Chapter Twenty

Helen’s hospital room was so small Nando felt like he was in danger of kicking over her water pitcher every time he moved his feet. It was his second tour of duty as her bodyguard and he still wasn’t used to the room.

He’d expected Helen to look shrunken and vulnerable, like his grandmother had when she’d gone to the hospital the last time. But Helen mainly reminded him of one of those effigies on the top of warriors’ tombs. Give her a broadsword and she’d be set to take out an enemy battalion single-handed as soon as she woke up.

He tried to settle himself into the singularly uncomfortable visitor’s chair. No wonder Delaney had looked so miserable when he’d relieved him first thing this morning. The kid had been sitting in the chair for a large part of his night shift, after Toleffson had sent him over. He’d probably lost all feeling in his butt by the time Nando got there.

Nando had smuggled in a cup of Deirdre’s coffee and a blueberry muffin that he’d grabbed in the middle of the breakfast rush. It was still early, and he needed that shot of caffeine. He wasn’t going to take the chance that Helen might wake up and find him drowsing.

Not that there was much possibility he could sleep in that chair. Maybe that was the point—use the chair torture device to keep visitors from staying too long and exhausting the patient. He slumped down far enough to rest on his shoulders, then opened his paperback, setting his coffee cup on the bedside table. Maybe Kathy Reichs could keep him entertained until Toleffson showed up at noon to relieve him.

An hour later he’d finished the coffee and was still fighting off yawns. The dull hum of the monitors that were attached to Helen seemed to have a drugging effect, in spite of the fact that his ass was bristling with pins and needles. He wondered if he could switch on the television set, or if that was off-limits for unconscious patients. On the other hand, it wasn’t like Helen needed more sleep. Maybe the noise would help to wake her up.

He rummaged around the bedside table, trying to find the remote without knocking over his coffee cup. “Goddamn it,” he muttered. “Don’t tell me there’s no remote.”

“On the TV,” someone said.

Nando froze, staring down at the cool gray eyes that gazed back at him from the bed. He swallowed. “Hi Helen. How do you feel?”

Helen turned her head slightly so he could see her better. He wasn’t sure she was fully awake yet—those eyes seemed a little unfocused. “Thirsty,” she muttered finally.

“I’ll call somebody.” He grabbed the call device and jabbed at the button for the nurse down the hall. Then he remembered suddenly what he was supposed to ask when Helen woke up. “Who was it who did this to you, Helen? Do you remember?”

She pursed her lips, squinting slightly as if she were confused by the memory. Nando thought about telling her to forget it, they’d talk later. But they really needed to know, and they needed to know now.

Finally, she muttered something he couldn’t hear. Nando leaned closer. “Say it again please.”

“Brody,” she croaked. “It was Chief Brody.”

Kit surveyed the dining room, fighting down panic. They still had a few minutes before the lunch crowd showed up. Maybe something would happen, hopefully something good as opposed to the current disaster.

Joe pushed open the kitchen door to lean into the dining room. “You want any lunch, or you want me to save you some for after the rush?”

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

He let the kitchen door swing closed as he walked toward her. “What’s up, darlin’? You don’t look like life’s treating you right.”

“Philip’s missing.” Her hands clenched into fists. “He hasn’t come to work, and he hasn’t called. I’ve been trying to reach him, but he hasn’t been answering his phone. I don’t have time to go check on him now. That leaves me and Elaine, assuming I can get Mabel to come run the hostess station.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Mabel’s the worst hostess in the history of hostessing.”

“What do you suggest?” Kit snapped. “Should I just let Elaine take care of all the tables, even though that would probably make her quit by the end of her shift?”

“Take it easy, darlin’.” Joe put a hand on her arm. “I’ll send one of the line cooks to check on ol’ Phil—he doesn’t live that far from here. You get Mabel to the hostess stand, and we’ll cope. Hell, Darcy could probably run the hostess station if it comes to that. I could juggle things around in the kitchen so we could get by without her.”

Kit tried to picture Darcy, whose highlights were currently magenta and whose more visible piercings probably set off every airport security device known to man, running the hostess station at the ever-elegant Rose. “I’ll go get Mabel,” she said quickly.

