by Jaime Maddox
“I hope it works out that way,” Mac said, and Jess detected some hesitancy in Mac’s voice.
“I know you can’t really talk to me about this, but how’s it going? I mean, I think the kidnapping is easy. I testify that he drugged me and kidnapped me and that’s that. But what about the murders? Those victims can’t testify. Is there enough evidence? Wendy seems to think it’s all circumstantial and he might be about to wiggle out of the charges.”
“It would be nice to have something concrete on him. We can say that five of Hawk’s patients died of insulin overdoses, and that’s an improbable coincidence, but unless we have a bottle of insulin with Hawk’s fingerprints on it, it’s hard to prove he gave the injections.”
“Oh, my God!” Jess said and sat forward, her mind reeling. Hawk had injected her in her office and then left to attend to matters in the ER. She had no idea what he’d done with the syringe of succinylcholine he’d used to paralyze her. But later, when he’d attacked Wendy, he’d put her into the body bag with Jess and then deposited the syringe of sux into the sharps container in the back of the hearse. It had been two months earlier, but might it still be there? How often did Wendy change it?
“Mac, the syringe of sux he used to paralyze Wendy. It’s in her hearse. In the sharps container.”
Mac leaned forward and patted Jess’s hand. “I like your thinking, Doc. That’s excellent. We already went through the sharps container from the hearse and every one at Garden Memorial. We found the syringes of sux, but unfortunately, no prints. He must have worn gloves or wiped them, because they were clean.”
Defeated, Jess sat back. “Oh, well.”
“Don’t feel dejected, Jess. Keep thinking. When one door closes, find a window. That’s the only way to solve a case.”
“I guess it’s kind of like medicine, your job. When one medication or therapy doesn’t work, try another. Sometimes the clock is ticking, because the patient is very sick, and you get it right. Sometimes…not.”
Mac sipped her wine and looked over Jess’s shoulder to the lights on the lake. “I hate to think about the ones that got away.”
Jess leaned forward. “Let’s not let Hawk get away.”
They hadn’t even glanced at the menus but hastily selected soup and entrees when their server appeared to take their order. When their server left, Mac placed her hand over Jess’s.
“He’ll go away, Jess.”
“For how long?”
Mac shrugged. “I’m sure the DA will add aggravated kidnapping charges, which will tack on a few years to his sentence. But he’s only thirty-eight years old. He’ll get smarter in prison, more evil. When he gets out he’ll be late forties, early fifties, and totally fucking lethal.”
“So we can’t let him get out, Mac. How do we do that?”
“Make the murder charges stick.”
“How?”
“We need something that ties him to the murders. Like the aforementioned syringe of insulin with his fingerprints all over it. When they exhumed the body, they found high levels of insulin in a patient who died a few months ago. If they could find the same type of insulin in a vial with Hawk’s fingerprints on it, that would be a really good clue.”
“He had to keep his stuff somewhere, so why can’t you find it?”
Steaming bowls of pumpkin soup were placed before them, the Gruyère shavings on top beginning to melt into the liquid. Both Jess and Mac brought spoonfuls to their mouths and blew on them before tasting. “Mmm,” Jess said.
“Very good,” Mac agreed.
“So how long do you think he’ll get for the kidnapping?”
Mac had thought about the case and couldn’t say she was entirely comfortable with it. Since none of the victims had been harmed—technically—Hawk’s lawyers had tried to have the charges reduced to misdemeanor from felony. Because he’d drugged his victims, though, they’d kept the more serious charges. For now, anyway. She’d talked to the DA and could tell he was a little nervous. Hawk’s parents had hired a dream team of lawyers, and he was worried about what kind of nonsense they’d try. One thing was certain—Hawk would have the best defense money could buy, and his lawyers would exploit any loophole in the law, any flaw in the case, and use it to help their client. Mac didn’t think it would happen, but it was possible Hawk could walk away with no jail time at all.
