“Can I pat her?”
The mom bent to Brandi, looking a little scared, but her expression turned to smiles as her tyke patted away and brightened. Wag wag.
“See?” the handler told the child. “Brandi likes you and hopes your arm feels better fast.”
Suddenly he wasn’t a scary cop in a flak jacket anymore; he was just a nice guy, waving ‘bye to the child waving back as Brandi got busy with the next person in line.
A woman being calmly checked by another handler with a Lab said, “It’s about time hospitals got the protection they should have had all along. Anyone can just walk into a hospital. When I think of Newtown, and that Boston bombing…”
The handler said he couldn’t agree more. The woman told him God bless you, and he smiled and said God bless you back.
“Fascist,” sneered one of two male teens as a Shepherd named Buck sniffed his backpack.
Buck found nothing. Got busy with the next punk as his handler told the first kid, “Stay safe, have a nice evening.”
More and more cell phones were being watched for tweets and updates of the bomb threat. Reporters had arrived in all their flurry. Most of those waiting and getting checked were calm, no one hysterical. After all, these crazy times we live in…what was unusual about a bomb threat?
The police would take care of it…
“But that was the last time, and she called me!”
Brian Walsh was on the edge of the couch, gesturing urgently. “She wanted to make amends. Said she’d found some liberal priest who said what she was doing was okay, even blessed if she’d – well, I heard liberal and we fought again…I mean, argued. That’s all.”
“When did she call you?” Brand scribbled as Pappas retook his seat. Keri Blasco touched Tricia’s arm, said something, and went to rejoin her colleagues.
“The night before her appointment here,” Brian sputtered. “No, maybe it was two nights before…”
Dara Walsh exhaled scornfully, “It was the night before,” she said as if her husband was stupid. Her low, raspy voice dropped lower.
Tricia left the lounge as David, not wanting to enter with Pappas, passed her with a tiny grin. In his scrubs and white jacket, he looked like any resident. No one glanced at him as he went to the fridge, took out someone’s leftover Chinese, and peered into the squished white box. Maybe two inches of dried-up rice. The fridge was crowded with white boxes.
He got busy with the microwave; bopped the buttons, waited, nothing. Opened and closed the door, looking frustrated. Shot only a quick sideways glance at the Walshes.
A new stage was set in the surgical lounge.
And just outside, Tricia dropped down next to Jill. “That woman is scary,” she said. “Dara Walsh is angry and smart. This is the first the cops’ve been able to question her. They asked her to come in for questioning last night, and she refused.”
“Knows her rights, huh?” Jill said from some still-functioning part of her brain, while the rest obsessed about Pappas’s No protection is perfect.
“Yeah.” Tricia watched a food trolley pass. “She told them last night if they wanted to talk to her they could just wait to see her today at the hospital. Y’know? I don’t think she and her husband like each other.” Tricia shook her head. “Tough woman.”
“What does she do?”
“Nurses’ aide, works four nights a week at a hospice in the Village. Probably does a lot of lifting people. Did you see the muscles on her?”
“No, she had her jacket on.”
“She’s scrawny and muscular. Bet she works out too.” Another food trolley passed. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No.”
“I’m gonna faint from hunger. Can I get off duty tonight if I faint?”
From inside the lounge they heard, loud again, “So check my phone records! Or hers!”
Then, mutter mutter…
“Dammit, wish I could be in there,” Jill said. Her chest felt tight. In her mind she heard Pappas again: Same creep, hours after his attack on Jenna Walsh. He’s excited, moving fast.
And he’d been in the hospital during the night. The chapel…
“David will tell us what they’re saying.” Tricia watched the food trolley stop outside a patient door, and a laden tray get carried in. She groaned, got up, and said she was going to go find a vending machine.
Jill slid closer on the bench to the door.
And David inside had the microwave unplugged, out from under the cabinet and on the counter, unscrewing screws with a knife and pretending intense repairs – clunk! - while Pappas questioned Brian Walsh.
“She wanted to meet? Where?”
“Some café on Third.”
