Raney & Levine

by J. A. Schneider

  He hit Send and closed the laptop. “Bed,” he said, rising. “Bed, bed, bed…”

  His scrub top was off and in seconds he was under the covers, groaning relief.

  Jill pulled off her scrubs too. “I thought this bed was too narrow and made your back ache.”

  “I’ll sleep on top of you.”

  She climbed in with him. Found comfort in his arms and warmth, his heaviness and the scrape of his stubble on her cheek.

  Until minutes later…when he really did conk out on her. David falling asleep sometimes reminded Jill of a Garfield cartoon: he’d fall face first onto the pillow or…her, whomp, and it was instant lights out. His whole left side and shoulder was on her, getting heavier. Not that it mattered, because her mind was suddenly wired again. She couldn’t shut it down; behind her closed lids flared every horrid image of the past two days.

  He’s excited, moving fast …The Snake Guy…he’s going to attack again, but who? Where? Another woman or the hospital? DESTROY the devil’s workshop, Madison Memorial fifth floor!

  Had they received David’s email at the police station? Maybe some night cops had rushed to wake up some judge who was thrilled to leap out of bed and pull on a robe and sign a warrant, and DevilSpawn Guy was the killer and they’d already arrested him…

  Forget it.

  David was breathing heavily. His body suddenly jerked a little, as if from a dream, and, mumbling, he rolled away to whomp the wall. Didn’t that hurt his head? Apparently not. His deep breathing resumed.

  Jill reached and got her phone from the little side table. Never-sleeps cyber light glowed at her, as if waiting.

  For what? Think, she commanded herself, because something had been nagging at her. Something she’d filed away, deep down but there…

  Then it came to her.

  Last night, Paul and Susan Sutter talking about some online group Jenna Walsh had belonged to. Jill couldn’t remember the name, but on her phone did what David did: just googled the key words she was thinking, and up came the site: SurroMomsForum.com.

  She decided on “Desperate” as a username, logged in, and read some posts. All were emotional, ranting, struggling.

  “There are surrogates in the Bible. I just don't get why the church can decide things the bible isn't even against.”

  “The church doesn’t agree with science intervening with having babies, they’re against any kind of ivf, and surrogacy includes ivf.”

  “I just don't CARE. God loves babies and families and I think the problem is those who have a problem with that, not God.”

  ”I HATE this BS about God's will. God gave us the intelligence to overcome obstacles, AND He gave us doctors to help us.”

  “My cancer left me infertile and the priest said it was God’s will. Long awful story, but hubby and I went surrogate and now we have a beautiful family. Thank you, God. Not the church.”

  “My priest told my sister if God wanted her to have a child, she wouldn't be infertile.”

  ”Jimmy Fallon’s daughter was born by surrogate!”

  Above those posts was the most recent one, posted three days earlier: “NO to all of you! Bearing a strange man’s child not your husband’s is interfering with God’s will, agreeing to rape, and committing the biggest lie possible!”

  Jill re-read the last one. It was signed by “Righteous.”

  What a self-important username. Um, send her a poke? See what happens?

  Jill squinted and punched away and wrote to Righteous: “You have touched my deepest pain. I feel so torn, wish I could talk to somebody. I don’t suppose you live in the NYC area?”

  She inhaled, bit her lip, and hit send. Felt something heavy lift off her chest, replaced by a fluttery sense of anticipation.

  She had just done something, but what?

  She frowned, thinking, in the darkness.

  There had been something familiar in the voice of SurroMom’s “Righteous.” It had the same furious tone and exclamation points as the text on DevilSpawn… Destroy! Madison’s fifth floor! Biggest lie possible!

  Two different websites. A voice on both of them sounding the same…

  Now I gotta remember, Jill thought. I’m ‘SpawnBegone’ on DevilSpawn.com, and, uh…what?

  Oh, ’Desperate’ answering nasty scoldy ‘Righteous’ on SurroMomsForum.

  Or was it the other way around? Look again at what I wrote? Damn, too sleepy…

  The phone slipped from Jill’s hand into her Nike on the floor.

