by David Kazzie
Gotta be up early. Oh, I'm a doctor.
Since he had hospital privileges here, he'd agreed to cover the 36-hour Christmas shift for a friend. But two nights ago, still bitter about Samantha Khouri's rebuff, he had met this little biscuit, a senior at the University of Richmond, who invited him to her parents' house on Amelia Island for the next two days. She was alone, as her parents were in Europe, and she had promised him that he would never forget this Christmas or Chanukah or Kwanzaa.
He was in the middle of packing for his trip the night before when he remembered that he had to work. He had tried switching with someone else, even offering any takers a thousand bucks, but no one was biting. The others all were married or had kids. So here he sat on Christmas Eve morning, and Suzanne Foster was all by herself in that big beach house, doing God knew what to herself. Oy vay!
So it was in a relatively foul mood that he had reported for his shift and approached the nurses' station for the morning's charts. As he grabbed the first clipboard of the day, he noted two police officers parked outside Room 476, which as luck would have it, was his first chart for the day.
"What's with the cops?" he asked the charge nurse, who was sipping what smelled like hot chocolate from an Oceanic Airlines coffee mug.
"That guy's a suspect in a double murder," she said, all breathy-like. "They pulled him out of the James River. He's alive, but barely."
"Really?" he said, not giving the smallest shit.
"Apparently, he killed this couple out in Windsor Farms," said the nurse. "Right in their living room! He lost control on the Huguenot Bridge, ended up in the water. He's in bad shape."
"Wow," he said softly. Someone having a worse night than he was. That actually made him feel a little better. Not that he reveled in the misfortune of his patients. What, was it some sin that he went home every night thankful he didn't have whatever ailment or injury he had treated that day? Death really didn't bother him too much. Oh, he would do the dance and operate and medicate, but he was a firm believer that when someone's time was up, it was up, and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do about it, no matter how many medical journal articles he read.
As the charge nurse had explained to him, Room 476's current occupant was a John Doe who'd been found along the south bank of the James River about four hours ago. A city cop at the end of his shift noticed some fresh damage to the bridge railing and although all he wanted to do was get home and drink a little Bailey's and coffee, he pulled over and examined the scene a little more closely. When he got down to the river with his portable spotlight, he was amazed to discover a man lying on the bank, still alive. He called for an ambulance, and two paramedics slopped through the slushy mud to load him onto a stretcher. The man's body temperature was eighty-three degrees, and his pulse had slowed to twenty beats per minute.
Because there wasn't much else to do once they hooked up the tubes and monitors, the two EMTs treating him bet on whether the man would die on the way to the hospital. He didn't. Now the police were waiting to talk to him about how, exactly, he had ended up on the south bank of the James River.
Time-lapse surveillance video from the bridge revealed the crash in all its grainy, herky-jerky glory, and a recovery effort was now underway. The video also showed Samantha stopping and assisting Pasquale back up the riverbank, but the combination of the snow and the poor video quality made it impossible for the police to identify them or their vehicle's tags. State Police divers reported that there was no one else still in the doomed car, now resting comfortably at the bottom of the river, and were concentrating efforts to find anyone else who might have been ejected from the vehicle. A crash investigation team was also at work, trying to reconstruct the accident. In these terrible weather conditions, it wasn't difficult to fathom someone losing control on the glassy surface of the bridge. Although it was clear that at least two people had gone in the river, none of the area hospitals reported seeing a patient that matched the description of the second John Doe who'd left the scene with the passing motorist.
Things got very interesting around 2:30 in the morning, when police linked the red station wagon found at the bottom of the James River to the one Samantha had reported in her 911 call. The patrol officers who'd responded to Samantha's call discovered the doorknob had been shot off. The two excitedly drew their weapons, each for the first time in their careers, and entered the house. For the life of them, neither could remember if they were supposed to go in first or call for backup first, but they figured that if there was an intruder in the house, they better get in there and do some saving while there was saving to be done. That was how you got promoted! Of course, they hadn't had to look far, and there hadn't been any saving to do. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Carter Livingston Pierce were exactly where Flagg had left them and posed no real threat.
Now Richmond Police had a deadly home invasion on their hands in a pretty damn nice neighborhood, and there were going to be a lot of pissed-off and rich white people if they didn't have some answers by the time Santa Claus dropped his fat ass down the chimney tonight. The Chief of Police and the Commonwealth's Attorney both got telephone calls, and the homicide detective, a ten-year veteran named Douglas Byrd, was very happy to tell them both that RPD had a suspect in the hospital.
All Dr. Bouzein knew was that it was slowing everything down. He was thinking about all this when he stepped into the room and discovered, much to his amazement, that the patient's bed was empty. For a brief moment, he thought his wish for the man's death had come true and all these officers could get the hell out of his hospital. It was about that moment he sensed movement behind him, a pair of hands grabbing his head like a vise. Flagg wrenched Dr. Bouzein's head counterclockwise like he was opening a tough jar, severing the spinal cord. His body went limp, and Flagg gently lowered him to the bed. Quickly, Flagg stripped Bouzein down to his boxers, dressed him in his hospital gown and pulled the blanket up near the doctor's chin.
