On a Killer's Trail (19 page)

“Poor Tony.”

“Yeah,” Neil murmured, kissing her hair. “He really shouldn’t drive that Mustang to work.”

Kate turned toward him, and he kissed her gently but with an underlying hint of passion she knew she no longer wanted to live without.

O
n Tuesday, Neil took Kate home after an evening with his parents. This time the lights were still blazing, and he went in with her.

“Connor and Adri are still up, I guess,” he said.

“Probably Hailey’s keeping them awake.”

They went into the living room and found their hosts sitting together on the couch, watching a movie.

“Well, hi! Did you have a good time?” Adrienne asked as Connor paused the video.

Neil kept quiet and watched Kate. He was sort of wondering the same thing. He’d already apologized in the truck for his brother-in-law Dennis’s unrestrained drinking.

Kate’s mile-wide smile had to be genuine. “It was great. I love Neil’s parents. We played games and ate a ton of snacks. I think we’re
gezellig
now.”

Neil laughed. “Not quite. We left too early for that. To be really in with a Dutch family, you have to be the last one to leave the game table.” He looked at Connor. “So, any new developments?”

“Nope. I’m off-duty, and I unplugged the phone.”

“Do you want some coffee?” Adrienne asked.

“No, thanks. I’d better get going,” Neil said.

“Right. You need to be at the courthouse early in the morning for Jim Burton’s arraignment,” Connor reminded him.

Neil nodded. “Will do.”

“I don’t understand his wife,” Kate said. “Her husband left
her for another woman, robbed his employer and killed two people. But she still agreed to help him skip town and set up a new life somewhere else with their two sons.”

“I don’t get it, either,” said Connor.

“It’s very simple,” said Adrienne.

“It is?” He stared at her.

“She’s taken him back. Probably made him grovel first.”

“But the thefts, and the murders,” Neil said.

“You guys said she won’t admit he did the murders,” Adrienne pointed out.

“No, but she knows they were committed with his gun,” said Connor.

“She told me someone else must have used his gun, that Jim wasn’t capable of doing it,” Neil said. “She claimed he was being set up.”

Adrienne nodded. “Some women will forgive a lot for security.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Connor.

“Maybe not something like that,” she agreed. “But if he spun a good enough story, seemed truly penitent and promised her a good life together…”

“Maybe he’s sworn off other women and told her he’ll take her and the boys someplace where they can live happily ever after,” Kate speculated.

“Maybe he really thought he could,” Neil said. “Get the money and get his family back, too.”

Kate walked him back to the entry. “Thanks so much, Neil. I hope your family wasn’t too disappointed in me.”

“No way. I think Mama was favorably impressed, and Papa obviously adores you.”

“Well, I like them. But you’ve got to give me some pointers on bluffing.”

“You did all right at games. I just wondered about the rest of it. I know you’re used to a Christian family.”

Her smile softened. “Who says they won’t join us one day?”

He folded her in against his chest. “Thank you. Tonight was…”

“What?”

“I want to say perfect, but it wasn’t. I mean, if there hadn’t been any beer, and my papa wouldn’t swear so much…but…Kate, being with you makes me feel like everything’s right in spite of the things that aren’t. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I think I do.” She reached up to his collar and adjusted it. Neil looked deep into her eyes and leaned down to kiss her. She emerged from his embrace with a glowing smile. He’d never looked into a woman’s eyes before and seen such trust and longing and joy.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He squeezed her briefly and went out.

The next day Neil left the courthouse shortly before noon. He dropped Tony off at the body shop to pick up his gently restored Mustang, grabbed a burger and drove back to the police station.

“So, was Claire Burton in on it?” Connor asked him after he’d reported on the arraignment.

“I don’t know. The D.A. is trying to work that one out. Jim Burton’s stacked up enough charges to keep him in prison for life. Stephen has been charged as an accessory to kidnapping Kate and various other counts. Sean, I’m afraid, will have it hard.”

“He’s not being charged?” Connor asked.

“No, but it’s possible his mother may be. I’m hoping Sean can go to his grandparents in New Jersey. Otherwise, it’s foster care.”

“Tough on a kid that age,” Connor said.

“Yes, I feel bad for him. He’s not a hard kid, really.”

“He will be after this.”

Neil’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. “Marianne.” He put the phone to his ear. “Hey, sis, what’s up?”

“It’s Oma. The Pines just called Mama. They think she had a stroke or something. They’re taking her to Maine Medical.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Okay. I’m here with Mama, but I think she and Papa will go over as soon as he gets here from work. And I called Anneke. She may get there before we do.”

“What is it?” asked Connor as Neil closed his phone.

“My Oma. They just took her to the hospital.”

“Go on,” Connor said. “Don’t even think about coming back to work today.”

At the hospital, Neil found his sister Anneke weeping in the emergency room’s waiting area.

“They said I can go in soon,” she told him, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

Neil put his arms around her. “Is Dennis coming?”

“I tried to call him, but he’s out on the truck,” she said. Dennis worked for a cable company and spent a lot of time out on the road. “He’ll be off in a couple of hours, so I decided to just wait. We’ll know how she is by then.”

A uniformed woman came in from the examining area and asked for Mrs. Alexander’s family. Anneke and Neil followed her through a double door, around a triage desk, to an exam room.

Oma looked very small, lying on the stretcher with a white sheet covering her up to her chest. She had on a paisley blouse she wore a lot, and her white hair was braided as usual, but her face was pale. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was a little slack, drooping on the right side. Her hands lay limply on top of the sheet.

“I’m Dr. Pelkey,” said a woman standing near the bed. She was fifty or so, with short brown hair and glasses. She wore a long white jacket over a peach dress, and a stethoscope hung around her neck.