  Seconds later she was asleep.

  23

  In the morning she decided she’d done a fat nothing. Exhaustion combined with sleep creeping up played such tricks, made you think you’d found something when you hadn’t.

  So dread came back hard, a tightened chest, a high, whirring wail growing louder inside her head. She felt it when they woke and quick-showered; barely had time to tell David, rushing, about her post to SurroMomsForum. The feeling continued through morning rounds – watching David lead and teach the interns how to check on post-delivery patients. Her heart felt squeezed but she managed to put on the Happy Face when worried patients asked about seeing BOMB THREAT! on their TVs and lap tops, and hearing the dogs, their dim barking coming from somewhere, everywhere.

  “Just a precaution,” David kept reassuring. That calmed them. One reported her oldest child’s school getting a bomb threat, another reported a bomb threat in a mall, and another reported being in an airport that had a bomb threat. Lawyer Kim Withers, still there, said her courthouse at 100 Centre Street got bomb threats “at least once a week.”

  “The world’s gone crazy,” she said.

  “Good people far outnumber bad,” David answered, wanting to get back to teaching. “Now, about your episiotomy-”

  “It hurrrts.”

  “Understood.” He looked at the interns. “So what do we do about that?”

  “Thirty milligrams of codeine to kill the pain,” Gary Phipps said, rubbing an eye. He’d slept four hours.

  “Also order a culture to be taken for infection,” Jill said, sharp as a tack. She was surprised; inside she was frantic, wildly impatient to do something, but she was still functioning okay.

  David’s eyes smiled at her, then smiled encouragingly at Kim Withers. “We’ll take care of that.” He slid an order under her chart’s front clamp and red-flagged it. Kim smiled gratefully at him. Had no idea how he was feeling underneath.

  In the hall between patients Jill had managed to whisper, “Heard from the cops?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head and his mouth tightened.

  Twenty minutes later, he did. Excused himself, left the interns to kibbitz with a glowing new mom, and stepped back out to the hall.

  Jill followed.

  “Good find,” said Pappas. David held the phone so Jill could hear. “The DevilSpawn website is new, belongs to your Megaphone Man whose name is Ralph Nash. We’d had him on tape from that day but not his name. Also had his prints on that pamphlet Keri had him sign, but they didn’t match anything in the system.” There was a pause. “The profile doesn’t fit, either. This killer is smart, methodical, and Nash is a psych patient.”

  Jill and David traded looks.

  “Psych patients can be very intelligent, even cunning,” David said into the phone, keeping his voice low. “They manipulate their way into institutions all the time. Every department here gets ‘em.”

  A nurse passed, then an orderly pushing an empty gurney.

  “But wouldn’t staff at Saint Mary’s know if Nash was sneaking out?” David asked Pappas. “The Sheehan murder happened around two in the morning.”

  Jill hurriedly yanked her scrub pockets inside out, holding her hands palms up. David nodded, remembered. “Correction, St. Mary’s may have laid off staff. They’re in financial trouble and the Archdiocese may be about to close it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A friend googled it. The church next door is already closed. Plus they were letting Nash walk
around if he promised to stay on his meds, right? But he didn’t.”

  “No.” Pappas sounded exasperated. “Well, nice going, we’ve got his name, at least. That’s all the warrant allowed us from the website’s server. But the psych place’s director Sister Something said Nash won’t talk to us. Free speech, no probable cause, circumstantial - and this guy has to be checked out.”

  The detective paused for breath. “We’re at a dead end,” he said gloomily. “Those brown fibers of Brian Walsh’s jacket turned up nothing. No evidence he’d been in that alley where Jenna was attacked…”

  Jill heard and smacked her palms to her face, frustrated, pacing away a little, coming back frowning to hear more. Also checking her phone.

  “...his prints aren’t in the system either. Alex and Keri now like Nash better but-”

  “Hold on a sec, Jill has something.” She was suddenly tugging at David’s scrub top - and held out her phone to him, whispering, “DevilSpawn answered.”

