A/N: Hello everyone! Thanks for the reviews, they really help! I'm going to be out of town on vacation for a few days starting tomorrow and I'll be back either Thursday or Friday. I may or may not post chapter sixteen later on tonight just to be nice if time allows me. So keep it 'tween the ditches til' I get back :)
Straightening the Curves
Chapter Fifteen: Glimmer of Hope
Bo and Rachel went to the hospital to visit Chelsea. She was wide awake in the nursery glancing around at her surroundings the best that she could. She'd kick her legs a little under her blanket while Rachel held her in her arms, and every now and then she'd give a little yawn—only to continue staring at everyone that came into her view. Just looking at her, you'd never know that there was something terribly wrong with her.
Rachel was sitting in a rocking chair that the nurses set up for her to sit in, Bo next to her in a normal chair that had been taken from the waiting room. Chelsea was busy glancing back and forth at the both of them as she sucked on the bottle that the nurses had prepared for her.
"Hey, let me try," Bo pleaded when the bottle became half-empty.
"All right," Rachel said, putting the bottle in between her legs.
She got the baby into a position that would be easy for her to transfer her in and she laid her in Bo's cradling arms. At first, Chelsea didn't appreciate being moved from her comfortable position and her face crinkled up, but the warmth of Bo's arms calmed her down and she settled right in. Rachel handed Bo the bottle and helped him hold it at the right height so he wouldn't be choking the baby. Chelsea closed her eyes and seemed to try to go to sleep while she sucked.
"I think she likes me," Bo grinned when he saw the pleasant expression on his daughter's face. "Hey, Chelsea, this is Daddy. We all can't wait for you to come home. You'll like it there, ya got your own room, an' all kinds of stuffed animals to cuddle with."
Rachel got the painful feeling that Chelsea might not live long enough to even know what a stuffed animal was—or even see her own room for that matter. She shook the fear away. It did no good to think of the bad. She had think positive—Chelsea would live through surgery, she would get her heart fixed to normal, and would live a long healthy life.
Eve, Luke, Rosco and Ali were all gathered at a circular table at the nearest café, everybody with a mug of coffee in their hands. Eve had told the gang what Cooter had told her in the cell and they were all still a little confused about it.
"He said that he saw himself?" Luke asked. "I think he cracked his head somewhere a little too hard." Ali jabbed his side to make him hush. She was surprised at herself that she had even agreed to be within ten feet of her sister, but she had decided to overlook their differences in order to help her cousin out.
"I know it sounds crazy, but I believe him," Eve insisted, taking a sip of her coffee. "There's the possibility that someone is running around that looks like him."
"Yeah, like I saw last night," Rosco piped in. "That fella I thought was Cooter, remember?"
"Guess ya weren't seein' things after all, hon," Eve told him. "Here's what I think happened—Cooter goes outside the hotel to look around. He finds the dead girl and gets attacked. So far, everything makes sense. But then he sees the guy's face—and it appears to be his own. He gets confused and the guy knocks him out, throws the murder weapon on him so it would look like Cooter was the actual murderer, and makes a run for it. Later on, Rosco's outside—for whatever reason I never found out," she added, giving him a look which he answered with a silly grin.
"Anyways, he sees the guy running down the alley covered in the victim's blood. He just thought it was Cooter because it looked so much like him. After he tells me what he saw, I called Cooter's hotel room to see if he was all right. The killer, pretending to be Cooter, answers the phone and acts like he's fine. So I'm fine the rest of the evening and don't suspect a thing, an' nobody bothers to try and find Cooter before the cops do."
"But there's no way to prove this?" Ali asked.
"That's the bad part about it."
Luke got an idea. "Wait a minute, we have plenty to work with here! Eve can get her story together and get the facts straight. I can talk to the girls' families and try to see if they might have known who this fella was. Once we get a name, we can track him down, turn him into the fuzz and get Cooter's name of the record!"
"I'll help," Ali chirped in.
Eve gave her an appreciative smile.
Balladeer: So now they gotta plan. Luke an' Ali were gonna go visit the family of the deceased an' put a name to the killer's face while Eve stuck it out with the prosecution, reporters, etc. An' poor Cooter still sat there in jail.
It took a while, but using an Atlanta phonebook, he finally found the correct Caskells family that the first victim was related to. They used a taxi to make it to the home of George an' Sue Caskells, Summer Caskells' parents.
Sue gave Luke and Ali both a cup of nice hot tea. Her husband was gone at work so it was just the three of them alone. After they had explained to her that they were trying to crack the case themselves, Sue seemed more than happy to let them have any information they needed.
"Summer was a good girl," she began as she was sitting in her armchair while the other two sat on the couch. "Never had to worry about her getting in with the wrong crowd, always did well in school. It was such a shock to hear that someone had killed her. I couldn't imagine who would want to do such a thing." She sighed and put her tea cup on the coffee table. "I've got some pictures, would you like to see?"
"Oh, sure," Luke smiled politely.
Sue reached around behind her to get a photo album that was sitting on the bookshelf she had located within reach. She opened it up and handed it to Luke, who took it gently and laid it in his lap. Ali peered around his shoulder to look as well. They saw a very much alive Summer hanging out on the beach with her friends. There was a label above the photos that said "Spring Break—1987". Luke shuddered, thinking that the poor girl hadn't even known that was going to be the last time she'd celebrate a spring break. He started flipping the pages.
"Y'know, that boy they arrested—his name escapes me," Sue started up again. "They showed his picture on the television and the papers. George an' I both recognized the face, but the funny thing was that they got the name either mixed up or they nabbed a look-alike."
Luke flipped a few more pages and his eyes landed on one that caught his attention in particular. Summer sitting at a table in a restaurant with a guy. Ali's eyes bugged. Luke turned the album around and pointed to the picture, raising the book up so Sue could see.
"Ya mean this guy?" he asked.
Sue leaned forward and squinted. "Yes, that's him. He was her boyfriend—Elijah Moore, or "Eli" for short. They broke up about a month before she was killed."
"Why didn't you tell the investigators about this?" Ali wanted to know. "If they arrested the wrong guy, why didn't you say anything?"
"I did say something to the man in charge, I believe his last name was Yulch, but he told me that "Eli" was just his alias."
"That's a little odd," Luke muttered. He handed the album to Sue and then shook her hand. "Thanks, Mrs. Caskells, you've been a big help!"
Balladeer: After learnin' about this guy named Eli, Luke called Eve at the hotel to tell her the news. Then they looked up the Kent family and called them. Heather's father, Bill, answered. Ali explained to him over the phone that she was an old friend of Heather's, expressed her condolences, an' asked if he could tell her where she could find an Eli Moore.
"Eli? Heather's ex-boyfriend?" Bill replied. "I haven't seen him since they broke up last month, but last I knew he was stayin' in the slum part of town by himself. Uh, the ol' Mockingbird complex on the outside of town."
"Okay, thank you, you've been a great help," Ali told him before hanging up. "If Eli's still livin' in the same place, I know exactly where he is."