“You’re back,” Lyle said. “That was quick.”
Russ stepped fully into the squad room. “Have you heard from Knox yet?”
“I have. She got two separate IDs from people who remembered Saunderson and Langevoort at the fair. They bought tickets and won a prize at the shooting game.”
“Both of ’em, huh? I guess that wouldn’t preclude Saunderson from picking up a girl later.” He laid his find on Lyle’s desk. His deputy picked up the evidence baggie, read the slip of paper inside, and whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
It was a charge slip from the Water View. Bors Saunderson’s name, with his signature over it, was imprinted from his card. On the top, the ticket was printed with the date, the station, and the waitress. Lyle looked up.
“There isn’t another Gabrielle waiting tables, is there?”
Russ shook his head. “No. It was her. Serving Saunderson dinner.”
Lyle squinted at the total. “Not just him. Unless that place is even more expensive than I thought.”
“It’s pretty pricey, but no. The manager who pulled this for me confirmed that was an average price for dinner and drinks for two people.”
“How did you get this?”
Russ grinned. “The manager’s old-fashioned. He keeps all the paper copies until the bookkeeper comes in at the end of the month. Once she reconciles everything, they get shredded.”
Lyle glanced at the calendar. “You are the luckiest sonofabitch to walk this planet.”
“Don’t I know it. Get on it; I want that warrant request to Judge Ryswick ASAP.”
Russ had the paper in hand an hour and a half later. He met up with Dr. Scheeler in the lobby of the Washington County Hospital. “What’s the news?” Russ asked, shaking Scheeler’s hand.
“Nothing from the state labs yet.” They walked toward the elevators. “Your man is in the ICU. They want to send him to Albany, but he’s not stable enough to make the trip.”
“What are his chances of recovery?”
Scheeler pinched his thumb and forefinger together. “Slim. The trauma to the larynx creates major pulmonary and respiratory problems.”
Russ stabbed the UP button. “But we got to him almost immediately.”
“The bulk of the damage is done in the first impact to the throat. That’s why it was the preferred method of execution for so many centuries. It was quick enough to be considered humane.” They stepped into the elevator.
“Anyone here with him?”
“Your wife was coming in when I arrived.” Scheeler selected the floor.
“Anybody not professionally charged with visiting the sick?”
“His boss has been here the whole time, the nurses said. I guess there’s family coming from the Midwest somewhere, but they haven’t made it yet.”
“Good. The last thing I need is to explain to a bunch of grieving relations why we’re swabbing their son or brother’s DNA.”
The charge nurse at the ICU station took a look at the warrant. “I need to get a doctor here to okay this.”
“We just need a cheek swab,” Russ said, as Scheeler said, “I am a doctor.” The nurse shook his head and paged the ICU internist. A white coat showed up within ten seconds and signed off on the orders record.
Russ waited by the central station as Scheeler and the nurse went into Saunderson’s room. Clare came out, followed by Langevoort; they both spotted Russ at the same time.
“Chief Van Alstyne.” Kent Langevoort looked twenty years older than he had the night before. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking in.” Clare narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say anything. “How is he?”
“Not great. Although they’re very hopeful.”
“Mmm.” Russ glanced around the antiseptic hallway. “Have you had a chance to get out?”
Langevoort shook his head. “I feel like I ought to stay with him until his parents get here.”
“I understand. It sounds like you two are pretty close.”
“I guess so. We weren’t drinking buddies, but Bors has been working for me for almost a decade. And of course, we’ve spent a lot of time together in the run-up to naming him as my replacement.”
“We’re trying to get a sense of why Mr. Saunderson tried to kill himself. Do you have any ideas?”
Langevoort shook his head. “None. It seems … ridiculous, in a word. I was handing him the world on a silver platter.”
“There are a lot of stresses to the position, though.” Clare’s voice was thoughtful.
“He could have just turned it down. I didn’t hold a gun to his head.” Langevoort scrubbed his face with his hand. “Sorry. That’s not very appropriate, under the circumstances.”
Scheeler and the nurse reemerged from the room. Scheeler crossed the hall, sample bag in hand. “I’m going to see if I can get a look at his tox screen for you.”
“Thanks,” Russ said. “Call me when you know anything.” The medical examiner vanished around the corner, headed toward the elevator bank. “Mr. Langevoort, did you know anything about Bors’s personal life?”