“What’s its name?”
“Uh, Bistro. On the corner of 37th.”
“Three blocks from this hospital,” Kerri Blasco said. “Two blocks from the alley where Jenna was attacked. You’re sure local surveillance tape won’t show you there?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“But you knew where Jenna would be. Maybe she waited, you watched from across the street, then followed when she left the café?”
“No!”
David shot another quick glance at Walsh as his voice turned whiney, defensive. “I tried to call her and cancel a couple hours before, but I got her voicemail. Maybe she was in the subway.”
Brand asked, “Why did you decide to cancel?”
“Because we’d only end up fighting. And I didn’t decide to cancel-”
“Yes you did.”
David saw Dara Walsh unclasp her hands from her top crossed knee and give Pappas a sarcastic gesture. “He’s indecisive. Should I put my right foot in front of my left,” she mocked, then re-clasped her hands on her knee.
“I am not indecisive!” Brian glared furiously at her, as if he was sick of her unmanning him. But how fast he’d changed from whiney to wild. All three cops noticed. Alex Brand scribbled.
Abruptly, Walsh looked over to David. “You’re doing that wrong, y’know.”
“Oh?” David looked up, fake-surprised. “You know about these things?”
Walsh jumped to his feet. “I’ll say.” He turned to the cops. “Are we done?” he said sarcastically, suddenly full of himself. “There’s nothing else I can tell you.”
“Done for now,” Brand said just as sarcastically.
Walsh strode over to the microwave and flipped it upside down; looked in; tinkered.
“Here it is,” he bragged. “Your high voltage transformer’s shorted out. Moisture probably got into it. And look at this, your magnetron tube’s shot, too.” He patted the electronic carcass, pleased with himself. Jenna was forgotten. It was as if his mind had flipped him back to advising a customer in the appliance store where he worked. “You’re better off buying a whole new one. Replacing the parts would cost more.”
David thanked him as his cell phone buzzed. He listened, then said, “Okay, be there in five.”
Outside, Jill had slid to the end of the bench and was practically hanging over it. She could eavesdrop, at least the louder utterances. Her overburdened mind was also replaying Tricia’s “That woman is scary. You see the muscles on her?”
She straightened and speed-dialed Brand, who answered yards away.
“Ask Dara Walsh where she was when Jenna was getting attacked,” she said low. “Ditto Nikki Sheehan. She also must have heard Brian repeating ‘Bistro, corner of 37th.’”
“Getting there,” Brand said.
Mutter, mutter from inside. At least David, poking through more white leftover boxes, was hearing the string of evasive answers.
“Jenna? Around four o’clock that day?” Dara sounded offended. “I was off, of course. I told you, I work nights.”
“And where exactly were you?”
“Different stores. Browsed, bought groceries. Came home. Unpacked.”
Pappas tried to narrow down the times and places, and Dara went suddenly all floundering, couldn’t remember.
; Brand scribbled.
Keri leaned forward and asked, “What about last night? Where were you both around two a.m.?”
Brian was back on a chair, avoiding his wife’s eyes. She avoided his, too. “We were sleeping,” he said; and Dara said, “Both of us. I was off last night too.” She frowned and looked offended again. “What does last night have to do with Jenna?”
There was silence in the room, then Pappas drew a long, frustrated breath. “Okay we’re done for now. You can leave but don’t leave town.”
Sounds of chairs scraping, feet moving. Dara muttered something sounding nasty as they crossed the lounge. Jill heard them coming and whipped into a sleeping position, facing the wall on the bench.
They passed, and she was in the lounge like a shot…just as David was inviting the cops over to lift prints off the microwave. He held his phone up to Jill. “We got called. There’s time.”
She nodded.
Brand was pulling on latex gloves and saying, “Did you get the feeling of an act with those two?” He was examining the microwave, getting out his lifting tape. “Like, they’re both holding back on something?”
“Definitely.” Pappas was grimly reading a message on his phone. “CSU’s still found nothing at the Sheehan scene. Stairway, banister, bathroom, doors. We’ve got a bloody brick with just Nikki’s blood on it. Otherwise, zip.”
