Before he could finish, two people entered the room, the door clicking.
Adele stowed her annoyance, glancing over her shoulder. John had returned. Next to him, a woman in a suit had arrived as well, a small, white coffee cup held in a cardboard heating pad in her left hand. She didn’t wear the normal blues of a police officer, but she carried herself as one. Detective, Adele guessed. Homicide most likely.
“Hello,” the detective said in German. She extended the cup toward the man, and, before John could beat her to it, sidled into the chair next to Adele. “I’m Detective Klopp,” she said. “Precinct policy, but I’m required to be here for this interview.”
Agent Marshall remained quiet in the back of the room, her notebook out, her eyes flicking between the different participants in the room. Adele shifted a bit in her chair, her hands pressed against the cool surface of the metal table. She waited for Mr. Carmichael to take a drink from the steaming coffee. He smacked his lips, wincing against the heat.
“You’ve already interviewed him?” Adele glanced toward Detective Klopp.
“Ja. Just here to verify and help in any way I can.”
Adele gathered herself and indicated the truck driver. “Well, I was just asking him if he could think of anything else from that night.”
“And as I was saying,” Mr. Carmichael replied, quietly, “there’s nothing. No cars, no one else. Just the girl, with bloody footprints.”
“As you told us already,” said Detective Klopp, nodding. “And also the wild, far-fetched claims she made.”
The truck driver hesitated at this. “She said there were others,” he said, swallowing then raising a hand as if signaling a teacher in class. “Said someone had them captured, and was going to kill them all.”
Adele, though, looked over at the German detective. “You don’t think the girl’s comments are to be taken seriously?”
Detective Klopp was shaking her head. Her hair was pulled back in a neat bun, and she had the barest traces of makeup on her features. Her cheekbones were high, and her eyes searching as she studied Adele. “The girl was malnourished, starving, freezing, and in the middle of the forest,” she said. “Taking anything she said seriously, especially,” she cleared her throat and shifted a bit, “secondhand, might be inadvisable at this point.”
Adele glanced toward Agent Marshall, then back. “Is that the official position of this department?”
Detective Klopp smiled in a comforting sort of way toward Mr. Carmichael. She addressed Adele, but still had her eyes fixed on the truck driver. “It is. Herman,” she said, “tell her how the girl was behaving when you first encountered her.”
The truck driver shifted uncomfortably. “Well, like I was saying, she said there were others. But when I first came upon her, she didn’t say anything at all. In fact, it almost felt like she couldn’t see me. I drove my truck off the road trying to avoid her. She was standing in the middle of the highway. Not wearing any clothes.” He blushed a bit, clearing his throat and shaking his head. “Bad business. Bad business. Anyway, the fräulein was standing there; didn’t seem to see me until I was right upon her. I was even talking, but she just stared off in the distance.”
Detective Klopp waved a hand, as if displaying something in the air. “As I said,” she said, “might not be best to take the girl at her word.”
Adele dipped her head once to show she’d heard; she pressed the same line of questioning for another few minutes, but the truck driver failed to convey anything Executive Foucault hadn’t already told them: someone, according to the girl, had others in jeopardy. The girl had seemed upset, for obvious reasons. She had been covered in small cuts and bruises from running through the forest. Besides that, the truck driver had nothing to add.
Adele thanked him quietly and pushed up from the table. John hounded her with questions in French, but she ignored him and said to Marshall, as they exited the interview room, “Where’s that hospital?”
Marshall looked at Adele. “You want to speak with her yourself?”
“By the sound of things that’s not going to be possible.”
Marshall shook her head. “She’s in a coma. But I can take you to the hospital if you want.”
Adele nodded. “Maybe the doctors found something they missed at first. The truck driver is not going to be much help anyway.”
Adele could feel something worming in her gut. Executive Foucault’s seeming premonition came back to her. This was a bad one. Something about this case felt off, eerie. Adele was beginning to feel a similar sensation. She wasn’t sure why. But somehow, she wasn’t sure she wanted to witness the culmination of this investigation. Her stomach twisted as they exited the police station and made their way back to the car, preparing to head to the hospital.
CHAPTER SIX
“This time, I’m not fetching coffee,” John said, sternly.
Adele shook her head as she took the steps up to the front of the hospital.
Agent Marshall was already standing next to rotating glass doors. She smiled politely and gestured for Adele and John to follow. The three agents entered the hospital lobby, confronted by the sickly sweet smell of cleaning fluids and disinfectant. Adele felt a sudden itch at the back of her neck. She shook her head. Something about hospitals always gave her the creeps. Secretly, she hoped if ever she got too sick, people would be kind enough to leave her in peace to die in her bed, rather than dragging her off to a horrible place like this. She didn’t particularly like doctors either.
John strode across toward the front desk and said, in French. “Mademoiselle. Do you have any French-speaking doctors who have treated Amanda Johnson?”
The woman behind the counter just stared up at him, hesitant. She glanced at one of her partners, but the young man just shrugged back.
Agent Marshall approached, gently touching John on the elbow. She spoke quietly and quickly with the nurses, and eventually they were redirected to an elevator at the far end of the large atrium. They passed a couple of faux potted plants. Again, Adele was reminded how much she hated hospitals.
“Are you all right?” John asked, as the elevator doors dinged open and they stepped in.
“Fine,” she replied, curtly.
“You’re sweating,” he said. “It’s cold. Why are you sweating?”
“I’m not sweating, shut up.” Adele turned away, but when John returned his attention to Marshall, chatting up the young agent as the elevator dinged up the floors, Adele quickly reached up and wiped her forehead. Damp. She was sweating. Damn. She would have to get her emotions in check, even in a place like this.
They stepped off the elevator and were confronted by another long hall with glass windows on either side. She could hear distant beeping sounds. Another noise as grating to her as bones on a chalkboard.
“You sure you’re all right?” John murmured in her ear.
“I’m fine, let’s go see if we can find this doctor.”
Marshall, hearing this, said politely, “The head doctor in charge of Amanda’s case can speak English. I requested for him to meet us outside her room. This way.”
Marshall led them past three closed doors. Two of them had curtains, but one was open, with three nurses inside, wearing green scrubs, trying to lift an old, frail man onto a sliding table.