Night Shift Page 3

Allie bristles. “No, I want him home with me. Joel is there to help now and I’ll be extra vigilant about his medications and make sure—” Music fills the air, and Allie pulls her cell phone out of her purse. I realize it’s a ring tone and recognize the tune as Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” Allie says, “Sorry, I have to take this call. It’s the funeral home and I’m on call tonight.”

  She hops up and hurries off down an adjacent hallway, her phone to her ear. Dr. Finnegan and I look at one another for a second, and then we both burst out laughing. Once we have ourselves under control again, she says, “Let me know what she finally decides to do. We can let him sleep here for now and reassess in a little while if she needs to leave for a call.”

  I thank her and wait for Allie’s return. Standing at one end of the desk, I shove my hands into the pockets of my bomber-style jacket—a special police-issue item that Chief Hanson gifted me with on my first day—and feel something round and fuzzy. Puzzled, I pull it out and see that it’s a kiwi. I must have grabbed one from the bowl on the table at Allie’s house, though I have no memory of doing so.

  This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Throughout my adult years I’ve discovered odd pocketed food items from time to time with no memory of how they got in there. My shrinks have said it’s a manifestation of my obsessive-compulsive disorder brought about by the lack of control I felt over my own life while growing up. That’s because I grew up in the foster system after my mother was murdered, and in several of the homes I stayed in there were certain items and privileges that were reserved for the “natural” kids only and not allowed to us fosters. Food treats often fell into that category. If a foster kid did manage to secure a special food treat, it might get stolen by one of the other kids or confiscated by the adults in the home. As a result, I developed a habit of hoarding and hiding food to protect and preserve it.

  I can’t blame the foster system for all my quirks. My mother raised me for my first seven years, what the experts consider to be the formative years, but given the fact that my mother was a prostitute and my father was a mystery man who remains unidentified—assuming my mother even knew who he was—I’m guessing my chances at any normal development were slim to none.

  I see Allie approaching and shove the fruit back into my pocket, embarrassed and ashamed. Allie has a chagrined look on her face and for a moment I’m afraid she knows I’ve copped a piece of her fruit.

  “That was a work call,” she says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “I need to pick up a body. But the good news is it’s a patient here at the hospital up on the floor.”

  “Then you don’t have far to go.”

  “Except I can’t very well pick her up in my personal car. I need to go to the funeral home and grab one of the hearses.” She sighs, frowns, and stares at Danny, who looks quite peaceful in his sleep—for now.

  “Dr. Finnegan said he can stay here and sleep off the medication they gave him,” I tell her. “Why don’t you go take care of your work detail and then check back with Dr. Finnegan when you’re done. I think she’d be amenable to letting Danny go home with you if he seems okay when he wakes up.”

  She gives me a meager smile, and her phone, which she is holding in her hand, goes off again, a different ring tone this time. Allie’s smile falters and I see hesitation in her expression as she stares at the face of the phone. Finally, with a look of resolve, she answers it.

  “Hey, Joel,” she says, turning away from me, her voice low.

  I listen as she explains to Joel what is going on, stating simply that Danny is doing better with some medication the ER doctor has given him. After telling him she needs to go out on a call, she listens for a long time, then says, “I love you, too,” and disconnects the call.

  “Everything okay?” I ask her.

  She nods. “Joel is learning... and adapting. He’s been a lifesaver, so eager to help and all, but I don’t think he fully realized how difficult things can get. That’s why I agreed to let him move in with us. I figured if we’re ever going to tie the knot, he needs to know exactly what he’s getting into. He’s embraced it all without hesitation, but I’m reluctant to let him take on too much too soon. I don’t want to scare him off. Having him here has been such a help and relief for me.”

  “I didn’t realize you were dating anyone. How long have you known him?”

  “About a year. We hit it off right away and he proposed just a few weeks ago.”

