The muzzle flash is bright enough to blind me for a few seconds, and it’s only afterward that I notice a tiny fire around the bullet hole in the pillowcase. I put the fire out with the edge of a blanket and check the rice bag. The bullet’s contained inside. The mattress is undamaged.
Score one for YouTube.
I’m hoping the camera above the office won’t pick up the muzzle flash. That would make my life easiest. But what asshole said life’s supposed to be easy? Vern’s waiting for me as I approach the office, and I don’t have to ask the question. The answer’s written on his face. I find it in the soft smile and the apologetic tilt of his head. I march past him without speaking, through the office to the small room holding the computer.
“Run it.”
It’s faint, the flash, but it’s undeniably there. Not only in the gap at the top of the drapes, but the drapes themselves appear to glow.
“She didn’t shoot him.”
This doesn’t come from me or Vern. Richard Gaitskill’s first to state an obvious truth that my brain doesn’t care to process. Talk about buyer’s remorse. I’m telling myself the experiment was bullshit. That I was only guessing about how hard to press the muzzle into the pillow. Maybe she pressed it a lot harder. And maybe the mist and drizzle between the office and the cabin was thicker. It wouldn’t take much. The flash in the window of Cabin 909 is very faint.
“Can you copy this out?” I ask.
Richard takes a step toward the computer, then stops abruptly. He draws a sharp breath, his right hand going to his side. Vern asks the obvious question. “You hurtin’, Richard?”
“I fell.”
“Yeah?” Vern’s not buying. “The Schmidts, right? Or one Schmidt? Connor?”
Richard makes his way to his desk and the motel’s single computer. He takes a flash drive from the center drawer of the desk and inserts it into an open port on the computer. He doesn’t speak until his fingers begin to work.
“Whatta ya wanna do, Lieutenant? You wanna kill us? Just take your shit and get outta here before somebody sees us together. Somebody who ain’t supposed to.”
I’m sympathetic. No way do I want him to get hurt. The man’s had enough. But we don’t leave until I drop the flash drive into a labeled evidence bag.
“Anything else you want to tell me, Richard?” I say. “About your relationship to Connor Schmidt and Bradley Grieg.”
“Like what?”
“Like who else had a key to Cabin 909?”
“Nobody, Lieutenant. I swear.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CONNOR
“You fuckin’ believe this shit?”
It’s Augie who speaks first. We’re parked on the eastern end of the Skyview Motor Court. We’ve been here for a good fifteen minutes, ever since we drove up to find Mariola’s black Toyota parked in front of the office. Now I’m watching the bitch walk from the office toward Cabin 909 on the other end of the lot.
“You see what she’s carryin?” Augie asks. “My eyes ain’t that good.”
“It looks like a pillow in one arm and a bag in the other.”
“What’s that mean, Connor?”
I’m not mad. At least not crazy-mad. I know the Gaitskills fucked me. And when you fuck Connor Schmidt, you fuck Carl Schmidt. There’s no way I can let that go. Especially given the circumstances.
Mariola’s in no hurry—like she knows I’m watchin’, like she’s rubbin’ it in that she’s not takin’ the easy way out. What she should do is grab the woman in the hat and lock her up. But I’m thinkin’ that Mariola doesn’t want the woman. Mariola wants me.
What I know for sure is that Mariola puts the squeeze on every mutt she picks up, especially the junkies. What do you know about Connor Schmidt? What do you know about Carl Schmidt? Why don’t you do the smart thing for once in your moronic life? Set up the Schmidts and win a get-out-of-jail-free card. Or maybe you prefer kickin’ your habit in a jail cell instead of a treatment center.
How do I know this? First, our guy. That would be Detective Meacham. Not that Mariola lets the jerk get anywhere near the druggies she works on. But she can’t hide the fact that they’re in the station house and she’s questioning them.
Me, I don’t deal with all that many people, not when it comes to drugs. The sentences are too long, and most junkies will rat you out in a heartbeat. No, I have a hard-and-fast rule. You get busted, I don’t give you a chance to set me up. I stop doing business with you.
