Jill’s mind was racing down two different tracks: following the birth and feeling her idea grow.
Crazy! Jumping at-
“Second reason…” David said over Dee’s howling. “Oops, okay, here we go, c’mere and watch.”
Sean the intern moved closer. Watched David’s gloved right hand open and slow the baby’s head’s exit with his palm.
“Second reason,” he continued as his hands worked, “is that the baby’s shoulders when it’s face down can act like a knife and tear the vagina.” He started gently easing the head out, face down.
“But face down is normal, right?” Sean asked.
Can’t text during a delivery, Jill thought absurdly, replacing forceps David didn’t need after all, glancing at the nurse mopping Dee’s brow.
“Yes, watch,” David answered the intern. His gloved hands reached gently into the birth canal past the baby’s head. “You have to carefully rotate the baby ninety degrees, so the shoulders are vertically aligned instead of horizontal.” His right hand worked. “Then you tilt the head slightly downward like this, so the top shoulder slips out first. Next you raise the baby’s head slightly upward” – his hands worked – “and ease out the bottom shoulder. Once both shoulders are out, the rest will just slide out. It takes just seconds and is important for the mother’s safety.”
Little Joey Smith, already named, came out into David’s hands, his right hand supporting the head and his left hand under the baby’s rump.
The rest was the usual noisy blur of joy, relief, checking the baby and putting him on his mother’s chest. A nurse covered the yowling newcomer with a warm, sterile towel. David checked the placenta, spoke briefly with a pediatric resident who’d just run in, and spent a few more minutes checking the mother’s uterus, ordering Ergotrate to contract it.
Minutes later, in the scrub room where they tossed their gowns and caps into the bin and pedaled on the water, David asked Jill, “So where were you in there?”
“Huh?” She was excited, stomped her pedal too hard. The water at her sink blasted.
“You were on another planet. Your wheels were turning.” David leaned closer and twinkled his tired eyes at her. “I know that look.”
“Uhm…” She eased off the water pedal.
How to explain? She felt suddenly light-headed and – no, starving, that was it. “I had an idea,” she said. “What time is it? What day is this?”
“Eleven-thirty.” David glanced at a wall clock. “Not sure about the day but” – his face clouded – “‘it’s the second day we’ve been involved with…”
He stopped as Sean came in, bitching about no sleep and threatening to quit and join a hedge fund.
“You’re delirious,” David told him.
“We’ll talk at lunch,” Jill said low.
Woody Greenberg, Sam MacIntyre and Tricia Donovan were already at their favorite table in a far corner of the cafeteria. It had become a sort of clubhouse for the five of them. The other three had been through it all with Jill and David. During the first crisis on the med school’s old museum roof, they’d gone nearly crazy running around and shouting into their cell phones. Then the second time they’d gone through another nightmare, when Jill and David were again almost killed.
Their faces now bore that same look of tension as the pair approached.
David’s tray was loaded with both their eats as he and Jill made their way past filled tables. The two had resumed mild bickering in the elevator. Jill was madly texting Kerri and wouldn’t say why.
“At lunch,” she’d told him. “I’m still not sure what I’m doing…”
Now she followed him, head down and scowling, jabbing away at her phone. Someone in scrubs jostled her, and she didn’t look up.
Someone else at one of the tables called to David, “Saw you on TV!” Others greeted him: “They gonna get that Couples Killer?”… “You gonna get that Couples Killer?”… “Loved that shot of you two in Emergency.”
Jill tuned out his reassuring nothings to them. Did manage a quick smile to Ramu Chitkara, some interns, and Charlie Ortega who tugged at her scrubs as she passed.
“You two okay?” he asked.
“So far,” she answered. Then sent a final text back to Kerri and sat next to David at their table.
“What’s happening?” Tricia on her other side asked worriedly. Sam and Woody watched her, wearing the same look.
“Cops were back here,” she told them. “There may be a little progress.”
She watched David pile her tray with a plate of sandwiches and salad. Smiled contritely at him: Sorry for my snit. You spoil me. He smiled crookedly back: No biggie.
