or five times
and went back to breathe for her again. I became dizzy but continued.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I kept thinking I had
read about a new and improved CPR method.
 
I felt like I was doing it wrong.
 
She never responded to my efforts.
 
I don’t even recall who pulled me off her, but I remember being roughly
pushed away and the room spinning in front of me.
 
Lights erupted all around me.
 
I closed my eyes and fought the urge to be
sick.

I think seeing the words brought me back out of the fog of
semi-consciousness. They stained the wall directly across from me.

“I’m sorry I had to kill him,” written with what appeared
to be a black magic marker stared me in the face.
 
Below the words, neatly folded on the floor
sat the clothes I had seen her wearing that evening.
 
A magic marker rested on top of the folded
clothing.

Two emergency technicians carried Randi out in a
stretcher.
 
A third technician, a short
woman walked alongside the stretcher holding something connected to Randi.

“
You feeling
better now?”

I looked away from the gaggle with the stretcher leaving
the room. A man I did not recognize squatted next to me.
 
He had a small flashlight in his hand.

“Let me look in your eyes.” He didn’t wait for permission,
but pointed the small light in one of my eyes and then the other.

I cringed and had to wipe the tears away, but tried to be
a good patient.

“How do you feel?”

“Okay,” I don’t know why I said it.
 
My shoulder hurt and I felt horrible.
 
If I were a few decades younger, I’d be
calling for my mommy.

He stood up and walked off.
 
I didn’t watch him go, but before he left the
room I heard him, “He’s all yours.”

That’s when I noticed the deputy in the room with me. He
looked young and frightened. I also heard voices in the hallway. I realized a
lamp had been brought into the room to provide light.

I started to stand up.

“Stay down!” barked the deputy.
 
“My orders are to keep everything just like I
found them, and that includes you.”

I didn’t argue. My back and shoulder hurt when I tried to
stand anyway, and I needed to get the last couple of cobwebs out of my mind.

“Is Detective Bruno on his way?” I asked.

He looked at me. I wondered if he thought telling me would
violate some rule he had learned at his training academy. Finally, he came to a
compromise answer.

“I’m not sure who is coming.
 
I’m just following orders.”

“I understand.
 
Did
you notice that?” I pointed at the wall.

He nodded.

“I don’t think she did it,” I said.

He took a step further into the room and studied the
wall.
 
He looked back at me. I could tell
he was debating whether to speak or not.
 
Finally his curiosity won out.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think she killed Benson, and I don’t think she
tried to kill herself.”

The deputy looked back at me.
 
He didn’t say anything.

“The lady they took out on the stretcher, was she alive?”

“I think so. You should know.”

“I think I hyperventilated or something
like
that.
 
I don’t actually remember when
everyone arrived.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything more.
 
I heard people talking again in the
hall.
 
I thought I heard Geri’s voice but
couldn’t be sure.
 
The deputy momentarily
glanced out the door to see what was going on. It must not have been Bruno,
because everything returned to its quiet, peaceful state. Except for the rope
hanging from a rafter, you might think nothing had happened in this room.
 
That would change when the crime scene folks
hit the room, and that happened after another three minutes of waiting.

Detective Bruno walked into the room with another deputy I
remembered seeing earlier in the day.

“Everything the same as when you got here?” He asked the
young deputy who had been guarding the room.

“Yes sir.”

“Good.
 
He said
anything?” He nodded at me.

“Just that he didn’t think it was a suicide.”

“Hmm!”
Bruno looked at me for a
few seconds.
 
“Go get yourself a cup of coffee,
but stick around.”

“Yes sir.”
 
The kid
left.

“Did you see anyone up here with her?”

“No.”

“Touch anything besides her?”

“Yeah.
 
The chair, the light switch, the rope,” I
said.

“You got her off the rope?”

“Yeah.
 
She was still warm and limp. I had no
choice.”

“Did she say anything to you?” He looked around the room
when he asked this.

“No.
 
She never
regained consciousness.”

“Too bad.”

I didn’t like the way that sounded.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Died before they got her to the
hospital.”
 
His eyes focused on
the clothing and the writing on the wall.

“Damn,” I felt sick again.

He looked back at me.
 
“You good enough to wait for me down in the dining
room?
 
We need to talk.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, clear out.
 
We’ve got work to do.
 
Grab some
coffee, I won’t be that long.”

An involuntary grimace escaped me when I stood up. Bruno
noticed but didn’t say anything.
 
I
walked out.
 
I didn’t rub my shoulder
until I reached the hallway.

“Okay, guys. Come on in,” Bruno called from behind me in
the room.
 
The half dozen members of the
crime scene team streamed in after I was out.

Rick, the lodge manager and another young cop guarded the
door to the stairs.
 
They both stared at
me suspiciously when I passed. I nodded at them, but they simply stared
back.
 
