A Shadow Fell by Patrick Dakin Page A

fine.”
                  “I spoke to the doctor. He says you’ve had a mild heart attack but you’re going to be okay.”
                  “I know, dear. Stop worrying. Your father was all worked up too. I sent him down to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. You should go see him. ”
                  I patted her hand. “ I will but first I want to talk to the police. There ’s a police detective outside right now . I’ll be back in a little bit .”
                  When I approached the Phoenix police detective, who was speaking with a uniformed officer in the hall, he introduced hims elf as Roger Kirk land .
                  “What can you tell me, Detective?” I said.
                                “ We have a preliminary confirmation that it was Henderson,” he told me. “ Looks like he was acting as a deliveryman. He pulled up in a white mini-van with no lettering on it , wearing a white cap, and was carr ying a box wrapped in brown paper up the walkway to your parents home . Luckily – very luckily – the next door neighbor happened to see him and recognized him immediately. She screamed and got the attention of several other people in the vicinity. Henderson then immediately took off. Your mother’s heart attack actually happened after the fact when being told what had occurred. She didn’t even see Henderson herself.”
                  “No luck on tracking him from here ?”
                  “Afraid not. By the time we got the call and responded he was long gone.”
                 
                  I found my dad in the hospital cafeteria. He was sitting at a table with a cold cup of coffee in front of him, looking utterly bewildered .               Seeing me he stood and we held each other for a long moment .
                  “I’m so sorry, son,” he s aid. “I should have been here.”
                  “ You have nothing to apologize for , Dad . If anything I should be apologizing for bringing this down on you guys. ”
                  “ Have you seen your mom? ”
                  “ Yeah, I just came from her room. She’s resting comfortably and doing well. The doctor told me it was a mild heart attack and he expects her to recover completely.”
                  He nodded his understanding but still seemed dazed by all that had happened. He and my mother were simple people. Danger was not something with which they were accustomed to dealing. At this stage in their lives they certainly didn’t need the kind of excitement they were getting.
                               
                  A few days later my mother was released from the hospital and back home. I stuck around for a day after that and then got a flight back to Florida. I would have preferred to stay longer with my folks but I had a wife who needed me even though she didn’t yet know it.
                                Con came to see me the day after my return.
                  “We gotta get this fucker, Jack,” he said. “The Feds ain’t doing it.”
                  “ Yeah, I know,” I said wearily. “I got that.”
                                My insides churned . Things were so much simpler for Hender s on now than when he’d been an undetected serial killer. Back then he had ingeniously set up countless poor suckers to take the fall for his murders and that had all required a lot of planning and work. N ow he had nothing to hide. I n fact he was probably glorifying in the attention he garnered from it all.
                                Con scratched his whiskers while he ruminated. “Wouldn’t surprise me if that was Henderson that camped out up there on the mountain ,” he