They had to find her. They just had to. He wasn't going to let himself think of anything else but them finding her safe and sound. Maybe he had been wrong about Lona not having any relatives? Maybe some obscure one called out of nowhere needing help and Lona had had to take a few days off or something. He knew all too well what would have happened if she left a memo for Jesse on his desk. And if she tried to email something.... He didn't think that Jesse had checked his email in the last six months.
"Hook!" Elmer called, starting down the hallway towards them. He
wanted to be as involved as he could be, do anything that he could to help
them find Lona and get her home where she belonged as quickly as possible.
He couldn't just stand around doing nothing like some people were doing.
"Hey, Elmer. This is Detective Rogers and Detective Ryan." Hook
had been hoping that Elmer would stay away for a bit, wanting to give the
police a chance to check out things without the young doctor's attempts to
help them in some way but it didn't look like that would be happening now.
And, when he really thought about it, could he blame Elmer for how he was
acting? He didn't even want to imagine what sort of shape he would be in
if Chris was the one who had suddenly vanished. There was no way that he
would be content to stay on the sidelines if he was in Elmer's position.
"You're Elmer Traff?" Detective Ryan asked as he consulted his notes for a moment, taking in the bathrobe that Elmer was clutching in his hands as he did so. He extracted a pen from his jacket pocket and made a short note before he spoke once more. "You were one of the last people to see Dr. Massingale. Is that correct?" He observed the younger doctor carefully as he spoke, exchanging looks with his partner.
Elmer nodded, misery apparent on his face as he thought of it, of
the last time that he had seen Lona. "Two nights ago down in the lab." He
said after a moment. Had it only been two nights ago? It felt like an
eternity since he had seen Lona last. Was she okay? Was she somewhere
safe and warm right now? He would never forgive himself if she came to any
harm. "She had a new idea for some tests. She wanted me to stop by the
lab before the staff meeting to talk to her about it." He should never
have left Lona alone. He had slept in the lab plenty of times, after all.
Why in the world hadn't he volunteered to sleep down there on that night?
"It's all my fault." he whispered brokenly as he thought about it. The
one time that Lona had needed him, had been counting on him to help her,
and he had failed her utterly. He should have stayed right there with her.
Then this never would have happened. It was all his fault.
The two police officers looked at each other for a moment, trying
to decide what they should do first. The lab definitely needed searched
but the young doctor was obviously at a week and vulnerable point now.
They knew from experience that if you wanted to get information out of a
potential witness or suspect, the most vulnerable point was one of the best
times to do it. When people weren't so upset they were more likely to
think carefully about what they were saying, to weed out things that they
felt were unimportant or possibly incriminating. "Why don't you come with
us? We would like to take a statement if you don't have a problem with
that." Detective Ryan said, making sure to move carefully with his
approach. If it turned out that the young man was more than a witness, he
wanted to make sure that anything he said could be used later.
"Whatever helps you find her." Elmer said, not noticing the way that the two detectives were looking at each other as well as him. "I just want you to find her." He had to struggle not to cry as he thought about the situation. Okay, he had definitely been upset and had realized how serious things were before but having the police here just seemed to hammer home exactly how serious things really were.
"I think the hospital maintence head would be willing to loan you his office for a bit." Hook told the officers. Considering how infrequently Johnny showed up for work, it wasn't like he could do anything even if he wasn't willing to loan them his office. "Right this way."
As soon as the office door closed behind Elmer and the officers,
Louis turned to Hook, worry written clearly on his face. "Does Otto have a
camera in there?"
"Probably. Why?" Hook said.
"I want to watch, see what's going on." Louis stared at the door for a moment before turning and heading for the elevator. He just hoped that he didn't miss anything critical while he was trying to get upstairs.
"You think they suspect Elmer of having something to do with this"
Of course, now that Hook thought of it, it would make perfect sense for
Elmer to be suspected, being one of the last people to see Lona and
everything. He shook his head as he thought of it, not even letting the
notion settle seriously into his brain. Okay, Elmer did dumb stuff to get
Lona's attention but there was just now way that he would ever do anything
to harm her.
"Did you see the way they were looking at him?" Louis said as the
two men hurried into the elevator. "I just want to see what they're doing.
Elmer's exhausted right now and totally freaked about Lona. Who knows
what they could get him to say without realizing it?" No way was he
letting anyone, law enforcement official or not, hurt his son!