Bending by the couch, Keri looked over. “And the missus was careful to touch nothing. Kept clutching her knee. You should’ve seen how white her knuckles were.”
“Keri?” Jill’s voice sounded high and unsteady to her. “What’s the name of the psych place where Megaphone Man lives?”
“Saint Mary’s in the East Village,” Keri said, straightening. “He’s not in the system and they wouldn’t give me his name. Think you can find out?”
“I’m going to try,” Jill said.
22
She was back in July. That steady, drumming fear was back, a feeling of cold squeezing her heart with no letup.
It was late. Jill was exhausted, drained, but she worked by rote, functioned okay. The night until after eleven blurred by: two births and another GYN emergency. They got through it all, even the pain of comforting a woman much too young to have just-found third stage ovarian cancer. Then and only then Jill cried, in the hall a ways down from the GYN patient. The dam had burst…
David held her, tried to comfort. But his hands were cold, and when she reached to push his hair off his brow, a vein bulged on it. He was suffering in his way.
By this time, they’d told Sam and Woody details about the more recent, awful developments. Tricia already knew, and half the story had been on TV and online.
SECOND SURROGATE MOM MURDERED, BOMB THREAT AT HOSPITAL, BOMB-SNIFFER DOGS CALLED IN, read online headlines and grim-faced news anchors, none of them yet able to connect the surrogates with a bomb threat. As with Jenna, the police had left out the detail of the snake. But how long before it leaked from Nikki Sheehan’s friend who had found her? Who was still traumatized, probably crying now to others?
And what would be the headlines in the morning? Bigger and more hysterical, no doubt, as the connection was made.
Woody, Tricia, and MacIntyre all wanted to help.
An hour earlier Woody had been horrified at Jill’s idea. “Saint Who?” he’d piped after the second birth, one with complications. “You’re gonna go to some psych place looking for that SPAWN OF THE DEVIL guy?”
Jill had said yes. She was adamant.
MacIntyre removing his mask had said, “Just because his sign used the same wording doesn’t mean he’s the guy.”
“There’s a connection,” Jill insisted. “I feel it. I want to do something.”
David yanked off his gloves – snap! snap! - insisting, “They won’t tell you his name. You can’t just go running down there-”
“I’ll find out.”
David exhaled, admitted that he felt torn. They all knew Jill’s determination. And they worried: the hospital was threatened again. Jill and David had helped the cops last time. Who knew? Maybe…
“I’ll cover for you,” MacIntrye had said, looking from Jill to David.
“Me too,” echoed Woody. “Plus there’s Mackey and Holloway, and the other interns, they’ll all help.” He’d looked around, frowning. “Where is Tricia?”
“Off googling St. Mary’s,” Jill had answered. “Unless she’s been called again. Probably both.”
Things slowed after eleven. But the lull only re-sharpened the dread, for both of them. Walking the dim halls Jill leaned on David; repeated Gregory Pappas’s words: Same creep, he’s excited, moving fast.
“Think he’s in the hospital now?” she asked quietly.
He made no reply, but they walked faster. Hurried down the long OB hall to see Jesse, who was awake, squirming happily in his isolette. They checked out every bustling nurse in the place, then took turns holding him. Felt comfort in his warmth, even laughed a little when one tiny flailing fist bopped David’s cheek. Jesse’s eyes were hazel, contented. In the dimly lit Neonatal Unit, machines beeped softly with a steady, mesmerizing rhythm. All was well.
Holding him, Jill even relaxed enough – briefly – to yawn…and Jesse yawned too.
Smiling, they put him back in his isolette.
On their way out they passed the gowned Security man on the inside, two uniformed men just outside, and more uniforms in the halls. One of them had a dog, a German Shepherd, who seemed asleep until they approached. He jumped up, stiffly alert.
“It’s okay, doggie,” David said, stopping to pet him.
“His name’s Jasper.” The young cop holding Jasper’s leash looked tired, but smiled. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” David said. “Nite, Jasper.”
