Night Shift. Annelise Ryan

drove in and parked behind the barn. I couldn’t see what they were doing and didn’t want to. For now, I preferred to keep my distance from that barn and its evil contents.

      I kept myself near Devo’s car and Roscoe, letting him out of the vehicle again, but keeping him on leash and as far away from the barn as possible. When Devo finally emerged from the barn to tell me he would take me back to the station as soon as he checked with Bob, who was currently in the house, I was relieved and ready to go. I was dead tired and eager to be away from this place, so I happily loaded Roscoe into his pen and then climbed into the front seat of the squad car to wait for Devo.

      Now, ten minutes have gone by, and I’m growing impatient. Relief fills me when I see both Bob and Devo finally emerge from the house, but my enthusiasm flags when I see Bob walk over to my side of the squad car and indicate that I should roll my window down.

      “Hildy, I’m wondering if you might be willing to help me out with something this morning.”

      “What?” I ask with mixed feelings. I’m enjoying this police stuff quite a bit, but my bed is calling to me.

      “I need to pick up Danny Hildebrand and bring him into the station for questioning. I understand that his current situation is a bit, um, delicate, and I know you’ve worked with him and have something of a rapport with both him and his sister.”

      “I suppose I do,” I say, wondering where this is going.

      “Would you be willing to sit in when I question him? I think he might be more forthcoming with you. And if you think Roscoe will help calm the guy, we can include him, too.”

      Every inch of my body is telling me to say no, that bed and sleep is more of a priority right now. But this is what I was hired to do by the police department and since the job approval is only temporary, a trial run so to speak, I figure anything I can do to make it seem more viable, useful, and indispensable is to my advantage. So, against my weary body’s better judgment, I say yes. Besides, I do know Danny and his sister quite well and I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into their lives already. Now is not the time to give up on that.

      * * *

      Two cups of coffee, a bad case of reflux, and a little over an hour later, I am seated in the police station conference room, Roscoe sitting on my right, but faced away from me. Bob Richmond calls this an interrogation room but I have a hard time seeing it as such. I’m in a cushy chair situated at the head of an oblong, faux wood table in a room that looks like it was decorated by someone who did too much LSD back in the sixties. The colors are mostly blues and browns, but the shades within these color families don’t match well. The blue in the carpet is a rich royal color but the blue in the fabric on the chairs is more of a turquoise. This might not be so bad if it wasn’t for the orange and yellow in the chairs, and the chartreuse and purple in the carpet. Someone’s color wheel ran far off the road.

      Bob Richmond is seated beside me to my left, his back to the door of the room, and across from him are Danny and Allie, Danny to my direct right and his sister on his right. My seat at the head of the table doesn’t signify any type of position or authority. It’s simply designed to be a buffer position that puts me between Bob and Danny.

      For now, the room is silent. No one is saying anything because we are waiting on one other person to arrive: Danny’s lawyer. Bob isn’t happy about this. That’s obvious from the expression on his face, and the impatient way he’s tapping his pen on the tabletop. Allie is leaning back in her chair, her arms folded defensively over her chest, frowning at Bob. Danny is sitting calmly, his only movement that of his left hand as he strokes the top of Roscoe’s head, which is currently resting in Danny’s lap. No one seems compelled to fill the awkward silence—a surprising situation in and of itself. Most people find such lulls painfully awkward and uncomfortable.

      I suppose the current situation is my fault to some degree. Based on the look Bob gave me a while ago, I know he believes that. But I only did what I felt I had to do to protect my patient. Granted, my relationship with Danny in this new role is somewhat murkily defined, but I feel certain it couldn’t and shouldn’t negate my previous professional relationship with him. It’s a topic that will have to be clarified at some point because in a town the size of Sorenson, the odds of me encountering someone I’ve worked with at the hospital while doing my job for the PD are high.

      Devo had driven me to Allie’s place when we left the farm so we could ask Danny to come to the police station for a chat. Clearly Danny was a key person of interest in the dead farmer’s case, if not a suspect, and it was urgent that Bob talk with him on the matter. Allie had answered the door, and when Devo explained that we wanted to take Danny down to the station to talk about the killing he claimed to have seen, Allie immediately got defensive.

      “No one believed him about that earlier,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Devo. She then looked at me. “You said you thought it was a manifestation of his schizophrenia. What’s different now?”

      Before I could answer, Devo said, “We have reason to believe he might have actually seen something. It’s important that we talk to him.”

      Allie, being no dummy, immediately made the connection. “You found someone dead,” she said bluntly.

      “Yes,” I said quickly.

      Joel, looking sleepy-eyed and with his hair ruffled from bed, appeared over Allie’s shoulder. “Who’s dead?” he asked.

      No one answered him.

      Allie’s eyes narrowed as she looked back at Devo. “Do you want to talk to Danny because you think he witnessed something or because you think he may be involved?”

      Devo, in an impressive bit of evasive cop-speak said, “It’s imperative that we speak to him as soon as possible. Time is always of the essence in these cases. If your brother saw something he shouldn’t have, he might be in danger.”

      I had to hand it to Devo; it was a brilliant response. He’d handily avoided answering the question Allie had asked while simultaneously making her feel the urgent need of the situation. But Allie isn’t your average person and she’d been dealing with her brother for too long and under too many circumstances to be so easily manipulated.

      “He just got home from the ER, after a supposed breakdown,” she said. “I don’t think now is the time to be asking him anything.” She jutted her chin at Devo in a manner that clearly communicated her commitment. “I wouldn’t want anything he might say to be taken out of context,” she concluded, arching one eyebrow.

      Joel agreed. “Give the guy a break. He’s not even sure what’s real at this point. It’s not fair to be questioning him now.”