The Coworker: The First Nate Castle

by Vernon Rush

  Nate found himself gawking at the nurse; he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

  "Yeah, you're feeling better."

  Nate grinned. He most definitely was high. "What they give me, anyway?"

  She shook her head at him.

  "I guess I lost my head at the scene," he said.

  "Well, if you didn't flip out, I would say something was wrong with you," she said. "I have a mite more experience with that sort of thing than you do and I am never not bothered. I am surprised they didn't suggest you wear a mask. Methane gas coming off a corpse? It can make you right sick. We washed you down from head to toe, but you gotta be careful. There's a reason why bodies and body parts are hazardous waste."

  Nurses were good for making it all better. Now that he reflected, he might have had a slight crush on all the nurses from those rehabs. He was pretty sure he could be in love with this woman. He smiled and spoke softly. "I could use my cell phone, if it's handy."

  "Sure," she replied. She left and returned with his things. They had taken them away from him, apparently.

  "Nurse, what section of the hospital am I in?" he asked wryly.

  "Dr. Castle, you are in the psych ward. You overtired and under hydrated."

  "Overtired and under hydrated, eh? Is that what they're calling it these days? Well then, the psych ward stands to reason," Nate quipped. His humor descended into another spasm of Emily. He took a deep breath and released. He texted Jack; then he texted Daria. Bill Merit, his dean, had left him a message.

  As soon as he saw Bill's name, the whole thing fell on him, like truth descending from the other side, tied up neatly with a bow. He believed he knew who the professor Emily had been seeing at the school and why she had asked on the telephone if he, Nate, was black. It made sense. Bill was the guy and he had talked about him to her. Bill had cuckolded Emily and dumped her to be with Jack's wife. Nate was not 100 percent sure but he would check in with Bill first thing.

  He made a quick gratitude list. He had two pretty good friends in Daria and Jack and he hadn't had a drink that day. He held still while the nurse removed the IV. He quickly added to that list that his nurse was really hot. She massaged his forearm for him.

  "Call me after you shower and dress, and I'll be back with a wheelchair. To let you go," she said.

  * * *

  The one thing missing from his life at the moment was that he didn't have a bunch of missed calls from Daria. There was a time, until recently, that Daria and he were in constant contact; like being in a relationship without the sex. If this had been a few weeks ago, Daria would have sent the cops looking for him. Maybe because she knew he was working with Jack she didn't worry; maybe. Jack knew where he was, but she didn't. He did seem to attract friends who took care of him, and it became clear to him that he had been a person who required a lot of taking care of. He realized that he had mentally blipped out temporarily on the gruesome murder scene. Jack came to his aid and sent him to the hospital. Now it was time Nate returned the helping hand.

  Alcoholism was referred to as the disease of self-centeredness. It was time he thought of someone else besides himself and started worrying about Daria. He texted her again. He would make her a priority, as soon as he took care of something that felt a bit more pressing. He didn't go home or change his clothes. He was going to go over to the college to meet and talk with Bill Merit.

  * * *

  Bill Merit had usually been a pretty understanding man over the years when it came to Nate. He had supported him with his attempts to get sober and since he did make those attempts, Bill was pretty forgiving about Nate’s missed lectures and stumbling about the classroom. At this meeting, Merit was short and distant. Nate met him in Merit's office.

  "You feeling better, Nate?" Bill asked, hardly making eye contact.

  "I'm good. I'm going to hang up my private eye shingle for a while," he replied. Bill never liked his working on the serial murders.

  "If that's what works for you," replied Bill aloofly. "I'm afraid you're going to have to hang up the teaching shingle as well."

  Nate did a double take. "How is that?"

  "The school feels that some of your recent activity is inappropriate. Nate, our office manager said that the day the latest victim was killed, you were asking about her by name."

