Sweet Dreams by William W. Johnstone

Doctor Finley, don’t ask questions of Doctor Baldwin. Please enlighten me.”
    This time, Voyles had stepped over the line. He met his match with the M.E. The doctor shifted his eyes and said, “Young man,” – Voyles was forty if he was a day – “your attitude is beginning to annoy me. If you are laboring under the misconception that your occupation, uniform, and sidearm somehow impress me, you are badly mistaken. I spent three years in the Pacific during World War Two – as a Marine. I was one of Carlson’s Raiders. I’ve killed more men with knife and piano wire than you’ve worked wrecks. I was recalled during the Korean War and spent almost a year working up in North Korea with guerrillas. Now you listen to me. I run this section of the hospital. I give the orders around here, not you. When I am finished with this bit of work, I am going to call the attorney general of the State of Missouri – personally, on this Sunday afternoon – and inform that very close friend of mine that there is no way Doctor Jerry Baldwin could have done what has been done to that poor woman now resting in a cooler. Then I am going to personally phone the governor, who is married to one of my nieces, and tell him that out of all the hundreds of fine officers he has serving on the Missouri Highway Patrol, I don’t know why I had to be saddled with a double-dyed, arrogant, overbearing, totally officious goddamned son of a bitch like you.”
    Voyles blinked. He sat speechless for a full fifteen seconds. Then he slowly smiled. He looked at both doctors. When he spoke, his voice was rather subdued. “My apologies, gentlemen. To both of you. I guess I have been coming on pretty hard. If you will both bear with me for one more minute, I’ll try to explain my attitude. Doctors, what I am about to tell you should be held in the utmost secrecy. You see,” he said with a sigh, “Mrs. Baldwin is not the first person we’ve investigated, not the first to die in that area. There have been three others who have disappeared over the past few months. Two were vagrants. The third – we believe – was a young girl, a teenage runaway, hitching her way from South Carolina to California. We’ve been finding bits and pieces of flesh and bone and clothing in that area. It appears that, uh, the three might have been devoured.”
    â€œEaten!” Jerry blurted.
    â€œYes, sir,” Voyles said. Jerry had once more achieved ‘sir’ status with the highway cop. “But it’s very possible animals may have eaten the bodies and scattered the bones after the victims were killed and dumped. We don’t know the identities of the vagrants, but we believe the young girl was a runaway from a school for, ah, troubled children in South Carolina. We were ordered to move rather quietly for fear of creating a panic.”
    Jerry grunted. “That plus the fact that no one really gives a damn if two vagrants and a runaway kid got killed or not. Right, Lieutenant?”
    â€œI wouldn’t want to put it that way, sir,” the trooper said.
    â€œBut there is more,” Doctor Finley said. “Am I correct, Lieutenant?”
    Voyles nodded. “Yes, sir. We, that is to say, certain people within the department seem to believe the, ah, light out by the tracks might have some bearing on the case. I don’t,” he was quick to add. “Or, I didn’t, at least,” he muttered. “Now I don’t know what I’m going to put in my report.”
    Doctor Finley’s smile was rather grim. “Well, you just grab onto the arms of that chair, Lieutenant, ’cause I’m just about to make your day.”
    â€œThat is exactly what I was afraid you were going to say,” the cop replied, his tone of voice as grim as the doctor’s smile.
    Finley looked at Jerry. “You noticed, of course, the abnormal coloration of your