Mr. 8

Chapter 23: Getting Back to Normal

Denton's face didn't feel his own. It was more like a mask he had been forced to wear. Half of his forehead was covered with a brown cloth bandage to hide and protect his stitches. The left side of his face was a swirling mess of purples, yellows, and reds. The swelling in his lip had gone down, but there was still a sharp red line marking the split. And his glasses were foreign and uncomfortable. The police had bagged and cataloged just about the entire contents of the lodge for evidence. They had also carried out a thorough forensic sweep of the surrounding area. Despite that, his glasses had never been recovered. The black plastic frames and their thick lenses with astigmatism correction were lost beneath the snow, and there was very little hope of them turning up until spring.

Until he could see an optometrist, his old pair of wire rims would have to do. They had sat in a dresser drawer for the past four years. The right arm was slightly bent, making them always look crooked, and the prescription was outdated enough that he felt the constant beginnings of a headache forming.

As he made his way from Milton's parking lot to his office, he attracted furtive glances and outright stares, but no one asked him what had happened to him. They all knew. That was one of the few advantages of the story being plastered all over the news.

On the front page of Wednesday's paper his picture had appeared with the headline: Local Hero. Linda had seemed proud of it. Although, he suspected she was more pleased that they had referred to him as a local, than as a hero.

She certainly didn't have anything good to say about his heroics. The Gazette had used the picture from the dust jacket of What Your Stuff Says about You, and a much younger Denton Reed peered out at the town with a smug expression and folded arms, as though he was fully entitled to the accolades bestowed upon him.

As an unexpected side benefit, the media attention had revived the long dormant sales of his book. There had also been a pile of offers for new ones. The original publisher was clamoring for a sequel. And Denton had also been contact by several others to write a tell-all of his adventure. There was even a company interested in him writing a criminology textbook documenting the investigative techniques he used on the case. He had to laugh at that. What good would that do anyone? He felt more the bumbling Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes. He had turned down all the offers, just as he turned down all the requests for interviews. Reporters had rapidly been relegated to a class somewhere below vultures after they had attempted to ambush him as he left the hospital. Thankfully, Bill had been there and helped him and Linda sneak out through a service entrance.

When he first arrived home, they were forced to unplug the phone and learned to ignore the doorbell. But the interest in Denton soon dwindled. The lives of the killers and the people who knew them turned out to be much more fascinating. And when a sensational murder trial started up in Florida, the national coverage headed south to better weather and juicier sound bites.

By Friday morning, Denton's role in the case had been forgotten by the press, which made his decision to go back to work easier. But Linda hadn't been happy about it.

"Can't it wait," she said. "You need rest. You've only been out of the hospital for a day."

Linda was exaggerating—slightly. He had been out for almost two days, but he knew better than to use that as an argument. His best tactic would be to steer the discussion to whether he needed recovery time, not how long it should be.

"They only kept me in overnight as a precaution." After a long, unpleasant night, he got a clean bill of health—nothing that wouldn't heal on its own in a few weeks, the doctor had told him.

"I'm fine. Dr. Nash never said I needed bed rest. Besides, the Department is closed starting Monday. I just have a little paperwork to get done and then I'll take it easy for the rest of the holidays."