She looked from him to the others. “Plus, I got an idea. Maybe a big one ‘cause it’s driving me crazy.”
They stared at her.
She took a bite of her sandwich and, chewing, pushed her cell phone to the center of the table.
“Crime scene photos,” she said, reaching for some Coke. “It occurred that we” – a glance at David – “had never seen the other attacks, just had them described to us. So I asked Kerri Blasco to send them.”
Another bite of sandwich and she leaned way forward, touch-skimming the photos.
“Here’s the first attack,” she said, pointing. “Couple shot near Times Square, southwest of us and across town. Victims Carrie Fielder, age 26, and Jon Trout, age 30.”
The others pulled their chairs closer and studied the bloody photos. “Notice,” Jill continued. “Both victims were hit in the back fatally. The man first, I’m guessing, then the female as she tried to flee.” Jill’s fingers enlarged a close up. “This puncture, the male, clearly hit the aorta, and” – her fingers moved again – “this shot hit the female’s pulmonary artery.” The shirted backs of both victims were blood-soaked.
Tricia whimpered, “Five centimeters apart.”
“Right. Aiming for the female’s heart, close enough, but not the bull’s eye that the man’s hit was, which is why I think he was hit first. Plus, the woman was fleeing, moving fast.”
“Still, bull’s eye enough,” Woody said gravely. “Both definitely heart shots.”
David nodded, his fingers scrolling back to the bloodied male. “Where’s this going, Jill?”
“Wait.” Another bite of sandwich, leaning and scrolling more.
“Here’s the second attack, happened in Soho south of us, the female, named Angie Vargas, age 28, shot in the back straight to the heart, her boyfriend, Jonah Barron, age 34, shot in the head.” Jill swallowed, looked at the others. “He’s in a coma at Manhattan General. Irreversible.”
Sam looked up somberly. “So four shots, three heart and one head, the sonofabitch is a marksman.”
“Right, exactly!” Jill was getting excited. “Ditto Beth Willis’s male friend, a clear shot in shadow through his back to his heart. Five bull’s eyes. Now” – her hand shook as she scrolled – “here’s Beth’s wound, bloody but…”
Jill sank back, winded. “Notice anything?” Her gaze swept the others. “Any bigger picture?”
David frowned, studying the close up of Beth’s belly bleeding profusely, her blouse and shorts soaking red.
“I’ve got it,” he said, tapping the phone. “You may be wrong. It’s because he saw Ricky and was startled-”
“That’s what the cops think,” Jill cried. “But isn’t it possible that if Ricky hadn’t been there, the ‘missed’ shot” – air quotes – “would have been the same?”
It took them a moment.
Woody clenched his fist on the table. “You think this creep was really after Beth? That the rest is…”
“A smoke screen before the main event? It’s not possible?” Jill turned to David. “You’ve told me lots of times that sharpshooters are trained not to startle. Sure, it’s possible he didn’t see Ricky until the last second, but people like this have ice in their veins. They don’t react except for the mark.”
“The real mark being…Beth? Her belly?”
David’s frown deepened. “Whoa,” he said uncertainly.
Sam was incredulous. “Such a pre-planned, methodical rampage just to show a woman he’s mad?”
Tricia had yanked Jill’s phone back and was zooming through the photos again. “But what set him off?” Her troubled face looked up. “Beth was into her tenth week.”
There was a silence as Tricia’s question haunted.
The killings had begun just last week. What, indeed, had set off this monster who maybe, possibly, had gone to such lengths to hide his revenge on one person in the MO of a Couples Killer?
Jill gave Tricia a solid stare. “Maybe Beth had just told someone.”
David took Jill’s phone from Tricia. “At this point whatever set him off might be irrelevant,” he said gravely, flicking through bloody photos. “He’s now a serial, enjoys killing. Hates everyone, especially couples who have the effrontery to seem happy.”
“Also hates authority.” Jill filled them in on more. “This is our first chance to tell you…his second and third kills he signed, left taunting computer-typed notes for the cops signed, Catch Me.”