  I see Devo standing over by the nurse’s desk, and he gives me a questioning look as he points at his watch. “I need to go back out with the police officer,” I tell Allie. “Danny will be fine here. The ER staff knows him well, and they’ll take care of him until you get back. Are you okay with that?”

  She nods without hesitation. “We’ve been down this road before.” She pauses and frowns. “Though the fact that Danny’s having visual hallucinations, and not just hearing his usual voices, worries me. They’ve been quite bizarre, more than just the ghost thing.” She shoots me a worried look and I know she wants me to ask for specifics, so she can use me as her sounding board.

  “How so?”

  “Before you and the police officer got to my place, he was saying how he’d watched a man get killed and did nothing to stop it.”

  “Yes, I heard him say that, too. He seems to think that’s why this ghost is appearing to him.”

  “But you didn’t hear all of it. He was very specific about the details of how this man died. He said they put a gun under his chin and blew the top of his head off.” She shivers and gives me a worried look. “There haven’t been any deaths like that in the area, have there?”

  I shake my head. “None that I know of. I’ll check with Officer Devonshire to make sure, but I think I would have heard about it if there had been. Heck, in a town this size we all would have heard about it. Gossip goes through Sorenson at lightning-quick speeds.”

  Another meager smile graces Allie’s lips. “You’re right.” She looks away, then back at me, her smile faltering. “Danny also said that a spotted purple and pink dinosaur watched the murder.”

  I take a second to digest this. I can tell Allie is scared for her brother and worried about what these bizarre and very specific visual hallucinations might mean in terms of his mental stability.

  “A spotted purple and pink dinosaur?” I echo, both amused and bemused. “That’s a good one. And you’re right, it’s a bit different from Danny’s usual auditory hallucinations.”

  In the past, whenever Danny went off his meds, he’d hear voices telling him to do things. Some of the voices were kindly and suggested he do silly things, but others were more frightening, both in how they came across to him and in what they told him to do, things like taking off his clothes and running into the lake in the dead of winter.

  “I’ll mention the dinosaur thing to Dr. Finnegan,” I tell Allie. “Maybe the new meds Danny’s on have visual hallucinations as a side effect.” This suggestion wins me a hopeful look from Allie.

  “Oh, if only it’s something that simple.” She reaches over and gives my arm a squeeze. “Thank you, Hildy. You’ve always been so good with Danny and me. We appreciate all your help.”

  “My pleasure,” I tell her, and I mean it. I don’t like all my patients, and some I like more than others. Regardless of how I feel about them, I always strive to give them my best. But Allie and her brother have always been high on my list of favorites. I love Allie’s dogged determination and the fierce love she has for her brother. And Danny, while cursed with some nasty mental illness challenges, has a big heart.

  I’m expecting Allie to leave, but she’s still standing there looking at her brother, chewing on one side of her thumbnail the same way Danny had earlier.

  “What is it Allie?”

  “I have to admit, that ghost thing has me a little freaked.”

  I dismiss her concern with a pfft and a wave of my hand. “The ghost part of Danny’s hallucination doesn’t worry me nearly as much a
s the dinosaur. It would be easy for him to misinterpret something like a bit of fog he saw during a period when his emotions were heightened, and his mental status was out of balance.”

  Allie is staring at me in a most disconcerting way and I can tell she’s holding back.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I ask her after a few seconds.

  Allie looks around us to see if anyone is nearby or listening in on our conversation. Satisfied that we are alone, she leans in close to me and says, “When we were driving by the cemetery on the way here, Danny said he saw the ghost.”

  “Yes, he did. I’m sure seeing the cemetery triggered it. I don’t know what he saw... maybe it was something he cooked up in his imagination.”

  “I don’t think so,” Allie says just above a whisper. “Unless I’m as crazy as my brother. I saw it, too.”

  I look at her, my brow furrowed. “You saw what?” I say, thinking I must have misunderstood or misheard her.

  “I saw the ghost,” she says softly. “It was exactly like Danny said earlier. An older man’s face and body, all wispy and white, easy to see yet with no real substance. And it appeared right out of the trunk of a big old tree in the cemetery when we drove by.”

