The Tenth Order

by Nic Widhalm

  “Doctor, correct me here, but don’t you have some kind of security around patients who are deemed suicidal? Because, from what I’m hearing, it sounds like this man just killed a nurse and strolled out the front door.”

  Moss pulled out a handkerchief—Really, Jackie thought, who still uses those?—and mopped his brow. “I’ve already told you several times, Detective. We keep all our questionable patients in a secured branch of the hospital. In Mr. Friskin’s case, we even added wrist restraints to ensure he didn’t injure himself further. The hospital cannot be held—”

  “Yes,” Jackie cut him off. “Tell me more about those restraints. Because I might just be a simple government worker, but in my field when we use ‘wrist restraints’ they tend to actually stay on.”

  Moss swiped at his forehead again and muttered something intangible. Jackie almost broke her pencil; one more word and she would strangle the man. Though he might technically be blameless—he had followed hospital procedure from everything she gathered—Moss was at least guilty of incompetence. Who puts a giant like Friskin in Velcro restraints? Jackie patted her metal cuffs reassuringly as she walked away from the doctor and joined a pair of officers who were taking a statement from a wild looking man in a dingy hospital gown.

  “What’ve we got?” She asked.

  “Not much, detective,” said one of the officers, glancing significantly at the man in the faded hospital gown. “Not much at all.”

  “Why won’t you listen to me?” The man begged. He was an ancient character with wild hair and sallow eyes. “I saw him lift her with one hand!”

  Jackie turned to the old man. They hadn’t released any of that information yet. “You saw the attack?” She asked.

  “You better believe it! That’s what I’ve been telling this ruffian,” the wild-haired man glared at the officer.

  “Okay, let’s start from the top. Tell me what you saw.”

  The man, pleased to finally have an audience, smiled broadly. Jackie tried not to laugh as his lips pulled back to reveal an empty mouth, teeth long since rotted away. The old man looked over at the first police officer and his smile turned to a comical frown.

  “Not with this one here.” He leaned close to Jackie and whispered, “I don’t like his looks.”

  Jackie nodded and motioned for the two officers to leave. The first one rolled his eyes, then signaled to his partner who followed him around the corner.

  Alone with the old man, Jackie pulled out her cellphone and pressed record. “Alright Mr…”

  “Alvarez,” the old man smiled again. “But my friends call me Pickle.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s actually a pretty funny story, see—”

  “That’s okay, Mr. Alvarez,” Jackie tried to smile, but had to suppress another wince as her indigestion came roaring back. “Let’s stick to the details of the attack for now.”

  Alvarez wrinkled his forehead. “Alright, just business then. Well, it all started a week ago when Small Richard came over to play some Pinochle.” Jesus, pinochle? How old is this guy? “Well, Old Richard tried to dispute his bid, and I said ‘no way in hell you lousy cheat! You just took a trick and you expect me to—’”

  “Mr. Alvarez?”

  “Please, call me Pickle.”

  “Mr. Alvarez,” Jackie sighed. “Could we focus on the events this morning?”

  “Don’t rush me!” Alvarez pursed his lips at Jackie, and the detective tried not to laugh. “Alright, well, I’m sleeping, dreaming about this time me and Molly, rest her soul, went down to Mexico to see the pyramids. You ever seen those pyramids, Detective? They say they were built by men, but between you and me I think it was something else. Hoover knew all about it, would have blown the lid on the whole thing if the gov’ment hadn’t shut him up.” Alvarez gave her an enormous wink. “But I could never get Molly to believe me, rest her soul. She said they had all kinds of people working—”

  “Pickle!” Jackie said sharply.

  The old man jumped, then wrinkled his brow again. “Fine, fine,” he muttered. “This morning. Okay. So I’m dreaming my dream about Mexico, and then I start hearing all this muttering. Really loud, alright? I mean, it took me out of my dream and everything, and I was even having this conversation with Molly. She was always talking, that one and—oh. Right. Sorry,” Alvarez smiled sheepishly.