  Nate was blindsided, yet he spoke evenly. "Investigating murder is inappropriate? I am not the killer; someone else is the killer. But if you think you have something to share with the police, have at it, Bill. And when you talk to them, make sure you let them know that you hand-picked Emily Fabian personally. Got anything to say about that? Got anything to say about the fact that you dated her? Dated her before you dumped her to go out with the person you're engaged to? I have a question: Did Mrs. Wilcox ever tell you stuff about the cases?"

  Bill evaded. He simply murmured, "Did you and that... what's his name... Det. Wilcox go out and tie one on the other night? And then you have a breakdown? I think you need to take a while and get your head on straight," Bill said. "We would like to you to take a leave temporarily, say, until the fall, to let the smoke clear."

  "Bill, I don't know if you've misplaced something, but my eyes are up here, not down on your desk." Nate waited until Bill lifted his head and faced him. He then put on the teacher voice he used when he caught a student telling a story. "You know who Jack Wilcox is. This wouldn't be about punishing him through me, would it? You're having an affair with his wife, isn't that right? I mean, speaking of reputable acts. How would it look if it was known that you were breaking up the home of one of Frederick's finest?"

  "He's a pig," Bill snarled. It was the strongest show of the emotion Nate had ever seen Bill exhibit.

  "You know, I'm surprised to find out that I could say the same thing about you," Nate said coolly. He was tiring though, and he needed to go home and crash. "Jack Wilcox is my friend and we can keep my job and my personal life separate. Just as we can keep your job and your personal life separate. Nonetheless, I think I will take you up on that leave, but not for so long a period. If you could have someone take over my classes, I will get a doctor's okay; whatever we need to keep it legit and amicable." He sat and waited and watched. His bossed had turned on him—over a woman, ultimately. He supposed, as both a scientist and a man, he understood, which wasn't the same as finding it acceptable.

  As Nate walked away from the meeting, an idea that had been long-forming crystalized. He loved the things he taught but he wasn't so sure he loved teaching. It was perhaps the only way he knew to be around those things. He wasn't very ambitious and if he was honest with himself, he didn't care how he made his rent, at least for now. No matter what came of his conversation with Bill Merit, Nate decided he would be okay with it. He called up Jack Wilcox to share about his morning with his boss.

  Jack growled. "I should have the bastard arrested. The chickenshit. Going after my friends."

  "You definitely have to bring him in, Jack. He dated Emily Fabian," Nate said. How weird would it be if Bill Merit could shed light on the guy who was killing young women with a butcher knife and doing other things? Frederick had just become a much smaller town.

  "Sound likes I need to send down a car right now. With those flashy type lights." Jack laughed. "So, we have checked in with the employment agency. Been in contact with both Dublin & Myers and Weston & Hale. Both firms have stacks of photo directories of employees that predate all of the murders. We are going to start comparing. We will start with those people who have their pictures with both firms."

  "Beautiful," said Nate. That was a huge find. Having phone albums of workers from both firms was like having mug shots.

  "Also, going to make another bid that our killer could be a woman. The coroner said something about wound height and angle on all the victims. The coroner postulates killer is either a short man or a woman of average height."

  “In order to be right, we must always leave open the possibility that we are wrong,” said Na
te.

  “Spoken like a true professor. What of, exactly?” Jack chided.

  “Nothing right now,” replied Nate.

  “That’s right. You’re unemployed. Well, that brings me to the next subject. Emily Fabian had a cat. You may or may not have remembered he was awfully fond of you. Seems he needs a home?”

  Nate’s landlady would kill him. But, maybe if he explained why, he could get her to accept. “I can take him for a little while. I've already lost my job. Might as well go for the home, too.”

  “I knew there was something I liked about you,” said Jack.

  “Actually, you didn't like me at all,” chirped Nate.

  “Oh yeah.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Proximal To The Case

  It was a hairy morning already. Nate craved a meeting and that was a good thing. All the feinting starts he had made at getting sober; this time he felt it was for real. He felt like he had been slammed by a truck, as though he were coming off a bad binge. He took comfort in knowing his was the hangover of an appropriate reaction. He further realized that the prior cases he'd worked on he'd dealt with by ultimately getting drunk.

