Fate of the Fallen Read online

  Trish sat back in the booth, wrapping her arms around herself. She had goose bumps. “I can’t imagine feeling that hopeless. Even on my worst day, I never . . . Didn’t he have someone he cared about? Something to live for?”

  “I don’t know.” Cooper poured herself some coffee from the carafe. “Actually, I’m jumping to conclusions assuming it was suicide.”

  “Is there a chance it wasn’t?” Bryant asked.

  “While Inspector McNamara was talking to Christine, he made a comment about the ground around Sinclair’s body. He thought the footprints looked like there might have been a struggle there.”

  “A lot of people were at the park. Maybe the footprints were from earlier in the day.”

  “Maybe. And then there’s the fact that the police are talking to everyone at the park.”

  Jake pushed his coffee cup away. He’d already drained it. “The announcer said that was just standard procedure.”

  “Sounds like way too much work to be standard procedure,” Cooper replied. “For a suicide, at least.”

  “True,” Trish agreed. “They’d only need to interview everyone if they thought it was a homicide.”

  Savannah sat back, her arm linked through Jake’s. “Poor Christine. I can’t imagine what she’s going through. If there’s any way we can help her, we should. Maybe we can bring her a few meals.”

  Cooper stopped and stared into her decaf, her thoughts on Christine. Poor Christine. She’d forever be haunted by the image of Sinclair’s corpse, an image that was also burned in vivid detail into Cooper’s mind. But unlike Cooper, Christine had a connection with Sinclair. Her nightmare would be mixed with grief. Her memory would be full of pain. Moreover, Christine, being connected to Sinclair and having found the body, would be deeply involved in any kind of homicide investigation. How much of a nightmare would she have to endure before this was over? “What if it is a homicide?” she finally asked.

  Bryant, watching Cooper’s face, replied. “McNamara’s a homicide investigator. He’s always got murder on the mind. I’m sure he really is just following protocol before closing the case and declaring the death a suicide.”

  “Bryant’s right,” Trish agreed. “Nathan’s sister will be just fine. There’s no reason to expect the bad situation to get worse.”

  The waitress brought their food, and for a few minutes there was silence as they ate. Finally, Quinton spoke. “If you feel like it, do you mind telling us the whole story from the top? Everything you know, that is . . .”

  With one more bite of food to bolster her strength, Cooper told them all that had happened, from the moment she and Nathan heard the first stick breaking on the path until she met them on the lawn afterward. She described Christine’s state and Pete, the friendly security guard. Closing her eyes to see the scene clearly, she recounted the details of Sinclair’s body and the gun in his hand, and she made sure to tell them what a good brother Nathan was to Christine. While she spoke, the group listened quietly, paying far more attention to her than to their food.

  When she’d finished, their pensive silence continued. “I know what happened at the park was horrible,” she continued. “Regardless of how Sinclair died, he’s dead, and that’s really sad. But to be honest, part of what upsets me is that this was supposed to be a perfect day. Does that make me a selfish person?”

  Savannah smiled. “It makes you a very normal person.”

  Trish stole a fry from Cooper’s plate. “Until the police came, it really was a perfect day, I’d say. A beautiful hike.”

  “In beautiful weather,” Bryant remarked with a smile. “As predicted.”

  “I, for one, enjoyed hearing everyone’s favorite Bible passages,” Savannah said. “And I did love meeting so many artists.”

  Jake nodded in agreement. “I can’t remember the last time I just sat by the lake and relaxed.”

  “And the food,” Cooper said with a little sigh. “I could eat deep-fried bacon until I explode.”

  Quinton chuckled. “It probably wouldn’t take much deep-fried bacon to make a person explode.”

  They all laughed, and then fell silent once again. Cooper looked from face to face, thankful for such good friends—people she could celebrate with and mourn with. People who could cheer her up when she was down. People who truly cared.

