Almost as if on cue, the paramedics lifted Canfield’s limp frame onto a body board and strapped her securely to it, immobilizing her arms and legs and securing her head. The one who seemed to be in charge had obviously heard Miller’s question to Chief Branson, and he shook his head at them almost imperceptibly. “It doesn’t look good,” he said in a near-whisper. “She’s lost a lot of blood. If I was a betting man, I’d say she won’t make it to the hospital alive.”
Miller looked down and blinked in surprise as Angela Canfield returned his gaze. He had thought she was unconscious, but now he understood the paramedic’s reluctance to speak at a volume she might hear. The FBI agent’s eyes were glazed with pain and shock but alive with understanding. Her skin was bone-white, and she shivered uncontrollably despite the heat and humidity the passing storm had left in its wake, and despite the fact she was draped in a heavy wool blanket.
“Angie,” Mike Miller said in an agonized voice as the paramedics trundled her past and struggled up the stairs. “What happened? Is it true what they’re saying?”
To his astonishment, she smiled like the cat that ate the canary, as his mother used to say. “A gal’s got to prepare for her retirement, you know,” she said weakly. Her voice was quavering and paper-thin. She sounded to Mike like a ninety-year-old woman rather than the sharp, lively, cat-quick young woman he had come to know over the past year.
“Oh, my God,” he mumbled to himself as Chief Branson nodded unseen next to him. He made a snap decision; there was no time to run this one by the SAC. He hustled up the stairs behind the two paramedics, who were now carrying the board with the frighteningly wan body of Special Agent Angela Canfield down the hallway toward the front door. There was blood everywhere, Miller noted. The men had apparently made the decision simply to carry Canfield rather than try to wheel her across the rough terrain to the ambulance.
“Hey, guys?” Miller said, falling into place behind them. “Would it be all right if I rode in the back of the ambulance with her? If she’s up to it, I need to ask her a few questions.”
The men shared a glance, and Miller knew exactly what they were thinking. She was going to be dead soon, so if he had questions, he had better hurry up and ask them. “Sure,” one of them said. Miller didn’t notice which one answered him.
CHAPTER 61
May 29, 7:15 p.m.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU GO to Agent Canfield with the name and address you got from Ray Blanchard like you told him you were going to? Did you suspect something was not quite right with her?” Special Agent Mike Miller watched Bill Ferguson closely as he waited for an answer. They had been over this subject more times than Bill could remember in the twenty-four hours since he had awoken from the surgery to remove one bullet from his arm and another from his leg.
In an adjacent room, Carli was undergoing similar questioning from another agent. Incredibly, other than the gash to the side of her head, which had required fourteen stitches to close, she had suffered nothing more than a few minor cuts and bruises. Her mother and a lawyer were sitting in on the questioning with her, but the session was mostly a formality. Whatever Angela Canfield had told Agent Miller in the ambulance before dying en route to the hospital had apparently confirmed most, if not all, of their story.
Bill shook his head. “No, it was nothing like that. I didn’t suspect a thing. I certainly had no idea Angela…Agent Canfield…was part of the whole scheme. I was just desperate to do something. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around waiting to find out what might happen with a rescue attempt. And, I suppose, I also felt like the FBI had already screwed up big-time by allowing Carli to be kidnapped off the bus in the first place, so I guess I didn’t entirely trust you guys. I thought I would just charge in there and get her myself. I know how stupid it was to go into that house alone against a guy like Krall, but I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”
Bill voice trailed off and stopped, and then he abruptly changed the subject. He had been chewing on Canfield’s actions obsessively, like a dog worrying a bone. He shook his head in bewilderment. “How could she?”
He looked up at Miller, who had nothing to offer. The young agent looked equally perplexed. “I was her partner for over a year, and I had no clue, either. She was a very private person, especially where her past was concerned, and now we’re beginning to understand why. We’ve only been digging for a little over a day, but what we’ve uncovered isn’t pretty.”
Bill nodded. “She made reference to years of abuse while she was holding the gun on me in Krall’s basement. But what about her mother? Why didn’t she protect her child?”
“Her mother became aware of the abuse at some point, that much we know, but it’s not clear exactly when. We started interviewing her yesterday, but she’s, understandably, reluctant to talk about that part of her life, especially now. We do know, though, that even after she found out, she did nothing about it.”
“How is that possible? That was happening to her own daughter!”
“The guy was one scary dude—he’s doing life in Cedar Junction for murder, which is the only reason she’s even talking to us—and she probably figured that, if she tried to stop the assaults, he would simply kill her, and then where would Angela be?
“But I don’t get it,” Bill said. “She told me she was a straight-A student, both in high school and in college.”
“Lots of people who have suffered horrible abuse are very high achievers,” Miller said. “It’s a way for them to gain some form of control over their lives when they have very little control over what happens to them at home.”
“So what happens now?”
“I’m sorry,” Miller said, “But I really can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
Bill stared at him unblinkingly. “Are you kidding me? You mean you can’t discuss the investigation that was broken by Carli and me? That investigation?”