  His plan, now that he was effectively out of a primary job, was to shower again, nap, lunch, gather his notes, hit a meeting, and connect with Jack and Daria. Before his sobriety, his bullet list for the day had been substantially different: go to Jerry's, get drunk at Jerry's, go home from Jerry's.

  There was still no word from Daria, and Nate was officially afraid. His schedule of things was already in flux, as now he was going to touch base at his place before going out to track her down. His stomach was iffy but he headed straight for the fridge when he got home and tipped a carton of ice cold OJ to his mouth and guzzled. He would regret it, but its decadent luxury, its cold thick pulp, and its flow of deliciousness were irresistible. His head said this was what he needed. He was two steps from tossing the empty carton away and nausea yanked him to the john. He was in that familiar stance, gripping the rim, waiting for it all to come back up.

  Nate vomited. He had been a practicing alcoholic who was a thrower-upper and so he knew he was going to feel worlds better after he released. The fact that he wasn't hung over meant that this upset was momentary. When he was finished, Nate stood to wash his face and was freaked by the fact that when he looked in the mirror, his was not the only reflection. Another stood beside his, as mutely as the ghosts on Emily's porch, which he vividly remembered.

  He was a much bigger man than Dan, but Dan was bold. And who knew how many other surprises Dan packed? The coroner's words about the killer being either a short man or a petite woman were flashing in his mind like a neon sign. Little Dan Klein, with his penchant for color coordination and his fandom for Nate, could very well be a killer. The killer. And here Dan was, standing right behind him, with some of Nate’s most vital organs extraordinarily vulnerable.

  "Det. Klein," Nate addressed him coolly, "what can I do you for?" He did his best to move them outside. In long strides, he departed the bathroom and approached the front door.

  Dan was brittle. "Where are you going?" he demanded. "I just got here. You’re leaving."

  "Dan, did you want to hang out? I was going to stop by a friend's and then hit a meeting," Nate tried to be casual and now had the door opened, like he was heading out. "You need a ride?" he asked, but then added quickly, "Oh, but you must have your car here." Nate scanned the street for what might be Dan's car. "I would let you stay, but the landlady has rules.”

  As Nate was getting his car, he realized out of his peripheral vision that Dan was not on board with leaving. Nate turned to faced him. "Detective?"

  "I was thinking we could talk about the case," Dan replied, with a decidedly confused look on his face.

  Nate squinted. He hadn't noticed before, but the detective looked as though he had been roughed up. The reason why he always appeared to be color-coordinated was that he wore the same thing every time Nate saw him. That could be useful, thought Nate. A short man or average sized woman.

  Nate’s eyes widened like headlights. He began rapid-fire computation of Dan Klein and his odd behavior. The criteria match continued like a computer generated list. Dan would also have the trust of all the victims, as a member of the police. For Nate, it always went back to hidden in plain sight.

  "I am going to have to take a rain check, if I could there, Dan," Nate said coolly, as he secretly filled with terror.

  Dan wanted to talk about the case, though. Maybe something Nate should sit down and have a listen to. A confession might be encoded in that discussion.

  Nate urgently needed to contact Jack Wilcox. He also needed to be in touch with Daria more than ever. Ironically, she would be good for the task of doing a mega-fast review of Dan Klein’s background. But where was she?

  Where was she indeed? No word from a woman with an interest in the serial murders, with a contact to a key person who had contacts with both victim firms. Where was his friend who spent time with him on a daily basis, one way or the other? He had the strong urge to ask Dan if he happened to know where his best friend was.

  Proximal to the case. Nate had told Daria that pertained only to him. He hadn't considered that the killer might have a thing for her, the way Dan seemed to have for him. As soon as he was free of Dan Klein, in the rudimentary safety of his micro car, Nate left a voicemail with Jack to review Klein’s files and time sheets. They needed to generate a concise biography—to double check his back ground check and to create a time line of the past few years to see if it intersected with the timeline of the serial murders. When the young professional women of Frederick were being killed, where was Dan Klein in relation to their lives?

