Last Breath

22

“W hat’s going to happen to him now?” Daria stared through the window at the boy in the hospital bed. Tubes were everywhere, and a machine was monitoring his vital signs.

“We’re not sure what to do with him,” Chief Thorpe told her. “We don’t even know how old he is, so we don’t know whether to send him to juvie or to the county prison. If he’s too old for juvie and we send him there and he does something to another inmate, we’re liable for putting that other kid at risk. If we send him to the county and he’s set upon by the big boys, we’re liable for having put him at risk. We’re damned if we do, and we’re damned of we don’t.”

“Well, as of today, he’ll have been in your custody for forty-eight hours. You’re going to have to decide what to do with him,” Connor noted, “once he comes around.”

“I’m calling the DA’s office, see what they recommend. Besides sending him to Delaware and letting them deal with it.”

“Shouldn’t he be given an attorney?” Daria asked.

“Well, that’s sort of a problem, too, since we’re changing jurisdictions.” He leaned on the glass and watched the boy’s chest rise and fall. “Though I guess that’s up in the air right now. Maybe I’ll just see if we can get the court to appoint someone to represent him for as long as he’s here.”

“Has he been charged?” Connor asked.

Thorpe frowned. “I was leaving that till the last minute, too, thinking maybe he’d crack and give us something more than trespassing.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Guess I should talk to the New Castle detective. See what he has in mind. I don’t know what the law is in Delaware, when it comes to things like this. It’s all I can do to keep up with Pennsylvania.”

The chief shook his head. “Would make it a whole lot easier if we knew who he was. We don’t even have a starting point.”

“If you get any information from him-anything at all-let me know and I’ll have our guy at the Bureau see what he can dig up,” Connor said.

“Won’t his fingerprints help?” Daria asked.

“Only if they’re already in the system,” Thorpe told her. He turned to Connor. “That reminds me. We matched the kid’s prints to one set of prints from the library. They didn’t match the ones on your window, though. You’ll never guess which ones were a match.”

“My money’s on the basement door,” Connor said.

“Good guess. How’d you figure it?”

“I don’t see him for smashing the computer,” Connor explained. “I don’t believe he sent the e-mail messages to the collectors that were on the hit list, and I don’t believe he killed Mrs. Weathers, so his prints wouldn’t be on the railing in the stairwell going up to the second floor. That leaves the prints on the back door.”

“Which tells us how the killer got into the library,” the chief said. “He must have had a time prearranged to go downstairs and open the door. The alarm would go off, the real guard would come down to see what was going on, and the killer knocks him out. The kid leaves with the other students, no one’s the wiser.”

“Do you think the killer intended to kill Mrs. Weathers?” Daria wondered.

“I think she just got in his way,” Connor told her. “She probably surprised him when she came down the stairs, and he took off after her.”

“He didn’t kill the guard, though. He only hit him over the head, right?” Daria asked.

“Right.”

“Then why did he kill Mrs. Weathers and not the guard?”

“Good question,” Connor nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe she saw his face when she came down the stairs. Maybe she recognized him. Maybe that’s why he panicked and got careless, leaving his prints at the scene.”

“Which means he could be someone connected with the school,” Thorpe said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could narrow the pool just a little?”

“Yesterday I gave a list of names to our computer whiz at the Bureau. We’ll see if he came up with anything interesting.” Connor turned back to the window and watched the boy for another minute. “I guess he didn’t have any visitors while he was at the station.”

“Not a one.”

“Why would he have done this?” Daria asked. “Why would he have tried to kill himself?”

“Holding-cell suicides, or attempted suicides, aren’t uncommon,” Thorpe replied. “It could be that he realized he’s really going to be doing some time as an accomplice to the Cross murder.”

“Or he could be afraid he’ll end up talking.”

“What would make him more afraid of talking than dying?” Daria asked.

“Maybe someone who likes to cut off people’s hands.” Connor said. “Maybe someone who threatened him big time if he ever talked about what happened.”

“Maybe when he comes to, he’ll be more inclined to talk,” Thorpe suggested. “Maybe we can convince him that the gods spared him so that he could tell the truth.”

“The goddess,” Daria corrected him. “There were no gods in Shandihar. Just the one goddess.”

“Who do you suppose told him about her?” Connor thought aloud.

A nurse came by and they backed away from the door to let her enter the room.

Connor turned to Thorpe. “Will you give me a call if anything changes here?”

“I’m going to be moving out myself,” the chief told him. “I’ll leave one of the officers here to keep an eye on things. But sure, I’ll let you know if there’s a change in his condition.”

Connor and Daria walked to the elevator with the chief.

“Chief, are you from this area?” Connor asked as the doors closed.

“Born and raised,” Thorpe said.

“You know of any antiques dealers around Howeville who’ve been in business for a long time?”

“Not offhand, but my mother might. Want me to ask her?”

“Please do.”

“I’ll give her a call later.” He glanced at his watch; it wasn’t yet 7 A.M. “No way she’s up now. Last night was her night out. She goes up to that new casino in Chester once a week with her friends. She gets pretty pissy if you call her much before noon the morning after. But I’ll be talking to her later, and I’ll give you a call if she knows of anyone.”

“I appreciate it.” Connor nodded and stepped aside for Daria to exit the elevator when the doors slid open.

Thorpe stopped to talk to a uniformed officer in the lobby, and Connor and Daria continued on into the parking lot outside the emergency room.

“I hope the boy is going to be all right,” Daria said. “He looks so young.”

“It’s a damned shame he’s the one who’s taking the brunt of this. I wish there was some way we could get him to talk.” He took Daria’s hand as they walked to the car. “He’s obviously protecting someone. Maybe more than one someone.”

“Maybe your friend at the FBI will have some information for you today.”

“Yeah, we need a break.” He opened the car door for her. “How about if we stop somewhere on the way back to Howe and get some breakfast? I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“I could definitely eat,” she said. When he got in behind the wheel, she asked, “Have you heard anything from Polly? Has she been able to determine if any of the artifacts in the galleries have been stolen?”

“I talked to her yesterday. So far, none of the galleries or museums appear to have been targeted.”

“So whoever it is, is only going after private collectors.”

“Because it’s easier to break into a private home than an institution.” He thought it over for a minute. “But if you’re trying to retrieve things that you believe are sacred, you’re on a sort of holy mission, right?”

“I would think so, yes,” she said, nodding.

“So if you’re doing holy work, it shouldn’t matter if the job is hard or easy, right? You just do it. You find a way to make it happen.”

“I guess so, if you believe you’re doing the work of the goddess. Especially this goddess, who is known to take no prisoners when she’s pissed off.”

“Who would be giving the orders on behalf of the goddess? The priestess, right?”

Daria nodded.

“So we have to figure out who the priestess is,” Connor said thoughtfully. “Obviously, it has to be someone who’s familiar with the culture. And someone who knew the artifacts were missing before you did.”

“The first murders were months ago. Someone had to had read the journals or seen the photos-or both-before the first murder,” Daria said.

He put on his turn signal and made a left into the parking lot of a small country restaurant that advertised breakfasts served until noon. “There can’t be too many people who have access to both. We just need to figure out who they are. But for now…first things first. I’m thinking coffee. Eggs. Bacon. Toast with marmalade…”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do, after dragging you away from a warm bed in the middle of the night.”

“It was the dragging away from a warm man that I objected to.”

He paused with his hand on the door handle.

“I will make that up to you.”

She smiled and opened the passenger door. “I’m counting on it.”