  Chapter 3

  Allie’s revelation is disturbing on more than one level. While I still favor the idea that she saw something—fog or mist—and her mind simply interpreted things the way her brother had described them, I also wonder if Allie might have inherited some of her brother’s mental illness. She confided in me some time back that an aunt had had schizophrenia and had killed herself as a result, and these things can run in families. Granted, at thirty-something, Allie is a bit old only now to be manifesting signs of the illness, which typically present in the late teens and early twenties. That’s when it first appeared with Danny, and the guy’s been struggling with it for more than a decade now.

  I reassure Allie with some verbal gobbledygook about how our minds can play tricks and make us see things that are suggested to us when we’re under high emotional stress. It’s not complete nonsense; this can and does happen to people all the time and might have happened to Allie. But something in my gut says this isn’t the case.

  It looks like further contemplation will have to wait because Devo is telling me that he just got a call from the sheriff’s department asking Sorenson for an assist on a call for a welfare check.

  “The daughter of a farmer who lives not too far outside our city limits said she hasn’t been able to reach her father all day and that’s not like him,” Devo explains.

  “Maybe he took a trip,” I suggest.

  “Daughter claims the guy is a homebody who never goes anywhere, especially since his wife died four years ago. She says she has a standing call time with him every Friday evening. And since today is her birthday, she’s certain her father wouldn’t miss the call tonight unless something was wrong. The girls—he has two daughters, both living in Minnesota—are thinking he might be ill or injured.”

  “Or maybe he has a new relationship in his life,” I counter.

  “Maybe,” Devo says with a shrug. “Either way, this is the kind of call your position is designed to help with. If the guy is hurt, or if he’s depressed, or having a mental breakdown of some sort, you can step in. If it turns out to be nothing, I think your presence will help minimize our intrusion to some degree.”

  “Okay, give me a minute. I’ll meet you outside.” I check in with Dr. Finnegan and leave my number in case I’m needed for anything more with Danny, though the plan for now is to reassess him when the medication wears off and determine if he’s safe to be sent home with his sister.

  Five minutes later, Devo and I are back in the cruiser, Roscoe inside his carrier, heading out of town.

  “Do you get a lot of assist calls for stuff outside the city limits?” I ask Devo.

  “Depends. The sheriff’s office shares a lot of duties with us and they assist us here in town when we need extra manpower. We often share investigations, too. Right now, the sheriff’s office is short-staffed, so they utilize us when they can for help with things. Something like a welfare check isn’t likely to involve any jurisdictional issues unless a crime has been committed. If we find that’s the case, then the sheriff’s department will need to come out to the site and take charge, though we can continue to assist.”

  “It’s nice that you guys all work together,” I observe. “No competition issues between you then?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Devo says with a roll of his eyes. “Things can get territorial at times, especially when there’s fun stuff like a big drug bust or a murder. But for the penny-ante stuff, like traffic accidents and welfare checks, it’s not a problem.”

  “Murder is fun then?” I say, giving him an arch look.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” he says. He squirms in his seat and gives me an annoyed look.

  I chuckle at his discomfort. “I get it. You guys are all a bunch of adrenaline junkies. You’re like the ER staff and the EMS folks.”

  “I suppose,” Devo says. “Nights like last night drive me a little crazy.”

  My first night on the new job was a quiet one. The only calls that came in were for a nuisance noise complaint from a man whose neighbor was having a party that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning with lots of loud revelers and pounding music, and a call from a lady who lives along the river and found a huge snapping turtle on her back deck when her dogs started barking and wouldn’t stop. Devo informed me that the cops serve as animal control during off hours, so we had to figure out a way to dispatch the critter, as the lady was afraid to let her dogs out into the yard to do their business. Devo picked the turtle up by its tail and carried it down to the river, where he then let it go. The turtle was none too happy about this ignominious dispatch and it tried its darnedest to snake its long neck over its shell and bite Devo’s hand while it was being carried, but Devo never flinched. I admit, I was impressed.