  It was fast approaching noon and just enough time for Nate to hit the twelve o’clock meeting. It would be a neutral spot to meet Jack; it would be a place that would instantly address the very uncomfortable, unmedicated feeling of fear he was experiencing. Yes, among the ugliness, he found a bright spot—a way to cope without a drink, pill, or fix. Nate was thinking that he finally got this thing. Sobriety. He actually wanted to go to meetings of his own accord. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really truly craved a drink. If this was true, recovery certainly chose its own time.

  The temperature in the room was cold. It was the kind of cold that could only be knocked from the body with a fireplace. Nate huddled into his cup of coffee, which tasted okay, not great. He was not fond of Styrofoam but he was glad to be in a meeting. He took a seat in the cold metal folding chair, zoning out, with his head down and eyes aimed at the linoleum squares, when he saw a familiar pair of brown shoes and the matching cuffs on the pants to that same pair of pants. Dan Klein.

  “Oh, hey, there you are,” the detective said, touching Nate’s shoulder as though they were best pals. “I am going to get us some coffee myself. Be right back.” Dan even knew his way around the meeting, though in all the time that Nate had been coming, off and on, he had never seen or heard of Dan Klein.

  Nate didn’t know if he should move or stay put. On the one hand, he was revved with alarm and on other hand—the scientific one—he had to stick around to find out what came next. In his mind, he was talking to the newest and strongest suspect for the Coworker Murders. As covertly as he could, he texted Jack Wilcox.

  “I’m in the middle of picking up a box of employee IDs dating back from the seventies from Weston & Hale,” Jack texted back. “I will be right there.”

  “No,” Nate replied. “I want to ride this one out alone. Let’s see where this takes us.”

  Dan sat down next to Nate, in great need of a shower. “Talking to someone?” he asked Nate.

  Taking that as a very weird question, Nate smiled. “No, are you?”

  “What?” Dan answered, as though that were preposterous. “I mean your phone. I saw you texting.”

  You are watching my every move, thought Nate. “A friend of mine is supposed to have been in touch but I haven’t heard from them.”


  “You mean him or her,” Dan corrected.

  Nate had on purpose said “them” to cloak the identity. If Dan had been watching him as closely as Nate suspected, he knew about Daria and Nate didn’t want to draw any attention to her.

  Nate regarded him. Dan Klein had no idea he just didn’t belong. He sat nonchalantly waiting for the meeting to start as though he knew the drill, while others eyed him. His appearance and his odor were drawing attention. One regular approached Nate to say hi. “Hey there, Doc. Who’s the newbie?”

  Dan Klein’s rage flared but he contained it. “We’re friends. Back off,” he snapped.

  “Hi, there.” Nate shook hands with the regular, exchanging glances with him. “Good to see you. We can visit another time.”

  Dan resumed the conversation they were having before they were interrupted. “So you said ‘them.’ Is your friend a ‘her’ or a ‘him’? You know, the one that you are expecting a call from?”

  “A her,” Nate baited.

  “That blond lady you hang out with? Always carrying that huge purse,” said Dan.

  Nate was stunned, terrified, and suddenly speculative as to why he hadn’t received a call from his errant friend. Dan Klein was weird and he described Daria without ever having met her. And Nate could swear that as he spoke, Dan was regressing at a rapid clip. He could no longer keep it together socially and now he was make clumsy references to things. ‘That giant purse’ was a briefcase.

  Dan was beginning to sound like he was about 11 years old. He sat through the meeting, introducing himself as a visitor. He was inappropriate at times, laughing in the form of single, loud squawks or snorts. And at the end, he stood, shook hands with Nate, and left. He evaporated. Nate fell on himself, trembling as he struggled to dial Jack to fill him in. With such bizarre behavior, Nate would bet that the Coworker killer was showing himself.

  Jack replied quickly. “I’ve already got a guy on Dan right now, diverting him. I am going to bring him in for questioning. We’re checking on a few things. In the meantime, we have a lab here at the station. Come here. I have four boxes of bound photo directories to go over.”