John Miller - Too Far Gone

“I’ll put out an alert to area doctors and hospitals. Maybe he’ll show up for treatment if he’s still among the living.”

“Good,” Alexa said. “Have your techs collect everything and we’ll decide what needs to go to the FBI lab. I’ll ask for expedited blood and DNA evidence on Doc Doe.”

“If this case is still that hot up there. I have a feeling Evans might want to put us on banging on doors, now that West is going home.”

“We still have to find Sibby Danielson.”

“Yeah, I expect that’s going to be right up there beside finding out where Hoffa’s buried.”

Alexa stepped back and felt something under her heel. She bent, parted the weeds, and, using her flashlight, saw that the object was a cell phone. “One of them must have dropped this,” she said.

Manseur picked it up carefully by the antenna and dropped it into an evidence envelope. “With any luck we can trace it to one of them. Looks like it has blood on it.”

“Hopefully it’s a prepaid cell on our sheets. Michael, Leland called the guy Casey shot Doc. I think he’s Grace’s man friend. We need to get her picked up. The

phone will connect her to Doc and to this. Doc-he could be a physician, dentist, chiropractor, maybe a Ph. D.”

“Or a tree surgeon,” Manseur said.

“LePointe might be upset since Decell gave up the bearer bonds, and he didn’t get his notebook,” Alexa said.

“He has to act happy, because he’s got Gary West back, and he sure as hell can’t ask us about the notebook. Be interesting to see who does ask.”

“My money’s on Jackson Evans. Christ! What the hell’s wrong with me?”

She raced around to her Bucar, opened the passenger side door, reached in, pulled the computer out, and opened it on the hood of the car. “The tracker is still in the briefcase.”

“The tracker is out of range now or got damaged by a round,” Manseur said, after seeing there was no blinking dot on the screen.

“We could use a plane to locate the bug if it wasn’t damaged. If they keep the bonds in the briefcase, and they don’t discover the tracker, maybe we can find them.”

“That I can handle,” Manseur said.

“I hate to leave this in your lap, but I need to go to the hospital. I want to see how Gary and Casey are. Maybe you can send Kennedy by Smythe’s address and pick up Grace. You get her in an interrogation room, call me.”

Alexa got into her car, plugged the hospital’s address into her GPS, and drove away. She was feeling light-headed from a lack of sleep. As soon as she made sure Casey was all right, she had some reading to do. After that, she was going to grab a cat nap.

When Alexa arrived at Tulane Medical Center, she spotted Dr. LePointe in the Emergency waiting room, talking with Superintendent of Police Jackson Evans, who wore his starched white uniform shirt, resplendent with gold and silver pins testifying to his importance. Casey was at the opposite end of the room, seated alone, head down, as though inspecting her hands in her lap. She looked up and smiled when she saw Alexa come in.

Passing LePointe and Evans, Alexa walked straight to Casey and sat beside her. “How’s Gary?” she asked.

“They’re trying to stabilize him. He’s got some brain damage, and he’s severely dehydrated, but other than that, they won’t know until they get further along. You saved his life with that vest.” She broke down. Alexa put a hand on her shoulder while she sobbed wretchedly.

Dr. LePointe strode over and stood silently above them. His expression was impossible to read. Not that Alexa gave a damn.

“This is one hell of a mess, Agent Keen,” he remarked, almost pleasantly.

“Yes, Dr. LePointe,” Alexa told him. “It is definitely that.”

“There will have to be an accounting.”

Alexa felt the heat of anger rising inside her. “I’m glad you understand that. You know, if you had leveled with me about the note and whatever else you and Decell kept to yourselves, the outcome could have been vastly different.”

“I acted in what I perceived was my niece’s best interests, and I followed Ken Decell’s suggestions to that end. This sort of thing is new to me.”

“I bet.” She thought it likely Decell’s corpse would get the blame for everything.

“You are responsible for the fiasco tonight,” Casey said, firmly.

Alexa knew LePointe was responsible for a lot more than the mess of that evening. The full scope of his involvement was something Alexa planned to discover. Then they’d see who got stuck for what.

“Kenneth Decell was a professional,” LePointe said, looking away. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have followed his advice in this matter. The fact remains, Agent Keen, that you put my niece in a very perilous position tonight.”

“She did not! I’m an adult, and I made a decision to become involved! All of this is on your head. Dealing with abductions is what Alexa does, and she does it better than anybody else at the FBI. Decell got himself killed because you two decided to let him handle something Agent Keen should have been dealing with. Can you explain how you honestly imagined that a retired detective could handle getting my husband back home safely better than an honest-to-God expert at it?”

“I was trying to get Gary back for you. Everything I did was to that end. I didn’t involve Agent Keen because Kenneth insisted he had everything under control and that when lots of people are involved, things can go badly. The instructions from the kidnappers were quite specific about not bringing in the police.”

“Jesus, Unko! Have you forgotten that I read the letter? If you had followed those instructions, and delivered the bonds and not sent Decell, it might have worked out. Instead, two people are dead, and I may have killed a man. If I hadn’t been there, Gary and Alexa would have been killed. You didn’t do anything for anybody but yourself.”

LePointe stiffened. “Superintendent Evans has everything in hand. He’s going to investigate this. Legally speaking, I had every right to pay that ransom without involving the authorities. Can anybody say for certain that person didn’t intend to kill Gary all along, no matter who brought the ransom? Professional advice was what I paid Decell for. It was his decision to deliver that briefcase. I wanted to do it.”

Alexa thought it convenient that Decell-who was, in cop lingo, DBRD, or dead beyond a reasonable doubt-couldn’t contradict his patron unless he did so through a medium. She wondered what LePointe would do if she whipped Fugate’s notebook out of her purse and waved it under his nose.

No, when she confronted William LePointe, she intended to have everything figured out, so no matter how much money he had, or how many friends in high places who might try to stop her, he’d answer for everything he was guilty of doing. Whatever it ended up costing her, he was not going to walk away from this without a few scars.

Leland Ticholet wasn’t thinking about what had happened at Doc’s little house. He was on cloud nine, now that he had finally earned the boat he was piloting through the familiar system of waterways, heading for his little home on the water. He hadn’t cut and run when that lady started shooting at Doc. He had actually helped Doc, who was shot up, get into the boat. If he’d had the ownership papers already, though, he wouldn’t have risked his ass waiting around for Doc. Anyway, the woman had just been trying to shoot Doc, who deserved it. Probably he’d promised the woman something he hadn’t given her too.

Leland’s attention shifted to the gas gauge and he frowned. The boat was useless without gas for the big outboard, so he headed to Moody’s dock to fill up the tanks so he could get an early start in the morning to run his traps and see if he’d caught any gators.