Stripped Bare (3 page)

He'd better be all right. That's all.

An hour later, Elvis's brakes squealed as I stopped under the covered driveway in front of the emergency room entrance. Bright lights glared through the glass automatic doors. Elvis obliged me by not sticking the driver's door this time. I jumped out and flew for the hospital. The darn doors took their time sliding open, and I was tempted to crash through them. My boots clacking on the linoleum sounded like a parade in the empty corridor.

“Hello!”

I took the first turn to the right. Somebody had to be moving or making noise somewhere in this damned hospital.

I loped down a corridor. The Broken Butte Community Hospital was a two-hundred-bed facility. How hard could it be to find the single emergency case?

I returned the way I'd come, hit the emergency entrance, and sprinted the opposite way from my first try, skidding around another corner. If I'd stepped on a rattler, I wouldn't have gasped any louder.

Ted's loving mother, Dahlia, stood cradled in her husband, Sid's, arms. They guarded a set of closed metal double doors. Midsob, Dahlia buried her face in Sid's broad chest. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Déjà Roxy.

Sid's face held the resigned expression he usually wore when dealing with Dahlia. He noticed me and raised his eyebrows in greeting.

A small window centered in each of the swinging doors revealed an empty hallway. On a normal day I'd retreat. The less time I spend around Dahlia, the better for everyone. But this wasn't a church fund-raiser or a baby shower.

Sid's eyes opened in alarm as I strode toward the doors. “Is Ted in there?” I asked.

Dahlia jerked away from Sid as if stuck with a hot poker. She glared at me.

I placed my palm on the cool metal panel of one door.

Dahlia's voice sounded hard as ice on a water trough in January. “You can't go in there. They're operating.” She crumpled into Sid's chest. “On my baby.”

“Where's a nurse or doctor or anyone?” I pressed my nose to the window to view the deserted hallway.

Dahlia managed to speak through her tears. “If they won't allow his own mother beyond those doors, then you can't go.”

It was times like these I hated my diminutive, five-foot-five stature. With a good four inches on me, Dahlia always seemed to have the regal advantage.

Drawing up my shoulders made me feel courageous, like a Komodo dragons. “He's my husband and I need to know what's happening.”

Sid, a giant in his own right at six foot three, put his arm around Dahlia's shoulders. “Let's all calm down.”

Dahlia shrugged it off. “My baby is in there fighting for his life. I'm as calm as I can be.”

“How did you get here so fast?” I always suspected Dahlia of chipping Ted, so she'd be in constant contact.

Dahlia stepped away from Sid. “Roxy called us.”

Thank you, Roxy
. “Where is she?” Maybe she could tell me something about Ted's condition.

Dahlia shifted her eyes to the window in the door and her voice grew husky. “They took her someplace so she could wash off the blood.” She gulped a sob. “Ted's blood.”

A quick punch to Dahlia's nose would go a long way to relieving my frustration. I didn't use that approach often, not since eighth grade, when I'd sliced my knuckles on Diane's—another older sister—braces.

I might be edging that close to my limit now. I made for the door again.

Dahlia threw herself in front of me. “You will not interfere!” She stood in front of the double doors, arms wide, chest stuck out.

I fought to keep calm. “I'm his wife. I'm going in.”

Sid took a step in retreat.

Dahlia thrust her chin out and flared her nostrils. She all but said “Over my dead body.”

That was it. I'd be polite and respectful up to a point, but I was beyond that now. I reached up, slammed my hand onto her shoulder, and shoved. If I could manhandle thousand-pound cows and wrangle razor-hooved horses, Dahlia Conner wouldn't stop me.

Though Dahlia stumbled to the side, she recovered before I pushed through the doors. She latched onto my barn coat and jerked me back, just far enough that, when the door swung open, it caught me in the chin.

A middle-aged woman in lavender scrubs, her graying hair cut short and highlighting her triple chins, stood with arms akimbo. She sniffed. “Kate Fox. What would your father say if I told him you were causing a stink in public like this?”

“Aunt Tutti. Thank God.” I wanted to hug her, right after I corrected her that my last name had been Conner since I'd married Ted, eight years ago. “I need to see Ted.”