And if you’re too persistent? If you won’t let go? In that case, you end up as fertilizer in some farmer’s cornfield. Prison’s not on my bucket list.
Mariola strolls through the parking lot, both arms full, never lookin’ back, never lookin’ right or left. Like she’s got a purpose and there’s nothin’ else in her life, not for now. She has to set her packages down to unlock the door, but she still doesn’t hesitate, so far away now I can only see her outline. And maybe I wouldn’t see her at all if I hadn’t watched her cross the lot.
I’m still wondering what the fuck she’s doing, but then the cabin’s window lights up. Not bright, but definitely there.
“What’s that?” Augie asks.
I say the first thing that comes into my mind. The only thing. “A camera flash.”
“Yeah, okay. But whatta ya think she was doin’ with the pillow?”
“Don’t know exactly. Some cop bullshit.”
My brain’s already shifting gears. Whatever Mariola’s up to, there’s nothin’ I can do about it. Meantime, I got other problems. Like Richard gave me a key to Cabin 909, which I still have. Like I’m keepin’ Richard supplied with high-quality product almost at cost. Like I’ve done too many deals with too many people in that cabin. Like Richard and his mommy are just too fucking friendly with a cop who hates my guts. If Mariola can put Bradley’s murder on me, she won’t hesitate.
“So what now, boss?”
“I’m gonna take you home, Augie. Enough for tonight. I got business tomorrow morning, but I want you to carry the photo down to the Yards, ask around. Not hard, Augie. Keep it polite, as least for now. Let ’em know we’re prepared to show our gratitude to anyone who identifies her. Me, I’m gonna head home now. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
GIT
It’s two o’clock in the morning, finally quiet, and I’m trying to prepare for my interview with the recruiters at Short Hills Medical Center. That’s happening in eight hours, at ten o’clock, and I’m not ready, physically or mentally. The whole night’s been completely crazy, and my adrenals are as empty as popped balloons. The open book in front of me might as well be written in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
I dealt with the usual collection of routine duties and mini-crises when I first got to work, the chores nonstop until ten o’clock, when our patients began to settle in for the night. Virtually all our residents are on some form of sleep meds, and I distributed them quickly, hoping for a quiet night. It was not to be.
Resurrection has several patients (eleven, actually) who should be in a psychiatric facility. And I’m not talking about dementia, which is always a problem. These patients are diagnosed psychotics. They’re living in a nursing home because Resurrection’s board of directors decided they had to fill beds after the virus killed thirty of the home’s residents. Either that or close the doors permanently. They had to fill beds and these patients were available.
The directive from the administration was unambiguous. Deal with it or find another job. Deal with Josie Brown, for example, who tries to kill herself at least once a month despite being paralyzed from the waist down. And Frank Granger, who talks to his imaginary friends (Frank’s term) from the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep. But these residents have never posed a threat to the staff, unlike Lester Powell, a diagnosed schizophrenic with paranoid delusions.
Lester is prescribed massive doses of phenobarbital, enough to keep him rooted to a chair on most days. But even then, he positions the
back of his chair against a wall and never takes his eyes off the staff, as if he’s only waiting for the attack to begin. Which it inevitably does.
Lester has an episode every couple of weeks, despite the pheno, despite regular doses of antipsychotics that also sedate him. His demons can be contained for only so long before they rise to the surface.
The good news is that he generally begins slowly, barking like an animal, crawling on all fours, pounding a massive fist into the tile floor. It’s fear that drives him, that much is obvious, but so what? Fear, hate, confusion, what matters is that the man’s dangerous. He’s hurt other patients in the past, and I’ve got no reason to believe that he won’t hurt me.
There’s a plan in place, the Lester strategy, to handle his outbursts. A massive dose of a drug called Ativan, enough to put even a man Lester’s size out of commission. But if that sounds easy enough, it comes with a big-time problem. The Ativan must be injected directly into a muscle, and that means getting within arm’s length of a violent psychotic.