Once on the stairs, I rotated my
arms at the shoulders.
 
I had full
mobility, but my right shoulder blade and back felt like they had been smacked
with a two by four.
 
At least, the
tingling in my right hand had subsided.

The second floor looked like midday rather than after
midnight.
Harv
, Stallings, Vic and Geri
Schutte
had gathered in the hallway and were engrossed in
an animated conversation.
 
They weren’t
being loud, but there certainly were a lot hands and arms moving around.
  
I had to pass them to get to the stairs.

They shut up when I got close, and each of them stared at
me in suspicion.

“Not a good night,” I said when I walked by.

None of them responded, however when I started down the
stairs one of them whispered, “I bet he did it.”

I didn’t look back up.
 
I saw both of the
Bettes
’ sitting at a table
in the bar, now closed. Sean had his head down in his hands.
 
I heard Colt talking to him, but couldn’t
make out the words.
 
He had placed his
hand on Sean’s right elbow. I imagined Sean’s stress level had maxed out by now.
 
A deputy stood guard at the front door.
 
Bev had gone home long ago.

I returned to my room and stayed just long enough to
freshen up and put on a real shirt. I hadn’t needed to hurry.
 
I had started a second cup of coffee in the
dining room before Detective Bruno reappeared.

kay, from the beginning West, tell
me what happened tonight.”
 
He had a
small notebook out in case I confessed.

“First, I need to tell you one thing that happened last
night.
 
It goes to my response tonight.”

“You mean like twenty four hours ago?”

“Yes, give or take an hour.”

“Go ahead.”

“I heard what sounded like a man crying.
 
It sounded like it came from the third
floor.
 
My room is on the second
floor.
 
I don’t know how or why the sound
penetrated to my room, but it did.”

“So?”

“I went up to check it out, but after I got to the third
floor, I couldn’t hear it anymore.
 
I did
see someone leave at the far end of the hall.”

“Who?”
Bruno interrupted.

“Don’t know.
 
My
view was hampered by the ladders and tarps in the hallway.”

“Did you hear the crying again tonight?”

“No, and I actually don’t think it had anything to do with
tonight’s incident, except it increased my curiosity when I heard the creaking
sound tonight.”

“The what?”

“Tonight, around eleven, my noisy neighbors woke me up
when they returned to their rooms.
 
I got
up briefly, and a little while later, after everything quieted down, I heard
someone come out of the stairwell that leads up to third floor and walk by my
door. I got up again and looked out my door.
 
I thought it might be our crier.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“No, but my curiosity took over, so I went up to the third
floor.
 
This time when I entered the
third floor hallway, I heard the sound of the rope as it rubbed against the
wood beam.”

“You knew what it was?”

“No, but I had a feeling.
 
I walked down the hall. The ladders and tarps had been moved so my
vision to the other end of the corridor was unobstructed.”

“Any lights on?”

“No, but the doors to all the rooms were open, and just
enough light from the outside came in so I could see where I was going.
 
I could also look into each room as I passed.
I didn’t see anything suspicious, and I kept getting closer to the sound.”

“Could anyone have been hiding in one of the rooms you
passed?”

“Absolutely.
 
I kept walking until I got to the room where
Randi was.”
 
I paused to see if he had
another question.
 
He didn’t.
 
“The door to the room, unlike the others, was
only open a foot or two.
 
When I pushed
the door open I saw her hanging there.”

“What else did you see at that moment?”

“The rope, the open section of the
ceiling, and the chair.
I didn’t sense the presence of anyone else.
 
I turned the light switch on, but of course
all the fixtures and bulbs had been removed.”

“Did you see the writing on the wall?”

“No, not then.
 
I saw it later, along with the clothing, when
she was being removed from the room.”

He nodded.

“I ran to her and felt her skin.
 
She didn’t feel cold or even cool.
 
All I could think of was to get her down and
to try to revive her.
 
Sorry if I messed
up your evidence.”

“You called for help?”

“Yes.
 
I didn’t have
my cell phone with me, although I may not have even remembered that I had it,
if I did.
 
I just started calling for
help.
 
I set the chair back up.
 
Someone had knocked it over.”

“Someone?”

“She didn’t hang herself--”

“We’ll go there later.
 
You set the chair back up and then?”

“I climbed up on it and lifted her up enough to work the
rope loose.
 
It took me a while, and when
I finally succeeded we both tumbled off the chair.”

“Your fall is what woke up half the hotel.”

I ignored his comment.
 
“Once we were down, I gave her CPR.”
 
I shook my head, “I’m not sure I was even doing it right.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.
 
From what I’ve been told, you kept that
little spark of life she had when you found her alive.
 
The ambulance crew felt the same way when
they took her from you.
 
That there was a
chance.”