  Comment by comment and laugh by laugh, the grim evening faded into the background. When they ran out of appetizers, they ordered more, talking and eating late into the night. Jake told them about his recent problem client, who needed his shower plumbing fixed. Bryant told stories about his babysitting adventure with his girlfriend’s daughters. Savannah shared the inspiration for her latest piece of folk art.

  It was almost midnight when they finally split the check and left the restaurant, pulling their coats closer against the cool night air. As Cooper headed for her truck, waiting for the others to decide who would ride with whom, she noticed that something was wrong. Unable to put her finger on whatever it was, something told her to be wary.

  Slowly, she approached the cherry red truck, heeding the little voice inside. The parking lot was unnaturally quiet, the night more dark than it should have been. Cooper looked up and saw the streetlight over her truck had been smashed. Broken glass littered the ground by the passenger side of her truck, but it was too much glass. It couldn’t have come from the streetlight alone.

  A few more steps and Cooper could finally see what was wrong. The front passenger window of her truck was shattered.

  Under her breath she muttered, “What the . . .”

  “Over here!” Jake shouted, and Cooper turned to see him dart out, away from the restaurant. She jogged after him, careening around the edge of a parked sedan. Jake was running toward a lump in the middle of the parking lot.

  Cooper stepped cautiously toward the lump, afraid of what it might be. Her heart pounded. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A smashed window and a mysterious, still lump in the parking lot? Fear rose from the pit of her stomach. Nothing good could come of this. Nothing good at all.

  What was Jake looking at?

  Cooper’s eyes adjusted to the light from the streetlamp as she watched Jake kneel down and put his face closer to the thing. Only she could see now that it wasn’t a thing.

  It was a person. A man.

  5

  Everything was a blur. Jake and Quinton knelt beside the man as Trish called for an ambulance. Savannah bowed her head in prayer. Bryant ran back into the restaurant. Cooper stood there, dazed.

  “He’s alive,” Jake announced, his fingers pressed against the man’s inner wrist.

  Quinton put his face over the stranger’s. “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

  There was no response. The man remained still, silent, his breathing shallow but steady. A little blood pooled around his middle, although Cooper couldn’t see a wound. She looked in both directions, trying to determine what had happened. “Looks like he might have been hit by a car.”

  Bryant emerged from the restaurant as Savannah closed her prayer with a quiet “Amen.” “There’s nobody in there that can help,” he said. “No cops. No doctors. They called 911, though.”

  “So did Trish.”

  On cue, Trish clicked her phone off. “Ambulance is on the way. Did you guys see anything? Any suspicious cars or people?”

  “I didn’t see anybody,” Cooper replied. “But the passenger window of my truck is broken.”

  Bryant took a few steps closer to the truck, peering into the bed. “Is anything missing?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Before I could look I heard Jake yell, and I ran over here.”

  “Maybe you should take a look before the ambulance gets here. It might be connected to this guy somehow.”

  Cooper looked at the poor man lying on the asphalt. Maybe he knew something about who broke into her truck. Or maybe he was the one who’d done it. Noting his condition, though, she doubted it. As a siren’s wail pierced the night, signaling the oncom
ing ambulance, Cooper jogged over to the truck and peered inside.

  Her eyes went immediately to the empty seat. Daddy’s camera was gone. She wanted to kick herself. She knew better than to leave a camera out on the seat where anyone could see it. She should have put it on the floor, tucked under the dash where it would have been hidden. She should have laid something over it so no one could tell it was there.

  Any concern she felt over the camera was short-lived, however, as she left the truck behind to follow the ambulance pulling into the parking lot. Earl would agree that the camera didn’t matter right now.

  She stayed out of the way as the paramedics hurried to the fallen man. Jake and Quinton stepped aside, joining the rest of the Bible study group in a little huddle under the streetlamp.

  One of the paramedics turned to the group. “Do you know his name?”

  Jake shook his head. “He was just lying there when we came out of the restaurant. Never seen him before.”

  “How long ago did you find him?”