Aunt Tutti heaved her sizable bosom in a show of authority. “Ted's out of surgery. They went ahead and took him to ICU. Doc Kennedy'll meet you there.”

“He's already out? Is he okay? I want to talk to the surgeon.” I'm pretty sure that's what I asked, but my mouth was moving much slower than my racing brain.

Aunt Tutti patted my arm. “The EMTs did a good job and the bullet was easy to get to. The surgeon said he's heading back to North Platte tonight, since he won't be able to go back to sleep. Believe me, you're better off talking to Doc Kennedy. This guy thinks he's gooder than God.”

I planted a quick kiss on Aunt Tutti's cheek and whirled around to face a choice of directions. There was no sign of Dahlia and Sid.

Aunt Tutti pointed to the corridor on the right and I galloped down the hallway.

I took a few turns, remembering the hospital layout. Unfortunately, I'd been to the ICU waiting room before. I finally approached another set of double doors. I burst through them, not waiting for Dahlia or anyone else to stand in my way.

A circular nurses' station took up the center of the open area, with three curtained rooms off to the right. Sid stood midway between the nurses' station and one of the rooms.

Dahlia and Roxy huddled together, their arms around each other. As far as I knew, there was no shared genetics between them, but they looked and acted so similar it made me wonder.

Ted and Roxy had made a perfect couple in high school, all shiny and beautiful. Ted told me they broke up because he couldn't handle Roxy's drama, but Dahlia obviously preferred Roxy over me. They both inhabited the high-drama zone.

Like Dahlia, Roxy was tall and slender. I'd never seen either one without impeccable makeup and hair fluffed, curled, and sprayed. And sprayed. Even now, they both wore crisp jeans, heeled boots, and fancy blouses. No bloodstains marred Roxy's appearance. I hurried toward them in my old barn coat over faded flannel, work-weary jeans, and boots I'd worn tromping through the calving lot. With the combination of a long day of physical labor and manure-caked boots, I might overpower their perfume. But I doubted it.

I squinted through the window into the darkened hospital room full of blinking machines. My breath caught in my chest as my sight narrowed to Ted's pale face lying motionless on the pillow. I wanted to yank out the tube taped to his cheek and shoved down his throat. A scruff of dark whiskers dotted his chin, as it always did by the end of the day. An IV attached to his arm dripped clear liquid, and a bank of monitors flashed numbers and graphs behind the bed.

Without conscious thought, my boots carried me toward the door to his room.

“Don't,” Roxy said, somehow finding the ability to speak despite her trauma. “They said we can't go in.”

That must be true or Dahlia would have taken her place next to his bed.

I planted my open palm on the window. The cold glass was no substitute for my husband's warm skin.

The squeak of rubber soles made me turn as Doc Kennedy approached. He moved as if a lightning rod ran straight down his back, and his white hair stuck out as if it had been struck. He'd delivered both me and Ted, all of my eight brothers and sisters, and a collection of nieces and nephews. When we had a baby, I figured he'd deliver that, too.

Doc Kennedy nodded to me and shifted his gaze to glare briefly at Roxy and Dahlia. “We don't know much right now.”

With each beat my heart grew heavier. It would pop through my chest any moment.

“The bullet entered close to the L2 vertebra. We were able to extract it. Because the shock wave from the bullet caused swelling, we won't know if there is nerve damage until later. I can't give you a definite prognosis.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” The chorus to my side ratcheted up.

I clamped my back teeth for a second to get control. “You mean he might not make it?”

Doc Kennedy shook his head. “Oh, no. He's not in danger of dying. The uncertainty is whether he'll walk again.”

There was more, of course. But my ears dammed up and kept the words from entering my brain. Ted might not walk again. How would I break that to him?

After telling me that Ted probably wouldn't wake up for another twenty-four hours, Doc Kennedy ushered us from the ICU to a nearby waiting room. He suggested we go home and get some rest. Instead, I prowled the waiting room for the next three hours, anxious for Aunt Tutti to pop in every hour and allow me five minutes to stand outside Ted's window and look at him, sending healing and love with every breath.

