The Zero Night

33

Stride and Maggie talked with the doctor in the darkened corridor outside Chelsey Webster’s hospital room. Inside, they kept a close eye on Gavin as he sat in the chair beside his wife’s bed and held her hand. Chelsey was sleeping, one arm hooked up to intravenous fluids. She’d been cleaned and treated, and her hair washed, and she again looked like the beautiful woman she was.

“What’s her condition?” Stride asked. “How is she?”

The doctor was a slim woman in her fifties with short gray hair. She sipped a cup of coffee as she spoke to them. It was nearly midnight, and the hospital corridor was dark and quiet.

“Given what she’s been through, she’s very lucky,” the doctor said. “The wounds she suffered during the abduction were superficial and have mostly healed already. There’s no evidence of concussion. She was dehydrated, but we’ve had her on fluids and liquid nutrients since she got here, and her numbers are already much better. My biggest concern in cases of extended exposure would be hypothermia, but as I say, she was lucky. She was wearing bulky clothes, and the hole in which they buried her must have provided a certain amount of insulation. Her body temperature was in the safe zone when the ambulance brought her in. Had she been out there much longer — given the heavy rain today — it’s likely her condition would have deteriorated quickly. The fact that you found her when you did saved her life.”

“How long would you expect her to stay in the hospital?”

“Well, we’ll keep her overnight for observation, but there’s really nothing wrong with her. I’m going to suggest some additional tests in the morning, but if those come back with no red flags, there’s no reason she couldn’t be released in the afternoon.”

“Would we be able to ask her some questions when she awakens?”

“That’ll be up to her. Just keep it short if you do.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Stride said.

“Of course.”

She walked away down the hospital corridor, and Stride and Maggie stayed outside Chelsey’s room. Gavin noticed them hovering there, and he frowned unhappily. He had a rumpled look, his hair a mess. His blue eyes were shot with red, and his face was streaked where he’d been crying. The lawyer gently detached his hand from his wife’s and then got up and joined them in the corridor.

“Do you have to be here now?” he whispered impatiently.

“We want to make sure your wife is okay,” Stride told him. “She’s been through a traumatic experience.”

“Then let her rest.”

“We will, but we’ll need to talk to her when she wakes up.”

“I want to be there when you do,” Gavin snapped.

Maggie, who still looked ice-cold even though she’d changed into dry clothes at the station after returning from Fredenberg Lake, shook her head firmly. “We need to talk to her alone.”

“I’m her husband. And a lawyer.”

“You’re also a suspect in her abduction,” Maggie snapped.

Gavin exhaled with disgust. “Are you still pursuing that nonsense? Chelsey confirmed everything I told you, didn’t she? The home invasion on Tuesday? The phone calls?”

“We still have questions,” Stride told him.

The lawyer inhaled as if to fire back another sharp reply, but then he closed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged. He looked over his shoulder at his wife in the hospital bed. His lower lip trembled with emotion, the way a husband’s would who had given up on the love of his life being found alive. Now here she was, back in his arms, and the relief on his face was palpable.

Stride wondered again: was he acting?

If so, he was good at it, but lawyers always were.

“I’m going to the cafeteria,” Gavin said. He added sarcastically, “Do I need a police escort to do that?”

The man disappeared toward the elevators. They waited until he was gone, and then they went inside the hospital room, where they stood over Chelsey’s bed. She lay on her back, the unattractive hospital gown revealing most of her neck and bare shoulders. Her blond hair was clean but still damp. Without makeup, she looked older, and her face looked drawn in the shadows, but she had a willowy elegance regardless of her surroundings.

As they stood there, her eyes popped open, surprising them. She’d been feigning sleep. She focused on Stride with a degree of anxiety, but then she saw and recognized Maggie, and she relaxed.

Maggie took the chair where Gavin had been sitting. Stride stayed standing behind her.

“Hello, Mrs. Webster. We met a few hours ago in the woods. I’m with the police. Lieutenant Maggie Bei.”

“I remember.” Her voice was stronger than Stride expected.

