Deeper Than the Dead

66

“Steve wouldn’t kill Lisa,” Crane said. “He cared for her.”

“So much that he would only see her in the dead of night?” Mendez asked. “Wouldn’t admit it to anyone, wouldn’t let her tell anyone?”

“He’s a married man.”

“He should have thought of that before he unzipped his pants,” Mendez said.

Crane got up and started pacing, his hands on his hips. “I’m really not comfortable talking about this.”

“You said Steve is a complicated guy. In what way?” Mendez asked.

“He’s your friend, man. Tell me about him.”

“I just meant that Steve is very driven. He’s passionate about the work he does for the center. Steve comes from a tough background—single mom, not much money, desperate times. He had to fight his way to get where he is—including being married to Sara. She’s from a good family, educated, beautiful.”

“She’s a trophy for him?”

“No! I don’t know.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I should have kept my mouth shut. Why don’t you talk to Steve? I’m sure he’ll tell you anything you want to know. He doesn’t have anything to hide.”

“Except a mistress,” Mendez said. “What time did you leave O’Brien’s?”

“One thirty, quarter to two.”

“Where did you go from there?”

“I went home. Steve was going to check into the Holiday Inn.”

“All right,” Mendez said, getting up from his chair.

Crane looked at him, a little suspicious. “I can go?”

Mendez spread his hands. “Sure.”

Peter Crane breathed a sigh of relief and started for the door. Pausing with his hand on the knob.

“How is Karly Vickers?” he asked. “Has there been any news?”

“Much better,” Mendez lied. “She’s a tough cookie. The doctors are pretty confident she’s going to come around soon.”

“Really?”

“I guess there won’t be any questions left then.”

“I guess not.”

The door opened from the outside then, and Hicks leaned into the room, a grim look on his face. “We’ve got to go. There’s been a stabbing in Oakwoods Park. Multiple victims.”

The EMTs were already on the scene and loading a gurney into their bus when Mendez and Hicks pulled into the parking area.

“Who’s our vic?” Mendez asked, running up to the back before they could close the doors.

“A kid. He’s bleeding out! We gotta go!” The tech shouted at his driver. “Go! Go!”

A couple of deputies slammed the back doors shut, and the rig turned around, siren bleating, scattering onlookers like sheep.

“What the hell’s going on?” Mendez called out, holding up his shield.

One of the deputies said, “The call-out was a stabbing with multiple victims—both children. They’re both on their way to Mercy General.”

“Does anybody know what happened?” Hicks asked.

“Several people reported hearing a little girl scream. They ran over here,” he said, pointing to the woods in the direction of the place where Lisa Warwick’s body had been found. “And they found the subject attacking the little girl. Blood was everywhere.”

“Mother of God,” Mendez said. “And the subject?”

“You aren’t gonna believe this,” the deputy said, leading them over to his cruiser.

Sitting in the backseat with his hands cuffed together with zip ties was Dennis Farman, covered in blood and staring blankly straight ahead.

They drove directly to the hospital. Hicks got on a phone to call Dixon. Mendez watched the medical team working frantically on the boy. The same doctor who had worked on Karly Vickers barked out orders the staff jumped to carry out. There was blood everywhere. Too much blood to have come from so small a patient—and have him live, Mendez thought.

Jesus. He had already known Dennis Farman was a disturbed child, but who the hell could have predicted this? Kids beat each other up on the playground; they didn’t pull knives and go berserk.

What could drive a child to that kind of violence?

There had to be a lot more to the story of the Farman household than a mother who drank a little and a drill sergeant for a patriarch. Dennis hadn’t gone off this deep end because he got spanked for cutting school.

Suddenly the doctor was shouting at his staff to GO! and half a dozen people bolted into action, wheeling the gurney out of the exam room and down the hall. Mendez had to jump back out of the way.

The doctor pulled off his bloody gown and gloves and threw them on the floor in disgust.

“How does it look for him?” Mendez asked, holding up his shield.

“He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s still bleeding. I think the blade might have nicked his spleen.”

“Will he make it?”

“He’s on his way to surgery. He can live without a spleen. He can’t live with less than half his blood supply. We’ll know within the hour. Do you have any idea who did this to him?”

“Another kid,” Mendez said. “Where’s the other victim?”

“Room three. Another kid? What’s the world coming to?”

“Nothing good. Have you had any word on Karly Vickers?”

“She’s up in ICU. Stable.”

“Conscious?”

“Don’t get greedy. She’s in a coma. She should be dead.”

The big glass doors whooshed open and a panicked couple—Renee Roache and her husband—rushed in, Mrs. Roache sobbing hysterically.

“That’ll be the Roaches,” the doctor said. “I’d better go talk to them.”

Mendez turned to go down the hall.

“Frank’s not working today,” Hicks said, joining him. “Dixon’s got everyone looking for him. How’s the kid?”

“We’ll know within the hour. He’s on his way to surgery. The other vic is down here.”

Wendy Morgan sat on the table looking like a refugee from a horror movie with blood on her face, on her clothes, on her hands. Mendez showed his badge to the nurse standing beside her, holding her hand.

“Wendy,” he said with genuine concern. “How are you, sweetheart? Are you hurt?”

Big tears welled up in the cornflower blue eyes. “Dennis killed Cody!”

“No, honey. Cody’s hurt pretty bad, but he’s not dead.”

“Dennis had a knife!” she exclaimed. “He tried to stab me with it, but I think he dropped it or something because he was just hitting me over and over with his fist, and I couldn’t breathe, and then I saw—like—stars, and I thought I was going to die, but then somebody grabbed Dennis and dragged him away, and I really wish my mom would get here!”

“She’s on her way, honey,” the nurse said.

“And my dad too.”

“I don’t know if they’ve found him yet, Wendy,” the nurse said. “But your mom will be here any minute.”

“You hang in there, Wendy,” Mendez said, giving the little girl’s shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll check back with you later.”

“The world’s going to hell on a sled,” Hicks said as they went back out into the hall.

“Before it gets there, let’s go upstairs,” Mendez said. “Maybe we’ll witness a miracle and Karly Vickers can name our killer. I want that guy in hell before Armageddon.”

They took the elevator to the fourth floor and went through the glass doors into the intensive care unit. The only sounds were the beeps of monitors and the sighs of respirators. As they approached the nurses’ station, Mendez felt compelled to speak in a hushed whisper as if he were in church or the library.

They both held up their badges. Mendez said, “We’re here to check on Karly Vickers. Is her doctor available?”

“He’s with another patient at the moment.”

“We’ll wait.”

“Her room is right over there. You can wait with her friend.”

“Her friend?” Mendez asked, immediately thinking Jane Thomas.

But when they turned in the direction she indicated the person staring in at Karly Vickers through the glass partition was Steve Morgan.