  “This mutterings really loud,” he continued. “And I thought maybe I had a new roomy, but I looked over and it was still just me. That’s one nice thing about this hospital, you know? It’s really quiet. Anyway, so I look across the hall through the door they always leave open—I don’t understand why they do that, it’s terribly rude—and I see this big fella writhing around in his bed.”

  “Writhing?” Jackie asked.

  “Yeah, he’s moving around like he’s got bed-bugs. And he’s muttering this really weird stuff, probably Russian cause he looks a little pink to me, ya’ know? And he’s just going crazy, which I don’t have to tell ya’ happens a lot up here.” Alvarez looked up and down the hallway, his lips pursing.

  “Did you make out any words?” Jackie asked. “Anything would be a big help.”

  “Sorry,” Alvarez reached over and patted Jackie’s hand. “I was never good at that stuff. If it ain’t English it’s just rubbish to me. Math was my thing; my mother used to put my marks on the ice box, she was really proud of those.”

  “And after the muttering?” Jackie asked in what she hoped was a pleasant voice. Stupid burritos, Russ promised he wasn’t going to get hot sauce, Jackie rubbed at her stomach and tried not to moan.

  “What? Oh, right, all that weird mumbling. So, this poor fella is thrashing around, and this is one tall drink of water mind you, and all of a sudden that nurse—I think her name was…Roberts. Ya’, Roberts—anyway, this nurse runs in and starts trying to restrain him. And then this horrible ripping sound explodes out of the room, like a tree being torn out by its roots. And…and…one of the man’s hands are free.”

  Alvarez’s eyes had been steadily growing larger throughout the story, until now they took up half of his face. His voice dropped to a whisper. “He just picked her up, like I’d pick up a cup of coffee, and this whimpering was coming from her throat.”

  “Take your time, there’s no rush. Or if you’d like…would you like a short break?” The old man was obviously distressed. And with his hair disarrayed and his archaic words it made Jackie feel like she was talking with her grandpa again.

  “He lifted her right off the ground,” Alvarez continued, ignoring Jackie. “And he’s not saying a word anymore, and he’s just staring at her like she’s some kind of worm. There’s this snap, and suddenly she’s not struggling anymore. With one hand. He just held her there, and his other hand was still caught up in that Velcro band-thingy, and he’s looking at her like she’s not even there. Like he’s not even sure what’s going on. And then…and then…” Alvarez’s voice was coming between short, quick gasps and Jackie laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “Easy, now. Did he say anything? You said he was speaking in a foreign language?”

  Alvarez looked up at Jackie with wide, terrified eyes. “He snapped that poor girl’s neck like a twig, then he turned and saw me. He saw me.”

  “It’s alright, Mr. Alvarez. We can stop if you need to.”

  “He stared at me with those eyes. Black, empty…” the old man looked past Jackie’s shoulder, his gaze wide and unfocused. “And I felt like I was seeing the last thing in my life. Like it was all about to end, and I was finally going to see my Molly.” The old man’s eyes were glassy. “For a second I felt this complete moment of peace. Then those black eyes pulled me out, and I knew for certain I was going to die.”

  “But you didn’t,” Jackie said encouragingly.

  Alvarez shook his head and focused back on Jackie, blinking away tears. “You think that made a difference back then? All I could see were these huge black eyes, and the hand he’d used to kill that poor n
urse. He pulled out his other arm and I heard the same rip, like a saw through wood. But just when I thought that was it, his eyes cleared up and it was this confused kid staring back at me. He looked so baffled, for a moment I actually thought about going over and trying to help him. Then I saw the body on the floor, and I just closed my eyes and prayed to Jesus he didn’t see me looking at him.”

  Alvarez stopped and stared back into space. A shiver stole down Jackie’s back. Great, she thought. My one witness, and if I put him on the stand he’s going to spend half the time talking about his trip to Mexico and the other half railing against commies. “What happened after that?”

  “What? Oh, nothing really. I kept my eyes shut for another minute, and when I opened them he was gone. The door was closed and I started thinking maybe I made the whole thing up.” Alvarez looked embarrassed. “Sometimes my memory isn’t what it used to be. But I can still remember that trip with Molly, she was so excited to see those silly ruins, and I kept telling her it was impossible for people—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Alvarez, but I think I have all that I need for now.”