“My name’s Jonathan Stride,” he added. “I’m with the police, also.”

It sounded strange to say that again after so long.

“How are you feeling?” Maggie asked.

“Much better. Night and day. I really thought I was going to die out there. I was running out of hope.” Her head swiveled, and she glanced around the room, searching for Gavin. But Stride suspected that she’d been awake during their conversation in the doorway. “Where is my husband?”

“He went to the cafeteria. He’ll be back soon.”

“Ah.”

Her eyes traveled back and forth between them, reading their faces. Like Gavin, she had a smart, calculating stare. It made Stride think the lawyer had chosen a wife who was every bit his equal. He could guess the question she wanted to ask, based on what she’d overheard.

My husband is a suspect?

But she didn’t ask it.

“We’d like to talk to you a bit more,” Maggie went on. “The longer we wait to interview a victim, the more likely that their memories of the events grow vague and uncertain. That’s why we want to nail down as many details as quickly as we can. However, this is only if you feel up to it. If you don’t, say so, and we’ll do this in the morning.”

Chelsey nodded her approval. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Can you tell us as much as you can remember about Tuesday evening when you were abducted?”

She was quiet for a little while, gathering her thoughts. “Gavin was gone, as you know. I was home alone. It was a cool night, but I had the windows open leading out to the porch. I like the chill. Rather than close the door or turn on the heat, I put on a heavy sweater. Odd, isn’t it? The doctor said that helped save me. Anyway, I was reading a book and had some soft music playing. I don’t know, I may even have fallen asleep in the chair. Then I heard a crash. A window breaking. I ran down the hallway toward the front door. By the time I got there, the man was already inside.”

“Do you know what he looked like?”

Chelsey shook her head. “He wore a hood. I guess I vaguely noticed he was large, heavyset, but beyond that, it all happened too fast. He grabbed me. I struggled and tried to get free. I was able to tear away and run, but then he hit me, and it knocked me out. That’s all I remember from inside the house.”

Stride leaned his hands on the chair behind Maggie. “Do you remember anything else about the man? Height? Smell? Did he say anything?”

“No. It all happened in a few seconds.”

“Had you received any threats recently?” Maggie asked. “Or had you noticed any strangers in the neighborhood? People watching the house?”

“Nothing like that.”

Maggie reached inside to the pocket of her jacket and removed a mug shot that had been taken of Hink Miller when he’d been arrested. “Is this man familiar to you? Do you know who he is?”

Chelsey’s head lifted off the pillow to examine the picture. “I don’t think so, no.”

“What about the name Hink Miller?”

“It doesn’t ring any bells. It’s an odd name, so I’m sure it would.”

“He was a client of your husband’s,” Stride added.

“Well, I don’t hang out with many of my husband’s clients.”

“He was murdered on Friday,” Maggie added. “That was the day after the ransom was paid.”

Chelsey’s eyes narrowed. “I gather you believe this man Hink was involved in my kidnapping?”

“We think so. The backpack your husband used — as well as ten thousand dollars of the ransom money — was found hidden in Hink’s basement.” Then Maggie continued, “What do you remember next? After you came to?”

Chelsey blinked several times and grimaced as she thought back. “They woke me up to talk to Gavin.”

“They?”

She shook her head. “Figure of speech. There was only the one man the whole time. I think it was the same man each time, but I can’t honestly be sure. Anyway, when I talked to Gavin, I was disoriented, in panic. I begged him to help me, but then the man took away the phone. I don’t know much about where I was. It was damp and dark, like a basement or a warehouse. There was no light to see. I don’t know whether there were no windows or whether they’d blacked them out. I was bound, and most of the time, I was gagged. Sometimes he’d come and take off the gag and give me something to eat or drink and let me use a bucket to go to the bathroom. One time when he took off the gag, I tried to scream, and he hit me. I didn’t try again after that.”

“Do you remember hearing anything while you were there?” Stride asked. “Noises outside? Traffic? Trains? Planes?”

“No. The neighborhood was very quiet.”

“Do you know how long you were there?”