Mabel glanced up from her computer as soon as Kit trotted into her office. “Did you reserve one of the party rooms, dear? I saw the name Maldonado but no first initial.”

Kit nodded hurriedly. “It’s for my aunt’s rehearsal dinner. I’ve already cleared it with Joe.”

Mabel grimaced. “Joseph really doesn’t have anything to do with reserving rooms. Next time talk to me first, please. That’s one of our bigger rooms. I like to keep it available in case we have any last minute requests.”

Kit thought of all the arguments she could make—that no one else had reserved it and that it stood empty more often than any of the other rooms, but decided to let it go. “All right, I’ll remember that in the future. We’ve got a bit of a crisis at the moment, though.”

“A crisis with the meeting rooms?” Mabel’s brow furrowed. “I should be the first one to hear about that. I’m in charge of scheduling, you know. If I don’t hear about things, I can’t make sure everything is functioning the way it’s supposed to.”

Kit fought the impulse to close her eyes and count to ten. “No, not about the meeting rooms. We’re missing one of our waiters and lunch service will start in fifteen minutes. I can take over the waiter’s station, but we’ll need you to run the hostess stand.”

Mabel’s brow stayed pleated. “Oh dear. I don’t know if I can take the time to do that. I’m really, really busy today…”

“Yes, well, the lunch service only lasts a couple of hours. And it’s our biggest moneymaker. We really can’t do without a waiter or a hostess.” Kit balled her hands into fists to keep from drumming them on Mabel’s desk. What on earth was wrong with the woman?

“Kit, dear, I’m sorry, but if this is another one of those ploys to get me to hire more wait staff…” Mabel began.

Kit grimaced. “It’s not a ploy, Mabel. It’s a fact. One of the waiters didn’t show up, and the one who’s there can’t possibly take care of the whole restaurant. And of course we can’t run the dining room without staff. We do, in fact, need more wait staff. Desperately. But that’s a conversation for another time.”

Mabel shook her head sorrowfully. “Oh my. If we go on having these kinds of problems, we may have to consider cutting back on meal service. Perhaps even closing the restaurant altogether. We can’t have part of the inn siphoning off money and personnel from all our other activities.”

Kit blinked. “Close the restaurant? What do you mean? We’re pulling in so many customers we have waiting lists on reservations. We’ve been written up in newspapers all over the state. We’re making a profit, even though we’re only open for lunch. How could you consider closing it down?”

“Oh it may not come to that.” Mabel patted her arm. “We can probably find some ways to take care of the money problems. I’m not at all sure we need to be open six days a week, for example. Although, of course, you’re doing excellent work there.” Mabel gave her another quick pat.

Kit took a deep breath. She’d get all of this sorted out later. “Mabel, could we discuss this another time? I really do need your help right now.”

Mabel sighed. “Oh well, if I must. Let me close down my computer. I’ll meet you at the hostess stand.”

Lunch wasn’t exactly a nightmare, just close. By the end of her shift, Elaine was verging on hysteria. Only the amount of money she’d collected in tips seemed to make up from the abuse she’d gotten from some of the customers. Mabel had to be reminded repeatedly about sending guests equally to both stations, a concept she apparently found too confusing to bother with.

Kit herself was trying to ignore her aching feet. As she hurried to get her orders in and to keep Gabriel moving, she avoided thinking about what Mabel had said. The Rose was wildly popular. It was becoming one of the premier restaurants in Konigsburg, thanks to the combined efforts of Joe’s superb kitchen and her own blossoming management skills. Surely Resorts Consolidated wouldn’t consider closing it down, no matter how expensive it was to run.

Of course, if the inn itself wasn’t doing well, they might decide to retrench. She wondered what Joe’s salary was, then decided not to worry about it. No luxury hotel chain would want to lose a famous chef if they could help it.

At one thirty, she took over the hostess station again, sending Mabel back to her office. She checked the reservations for the next day while she massaged her toes. She was pretty sure she was developing a couple of world-class blisters. She hadn’t come to work dressed for waiting tables.

