“Is there a five?” Coon asked sarcastically.
“Five, where else could she be?”
“Go home, Joe,” Coon said. “For once, I agree with Portenson. We’ve got this handled. There’s nothing you can do. Plus-”
Joe waited. Coon didn’t finish. Instead, he stepped out of the way of the EMTs who came crashing through the door with a body on a gurney. Joe stepped aside as well and walked alongside the gurney, hoping the slight middle-aged man beneath the sheet would open his eyes. The man-Leo Dyekman-was ghostly white. Swinging plastic units of blood coursed into both arms as they wheeled him toward the open ambulance. Joe recognized the stitched brown cowboy shirt Dyekman was wearing as one he’d seen on a Western wear store clearance rack.
“Leo, talk to me,” Joe said, prodding Leo’s chest.
“Please don’t touch him,” a bearded EMT warned.
“Leo, where’s April?”
“Man…” the EMT said, shaking his head.
“Leo!”
And Leo’s eyes shot open.
“Jesus,” the EMT said, as surprised as Joe.
Joe reached out and stopped the gurney and leaned over the victim. His eyes were open but there was no expression on his face. “Can you hear me?”
Dyekman groaned.
“Leo, who shot you?”
“Fuck. I’m gonna die.”
“No you’re not. You’ll be fine. Now who shot you?”
Dyekman rolled his head to the side. “I think Robert. But it could have been Natty. Lots of shots.”
“Robert Stenson?”
“Who else?” As he said it, his eyes drooped. Joe didn’t think Dyekman would be conscious much longer.
“Was there a girl in the house?”
“Stenko,” Dyekman said. “That damned Stenko got the cash.”
“Clear the way,” the bearded EMT said to Joe. “We need to get going. You can talk to him later in the hospital.” He pushed on the gurney and the lead EMT pulled. Joe walked alongside.
“What about the girl?” Joe asked again.
“What about her?”
He felt a thrill. “So there was a girl. Do you know who she was?”
Dyekman’s face contorted with pain.
Joe slapped him. The bearded EMT said, “Hey!” One of the sheriff’s deputies guarding the front door broke away and started jogging toward them, his hand on his weapon.
“Did you see what he just did?” the EMT said to the deputy.
“Clear the hell away, mister,” the deputy growled.
But the slap had opened Dyekman’s eyes again. Joe cocked his hand as if to do it again.
Dyekman said, “I didn’t get her name!”
“Blond? Fourteen?”
“Could be.”
The deputy bear-hugged Joe while the EMTs rolled Dyekman into the ambulance.
“Man, what’s wrong with you?” the deputy hissed into Joe’s ear.
“Let me down,” Joe said. “I got what I needed.”
When the deputy released him, Joe turned toward his pickup near the Quonset hut. Sheridan had watched the altercation and looked to him with pleading eyes. He knew what she was asking: Was April here? He nodded: “Yes.”
“SHE WAS HERE,” Joe told Marybeth on Sheridan’s cell phone. “I just know it.”
Marybeth was calm, he thought. Calmer than he was. It always amazed him how pragmatic she became when events seemed out of control.
“But Sheridan said she might be hurt,” she said.
“We don’t know. They won’t let me inside the house. But she’s gone-that we know.”
“Did someone identify her?”
“Maybe. I couldn’t get much out of him.”
Marybeth sighed. “This is tough, Joe. It’s tough that you’re gone with Sheridan. And I understand you went and got Nate. I don’t know-is she ready for this? Is she okay?”
Joe assessed his daughter, who leaned against the door of the pickup pretending she wasn’t listening to every word. What he saw was a young woman who was lucid, calm, but worried. She’d never been out in the field on an investigation with him. All she knew were the results. She’d never been in the middle of a chaotic crime scene like this one with uniformed men cursing at each other and running around, the jockeying for status and position, the clash of jurisdictions among personnel from different agencies, the baseless speculation thrown around in regard to what might have happened. He wondered if she was questioning his acumen and clearly seeing his fallibility. Lord knows he was fallible. But he was her dad. He knew she always thought he had special abilities. Now, he thought, she’d know that he didn’t. That he could run around and speculate with the best of them.
“I think so,” he answered Marybeth, trying not to tip off the question.
But Sheridan sensed it and mouthed, “I’m fine, Dad.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then: “Maybe it’s time to bring her home, Joe. There haven’t been any calls from April. I know she’d rather be with you and Nate, but I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
He looked up to see Sheridan glaring at him. He wondered if his face betrayed Marybeth’s question, and he tried to deaden his expression. “You may be right,” he said. And for Sheridan’s benefit: “I’m exhausted. We haven’t gotten any sleep for I don’t know how many nights. We would both probably welcome being in our own beds.” He nodded as he talked and looked to his daughter for agreement. The glare didn’t waver.
He turned away. “How’s Lucy doing?” he asked in a whisper.
“She’s not happy. She wishes she were with you and Sheridan. This morning at breakfast she looked at your empty chairs and said, ‘I’m sick of being the baby in the family.’ ”
“She said that?”
Before she could answer, there was a chirp on the phone that he disregarded. He assumed it was a bad cell connection.
“Yes, Joe. She’s growing up. She’s an interesting child. She observes the rest of us and makes up her own mind. And I’ve found when she says something, I’d better listen.”
“I can’t imagine being out here with the both of them,” Joe mumbled. “Especially with Nate.”