Gaining admittance to Trooper Condry's room was as easy as it was the first time, once the two detectives showed their badges, and Kristeva gestured for Devetko to follow him down the hall in the same direction he'd gone previously. They slowed down and looked in the windows when they reached the hospital room. The scene was almost the same as it had been before, except that the man sitting near the foot of the bed wasn't in uniform this time, instead dressed in casual clothes and a jacket that still looked damp from the rain. Kristeva and Devetko glanced at each other, then approached the halfway-open door, which Kristeva lightly rapped with his knuckles. The man's head popped up from his reading and he blinked at the two detectives standing in the doorway.
"Matteo Lopata...?" Kristeva asked.
"Yes?"
Kristeva held up his badge and Devetko followed suit. "I'm Det. Max Kristeva and this is Det. Chance Devetko from the Minot Police Department. I told the nurse at the front desk we wanted to talk with you...?"
The look in Lopata's eyes subtly changed and it was as if a chill settled over the room. "Yeah, I got your card."
Kristeva hesitated, but the trooper said nothing else; he could tell without asking that Devetko had also noticed the tiny bite of hostility in his voice. He stepped into the room since it was obvious they weren't going to be invited. "There were some details about the report you gave about Trooper Condry's accident we were hoping to clear up. If you're willing to talk about it."
"You're already here, I figure I don't have much choice." Lopata looked from one of them to the other, not bothering to hide the bite in his voice now. "And isn't it a little late for you to be interested in this?"
"There've been some possible developments. About the remains you found."
Lopata snorted and turned back to Condry's bed. "Yeah...the remains. It's always about the remains, isn't it."
"The bones you found tie in directly with what happened to your partner," Devetko said. "So of course we're interested in hearing about what happened to him, too."
"You could've saved yourself the time and just looked at the report. Everything you need is right there."
"I don't think everything is there," Kristeva said, ignoring the glance Devetko shot him.
Lopata turned back to them. "You're saying I withheld evidence of some sort--?"
"Not withheld evidence, no," Kristeva said, shaking his head. "But maybe there were certain things you felt couldn't or shouldn't be included in the report. Or certain things that somebody else omitted, maybe."
Lopata stared at them both for a long silent moment. "What exactly is it you two are here for...?" he said at last, in a tone of voice that made it sound like he was quite close to insisting that they leave.
Kristeva held out his hand and Devetko handed him a folder. He paged through it until he located what he was looking for, and then held it out to Lopata. Lopata took the family photo of Det. Singer and looked at it with a frown.
"We don't have a definitive ID yet," Kristeva said, "but it's looking likely that the remains you found are of this person. Wesley Singer."
Lopata squinted at the photo as if trying to make something out. "There was this weird pendant tangled up in the ribcage," he murmured. "It does look a little bit like that." He blinked, seemed to come back to his senses, and his frown returned as he looked back up at them. "And so? What significance does this have for either of us?"
"Wesley Singer was an undercover detective with the MPD. He went missing while investigating a suspected criminal group. The bones of the skeleton show obvious signs of homicide via cutting of the throat."
Lopata's face went blank. He stared at the two of them for a moment, then back at the picture.
"This guy is a murdered cop...?"
"The ID isn't positive yet," Devetko said. "Det. Singer is still considered missing. But so far the remains fit his physical descripton and date of disappearance."
Lopata continued staring at the photo. It was a little while before he shook his head and held the picture back for Kristeva to take. The dark look started to return to his eyes.
"Either way...I still don't see what this has to do with Bryan or me. We had no way of knowing who this is when we found him. So what exactly it is you think I have to say..."
"You mentioned in the report that you believed Condry had been attacked by somebody--" Kristeva started to say, but Lopata cut him off before he could finish.
"I didn't say I believed anything," he snapped. "Bryan told me himself. I found him in the washout, I turned him over, and he coughed up water and looked at me. He talked right to me. He said somebody came up behind and hit him just as he turned around. He said he was sorry he wasn't watching what was going on around him. And that was all he said. That's like him, you know, saying he's sorry for something somebody else did. That's how you know I'm not lying. So when you go saying this is some kind of 'accident,' I can tell you otherwise."
"The doctors said there's no way he could have spoken to you coherently," Devetko said.
Lopata made a spitting noise. "I don't give a shit what the doctors say he could or couldn't have done. I know what I heard. And also they're wrong a lot of the time. You know they also say he's probably not going to wake up? And that if he does, he'll probably be stuck in a bed the rest of his life, hooked up to machines? Give him a little while. I promise you'll see exactly how much they know versus how much hot air they're blowing."
"In any case, if Condry was attacked..." Kristeva cut in, and Lopata fell silent, though he bit his lip and seemed to be silently steaming over the choice of words, "...then that leaves open the question why. Singer was investigating a group with ties to various criminal activities, including murder. Anyone who knew what became of him, or even anyone who found any evidence of what happened to him, might have reason to expect the same people to come after them, next."
Lopata snorted. "You're saying you think they'll come after me? Well, let them try. I can look after myself. And I haven't got much left to lose at the moment anyway."
"What I'm saying is, I think they already went after your partner, and that's why he's here right now, in this bed, hooked up to these machines."