The alternative—call the cops and let them handle it—doesn’t work. Lester’s rage builds fast once he gets going, and the cops would be at least ten minutes responding. And that’s even if the few cops on the street at night aren’t busy elsewhere. Meantime, the Ativan’s prepared in advance, always at the ready, but not left out where any patient can grab it. The syringe is kept in a locked cabinet in the meds room, which is also locked. I’ve got keys to both on a chain around my neck, ready to go, but the meds room is at the end of a long hallway on the other side of the unit and I’m not the fastest girl on the planet.
As I said, usually we get a warning. Not tonight. I was in Mrs. Knowle’s room changing the dressing on the massive bedsore that covers her lower back. It was a little after nine, and I was rushing things because I wanted a chance to review vent procedure before my interview tomorrow. That’s when I heard someone running in the hallway, coming toward me really fast. A second later, the face of the only other employee on the floor, a porter named Cesar, appeared in the doorway.
“You come, nurse. Lester go crazy.”
Instead of going directly for the Ativan syringe, I decided to assess the situation. A big mistake, as it turned out, because Lester had taken crazy to a new level. I found him in his room, standing in front of a broken window, a six-inch shard of glass in his right hand, blood flowing from both hands, flowing hard enough to drip onto the floor. He was grunting incoherently when I appeared in the doorway, but his eyes instantly fixed on me. They fixed on me, and he smiled.
“Hello, Nurse—”
Lester never completed the sentence. Fully galvanized at last, I yanked Cesar out of the room and slammed the door.
“Keep him inside.”
Again, I didn’t wait. I ran the length of the hall faster than I’ve ever run in my life, yanking off the chain with the key as I went. I couldn’t evaluate Lester’s intentions, didn’t try, because his own life was on the line even if he didn’t intend to hurt anyone else. The blood flow from his hand and arm had to be staunched, and quick. A pool was already spreading around his feet.
The keyhole, the one on the locked cabinet that held the loaded syringe of Ativan, looked impossibly small when I entered the meds room. I must’ve fumbled away for a good ten seconds before I finally inserted the key, before the lock retracted, before I had the syringe in my hand, before I flew down the hall toward Cesar, a small fireplug of a man who stood with his back against the door, every muscle straining.
“Get away, Cesar,” I said. “Let him out.”
Cesar stepped off to the left, his eyes flicking from me to the door, but they settled on the door when it opened and Lester came through. This time, when Lester’s dark eyes found mine, they seemed confused, as though he didn’t quite understand how he came to be in this situation, a shard of glass cutting into the palm of his hand, blood running down his arm and onto the floor.
“Nurse . . .”
Psychiatric nurses are specially trained to handle psychotic breakdowns. Not me, though, not this LPN. I had to figure it out for myself, how to get close enough to administer the Ativan without having my throat cut in the process.
“What happened, Lester?”
“They came again, Nurse, all of them.”
“And you had to protect yourself?”
“Yes, yes. I knew what would happen if I let them take me. I couldn’t.”
“That was smart, Lester, holding them off. But they’re gone now, right?”
He looked around, his eyes settling on Cesar for a split second before he nodded and said, “Yes, I scared them away.”
“Very good. You did what you had to do. But see how you’re wounded? You need medication, soldier.” I held up the syringe. “Let me fix you up.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to, only they got real close this time.”
“But they’re gone now and you need your medication. Can I give it to you?”
“Okay, Nurse. I’m sorry.”
“Then put down the glass, Lester, because I’m afraid you might accidentally cut me with it.”
Lester nodded once, then again, then dropped the shard of window glass, revealing the deep cut in his palm. He opened his mouth, but I didn’t wait for him to speak. I stepped in close and drove the syringe into his thigh. Five seconds later he was unconscious.
Despite the adrenaline, despite a heart rate better suited to a canary staring at a house cat, I stayed calm. I had to stop the blood flow, and quick.
“Call 911, Cesar. Get an ambulance here.”