As he pulled on Bouzein's scrubs and lab coat, Flagg thought about his next move. He had noted the police presence about two hours ago and suspected there were a pair of officers guarding his door. By now, they would know the Pierces were dead and probably had pegged him as a spree killer. A smart detective might even have started connecting the trail of bodies he had left behind tonight. Fortunately for Flagg, the good doctor's build was relatively similar to his own.
Even he knew that luck sometimes played a role in evolution.
With his nose buried in his own medical chart, Flagg stepped out in the hall and around the two officers sleepily guarding the door. They never looked up, losing interest as soon as they saw the aquamarine scrubs slipping by. Of far greater interest to the cops was the saucy blonde at the nurses' station. Flagg strutted down the long hallway, relatively quiet at this hour, keeping his eyes planted firmly on the chart. No one bothered a doctor reviewing a medical chart.
Bright red exit signs mounted at the top of the wall greeted him at the end of the hallway. Flagg ducked into the stairwell, a giant 4 painted on the wall next to the door, preferring its openness to the claustrophobic nature of the elevator. He passed a tired-looking doctor on the steps, drawing a look of puzzlement but no more. A minute later, he was zipping through the emergency department and out the sliding double doors. As he did so, he heard the call over the loudspeaker, "Dr. Black, 4 West." He had once heard that a Code Black was an alert of a non-medical threat to human life in a hospital, and that to avoid panic, the code calls were disguised as doctors' names. He figured they had found the little gift that he had left in Room 476 and hurried out into the frigid dawn.
* * *
Detective Douglas Byrd pressed his lips together and blew out a noisy sigh. He was in Room 476, looking at the remains of Dr. Roger Bouzein, M.D. His hands were cupped firmly on his hips while the two patrol officers that had been guarding the door stood behind him with their hats literally in their hands. Neither spoke. Byrd knew they were expecting him to tear them a new one, but he ju
st didn't have the energy.
The hospital's chief of medicine, Anne Kelso, stood at the foot of the bed, checking the final readings from the various machines to which the suspect had been connected. Thirty minutes ago, she had been sleeping soundly on her couch, tucked under a quilt, a small blaze still crackling in the fireplace. Her husband, an Oceanic Airlines pilot, was due home later that morning and would be off the rest of the year. It was going to be a goddamn Merry Christmas at the Kelso household.
So when the telephone rang and broke her out of her slumber, she was prepared to start yelling at whoever was calling. That was one of the perks of being chief. Until she heard the news about Bouzein. Pompous jackass that he was, the idea that a doctor had been murdered in a patient's room – by a patient, no less – had pretty much freaked her out. She kept looking at the machines, wondering when she would be able to get out of this room. Her gaze kept drifting to Bouzein's lifeless face, his eyes empty and glassy.
"I thought you all said this guy was at death's door," said Byrd. "That's what I heard. That he would be lucky to live through the night."
"What can I say?" Dr. Kelso said. "He was critical when he got here. With a body temperature in the mid-eighties, he had a fighting chance to recover, but you never know with these kinds of cases. We followed standard protocol for extreme hypothermia. He was intubated, and we administered warmed oxygen and a heated IV saline drip. His pulse was steady but extremely slow. Not much we could do other than wait for him to either get better or die."
"So how is it possible that he overpowered and killed a doctor, exchanged clothes with him and then slipped past these two ninjas back here?"
One of the officers, Raburn, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She sighed. "I don't know," she said. "Let's just say the average person would not have been capable. Severe hypothermia is a very debilitating condition."
"What do you mean?" asked Byrd.
"You say this guy killed two people?"
"Three, counting your colleague here," Byrd said, nodding toward Bouzein's body. "Maybe more."
"This guy pulled out his breathing tube, his IV and still had the strength to go on this rampage," she said. "What I mean is that this is one crazy bastard you've got on your hands."
* * *
Byrd bought a bottle of Mountain Dew from the vending machine in the ER's waiting room and sat down in front of the television mounted on the wall. It was tuned to the NBC affiliate, which was in its last half-hour of local news before the Today show. The top story was the Pierce double murder. A tall, thin reporter was stationed at the edge of the Pierces' yard, blue lights oscillating behind him. He couldn't report much more than the fact that there were two very dead people in the house, although he did keep one hand pressed to the radio in his ear, which made it seem as if he was privy to all kinds of juicy details about the slayings.
The story really hadn't picked up much steam yet, because although this was a Monday morning, it was Christmas Eve, a holiday, and most people were likely still asleep. It would quickly mushroom, though, when word got out there was a homicidal lunatic on the loose. That may not have been an accurate profile of the suspect, but that's what would be making the rounds this holiday season. The media getting involved, yeah, that was always Byrd's favorite part of these investigations.
His cell phone rang, the ring tone set to Christmas music. Douglas Byrd loved himself some Christmas; he let it ring a bit before reaching in his pocket to answer it. The number on the caller ID was familiar, but he couldn't place it.
"Detective Byrd."
