live with me afterward.” He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat, turning his head to Reed. “I spent my career running programs to help people with mental and emotional issues, many of which were brought on by trauma. But I didn’t look closely enough at those in my own home, Detective. Those placed in my charge. I . . .” He shook his head, appearing older, defeated. “I failed.” His eyes met Reed’s again, and there was so much sorrowful regret, such raw emotion in his expression, that Reed almost looked away. “I failed,” he said again.
After Reed had thanked Gordon Draper again and left the old man sitting in his wheelchair in the doorway of his home, Reed started his car, hesitating as he gazed distractedly up at the house, a sort of . . . sympathetic melancholy pulsing through him. He stared at the front door, closed now, considering the old man’s regret. How difficult it must be to know you’d been a part of helping so many other families, and yet hadn’t recognized the needs of your own.
I failed. For some reason, the words rang in Reed’s head long after he’d pulled away from the curb, leaving the house far behind him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Reed glanced at the blinking screen on his dash, hitting the answer button, Ransom’s voice filling the interior of his SUV. “Update me.”
Reed first told him about his visit to Dr. Westbrook, Steven Sadowski’s eyes found stuffed down the front of his pants, and the possible marijuana leaf brand on the back of his neck.
“Say what?”
“I know. My only guess was that Sadowski was involved with drugs in some capacity?”
“That could have led to his murder?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess.”
“It’s also possible that the killer is just a big reggae music fan.”
Reed chuckled and then filled him in on his meeting with Gordon Draper, about the charge in Steven Sadowski’s file that had subsequently been dropped, and what the former Lakeside Hospital director had theorized as to the extra key card.
“So he probably just had two, registered in different names. He used one to leave the building, which could be in his car right now, wherever that is. And the killer used the other one, perhaps from Sadowski’s wallet.”
“I don’t have a better theory than that.”
Ransom sighed. “Thanks for nothing, Lakeside. Though, I have to say, I’m not surprised at the lax system. The times I dropped a prisoner off there when I was in uniform? I remember guards sitting around with their feet up, playing cards, even asleep on the job. Security is questionable. It only stands to reason that administrative practices are too.”
Reed wasn’t necessarily surprised either, even considering the high-risk nature of the prisoners who were housed there. He knew how outdated hospital systems could be, knew the budgets most of those facilities worked with. And of course, humans were fallible, he knew that too.
“The government can’t do shit right,” Ransom went on.
“The government hired you.”
“Man, even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
Reed chuckled. “True enough. So what about Steven Sadowski’s apartment? Did you learn anything from the neighbors?”
“Not much. There was no evidence that the man was involved with drugs. The old lady next door swears he never came home Monday night. She says she noticed because his cat was outside meowing to get in, and he never answered his door. She said the feline kept her up past midnight.”
“Okay, so he was either abducted somewhere between leaving the hospital but before he made it home. Or, he headed somewhere directly after work where he either randomly came in contact with the suspect, or the suspect followed him there.” Reed paused. “Although, I have to believe this was not a random targeting. Otherwise, what reason would the killer have to return him to his place of employment?”
“Agreed. I’ve requested video from several cameras on what would have been his likely route home, and video footage from the parking lot of his apartment building. I’ll start weeding through that tomorrow, see if there’s anything to work with. There was a laptop in his home that the digital guys will go through. We’ll see if he was doing anything online that might give us a lead. His phone records don’t indicate anything so far, and the last ping came back to Lakeside. Whether that means he turned it off, someone else did, or it died, I don’t know. You headed home?”