Of course, if that happened, the DA would immediately file murder charges, and Hawk would go directly back to jail, without passing go or collecting his two hundred dollars. But unless the evidence was solid enough to hold him, his million-dollar lawyers would then get him off on bail, or worse yet—have the charges dismissed. And if that happened, if he was set free, Mac was absolutely sure Hawk would bolt, and he’d start murdering people in Buenos Aires or Cape Town, or wherever he fled.
She had her work cut out for her, and the woman sitting across the table from her made her determined to find the evidence she needed to make sure Hawk got his date with the executioner.
Chapter Nineteen
Evidence
Jess sometimes thought the eleven rooms in her house were too much, but since she’d been working out with Mac in what had once been the library, she was glad for the space. It beat the testosterone and noise at the gym hands down.
All the time together had a drawback, though. Jess had given up on fighting her attraction to Mac. Now she was just fighting the urge to act on it. They hadn’t even really hugged yet. After dinner at the lake a couple of months earlier, Mac had given her a polite hug when she walked Jess to the door. Since then, when they went their separate ways, their farewells were similar. Friendly. Courteous. Safe. And, Jess knew, that was how they had to stay, because if she pulled Mac too close, her mouth would go from Mac’s cheek, to her ear, and her neck…
Jess stopped and gazed in the mirror. She looked great. Her body was toned, and thanks to the workouts with Mac in addition to her own routine, she’d never been in better shape. She’d grown strong, both mentally and physically. If only she was strong enough to stay away from Mac until after Hawk’s trial.
She descended the stairs and found Mac stretched out on the floor of the library. They’d discovered a used wrestling mat in the newspaper, and it was a perfect fit. Jess had bought a treadmill and placed it beside her elliptical, and Mac had started running there on the days Mother Nature made it unsuitable to exercise outdoors. Like today, the day before Thanksgiving. She’d finished at the office at seven and had come to Jess’s and run on the treadmill. Jess had worked until seven as well but hadn’t gotten out of the ER until almost eight, so she’d arrived just as Mac was finishing her third mile. She’d said hello before running up the steps to change.
Mac caught her breath at the sight of Jess in clinging workout pants and top. Very little was left to the imagination, and Mac needed no such temptation. What had happened to her? She’d always been so calm and cool, and now here she was, all heated up over the one woman she definitely couldn’t take to bed. She looked away as Jess began to stretch. If she watched, her resolve might just crumble and she’d do something regrettable.
After a few minutes, Mac finished on the treadmill and they began their self-defense routine. As they went through stretches and poses, kicks and punches, Mac was pleased to see how far Jess had come. She took the classes more seriously than anyone Mac had ever coached. She’d worked with many victims, and they were all motivated, but few of them saw it through. Jess, though, was a dynamo.
When they finished, Jess offered Mac a drink. They took their water to the couch in Jess’s living room and collapsed onto the sofa.
“How are the dinner plans coming?”
“It’s my first turkey, but I think it’ll be fine. I’ll be cooking at my dad’s, and I helped my mom with Thanksgiving dinner for about thirty years. I’ll figure it all out. And you?”
“I’ll go to my parents’ early and just follow orders. Mash! Slice! Pour. I’m great at that stuff. I’m not a bad cook, either, but there isn’t
enough room for all of us in one kitchen. After dinner, I’ll play with all the nieces and nephews. I always try to take this weekend off so I can spend time with them. They come from Ohio, Maryland, and Harrisburg for the holiday, and it’s the one time of year we’re all together.”
“How about some wine, Mac? I kind of feel like wine.”
“Do you have any cheese?”
“I’ll see what I can dig up. Come help me.”
Mac uncorked a pinot noir while Jess sliced a wedge of cheese and spread crackers on a plate, then followed her back to the living room. Jess pressed a button and the gas fireplace came to life, instantly warming the room.
Mac sat forward and sipped from the large balloon glass. “What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the pile on the table.
