Judged by E. H. Reinhard Page B

situation is.”
    “We will, I assure you.” Tim stood at the border of the kitchen and the living room and motioned toward the couch with the barrel of the gun. “Lie down on that couch.” Tim glanced back at the woman, facedown and not moving on the floor and figured the drugs would take effect before she regained consciousness from the pistol whipping. He turned back to Jensen, who sat. “I said lie down. Feet up, head on the pillow.”
    Jensen obeyed. Tim walked for him, pointed the jab stick toward him and launched it forward. The doctor caught the needle in the center of his stomach as he tried to move to defend himself. Tim tossed the stick to the ground. It bounced and came to rest near a big fireplace. He kept his gun sights on the doctor.
    Jensen scrambled on the couch, trying to get himself up. “What the hell did you just do?”
    “It’s a deer tranquilizer. There’s nothing you can do. Just let it work.”
    “Deer tranquilizer?” The doctor swung his legs off of the couch and attempted to stand.
    Tim kicked him back into the couch cushions. “Just sit there. You’ll never get out of this house either way.”
    “What the hell is this?” Jensen asked. His words became sloppy.
    “This is your judgment,” Tim said.
    “Judgment? For what?”
    “We’ll get to that in a little while. I still need to finish getting ready. You coming home unexpected kind of ruined my preparation. All in good time, though. You just relax and have a nap.”
    Jensen didn’t respond. The doctor’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the couch cushions.
    “There we go,” Tim said.
    Tim’s eyes caught the chaise on the far side of the fireplace. It would be perfect. He just needed to deal with the woman and finish getting ready. Tim jammed the pistol back into his waistline and walked back into the kitchen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    Alice Schipper sat across from me in an interview room on the third floor. She was filling out a statement regarding her relationship with the late Glen Scobee, the visit he’d made to her house the night he was killed, and the van she’d seen out in front of her property.
    Ms. Schipper signed her name at the bottom of the sheet and slid it toward me. “That should be everything I told you.”
    I picked the paper up, glanced over it to confirm she’d included everything we’d discussed, and placed it into a file. I handed her the stack of papers that included the different photographs of vans.
    “I’d like you to look those over and pick out which van you saw.”
    She nodded but said nothing. I watched as she looked at every single sheet. She backtracked from the end of the stack and pulled out a single piece of paper. “This was it,” she said. “Stick some numbers on the rear glass, and it’s exact.”
    She held the paper out toward me, which I took and turned in my hand. She’d picked the Ford Transit Connect, just like the woman from Liberty City.
    “You’re positive?” I asked.
    “That’s it,” she said.
    “And this color?” I asked.
    “The streetlights on my block have a warm hue, so I can’t be entirely sure if it was beige or gold or silver. It had metallic paint, so I doubt it was white.”
    “Okay.”
    “Do you need anything else?” she asked.
    “We have your statement and the selection you chose. That should be it. If I need anything, I assume I can call you?”
    “That’s fine,” she said.
    I saw her to the elevators, across from the main entrance to the tech center, and clicked the arrow down for the elevator.
    “Find who did this,” Ms. Schipper said. “The affair aside, he was a good man and didn’t deserve what happened to him. Rachael didn’t either.”
    I didn’t tell her that he, in fact, was not a good man.
    “We’re working on locating the person responsible. This van identification could help.”
    The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. I figured a stop at the tech center behind me was in order to confirm the van we were