“It’s called a ‘bundle branch block,’ and, no, it’s not anything to worry about. The blood tests they are doing are for an enzyme that the heart releases when it’s under duress, so if he is having a heart attack and it’s not showing up in the normal way on his EKG, that enzyme value will rise, letting us know that something is going on.”
“And the stress thing?” Desi asks.
“Since his chest pain came on during a period of physical exertion, they will put him on a treadmill in the morning and stress his heart with some exercise to see if it happens again, or if there are any changes in his heart rhythm.”
Desi nods, her brow still furrowed with worry. I look at Cedric and he doesn’t seem worried at all. In fact, he looks relaxed and happy.
“Do you have any questions about what they’re doing?” I ask him.
He shakes his head, smiling at me. “No, I don’t. Thanks for explaining it, and thanks for coming. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Desi asked me to,” I say, and when I see his smile falter, I immediately regret the words and want to take them back. I walk over to the side of his stretcher across from Desi and take hold of his hand. “I’m glad things are looking good so far.”
His smile returns. “Can you stay with me awhile?” he asks, and for a moment, I see and hear the fear he’s trying to hide. It’s subtle, but my years of nursing experience have honed my ability to detect and interpret those slight voice inflections and tiny muscle twitches. The realization gives me a strange feeling in my chest, like my own heart is being squeezed ever so lightly.
“Of course, I will,” I tell him. “I’ll stay with you until they get you settled in upstairs, and I can come back in the morning before your stress test, if you like.”
“I would,” he says. He looks relieved, but then his brow furrows. “What happens if I flunk this stress test?”
“Then you get a trip to Madison and a cardiac catheterization,” I tell him.
“Catheter . . . You mean a tube in my . . .” He doesn’t verbalize what he’s thinking, but his eyes briefly shift to look down at his crotch before looking back at me.
“No, not there, though they do insert something in that general region. The catheter goes into an artery in your groin.”
He looks horrified.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds, and I’m not sure it will even happen at this point. I’ll explain it in more detail if, and when, it comes to that, okay? For now, let’s focus on getting you settled in for a decent night’s sleep, so they can get you on that treadmill in the morning.” Even as I say this, I know he won’t get much sleep—not only because he’ll be anxious and worried, but because they’ll have him attached to a heart monitor and they’ll be waking him every few hours for checks, vital signs, and blood draws.
“Will they let me have anything to eat?” Cedric asks.
“They will, but nothing that tastes good,” I say with a smile. “You’ll be on a cardiac diet that limits fat, salt, calories, and—”
“Taste?” he finishes for me.
“Pretty much.”
We all share a chuckle over that; then Mitch returns to the room to inform us that the second troponin test result was also negative and Cedric’s room is ready upstairs.
Half an hour later, we are in a private room, listening to a floor nurse named Brittany review Cedric’s health history. She then performs her assessment by examining him, listening to his lungs and heart, checking his vital signs, and connecting him to a telemetry heart monitor, a unit that will monitor his heart, but not require him to be hooked up to a wall-mounted monitor. At least this way, he will have the freedom to get up to the bathroom during the night if he needs. By the time all this is done, we’ve been in the room for nearly an hour already.
“Any chance of getting something to eat?” Cedric asks the nurse, and I feel my own stomach grumble at the mention of food. I never got dinner, either—assuming ice cream doesn’t count—not that I’m in any danger of starving to death. Of course I am eating for two now.
“Sure,” Brittany says. “But it’s after hours for our kitchen, so it won’t be anything hot.”
Cedric assures her he doesn’t care, and she scurries off, only to return about fifteen minutes later with a turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat bread, a fruit cup, a carton of fat-free milk, and the ubiquitous cup of hospital gelatin in the flavor of the day: orange. The sandwich comes with low-fat mayo and the cheese on it is also low-fat. Unfortunately, most of the flavor in a lot of foods comes with the fat content, so it’s not surprising when Cedric leaves half of his sandwich uneaten, commenting that he’s eaten cardboard that tasted better. He does finish off the fruit and the gelatin, however, while regaling Desi and me with tales of his days with “the family,” the traveling Gypsy relatives who raised him when he was a boy.