Sam leaned forward, looking stricken. “Signed means accelerating, right?”
“Right,” David said. “There’s gonna be more.”
16
The Killer stood a moment longer at the cafeteria entrance, thinking, I jostled her. Actually touched her skin and she didn’t even look up. Stuck up snob bitch. Oh, but look how effusive she is with her friends, her handsome David.
He adjusted his wire rimmed glasses, took a last look at the yakking Table of Five, and then scanned the cafeteria. It was huge and crowded, but his gaze darted for signs that anyone was eyeing him, wondering what he was doing there. No, they were all rushing to and fro, so busy in their own heads, noticing no one least of all him. He’d researched online. This place had four hundred interns and residents. No way they all knew each other, and in his scrubs with his tousled, brown-haired wig he looked like any of them.
How easy it would be to pull out his gun and kill lots of those smug, self-important bastards, starting with the gabbing Table of Five and the bitch who’d ignored him.
Next time, maybe. First things first…
He turned away, walked the busy, glass-walled hall to the next hall which led to the hospital lobby, even more crowded with people coming and going, visitors headed for upstairs, injured and their relatives looking for Emergency.
Moving quickly, he glanced in to the wide ER hall, the nurses’ desk and the sag-faced sick slumped in the same line of chairs that he’d occupied just last night. Amazing. It seemed like ages ago.
Boring ages. His fingers in his scrub pocket fingered his gun, itched so terribly to use it.
A security guard looked his way, but he strode on as casually as he could and left through the main entrance. Walked down the curved drive past cars and taxis pulling up, reached the Avenue, and on the sidewalk finally turned.
Looked back.
Well, he’d done it. Proved to himself that you could still just buy doctor duds and enter that hospital, go to any part of it you wanted. He’d read where they had more security guards, cops, and surveillance cameras since their two big crises – even, the second time, bomb-sniffing dogs and human scanners with hand wands. But…he smirked to himself. No metal detectors.
Shouldn’t hospitals have metal detectors? When the excitement here was over, the dogs and human scanners just…left.
Too much sleepy time had passed. Those in charge had gotten sloppy, despite having the latest Couples Killer victim in their building.
The very reason he’d wanted to double check, walk into the place with his gun in his pocket.
He still couldn’t get over it. Nothing had happened. No machines caught him, nobody frisked him, nobody even looked at him funny. It was okay! He blended and could come and go in that place anywhere, any floor, any time of day or night.
All that trouble he’d gone to…getting a fake doctor nametag and fake gun permit hadn’t even been necessary. He wanted to laugh.
He passed the Madison Florist and the Madison Deli, and then couldn’t keep it in any longer. He laughed aloud. Didn’t care about the kid who stared at him or his mother who shunned his grin and pulled her kid closer. Bitch, like all of ‘em. Her kid was the same age as that damned little Big Eyes who’d seen him in the park. Was little Big Eyes with his mommy? Yes, he must be, gotta calm the tyke, right?
This kid here was a sign! Everything was going his way! He felt clear and brilliant and oh so excited.
He’d make everyone in New York, in the world, notice him. He’d be as famous as the best of ‘em!
In a group of people waiting for the light to change, he started to hum. The cops and all the other scared fools thought he only struck at night, didn’t they? Well, this next one would surprise them…
17
“My first chance,” Gary Phipps huffed, clutching a Verizon bag, catching up to Jill and David in the glass-walled hall outside the cafeteria. David had phoned him. “There was that delivery and then Holloway called us back to see Beth Willis, tell how Sam fixed her up, finish the rounds –”
“Did Beth’s little boy seem okay? Not startled by all of you?”
“He was fine. Quiet, but Kate and Mari made a huge fuss over his toy kitty and Sean let him play with his stethoscope.”
“Sounds good.”
With thanks, David took the two new phones Gary had gotten for them as Jill spoke low on her old phone, staring out intently through the glass.
