Dalton never says he’s going to follow my advice and devise a solid backup plan. But we do spend the next hour hashing it over, so I know he’ll give it serious consideration.
He also never says anything about extending my six-month stay in Rockton. Was I hinting there? Yes, I was. I hate feeling that if I don’t find a killer, I’ll get my ass booted out before spring thaw. It also makes me feel like Dalton still doesn’t consider me more than a casual acquaintance, someone whose company he enjoys well enough, but if she disappeared tomorrow he wouldn’t miss her all that much. No insult intended, Butler. That’s just how it is.
I don’t dwell on that. There’s plenty more to occupy my mind, starting as soon as we get back to town and see Kenny running for my house. He catches sight of us and jogs over, panting. “Casey? We need you at Diana’s place. Now.”
I take off at a run. Dalton is at my side. He twists to talk to Kenny, only to see the man running five paces behind. An angry wave lights a fire under Kenny, and he catches up.
“Is she okay?” I ask Kenny. “Did something happen?”
“Diana woke up. Now she’s freaking out. I sent Paul for the doc, and then I had to call two guys in to restrain her, and she clocked one of them and…”
I don’t hear the rest. I kick it into high gear, leaving Kenny and Dalton behind.
* * *
As I climb the stairs to Diana’s apartment, Jen blocks my path with “You’d better shut her up. Or I will.” I refrain from hitting her. I may push her aside. She may stagger down a couple of steps. But any injuries sustained are due to Dalton’s “get out of my fucking way,” which startles her enough that she tumbles down the rest of the stairs. He steps over her. I’m already running into Diana’s apartment, where she’s struggling against two of the militia, shouting, “I want Casey! Where’s Casey?”
As soon as she sees me, she stops. Then she launches from the bed and into my arms, sobbing, “What’s going on? I wake up and my shirt’s soaked in blood and all I can smell is smoke and they drugged me, Casey. Someone drugged me, and when I woke up and tried to ask for you, they threw me on the bed—”
“We restrained her, Casey,” one of the guys says. “I swear, that’s all we did, and only because she was going to hurt herself.”
I’m not sure Diana even hears him. She’s sobbing against my shirt. Dalton tells the guys to leave, and they do. He takes a seat across the bedroom.
“Wh-What’s going on?” Diana says after a minute.
I guide her back to bed. As I do, she sees Dalton.
“Why’s he here?” she says.
“There’s been a crime,” I say. “The fire you can smell. I have to talk to you about what you remember, and he needs to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your friend, and if I speak to you in an official capacity, there should be a witness.”
“Then ask Will.”
“Eric is my boss. Just talk to me. What do you remember?”
“Nothing. Not a fire. Not this blood. Not why someone pumped me full of—”
“What do you remember? The last thing?”
It takes her a couple of minutes. I wait as patiently as I can.
“I … I went out … No, that was…”
“Let’s go back farther. Dinner.”
She smiles in relief. “That’s easy. I had dinner with you, here.”
I prod: “And I left at eight.…”
Just after I left, Diana decided to go out and had an encounter with Jen.
“I swear, she lies in wait just to give me crap,” Diana says. “Once, she actually complained that I brush my teeth too loudly. I really need to get another place, or I’ll be taking a stall in the stables just to get away from her.”
She smiles, and all I can do is pray she’s innocent … or she’ll be sleeping someplace worse than a stable stall.
After escaping Jen, Diana hung out with a few others, playing cards. At eleven, she headed home.
“And … that’s it. That’s all I remember.” She tugs at her earring as she thinks. “No, wait—I heard something. I was walking along the road near the forest, and … That is the last thing I remember. Someone must have come up behind me and knocked me out.”
Beth appears at the door. I go outside with her where Diana can’t overhear.
“Diana thinks she was knocked unconscious,” I say. “Were there any signs of that?”
She frames her response with care. “Knocking someone out isn’t as easy as it seems in movies. There would be evidence on the skull.”
“And there’s not. Also, Kenny saw her walking into the shed.”
She nods. “Which lends credence to another explanation for why she can’t remember anything. One … better supported by my examination.”
“Which is?”
She pops her head back into the room and says, “I’m going to speak to Casey outside.”
“No,” Diana says. “If this is about me, say it here.”
We walk back into the bedroom, and Beth says, “Diana was heavily under the influence of rydex. The dosage—”
“What?” Diana swings her legs out of bed. “No, I’ve never—”
Dalton clears his throat. She looks over at him, and hate blazes from her eyes. “I explained that.” She turns to me. “I was at a party the night before last. I got drunk, and someone gave me dex. I was walking home afterward, and your sheriff waylaid me.”
“I heard a woman stumbling around at three in the morning,” Dalton says. “I wouldn’t be a very good sheriff if I ignored that. I helped her home and—”
“You dragged me home,” she squawks. “Chewing me out the whole way. Telling me how I was making things tough for Casey—poor Casey—and you weren’t going to tell her about the dex because she ‘doesn’t need that shit,’ and this was my second strike, if you ever caught me using again, you’d…” She trails off and swallows.