“I don’t.” A thought seemed to occur to her. “I don’t even know what day it is now.”

“It’s almost midnight on Monday evening.”

“It felt like I was out there forever. You could have told me it was a month, and I wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“What happened next?” Stride asked.

“Sometime later — I don’t know how long — I talked to Gavin again. He said he was paying them a ransom, that they’d release me as soon as he did, that I shouldn’t be afraid. Then the man took away the phone and left me alone.”

“He didn’t take you with him?”

“No. He gagged me again and left me there. I remember I heard rain outside. It sounded heavy.”

Maggie glanced up at Stride. “Thursday evening.”

Stride nodded.

“Then what?” he asked Chelsey.

“Eventually, he came back. I don’t know how long it was after that. I had no sense of time at that point, but the rain had definitely stopped. He blindfolded me and carried me out of wherever I was. I was hoping he was taking me to Gavin, that he was going to free me. I assumed by then that Gavin had paid him whatever money he wanted. He put me in the trunk of a car, and we drove a long way. Or at least, it seemed that way to me. I kept jostling around in the back. Then the car stopped, and he opened the trunk. He left the blindfold on, so I couldn’t see where I was. But we were definitely in the woods somewhere. He carried me over his shoulder, and I could feel the tree branches. We went a long way. The farther we went, the more scared I got. And finally, he put me down on the ground, on this slope above a little creek. He took off the blindfold, but he was still wearing a hood. I saw that he had a shovel. I was terrified. I was sure he was going to kill me. He used the shovel to dig a hole in the bank of the slope, and he put me in it. I was begging him through the gag not to hurt me, not to kill me. He had the shovel in his hands, and I was waiting for him to swing it at me. But he didn’t. He just left me there in the hole. At first, I was relieved, but then I knew he wasn’t coming back. He’d left me there to die. And I don’t know, that was like a thousand times worse.”

She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut.

The silence stretched out.

“I’m very sorry,” Stride said. “That must have been a terrifying experience.”

Chelsey didn’t answer. She didn’t even nod.

“This may seem like an odd question,” he went on, “but your husband says that one of his hobbies is geocaching.”

Chelsey opened her eyes again with surprise. “Yes, that’s right.”

“He told me he often does this on Sunday mornings.”

“Yes.”

“Last Sunday, Gavin was seen in the woods near Fredenberg Lake. He told me he was geocaching.”

Chelsey looked puzzled. “So?”

“So that location was not far from where you were found,” Stride said. “Within a few hundred yards, in fact.”

Stride could see a shadow of horror form in Chelsey’s eyes. Her mind worked furiously, searching for explanations. And she couldn’t find any. Just like them.

“What are you saying...?” she began, but her words trailed off.

“Well, it’s a strange coincidence that we’re trying to explain,” Stride said. “Gavin mentioned a puzzle that an anonymous geocacher from one of his clubs had sent him. Did he talk to you about that? He claims this person directed him to Fredenberg Lake.”

“No. He never mentioned it.”

“He said the person’s email handle was Razrsharp. Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

In the quiet of the late-night hospital, Stride heard the ding of the elevator at the far end of the dark hallway. He suspected it meant Gavin was coming back from the cafeteria. Maggie heard it, too.

“Just one more question, Mrs. Webster,” she said, with a hint of urgency in her voice.

“What?”

“Does your husband own a gun?”

“Yes. Given the people he represents? I made sure he bought one.”

“Where does he keep it?”

“On the back of a shelf in our bedroom closet. Why?”

“When did you last see it?”

“I’m not sure. I think a couple of weeks ago when I was putting laundry away.” The shadow on her face now crept like a stain into Chelsey’s voice, and she repeated her previous demand. “Why is that important?”

“It may not be important at all,” Maggie said.

“Don’t lie to me,” Chelsey snapped. “Tell me the truth.”

They heard footsteps in the hallway, getting closer. Gavin was almost there.

“The man named Hink Miller,” Maggie went on quickly. “The client of your husband’s who may have been involved in the kidnapping. He was shot. And Gavin’s gun is missing.”