The Last Thing She Ever Did(79)

“He’s not going anywhere now,” the doctor said.

The detective moved a little closer, looking at the man’s injuries as she tried to determine what had caused his face to become twice its size, his fingers swollen and colored like grilled hot dogs.

“What happened to him?” she asked Dr. Cortez. “Did he say anything when he was admitted?”

Dr. Cortez was a tall, slender woman who wore her black hair in an impossibly tight bun that she fastened with a silver clip. She wore no makeup. Esther liked her right away. No-nonsense and compassionate. Dr. Cortez stuck a pencil behind her ear. Her eyes were dark brown and kind. Some doctors exude warmth, others confidence.

Dr. Cortez did both.

“No,” she said, picking up her iPad and scrolling through it. “Says that someone dropped him off. Didn’t even call for an ambulance. Didn’t wait, either. Just dumped him out front and took off. An orderly just coming on shift saw him. Cameras would have caught whoever dumped him here. If the cameras were in service, that is. But they aren’t.”

Esther swallowed her frustration about the cameras. “How bad are his injuries?” she asked next as she watched the respirator pulse. “He’s going to survive?”

Dr. Cortez held the tablet at her side and focused on Esther. “We’re watching the swelling in his brain right now,” she said, measuring her words carefully. She looked at her patient. “Somebody showed no mercy. Someone fixed it so that he’ll need a urine drainage bag.”

Esther blinked at that. “They didn’t castrate him, did they?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “They might as well have.” She took hold of the edge of the sheet but thought better of it. “I’m not going to show it to you. Someone pounded this man’s penis with a hammer or some other heavy object.”

Esther couldn’t think of anything to say.

The doctor was just getting started. “I know it’s not my job to insert myself into your investigation,” she went on, “but this is a hate crime if I’ve ever seen it. And I’ve seen plenty. My own brother’s gay, and he got ambushed by a couple of drunken teenagers a few years ago. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, just went out to meet a friend. They beat him with a metal pipe. Knocked out his front teeth. Never caught the guys.”

Esther said she was sorry. “I hope your brother recovered.”

“It was a while ago,” she said. “He’s fine now. He says so. As fine as anyone could be if you live in a world in which some random person can just come and beat the crap out of you for fun.”

“Did he make a report?”

“No,” Dr. Cortez said. “Cal just wanted the whole thing to blow over. My brother’s that kind of a guy. I begged him to tell the sheriff, but he just wouldn’t. Didn’t think it would matter to anyone.”

“It matters to me,” Esther said. “It matters to the other officers I work with every day.”

The doctor nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that. Times have changed. Or rather, they are changing. Don’t let that happen to this guy. Okay? Find out who did this and put the bastard away.”

Esther didn’t tell the doctor that she was pretty sure this flavor of hate crime was directed at Mr. Collins because of his past record as a pedophile.

“I better notify his family,” she finally said.

A nurse came in, and the doctor gave her some instructions while Esther waited.

“Good idea about the notification,” she said. “I hate making those calls, but someone has to. Just between you and me—and them, I guess—I suggest they get out here as soon as they can. No telling how long he’s going to last or what he’ll be like if he survives.”

“How do you mean?”

“There’s very likely brain damage here, Detective. He may not be able to tell us who did this. If he survives, he might not even be able to tell you his name.”

Esther went downstairs to check with hospital security. A young man in a dark blue security uniform with shoes that had been shined to a mirror finish greeted her with the kind of earnestness that indicated an interest in putting on a real uniform one day. Dr. Cortez had been right: there were no working cameras in the hospital. There hadn’t been any for months.

“We’re switching over to a new system in the first quarter of next year,” the officer said. “Hospital administration didn’t want to upgrade a system they were about to shut down.”

She thanked him for his help.

“Hey, don’t tell anyone about the cameras, okay? Administration doesn’t want the word to get out. Thinks that we’d be a target for break-ins. I told them no one wants to come to a hospital unless they have to. But they remind me every day that we’re a target for addicts who’ll stop at nothing to feed a habit.”



Esther sat in her car in the hospital parking lot as an elderly man helped his unsteady wife into their car. It was a touching moment, and she was glad for it. The world was turning upside down. She dialed Jake, feeling sick about what had happened to Brad Collins. She told him she was going to take a look at cabin 22 at the Pines to see if there was anything there.

“I need you to do something for me, Jake,” Esther said. “I know this will be hard, but there are a lot of moving parts going on right now and we need to act quickly. I need you to call Brad’s mother and let her know that her son’s in very bad shape. She’ll need to talk with Dr. Cortez to get the particulars. You let her know that we’re going to do our best to find out who hurt him.”