by JA Schneider
The other, whose name tag read Kassie Doyle, stopped beside Jill and leaned on the counter.
“Hi!” she said.
The name tag jogged Jill’s memory. “Oh hi,” she said. “How’s your back?”
“Better, thanks.” Kassie looked beat but cheery; a little too cheery. “Despite today,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’ve been looking for lost morphine…under beds, chairs, tables...”
“High and low,” Tricia said, studying her.
That struck Kassie as funny. “Low and high,” she chuckled. “Gone, like magic!”
Someone in scrubs touched Kassie’s’ arm, and she turned.
“I need you for something,” Trey Raphael said with hurried familiarity.
Trey Raphael? The missing-fingers P.R. photographer from Graham’s meeting? In scrubs? Ordering people around like he was house staff? That hurried collegiality he had affected - pulling Kassie away as if for some urgency - it struck Jill that, as much as he seemed to enjoy his black-on-black artiste persona in the conference meeting, he was liking his new doctor outfit just as much, maybe more. He was speaking too loudly, gesturing, asking people to “make space, please. Will you move that gurney? Thank you!”
Subtly, Jill told Tricia who he was, and together they watched as he ushered Kassie over to a patient in a wheelchair. The patient was beaming, holding twins.
Raphael adjusted Kassie like a store mannequin, with her arms just so around the patient’s shoulders, then fiddled with his camera mike. “Okay, big smiles!” he said grandly. “Three, two, one, a-n-n-d, action!”
The woman was rhapsodic. Nuzzling her blue-blanketed twins with Kassie’s assistance, she told Raphael’s camera how she’d been to four different hospitals over three years, with no luck. Only Madison Hospital had helped, and it only took two IVF treatments! She looked into Raphael’s camera and pulled her babies close to her face. “Our family,” she said, her eyes clearly filling, her voice wavering. “Without Madison Hospital, these two little miracles would not have been possible!”
One of the babies yawned, which prompted both mom and Kassie to laugh joyfully. A perfect end for a perfect P.R. piece. It had taken about ninety seconds.
“An-n-d…cut!” Raphael said, again grandly, clicking off his camera. He thanked the patient, and Kassie gave him a little hug, still beaming and saying something low, out of earshot.
Whatever it was, it made Raphael chuckle and smack her bottom.
He strode off in search of more star material, charmingly acknowledging the smiles of moms in pastel robes who had moved aside to make room for him. Thank you, thank you, his delight seemed to say; sorry no time for autographs.
“There’s something wrong with that guy,” Tricia muttered.
Kassie returned to the counter, and to Jill’s and Tricia’s raised-eyebrow gazes.
“Nice,” Tricia said. She hadn’t seemed to like the bottom-smacking.
“Anything to help the hospital,” Kassie answered soulfully. “This really is the only place. I’m so happy for that woman.”
Jill said, “Those must be the twins David delivered yesterday. Do you know who did the IVF?”
“Simpson, I think. No, maybe Ganon.” Kassie looked confused; her eyes rounded, and she blinked guiltily at the nurses fretting in the rear before the forbidding drug cabinet. Excitement with Raphael had lifted her load for a moment.
“I’d better catch up.” She smiled uneasily at Jill. “By the way, I’m switching back to the night shift, so I guess I’ll see you tonight…I mean, starting tomorrow night. Guess I’ve got myself pretty confused, huh?”
With a cutesy little wave she rounded the long counter and headed for the morphine investigation.
Jill and Tricia traded looks.
“Happy and talkative,” Jill said quietly. They both peered at the nurses converged before the drug cabinet. Kassie Doyle had plunked into a chair, and sat gazing at the cabinet as if it contained Godiva chocolates.
Tricia said, “Her pupils seemed a bit constricted, I couldn’t be sure.” She exhaled. “Boy, you leave that thing open for one second…”
“Leave any narcotics out,” Jill said. “Percocet, Codeine, Dilaudid - gone in a flash.”
They headed back up the hall.
“Should we say anything to David?” Tricia asked.
“Maybe,” Jill said. “We have to tell him what the crying was anyway.”
