Read Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness Page 6

  Chapter 4

  John Doe

  A few moments after the stranger went into surgery, two Sheriff’s Department deputies arrived in the ER. One stood around gawking at a couple of cute nurses, fantasizing that one of them might actually go out with him if he only had the courage to ask. The second deputy appeared to actually know what he was doing. He was asking questions and examining the clothes and items stripped from the stranger’s body shortly before the surgery began. Half-an-hour or so later—the surgery still going on—another officer arrived, one with a bigger badge and more attachments on his belt, and approached the second officer with an unmistakable aura of authority.

  “Who is our victim?” Sheriff Mark Anderson asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” Deputy Brock Brown replied, mouth smirking slightly then returning to normal as he did his best to mask the contempt he felt for his new boss of a mere two months.

  Deputy Brown was in his mid-forties, yet he still resembled the image in his youthful police academy photographs from twenty years before, which showed a trim yet muscled 6’1” stature, as well as a head of thick, jet-black hair, though he now required a dab of hair dye every now and then. His work habits rivaled even those of the most eager trainee. He had been a loyal member of the department for twenty years, yet had been ignored by the governor when the prior sheriff had died from a heart attack six months before. Brown was a Democrat, and the governor had appointed a loyal Republican Party member with no law enforcement experience whatsoever. To make matters even less palatable, Sheriff Anderson had demoted him from detective to deputy to make room for the sheriff’s nephew, who was grossly unqualified to investigate crimes, at least in Brown’s eyes.

  Standing side-by-side, the differences between Anderson and Brown were striking. Anderson was relatively short and at the top of his forehead the two sides of his hairline came together in a widow’s peak. He had a beer gut made worse by poor exercise, and his breath often sounded like a wheeze. On the other hand, Brown was a specimen of masculinity, with a flat washboard stomach and the look and stature one would want in the county’s number one law enforcement officer, at least that’s what he assumed of the electorate’s perceptions.

  Brown sucked in his own gut and puffed out his chest as he pictured himself in the county’s chief law enforcement officer’s uniform and badge, then again scanned his boss’s slovenly appearance. For the umpteenth time, he pondered whether he should run for sheriff in two years. The thought brought a smile to his face, which he shook off as he realized he had a job to do.

  “Whoever did this stole his wallet and ID,” Brown continued, “and his prints aren’t on any national databases that we can find.”

  “Any missing persons’ reports?”

  Who does this guy think I am, Brown thought, a rookie? Though he managed to avoid letting his boss know his thoughts via a frown or grimace.

  “That’s the first thing I checked. Nothing from Nebraska to Texas; this kid’s clean and mysterious.”

  “Stay on it.”

  “Will do.”

  “Have you seen Brad around here somewhere?” Anderson asked as he gazed around the room, his eyes periodically catching a glimpse of the same nurses the clueless Deputy was “investigating.” Detective Brad Smith was the nephew who knew as much about police work as he did nuclear science, and also happened to be the department’s chief detective, the position once held by Brown. Although department policy required all underlings to call him “Detective,” Brown preferred the less respectful “Smitty,” and most other deputies concurred, at least behind his and Anderson’s backs.

  “Not yet,” Brown replied, trying his best to remain respectful, or at least not overtly insulting in his smirks and winces.

  “Tell him to call me when you see him,” he said. “I’m headed back to the station.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Anderson slipped out of the ER as quickly as he’d arrived. But Brown didn’t mind. Maybe I’ll solve this crime without you or your brownnosing nephew in the way. He didn’t mind who got the credit, as long as the crime was solved. There would be plenty of time for bitterness after the work was done.