"Hey, this is Paul Ruiz." Ruiz was a homicide detective with the Henrico Police Department.
"Merry Christmas."
"Same to you," he said. "Hey, you still at the hospital?"
"Yeah."
"I heard the suspect jumped a doctor or something?"
"Killed him."
"Christ," he said. "Look, we got another mess on our hands. I got two more bodies out here off Mountain Road. One tied up and shot in the head. The other's got a goddamn fireplace poker in his chest."
"Wow. Don't see that every day."
"There's more," Ruiz said. "You might be interested in this guy."
"How so?"
"Con named Todd Matheson. Appears to be the brother of the Pierce woman you've got down at Windsor Farms. He's the one got shish-kabobed."
"Awesome. Any idea what happened?"
"We think there was someone else here. Unless he stabbed himself with the fireplace poker."
"How long since they died?"
"Oh, a while, I'm guessing," Ruiz said. "M.E.'s not here yet."
"You gonna wait for her?"
"Unless I can find someone to wait in my place," Ruiz said. "I've got a shitload of relatives back at the house, and I'm supposed to start cooking Christmas Eve dinner in a few hours."
"You cook?"
"I'm a liberated man."
"Learn something new every day."
"Eat your heart out. Later."
"See ya."
Byrd snapped his phone closed and slipped it into his jacket pocket. He could almost hear it causing cancer. He sipped his soda and continued to watch the news.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Monday, December 24
7:38 a.m.
Pasquale woke up shivering, his throat dry and raw. His head felt heavy and tight, thanks to the pops he'd taken in the apartment and against the doorframe in the river. His quads and calves burned from the desperate swim to shore after he'd escaped the car. The ribs, however, were the star of the pain show. Every breath was painful, like he was drawing each one against a blade. The six ibuprofen tablets before bed had taken a little of the edge off, but just a little. And that many pills really couldn't have been good for his liver, so he made a note not to take anymore until tonight. This was assuming, of course, he and Samantha lived that long.
Samantha was already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching the news. They were in a Comfort Inn on West Broad Street, a few miles from downtown, having made their way back north across the river the night before. A sliver of grey light seeped in from between the curtains. The sun was up, but it didn't seem like there was much point in its having risen today.
"Time to get moving," she said when she saw him rustling.
She disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later, Pasquale heard the groan of the pipes and the hiss of the shower. While Samantha showered, Pasquale took in the local news, which led with the story on the Pierce murders.
"There's a story about your boss," he said when she emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later.
"What else did they say?"
"His wife's dead, too."
Samantha's chin dropped.
"What about their daughters?" she asked.
"The reporter said they weren't home when it happened and they were staying with friends."
"That's good," she said. "I guess it's something. This goddamn ticket."
"Where did you say the kid lived?"
"Ravenwood Court," she said. "Remember it?"
"Sure," he said. "Don't know where it is, though."
"Me either," she said. She got dressed, her mind focused on the task at hand
"How do we live here for so long and not know where it is?" asked Sam.
"It's not exactly Disneyland," Pasquale said, tracing a finger along the map. They had picked it up in the lobby of the hotel after checking in.
"Shouldn't I know?" she asked.
"What, your knowing where it is will make things better in the projects? Spare me the 'I feel guilty' speech. The place is what it is. I'm not a sociologist. It just is."
Samantha bristled as Pasquale's oral floodgates opened.
"You've got nothing to feel guilty about," he went on, never looking up from the map. "You're the picture of the goddamn American dream. Nobody gave your parents shit when they got here. They did it themselves, opened all the doors in the world for you, and you
walked through them. Then that brother of yours did what he did, and you've been paying for it ever since. You've got enough shit to worry about. Let's get this thing out of our lives."
"I'm sorry I never called you back, by the way," she said.
A day after the bombing, Pasquale called her parents' house from London. Two hours later, he was interviewed by a pair of British intelligence agents.
He lowered his head and turned his attention back to the task at hand.
"Here it is," he said, poking the map hard with his index finger.
* * *
They rode in silence, listening to the local news on the radio, as Samantha carefully picked her way east toward the city proper. The streets were quiet under the gray blanket of clouds on this Christmas Eve, barely passable in certain spots. The snow had tapered off considerably in the last hour, but it was still coming down like sprinkles on top of an already thick layer of icing. Reports indicated it had been the biggest storm in a generation, dropping nearly two feet of snow on the region, and more was on the way. Another low-pressure system was screaming up from the Gulf of Mexico and was on a collision course with the extremely cold air that had been parked over the mid-Atlantic for the past week.
They motored through an industrial section of town, past the Sauers vanilla plant, its famous marquee blinking against the gray backdrop. Further east, abandoned storefronts looked particularly blight-ridden on a morning like this. Pictures like this were what ended careers on city council. It looked like nuclear winter.
A few moments later, Samantha turned right onto Allen Avenue, which was dotted with brownstone apartment buildings and antebellum-style homes. A few neighborhood kids were out and about, firing snowballs, and generally exposing each others' parents to gigantic tort liability. A modern-day winter wonderland. Still, there weren't that many kids, a testament to how big a storm this had been.