Ridley Pearson - Killer View

“It’s not that!” she countered in a whisper. “I know her, Walt. From the wedding. Last night’s wedding. On the dance floor. She was there, for heaven’s sake.”

“Can you do this?” he asked.

“Of course.”

The girl’s knees were raised beneath a white cotton sheet adorned with pale blue bees, her head elevated by several pillows. Beneath the blotchy complexion and runny nose, she was a pretty girl of nineteen, but with a tormented sadness in her dull eyes that cut to the quick. Her red hair was a tangled mess. Her makeup was smeared down her face. There were bundles of oversized paper bags on a rolling table to the left of the bed. Her clothes and belongings. One of those bags would contain a bedsheet she would have stood on while undressing-Walt wanted a look at any debris that had fallen off her.

The nurse was an attractive woman in her late forties wearing the name tag HOPE on the chest of her scrubs. She spoke in a dry, husky voice.

“Her behavior when we admitted her was consistent with date rape. Catatonic. Possibly a result of shock, but more likely the drugs. I wouldn’t be surprised to find either Rohypnol or ketamine. Bloods are cooking in the lab. Injuries are consistent with oral, anal, and vaginal penetration. We’ll run a rape kit on her next, but that can take hours. I was told to wait for you guys first.”

“I’d like to talk to her, if possible,” Walt explained. “And I’ve asked Deputy Kenshaw to take a few pictures-face and hands.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.” She leaned over the victim. “Kira? The police are here.”

The girl squinted open bloodshot blue eyes. She didn’t focus well. Her pupils were completely dilated, making him think of Roman death masks with coins placed over the eyes.

Walt kept his voice low. He made introductions. “Can I ask you a few questions, Kira?”

“I don’t remember anything,” she said, sounding doped. She took a sip of water from a straw offered by the nurse. Tears followed tracks down her cheeks.

“Sometimes we know more than we think. What’s the last thing you recall?”

“We were at Whiskey’s… dancing. Then I woke up in this car.” She pinched her eyes shut tightly. “He dropped me out front, I think.”

“He?” Walt asked the girl. “Do you know whoever drove you?”

She opened her eyes and looked at Walt as if she’d never seen him. “Who are you?”

Walt reintroduced himself and Fiona. “Did you get a good look at the man that dropped you off? Do you know him, Kira?”

She stared right through him.

“A friend? Family? Someone from the wedding?” he asked.

He thought he’d lost her. Her eyes rolled up and her lids closed. Her chest rose and fell heavily. “KB’s,” she whispered almost inaudibly.

KB’s was a burrito shop in town. Two restaurants: one in Hailey, one in Ketchum.

“Someone you know from KB’s?” Walt asked, a jolt of energy pulsing through him.

Her head rocked faintly side to side. Or maybe she had just nodded off.

“A person who works there?”

“KB’s.” Her lips moved silently.

“KB’s,” Walt repeated back to her.

Her head moved infinitesimally.

“She just nodded, yes?” he asked Fiona, who shrugged. “Kira?”

A minute or two passed. It seemed much longer.

“My two cents?” the nurse said.

Walt nodded.

“The bruising indicates violent assault. This wasn’t a frat house rape, or, if it was, it was multiple partners. It was a violent assault. If that helps you any.”

“I need her last twelve hours,” Walt said, his voice cracking. “It’s important.”

“I doubt you’ll get it. Not if the bloods come back positive for Rohypnol.”

“May I?” Walt said, indicating the girl’s hands.

He donned a pair of gloves and a pair of glasses, then picked up her limp right hand, leaning close.

He asked Fiona for some photographs and she went to work.

“She was bound,” he said, addressing the nurse. “Wire or plastic tie. You’ll scrape the fingernails, as part of the kit?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’d like her fingernails clipped and bagged, please, if that’s possible.”

“Of course.”

He indicated the paper bags on the stand.

“Her dress, a piece of panty hose. Shoes. I’ve held off on the rape kit, as I said.” She sounded a little defensive. “She’s wearing a strapless bra. It was not in place, and I’ve left it where it was. There’s bruising visible on both breasts. No underwear. Probably torn off during the attack.”

The possibility of evidence left behind at the scene sparked a moment of optimism in him.

“Alcohol was also involved,” the nurse said, interrupting. “She tested point-one-four upon arrival.” She answered Walt’s inquisitive expression. “We ran a Breathalyzer as part of admittance.”

“Point-one-four?” Walt said. “That’s juiced. Well over the limit.”

“A good wedding, I suspect,” agreed the nurse.

Walt and Fiona exchanged a glance.

Concerned over the chain of evidence, Fiona donned a pair of surgical gloves and photographed the clothing and personal effects in the bags without removing them.

“You never can have too much documentation,” Walt said.

Fiona went about this methodically, bag to bag.

“I still need her last twelve hours,” Walt repeated, as if no one had heard him the first time. “What about security cameras?”

“I know there are some here, outside ER,” the nurse said. “I’m not aware of any out front, but maybe.”

“No one beats a woman and then drives her to the hospital,” Fiona said with the sound of authority. “That just doesn’t happen.”

“That’s why we need the driver,” Walt said. “If he wasn’t involved, why abandon her?”

The nurse crossed her arms tightly and looked at the girl sympathetically. “Unfortunately, Sheriff, I don’t think she’s going to tell you much.”

“Then maybe this will,” Fiona said, pointing into the white paper evidence bag.

Walt saw two dirty high-heeled satin shoes. “Mud,” he said.

The shoes were caked in it.

“She didn’t just step in some road sludge,” Fiona said. “She sank up to her ankles.”

“Her legs are the same.” The nurse gently and carefully pulled up the sheet to reveal the girl’s lower legs. They were splattered with dried mud.

“But the ground is frozen solid,” Fiona said. “Has been for a couple days at least. A week or more.” She ran off several photographs of the shoes in the bag, then glanced up at Walt. “So where was she?”

THE ICY SURFACE OF THE ROADS CARRIED A THIN SKIM OF melt. Walt drove cautiously-there was little more embarrassing than the sheriff needing to be towed out of a snowbank. Ketchum, the town that serviced the Sun Valley hotels and condominiums, was nestled at the base of the ski mountain. In the 1960s, the north-facing slopes had been developed along Warm Springs Creek and a like-named road, surrounded by desirable real estate. Warm Springs continued as a dirt track for some twenty miles, past the small village of ski shops and restaurants that had grown to service the condominiums and second homes. A hundred years earlier, the road had provided access to small mines that had never proved lucrative. Despite the avalanches that closed the road regularly in winter, a few daring souls had built past Board Ranch, which for generations had been the last stop on the road. They’d left Fiona’s Subaru at the hospital, ostensibly because of the remote location and the treacherous road conditions. But there was an undercurrent of something more to her request for the ride, a sense she had something on her mind.