I was already running for the blood-pressure kit dangling from the handle of a meds cart. The cuff was useless, I’d never get it tight enough before the Velcro straps gave way. But the rubber tubing that led to the gauge was a different matter. I yanked it free of the cuff, wrapped it around Lester’s arm, and tightened down with all my strength.
Beyond unconscious, he didn’t react to what must have been extremely painful as the blood flow died off to a trickle. Only then did I look up to find the hallway crowded with patients, who suddenly burst into applause.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DELIA
I drive Vern back to his car, still parked at headquarters. We have an appointment tomorrow morning with Chief Black and an aide from Mayor Venn’s office. What will we say about tonight’s experiment? Do we mention it at all? Before I head out to work, I’ll compare video from the day of the murder with the video I took last night. I’m pretty sure what the comparison will reveal. In fact, I’m more than sure. But I’m also sure about the chief’s reaction if we tell him. Vern sums it up as he gets out of my car.
“We’re fucked,” he says. “Hope you’re satisfied.”
I’m supposed to go home now, but I pull to the curb three blocks from where I dropped Vern. A few seconds later my cell’s in my right hand, Maureen’s phone number in my left. I’m horny and have been for a week. Should I call her? I’m certain that she was coming on to me when she gave me her number. No doubt at all. But I don’t know her. Don’t know that she won’t brag to her coworkers or, worse, to Mason Cheat.
I began applying to police departments in major cities throughout the state of Illinois within a week after landing the job in Baxter. This fear in my chest is a good part of the reason. You can drive from one end of Baxter to the other in twenty minutes. Most of the families have been living here for generations, and gossip spreads at the speed of light. The one time I did begin an affair, two years ago, I found myself in Chief Black’s office. Folks were talking, influential folks, and I needed to be more discreet.
“Delia, you’re the best officer this department’s had in years,” he told me. “But there’s people above me holding those puppet strings. From where I’m sittin’, Caesar’s wife is your best bet.”
The affair petered out before the string holders forced the chief’s hand, leaving me to long for the day when I can separate my personal from my working life. Not today, though. I crumple Maureen’s note
and jam it into my pocket, thinking that, dutiful citizen that I am, I’ll recycle it when I get home.
Before I reach the first traffic light, my thoughts have turned to Danny and whatever snack I can dredge up for us. No more than a daydream, as it turns out. My phone rings, and I know it’s gonna be a long night as soon as I hear our night dispatcher’s voice. No choice, though, bodies being bodies.
“Don’t think she knew what hit her,” Vern tells me.
We’re looking at Felice Gaitskill, who’s sitting in a padded swivel chair behind the counter in the motel’s outer office. She’s wearing a white blouse, and the parallel bullet holes in her chest remind me of the eyes of a monster in a low-budget horror movie.
“The chest wounds most likely came first.” Vern leans back. He’s always seemed comfortable in his own skin, and tonight is no exception. “Probably as soon as the shooter walked through the door.”
There’s a third insult to Felice Gaitskill’s body. Another bullet wound, the one that instantly killed her. This entry wound is in her forehead. A small, neat puncture caused by a bullet that exited through the back of her skull.
“Take a look at the chair behind her,” Vern continues. “The slugs from the chest wounds are buried in the padding. I didn’t dig ’em out, but I gotta believe they’re in good shape. Also, check this out.”
Vern leads me to a door behind Felice, the door leading to the inner office. He points to a bullet embedded in the wood, just the tip, with the rest undamaged. He doesn’t have to explain. All three rounds are suitable for comparison with the bullet that killed Bradley Grieg. I think I’m supposed to be happy, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being played.
“Any spent cartridges?”
“Fraid not, Delia.”
Vern opens the door to the back office where the two of us reviewed the video. The monitor lies on the floor, its screen cracked, but the computer’s missing, along with any video stored on its hard drive. A shotgun rests atop the desk, its stock facing the outer office. Felice never got to it. In fact, from the way she’s positioned, I have to believe the shooter began pulling the trigger as he came through the door.
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