“He was straight. He dated some. He hasn’t had a long-term relationship that I know of since he joined the firm. He’s not very close to his family, but I think that’s because they’re blue-collar people back in Minnesota, not because of any falling-out.” Langevoort rubbed his face again. “I was actually telling him he ought to find a wife not long ago.” He looked at Russ, then at Clare. “You need to have somebody in your corner. Somebody to remind you your life is more than the job.”
Clare smiled a little. “Somebody to get you to take your kid hunting and skiing?”
“Yes.”
Hunting. Well, that would explain the shooting range at the fair. “You and Bors came up from the city last weekend?”
“Friday afternoon, yes. Audrey and, and, Joni were gone that weekend, so it gave us some quiet time to work.”
“And the two of you came up on some earlier weekends this summer?”
“Sure. I had all the candidates for the job up around the Fourth of July. I narrowed it down to Bors and two others, and had each of them up for a one-on-one weekend.”
Russ stepped aside for a phlebotomist pushing a cart full of rubber-stoppered vials. “Did they know about each other? The candidates, I mean.”
“Obviously, everyone at the Fourth of July house party knew what they were there for. I tried to keep the later trips very hush-hush. I came up here almost every weekend, and I asked my individual guests to simply let people know they were going to be away. I wanted to keep an information blackout until I’d made my choice.”
“And he’d accepted,” Clare said.
“Well, yes, of course.” Langevoort frowned. “Maybe I’m not following you because I’m so damn tired, but what possible connection does any of this have with Bors trying to kill himself?”
Russ spread his hands. “I don’t know. I’m trying to get a picture of the man to see if any of this makes sense. Did the two of you go to the fair this past weekend?”
“What?”
“The Washington County Fair. Did you go there?”
“Yes. Sure. I go every year. Last weekend was the only time I was going to have, so I took Bors.”
“Did he meet anybody while he was there?”
Langevoort stepped back. “All right, now you’ve really lost me.”
“Let me put it this way. You went to the fair together. One car or two?”
“One car, of course.”
“Did you leave the fair together?”
“Yes.” Langevoort sounded impatient.
“While at the fair, did Mr. Saunderson meet anyone, chat with anyone, or go off with anyone?”
“No. Not to my knowledge. We weren’t joined at the hip, but we stuck fairly close together.” Langevoort raised a hand. “That’s all for me right now. I’m going to go back in and sit with Bors. Reverend Fergusson?”
“I’ll be in in just a moment.” She watched him disappear into the ICU room. The she turned on Russ. “What’s this all about? And why was the medical examiner taking a DNA sample?”
“How did you—”
“I can recognize a cheek swab, Russ. What’s going on? Poor Kent feels badly enough already.”
Russ dropped his voice. “Gabrielle Yates was Saunderson’s waitress a couple weekends ago. And they were both at the fair the same day.” She gave him a look. “I know it’s a stretch.”
“I’ve got one word for you. Why?”
“Think of what you said last night in the car. Maybe he was involved in financial hanky-panky at Barkley and Eaton. He knows he’s in the running for president, he knows there are other guys being considered—unless you believe no one talked about their weekends in the Adirondacks with the boss?”
Clare shook her head. “I think Kent was underestimating the power of gossip.”
“Me, too. So he gets up here and Kent offers him the job.”
“And he feels trapped into saying yes.”
“You thought about that, too?”
She nodded. “But that’s an argument for his feeling overwhelmed and trying to find a way out. Not for killing a girl he’s met maybe once.”
“Maybe she said something and he snapped.” He moved his hands through the air, trying to shove pieces into place. “I’ve got a man who tried to kill himself on what should have been one of the best nights of his life. I’ve got a woman dead for no discernable reason, from no identifiable cause. I know they met at least once, and they could have met twice.”
Clare took his hands in hers. “I understand what you’re trying to do. Now I want to ask you a question. What happens if there is no connection? What happens if you can’t close this case, just like Jack Liddle couldn’t close his case?”
“Or how Harry McNeil failed to close his case?” The manic energy that had been driving Russ all morning dropped away. He let his shoulders sag. “I don’t know. Any time murder goes unpunished, it’s a loss. For the victim, if for no one else. Right now…” He squeezed her hands. “There’s just so goddamn much at stake.”
“You’re afraid this could make or break the vote to dissolve the department.”
He nodded.
Clare released his hands and reached up to cup his jaw. “You need to keep that in your mind, love. Don’t let that fear drive you to put an innocent person behind bars.”
He snorted. “I doubt Saunderson is going to make it long enough to do any time.”
She stepped back. “I wonder if your subconscious realized that, just before it decided he would make the perfect suspect?”
She left him in the ICU hall, wondering as she had so many times over the years, if he really knew himself at all.