Boots and Bullets

“Sir?”

Cyrus stirred, blinking the receptionist back into focus. He removed his Stetson. “I need to speak with your hospital administrator.” He realized he should have made an appointment. Had he been afraid the person wouldn’t see him once he recognized the name and knew what this was about?

“Your name?”

“Cyrus Winchester.”

The receptionist picked up the phone. “Let me see … oh, here she is now.”

A woman in her sixties with short gray hair walked toward them. She was dressed in a suit and had an air of authority about her.

“This man needs to see you,” the receptionist said.

The hospital administrator gave him only a brief glance. “Why don’t you come back to my office.”

Cyrus followed her into a small, brightly lit room. The light hurt his eyes. Another side effect of the coma, this sensitivity to light?

“Would you like me to close the blinds?” She was already closing them, dimming the room a little.

“I’m Cyrus Winchester.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Winchester?” She didn’t introduce herself but the plaque on her desk read Roberta Warren.

“Were you also the administrator at the old hospital?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ve been the administrator for the last thirty-four years.” She clasped her hands together on her desk and seemed to wait patiently, although her demeanor said she had a lot to do and little time.

He kneaded the brim of his hat in his lap, surprised he was nervous. “You know who I am.”

“Yes.”

“Then you probably know why I’m here.” He realized he was nervous because he was sitting in front of a health care specialist who was looking at him as if he might be nuts.

“Your brother called us about an incident you thought you’d seen while at the old hospital the night you were there.”

“That incident was a woman murdered in the nursery.”

She shook her head. “There was no murder at the hospital.”

Another chunk of memory fell as if from the sky. “There were two babies in bassinets,” he said as he saw the nursery clearly in his memory. Why hadn’t he recalled that earlier? Because it hadn’t registered? Or because it hadn’t mattered when there was a dead woman lying just inside the nursery?

Now, though, he thought the fact that the two babies were there did matter for some reason. He tried to remember, but that only made his head ache and the memory slip farther away from him.

Roberta Warren was still shaking her head. “There were no babies in the nursery that last night the old hospital was still open. I’m afraid you’re mistaken about that, as well.”

He tried another tactic. “Do you know a woman with long auburn hair, greenish-blue eyes, tall, slim, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties?”

“As I told your brother, there is no one employed at the hospital who matches that description.”

“Do you know anyone in town who matches that description?”

She raised a brow. “I thought you said it was a nurse who you thought you saw murdered.”

“She wasn’t wearing a name tag when I found her. Maybe she was only pretending to be a nurse.”

The administrator looked at her watch pointedly. “I’m sure you’ve spoken with the sheriff. Had there been a murder—”

“I’d like to speak to the two nurses on duty that night,” he said.

“I won’t allow that.”

“Why not?” he asked, thinking he might be on to something.

“I’ve questioned both of them at length, Mr. Winchester. One was always at the desk that night. The sheriff also questioned them as well and looked at the monitor readings. You never left your bed that night. If you decide to pursue this, it will have to be with a subpoena and just cause.” Her tone said good luck getting either. “I won’t have you accusing my nurses of something that never happened.”

He rose to his feet. He wasn’t going to get anything from this woman. “Thank you for your time.”

She sighed and gave him a sympathetic look. “I’m sure your doctor explained to you that what you thought you experienced was a coma-induced hallucination of some kind, perhaps stemming from your line of work. There is no cover-up, no murder, no reason for you to waste your time or anyone else’s. I would think you would be glad to be alive and have better things to do with your time.”

“I am glad to be alive. Unfortunately, the woman I saw lying in a pool of blood in the old hospital nursery isn’t and for some reason no one cares.”

He saw that his words finally hit home because she had paled. But that gave him little satisfaction. He turned and walked out of her office and reception area into the bright October morning.

He was shaking inside. Where had that come from about the babies? But now that he thought about it, he was certain there’d been two babies in the nursery.

Just as he was certain there’d been a murder. Now all he had to do was prove it—against all odds, because his instincts told him he was right. If that woman was ever going to get justice, it would be up to him.

THE MOMENT the office door closed, Roberta Warren let out the breath she’d been holding. Her hands were trembling as she reached into the drawer for the small bottle of vodka she kept there disguised in a water bottle.

Taking a sip, she told herself that there was no reason she should be so upset. But when Cordell Winchester had called questioning whether or not there had been a murder more than three months ago at the hospital, she hadn’t thought anything of it.

That was because he hadn’t mentioned that the murder his brother thought he’d seen had been in the hospital nursery. Or that the woman had been found in a pool of her own blood. Or that there had been two babies in bassinets in the nursery the night of the murder.

Roberta Warren took another sip of the vodka and quickly put the lid back on the water bottle. Her hands were a little steadier, but her heart was still pounding. The man couldn’t have possibly dreamed any of this. Who dreamed a murder in such detail? But was he just fishing or did he know something?

She took a mint from her drawer and chewed it, debating how to handle this. The best thing was to ignore it. Cyrus Winchester would tire soon since he would keep running into dead ends, and he would eventually go back to Denver.

But then again, she hadn’t expected him to come all the way to Whitehorse to chase a nightmare. She’d heard the determination in his voice. The fool really thought he was going to get justice for the dead woman.

Calmer, Roberta picked up the phone and almost dialed the number she hadn’t called in thirty years. She put the phone down. She was overreacting. That was probably what he hoped she would do. But still she worried that this would get all over town, hell, all over the county, if he continued to ask questions.

If he didn’t give up soon, she would have to come up with a way to dissuade him.

She stood, smoothed her hands over her skirt and walked to the window, half expecting to see Cyrus Winchester standing outside her office, staring in as if he thought he could make her feel guilty enough to panic.

Well, he didn’t know her, she thought, but she was glad to see him drive off anyway.

THE OCTOBER DAY WAS sunny and blustery. Golden leaves showered down from the trees and formed piles in the gutters. The air smelled of fall with just a hint of the snowy winter days that weren’t far off.