It’s a fascinating bit of insight into an unfamiliar culture and way of life that gives me a different perspective on my father and his personality. It was a culture of con jobs and well-coordinated stings that took my father away from my mother and me. It also included an untimely run-in with a pharmaceutical company that landed him in the Witness Protection Program, though my mother’s decision not to enter the program with him also played a large part.
His actions all those years ago came to bear on us recently. It ultimately resulted in a huge sting on some Big Pharma companies and several doctors in our area. My ex, David, got caught in the trap, but he was lucky enough to turn state’s evidence and serve as a confidential whistle-blower. It saved his reputation, but the whole mess destroyed the reputations of a lot of other people—deservedly so—and worse, it cost my previous coworker, Hal, and his fiancée, Tina, their lives, very much undeserved.
My lingering resentment and anger over all of it is a large part of why I’ve had so much trouble getting close to my father now, though it helps to know that I was wrong in my belief for all those years that my father simply abandoned my mother and me.
“Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my entire life,” he says, looking at me, tears brimming in his eyes. “But I knew I had to do it in order to keep you and your mother safe.” He shifts his gaze to Desi. “And you . . . I didn’t even know that you existed.” He swallows hard, looking down at his lap as a fat tear rolls down one cheek. With his next words, his voice is fraught with barely controlled emotion. “When I think about all the years I missed, all the birthdays, and milestones, and . . . and . . . life that I missed with you two . . .” His head drops to his chest and he starts to sob.
Desi looks at me, her eyes wet and wide with her own emotions. Ever since Cedric’s return, she has been gently nudging me to be more open to the man, inquiring as to why I’m determined to remain so distant and unforgiving. I’m not sure why I’m still resisting. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s stubbornness. Maybe I’m an idiot. But over time, I have softened toward him, and tonight might have been a turning point for me. Desi senses it, too. She doesn’t need to say anything; I can read her thoughts in her expression: “How can you not be moved by this?”
I am moved, profoundly. I’m moved enough that I feel that icy wall that’s been hanging around my heart since Cedric’s return finally begin to melt. I’m moved enough that I share the news about my pregnancy, which delights both Cedric and Desi. I’m moved enough that when I finally leave my father for the night, just after nine o’clock, I kiss him on his cheek, give him a hug, and say, “Good night, Dad.” I’m moved enough that I feel a lump in my throat when I think about the possibility of losing him again.
Desi and I agree to meet back here in the morning at seven, so we can see Cedric . . . Dad . . . before he goes for his stress test. I hug my sister tightly, and smile at her parting words to me: “Don’t be afraid to let him all the way in, Mattie. He’s a kind, loving man, when you get to know him.”
* * *
When I get in my hearse, I check my phone, annoyed and disappointed that there’s no message from Hurley, n
ot even an inquiry as to how my father’s doing. I sit for a moment, thinking about what to do next, and the Ulrich case seeps back into the forefront of my thoughts. Solving this case would go a long way toward freeing up my mind, and probably Hurley’s, too, allowing us to focus on more pedestrian issues, like our marriage.
Now that I’ve got Stetson interested, I need to tell Hurley about the hospital flower idea and my suspicions about Todd. Had Stetson found out anything yet? Maybe Hurley and I should question Todd on his whereabouts on the night that Lacy was killed. Was he still here in town at the Sorenson Motel? We should try to catch him before he has a chance to check out and return to Eau Claire in the morning.
Hurley and I always do well together in situations like that: questioning suspects, working cases, interpreting evidence, and setting traps. Todd might be just the thing we need to start smoothing over the rough patches Hurley and I have run into of late.
