12th of Never

Chapter 105

CONKLIN TRIED TO keep the shock off his face. Mackie looked feral. She’d been severely traumatized. Maybe she actually didn’t know him.

He said it again. “Mackie, it’s me. Richie. Conklin.”

“Where’s Randy?”

Where’s Randy? The sexual predator? The homicidal maniac? That Randy?

Morales was highly agitated, trying to release herself from her restraints even as the nurses tried to soothe her, listen to her heart, hook her up to air and fluids.

“Oh, God,” she screamed out. “Everything hurts. Give me something for the pain.”

Dr. Bruno was shouting, “I need CTs, stat,” when Conklin interrupted, said, “Emily, before you take her anywhere, give her anything, I need two minutes.”

“What are you asking me, Conklin? We’re not wasting the golden hour.”

“I’m asking for two minutes. This woman filled up your ER tonight. We’ve got bodies in the morgue. I need to talk to her while I can.”

Dr. Bruno said, “I’m walking out of the room to call radiology. When I come back, you’re done.”

Conklin returned to Morales, who was crying, her voice guttural, unrecognizable. “Oh, my God, oh, my God. Put me out, please, give me something.”

“Mackie,” Conklin said. “Talk to me.”

“You’re kidding,” she shouted. “I hurt like a son of a bitch. Tell them to put me out.”

“Why were you driving that car?”

“Why? Because I was breaking Randy out. Don’t you get that, you moron? We were running off with Ben. It was finally our time.”

Conklin muzzled his outrage. He liked this girl, really liked her, but clearly he didn’t know her. Whatever he’d been thinking about her was a reflection of what he wanted her to be.

She grabbed his wrist. It was like being clapped into an iron wristband.

“I don’t want to die,” she said.

“We don’t have a lot of time, Mackie.”

“Oh, no, oh, no.”

“Talk to me now. What’s your connection to Randy Fish?”

“Damn you. You want your dying declaration, Richie? Here’s the whole enchilada. I killed that Whole Foods woman. Harriet Adams.”

“Say that again?”

“Yeah, and I killed the streetcar driver, too, okay? It was me. It was a real fucking rush, believe me.”

Conklin’s bullshit meter was going off. It was impossible to pull off a murder that someone else dreamed. Mackie was delusional. She was concussed and probably had bleeding in her brain.

He glanced at the corner of the ceiling. Saw the red light on the video camera. It was recording.

Mackie gave a shrill scream of pain.

Conklin pulled up a chair so that he was sitting right near her head. “Make me believe you,” he said. “Because what you’re telling me is hard to understand.”

“Then listen. I watched you interview the professor. I typed your notes, remember that?”

Her angry expression collapsed. She begged him, “Richie, I need drugs. I hurt so bad.”

A nurse was at the exam table.

“We’re going to roll you onto a stretcher, dear. We’ll be very careful.”

Conklin shook his head, said, “Another minute. We need one more minute.”

He turned away from the nurse and back to Morales.

“Who are you protecting, Mackie?”

Her face changed again, tightened into a scowl, and then she laughed. It was like the bark of a small dog confronting a larger one—manic, hysterical, definitely no mirth in it.

She said, “You would think I was covering for someone, you jerk. You underestimated me, Inspector. I watched your interviews with Professor Judd, then after I made his dreams come true, I went to the aquarium and shot him.

“Look at the video. Look at the fucking video. I’m on it. In a baseball cap. We looked at that tape together and you never connected the dots. What a laugh. What? Why are you looking at me that way?

“Oh. You don’t get me, right? You never did. I was playing you, Richie. I did it for Randy and he is proud of me. Now get me drugs. I want to die in peace.”

Conklin stood up, attached Mackie’s wrist to the stretcher with a restraint, and said, “MacKenzie Morales, you’re under arrest for murder—”

She said, “You didn’t read me my rights. You can’t use what I said.”

“You gave me your dying declaration, and it’s all been recorded on disk. But I hope you don’t die, Mackie. You shouldn’t get off so easy. You shouldn’t get off.”