Embryo 3: Raney & Levine

by JA Schneider

  But I cased your hospital well. Explored your nooks and crannies, your stairwells, bathrooms and air vents.

  That part of my work is done. Finished for my far, far greater achievement.

  Only hours away…booom! The devil’s workshop will burn, explode in flames…

  What joy I feel, that God chose me above all others to be his warrior. He saw my struggles through my earlier, so-painful life…an innocent victim of sin. He saw that I prevailed, and became Good, and would be strong for Him.

  My heart rejoices as I hear again God’s words…“My EYES are on ALL their ways; they are NOT HIDDEN from me, nor is their SIN CONCEALED from my EYES.” (Jeremiah 16:17)

  It gives me strength to pray. My time is near…

  David fast-scrubbed out and stood in the hall punching his cell phone. Got Jill’s voice mail and muttered fretfully to himself.

  His phone rang in his hand.

  Gregory Pappas. Homicide Detective Sergeant Gregory Pappas, uttering a quick hello and asking if David was free.

  “As of five minutes ago. What’s happening?”

  “The Walsh patient died. Doctor Raney’s with us. We’ve got new developments. Can you come up to neurosurgery?”

  Seconds later David burst through the fire door onto the seventh floor. Tricia was waiting in the hall for him. “I just left Jill. She’s changing.”

  “Changing?” David’s eyes darted up the hall to where police gathered outside Jenna Walsh’s room. He looked back, his expression shocked and terribly saddened.

  “She’s in surgery’s locker room,” Tricia said, looking thoroughly depressed. “Gonna give the cops her scrubs that may have interesting fibers on them.” A pause. “She’s crying. Keeps muttering about snakes and maniacs and no justice in the world.” Tricia gestured. “I’ll be in the lounge. With the cops. See you there.”

  When he rounded the line of lockers, Jill was pulling up new green scrub pants, looking pale and shaky. He took her in his arms, felt her heart thudding hard through their chest walls. She melted into him for a moment, then lifted her chin.

  “Brace yourself,” she managed. “There’s been a new murder and a confirmed threat against the hospital.”

  They looked helplessly at each other. Then, jaw clenched, David helped her pull on her scrub top.

  “Fibers?” he asked, reaching for a clear plastic bag on the bench. It held her blue scrubs of earlier. He carried it as they left the locker room for the doctors’ lounge.

  With her voice shaking, Jill explained about the brown wool fibers found on Jenna’s ER clothes that he’d collected - and minutes ago, in the chaos of Jenna dying, managing to stumble against Brian Walsh’s brown wool jacket. The police were going to see if there was a match.

  “Clever girl. What’s the word on the second murder?”

  “Don’t know yet, they’re waiting.” She looked at him helplessly. “David, is this really happening again?”

  It was 5:17. The surgery lounge was mostly empty, except for two residents fiddling with the microwave, plainclothes cops interviewing the Walshes in one corner, and Keri Blasco talking to Tricia in another. Scheduled, elective surgery was over, and the old couches usually filled with napping residents were empty. This floor got its emergencies, but didn’t have the non-stop traffic that OB did.

  Gregory Pappas was interviewing the stiff next-of-kin with Alex Brand. He saw them in the doorway, got up to meet them, and gestured them out to the hall. The Walshes were so focused on Brand that they didn’t look over, which Jill realized was good.

  They had already seen her. Now, to see her talking with cops…bad idea.

  Just outside, Pappas took Jill’s scrubs-filled bag with thanks and shook hands with David. “This is good, very good,” he said, surveying the bagged scrubs, then switching his gaze to David. “Ditto the fibers you found on the Walsh clothes.” He looked gratefully at them both, easing a manila folder he held under his arm. “Think you two could teach the whole E.R. staff how to preserve evidence?”

  The last time Jill had seen Pappas, he had hugged her. She was upset, having to revisit the awful roof scene where she and David had nearly died. He was a dark-haired, heavyset man in a dark suit and bright tie – the kind wives buy. His eyes were tired and kindly and always sharp.

  “So, back here again, huh?” He managed a tight smile.

  “Yep.” David shook his head. “Got a new nut job among us. Find any surveillance tape on Jenna’s attack?”