I shift the hearse into drive and I’m at the Sorenson Motel in less than ten minutes. A quick drive through the parking lot should tell me if Todd is there, and if he is, maybe I can convince Hurley that we should talk to him tonight.
The place is much busier tonight—Joseph’s gnome painters, perhaps?—and there are a lot more cars in the lot. I drive the hearse down to the end where Todd’s room is and see that there is a black SUV parked in the lot, though it’s several cars up from his door.
The curtain on the window to his suite is pulled closed, but there is a slight gap where the two halves meet, a dim light coming from inside. I pull over to the far side of the parking lot and shift the hearse into park. Leaving it running, I climb out and tiptoe toward the suite window. After checking to make sure no one is out and about to see me peeping in through the window, I approach and bend down to look through the gap.
A hand wraps around my mouth and I let out a muffled cry.
“Hush, please, Ms. Winston,” a voice whispers in my ear.
I recognize the voice right away. It’s Detective Stetson. I relax and he takes his hand away. Then he crooks a finger at me, indicating I should follow him. He walks around the end of the building toward a field that lies alongside the motel.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“You were right,” Stetson says in a low voice. “Todd Oliver’s mark is all over this case. I can’t believe we didn’t see it before. He set up that poor man to take the fall, and the rest of us got suckered into it. I came down here to arrest him, but it dawned on me that I don’t know if the guy is armed. You’ve been working with him, you said.”
“That’s right.”
“Did you notice if he carries a gun of any type? Or any other weapon, for that matter?”
“I never saw one,” I say, thinking back. “But he had a suitcase, an overnight bag kind of thing, and I never saw what was inside that.”
Stetson rubs at his chin, looking off in the distance. “I’m wondering if you could help me out here,” he says. “I don’t want to spook Oliver, and if I just go up and knock on his door, he’ll likely ask who it is. If he knows it’s me, he might barricade himself inside there and make things a whole lot more complicated. But if he thought it was you, he’d open the door to you, wouldn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. “I imagine he would.”
“Would you mind doing that? I’ll go with you and we can go into the room together. Once we’re inside, I think it will be straightforward enough to arrest the guy. He won’t know I’m coming, so even if he has a weapon, he probably won’t have it at the ready.”
“Sure,” I say. “Anything we can do to make this simple and safe. There are a lot of other people here.”
Together we walk back over to the suite, and after a nod from Stetson, who is standing just off to the side of the entrance, I knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Todd hollers from inside.
“It’s Mattie Winston,” I say.
Seconds later, I hear the locks being undone and the door opens. Todd greets me with a smile and a look of relief. “I wasn’t sure you were still speaking to me,” he says.
I step inside, and Stetson steps over and through the door, shutting it behind him. He draws a gun and aims it at Todd.
“What the hell is going on?” Todd says, staring at Stetson. “Have you lost your mind, man? Put that thing away.”
Todd shifts his eyes toward me and I give him an apologetic but unforgiving look. “We know, Todd,” I say.
“You know what?” he fires back angrily, his eyes darting between Stetson and me.
“Ms. Winston here figured out that you’re the one who killed all those women that Ulrich took the blame for,” Stetson says.
I glance over at the detective, surprised to see a smirk on his face. And then I notice something else that makes my internal alarm start to clamor. The vest he’s wearing has an Eau Claire Police Department emblem sewn onto it over the heart. It’s navy blue with a white eagle head on it, and a gold ribbon across the middle. It’s worn and frayed. That, in and of itself, isn’t what alarms me. Beneath the vest, he’s wearing a blue denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And on his forearms are several areas of red, raised bites in little groupings of three.
Bedbug bites.
I look at Todd, trying to hide the sudden sense of horror I feel, but he sees it. He gives me a quizzical look that makes Stetson look at me. At first, he still looks amused, that smirk firmly planted on his face. But in the next second or two, his expression changes.
I have one thought circling through my brain, a loop like the lyrics of a stuck record.
I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here.