“We’re her grandchildren. I’m Neil Alexander, and this is my sister, Anneke West.”

“You grandmother has had a stroke,” the doctor said. “We’re not sure yet to what extent it has affected her. There seem to be some speech and motor problems. We’ve done a couple of initial
tests, but we’ll need to do more. Who would be able to give permission for that?”

“My father, I guess,” Neil said. “He’ll be here soon.”

“All right, I think we’ll proceed,” Dr. Pelkey said. “Time is important in a case like this.”

Anneke reached to hold Oma’s hand. Oma’s eyes flickered.

“Can she hear me?” Anneke asked the doctor.

“She might be able to. It certainly wouldn’t hurt if you would speak to her. I’m going to set up the next tests, and I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

She left the room, and Neil went around to the other side of the stretcher and patted Oma’s hair.

“Oma,” said Anneke, “can you hear me?”

She spoke in Dutch, which Anneke seldom did anymore, and it touched Neil that she did now, bringing it home to him how serious this was. He prayed silently.

His parents and Marianne arrived a few minutes later, and he and Anneke went out into the waiting area to give them space in the small exam room.

“You should call Kate,” Anneke said.

Neil hesitated. “Do you think so? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not. You care about her a lot. That was obvious last night.”

Kate answered on the first ring, and her warm voice steadied him.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Connor called me about Oma. How is she?”

“I’m fine, but Oma…They don’t think she’ll make it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Neil sniffed and looked around the waiting room for a box of tissues. “It’s hard, Kate.”

“I know. Do you want me to come down there?” she asked.

“I…don’t want to ask you to do that. Just pray for her, and for me.”

“I can come. I’d like to, if you want me to.”

It was what he’d hoped to hear, and he exhaled in relief. “Thank you. I’d really like that.” He gave her directions and went back to sit with Anneke.

After about twenty minutes, Marianne came out and told them the nurses were taking Oma upstairs to a hospital room on the medical-surgical floor. Neil waited downstairs for Kate, and the rest of the family went up to another waiting room.

Kate entered through the door Neil had directed her to. He pulled her into his arms in the hallway and held her close. “Thank you.”

“It’s going to be okay.” She stroked his hair. “How are you holding up?”

“Better now.”

They went up the elevator and found his sisters.

“Hello, Kate.” Anneke kissed her on the cheek. “Mama and Papa are in Oma’s room now.”

They sat down together and talked quietly about Oma. Neil held Kate’s hand. Every time he got that scary, tight feeling in his chest, he looked at her, and her empathetic blue eyes centered him.

About three o’clock, Marianne’s husband, Marc, arrived, then Dennis. The nurse came out and said they could go into Oma’s room, two at a time. Neil told the girls to go first, and waited with Kate, Marc and Dennis.

Fifteen minutes later, Mama came to the waiting area and told Neil to come. “Oh, hello, Kate.”

Kate stood. “Hello, Mrs. Alexander. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” Mama turned her attention back to Neil. “She’s tried to speak.”

“What did she say?” he asked.

“Mostly, nothing we can understand. But she said your father’s name, and I thought she said ‘Cornelius,’ so I came to get you.”

Kate squeezed his hand. “I’ll wait here.”

He nodded and followed his mother down the hall. An IV line ran into Oma’s left hand, and she lay pale and vulnerable in the
bed. She was wearing a hospital johnny. Her eyes were open, and her breathing seemed labored.

“She wants you,” Marianne said between sobs. She hugged Neil and went out into the hall. Papa sat gravely beside the bed, holding his mother’s hand. Neil went to the other side, and Anneke moved aside for him.

“Cornelius.”

“I’m here, Oma.” He touched her hand. Her mouth twitched, and they sat for a long time.

Three different doctors came in and looked at her, checked her reflexes and tried to get her to respond to them verbally. By five o’clock, they had decided to leave her alone until early morning.

Dr. Pelkey said, “She may not make it through tonight. If she’s strong enough in the morning, we’ll do more tests, but there’s really not much we can do right now. Sometimes they rally, but this seems pretty massive, and she hasn’t responded to the drug therapy we gave her when she came in.”

Neil went out to the waiting room. “I think I should stay here tonight with Mama and Papa,” he told Kate.

“Do you mind if I wait out here?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I called Adri and Connor to let them knew.”

Marc and Dennis took his sisters to collect their children from the friends who were watching them. Kate rounded up a stack of magazines and settled down in the otherwise deserted waiting room.

“Are you sure?” Neil said.

“Positive. I’ll be right here any time you want to talk.”

He kissed her and went back to Oma’s room.

Mama and Papa stayed. The hospital settled into nighttime routine. Oma lay unmoving, her eyes closed, the only sounds coming from the monitors and Oma’s shallow breaths.

Finally, Neil’s mother said to her husband, “You’d better eat something, Paul.”

“No, no.”

“Yes, you should. You haven’t eaten since noon.”

“All right,” he said after a moment. “We’ll go downstairs and see what we can get to eat.”

“The coffee shop might still be open,” Mama said. “How about you, Neil? Are you hungry?”

“Bring me a sandwich and some coffee.” He took out his wallet. “Do you mind getting Kate something, too? Black coffee.”

“Put your money away,” said his father, and they went out.

Neil took the little Bible Connor and Adrienne had given him from his jacket pocket and opened to the Psalms. He read through Psalm 37, and it was a comfort to him, but it made him fear for Oma’s soul. He turned to Romans.

“Cornelius.” Oma’s voice sounded faint.

He leaned toward her quickly. “
Ja,
Oma?”