Jess reached out and ran her fingers gently across the cover before meeting Mac’s gaze. “Photo albums. My dad gave them to me. It seems my mom chronicled my entire life in albums. Photos, artwork, newspaper articles. It covers everything from my birth announcement to the piece in the Garden Press when I was hired as ER director.”
Mac was impressed. “Wow. That’s some gift.”
“Yeah, it is. I haven’t really gone through them. It’s a little emotional, you know?” Jess swallowed hard. She’d had the books for two days and had done little more than glance at the covers. Her father had found them on the top shelf of the pantry.
“C’mon. Let me have a peek. I’d like to see you with pigtails and no teeth.”
Jess thought she was ready, and so they sat beside each other, looking at random albums. The first Mac chose was third grade, and she did indeed find the picture she was looking for. Jess as the centerfielder on the high-school and college softball teams was another highlight.
“Ah, medical school,” Jess said when Mac chose the third album. The cheese was gone, and they were into their second glasses of wine as she opened the book. It started with her letter of acceptance, which took up an entire page. Beside it was a picture of Jess in her parents’ kitchen, holding the letter, the smile on her face lighting up the room.
It was fun to go through the pages with Mac, reliving that wonderful time of her life. They studied pictures of her classrooms, her in full protective garb outside the anatomy lab, behind a microscope. A picture of Jess with the first baby she delivered was also enlarged to fill the page, as did the shot of her over a pig’s foot as she learned to suture.
“What’s this?” Mac asked as she turned the page and saw a picture of Jess donning a white lab coat.
“Oh, that’s the white-coat ceremony.”
“What’s that about?”
“When you’re a medical student, you wear a short coat. It’s sort of like a scarlet letter because it marks you. Everyone in the hospital knows you’re the lowest life form. But when you graduate from medical school, when you’re a full-fledged doctor, you get to wear the long coat. So they have a ceremony where the attending physicians—our teachers—‘coat’ us.”
“Do you wear one? Whenever I go to the doctor, she’s in street clothes. She could be the secretary for all I know.”
Jess laughed. “I do because I wear scrubs to work, and so does the janitor, and I don’t want the staff to confuse us.”
Now Mac laughed. “You’d be the cutest janitor at Garden Memorial,” she said as she gently poked Jess in the ribs.
Jess felt herself blushing and concentrated on the page before her, although she couldn’t deny the thrill Mac’s compliment gave her.
“Actually, I like wearing my coat. First of all, it’s warm, so there’s that. But it has huge pockets, for my stethoscope, pens, whatever I need.”
Suddenly, Jess’s mouth went dry and she turned to Mac. Her eyes opened wide as a thought came to her. “Oh, God, Mac. Hawk. He always wore a lab coat. Did you find it? We might discover something in his pockets.”
Mac stared at Jess and seemed to be thinking, and then she reached out to her. “I don’t think we did, Jess. Is there some place in the hospital where he might have left it?”
“Hawk used the physicians’ lounge all the time. He showered there. I wonder if he had a locker there?”
“We searched in the break room but couldn’t find anything. Is that what you’re talking about? The room where I met you that morning after your night shift.”
“No, this is in the back of the hospital, next to the elevators.”
“Is it too late to check?”
“Not if you’re on the medical staff, and I am.”
Jess looked down at herself. She was dressed for a workout, not for the office, and she’d had a glass of wine, but she didn’t care. This was too important to wait. She stood. “Let’s go.”
They took her car, and she parked it in the vacant spot near the ER designated for physicians. Jess didn’t feel guilty at all. She was a physician, and as far as she was concerned, this was an emergency.
Walking briskly, they quickly reached the physicians’ lounge. The large room was papered and decorated exquisitely, with tasteful prints and dried flowers, and club chairs arranged in a conversational grouping around a large table. Mac followed Jess through a doorway where large wooden lockers lined both sides of the wide hall, leading to the men’s restroom. The lockers were eighteen inches wide and stretched eight feet from the floor.
“How many doctors are on staff?” Mac asked as she looked for some identifying feature on the doors. She found numbers, discreetly engraved across the top. In all, there were sixty lockers in the room.