I turn and make a mad dash for the door, but I’ve hesitated too long. Stetson is on me in a flash, and then my head explodes in a bright burst of light followed by an all-encompassing darkness.
CHAPTER 27
I sense that I’m in my bed, but when I open my eyes and look up at the ceiling, it doesn’t look right. I look to my left, searching for my alarm clock to see what time it is, but that’s all wrong, too. This isn’t my bedroom. This isn’t my bed. I roll my head to the right and immediately regret it as a white-hot pain shoots through my brain. I squeeze my eyes closed until the pain ebbs to a tolerable level and then I open them and try to focus. Hurley is lying there next to me.
Except it isn’t Hurley. The hair is blond, not black. My eyes refuse to come into focus and I blink hard and try again. Gradually I recognize the face: Todd Oliver.
Memory comes rushing in and a wash of panic raises gooseflesh along my arms, which I realize are extended above my head. A shiver shakes me, and I try to sit up and get off this bed away from Todd, but my hands and feet won’t move. Am I paralyzed? I focus and realize I can feel my clothes against my skin, and the pressure of the mattress beneath me, and something chafing and confining around my wrists and ankles. I realize then that I can move my hands and feet, just not very much. I arch my neck and look up at my hands. They are tied together with a length of yellow nylon rope, the other end of which is tied to the headboard of the bed. I look down at my feet and see the same situation there. A few attempts to move and pull loose of the ties tell me they are too tight to escape.
“You can’t escape,” says Todd. Except his voice sounds wrong. I turn to my right and look at him. He is lying on his side, facing me. He doesn’t move, his blue eyes staring at me. There is something wrong with his eyes. There are three of them and they aren’t blinking or moving. I blink hard to make up for it and try to get my eyes to focus better.
“You made a good case for Todd, Ms. Winston,” says the voice, and now I realize it’s coming from beyond Todd, whose mouth didn’t move any more than his eyes did. His three eyes. A head rises behind Todd’s like a moon coming up on the horizon and I see Detective Stetson standing there. I look again at Todd, at his face, at those three eyes, the third one nearly centered above his other two. Not an eye then, just a hole. I look at his thr
oat, and then at his chest. Nothing is moving.
“Is he dead?” I ask.
“Sadly, yes,” Stetson says. “After killing you in his usual ritual manner, he decided to kill himself, knowing that the truth would get out.” He sighs. “I suppose this means that Ulrich will eventually go free and there will be hell to pay for those who wrongly convicted him.”
“You wrongly convicted him.”
“No, I merely collected evidence and then arrested the man it pointed to. The decision to prosecute the man came from the DA. Of course the evidence was rather overwhelming, wouldn’t you agree?”
Things are beginning to gel in my mind, my whirling, chaotic thoughts coming together. “You set up Ulrich, didn’t you?”
He shrugs and smiles. “The man basically set up himself. He had the misfortune to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, when he went fishing and was careless enough to lose his license. That was all I needed to begin directing the investigation toward him. After that, it was easy to plant evidence. I checked the carpet in his car and got a sample of the threads, I looked up his credit card purchases and saw what kind of fishing knife he’d bought, and then I stole it.” He reaches into the back of his pants and comes out with a sheathed knife. He slowly removes the sheath and then holds the knife up to the light, turning it first one way and then another, watching the reflection off the shiny blade. “I have to admit, it made a much better murder weapon than the first knife I used,” he says.
I recall that the autopsies showed a difference in the wounds of the first victim as opposed to those of the others. Now I understand why. Now I understand far too many things that I wish I didn’t.
“Pete Hamilton said they found the knife Ulrich used,” I say, recalling our conversation earlier.
“Yes, they did. Except now it will be the knife that Mr. Oliver here used. It just happens to be the same type as the one Ulrich owned.” He gazes at the light bouncing off the blade again, a smile on his face. “I had to get a new one but it will do the job all the same.”
Dead Ringer Page 27