She never got the chance.
13
He was in the patient Curry’s room, scowling, with interns watching as he supervised her transfusion. He practically stood over the nurse who hung two units of whole blood from the IV pole and was attaching their tubing. The first plastic bag of blood was already running into a vein on the back of the patient’s hand; her forearm was lightly secured to a fifteen-inch wooden board.
“Check her pulse and B.P. Q1h,” he told the nurse urgently. “When the first unit’s done start the second unit immediately.” He saw Jill come in, and with an exasperated look handed her Curry’s Hematology’s report.
“Misfiled,” he said under his breath. “You were right.”
She skimmed the report, stepped back a bit and whispered, “Who was the night nurse?”
Ramu whispered back, “Evan Blair. He’s always half dead with fatigue.”
“Bullshit,” Gary Phipps rasped. “I’ve seen him napping,”
“Or studying.” Tricia shrugged, looked as if she was trying to be generous. “Nights do bring their lulls.” She looked at Gary. “You don’t like him, do you?”
Phipps scowled. “He’s a jerk.” His whisper grew louder. “Argues with me like he’s already finished med school, residency, and gotten the Nobel.”
Charlie Ortega made a face and said, “Same here. Guy’s got a big ego.”
Evan Blair was a male nurse who worked three or four night shifts a week to help pay for med school. He was brilliant, driven, and now in his fourth med school year which meant he spent all his time in the hospital, learning by watching, helping under doctors’ supervision, attending rounds and conferences. He was also older than the others because of his long, hard slog, and had a chip on his shoulder. Phipps had once gotten furious at him and called him “almost-an-intern” in front of a patient.
David was sympathetic to him, but a patient’s wellbeing had been compromised.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said tensely. Blowing air out his cheeks, he finished with Mrs. Curry, left the nurse with her, and led the interns out to the hall where he checked his phone for messages, answered one, and listened.
“So when will you have it ready?” he said irritably. Jill circled to look at him, and he covered the phone. “Pathology,” he said low.
Then told the phone, “ASAP would be good, thanks,” and rang off.
Jill said, “That crying at the nurses’ station-“
“I know. The nursing supervisor called about some missing morphine. Hell…” He frowned, paced a little, then his gaze lit unexpectedly and swept the other interns. “Hey, who wants to see a myomectomy?” He gestured almost theatrically. “Removal of a uterine fibroid- tad dah! MacIntyre’s started but you can still catch it.”
They were enthused and started to leave. It was 8:30.
“Oh,” David called after them. “Stryker’s announced a Grand Rounds conference at ten. Wants everybody there.”
Yes, yes from most of them who trotted off.
Jill stayed. Something new must be on David’s mind, he seemed so on edge. She gestured to a near bench. “Wanna sit?”
He surveyed the wooden bench, and the traffic moving past it. Nurses, gurneys, two new moms in pastel robes yakking brightly, a group of second year med students being shown around.
“The lounge,” he said. “It will be quiet.” He checked his clipboard schedule of other residents. “George Mackey’s in delivery, Woody and Jim Holloway are down in the clinic, Sam’s doing the myomectomy…”
“Sound like a baseball lineup,” Jill said.
>
David didn’t smile. “The lounge,” he said.
It seemed unreal, as if five minutes ago she had left this Ob/Gyn doctors’ lounge with its old armchairs and sagging couch and half-empty mugs crowding the coffee table. It was similar to the fourth floor surgical lounge where she’d talked with the detectives, except for the plasma TV - gift of a happy IVF couple - and the lavish 1940s poster welcoming everyone to the Stork Club.
They sat on the couch under the poster. David heaved a great sigh and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, holding his phone and staring at it.
“It’s Pathology you’re waiting to hear from?” Jill said.
“Yeah, this one’s unusual for them.” He put his phone on the coffee table, next to Woody Greenberg’s mug with the painted bunnies on it. He inhaled stiffly. “Last night, I had a crazy idea.”
Jill looked at him.
