She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,98

a boy who ran into the fire, pulled out Duncan Bellino, and attempted to pull out Elden Krendal. Some thought he perished in the explosion, others said he got out. Nobody knew his name, though. The police wouldn’t comment. Somehow, my part of the story faded away, and for that I was grateful.

Gerdy’s funeral was held on May 6. I sat in the second row, behind her parents. I had never met them. I should have introduced myself. I didn’t. Three other funerals took place at the same time. It rained that day. I counted the tents.

Gerdy’s clothes were still strewn around my apartment, her toothbrush in the glass on the bathroom counter with mine and Auntie Jo’s. I couldn’t bear to move any of it.

I had no more tears.

I walked through life as a zombie, all motion and no thought. Unwilling to think about anything that had happened in the past few weeks. Worse still, unable to think about the days and weeks to come.

I found a bottle of Captain Morgan spiced rum in Auntie Jo’s room. I finished it over two days and nights, grateful for the thick blanket of fog it placed between me and the world.

Sometimes I wonder how different my life would have been if I hadn’t picked up that bottle, if I hadn’t liked the taste, the numbness. I did like it, though, a little too much.

I didn’t return to Mercy General until May 20.

I had no reason to believe what Detective Horton said about Dunk. He hadn’t been charged with a crime, there had been no mention of his involvement in the shooting, the fire, or the deaths that took place at Krendal’s in anything I heard or read. He was, and always had been, my friend. I should have gone on the first day and each day that followed, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

I told myself the police were twisting facts, adding a few of their own, trying to find someplace to put the blame. They wanted to pin this on Dunk so they could roll him on Crocket’s organization, give them the chance to dismantle everything before the snake grew a new head.

Dunk wasn’t a killer.

Dunk wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Dunk was my friend.

Dunk was my best friend.

Why did Dunk change his favorite booth?

The question nagged at me more than any other, not only because of what the detectives said, but because of something Dunk said years ago while sitting at my booth in the back corner near the restrooms. You can see the whole place from here. Nobody ever wants to sit near the bathrooms, but this is the best seat in the house.

Dunk hadn’t been arrested, but when I called Mercy General to get his visiting hours, I was told Pittsburgh PD would have to approve the visit before I would be allowed in to see him.

I left my name and number.

Thirty minutes later, Detective Horton called me back. He wanted me to wear a wire, get Dunk to confess.

I said no.

He cleared my visit anyway.

At the visitor desk, the nurse said Dunk was in room 307—take the purple elevator to three, make a right.

When the elevator door opened on the third floor, I had no trouble spotting Dunk’s room. Two uniformed police officers sat on one side of the hallway, while two of Dunk’s “friends” sat on the other side—both looked familiar, but I didn’t know their names.

All four men eyed me as I walked down the hallway. One of the uniformed officers asked me to sign a clipboard before entering the room.

I scribbled my name, then pushed through the heavy swinging door.

Although it was twenty past four in the afternoon, Dunk’s room was dark. The blinds were pulled tight, the lights off, the only illumination in the room provided by the television mounted in the far corner—The Price is Right on the screen, the sound off.

The room itself was a mirror image of mine from a few weeks earlier—same size, shape, same two beds. The first empty, Dunk in the second. His leg was raised in a large sling. I expected a cast, but instead, small metal rods ran the length of his leg, the one side connected to some kind of plastic exoskeleton, the other end disappearing down through his skin. I had never seen anything like it.

I stepped closer, my shoes squeaking on the polished tile floor.

Dunk said, “Gross, right? The doctor said it’s called a Hoffman Device. Those things are screwed into my bone.” Dunk’s eyes remaining