  “No. None in the alley, and the stores leading up to it just tape their interiors. With one exception that was old, too grainy like a black blizzard. No damn help.”

  David pulled up two chairs from the nurses’ station, and Pappas sat on a hall bench facing them, leaning forward, holding his manila folder. The hall smelled of food. Dinner trolleys were beginning to roll past.

  Quietly, David said, “Jill tells me there’s been another murder?”

  Pappas nodded grimly. “Twenty-five years old, name Nikki Sheehan, a grad student at NYU. Didn’t show up for a presentation she’d been rehearsing with a friend, so the friend went to her apartment on East 10th. Found the body in bed. Her screams alerted neighbors who called 911.”

  The white-jacketed residents who’d been fiddling with the microwave came out, bitching about it. Pappas waited until they were gone.

  Then inhaled. “The door had been left open a crack, like an invitation. The friend said that was the first thing that spooked her. What really traumatized her” – he hesitated – “was the dead snake wrapped around Nikki’s neck. A garter snake, its smashed head on the pillow next to Nikki’s face.”

  Pappas watched them both turn sickly pale, then gravely added, “Her head and belly were savagely beaten. Her unborn child is dead.” He swallowed, and added quietly, “She was also a surrogate mom. No connection so far with Jenna Walsh. Nikki’s friend said she’d had OB checkups at Manhattan General.” He chewed his lip for a second. “A brick was used to beat her head. It was left bloodied on her bed stand, like a taunt. No prints, the killer must have used gloves, and so far no other evidence has been found.”

  A blunt force had slammed Jill’s heart. Another surrogate? Another young woman terrorized and bludgeoned? Another snake? Nausea welled at the thought of this new, unknown young woman’s suffering and tragedy.

  The expression David bore changed quickly from stunned to barely restrained fury. “How long dead?” he asked, clenched.

  “About sixteen hours.”

  “So, attacked last night.”

  “Around two a.m., roughly. Same creep, same signature, just hours after his attack on Jenna Walsh. He’s excited, moving fast. Loves lording – pun intended –his self-appointed moral superiority over others.”

  David’s face screwed up. “No connection to Jenna…different doctors and hospitals… How does he find these women?”

  “What a help if we knew.”

  Jill gripped the edges of her chair, hearing again in her mind, What a help if we knew.

  “His signature’s been snakes since the anatomy lab,” David said, frowning. “Long shot, but we’re having one of the chapel snakes autopsied in our Pathology department.”

  Pappas nodded approvingly, and then switched expressions and made an impatient gesture. “Our forensics literally just started with the snakes, when Jenna Walsh became a homicide. Now it’s two murders and a signature killer, so it’s a rush. You guys are ahead. Nice going.”

  Now he opened his manila folder, and withdrew a sheet of paper.

  “Psycho’s warning to the hospital, left under the snake’s head on the pillow next to Nikki.” He looked grimly at the sheet for a moment, then handed it to David who started to read it.

  “It’s a copy,” Pappas told him. “We’ve checked the original for prints and, nada. This creep does nothing without his gloves.”

  The paper was a standard computer sheet, 8 ½ inches by 11. David leaned to Jill, showing her, and read softly the huge letters, “MADISON ME
MORIAL IS THE DEVIL’S WORKSHOP. IT AND ITS SPAWN MUST BE DESTROYED LIKE THESE WHORES.”

  “’These whores,’” Jill repeated faintly, her heart thudding. “He was afraid we wouldn’t link Jenna and Nikki Sheehan?”

  “Typical megalomaniac,” Pappas said. “He likes to assume others are stupid.”

  David was scowling down at the paper, his expression intense. “The devil’s spawn and his workshop.” He looked up, troubled. “The hospital’s a huge place. This isn’t like last summer’s killer who was only after us and Jesse.”

  “Right.” Pappas glumly nodded. “This is a wider threat. It suggests a Columbine-type shooting or…” He stopped. His lips tightened.

  “A bomb,” David said, very quietly.

  Pappas nodded again, and checked a text on his phone. “As of ten minutes ago we’ve got bomb-sniffing dogs at every entrance. More dogs are coming. May be patrolling the floors, everywhere.”

  Bomb-sniffing dogs…

  Jill felt a new wave of fear and nausea. Stared down the long hall to a window at the end. When had it become dark?