  The old man flashed his gummy smile, then ambled back to his room. Nice as he was, what he had given Jackie was pretty much unusable.

  She walked back around the corner to where she had been questioning Doctor Moss, and was unsurprised to find that the sweaty man had fled. Probably in his office filling out his resume. Served him right. A patient starts freaking out and they send one nurse? And after all of that, it takes them another two hours before they find the body and call the police? Something was weird about this one, and it wasn’t just Alvarez’s story. She ran a hand through her brown hair, pulling gently on her ponytail.

  “One of those, eh Jack?” Her partner, Russ Hasfeld, approached with a paper cup brimming with coffee. Jackie accepted the lukewarm beverage gratefully. “Yeah,” she said. “One for the books.”

  “So whaddya make of it?”

  “What, my day?”

  Russ grunted. “Yeah, your day, you selfish old bitch.”

  Russ was like that; no matter what kind of mood she was in he never pulled any punches. He loomed over her, six-foot-one to her relatively short five-foot-four. “It’s been pretty shitty, if you really want to know,” she said, trying not to think of what the coffee was doing to the flaming pit in her stomach.

  “Like I care. Tell me about Hunter Friskin.”

  “Come on,” Jackie said. “It’s open and shut. Friskin freaks out—probably high as a 747—rips through the cuffs, kills a nurse who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and waltzes out the front door easy as you please. See? Open and shut.”

  “Yeah. Like you buy that.”

  Jackie shrugged. Russ was right, of course. On the surface the whole thing did seem open and shut, but there was that weird, queasy feeling that something wasn’t right. Take the scene of the crime. When Jackie arrived on scene she had been ushered into the room where they first discovered the victim. She expected the usual mess that accompanied a murder: blood, urine and a motive.

  But the crime scene didn’t have any of those. The woman had been brutally killed, no question, but the execution was…odd. CSI made a point of mentioning that they would have an official report in a couple of days, but the early findings suggested the force applied to the nurse’s throat had gone beyond strangulation—it had actually crushed her windpipe into shards of cartilage. And then there were the marks on her neck. The woman’s neck had been squeezed so powerfully it left not only a bruise in the shape of a hand, but marks in the shape of fingerprints.

  Odd.

  And the motive made even less sense. Hunter Friskin had been admitted for attempted suicide, but the hospital records showed he didn’t have any previous history of suicide attempts or mental illness, and his tox-screen had come back negative for drugs. So what was more likely? That the suspect had suddenly flipped out, tried to kill himself, failed and then freaked out again at the hospital, killing a nurse and fleeing into the city? Or that something else was going on?

  Jackie considered herself a good cop. She didn’t drink on the job, she followed her hunches, and she fell back on reason whenever possible. But her gut was telling her something, and it wasn’t just the ill-considered burrito.

  “He lifted her with one hand…”

  “Jack, you still here?” She blinked as Russ snapped his fingers, and looked down to see her coffee was nearly finished.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she yawned, “I’m here. Just need a little more Jo, then how about we do one more sweep and get the hell out of here?”

  “Fine by me. Open and shut, huh?” Russ chuckled. “If you really believed that you wouldn’t force me to talk with that old loon again,” he nodded to Alvarez, who was chatting animatedly with an abandoned wheelchair.

  “You’re breaking my heart,” Jackie started walking toward the makeshift table the cadets had thrown up to hold the coffee, when she heard a small cough behind her. Turning, she was met by a giant, homely looking woman wearing an over-sized shirt and a pair of pink slippers.

  “Yes?” Jackie asked, trying not to stare at the enormous woman.

  “Um, Detective Riese? That guy over there,” the woman pointed at the police officer who had been questioning Alverez a few minutes ago. “He said you’d want to talk with me.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, um, sorry. This is all so weird.” The giant woman stopped and took a deep breath. It gave Jackie time to marvel at her wardrobe: the shirt was obviously thrown on with haste, and unless she was a Packer’s fan, probably not hers; the slippers were threadbare and dirty; and her hair, a tangle of greasy brown locks, was situated like a crow’s nest on her misshapen head.