Wag, wag.
Jasper lay down again.
They made their way to Jill’s on call room. It seemed a good idea for tonight.
David locked the door, and Jill found a hurried message from Tricia on her cell phone.
“Gotta run, just got called, you lucky, you can sleep tonight. Anyway, Saint Mary’s is in trouble. One hundred and twenty years old, spent generations as a convent sheltering the homeless and raising orphans, now a psych facility next to a church the Archdiocese has decided to close, can’t afford the millions it would cost to fix – I’m reading here – ‘serious structural problems at a time when they’ve had to close more than two dozen churches and sell their rights to developers’ – argh, condos! – ‘to narrow their budget gap while facing nationwide low attendance, a priest shortage, and the rising cost of maintaining century-old buildings.’”
A deep breath at the other end. “Reports say the staff’s been getting laid off and patients are going to get scattered,” Tricia huffed. “Where do you put all those people? Well, it’s the same with regular psych places too, right? No wonder there are so many crazies walking the streets-”
Voices sounded impatiently in the background; Tricia’s voice dropped. “Oops, gotta go, Mackey’s getting cranky, Ramu and Phipps are losing consciousness – okay, I’m coming! – see you at morning rounds, sleep tight, sleep safe, bye.”
Jill pocketed her phone and told David Tricia’s message, all of it. He nodded, hearing, but was at the desk pounding computer keys.
“What are you doing?”
“Found something.”
She came to look over his shoulder. He’d found a website. Lurid with violent reds and violets nearly muddling the site’s name: DevilSpawn.com.
“Yeow, how’d you find that?”
“Just googled ‘Spawn of the Devil,’ and up this popped. That guy and his sign were all over the media, I figured the keywords would be searchable.” David scrolled a little. “Looks like it just went up. Not too many posts under the, uh, manifesto.”
Jill read, openmouthed.
Pale yellow, bold-faced letters against a dark, fiery background raged “…child of THE BEAST, the DEVIL! He is born and among us and MUST
BE DESTROYED! Along with that devil’s workshop, Madison Memorial Hospital, for its arrogance of taking the place of the Creator! That is no baby on that hospital’s fifth floor, he is the spawn of the devil! The world must be saved from him!”
Jill closed her eyes for a second. “Oh boy.”
“Nice of him to pinpoint our floor.” David blinked at the words. “Make it easy to find us. New babies get more visitors than the other specialties combined.”
“Strangers,” Jill managed. “They can just walk in, carrying flowers, presents in boxes.”
“Remember the dogs…” David was reading, scrolling down. “Oh jeez, these posts are gonna rile Psycho worse.”
Jill read: “Hey asshole, whyn’t ya do something normal like watch porn! Hands off the kid and drop dead!”
Then the next few: “Creeps like u belong ina nuthouse”… “Do ur eyes turn red from the flash in pitchers?”… “Izis a movie trailer?” … “Where’s ur damn link to Amazon?”
In all, only five posts. All dated within the last two days.
“How did people find him?”
“Who knows?” David hit the logo on the site’s upper right. It was one of those create-your-own freebies. The next one advertised gluten free muffins.
He leaned back in his chair, and inhaled. “The worry is kooks who don’t post. All it would take is one, assuming this isn’t the killer himself.”
Jill thought as hard as her overwrought brain would let her. “It might not be. Why would he advertise himself?” She swallowed. “On the other hand, he’s crazy. So…send the site to the cops. Inciting to violence – that will get them a warrant and they can find out who he is.”
“ESP, m’dear.” David was already copying the URL and starting an email.
“Wait.”
She got out her phone. Logged in to DevilSpawn.com, chose SpawnBegone as a username, and fast-typed: “I feel as you do, please let me help. What can I do? How can I reach you?”
Then posted it.
David liked the idea. He typed his email to Pappas, cc’d Brand and Blasco, and copied the DevilSpawn.com link into the email: “Found this. Frightening new site. Check it out and btw ‘SpawnBegone’ is Jill trying to get a response.”
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