Chat - Archer Mayor [7]
Joe pursed his lips without comment. He didn’t like cases like this. It wasn’t the extra work they represented—the lack of identification, the absence of a clear and reasonable story. Rather, it was the lingering scent of menace he disliked—the palpable suggestion that they’d ended up dead without ready explanation because somebody else had engineered it that way.
It was possible that this man had fallen off the bridge in a drunken stupor, or suffered a heart attack while taking an evening stroll, but Joe doubted it. This body had been stripped of the conventional identifiers we all carry, and Joe’s instincts told him that Hillstrom and her associates would end up telling a tale of homicide. Looking down at this innocuous mystery, he could almost feel the malevolence that had brought it about.
Sam glanced up at her boss, one eyebrow raised. “What do you think?” she asked.
I think there’s a nemesis out there, ready to be engaged, he thought, but he actually said to her, “I think we use a fine-toothed comb.”
A shout reached them from the road above. “Special Agent Gunther?”
They all looked up at Jeff Dupree, his hand in the air as if waving farewell to a train.
“What’s up?” Joe asked, raising his voice above the tumble of the water.
“I’ve got dispatch on the cell phone. Something about a car crash.”
Lonely: any hot girl wanna chat ??
Hottie: yea
Shez: add me
Dislove: dude
Gangsta: ron how tall r u??
Shez: n u can hav a look
Hottie: what is it
Lonely: any hot girl wanna chat ??
Hottie: kk
Dislove: bored
Hottie: so u gonna talk me something about yourself
Boss: hey all Im Back Whats good?
Hottie: yourself
Dislove: any guys? . . .
Gangsta: ron r u there??
Hottie: shez u there
Shez: em wot u wna no
Ron: back yes I am
Lonely: boss
Lonely: can we chat ??
Hottie: I don’t know that is for u 2 tell me
Ron: im 6’1”
Doo: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Doo: hi
Shez: well iv got an 11inch touge n breath frew ma ears
Hottie: oh I c
Chapter 3
Joe positioned his chair in the corner, by the window, where he had a clear view of both the bed and the door and where he could stretch out his legs if need be. It was a strategic decision, based on the chance that he’d be spending a lot of time here, which, sadly, was what he was anticipating. Unless things deteriorated even more.
He looked across at his mother, lying peacefully in bed. At least he had that to hold on to. There were no tubes stuck down her throat at the moment, and only a single IV dangling from a metal pole beside her. She just looked asleep, aside from the ugly bruise extending from her left temple. Soon, he’d been told, if she stayed this way beyond some short-term deadline, a feeding tube and oxygen would be introduced. Maybe more. But, right now, her vitals were stable, her breathing deep and regular, her heartbeat strong, and her brain waves energetic.
He had been led to believe that among the overall patient population at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, his mother was actually in pretty good shape. She just wasn’t waking up.
Leo, typically, wasn’t quite as enigmatic. Like the man himself, his injuries were prominent, visible, and easily diagnosed, if not so simply set right. Leo had been Joe’s first stop in the hospital, once both patients’ conditions had been made clear on the phone. For all Leo’s much publicized joviality, he was a worrier, always nervously hovering over the target of his attention. It was one of the reasons he was so popular as a butcher, fussing over every customer. Joe knew from the moment he’d heard of his brother’s broken ribs, collapsed lung, fractured shoulder, and concussion, that Leo’s biggest problem was going to be his inability to get to their mother’s bedside. To Joe’s mind, regardless of who was in worse shape physically, Leo was going to be needing the most care.
And that wasn’t even factoring in the man’s guilt.
Fortunately for Joe, his brother was so beaten up that he couldn