When You See Me (Detective D.D. Warren #11)(49)

Across from the mayor, the sheriff nodded encouragement.

“We looked . . .” The mayor cleared his throat, glanced up. “We looked at foreign options. Traveling overseas where for a price such surgeries can be performed. But before long, Martha was too sick for even that.”

The sheriff nodded again.

“Martha knew a local doctor. A friend from childhood. Dr. Gregory Hatch. He had a practice in Atlanta. He said he could help her.”

“How?” Kimberly prodded.

The mayor fingered his coffee cup. He wouldn’t look at them anymore. “Martha told me not to ask too many questions. She said it was better if I didn’t know,” he whispered. “But Gregory, he got privileges at the health clinic just north of here. And Martha paid him a series of visits. Testing. Lots of testing.” The mayor smiled grimly. “You can’t really hide that. Then, she went away for a month. To a wellness clinic, she said. Of course, we both knew she was lying.

“But she was my wife and I loved her. And I wanted her to live. So when she gave me a bunch of paperwork to fill out for a ‘designated donation,’ I didn’t argue.”

“You donated a kidney to your wife?” Kimberly interrupted.

“I filled out paperwork that said I was donating a kidney to my wife,” the mayor said slowly. “But I couldn’t. I wasn’t a match. I knew that. She knew that. As for the paperwork . . .”

“Your wife got a kidney,” D.D. filled in. “This Dr. Hatch did the operation.”

The mayor finally looked at them, his eyes red rimmed and exhausted.

“She came home with meds, lots and lots of meds. You’ll find them in the bathroom. Anti-rejection meds. She still takes them faithfully. And she’s been healthy ever since.”

No one spoke right away. Finally, Kimberly did the honors. “Mayor Howard, where did your wife get the kidney?”

“I don’t know.”

“But it wasn’t from you.”

“It wasn’t from me.”

“But she got a transplant, performed by this Dr. Hatch.”

“He saved her life.”

“I remember a Gregory Hatch,” the sheriff spoke up. “Didn’t he pass away . . .”

“He died eight years ago,” the mayor supplied.

“When did he perform the operation?” Kimberly pressed.

“Around fifteen years ago.”

D.D. glanced at Kimberly. According to Dr. Jackson, Lilah Abenito had been killed fifteen years ago. Then there was their mass grave, which included at least one skeleton with signs of medical care. Yesterday, D.D. and the sheriff had told the mayor and his wife that the threat to the community was old. They’d even mentioned that the remains were skeletal. But they’d never been so specific as to say the first grave was from fifteen years ago. That was the kind of detail investigative taskforces kept to themselves.

Meaning, if Martha had connected the dots between her transplant operations and the graves in the woods, she had to have some idea where her kidney had come from. Or, at the very least, what had happened to her donor in the end.

I was selfish to live at another’s expense.

Was that what they had stumbled upon, then? An illegal organ transplant scheme? Such things happened. As the mayor had said, the demand for organs was high, the supply low. Black market economies had developed from less.

“My wife was a good woman,” the mayor stated now. “She cared about the community. Whatever happened, whatever she did . . . Fear can make a person desperate. She did her best to make up for her sin. You can ask anyone. She performed so many good works, helped out with so many families during the lean times, gave and gave and gave . . .”

The mayor’s voice broke. On the table, his hands trembled violently.

The sheriff reached across, patted the man’s shoulder awkwardly. D.D. didn’t know what else to say. She moved away from the table, her gaze once more on the swinging door that connected to the kitchen. For the first time she noticed what appeared to be a small slip of paper. Dropped by the girl when she’d brought the coffee?

D.D. drifted closer to the doorway. She was aware of the mayor’s attention shifting, the man studying her. He definitely didn’t want her too close to his niece, that much was certain. And suspicious? D.D. leaned against the wall, made a show of getting more comfortable. Just an overworked detective, already on her feet too long and it wasn’t even six A.M.

The sheriff spoke up. The moment the mayor focused on him . . .

D.D. bent down, snatched up the folded paper, then covered the motion by elaborately retying her shoe. When she stood back up, the mayor was frowning at her, but appeared to be none the wiser.

Noise from the front of the inn now. The ME’s van finally arriving. D.D. shoved away from the wall to do the honors.

She waited till she was back in the lobby, out of sight of the mayor, before inspecting her find. The scrap of paper was tiny, ripped from a larger piece and folded several times. Smoothing it open against her palm, D.D. could make out what appeared to be a simple picture.

A single image. Black. Distorted. Ominous. With red fire for the eyes and hulking shoulders.

A monster.

The girl had drawn a picture of a demon, then dropped it on the floor for D.D. to find.

Meaning what?

The ME and his assistant knocked on the front door. Still puzzled, D.D. led them to the rear bedroom, and to the body of a woman who’d made her last confession.