David Morrell - The Shimmer

Tori looked surprised.

“The job’s what makes me shut down my feelings,” Page said. “To make things better between us, quitting’s an obvious start.”

“But what would you do?”

“What my father did. Be an airplane mechanic.”

Tori considered him a moment longer, then drew a long breath and approached the hospital’s front doors. They opened automatically.

Inside a lobby, Page walked past a row of plastic chairs and stopped before a spectacled woman at a desk.

“We’re here to check on someone. He was admitted last night with a gunshot wound. Chief Costigan.”

“He’s not receiving visitors.”

“Well, can you tell us how he’s doing?”

“Are you family?”

“No, we’re-”

“Edith, it’s okay,” a voice said. “They’re not reporters.”

Page turned and saw Captain Medrano standing at an elevator, its door closing behind him. He held his Stetson. Each of the upper sleeves on his tan uniform had a red Highway Patrol patch.

“In fact, they’re trying to avoid reporters,” Medrano said. He pushed the elevator’s up button, and the doors immediately reopened. “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

In the elevator, Medrano looked apologetic. “I finally had to give the media your names. Believe me, I held off as long as I could, but I was starting to look as if I wasn’t in control of the investigation.”

“If they find out we’re at that motel…,” Tori said.

“The clerk promised to deny you’re staying there.”

“I hope he keeps his word. Do you know who the shooter was?” Page asked.

“Edward Mullen. One of the survivors remembered seeing him on the tour bus. We contacted the company that owns the bus. It’s based in Austin. The lights are only a brief part of the tour-it also goes to the big ranch house that was built for that James Deacon movie, Birthright.”

Page nodded. “Last night at the viewing area, someone mentioned that movie set.”

“Mostly, though, it’s a nature tour that goes through the Davis Mountains. The company gave us a list of everyone who signed up for that particular tour. All the victims had ID on them. We com- pared their names and those of the survivors to the names on the list. Edward Mullen was the only person we couldn’t account for. You were right-according to one of the survivors from the bus, he had a guitar case. The guy remembered because Mullen had a lot of trouble finding a place to put it. That must be where he hid the rifle.”

“A lucky guess.”

“No. I told you last night, you have the instincts of a good cop.”

Page glanced at Tori and found that she was looking at him.

The elevator doors opened. As they stepped into a hospital corridor, Page’s nostrils felt pinched by the smell of antiseptic.

“This was the ninth time Mullen had taken the same tour,” Medrano continued.

Page stopped walking and frowned at him. “The ninth?”

“The tour company gave us the credit-card number he used. The credit-card company gave us his address. The Austin police went to his apartment.”

“Surprise me and tell me he didn’t live alone.”

“His wife died a year ago,” Medrano said. “He didn’t have any children.”

“Now tell me the apartment wasn’t crammed with religious statues and paintings and all kinds of literature about damnation.”

“It’d take a truck to carry it all away,” Medrano replied. “I’m tempted to go with the theory I had last night: some kind of religious lunatic. But there’s a problem with that theory.”

“Oh?”

“Mullen has a brother. According to him, Mullen was never religious-never even went near a church-until his wife’s funeral.

Apparently her death hit him so hard that all he did was stay in bed all day. The brother tried to get him interested in things and happened to see a newspaper ad for one of those tours. Before his wife’s death, Mullen was a movie buff. If a movie was filmed in Texas, he knew it shot by shot. So when the brother read that the tour included the set for Birthright, one of Mullen’s favorites, he managed to convince Mullen-‘practically twisted his arm’ is how he put it-that the two of them should go on the tour. It also included some locations from movies that were made in the Davis Mountains. Before the group reached the movie locations, though, they arrived at that viewing platform. As usual, some people on the tour claimed to see the lights while others wondered what all the fuss was about.”

“Did the brother see the lights?” Page asked.

“No, but Mullen claimed they were spectacular. After he got back to Austin, he started filling his apartment with the religious statues and paintings.”

A phone rang, distracting Medrano. It came from a nurses’ station across from the elevators. Page glanced around and noticed open doors along the corridor, nurses going into some of them, people in civilian clothes coming out of others.

Medrano pointed toward a clock in the nurses’ station.

“Almost 5. I’m due at a press conference at the courthouse. I’d better show you where Chief Costigan is.”

As they walked along the corridor, Page looked again at Tori, who rubbed the back of her neck, obviously bothered by the smell and feel of being in a hospital. He stepped closer to her, reached out, and discreetly squeezed her hand, but got no reaction.

Medrano entered the second-to-last doorway on the left and stepped out of Page’s sight. “Want more visitors?” he asked someone.

“If they’re pretty,” a raspy voice said.

“One is. The other could use a shave.”

Medrano motioned for Page and Tori to enter the room.

Costigan lay in a bed that was tilted up, allowing him to see a news program on a television that was mounted on the opposite wall. The reporter on the screen was the same man Page had seen on the television at the motel office: rumpled suit, mussed blond hair, beard stubble, haggard but handsome features.

“Anything’s better than watching that damned fool get everybody fired up,” Costigan growled.

The chief pressed the remote control and shut off the TV. Bandages encircled his head, pads making one side thicker than the other. His face looked grayer and thinner. Even his mustache seemed gray.

“Recognize these folks?” Medrano asked.

“Sure do.” An IV tube was taped to Costigan’s left arm. Wires attached to heart and blood-pressure monitors led under the chest of his hospital gown.

“Glad to hear it,” Medrano said. “That’s part of the memory test. I need to get to a press conference, but I want this couple to tell a nurse if you start forgetting things, like the fifty dollars I lent you last week.”

“I didn’t borrow any fifty dollars.”

“You’re right. Come to think of it, I lent you a hundred dollars.”

“Get out of here,” Costigan said.

After Medrano grinned and left, the chief motioned for them to come closer.

“We brought your windbreaker back,” Page said. “Thanks. It came in handy.”

“Keep it a while longer. I’m hardly in a position to use it.” Costigan studied them. “He called you ‘this couple.’ Does that mean things are better between the two of you?”

“It’s complicated,” Page answered.

“Isn’t everything? At least you came here together.”

Tori changed the subject. “How bad are you hurt?”

“Apparently I’ve got a hard head. The bullet creased my skull. Didn’t fracture it but gave me a hell of a concussion.” Costigan winced. “And an even worse headache. If I start to drool, tell the nurse.”

Despite the burden of his emotions, Page almost smiled.

“Your head was covered with so much blood,” Tori said, “I thought you were dead.”