Inanimate (19 page)

“
Hey Doc it’s me. So I have good
news and some...weird news. The good news is Connor is in his room,
little bastard was wide awake too.”

“
Ok, so that’s good”
said MacNamee “Now
what’s weird?”

“
There
are marks on the floor that weren’t
there earlier. To be honest, I know this is going to sound crazy
but they kind of look like paw prints.”

“
Sorry, what?”
asked MacNamee,
vaguely recalling a nice dream he was having not so long
ago.

“
I know how it sounds but I guess
you’ll have to see it for yourself. They look like paw
prints.”

“
Paws? You mean
like a
dog?”

“
No”
said Tim nervously “More like a
bear”

“
Tim...”
MacNamee sighed “What the hell are
you talking about? Have you been getting into the drug cabinets
again?”

“
Look Doc! I’m not kidding. It
freaked me the hell out, and something put a huge line down the
corridor wall, took a huge scratch right out it”

“
Okay,
look, stay in the office and go over
the security tapes from earlier, I’ll be down as soon as I can
ok”

“
Ok good, see you
soon
.” said
Tim, hanging up.

Alone in the office, sitting on
his chair Tim
looked around. Quietly he picked up a spare collapsible
deck chair and wedged it firmly under the office door
handle.

MacNamee sat up in bed trying to process
the information he had just been given. Hearing the conversation,
Greta rolled over.

“
Is everything ok?”

“
You
know, I have no idea.”

Taking the piece of paper with
Oates’ number
on it, MacNamee started dialing into the phone. In
Staunton, Oates was in his office going over crime scene photos
from the motel office. He had been sleeping up until a half hour
before he arrived at the motel, now he was wide awake. He was
particularly curious about the shot of the apparent killer, taken
from the video camera. Looking at the face intently, he tried to
convince himself it was anything other than what Deputy Lynch had
suggested. His cell phone rang loud in the quiet office. At this
hour there were very few people in the station, the volume of the
ring seemed to remind him of that fact.

“
Sheriff Oates.” He answered
formally.

“
Hello
Sheriff, this is Doctor MacNamee
returning your call.”

“
Hello Doc, thanks for being
so prompt.”

MacNamee
hated the fact that because he was a
Doctor, everyone felt it was alright to call him “Doc.” He felt it
was a tacky nickname, unrepresentative of the years of hard work he
put in at medical school, not to mention the cost to achieve the
title of “Doctor.” But, like so many things in life he knew people
would not stop calling him it, so he had stopped scolding people
years ago. Instead he sat quietly, annoyed at the fact.

“
So”
continued Oates “What’s the
word?”

“
Well, I had my man at Hallcombes
check up on Connor and it
turns out he’s in there, been there the whole
night it seems.”

The deflation in Oates
voice
was
more than apparent.

“
Ah, I see
.”

MacNamee
picked up on the disappointment
instantly.

“
I
can gather that this wasn’t the wonderful
news you were hoping for.”

After a moment, Oates
brought
himself back from his thoughts.

“
No, it’s great news for
you,
but it
puts me in a little bit of a pickle.”

“
How so?”
asked MacNamee.

Oates
switched the phone to the other ear
and held up the still picture from the video camera.

“
I trust this
will stay between
us?”

“
Of course”
stated MacNamee confidently,
with full intentions of informing Crass on everything that was
about to be said.

“
We had a double homicide
here this evening;
pretty brutal actually.”

“
I’m sorry to
hear that Sheriff” MacNamee said
sympathetically.

“
Thank you, but the reason I
called you
is
that we have a picture of who we think, might have done it and it
kind of looks like a child. Now, Andy Williams stayed in this
particular motel the night of the hit-and-run and we
thought...”

“
And you thought it might
have been Connor who
did it. Well I’m sorry Sheriff but he’s been in his room the whole
time.”

“
Yeah that’s right. Look I’m
sorry I wasted your time, thanks for your help.”

Oates
seemed like he was about to end the
conversation before MacNamee interjected.

“
Hold on a minute
Sheriff. You said it
‘kind of’ looked like a kid. What does that mean
exactly?”

“
Well, it’s probably
nothing
…” The
Sheriff was unconvincing in his doubt “But my Deputy seems to think
the picture doesn’t look like a child at all.”

“
Well, what
else does it look like?” asked
MacNamee curiously.

“
A dummy.”

“
A dummy?”

“
One of those dummies those
magician guys use, to make it
look like it talks.”

“
A ventriloquist
dummy!
”
stated MacNamee, perking up.

“
Yeah that’s it. I
had to admit it does
kind of look like one of them, but that’s ridiculous
right?”

“
Yeah
.”

MacNamee
answered as fear churned in his
stomach. He remembered the way Connor’s dummy looked at him, and
the voice he heard.

“
What
was the killer wearing
Sheriff?”

“
A black suit,
why?”

“
No reason I guess. Well if I
fin
d anything
out from Connor I’ll let you know.”

“
I’d very much appreciate
that Doc, thanks.”

“
Ok,
Sheriff; take care.”

