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Riley detested hospitals. The synthetic brightness. The chemical odor that invaded every breath. The hushed conversations. Did the floor’s acrylic sheen make it easier to mop up blood?
She spotted Deputies Katko and McClure in the waiting room. She’d worked with both men on the Amanda Coffey case. A dozen young people stood in two-and three-person knots. Tear-streaked faces marked them as Rosie’s friends.
They shouldn’t be here. Rosie shouldn’t be here.
Riley caught Katko’s eye. He nodded toward a couple of vacant chairs.
“I’m going to speak with that officer,” she told Wolf. “Why don’t you chat with the students? See if they saw or heard something.”
She slunk into a pea-green chair beside Katko. The molded shell proved as uncomfortable as it was ugly.
The deputy didn’t wait for obvious questions. “She’s clinging to life. The docs give her fifty-fifty odds. Surgeons are still working on her. They treated a collapsed lung and removed a piece of her skull to relieve the pressure on her swollen brain.”
“Goddammit,” Riley interjected. “Any leads?”
Katko motioned toward a black man, sitting alone, his meaty hands massaging his head as he stared at the floor. “Truck driver’s a basket case. Couldn’t tell us much. But we found a waiter, who’d been sneaking a smoke when four or five punks dragged the girl into an alley. He didn’t see faces just orange caps. Heard one yell, ‘Gonna send you stinking wetbacks back to Taco-land.’”
“Good Lord. Is Onward involved?”
“Can’t prove it,” the deputy grumbled. “Not all of our local bigots are joiners. Could have been your run-of-the-mill white trash getting their jollies.”
“What about the orange caps? Are they part of some uniform?”
“Nah. I’ve seen dozens. Some right-wing conservative group shipped them to mom-and-pop stores as freebies. The gas station by the hospital has ’em sitting by the cash register with a ‘FREE, take one!’ sign.”
“Are these right-wingers tied to Onward?”
“Haven’t a clue. The caps have a ‘Take America Back’ logo. You’ll have to ask your FBI buddies about the group. Never heard of ’em before this.”
Riley fisted her hands. “No one got a good look at the attackers?”
“Nope. They scattered like cockroaches. Didn’t happen in the best section of Shelby. The girl was dropping clothes at a dry cleaner. Half the stores on that side street are boarded up. We’re damned lucky the waiter needed a tobacco fix.”
“Get any leads from the fiancé?”
Her mention of the fiancé earned her a how-do-you-know-about-him look before Katko shrugged. “The boyfriend’s number popped up on the girl’s cell phone. I questioned him. Felt like I’d just hung up when he barreled into the ER.”
“He didn’t stay?” Riley wanted a better handle on the boy’s frame of mind.
“No. He was pretty tore up. When he couldn’t see his girl, he took off. Said he couldn’t stand it.”
Riley longed to tell the deputy he’d unleashed a vigilante. But Wolf’s allegation that Onward had a pipeline into the sheriff’s office stopped her. She trusted Katko, but she didn’t know his buddies.
“Thanks for the update. Sheriff Hendricks is working the Onward threat with the FBI. Be sure to fill him in. My gut tells me Onward’s to blame. Keep me in the loop, will you? The trickle down doesn’t always reach us low-lying mushrooms.”
“Sure.” Katko stood. “Goes both ways. Call with any campus leads about boys making trouble for Rosie.”
Riley touched Katko’s arm. “Anything new on Amanda’s murder? I keep wondering how the killer got into her apartment.”
“That case haunts me, too. Whenever there’s time I go back over our lists. Classmates, professors, folks in her church choir, delivery boys. The killer’s in there somewhere.”
The deputy turned to leave, then spoke over his shoulder. “Docs say it’ll be at least twenty-four hours before we can question Ms. Perez—if she makes it.”
* * * *
Wolf didn’t know any of the students in the waiting room. His gaze fell on a black man, alone and clearly grief stricken.
The fellow stood to stretch. His name—Chuck—was sewn on the pocket of the regional trucking firm’s uniform. Even absent that clue, the man’s slumped shoulders and hanging head identified him as the driver of the truck that hit Rosie.
Wolf sat beside him. “Hey, man, I heard you did all you could for her.”
The trucker looked up as Wolf stuck out his hand. “Wolf Valdes. Rosie’s one of my students.”
“I swear to God I never saw the kid.” Chuck seemed eager to talk. “Never had a chance to put on the brakes. When I got out . . . oh, God, her body was all broke.”
“But you called 911 right away.”
“It seemed to take forever, though the cops say it was only minutes.”
“Did Rosie say anything?”
“No.” Chuck looked at the floor. “She couldn’t.”
“What about the men? See any of their faces?”
“Nah, man. Wish I had. The bastards ran when I got out of the truck. All I saw was a flash of orange and their backs as they took off. They were young. I could tell from how they ran. Wore jeans and T-shirts. But I saw their arms . . . they was white.”
Wolf wondered if there was anything else he could ask. “Did they yell anything, maybe call to one another as they hightailed it out of there?”
Chuck’s forehead creased. “Now that you mention it, one yelled something. I’m not sure but it might have been Smith or Smitty.”
Wolf spotted Riley walking his way. He stood and patted Chuck’s arm. “Take it easy, man.”
He fell into step beside her. “Learn anything?”
“Rosie’s odds are fifty-fifty, and there’s no proof Onward’s involved. A waiter heard the boys taunting her, calling her a stinking wetback.”
“Damn,” Wolf growled.
“How about you? Pick up any tidbits?”
“The trucker only saw the backs of Rosie’s attackers. But he says they were young and white. All wore orange ball caps.”
“Okay. Let’s get back to campus.”
He touched her sleeve. “Don’t you want to see Ellen first?”