Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Anne didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know if this was a hardwired part of Dennis Farman’s psyche or a by-product of the day’s trauma. Could he really care so little about the only boy who had ever tried to be his friend?

“I’m so sorry, Dennis,” she said. “I wish I could have helped you sooner. I wish I had a clue how to help you now, but I don’t. All I can do is sit here with you until someone who knows more than I do can come and try.”

“What’ll happen to me?” he asked.

As horrible as his crime was, Anne felt her heart break for Dennis Farman. She didn’t know if it was a trick of the harsh lighting or the dimensions of the room, but he seemed smaller to her now than he had in her classroom. And she had the strangest, saddest feeling as she sat there watching him that he was getting smaller and smaller before her very eyes, that the light inside him was getting dimmer and dimmer, and before long he would disappear altogether.

“The sheriff is trying to find your mom so she can come and be with you,” she said. “Do you know where she might be?”

He looked up at her for the first time since she had walked in.

“She’s dead,” he said without emotion. Then he looked past her to the glass inset in the door.

Anne turned to see Frank Farman’s face in the window.

“He killed her.”

“I thought the rules up here were: authorized personnel and family only,” Mendez said.

Morgan turned and looked at him. “Detective. Jane needed a break. Or, I should say, I made her take a break. She’s down the hall in the family room resting. She made me promise to stand here and come get her if anything changed.”

“Miss Vickers’s family hasn’t arrived yet?” Hicks asked.

“Not yet.” He turned and looked at the girl in the bed again. “It didn’t seem right to just leave her. That doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, she doesn’t know we’re standing here. She’s not aware of anything at all as far as we know.”

“Or maybe she’s playing it all through her mind,” Mendez suggested. “What happened to her, who did this to her. And if she can just fight her way up through the fog, she’ll tell us everything.”

“What are the odds she’ll remember anything?” Morgan asked. “The doctor said it’ll be a miracle if she survives at all. I wouldn’t hang your hat on getting the story from her.”

“But here’s the thing with my job, Mr. Morgan,” Mendez said. “Even dead victims tell their stories, one way or another. It just takes longer.”

“You always get your man? We’ll all hope so.”

“We’ll have to spell you here, Mr. Morgan,” Hicks said. “You’re needed in the ER.”

They accompanied Steve Morgan to the ER and hung back at the edge of the Morgan family drama. Sara Morgan had arrived to comfort her daughter. The parents managed to hide all but the edge of the tension between them as they let Wendy take center stage and tell her story.

Mendez answered what questions he could as to what would happen to Dennis Farman, though he admitted he had never come across such a young violent offender. He had no idea if there was any precedence to guide the powers of the judicial system on how to deal with him. The only thing he knew with certainty was that Dennis Farman would not be going home that night, or any night soon.

The doctor informed them that Wendy could go home. She had a badly bruised sternum and ribs, but considering what had happened to Cody Roache, she was a lucky girl.

“Will Cody be all right?” Wendy asked.

“He’ll be in the hospital for a few days, but he’ll be all right,” the doctor announced to the relief of everyone. The surgeons had managed to repair the damage to his spleen and stop the internal bleeding. He was a lucky little boy.

“This guy has a damned strange definition of luck,” Hicks commented as they loitered in the hall, waiting for the Morgans to leave. “Luck would have been never running into Dennis Farman in the first place.”

They followed the Morgans out to the parking lot where Steve lifted Wendy out of the obligatory wheelchair and into her mother’s minivan.

“Daddy, are you coming home?” the little girl asked, her cornflower blue eyes as big and hopeful as she could make them.

“I’ll be along soon, honey. Don’t you worry.”

But as Sara and Wendy Morgan drove away, and Steve Morgan turned to go to his own vehicle, Mendez stepped in his way.

“We have a couple more questions for you, Mr. Morgan.”

Morgan only hesitated a second, then walked around him. “It’s been a long day, Detectives. I’m going home.”

Mendez fell in step beside him. “When I asked you this morning where you were at three A.M., you failed to mention the bed you were supposedly sleeping in was at a hotel.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“It’s really not a good idea for you to blow us off, Mr. Morgan,” Hicks said, striding along on Morgan’s other side. “It gives us the impression you’re being arrogant in a situation that calls for cooperation.”

“I’m not being arrogant. I’m irritated,” Morgan said. “I give a big part of my life to the Thomas Center and the clients there. I don’t appreciate being considered a person of interest because of my generosity.”

“That’s not why we’re looking at you, if that makes you feel any better,” Mendez said. “We’re looking at you because you’re being less than cooperative and because we know you were having an affair with one of the victims.”

“You don’t know-”

“Yes, we do. Peter Crane confirmed it for us. He also told us you were planning to spend last night at the Holiday Inn because your wife threw you out.”

Morgan stopped beside a low-slung black Trans Am. “My marriage is not your business.”

“Could be a good motive, though,” Hicks said. “If Lisa Warwick was putting pressure on you, threatening to tell your wife-”

“And what’s my motive for attacking Karly?”

“Maybe you just plain enjoy it,” Mendez suggested.

He looked through the back passenger window into the car. There was a black Members Only jacket on the backseat, and a couple of baseball caps. A box holding MISSING posters of Karly Vickers. On the floor was a dusty pair of hiking boots. There were no instruments of torture, no obvious souvenirs from victims, nothing that could have given him probable cause to search the car.

“I understand you have a job to do,” Morgan said. “But you’re wasting valuable time on me when maybe you should be looking a little closer to home.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hicks asked.

“Ask Dixon. Let’s just say the interest some of your deputies take in the women from the center is less than altruistic in nature.”

They watched him drive away, both of them at a loss for words.

Finally, Hicks said, “What now?”

“I think if Dixon wanted to tell us something, he would have told us already.”

“Right,” Hicks agreed, and started back toward the hospital. “Let’s ask Jane Thomas.”

“He’s lying!” Farman shouted.

“Frank, sit down and shut up,” Dixon ordered.

They had gone into the interview room next door to where Farman’s son had just declared him a murderer. Despite Dixon’s order, neither of them sat. They were two broad-shouldered men with their arms crossed, each of them laying claim to his section of the room.

Vince watched them on the monitor, knowing this wasn’t going to go well.

“I was told he’d been in a fight,” Farman said. “Was that just a lie to get me down here so you could accuse me of something, Cal? What the hell?”

“Dennis wasn’t in a fight, Frank. He attacked two kids in Oakwoods Park. He stabbed a boy. The child could die. Dennis is under arrest.”