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“I would’ve thought police work there would’ve had pretty regular hours.”
“Michelle was a late baby for them. Frank was trying hard to get on with a major city police force. He worked during the day and was taking night courses at a local college to get a master’s degree in criminal justice.”
“Ambitious guy. So nothing else you can tell me?”
“Well, there is one thing that’s puzzled me. Probably has nothing to do with what you’re looking at.”
“Right now, I’ll take anything.”
“Well, the Maxwells had a beautiful rose hedge that ran in front of their house. Frank planted it for an anniversary present to Sally. It was a pretty thing and the aroma. I used to go over there just to smell the flowers.”
“It’s not there anymore.”
“That’s right. I went to bed one night and woke up the next morning and somebody had chopped it all down.”
“Did you ever find out who did it?”
She shook her head. “Frank figured it was some kids he’d busted for drunk driving, but I’m not so sure about that. Teenage boys, what do they know from flowers? They would’ve slashed Frank’s tires or thrown rocks through the windows.”
“Do you remember when this was?”
She stared at the ceiling, the lips pursed again. “Nearly thirty years ago, I expect.”
“Or maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight?”
“Could be, yes.”
Horatio sat back, deep in thought. Finally he rose and took out his wallet. Hazel immediately held up her hand.
“Give the money to Lindy. She’ll make your life miserable until you do.”
But Horatio wasn’t taking money out of his wallet. He wrote something down on the back of a card and handed it to her. “This is the name and number of a woman I know down here who can get you into a facility that’s a lot better. Give me a day to make the arrangements and then give her a call.”
“I don’t have money for a better facility.”
“It’s not how much money you have; it’s who you know, Hazel. And the place I’m thinking of has ongoing classes in different subjects, including medicine, if you’re still interested.”
The old woman took the card. “I thank you,” she said quietly.
As Horatio turned to leave, she said, “If you see Michelle, would you tell her Hazel Rose said hello? And that I’m real proud of her?”
“Consider it done.”
Horatio walked down the hall, found Lindy flirting with a burly attendant in the visitor’s lounge, paid the sullen woman off and fled the state-supported hellhole.
As he climbed into his car he started wondering how vanishing rose hedges might have ended up destroying Michelle Maxwell’s life nearly three decades later.
CHAPTER
33
THE NEXT MORNING MICHELLE WORKED out hard, bitched at one of the nurses about the AWOL Horatio Barnes, went back to her room and ripped the straw out of Cheryl’s mouth after the woman emitted six excruciatingly long slurps in a row.
Then she heard the running feet heading her way and knew the moment of truth had arrived. She grabbed Cheryl, who was protesting loudly, and threw her in the bathroom. “Don’t come out until you hear one body hit the floor,” she yelled in the woman’s face. This remark actually made Cheryl stop screeching for her straw.
Michelle slammed the bathroom door, turned and braced herself.
The door to her room was kicked open and there was Barry, holding a metal pipe.
