The small boy in front of her chewed on his lower lip and kicked his foot against the leg of the chair, tapping out a staccato beat. He blinked his eyes as his floppy brown hair tangled with his eyelashes.
Hannah’s fingers tingled with an urge to brush the sticky strands from his face, but his stiff posture screamed hands off.
Instead of initiating physical contact, Hannah smiled and held up a juice box with a straw poking out of the top. “Are you sure you don’t want something to drink, Sheldon?”
Sheldon’s tongue lodged in the corner of his mouth, as his eyes darted from Hannah’s face to the juice box. His restless leg stopped its assault on the chair leg for a second before resuming. He wanted the juice.
Hannah held it out toward him, within his reach. “Go ahead. Take it.”
He snatched the juice box from her hand, as if he feared she’d take it back. Then he shoved the miniature straw in his mouth and sucked so hard, the box collapsed.
Maybe the boy hadn’t responded to her earlier questions because he’d been dehydrated. Hannah pointed to the oversize bag at her feet. “Would you like another? I have lots more.”
He shook his head, and Hannah eked out a small sigh. Progress.
“When was the last time you saw your mommy, Sheldon?”
His eyes widened, and his face blanched, making his coffee colored freckles stand out on his nose and cheeks.
Hannah’s stomach lurched. Had Sheldon witnessed something unspeakable? “Did you have dinner with your mom...the last night you saw her?”
“Pizza.”
That meshed with the pizza box in the living room of Zoey’s mobile home. Sheldon remembered what he ate for dinner that night and probably had eaten with his mom, as the box was empty. As were the five beer bottles, so Zoey could’ve had company—or not. Polishing off five beers in an evening would be teetotalism for Zoey Grady.
Hannah swallowed her judgment. “I love pizza. What’s your favorite kind of pizza?”
Sheldon stuck the straw from the juice box back in his mouth and nibbled on the end of it with his front teeth, wrinkling his nose like a little rabbit.
Hannah went back to the direct questions. “Did your mom tuck you in for bedtime after dinner? Read you a story?”
Sheldon spit the straw out of his mouth. “Mommy’s dead.”
Tears pricked the back of Hannah’s eyes. “I know, sweetie.”
Sheldon curled his legs beneath him, slumped to the side of the chair and closed his eyes. She probably wouldn’t be able to get any more out of him today.
The soft knock on the door didn’t rouse Sheldon from his position but gave Hannah a start. Typically, nobody ever interrupted a session, but there was nothing typical about this session and she and Sheldon were in a room at the hospital, not her office where she had toys and games to entice even the most reticent little patient.
She said in a hushed tone, “I’m going to answer the door, Sheldon.”
The boy didn’t move one muscle, so Hannah pushed up from her chair and crossed the room. She cracked open the door, blocking Deputy Fletcher’s view of Sheldon. “Any news?”
“The social worker is here and wants to take custody of the boy, Dr. Maddox. His doc cleared him to be discharged. Nothing physically wrong with him, except he’s a little underweight.” Fletcher shrugged his own narrow shoulders.
Hannah had noticed Sheldon’s spindly legs and knobby knees, but many young children burned calories faster than their bodies had time to store them. She’d consult with Dr. Robbins to find out the extent of Sheldon’s malnourishment.
Fletcher shifted his stance to see around her body. “Did you get anything out of him?”
She put a finger to her lips and shuffled toward Fletcher, pushing him back a few steps into the antiseptic hallway. Sheldon might be nonresponsive, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t hear everything they said. “Not much. He did eat pizza with his mom that night, so she was alive for dinner. He knows she’s dead. Did the officer on the scene tell him? Do you know if he left the house at all?”
Holding out his hands, Fletcher said, “Whoa, whoa. You need to talk to Detective Howard Chu from Seattle PD Homicide.”
Hannah glanced over her shoulder at Sheldon, still curled into a ball, and then stepped toward Fletcher, pulling the door closed behind her. “Detective Chu wasn’t first on the scene, was he? The time it probably took him to get out to the island puts him farther behind than I am. If I’m going to help Sheldon, I need to know what happened out there.”
“Dr. Maddox?” The other officer who’d been at the crime scene approached her and Fletcher. “I’m Deputy Tony Hill.”
“Deputy Hill.” Hannah nodded. “Can you give me a little more background here? I didn’t get much before Sheldon was handed off to me.”
“I know. Sorry about that. Sheriff Hopkins asked me to call you as soon as Doc Robbins was done examining him today. Social services wasn’t ready for him yet, so I kind of dumped him on you.”
“He’s a child. You didn’t dump him on me, Hill.” Hannah pressed her lips into a thin line. Good thing she’d closed that door.
“Right, sorry.” The red-faced deputy jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Before the social worker takes him, the sheriff wanted me to brief you both at the same time.”
“Perfect.” She spun around to Fletcher, who was on his phone. “Can you sit with Sheldon?”
“Me?” Fletcher’s voice squeaked as he clapped his phone to his chest. “Is he sleeping? What am I supposed to do?”
Hannah leveled a finger at the phone clutched in his clawlike hand. “Why don’t you show him that game you were playing?”
Fletcher peeled the phone from his body and eyed it. “Really? You think he’d like that?”