  “Maybe . . . ten minutes.” Jake turned to Quinton. “Would you say so?”

  “Sounds about right,” Quinton agreed.

  “And do you have any idea when he was injured?”

  “Like I said, we were in the restaurant,” Jake replied.

  Savannah expounded. “We were visiting for several hours. We really don’t know anything about what happened.”

  The paramedic turned back to his partner, who rattled off vital signs. Then, as they hefted the man onto a gurney, a squad car pulled in behind the ambulance and a portly policeman with a sour expression joined them. He spoke quietly with the paramedics before addressing the rest of them.

  “I’m Officer Ghent,” he said. He looked each of them in the eye, as if expecting them to burn his name into memory. “What can you tell me?”

  Jake repeated what they’d told the paramedic.

  Ghent made a few notes, and then arched a brow at what he’d written. “That’s not much.”

  “It’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid,” Trish replied. “Wish we knew more.”

  “Well, what about Cooper’s window?” Bryant asked.

  Cooper shook her head. “It’s not as important as a man’s life.”

  “But maybe it’s connected.”

  As the paramedics raised the gurney, the fallen man’s hand opened, and a black disk fell out of his grasp to the ground. Officer Ghent bent to pick it up. “What’s this?”

  He held it up under the light of the streetlamp, and Cooper recognized it immediately. “That’s a lens cap.” She turned to Trish. “My daddy’s camera’s missing.”

  Officer Ghent made another note. “Does this lens cap go to the missing camera?”

  “It might,” Cooper said. “I can’t be sure.”

  “Well, maybe your friend’s right. Maybe this drifter’s connected to the missing camera. Wouldn’t be the first time a desperate man turned to crime.”

  Cooper looked over at the man as the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance. Only after the officer’s comment did she notice the man’s state. His beard was tangled and dirty, and his hair was long and unkempt. Both were a shade of deep brown, save for a few streaks of gray. His skin was well tanned and dirty.

  “The camera’s a little big for him to hide in his clothes,” she said.

  “Well, maybe he didn’t take it.” Officer Ghent flipped the lens cap like a quarter. “But maybe he saw who did. You’ll need to come with me. We’ll get a unit out here to process the truck and have it towed.” He returned to his squad car and pulled out the radio. He was too far away for Cooper to hear what he said, but his eyes were on the ambulance the whole time.

  Savannah’s words from this morning echoed in her mind. It’s bound to be a perfect day. Cooper had agreed with her.

  How wrong they both had been.

  • • •

  It was almost two in the morning when Cooper finally dragged herself from Officer Ghent’s desk to the station lobby. Her eyes fell on her daddy, who sat in one of the plastic-covered chairs, absentmindedly flipping through a magazine.

  Earl greeted her with a hug.

  She took a deep breath, enjoying the smell of aftershave, cleanser, and fabric softener that was uniquely his. She felt safe. “How long have you been here?”

  “I came right after you called.”

  “That was more than two hours ago.”

  “Was it really?” Earl’s expression was entirely sincere. “I didn’t notice. I guess I was just too wrapped up in this home and garden magazine.”

  Cooper smiled. She could always count on him. “I doubt that. Thanks for coming, Daddy.”

  He planted a kiss on her forehead. “You couldn’t keep me away, Coop.”

  “I know it’s late.” She stepped away and sat, rubbing her eyes. “I would’ve called Nathan, but he was here with Christine until . . . well, I don’t know how late, and he’s probably still taking care of her. I didn’t want to put him in a hard place, you know. Trying to choose between taking care of me and taking care of his sister.”

  “I bet he’d pick you.”

  Earl was a man who put loyalty to his family—his wife, in particular—above all else. “I’m sure he would,” Cooper agreed. “But I didn’t want him to leave Christine by herself. She’s had a harder day than I have. I’m just glad it’s over.”

  “Does that mean you’re free to go?”

  “Daddy, I’m giddy to go.”