  He blinked, and read.

  In her phone was an email. “Thank you for your Christian offer to help. I am afraid I’m being persecuted by the Devil Police! If you dare their watchful eyes, it is now I who need help and a fellow pure soul to talk to. I’m in a place at 512 Avenue B in nyc. Please ask for Ralph if you come, and I hope you do! Please hurry, they’re watching me and there’s no telling what they’ll do to me!”

  “Whoa,” David said, coming back to his phone. “I gotta forward this to you.”

  He did, from Jill’s phone – and then his own phone beeped. He put Pappas on hold and listened: Two new deliveries just arrived, one already dilated to seven centimeters, contractions galloping. He switched back to Pappas as the interns filed out behind him, saying, We’re done, What now?

  With the phone at his ear he muttered sharply, “Holloway and Greenberg need help with two deliveries. Check with Holloway first, his sounds closer. Tricia and Ramu, help Woody take the second one’s history, check her vitals, albumin. She’s never had any prenatal care. Gary and Charlie, get the charts updated – what?”

  “Got it and read it,” Pappas said tightly. “This Nash guy’s ready to blow.”

  “Jill wrote him at two in the morning.”

  “Christ, you two are good.”

  “He’s schiz. Paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe too much so.”

  Silence at the other end. A nurse passed, then a strolling patient in a pastel robe, stopping to pat a dog, chat reassuredly with the police officer.

  “Come again?” Pappas growled in David’s phone.

  “Ralph Nash might have touched too many buttons. Like I said, psych patients are often very smart. They know their diseases, have studied up on them and know how to sound. They’ve been in and out of institutions and know what doctors look for. Nice deal for a standard psych patient - free meals, a warm bed - plus a religious place might be easier to play than a regular institution.”

  David pulled in a breath. “On the other hand, this could be real. Ralph Nash could be completely violent paranoid schiz.”

  “You’re not a shrink. How do you know?”

  “Any doctor knows. They play us all.”

  A brief silence. “He called us the Devil’s Police.”

  “Sounds like you’ve joined his list. And if it’s him, add this hospital, the devil’s workshop that must be destroyed. That’s a lot of people he hates.”

  “’Destroyed’ goes beyond free meals and a warm bed. That message on Nikki Sheehan’s pillow had the same wording as the website and we can’t question him.”

  “Wait a sec.”

  Jill had gripped David’s arm. “I’ll go,” she said, looking resolute. “I’m not a cop. I can talk to him, pretend to look under his bed for persecutors and see if he has any firearms, explosives.”

  David gaped at her. “No way, too dangerous.”

  But Pappas had heard. “Keri and Alex can meet her. Stay close, wire her if necessary. Illegal as hell but we need a look at this guy. We need all the help we can get, fast.”

  Jill was suddenly pacing, her mouth set, and she was wearing that look David knew too well. There’d be no stopping her. She had all the detectives’ numbers, and she’d call them herself if he tried to stand in the way.

  She met his fretful gaze. “Ralph Nash looks better than Walsh,” she whispered fiercely. “He is ready to blow and what if he gets past the dogs? Could dogs have detected inside those Boston pressure cookers?”

  “Now they’d check pressure cookers,” David flared back.

  “What about glass? Plastic? There’s always some flower vase, and cell phones can set off from a distance - or right there if cops find-”

  “David? David?” from the phone.

  He came nervously back to it.

  “Here’s what I suggest,” Pappas said. “Jill answers that email, same emotional tone but not sounding too eager. Say she can’t get away from her job till something like three o’clock. That will keep him happy – a like-minded visitor’s coming – and avoid him suspecting she’s Devil Police out to get him.”

  The knuckles on David’s hand gripping the phone were white. “What job would she be free from at three o’clock?”

  “A dog walker.”

  Jill heard that and grabbed the phone from David. “A dog walker, perfect!” she said. “Should I call Keri or Alex? Where should we meet?”

  “Keri will call you,” Pappas said. “She was going to anyway.”

