hand and placed gauze under his neck to collect the still-seeping blood. They eased him onto the stretcher and then, one at the head and another at the foot, snapped it into place. As they turned to wheel him out, Jacob suddenly stirred, thrashed about, but they had him strapped down. He let out a deep guttural sound, and his eyes opened.
“Stop!” I shouted.
“We’ve got to get him to the hospital,” the lead medic protested, indicating the others had to keep moving. “Come on, let’s load him on the ambulance.”
“Owww,” Jacob moaned. His head turned, and he looked directly at me.
I wondered if he’d die on the way to the hospital. Looking at him, it seemed likely. With no time to think, I seized what might be my one opportunity to talk to the only witness. Before I even knew what I was doing, I had thrust my foot under the front wheel and grabbed the gurney’s frame. Max latched on at the back and held it steady.
“We’ve gotta get him loaded,” the medic in charge wailed. “You two let go.”
We were determined to try to get any information we could from Jacob, and Max held tight, while I leaned over Jacob and thrust my face close to his. “Who did this to you and your family?” I asked. “Jacob, tell me—who did this?”
Jacob’s eyes grew rounder, and he nodded ever so slightly at me. He searched my face and his lips moved a touch. I felt certain that he was trying to talk. But then, as he strained to take yet another breath, the sucking sound coming from his throat built and that awful rattle returned. All hope evaporated as his eyelids drifted down and locked closed. The monitor attached to his chest kept beeping.
“He’s out again,” the medic shouted. “We’re moving. Now!”
Max and I stood back as the EMTs pushed the gurney toward the front door. We followed and stood on the porch as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance.
“For a moment, I thought maybe he’d at least try to talk,” Max said, visibly disappointed. “Maybe mouth something so we had a name.”
“No such luck,” I said.
It took seconds to secure the gurney into place inside the ambulance. “You think we’ll ever be able to talk to him?” I asked.
Max shrugged again. “I hope so, but it’s no better than a toss-up.”
“We’ll, of course, keep our fingers crossed that he makes it, but we need to work this like we’ll never be able to ask him a single question,” I said, and Max gave me a raised eyebrow that signaled agreement.
Six
As the ambulance pulled onto the open road, the air filled with the wailing of the siren. I thought about Mullins, about the fact that he still didn’t know about his daughter, and pulled out my phone yet again, hoping to see I’d missed a call. Disappointed, I slipped my phone back into my pocket as an Alber PD squad pulled into the driveway. Rookie officer Stef Jonas got out. Her skin a deep copper, her eyes the darkest of browns. Hair in her usual cornrows that fanned out around her face, she wore a uniform that pulled a bit too tight across the middle. Stef looked at my dirty clothes and said, “Out digging?”
We’d gotten fairly close over the past few months. Stef had helped in the investigation that pulled me back to Alber. She knew about my extracurricular activities, too. Perhaps I should have kept it more of a secret. I gave her a half-hearted smile and said, “I couldn’t sleep.”
A short sigh that seemed to mix amusement and resignation, and Stef looked about at the CSI officers documenting the first location, the bodies found under the sheet. She appeared intrigued, and I knew that she ached to get into the mix.
I hadn’t noticed that George Wiley MD, the internist from Wilbur who served as the county’s medical examiner, had shown up, but he was hard at work, inspecting the sad body of little Benjamin. I walked over with Stef and Max, stopping a way back. Doc Wiley sauntered over to us. His white hair disheveled, his clip-on bowtie crooked, he wore a lab coat with his name embroidered on the chest.
“Clara, Max, I had my assistant cancel my appointments and rushed right over. Did you just get here? I didn’t see you.”
“We’ve been in the house.” I motioned at the newest arrival. “All except Stef, she’s studying forensics and is here to