Joe sauntered through the restaurant, nodding at customers he recognized. “Here,” he said, pushing a plate in front of her.

Kit sighed and picked up the cheeseburger. “Thanks. I realized how hungry I was after the adrenaline wore off.”

“I sent Jorge over to Philip’s place in Johnson City, but he wasn’t there. Jorge didn’t see his bike either.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Bike?”

“He rides an old Kawasaki. Usually has it locked up in the garage out back when he’s working. Jorge said he pounded on the door at his apartment, but nobody answered.”

Kit sighed, rubbing her eyes. “Great. Sounds like he may have taken off without giving notice. I’ll check with his landlord if I can find him.”

“So tell Mabel she needs to hire new waiters ASAP. Hell, if she doesn’t know that by now, she hasn’t been listening.”

Kit paused, trying to decide whether she should tell him about Mabel’s threats concerning the Rose. If she did, he’d probably head for Mabel’s office now, which would probably produce one godawful fight. And they’d need Mabel to run the hostess stand tomorrow unless Phillip had a miraculous change of heart. “I’ll tell her,” she said finally. “Later.”

Joe gave her a dry smile. “Trying to put off the explosion, darlin’?”

“As long as I can.” She managed a smile. “Great burger, by the way.”

Joe shook his head. “This staffing problem had better get straightened out, Ms. Maldonado, or the restaurant’s going straight down the tubes.”

Kit felt a quick drip of ice water down her spine. If the restaurant went down the tubes, Mabel wouldn’t have much trouble convincing Resorts Consolidated to close it. Particularly after the disaster the last chef had caused at the inn. “I’ll work it out,” she promised. “Tomorrow at the latest.”

“I’ll look forward to it. Meanwhile, you might want to go back home and get yourself some sneakers.” He nodded toward her sandals. “Those are gonna rip your feet to shreds if you’re waiting tables.”

Kit closed her eyes for a moment, massaging her toes again. “Tell me about it.”

“Brody.” Toleffson narrowed his eyes.

Nando nodded.

“Chief Brody? The guy who swindled the city out of several thousand dollars while he was extorting conventioneers? The guy who tried to steal an antique map and ended up almost killing my sister-in-law?” His jaw tightened.

“That’s the only Brody I know about.”

“Did she actually say ‘Chief Brody’?”

Nando nodded, staring around the half-empty hospital parking lot. They’d already had an abbreviated version of this conversation over the phone, but Toleffson had headed over immediately and dragged him down here where they were less likely to be overheard, at least theoretically. “She said ‘Brody’ and then she closed her eyes. And then she said ‘Chief Brody’. The nurse said she’d probably be in and out of consciousness now, but eventually she’ll be fully awake.”

Toleffson leaned back against the side of his truck, sighing. “This makes no sense. You know that. If Brody was back, somebody in town would have recognized him. It’s not like he left all that long ago.”

Nando shrugged. “Maybe he looks different now. He’s been on the run for a few years. Hell, maybe he’s dyed his hair or shaved it off.” He had a momentary mental image of Joe LeBlanc but dismissed it. The guy was way too young anyway.

“Still.” The chief kicked a piece of gravel across the parking lot. “If he’s here, where the hell has he been hiding for the past month? He can’t have been out in the open that much—he couldn’t take the risk of somebody recognizing him. And if he was holed up somewhere in town, there’d be gossip about the strange guy who didn’t come out of his room.”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about this since Helen woke up.” In point of fact, he hadn’t been thinking about much of anything else since Helen woke up. “He could be living in someplace like Johnson City or Mable Falls, but even if he was actually living here in town, most people probably wouldn’t notice. I mean, if I knew Brody was around, I might recognize him. But if I didn’t expect to see him, I probably wouldn’t. Especially if he’s lost weight or dyed his hair.”

“You mean you wouldn’t see him or you wouldn’t recognize him?”

Nando shrugged. “Both. The guy was in his forties when he took off. There are a lot of men in that age group around here. And I always saw Brody in uniform—everybody did. Seeing him in civilian clothes might be like camouflage. To tell you the truth, the SOB could walk right by me now in the right getup and I’d likely not know it was him unless I was looking close.”