“I said I’d give her a week on shit duty,” Dalton says.
“Was there rydex at the get-together last night?” I ask.
“No, there—” She catches my look and glances toward Dalton.
“Getting your friends in trouble is the least of your concerns right now, Diana,” he says. “Mick’s dead.”
“What?”
“Mick is dead. You were found ten feet from his body. In a burning woodshed. With a bloody knife in your hand and an empty gas can beside you.”
Diana reels back onto the bed, saying, “No, that can’t be—Casey, tell him—that’s not—” As she spins on me, the horror in her eyes hardens to anger. “Someone’s framing me. The killer knocked me out—”
“There’s no evidence of that,” Dalton says.
“According to who? A doctor who was sued for malpractice and is arrogant enough to admit it?”
“Diana!” I say.
“If you got knocked out, there’d be a lump,” Dalton says. “Show me that, and we’ll have a very different conversation.”
She rubs her hands over her head, scowling at him, and saying, “It must be here. And if it’s not, then it was knockout gas or … or I was roofied at the party.”
“Roofied?” Dalton says.
“Rohypnol,” Beth says. “It’s a sedative that can induce anterograde amnesia. But I don’t have it in the pharmacy, and there was no evidence of anything except rydex in her bloodstream.”
“Then it’s the drugs,” Diana says.
“Rydex doesn’t render you unconscious,” Beth says. “But it can cause blackouts and memory loss. Which doesn’t mean that you aren’t responsible for your actions. Only that you honestly don’t remember—”
Diana flies at her, catching us all off guard. I recover first, just as she grabs Beth, and I pull her away.
“Did you hear her?” Diana says. “Telling me I might have killed Mick and forgotten it. She’s a cold, sanctimonious bitch. I didn’t kill anyone. You know that, Casey.” Before I can open my mouth, she spins to me. “I did not kill—”
“I never said you did, Di. You need to let me investigate, and for that, I must be as dispassionate as possible.”
“God, no wonder you two get along so well. You’re like robots. I’m accused of murder and—”
“Stop.” That’s Dalton. He gets to his feet.
“You stay out—”
“No, you shut your damn mouth, Diana. Because if you’re accusing Casey of not caring about you, I’ll ask you to remember why she’s here in Rockton.”
“You asshole—”
“Diana,” I say. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? I’m accused of murder, Casey. Murder. I’m not going to be framed by some fucked-up psycho sheriff. Ouch!” She jumps and turns to see Beth there, holding a syringe. A drop of blood soaks through the sleeve of Diana’s shirt.
“You bitch!” she says.
“You’re overwrought,” Beth says. “A result of the lingering rydex, I suspect. You should get some sleep.”
Diana makes a move to go after her, but it must have been a hefty dose; she’s already weaving. I help her back into bed, and she seems to have forgotten what she was doing and lets me. As I pull up the sheets, she clasps my hand and slurs, “I didn’t kill Mick, Casey. I swear I didn’t.” Then she drops off to sleep.
* * *
We get a full update from Beth back at the clinic. She hasn’t had time to autopsy Mick, but the manner of his death seems clear. Six stab wounds to the back, most of them shallow but a few shoved in with enough force to do the fatal damage. She’ll run a tox screen. His eyes and mouth odor, though, suggest he hadn’t been drinking or using last night. She suspects he was attacked from behind, possibly as he was sleeping. By the time he woke up, his attacker would have done enough damage that he’d have been unable to escape or adequately defend himself.
Stabs to the back. Attacked while asleep. Any theory that Diana acted in self-defense is disintegrating fast.
“Sleeping in the shed would suggest sex in the shed,” I say. “Were there signs of that?”
She nods. “Signs of protected sex—seminal fluid but not vaginal. I’ll be examining Diana to see if there are signs with her. Presuming Mick used a condom, it’ll be tougher to tell. I’ll mainly be looking for any suggestion of nonconsensual sex, as Eric asked.”
I glance at Dalton, but he’s busy across the room on his radio. Rape is one possible reason why Diana might have attacked Mick in his sleep. Dalton is giving her the benefit of the doubt. Which is more than she’s ever given him.
Beth talks a bit more about her findings. Mick’s clothing had definitely been soaked in kerosene, as our noses told us. There are no signs of restraint. He’d almost certainly been dead from his wounds before he was placed by that woodpile. His body and clothing did show signs he’d been dragged. Probably not far, but with the fire, we’d have no way to confirm that.
“In other words, there’s nothing to suggest that a woman Diana’s size couldn’t have committed this crime,” I say.
“No. Also…” She looks toward Dalton, who’s still talking to Anders.
“Go on,” I say.
“There are cuts on Diana’s fingers.”
“Defensive wounds?”
“No. They’re on the side of her palms.”
She doesn’t elaborate. She doesn’t have to.
“Consistent with her pushing in a knife and having her hand slip and nick the blade.”
“Yes. I’m sorry, Casey. I wish I could give you something to suggest she was framed.”
“But you can’t.”
She shakes her head.