Silence. Lopata stared at him for a long while, the only noise the beeping of the EKG. After several moments the trooper turned and looked at Condry instead; this went on for such a period of time that the other two started to suspect the conversation was over and they were being dismissed, when Lopata spoke so quietly they almost couldn't hear him.
"You believe what I said, then? About him talking to me?"
"I don't know if I believe it or not," Kristeva said. "I just know I won't rule it out."
Lopata said nothing, just continued staring at his partner. Kristeva glanced at Devetko, then pulled out his wallet and retrieved a card. "I kind of get the feeling you tossed the other one away," he said, and held it out; Lopata looked at it before taking it from him. "And I don't blame you. But there might be more developments as this goes on, and whoever's involved in this might be interested in you now, so I'd appreciate it if you call if something else comes up. It doesn't matter how small or weird it is. Anything related to the case could help. I won't get your hopes up and say it'll help us figure out who attacked your partner, but who knows."
He turned away and gestured to Devetko, and they headed for the door. Devetko had already stepped into the hallway when Lopata spoke up behind them.
"Hey, Kristeva. You're the guy who investigates dead animals, right?"
Kristeva halted. Devetko glanced back at him and he tried hard to keep the wince from his face as he turned back toward the hospital room himself.
"I wasn't aware I had a reputation," he said.
"Still." Lopata held up the card. "That's you, isn't it?"
"Yes," Kristeva said, reluctantly.
Lopata was silent for a moment, glanced at Condry, then back at him. He appeared to bite his lip before he spoke again.
"There was something I didn't tell the guys who took my statement."
Kristeva and Devetko looked at each other again. They reentered the room, Devetko shutting the door behind them and pulling out his notebook. Kristeva stood beside Condry's bed and dipped his head a little to indicate he was listening. Lopata looked at his partner once more, as if steeling himself, then back up at Kristeva.
"When I told them what Bryan told me. It was pretty obvious they already thought I must be losing it. So I didn't see the point in giving them more ideas." He paused. "Bryan and I couldn't get down to the washout by car. We had to borrow a couple of horses from a nearby ranch."
"That's in the report," Kristeva confirmed.
"We had to return the horses when we were done. After they got Bryan out of the washout they took my horse back to the ranch."
The significance of the choice of words was obvious. "Condry's horse...?" Kristeva prompted.
Another pause. Lopata seemed almost to be staring him down, as if determining whether sharing this information was a good idea or not. He must have finally made up his mind, for he said, "I found Bryan's horse just before I reached the washout. Lying not far from the edge. Neck severed straight across."
Devetko's pen stopped moving and he glanced up, evidently not having expected this bit of information. Kristeva said nothing, though Lopata didn't seem to care. He scootched his chair back closer to Condry's bed and reached for the book he'd set down earlier. "I don't know what became of it in the mess afterwards. Didn't see the point of mentioning it when they were already thinking I must be nuts. You're the one who looks into this kind of stuff...who knows, maybe you can do something useful with it." He turned back to Condry, glanced at the wavy lines on the EKG, then flipped open the book and resumed reading. After a moment Kristeva felt a light tug on the sleeve of his jacket; Devetko turned and headed for the door once again, so he followed. Kristeva halted in the doorway and held up a finger for Devetko to wait, then looked over his shoulder.
"The nurse at the front desk said a woman came here a few times to visit. You know her at all--?"
"Yeah. Bryan's fiancee." Lopata turned a page without looking up. "Ex-fiancee. I guess him being in here a few weeks is more than she can take. Hell of a nice time to find out she puts a time limit on such things."
The detectives exited and shut the door behind them, pausing to look in the windows before heading up the hallway.
"He cares about his partner," Kristeva murmured as they walked.
"That comes with the territory," said Devetko.
"No...I mean really cares about his partner." He peered back over his shoulder, then ahead again with a small sigh. "Must be hell to see him lying there day in, day out."
"Well..." Devetko lifted a shoulder. "All the more reason to take his story with a grain of salt. I don't think he would make anything up. But I think he could see things that just aren't there."
"You can't tell me you didn't see how quiet he got when I mentioned Singer's throat being cut. He was thinking about that horse." Kristeva shrugged this time when Devetko looked at him. "I can't say there's any direct relation. Sounds iffy to the iffiest degree if you ask even me. But then again, isn't this entire case iffy--?" He halted abruptly when his cell phone started ringing, and hurried to fish it out of his pocket, almost dropping it in his haste to answer the call; Devetko held up a hand to still a few nurses and interns who cast them disapproving looks. Kristeva made a face and pressed the phone to his ear. "Kristeva." A pause. "Yeah, I did want to see..." He fell silent as the person on the other end talked, and his brow furrowed a little. "Okay," he said after a moment, "we'll be there in..." He pulled the phone away, looked at it, and flipped it shut, putting it back in his pocket. He shrugged at Devetko as they started walking again.
"Dr. Steiner. Found July's autopsy results. And he says there's something else he wants us to see. Sounds pretty testy about it, too, I couldn't get a word in edgewise."
"Great timing, I guess," Devetko said, and they picked up their pace.
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