“He’s a boy. If it’s a game where you blast things to smithereens, he’ll love it.” She patted his arm.
“Got it.” Fletcher took a deep breath and entered the room.
Hannah peered over the deputy’s shoulder at Sheldon, still curled up, but eyes wide open. She gave him a little wave before Fletcher closed the door.
“You think Fletcher will be okay in there with the boy?” She raised her eyebrows at Hill.
“Fletch?” He snorted. “He’s a kid himself.”
“Who’s the social worker?” she asked. She knew most of them and definitely had her preferences.
“It’s Ms. Jacobson. She’s in a room downstairs.” Hill gave her a sideways glance as she matched him stride for stride down the hallway. “Are you...um...Sheriff Maddox’s daughter?”
“I am.” She took in his smooth cheeks and bright eyes. “He was before your time.”
“He was, but he’s kind of a legend on Dead Falls Island—Mad Dog Maddox.”
“You have no idea.” Hannah clenched her jaw and folded her arms, hoping to bring an end to the subject of her father.
“Sheriff Hopkins says...” Hill trailed off and rolled his lips inward as if trying to trap the words in his mouth. He ended up mumbling, “Never mind.”
Deputy Hill didn’t have to continue. She had a pretty good idea what Hopkins had to say about her father, Hopkins’s predecessor. It’s nothing she didn’t already know, and half agree with.
Hill kept his mouth shut on the elevator ride down one floor, and as he led her to the office where Maggie Jacobson waited.
As they entered the room, Maggie glanced up from her phone, her face white. “Hey, Hannah. This is Zoey Grady’s son? She’s really dead?”
“I’m afraid so, Maggie.” Hannah crossed the room to shake the other woman’s hand as Maggie half rose from her chair. “Murdered. We don’t know yet if Sheldon saw anything, but he knows his mom is gone.”
Maggie cupped her face with one hand. “That’s terrible. And you? How are you holding up?”
Hill jerked his head toward Hannah, but she avoided his gaze.
“Awful situation, of course, but...you know. It’s been a while.”
“That’s true.” Maggie ran her hands over her gauzy skirt. “What can you tell us, Deputy Hill?”
“A dog walker discovered Zoey Grady’s body this morning, at about seven, outside her trailer at the mobile home park. Called 911. Looked like she’d been murdered elsewhere, probably inside her home, and dragged to that location. She was wearing pajamas, no ID, but I recognized her and knew she lived in one of the trailers on that property. Knew she had a kid, too. We went to her place and found the boy in bed.”
Maggie exchanged a look with Hannah. “Awake or asleep?”
“Eyes wide open.” Hill lifted one shoulder. “Didn’t say one word to me or Deputy Fletcher. I haven’t heard the kid speak yet.”
Hannah swallowed. “That could be a side effect of the trauma from his mother dying or the neglect he likely faced.”
“That’s possible?” Hill’s forehead creased.
Hannah closed her lips on a sigh. Her dad’s deputies would’ve been more knowledgeable than this—but these weren’t Sheriff Maddox’s deputies. Sheriff Maddox was dead.
Maggie barked, “It’s not uncommon.”
Hannah folded her hands in her lap, not wanting to pass any judgment on a dead woman.
Maggie had no such sensibilities. “Zoey Grady—mother of the year.”
She immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Hannah.”
“I told you.” Hannah waved a hand in the air. “Long time ago.”
Hill’s gaze darted between the two of them before continuing, “Anyway, once I called it in and Hopalong—I mean, Sheriff Hopkins—called me back, he told me to contact you, Dr. Maddox, once the kid was done here at the hospital.”
Hannah covered her smirk with her hand at the use of Sheriff Hopkins’s nickname. The man didn’t have a limp like the fictional cowboy, but when he got excited, he got a kick to his gait, which led to the nickname. He hated it.
“Cause of death?” Maggie looked hopeful, but Hill disappointed her.
“We’re not going public with that, ma’am.” He hunched forward. “But I did see blood at the scene.”
Hill couldn’t tell them much more, but Maggie took copious notes, anyway. When Hill finished, Maggie snapped her notebook shut. “We’ll secure Sheldon, Hannah. Settle him with one of our foster families, but we—and the cops, I assume—will want you to continue sessions with him.”
“Of course.” Hannah pushed up from her chair. “I’ll come along to introduce you to Sheldon and provide some continuity to the transition, so he doesn’t feel as if he’s being shuttled from one person to another.”
The transfer of Sheldon from one authority figure to another went well, in large part due to the efforts of Deputy Fletcher. The game on his phone had put Sheldon in much better spirits.
After Maggie took over and as the deputies gave Hannah a ride back to the station, Hannah made sure to compliment Fletcher on his connection with Sheldon, and even found out that the deputy’s first name was Niles.
She tapped on the window of the patrol vehicle, as it rolled into the parking lot of the station. “I left my car in the lot to the right.”
As the deputies swung around to pull next to her car, a tall man strode toward the station, brushing his longish, black hair from his face.
Hannah’s mouth dropped open as she drank in the sight of the man who still plagued her dreams. “What’s Jed Swain doing here?”
Hill threw the car into Park. “What do you think? Zoey Grady was murdered. You know the history. Swain is our prime suspect.”