into the K ‘s. Unfortunately, there was no clue as to which was which. None of them had a Queen Anne exchange. I jotted down all the numbers, home and work, knowing that if push came to shove, I could compare all the work numbers and see which one would lead me to a hospital switchboard. That was the long way of doing it.
Still hoping for a shortcut, I left the kitchen, heading for Ben and Shiree Weston’s bedroom, where I remembered seeing another phone. Maybe there I would find a forgotten note jotted on a little yellow sticky pad that would give me the information I needed. While I was busy searching, a silent clock ticked continuously in the back of my head, for I was locked in a race against time. If I didn’t get to her first, Adam Jackson’s mother would inevitably learn of her son’s death through other than official channels. Professional pride and compassion mixed fifty-fifty made me want to prevent that from happening.
Walking through the living room, I discovered that, with the exception of a single uniformed officer seated near the front door of the house and another stationed in back, only Janice Morraine and her crime scene specialists remained in the house. The Crime Lab folks acted every bit as frazzled as I felt. By now, I’d been up for twenty-two-plus hours straight, and I sure as hell wasn’t as young as I used to be.
I was just crossing the threshold into Ben and Shiree’s demolished bedroom when the clock radio beside the bed came on automatically at four-thirty. The soft, mournful wail of a country and western lady singer stopped me in my tracks. The familiar “he done me wrong” lyrics left me with an eerie sense of loss, allowing the finality of what had happened in that house to seep into my consciousness once and for all.
As the music went on and on, I realized how, the night before, Ben Weston had matter-of-factly set that alarm, expecting to get up early the next morning—this morning—and be about his business. Whatever he had planned to do had been important enough to be worth getting out of a warm bed three and a half full hours before he was due in at the department at eight.
But morning had come without him. Ben Weston would never again charge out of bed. He would never again hear the mournful music that was now crooning softly in the background. He wouldn’t see Ben Junior play his first Little League game or graduate from high school. Gentle Ben Weston was, literally, history.
I stood there listening, transfixed by the music, struck by the awful senselessness of it all, and then a funny thing happened. A new sense of resolve and purpose seemed to settle over me, washing away my all-nighter fatigue and filling my body with bone-hard determination. Captain Powell may have sidetracked me on to the Adam Jackson end of the investigation, but every one of us, even that worthless Kramer, were all working the same problem, searching for the same killer, and find him we would. I searched the room over but found nothing that would help locate Adam Jackson’s mother.
Motivated, ready to do something else positive, I decided to check the place where Big Al had parked to see if, by some lucky chance, he had left the car there for me when he went home. I was almost at the front door when the doorbell rang. In the meantime, the patrol officer on the couch, a guy by the name of Simmons, mumbled something to me. I opened the door, but I leaned away long enough to ask him to repeat it.
No doubt those mumbled words saved my life, because the .44 slug that crashed into the mirrored wall directly behind me shattered the glass right at chest height. Whoever fired it hadn’t expected to miss, and at that range, chances are my bulletproof vest wouldn’t have done much good. Like Ben Weston, I, too, would have been all through listening to country music.
Stunned, I hit the floor, my ears ringing. Then, as fast as I could, I scrambled back to my feet and fumbled for my automatic while
Still hoping for a shortcut, I left the kitchen, heading for Ben and Shiree Weston’s bedroom, where I remembered seeing another phone. Maybe there I would find a forgotten note jotted on a little yellow sticky pad that would give me the information I needed. While I was busy searching, a silent clock ticked continuously in the back of my head, for I was locked in a race against time. If I didn’t get to her first, Adam Jackson’s mother would inevitably learn of her son’s death through other than official channels. Professional pride and compassion mixed fifty-fifty made me want to prevent that from happening.
Walking through the living room, I discovered that, with the exception of a single uniformed officer seated near the front door of the house and another stationed in back, only Janice Morraine and her crime scene specialists remained in the house. The Crime Lab folks acted every bit as frazzled as I felt. By now, I’d been up for twenty-two-plus hours straight, and I sure as hell wasn’t as young as I used to be.
I was just crossing the threshold into Ben and Shiree’s demolished bedroom when the clock radio beside the bed came on automatically at four-thirty. The soft, mournful wail of a country and western lady singer stopped me in my tracks. The familiar “he done me wrong” lyrics left me with an eerie sense of loss, allowing the finality of what had happened in that house to seep into my consciousness once and for all.
As the music went on and on, I realized how, the night before, Ben Weston had matter-of-factly set that alarm, expecting to get up early the next morning—this morning—and be about his business. Whatever he had planned to do had been important enough to be worth getting out of a warm bed three and a half full hours before he was due in at the department at eight.
But morning had come without him. Ben Weston would never again charge out of bed. He would never again hear the mournful music that was now crooning softly in the background. He wouldn’t see Ben Junior play his first Little League game or graduate from high school. Gentle Ben Weston was, literally, history.
I stood there listening, transfixed by the music, struck by the awful senselessness of it all, and then a funny thing happened. A new sense of resolve and purpose seemed to settle over me, washing away my all-nighter fatigue and filling my body with bone-hard determination. Captain Powell may have sidetracked me on to the Adam Jackson end of the investigation, but every one of us, even that worthless Kramer, were all working the same problem, searching for the same killer, and find him we would. I searched the room over but found nothing that would help locate Adam Jackson’s mother.
Motivated, ready to do something else positive, I decided to check the place where Big Al had parked to see if, by some lucky chance, he had left the car there for me when he went home. I was almost at the front door when the doorbell rang. In the meantime, the patrol officer on the couch, a guy by the name of Simmons, mumbled something to me. I opened the door, but I leaned away long enough to ask him to repeat it.
No doubt those mumbled words saved my life, because the .44 slug that crashed into the mirrored wall directly behind me shattered the glass right at chest height. Whoever fired it hadn’t expected to miss, and at that range, chances are my bulletproof vest wouldn’t have done much good. Like Ben Weston, I, too, would have been all through listening to country music.
Stunned, I hit the floor, my ears ringing. Then, as fast as I could, I scrambled back to my feet and fumbled for my automatic while
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