“Are you sure?” he says, looking skeptical. “You don’t think it was just a drunk who lost control or something like that?”
“I’m positive,” I tell him. “Somebody tried to kill her.”
The cop takes out a notepad and a pen and asks me, “What’s your name? I’ll need it for my report.”
I hesitate just a second, remembering that I may be a fugitive on the run. “It’s Rebecca Taylor,” I tell him.
He scribbles it down and says, “Stay here, Ms. Taylor. I’ll be right back to get a statement from you but I need to give the other guys a quick heads-up so they can follow the bus to the hospital.”
He heads back to the crowd around the ambulance and as soon as I’m sure he isn’t looking my way, I hurry back to my car, get in, and drive away.
Chapter 43
As I maneuver through the streets of Chicago, I keep a wary eye out for any police cars that may be on my tail. Fortunately I make it back onto the freeway and out of town without incident.
I head back into Wisconsin, frightened and unsure of where to go. I consider returning to Carl Withers’s house; if nothing else it will at least give me a place to hide until things blow over. And I could call Richmond or Izzy from there using Withers’s phone to let them know what I’ve found out. But then I realize that if I call them from the house phone, it will be easy for them to trace where the call came from and find me. And if they can find me, I’m afraid anyone else might be able to, too.
Finally I decide that the quicker I can clear Hurley’s name, the quicker the investigation will move in the direction it needs to be headed. And if I’m looking for somewhere to be safe, sitting in a jail cell surrounded by police seems like a reasonable solution.
With my mind made up, I steer the car back toward Sorenson. It takes me nearly three hours of driving to get there and when I pull into town, I head straight for the police station. It’s just shy of eleven o’clock when I park in the public lot. Feeling exhausted, I grab the e-mails that Trina gave me and stuff them into the pocket of my sweatpants. Then I head inside where I see Heidi Cronen, one of the evening dispatchers, seated at the desk behind the window.
She looks up at me with a smile in preparation for making her standard greeting but when she sees it’s me, her smile disappears.
“Mattie!” She hits the buzzer that lets me open the door beside her window and enter the area behind it. “Oh my God, are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine, tired, but in one piece. Is Bob Richmond around by any chance?”
“He’s not in the station at the moment, but I can call him.”
“Is Hurley here?”
She makes a face and shakes her head. “I’ve heard he’s in custody,” she says. “But not here. Let me call Richmond for you. Maybe he can give you more information.”
She makes the call, tells Richmond I’m at the station, and then disconnects. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.” She looks me over from head to toe and says, “I heard about everything that’s been going on. It sounds like you’ve been through quite the shit storm.”
“It’s been interesting, that’s for sure.”
“Do you think Hurley is guilty?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “I’m certain he isn’t. But knowing it and proving it are two different things.”
We pass the next couple of minutes indulging in polite conversation, updating one another on family status and sharing some minor gossip. Then Richmond arrives, coming in from the back of the station.
“Mattie, are you okay?” he says when he sees me.
“I am, but I have a lot to tell you.”
“Is that blood on your hands?” he asks, staring at my fingers.
I look down and see that I still have traces of Trina’s blood in the crevices around my nails. “It is,” I tell him. “But it’s not mine. It belongs to a woman in Chicago who was run down by a car.”
Richmond’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Let’s go in the back and talk,” he says.
I follow Richmond to a room that serves double duty as both a conference and interrogation room. It’s a pretty comfy spot, bearing no resemblance to the sparsely furnished, bare interrogation rooms you see on TV, other than the fact that there is a camera mounted in the ceiling designed to record whatever takes place.
Richmond directs me to one of the chairs around the table and says, “Do you want something to drink? Or a snack?”
“A cup of coffee would be great,” I tell him.
He nods, says, “Be right back,” and disappears from the room. He returns a few minutes later carrying a plastic tray bearing two Styrofoam cups filled with coffee, a jar of Coffee-mate, a couple packets of sugar, and some spoons.
I fix my coffee by adding a heaping spoonful of Coffee-mate, hoping it will cut the acid taste I know our cop-house coffee usually has. Richmond does the same with his but he also adds three packs of sugar to his cup.
“You really need to learn to do without that sugar,” I tell him. “Or at least switch to the artificial stuff.”
He sighs, stirring his coffee. “Yeah, I know. Little steps,” he says. He looks at me then with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there at the gym yesterday. But Izzy called me to come up to your office and I kind of forgot about the whole gym thing.”
I dismiss his apology with a wave of my hand. “Don’t worry about it. What’s done is done.”
He takes a pad and pen out of his shirt pocket and says, “Okay, where do we start?”
“How about telling me where Hurley is?”
He shakes his head. “He’s in a secure location for now. That’s all I’m willing to tell you at this point.”
I let out a sigh of exasperation.
“Why don’t you start by telling me what happened at the gym yesterday?” Richmond prompts.
Resigned to having to give information if I have any hope of getting any, I tell him how Hurley and I hid out at the cabin, leaving out the part about how we sort of slept together. Next I tell him about our trip to Chicago, my interview of the people at Behind the Scenes and my suspicion that Ackerman may have been more than just a boss to Callie Dunkirk, and after a moment of thoughtful debate, I also tell him about our search of Callie’s apartment. I watch Richmond’s face carefully as I talk, looking for hints of any disapproval or surprise, not knowing how much of this Hurley may have already shared, but his expression remains placid and neutral. When I mention Callie’s diary, he nods and says, “We found the diary under the seat of your car.”
Next I tell him about Helen Baxter and the man she saw staking out Minniver’s neighborhood. When I explain how I got the name of the person who rented the car, he gives me a look of grudging admiration, but says nothing. Then I tell him about our trip to Stateville Prison, our talk with Dilles, our discovery that the only visitor Dilles ever had was his lawyer, Connor Smith, and how Hurley figured out that the name Leon Lindquist is an anagram of Quinton Dilles.
My story is somewhat convoluted and I feel like I’m leaving a lot of loose ends hanging, but if Richmond is confused by any of it, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps taking notes and listening.
I explain how Hurley dropped me off at his friend’s house and then headed for Chicago to talk to Smith. Finally Richmond halts my story to ask questions.
“How did you leave there if Hurley took his car?”
Looking abashed, I explain how I took Carl Withers’s car and watch as Richmond sighs and shakes his head.
“You stole the man’s car?” he says, looking chagrined.
“I’d call it more of a borrow,” I say, wincing.
He shakes his head again and says, “Continue.”