As
MacNamee hung up his mind was turning
rapidly. A bear’s footprints, a possible killer dummy, none of this
could be real. He was fairly sure of this reasoning but still, it
was an awful lot of coincidence. He jumped out of bed, anxious to
get to the hospital, hoping that when he got there he would finally
get some good news.

CHAPTER 21

Gravel crunched under tire tread as
MacNamee pulled into Hallcombes. Although he was anxious to get
there, thoughts rolling in his head, being dissected by his
analytical mind meant it took a lot longer than it normally would
have done to arrive. After turning off the engine, MacNamee wasted
no time exiting the vehicle. He powered across the parking lot to
the main entrance; something was going on in his hospital and he
was aching to find out what. There was a buzz around the halls;
unusual for this time in the morning. The night staff were
lingering, chatting to the morning staff instead of their usual
pleasantries before heading home right away. MacNamee walked
expressly to Crass’s office. He did his best to body swerve other
staff members he met along the way, knowing they would want to know
about the strange goings on. Passing up his polite knock he thought
it would be best to simply enter Crass’s office quickly and
quietly. MacNamee felt tense. Closing the door behind him he
produced his cell phone from his pocket. Picking out Crass’s name
from his contact list he called him right away. He thought better
about using the intercom, any announcements would alert his
presence to the staff and open him up to further badgering. Crass
answered his cell straight away, as MacNamee knew he would.
Usually, a polished professional like Crass would not have dreamed
of using his cell phone at work. However today, in light of current
events, the old man would have wanted to be reachable at all
times.

“
Greg, come to the security
office” was all Crass said before hanging up. The snappy
instruction from Crass did nothing to ease his tension. With a deep
breath MacNamee slinked out the office and headed quickly to his
destination.

MacNamee
entered the security office, the
classic shade of “Institution mango” adorned every inch of this
room and MacNamee had never liked that, it felt only slightly
different to the patients’ room because of it. Crass stood,
breathing into his hand next to the sitting Tim.

“
Close the door” instructed
Crass. As MacNamee obeyed, the old man continued “I’m assuming you
saw the sights in the hallway?”

MacNamee
hesitated then replied.

“
I saw
the score on the wall, but I never
stopped to search for the prints, I don’t want to speak to the
staff right now.”

“
Good”
said Crass, nodding.

MacNamee
looked down at Tim who was clearly
shaken and exhausted.

“
How
are you Tim? You’ve usually gone home
by now.”

“
Not today Doc, not until you’ve
seen this
.”

MacNamee
simply stood waiting, he didn’t
question what it was he was expected to see, assuming his
explanation was about to arrive.

“
Take a seat in front of the
monitors Greg.”

“
I’d rather stand to be
honest
sir.”

“
Fair enough”
replied Crass who then gestured
to Tim to start the video.

Tim
took over in the
explanation.

“
So, I went through
yesterday’s security
tapes like you asked. I started from lights out, figuring that was
the only time something could’ve happened in the halls without
anyone noticing.”

MacNamee
nodded in agreement.

“
Really
…” Tim continued “…There wasn’t much
going on for the first hour, but just after ninety minutes...well
see for yourself.”

MacNamee
stepped closer to the monitor showing
a video of the length of the west wing. Connor’s door was mid-way
up the corridor, almost half way between the top and the bottom of
the screen. The angle of the camera was complimentary of the
distance; however as anyone who had ever walked in the west wing
would tell you, it was an unnecessarily long corridor.

“
What am I supposed to
be...”

“
Just wait” Crass
interrupted.

After a moment the screen
shook
slightly.

“
Wow! What was
that?”

The young doctor
asked quietly,
turning to Crass.

“
We think that’s where it
landed”
said
Tim softly, staring at the monitor.

Confused, MacNamee turned back to the
screen. Breath-like condensation billowed out as Dixie-whose body
was invisible to the camera-got ready to move to Connor’s room.
After the condensation moved a few feet the wall beside it started
spewing sparks. Bright orange sparks flew from the concrete causing
MacNamee’s mouth to fall open. Wide-eyed he watched the
condensation and sparks move as one straight up to Connor’s room,
where the sparks stopped. The condensation continued billowing for
a moment before that ended as well.

“
What the hell?”
MacNamee was barely
able to utter, his throat was so dry.

“
Hold on” urged
Tim quietly as he
gazed at the screen in preparation.

A minute
passed
.
MacNamee wanted to ask what he should be waiting for but he saw
Crass and Tim stare intently so he decided to wait it out. MacNamee
stepped back when a bright surge of light shone from Connor’s
room.

“
What the fuck
was that?” asked the
young Doctor, having had more surprises than he could take these
past couple of hours.

“
It stays lit for about half an
hour before it goes dark again.
” Tim said wrapping up the show.

MacNamee
turned to Crass who was staring back
at him, his wise eyes telling his apprentice that he had no idea
what was going on either. MacNamee composed himself.

“
Ok, so, best
guesses here guys, what’s going
on? What was that moving down the hallway?”

“
It looked like something’s
breath to me.” Tim said slowly.

MacNamee
swiveled his gaze back to Crass who
shrugged his shoulders in agreement.

“
That would be my
guess
.”

“
Ok, I’ll buy that. But there was
nothing there.”