Gary glanced curiously at her, then handed David back his credit card. “Nice that Verizon’s only four blocks away.” He was still huffing. “My track days are definitely over.”
David managed a smile. “You’re just out of shape, like all of us.”
“You? Ha!”
And Kerri Blasco at the other end of Jill’s call sounded intrigued. “Someone just after Beth Willis? The ‘missed shot’ was deliberate? Hey, a new angle.”
“David thinks it’s maybe irrelevant by now. The creep’s decided he likes what he’s doing.”
“He loves it. They don’t suddenly stop rampaging. But this is good. It’s another lead.”
“We met four of Beth’s friends. One of ‘em’s a psych social worker named Ginny Russo at the VA. They’re close.”
“Psychologist or M.D.?”
“Psychologist. I’ve got her card.”
Brief silence. “I gotta check doctor-patient confidentiality where it applies to psychologists…”
“It doesn’t, not where anticipated injury to others or Beth is involved. I was planning to call Russo anyway.”
“Thanks. It frees us…”
David was putting a phone back in its box as Jill turned to smile blankly at Gary.
“Soon as we get these set up,” David told him, “the hospital will notify everyone to use the new numbers.”
“Sure, right.” Gary shrugged in a way that said he didn’t understand. Jill remembered: David had sent him out with the others after telling them about Ashley Cobb.
She touched Gary’s arm. “Gotta fill him in,” she said.
“ESP.” David nodded, and told Gary they were on their way up to see Jesse. “Want to come?”
“Awesome!” Gary grinned. “Haven’t seen the little bugger for a week. Last visit he got baby peaches in my hair.”
“’Little bugger,’” Jill teased him as they headed for the elevators. “You sound like Ramu.”
A tug of war was underway between Jesse and a sixteen-month-old over a stuffed giraffe. Jesse lost, the toddler fell backwards onto the carpet, and started screaming. Jesse gave him a look: what’s your problem? Then saw Jill and David approaching, grinned and let out a happy “Eeeee!”
High, high in the air he was scooped in David’s hands, looking down and laughing, loving it.
“You’re squishing him,” Gary smiled as he watched Jesse get smothered with hugs and smooches.
“Ma.” Fr
om Jill’s arms his little index finger pointed to the abandoned giraffe, and David picked it up for him. Jesse hugged it, then squirmed to get down again. He carried the giraffe to the little yowler, who was pushing away other toys anxiously proffered by staff…and gave it to him.
Then came back at an awkward little run, piling onto David who was already stretched on the carpet with Jill and Gary. “Oof!” David laughed. “Hey, big guy, you’re getting heavy,” he said as Jesse, squealing, clambered onto his ribs, his shoulder, slid off, climbed back on.
Gary whistled. “Wow, if I hadn’t seen it…” He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t remember my pediatric baby schedule, but that kind of social development…I can’t believe he gave the giraffe to that kid.”
“Raff! Raff!” Jesse hooted, yanking on David’s stethoscope.
“He repeats everything,” Jill said.
She rose again, lifted Jesse to her and beckoned to Gary. David was getting busy with the new phones. Gary followed across the carpet crowded with other toddlers, toys, and daycare people, joining Jill by the window.
She had pulled the rubber band from her ponytail and let her long, dark hair fall to her shoulders, which delighted Jesse. He yanked on it, peeked under it to her neck, then lay his head against her chest and snuggled.
Gary said, “So…what were you going to tell me?”
Feeling her heart kick, Jill took him through what Sam, Woody, Tricia, and Charlie already knew. The Couples Killer called David. Got both their numbers from Ashley Cobb’s phone after killing her, bragged to David that he’d seen Jill and stalked her outside their apartment building. Also bragged he’d be calling again from untraceable burn phones.
“So the police put traps into our phones, and from here on we’ll be carrying two,” she said, swallowing. “The old ones for the killer and the cops, computer-notified when he calls, the new ones for the hospital. Just use our new numbers when you get them.”
Gary had gone slack-jawed. “Oh, Jesus,” he breathed.
CATCH ME (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller, Book 4) Page 8