  The ungainly woman finally finished breathing, opened her eyes and smiled tremulously. “I’m Adrianna, Hunter’s wi—er, ex-wife.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.”

  Adrianna’s eyes filled with apprehension, and her gaze darted around the room. “Um, sorry, I wasn’t home. I was with a friend.”

  “I see,” Jackie said, giving the Packer’s shirt a long look.

  “Well, you were so persistent with the voicemails and everything. And I finally got around to checking my phone a little bit ago, and then…and then I found out… “ Her eyes grew liquid. “Oh my god,” she started to bawl. “How could this happen? I just saw him this morning, and now he’s killed someone?”

  “We’re still trying to determine that, ma'am,” Jackie said soothingly. “Why don’t you follow me and we’ll find somewhere more private to talk.” Jackie held out her hand, and Adrianna took it with a timid smile. She lead the giant woman to one of the rooms set aside for interrogation, trying not to wince as Adrianna squeezed her hand. The woman was holding it as tightly as a little kid crossing the street for the first time. Once they were in the room Jackie gave Adrianna a chair, then pulled out her recorder. “Alright Mrs. Friskin—”

  “Actually,” Adrianna interrupted, “it’s Fultano. I’m going by my maiden name now.”

  “That a fact?” Jackie raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh no, don’t get me wrong, it’s not because of the murder or anything. I mean, that’s awful, but I told Hunter this morning, I said ‘I can’t take any more of this Hunter, we’re done you and me. I want a divorce.’’

  “‘I can’t take any more of this?’” Jackie asked.

  The look of apprehension came back into Adrianna’s eyes. “Well, we’ve been having a rough couple of months.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell, just the normal kind of stuff, I guess. He was always losing his job, for one thing. It was like every time I’d come home he’d be looking through the classifieds again. It became a regular thing with him.”

  Jackie sat opposite Adrianna and pulled out a small pad of paper. “So he had job problems?”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it,” Adrianna snorted. “The man could ne
ver keep one. My mother warned me he was lazy, but do you know I kept defending him?”

  “So, was that it?” Jackie looked up from her scribbling. “He was lazy?”

  Adrianna shrugged. “I don’t know—maybe. I mean, maybe it was a bum rap. People never really took to Hunter. He’s nice enough, but kind of…he’s sort of…queer, I guess.”

  “Queer?”

  “Yeah. He just rubs people the wrong way, and before you know it, bam! Out looking for another job. And this time, well, he comes to the hospital and his boss is telling me how he can’t keep him on anymore, and…well, what would you do?”

  Well, I know what you’d do, Jackie thought. Or who you do. But all she said was, “So, problems at work. You think that caused the suicide attempt?”

  Adrianna shrugged derisively. “I think he’s just selfish. He’s always been like that, always putting himself first. Do you know, when we went on our first date he took me to a Mary Kay make-up party? I mean, seriously, a make-up party?”

  “That so?”

  “He’s was always into that stuff; it’s what he went to school for. Well, before he dropped out.”

  Jackie shook her head, amused. Mr. Friskin, the plot thickens. “So, tell me how you two met.”

  “Friend of a friend kind of thing,” Adrianna’s head tilted to the side. “Actually, I should say more of a ‘friend of an acquaintance’ kind of thing. Hunter didn’t really have any friends. He’d been working at this student salon while he went to school, and one of his co-workers was a friend of my sister. Anyway, they knew we were both single, so they set up this blind date.”

  “The make-up party?”

  “Yeah,” Adrianna rolled her eyes. “The ‘make-up party.’ Anyways, after that we started dating, and one thing led to another, you know? And a few months later we got married”

  “A few months? That’s one hell of a quick engagement.” Jackie said.

  Adrianna nodded. “Yeah, that’s what my mom thought too. But Hunter never really had a girlfriend, and if you ask me he had no idea what to do with one. He probably watched some movie that made marriage look grand and glorious, and…well, here we are.”