“That gritty stuff in Lainey’s hair sample? When Wally Hutch gave it to us, I pinched some through the plastic bag. It was hard. I was tired then, but later when you fell asleep my crazy thought came back. Wouldn’t let me sleep.”
Jill made a pained sound and touched his arm.
His cell phone chirped and he grabbed it. Listened.
“Gypsum and lime,” he said, straightening. Then: “Mold, no surprise there. How old is the mold?” After a silence: “Multiple layers of it, over a hundred years. Right, that fits. Well thanks, I appreciate it.”
He rang off. Frowned for a long moment at his phone. Then looked at Jill.
“Gypsum and lime are found in cement,” he said with slow intensity. “That’s cement grit in Lainey’s scalp laceration, and it pre-dates the building she was attacked in. Which means her psycho brought his favorite cement chunk with him. Why? Couldn’t he have used a lead pipe or something?”
He stirred, hyped, and rushed on. “This may be crazy, but last night something else kept coming back. That scene of Sonny Sears, Arnett’s hireling, throwing a block of cement down at me. It never occurred, but where did Sonny get that cement? Ha! He got it from the base of the chimney that crumbled when I smashed Arnett against it.” He paused, blinking. “Remember how the cement slid down the roof after I shot Sears? It must have hit the ground and smashed into smithereens, little chunks, big chunks…”
Very quietly, Jill said, “Holy cow.” She took it in. “Do you think the cops collected some of those cement pieces?”
“Let’s ask them.”
A minute later he was talking to Ted Connor. No surprise, the cops had only been concentrating on the rape kit, which had yielded nothing. No DNA, no fibers of interest, no fingerprints, same as the first victim. But yes, they had found the grit from near Elaine’s laceration.
“It’s cement,” Connor said. “Probably lifted from a cracked sidewalk.”
“No, it came from a building over a hundred years old!” David was up and pacing. “Was the first rape victim hit on the head too?”
A silence, then: “Yes. Less injury.”
“Did you find any grit? Analyze it?”
“Yeah. Also cement.”
“Okay, compare it, especially the mold, found in both women’s lacerations. If it’s the same…” He reminded Connor of Sonny Sears’ cement block skidding down, crashing into pieces. “Were those cement chunks collected into evidence? The ones on the ground?”
A long hesitation. Connor’s voice sounded thinner, embarrassed. “I don’t believe they were.”
“They must still be there! You could send someone over to…” David rubbed his brow, paced, turned. “Wait, what if kids have been at them, gawkers contaminating them? Here’s a better idea. Send a uniformed guy over to get a piece from its source, the chimney. Meanwhile, start those two cement comparisons.”
Connor admitted, “It’s a farfetched idea, but so far we’ve got nothing.” The impossibility of David’s suggestion hit him, and his tone turned frustrated. “So what do we send our guy over with? Grappling hooks and climbing gear?”
David closed his eyes. He’d known it would come to this.
“I’ll get it for you, but I have to be someplace by ten. Can you come right away? Jill’s with me. Meet us in the Museum of Anthropology’s attic. You can also access it from the fourth floor of the med center’s Sturdevandt wing, through the wrecked door in Arnett’s lab wall.”
“We’re on our way.”
Jill had drawn back, shocked.
“You back on that roof? No, please!”
He pulled her up by the hand. “We’ll argue while I change.”
In the locker room, changing from scrub bottoms to jeans, David said, “Something else I was thinking last night.” He buckled his belt. “Your nightmare this morning clinched it. The best way to exorcise the demon is to re-visit where it happened. Walk around the same place feeling safe.”
Jill was pacing fretfully behind the locker room bench. “Safely means not you crawling back onto the damned roof!”
“I’ll be okay. And it’s not scary creepy up there anymore. Workmen are replacing the fright show with a whole lotta banging.”
It was Jill’s heart banging as she followed him out to the hall. “So suddenly, this is happening? No time to worry and prepare? It’s only Day Two and we’re already headed back there?”
“No time to worry is better.”
From the nurses’ station David grabbed three latex gloves. “One, two, three!” he said, pulling them out.
“Why three?” Jill was scowling and considering making a run for it.