“I don’t know. But not everyone has one. I don’t. I only come in here once in a while. It’s easy enough to change clothes and shower at home since I live a block away. But I bet Ernie can tell us. He’s the night janitor for the main floor.”
Jess walked calmly to the phone on a desk tucked discreetly into a corner and put it to her ear. She pressed one button. “Hi, Renee, Dr. Benson here. Can you page Ernie to the physicians’ lounge, please?”
A second later she heard the page overhead, and she leaned against the chair, thinking. Could this little adventure lead to something? Might Hawk have had a locker, and if so, would they find something inside that could incriminate him?”
“Hi, Doc. What’s going on? How are you?”
Jess smiled at Ernie. He was a neighbor of her parents, and she’d known him practically her entire life. He’d been one of the first to congratulate her when she was named ER director, and he made her job easier by taking care of all the little problems that popped up in her department.
She explained her concern. “The police asked me, Doc. Dr. Hawk never had a locker in here. I saw him hanging around all the time, but I think he was just showering and watching television, eating takeout. He told me he didn’t like to throw his food in the can at the apartment, because of the smell.”
“Who do all these lockers belong to?” Mac asked.
“Hold on. I have a list.”
Ernie pulled out a ring of dozens of keys and inserted one into the last locker door. Inside he found a clipboard and pulled it out. After scanning it, he handed it to Mac.
“So these lockers with no name next to them, they’re empty?”
“Yes.”
Mac walked along the row, starting at number one, which was assigned to a doctor named Quick. She pulled on the handle, but it didn’t open. Following the same process, she went through eight lockers. The ninth had no name beside it. When she lifted the handle, it opened.
“So what happens here? When you assign a locker, you insert the locking mechanism?”
“Exactly. And I keep a copy of the key in case they lose it.”
“So all of these unassigned lockers should be open, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s try them.”
They went through thirty lockers on one wall and were on their way back on the opposite side when Jess pulled on a locker that didn’t open.
“It’s unassigned,” Ernie said, looking at his clipboard. “I
t should open.”
He examined the locker more closely. “That’s strange. There’s a lock in there.”
Jess’s heart pounded, and she worked hard to slow her breathing as Ernie tried each key in his box of locks. None of them opened the locker.
“What do we do now?” Jess asked.
“Drill it out.”
Jess met Mac’s eyes and saw no hesitation there. “Do we need a warrant or anything, Mac?”
“The original warrant is still good. It covers the entire hospital.”
While Ernie went for his drill, Jess and Mac were quiet. Jess studied Mac, amazed that she showed absolutely no emotion. They were so close to opening the mysterious locker, one that could give them evidence about Hawk, and she looked so calm, leaning against the wall, her long frame looking sleek in the sweat suit she’d worn for their workout.
Ernie didn’t make them wait long; his drill took only a minute to destroy the lock inside its wooden cage. When it was free, Ernie tried the handle and the door flew open.
Jess walked toward it, and Ernie backed off, seeming to understand her need to search the space. Inside, a silver briefcase, the kind a secret government agent might carry, sat sideways on the floor. On the top shelf, a toiletry kit took up most of the space. Hanging from a large coat hanger was a crisp, clean, white lab coat.
With a trembling hand and burning eyes, she pulled it toward her, turning it so the name embroidered on the chest was visible to her.
Closing her eyes for a moment, she gathered her strength. When she opened them, the front of the coat faced her, and she looked down to the spot above the left breast pocket.
Twelve letters were embroidered in red thread: Edward Hawk, M.D.
“It’s his,” she heard Mac say, but it seemed as if she were in a dream, her voice far away.
Stepping back, Jess braced herself against the bank of lockers and allowed Mac to retrieve the toiletry bag and the silver briefcase. When Mac carried them to the table, she followed, forcing one foot in front of the other, and collapsed into a chair, still holding Hawk’s coat. Then she realized what she held, and she dropped it to the floor. “I can’t touch that thing! It belonged to him!”