Murder Calls

Chapter Two

“Friends can be the best co-conspirators in charting the unknown.”
- Judith Orloff

Barton Hollow, Massachusetts
April 8, 1988
11:01 am

The Barton Hollow  hospital wasn’t that great. In fact, it could barely constitute as one, with it’s faded brick and cracked pavement, it had actually once been an old factory the town renovated into the hospital. Instead of trying to make a completely new building, the town focused on remaking itself in the last five years, because of this, they had neglected to fix up the town’s only means of care. So it was far from impressive.

And fuck, did Jimmy hate it.

He didn’t hate Barton Hollow hospital specifically, he just hated all of them. He could barely look at one without the memory of his baby. She had been gone for so long now, he had started to forget the sound of her voice. Only videos and the occasional nightmare brought it back to the forefront of his mind. He missed his Sarah, but he forcibly had to push the morbid thoughts away. He wasn’t here to get lost in the memories, he was here to find a would-be killer.

And he had Jane now. She would never replace Sarah, but she kept the nightmares at bay and filled that empty hole that had been left ever since Sarah's passing. When he was done with this, Jimmy  was going to take her and Kevin out to lunch. And if Marilyn was available, then he was going to drag her along too. With the promise of lunch and good company, Jimmy grabbed his hat from the dashboard, making his way to the hospital’s double doors.

~•●•~

11:15 am

Heath had been staring at his coffee for so long now the creamer had started to separate itself from the water. He was sure if he dumped it out, the sugar probably had started to congeal. He almost wanted to do just that, anything to get the sight of Miss Walden’s blood and brain matter out of his head. It wasn’t the first time Heath had seen blood, hell he had seen his own more times than he could count. And he had seen enough kids breaking into places they shouldn’t, where the homeowner had to go to the extreme. It usually resulted in said kids having to go to the only available hospital. So yeah, he had seen blood, either his or someone else's. But this was the first time he had ever seen a crime where the perpetrator had purposely hurt someone else.

And they had, that is, purposely hurt Miss Walden. Ryan would verify this thought eventually, but until then, Heath was going off a hunch. And that hunch was in part due to his years of being purposely hurt, he knew the difference between someone trying to defend themselves and someone hurting another for fun. He knew the difference. They just had to wait until it would be known whether Miss Walden would survive or not and whether he was going to be searching for a thief or a murderer.

It also didn't help that the landlord was being less than forthcoming with the video tapes. Something about losing paying customers. Either way, Heath didn't give two shots, all he wanted was to solve the attempted murder and put the sick son of a bitch behind bars. At least there the guy couldn't hurt anyone.

Until then, Heath was going to continue his staring contest with his cold coffee. He didn’t even know why he ordered it, coffee gave him serious headaches. Ryan must have rubbed off on him since it was the only thing Heath had ever seen the man drink. He vaguely wondered if Ryan was actually ninety percent coffee and ten percent human. It wasn't that far off the mark, if his office was anything to go by.

Heath was startled from his coffee debate when a plate was placed down directly across from him, loaded with pancakes, eggs, bacon and toast. It was soon followed by Marley holding a cup filled to the brim with chocolate milk.