  Since those two calls were the only ones we had, the rest of our eight-hour shift was spent with Devo driving and me yakking at him about everything under the sun. I downed several high-octane coffees before and during the shift so I could stay awake, and I was wired. I suspect this is why Devo didn’t look happy to see me at the start of our shift tonight, though so far we are keeping ourselves well occupied.

  He turns off the highway onto a rutted dirt and gravel drive and shifts into park. His headlights had briefly illuminated a newspaper tube and a mailbox with the name Fletcher applied to the side of it in reflective, sticky letters mounted on a post at the base of the driveway. Devo gets out to check them and finds two newspapers in the tube and several pieces of mail in the mailbox.

  He leaves them and gets back in the car, steering it up the drive, which takes us toward a weathered old barn with a fieldstone foundation, a common site in these parts. But before we reach the barn, the drive veers to the left and splits off, with one portion leading to the resident farmhouse and another leg going off toward a silo, some other outbuildings, and, eventually, the barn.

  The farmhouse is typical for the area: white, two-story, a large propane tank positioned beside it, the exterior of the house showing its age and in bad need of a paint job. I’m betting it’s not much better on the inside. All the windows in the house are dark and it appears as if no one is home. Then again, it’s nearly two in the morning, so the occupants may simply be asleep.

  “Isn’t this an odd time to be doing a welfare check?” I ask Devo. “Anyone who is home will likely be sleeping.”

  “It would be for most people,” he says. “but the daughter told the sheriff’s department that her father typically gets up around two-thirty or three in the morning, a habit born out of all his years of farming. So, if we wake him at two, it’s not that far outside his normal hours. If no one answers we can take a cursory look around, but unless we find something alarming, we’ll likely come back later and try again.”

  The drive forms a
circle in front of the house, making its way around a giant old oak tree that I’d bet is a hundred years old or more. Devo pulls up by the front porch and shifts the car into park. He updates our location via his radio and then the two of us get out and make our way up the wooden steps to the front door. There is a screen door that creaks as Devo opens it. The main door has glass in the upper half of it, a lace curtain hanging on the inside. Devo looks for a doorbell but there is simply a hole in the wall where one might have been. With a sigh, Devo knocks hard on the door’s glass.

  We wait, and I listen to the gentle soughing of the warm night breeze through the branches of the oak tree. After a minute or so, Devo knocks again, harder this time, and he announces that we are the Sorenson Police Department. Still no answer.

  I reach down and try to give the doorknob a turn. It doesn’t move and Devo chastises me with a “Hey, don’t do that.”

  “Should we go around back?” I suggest. “I’ll bet there’s another door.”

  Frowning, Devo agrees, and he leads the way off the front porch and heads around the far side of the house, the part we haven’t put eyes on yet. He scans the windows as we go—they are all dark, just like the front windows and those on the other side of the house—and we find one near the back that is open. We round the corner to the backyard, past an older model, rust-scarred pickup parked on the grass, and a sudden gust of wind rises up and lifts the hair off my neck. With it comes a smell that seems to be coming from inside the house, a disturbing, carnal smell with underlying hints of urine and feces. It makes the tiny hairs growing out of my neck rise to attention.

  I’m about to ask Devo if he caught the same whiff but I know the answer when he says, “Oh, hell.”

  There is a back door, a simple, two-step, concrete stoop leading up to it. Like the front door, this one has glass in the upper half of it, but unlike the front one there is no curtain and the glass here is divided into small panes. Devo pulls on a pair of latex gloves that he takes from his pocket, and then he hands me a pair. I pull them on—they are too big for me, but they’ll do for now—and clasp my hands in front of me. I know from the training I was required to go through before starting this job that the gloves are as much for my protection as they are for ensuring that I don’t contaminate any possible crime scenes.