  • • •

  Cooper opened her eyes and looked around. She was in her bed, in her room, in the little apartment over her parents’ garage. As hard as she tried, though, she couldn’t recall how she got here. She remembered the police station, her daddy in the waiting room, the car, and then . . . nothing. She’d either walked up from the car half asleep or Earl had half carried her.

  She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow, caring less about how she got here and more about resting. She would have stayed that way for another hour were it not for the quiet purring of her cats—Moses and Miriam—telling her they wanted some attention. They nuzzled at her neck and pawed at her hands, begging her in their own way to rise and shine. Slowly, Cooper pulled herself up, stretching her arms up over her head with a long yawn. Then she looked over at her clock. It was almost noon.

  Noon. Sunday. Church! She’d missed church!

  She hopped out of bed, grabbed her bag off of her desk chair and dug through it until she found her phone. Four missed calls—Nathan, Savannah, Trish, and Nathan again. She dialed Nathan first.

  He answered after the first ring. “Hey, Coop. You all right?”

  “I overslept. I hope you weren’t worried.”

  He replied with a tired laugh. He sounded as exhausted as she still felt. “After everything that happened yesterday, how could I not be worried, Cooper? As long as you’re okay . . .”

  “I take it you know about last night.”

  “Everybody filled me in this morning.”

  “How’s Christine?”

  There was a pause. “McNamara wants to talk to her and her coworkers tomorrow. Over the next week or so his officers are gonna interview everyone who was at the festival.”

  “That seems like a lot of work for what looked like a suicide.”

  “That’s what I thought. The inspector sounded like he wasn’t entirely convinced it was suicide.”

  Cooper hesitated, unsure how to respond to that piece of information. Nathan was confirming her suspicions. But she was just too tired to think. “I wish I could help her somehow.”

  “You’ve helped already. You were there with her when McNamara came. You helped me keep her calm. You’re like a sister to her. I hope you know that.”

  That brought a smile to Cooper’s face. “The feeling is mutual.”

  “Hold on a sec . . .” Nathan’s voice became muffled, as if he were holding his hand over his phone. His voice was interrupted by others, and finally he spoke to her again. “Trish and Savannah are he
re. They’re headed over to the hospital this afternoon. They’re visiting the guy you all found last night, and they want to know if you’d like to meet them there.”

  “I’d love to! What time?”

  • • •

  Cooper sat in the hospital lobby, and as she watched a mother and new baby being rolled through in a wheelchair, Trish and Savannah arrived.

  Trish greeted her with a hug. “How was your late night?”

  “Let’s just say that yesterday was a very long day,” Cooper replied. “Sorry I missed Bible study this morning.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Savannah replied. “We were just glad you got some rest. And I’m glad you could meet us here.”

  “Thanks for thinking of it. Do you know what room he’s in?”

  Savannah shook her head. “We’ll have to ask.”

  They went together to the information desk, Savannah leading them, her cane sweeping the ground before her.

  The woman at the information desk looked up with a tight smile when Cooper, Trish and Savannah approached.

  “How can I help you?” Her tone was coldly professional.

  Savannah smiled warmly. “We’re here to see a friend. Can you tell us what room he’s in?”

  “Certainly.” The woman’s fingers went to her keyboard. “What’s his name?”

  Without skipping a beat, Trish chimed in. “We don’t know his name.”

  The woman arched a brow suspiciously. “Thought you said he’s your friend.”

  “I use the term ‘friend’ very liberally,” Savannah explained, her smile unwavering. “We found the gentleman, you see, and we’d like to know how he’s doing.”

  “What do you mean you found him?”

  “He was injured outside a restaurant. I believe he’s homeless and probably doesn’t have anyone to check in on him, and when he left in the ambulance, he was still unconscious. We didn’t have any way to get his name.”

  The woman placed her fingers on the keyboard and tapped her thumb on the space bar lightly in thought. “Normally we only allow family members to visit.”