Toleffson stared down at his boots for a moment, then glanced back at him. “You said you wouldn’t recognize him if you didn’t expect to see him. But what if you knew he was here?”

Nando shrugged. “Then all bets are off. From now on, I’ll be checking out every middle-aged man I see, trying to make sure it isn’t Brody. From now on, I’ll be looking for him.” And hoping he’d be the one who found the bastard.

The chief blew out a long breath, staring back toward the hospital entrance. “I don’t suppose we’ve got any pictures of Brody around the station.”

Nando shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. They used to have a portrait of the chief hanging up there, but they took Brody’s down when he ran off, and then Olema wasn’t around long enough to rate a picture of his own.” He glanced at Toleffson, frowning. “Anybody ask for one of you?”

Toleffson gave him a dry grin. “Nah. Maybe they decided not to spring for another picture, seeing as how they’d had so much turnover. I like Al’s cartoon over at the Coffee Corral better anyway.”

“We can look around the station. That old portrait might be stored someplace.”

“That would be real helpful since I don’t have a clue what this asshole looks like.” He shrugged. “Maybe there’s something on line.”

“Lots of people in town might recognize him if they knew he was around,” Nando said slowly. “Are you going to let everybody know?”

Toleffson stared down at his feet again for a long moment, then shook his head. “No. You know how that would be. All of a sudden everybody in town would start seeing him everywhere they looked. They’d have us running all over creation checking out false sightings. We need to be the ones doing the looking.”

“But the only cops who know what he looks like are me and Ham. And Helen once she comes back. Rollie moved here after you did, Dawson’s been here for less time than that and Delaney’s the newest of us all.”

The chief shrugged. “Which is why we need a picture of him.”

“So we don’t tell anybody?” Nando tried to keep the worry out of his voice.

Toleffson shook his head. “Wait until Helen’s talking. Maybe we can get some more information from her. Meanwhile, we’ll keep doing patrol. And we’ll tell the boys to keep quiet about it.”

“And Ham?”

The chief sighed. “Him too. I’ll brief him on it. And tell him to keep his mouth shut, which we both know he won’t do. Hell.”

“Maybe we should just let the news leak,” Nando said carefully. “No big announcement, but let people in town find out. They need to know what’s going on. Brody’s always been a loose cannon, and now he may be desperate.”

Toleffson stared back at him, his eyes dark. “Look, I’ve got family concerns here too. I don’t think it was an accident that he went after Docia’s shop. Or Margaret Hastings’ place. They were the two women he attacked before. Maybe he was getting a little payback while he threw us off the scent.”

“What about Allie?”

The chief shrugged. “She’s Docia’s friend. And maybe he thought it would be too obvious if Docia and Margaret were the only ones he hit.”

Nando’s jaw set. “Look chief, I think Docia needs to know. Margaret too. And Allie. If this gets out and we didn’t tell them, they’re going to be pissed. And they’re going to be scared. And they’ll have a right to be. We don’t know what’s on Brody’s agenda, but it’s not likely to be anything good.”

Toleffson rubbed a hand across his jaw, narrowing his eyes. Then he shrugged. “Okay, you’ve got a point. I’ll call Docia and Cal. Ham can talk to Margaret. You can talk to Allie or Kit, assuming she’ll tell Allie herself.” He gave Nando another dry smile. “They’ll undoubtedly tell other people, like Wonder, so it’ll be all around town in a couple of days, but at least we’ll have a head start.”

Nando nodded. “Okay. I’ll get on it.”

“And we’ll need to keep somebody at the station from now on, particularly at night, in case he decides to come back for whatever it was he was trying to get the first time.”

“You don’t think he got it?”

The chief shook his head. “I’d bank on him not getting anything. He’s dangerous but he’s not stupid. After he hit Helen he must have taken off. He had no way of knowing if anybody else was around.” He pushed off from his truck. “I’ll call the county crime lab too. Chances are they have some of Brody’s DNA on file already—they could compare it against the sample we found in Docia’s shop. It wouldn’t hurt to have some concrete confirmation for whatever Helen saw.”

Nando nodded. “It wouldn’t at that.”