  24

  They argued, and continued to argue in the OB linen closet.

  Ironically, the same walk-in linen closet where, over three months ago, they’d begun their relationship with a fight: two Stubborns butting heads with Jill the brazen intern telling her boss he was doing it wrong. They’d forgotten since what the “doing it wrong” thing was. But it was time to butt heads again.

  “I don’t like this. It’s too dangerous.” David’s face was taut. “You can’t go alone and I have to stay here. Let Alex and Keri find a way.” He leaned stiffly on the jamb, his tall, broad-shouldered frame blocking the exit.

  She kept her back to him, pawing furiously through a pile of sheets and accidentally toppling towels.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, bending to scrabble up the towels. Her face was blotchy red. “Keri and Alex-”

  “Will what? Wire you and listen from outside and burst in if they hear you getting attacked? What if this creep has a knife? In prisons they sharpen their toothbrushes-”

  “Staff will come.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they have much staff.” David stepped closer to her, his face coloring. “And why would the cops want to wire you? They can’t use anything recorded, it’s inadmissible, illegal, unconstitutional-”

  “Right!” Jill whirled on him, squeezing bunched up towels. “Their hands are tied and who’s this nut going to go after maybe tonight? Or sooner? Another woman? The whole hospital? Some uniformed cop on the street just doing his job protecting people? Whacko’s been provoked. He’s added the Devil Police to his list.”

  “Nash will recognize you.” David’s voice dropped lower, like it always did when he was stressed. The vein on his brow bulged. “You’ve been all over the media.”

  “I’ll wear a disguise.” Jill threw the bunched towels into a canvas laundry hamper. “And I still have the Mace from last summer.”

  David looked away, exhaled heavily, then turned back with tight-lipped resignation. He was beaten, of course. What to do? Jill’s tenacity had almost gotten them killed last summer.

  It had also saved lives. No telling how many.

  A long moment passed.

  Abruptly he said quiety, “I’m being selfish.”

  Jill stood glaring at the ugly canvas hamper. She softened a little, but her face was pinched and he saw that her eyes were tearing.

  “Jill,” he said plaintively. “I could be called any minute. You only have clinic duty which I know you’re going to switch - and I can’t go to Nash with you.”

&n
bsp; Her face unpinched and she sniffled. “Better you don’t come,” she said, softening further. “Together we’d really be recognized.” She shot him a quick look with eyes that were reddened, but achingly vulnerable. “Why did you say you were selfish?”

  He came and bent his face to her.

  “Because I’m afraid. I’m crazy-terrified of losing the best thing I’ve ever had or will have. That’s you. My God, how do we get into these situations?”

  “I practice.”

  She shrugged at her thin witticism, and then her face crumpled. “It’s really my fault,” she said in a stifled voice, her head dropping. “If I hadn’t started all that snooping into bad cases, and found Jesse…”

  “Stop.” He took her in his arms. She snuffled again and hugged him back, tentatively at first, then melting into his shoulder. He breathed in with huge relief.

  It felt so good to stop fighting.

  “You did a great, great thing,” he said in the gentlest voice. “You’re still-”

  A harried-looking Gary Phipps stuck his head in, holding up a paper. “Get a room, you two. Hey David, that thirty milligrams of codeine for Withers, the nurse says you didn’t sign the order.”

  Cussing softly, David turned and said, “Yes I did.” He pointed to his scrawl at the bottom of the sheet.

  “That’s a signature?” Phipps looked and screwed his face. “The nursing supervisor says it isn’t a signature.”

  “It is, dammit.”

  Phipps left and David turned back to Jill. She had her phone out and was tapping an email.

  He looked over her shoulder.

  “Dear Ralph,” it began. “Yes, I can come to you…”

  He stiffened again. “I’m really hating this. I have a bad feeling.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “Dear Ralph, I am so sorry to hear your woes. Yes, I can come to you, but not until around three o’clock, if that’s okay. I can’t leave my job until then. I now want to help more than ever. Please let me know if three or possibly a little later will be okay. Your friend in righteousness, Christine