Aunt Tutti even allowed Dahlia and Roxy one visit each. They telegraphed their resentment of my special treatment with heated glares whenever I returned to the waiting room. I ignored them, for the most part.

Eventually, weeping and gnashing of feminine teeth drove me from the room. Sid leaned against the wall just to the right side of the door. He buried his chin in his chest and stared at the waxed linoleum floor.

I picked a spot next to him, nearly touching his arm. “He's strong. It'll be okay.”

“Yep.” He sniffed. “If he doesn't walk, he's going to need you by his side.”

I was sure Sid didn't think I'd leave Ted at any sign of trouble. He knew me better than that. “Ted's going to be fine. Even if he's not, we'll face it together.”

From far down the hall the heavy clump of boots on industrial hospital tile made slow progress toward us. It reminded me of the campfire story where the monster trudges up the stairs, saying, “Give me back my bloody arm.”

Sid and I both stared down the hall, waiting for doom. We weren't disappointed when Milo Ferguson came into view. His pace didn't alter as he made his way to us.

He nodded at Sid. “Any word on Ted's condition?”

Sid's head hung low as a hound's on a hot August afternoon. “He's in ICU.”

Milo expressed deep sympathy by clapping Sid's shoulder. He eyed me. “Can I have a word with you, Kate?”

I glanced down the hallway to the double doors guarding Ted. I hated moving any farther away from him, but I followed Milo.

He led me to a dark hallway lined with closed office doors. My numb brain only halfway questioned his need for privacy.

He rummaged in his shirt pocket, pulled out a tiny plastic cylinder, and pried off the cap. He shook a toothpick into his hand, popped it into the side of his mouth, and sucked on it.

That's when his actions struck me as odd. “What's going on?”

Even isolated as we were, he spoke in a low voice. He worried the toothpick. “I don't know how to tell you this.”

Fear jabbed me. “Carly? What's happened?”

He hesitated as if he'd had a new thought. “Far's I know, little Carly's fine.”

He looked at the ground and rocked back on his heels, chewing on the toothpick. I wanted to throttle him to get him to speak. I clenched my teeth and pinned him with my gaze. “Then what?”

The toothpick snapped from the left corner of his mouth to the right. “The crime scene is confusing.”

“But you have some idea who killed Eldon and shot Ted?” Of course he did. Grand County wasn't a metropolis with a million suspects. This kind of crime would be easy to solve here.

He nodded slowly, with his whole body. “Can't say as I figured the whole thing out, but the logical thing would be … Well, it kinda looks like it could … I'm not saying it's definite yet, but all the clues point…” He stopped again and looked at the wall above my head.

“What?” My voice echoed in the empty hall, startling the both of us.

He held my eyes and inhaled. “I'm gonna have to arrest Ted for Eldon's murder.”

 

4

My laughter barked in the silence. “Are you crazy?”

He frowned at me, and the toothpick bounced. “I'm not any happier about this than you are. But I'm gonna have to go with what I've got.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “And what is it you think you've got?”

Milo lowered his eyebrows. “I'm going to keep the details to myself for now.”

I scrubbed hair from my face with both hands. “Ted had no reason to shoot Eldon.”

Milo studied me. “Might be he did.”

This was beyond absurd. “You're going to accuse my husband—the sheriff of Grand County—of murder, but you're not going to tell me why he would do such a thing?”

He shrugged. “It'll all come out sooner or later, but for now it's police business.”

On a normal day I'd keep my thoughts to myself. But tonight was as far from normal as snow in July. “Maybe you ought to do some true sheriffing and find out who really shot Eldon?”

Milo backed away from me, his face cloudy. “I understand you're upset. Rightly so. But until I see something else convincing, it looks pretty clear to me.”

“You're not even going to investigate?”

“I'm gonna head home and get some sleep. My advice is that you do the same.”

I trailed Milo down the hall and we stopped at the intersection where he'd head to the outside door and I'd go back to ICU. “He didn't do it. You know that.”

Milo dropped his hands to his sides and they bent at the elbows to outline his belly. “Might be you don't know Ted as well as you think you do.”