He pulled one glove onto his left hand, which he used to hold the other two.
“That’s why,” he said, and took her arm. “C’mon.”
14
Pappas was waiting with Brand and Connor.
Detective Sergeant Gregory Pappas, who had led the previous hospital investigation. Had been here, in the attic, on that horrible night when they carried out bodies and gaped, along with house staff running in, at the ill-lit, frightening hominids at the far end…and, halfway down the musty floorboards, the sleeping fetus in his darkened cylinder.
Jill and David ducked under cross boards, and stepped through the splintered wood and brick opening that David had made, breaking through the wall of Clifford Arnett’s former lab. His arm was around Jill, who was trembling and still protesting.
Pappas came to them, his arms spread, and that helped. He hugged Jill, shook hands with David, and peered happily at David’s brow. “All healed up there? Excellent. It’s good to have a hard head.” He was a dark-haired, heavyset man in a dark suit. Sharp, kind eyes that missed nothing. He had wanted to be here, he said; was intrigued about the cement grit comparisons with emphasis on the mold. The crime lab hadn’t even thought of it. This psycho was going to attack again. Anything that might help...
While he spoke, Pappas cast understanding glances at Jill. “You’re looking pale,” he said.
“I’m hating this,” she burst out.
“It’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly. “Hang tight.”
She looked back to the splintered opening they’d come through, wanting to go back. Even to monster Arnett’s lab and the rest of the stressful hospital complex. The museum had been the hospital’s original med school. Arnett had simply cut through the wall between his lab and the museum’s attic; disguised the door to his secret “lab” with a crowded bookshelf.
Pappas was now talking to Brand and Connor, and David was discussing something about scaffolding with two friendly workmen. They’d left their hammers and power saws and were gesticulating excitedly.
“Sounds good,” he said distractedly, as his eyes moved down to the end of the long attic, where tall, broken French doors hung crazily from their hinges and framed the roof: steep and slippery with moist slates.
Near the French doors, inexplicably, the silent line of hominids was still there. Ape-like skulls; glass-eyed faces; almost human, erect posture. “Very creepy,” Connor said. “Museum people haven’t come for them yet.”
In a sick wave of memory, Jill remembered seeing them for the first time. At 4 a.m., seemingly moving under dim, swinging light bulbs. Stolen by Arnett and Sonny Sears from the museum workshop four floors below.
She stepped closer to them.
“Give us da creeps!” one of the two workmen said. “We gotta work with that bunch staring at us!” He fell in beside her and gestured to Cro-Magnon man, last in line and largest-brained of them all. “From what I hear the museum and hospital are fighting. They both want this space and nuttin’s been done. They jus’ told us to fix the glass doors and replace summa the lumber.”
The others had approached the end of the attic too. Pappas, Brand and Connor watched David who stood, his left hand raised and holding his gloves, as the second workman tied scaffolding rope around his waist and knotted it to his belt.
“I’m Ray,” the workman tying the rope said, glancing at Jill. “I saw you on TV. Wait till the wife hears about this!”
“Hi Ray.” Jill tried to smile. Watched Pappas check David’s knot, look back to a coil of more rope, and grunt in satisfaction.
“See?” David flicked her a smile. “Nothing to worry about.”
The rope did look safe but she still gritted her teeth; couldn’t smile back. Behind David and the broken French doors, the roof slope angled sharply. The side they faced was on the north side of the building, which accounted for its still-moist slates. So slippery-looking.
“Watch the glass!” Brand said, putting on his own gloves and pulling dagger shards from the broken doorframe. Connor helped. One shard cut through his latex glove and he yelped; grimaced down at blood oozing from his hand.
“We got bandages,” the second workman said, and Connor went to get tended.
Now David pulled on his two reserve gloves. “You couldn’t ask for less contaminated than this,” he told Pappas, who reached to try to help him through the window.
Too late. David was already out with his back to them, his right Nike foot on the roof crest, his left a bit lower. He moved nimbly and surprisingly fast toward the chimney, a good forty feet away. Pappas and Ray fed the rope out as he went.