Read Online Oath of Office by Michael Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

he asked.
    The officer, umbrella keeping them both dry, bent at the waist and poked his head inside the car. “Anybody hurt?” he asked. He spoke with a modest Southern drawl. His eyes, which Lou read as showing no threat, scanned the two of them with concern.
    Carolyn immediately became more animated. “Oh, Gilbert. Thank goodness it’s you,” she said, talking without taking a breath. “This was all my fault. I … I was chasing down a car in front of us that had one broken taillight. I got so worried they were going to cause an accident, that I ended up having one myself.”
    Lou gripped Carolyn’s arm. She nodded and stopped. He climbed out of the car, opened his umbrella, and still slightly favoring his leg, walked around to the officer. “Officer, my name is Lou Welcome. I’m an ER doc from Eisenhower Memorial, and a friend of Carolyn’s and … um … of John’s.”
    “Gilbert Stone. Chief of police of Kings Ridge.” Stone took his hand and, maintaining steady eye contact, squeezed it with near bone-crushing force.
    Cap Duncan, Lou’s mentor and owner of the Stick and Move, had once told him that any statement of superiority or control a man wanted to make should begin with the handshake. Lou wondered now if the husky lawman was trying to do just that. He gave thought to matching or besting the man’s grip, but set the notion aside in his dumb-moves file.
    Stone shone his flashlight on Lou’s face, momentarily blinding him. “You sure you’re all right, son?” he asked.
    “We’re both fine. Thanks.”
    “Given what you do and where you do it, I’m inclined to trust you in that regard.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    Stone inspected the front end of the Volvo and what remained of the sign, and let out a high-pitched whistle, not so different from the sound his cruiser’s siren had made. Beneath the lawman’s wool-lined bomber jacket, Lou saw a tan shirt with a silver metal star pinned to the breast pocket, and a perfectly knotted black tie.
    “Guess we got real lucky here,” Stone said, hoisting up his dark brown pants over an ample belly. “You say you’re a friend of Mrs. Meacham?”
    “I am—was—friends with her husband as well.”
    Stone’s thin lips folded into a crease that vanished inside his mouth. “Any ideas why he did what he did?”
    “Well, no, except to say I can’t imagine him doing it.”
    “But he did.”
    “Yes, he did,” Lou echoed grimly.
    He considered sharing details, right then and there, about the bizarre happenings in the ICU at DeLand Regional, and how they dovetailed with Carolyn Meacham’s odd behavior, but decided this wasn’t the time or place.
    “It’s been a hell of a day.” Stone sighed, his eyes locked on Lou’s.
    “Tough day, indeed,” Lou answered.
    “You sure you’re in no need of medical attention, son?”
    “No, thank you. I’m all right.”
    Stone just nodded. “Okay. Like I said, I trust you. Now, then, you have something you want to tell me about the accident?” Stone continued his hard stare.
    “This accident is all my fault,” Lou said. “I never should have let her drive. She’s in no condition, given what happened today, but she absolutely insisted. Said it would be best if she had something to focus on. I’d really hate to see her in trouble with the law after what she’s just been through.”
    Stone’s grin was impenetrable. “So you’re saying it didn’t happen quite the way she said it did?”
    By then, the two men had connected.
    “What if I told you the wheels lost grip? Rain-slicked roads and all,” Lou said.
    “Well, I’d be inclined to believe you. My doctor was Carl Franklin, one of the best we ever had. At the moment, I am having some mighty harsh feelings toward the man who killed him. But that doesn’t translate to the man’s wife. I didn’t know the Meachams that well, on account they haven’t lived in Kings Ridge very long. But what I did know of them, I had nothing against—even John’s