The murder was fairly cut and dry. Hester poisoned her husband. Everyone knew that. We just needed to know the why of it, and Hester wasn’t talking.
Cannel looked fierce for a few seconds, her rage apparent, as if the suffering that Hester went through at her husband’s hands was somehow familiar to her.
“Hester came in with a broken jaw,” she said. “And a traumatic brain injury, or TBI. When she arrived on our floor, her jaw had been wired shut, and she was in a medically-induced coma due to the TBI.” She paused. “Her husband came every day like clockwork. Around five in the evening, stayed for a few minutes then left. It was as if he was scaring her with his presence into not talking. I just…” Cannel stopped for a really long time, making my eyes narrow.
“You just what?” I asked.
“I’m familiar with that look of panic,” she admitted. “I know it when I see it. When Hester woke up, she was so scared. So I gave her a notepad and a pen and asked her if there was anything she wanted me to talk to anyone about. And she asked me about my job…”
“And what kinds of drugs don’t show up in a system when you murder someone,” I guessed.
Cannel sighed. “That’s not exactly what happened. We were watching a show, or I was keeping her company because this particular day that I’m thinking about…she was really distraught. Her husband had come in, said something to her, and left. She’d been shaking, scared out of her mind, and so I sat with her after my shift was over and we watched a true crime show on her television. A particular one came on, and I made a mention of how insulin doesn’t show up on a tox screen.
“I wasn’t setting out to hand her that information to use to murder her husband,” she admitted. “We were just talking. I…” Cannel shook her head, and her eyes shimmered with frustration. “I was just trying to help her not be scared. It was an innocent comment that I never would have made had I thought she would use it like she did.”
I studied Cannel’s eyes.
Though her skin was nicely tanned to a golden hue, and her hair was as black as pitch in a French braid directly down the center of her head, the tail of which curled around her neck and fell between her breasts, it was her eyes that held my attention.
They were clear and light green, like the hint of a glass Coke bottle.
I’d never seen anything like them.
They were uniquely beautiful, and they really made me want to get a closer look.
“I believe you,” I said as I put my hand out for her to shake. “If you can think of anything else, will you be in touch?”
She hesitated in taking my hand, her gaze going to the large mitt in front of her and looking at it for long seconds, as if forcing herself to be courteous, before taking it into her own hand.
Her hand was tiny. Like, so small that I could crush it if I’d given it half an effort.
My large fingers curled around her smaller ones and shook once before immediately letting go.
The moment that my hand wasn’t in hers anymore, she immediately brought that hand to her body, and pressed it against her middle in a protective gesture that woke instincts that I’d never expressed before.
I stood up, and she scrambled up to her feet along with me.
“Hester did what she had to do,” Cannel whispered. “Sometimes… sometimes that’s all we can do.”
I tilted my head and stared at her for a few long seconds, studying the look of terror that was lodged permanently in her eyes.
What was done to you, baby girl?
Cannel swallowed hard and stared at me as if to prove to herself that she could.
The woman intrigued me.
“Let me walk you back to the front door?” I offered.
The area of the parking lot was well lit, but I didn’t want her walking by herself. Not when there were shadows in her eyes that told me that she was terrified.
That terror burrowed deep into my bones, and I wanted nothing more than to draw the woman into my arms and hold her until she wasn’t so scared.
But I knew that would likely scare her even more.
“Thanks.” She hesitated. “But I’m walking to my car. My shift is over.”
I reversed course. “Then let me walk you to your car.”
She looked like she was about to refuse, but then thought better of it. “Sure.”
Together, we walked in silence, her a couple of paces in front of me as she led the way to her vehicle.
I took everything in, starting with the way she had her keys clutched in her hand, a few of the keys poking out from between her fingers, to the way she walked with light steps, as if to hide the sound of her passing.
Obviously, ways that she’d adapted to protect herself just in case.
When we got there, she pressed a button, and the entire thing unlocked, and the security alarm she had on it disarmed.
When she opened her car door, she made sure to place it between the two of us before saying, “Thank you for the walk to my car.”
I winked. “If you ever need another one,” I reached into my pocket and gave her my card. The one that I’d written my personal number on. “Give me a call.”
She looked at the card for long seconds before gingerly taking it into her hand. “I’ll do that.”
She wouldn’t do that.
She was brave and courageous, and she wouldn’t allow herself to need the assistance.
Still, I wondered what had been done to her to make her so wary. Women didn’t get like this—this scared—without reason.
Anger burned hot in my belly as I watched her drop down into her vehicle, lock the doors, and leave the shelter of the parking lot.
I didn’t walk back until I saw the burning red of her taillights pull around the corner of the hospital entrance and disappear.
The walk back to the police-issued vehicle was shorter than the walk away from it, and when I arrived, it was to find Brianna standing there looking miffed.
I studied her as I walked up. She was unaware of my attention, her eyes aimed at the hospital as if she was pissed about something.
I found out what that ‘something’ was when I arrived at her side.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said as I reached for my cup that was on the passenger side of the car.
Brianna liked to drive, and I liked my eardrums too much to argue with her about who was driving.
Since arriving here and being paired with Brianna, I understood very quickly that I would need to learn to pick my battles. And who drove was one of the ones that I allowed her to win.
“That bitch was something, wasn’t she?” Brianna asked as she fell into her seat.
I went much more gingerly, sore as hell from the workout I’d done that morning to do anything but carefully.
“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“What, you fell for her ‘poor, pitiful me’ act?” she asked, looking disgusted.
I shrugged. “She didn’t appear to be putting on an act.”
“She totally was,” she said. “She wanted me gone and wanted to talk to you alone. What did she say about me when I left?”
I felt a tendril of anger swirl through me. “She didn’t say anything about you when you left. We spoke about Hester, and she was perfectly nice about everything.”
I then went on to explain what I’d found out.