  She looked back to Pappas. “Could all this be traced to that SPAWN OF THE DEVIL sign?”

  “We’re on it. It’s also possible the killer saw that megaphone guy on TV. Copied his language.”

  “It could have been Megaphone Man himself,” Jill said desperately, leaning forward.

  “Keri’s investigating him. He’s a patient at a psychiatric facility in the Village. Allowed to walk around because he’s promised to stay on his meds.”

  David snorted. “That was him on his meds?”

  “No. He lied to his nurse and said he’d taken them. They have no idea where he got the megaphone. The director wouldn’t tell Keri his name; said if she wanted to talk to the patient she’d have to get a court order, which no judge will give. Freedom of speech, patient confidentiality and all that.” Pappas inhaled wearily. “Plus they check their patients at night.”

  “How well do they check them?” David asked, and Jill said tightly, “These places with medicated patients usually aren’t big on security, locks.”

  She hesitated for a second. “Can I ask Keri more about this? Like, the name of the psych place for starters?”

  Pappas agreed readily. “Yes, help us move faster. The dogs can safeguard the hospital, but Psycho could be scoping another woman as we speak. Or...here. Trying to figure how he can get past the dogs. No protection is perfect.”

  They’d heard his unspoken message. We’re living in a post-CSI era. Bad guys know how to leave no trace. They wear gloves, condoms, leave no prints, no evidence. Police work has become harder, every cop knows how you helped before. Entered apartments, poked around, and lifted prints where cops couldn’t without warrants. Illegal search? Not if non-cops did it. Inadmissible in court? Sure. But it helps us narrow the search, save time, footwork…lives.

  Last July, when the cops had the wrong guy, Jill and David had even found the killer.

  Now Pappas watched the two trade looks. Everyone in the hospital was threatened. Let’s do this.

  A shout came from inside the lounge: “…okay, so I talked to her!”

  Pappas looked around, and rose. “Gotta go back to Brand with those two.”

  “We’re coming,” Jill said, rising with a mounting feeling of dread. “We can pretend to fix that microwave in there, listen in.”

  David shook his head. “Lemme go, I’ve never seen them. Good idea about the microwave, though.”

  He returned the two chairs to the nurses’ station, and Jill massaged her brow, as if in pain. “What was I thinking?” She moved shakily to the bench Pappas had just vacated. “Can I listen from here? Argh, no, unless they shout.”

  She squinted up at the detective. “I need some fancy listening equipment.”

  He cracked a thin smile. “You can buy it anywhere. Ask Keri.”

  21

  The dogs were friendly. German Shepherds, mostly. Labs, too. Wag wag, sniff sniff.

  Their police handlers were friendly too. “Don’t worry, just a precaution,” they told anxious people waiting to enter the ER, or already seated in waiting areas, or standing before elevators. A few people showed anxiety, but only fear-of-dogs anxiety. No darting eyes, faces suddenly clammy with sweat, package-carrying people leaving the line in a rush.

  The dog handlers were trained in body language too. As their dogs sniffed at purses and parcels, the handlers subtly studied every face.

  Injured kids being brought into the E.R. were actually comforted by the dogs.

  One little boy with an arm laceration stopped crying in his mother’s arms.

  “What’s his name?” he asked as his teddy bear got sniffed.

  “Her name is Brandi,” said the smiling cop. “She’s a real sweetie. Likes to play ball.”

  “Can I pat her?”

  The mom bent to Brandi, looking a little scared, but her expression turned to smiles as her tyke patted away and brightened. Wag wag.

  “See?” the handler told the child. “Brandi likes you and hopes your arm feels better fast.”

  Suddenly he wasn’t a scary cop in a flak jacket anymore; he was just a nice guy, waving ‘bye to the child waving back as Brandi got busy with the next person in line.

  A woman being calmly checked by another handler with a Lab said, “It’s about time hospitals got the protection they should have had all along. Anyone can just walk into a hospital. When I think of Newtown, and that Boston bombing…”

  The handler said he couldn’t agree more. The woman told him God bless you, and he smiled and said God bless you back.

  “Fascist,” sneered one of two male teens as a Shepherd named Buck sniffed his backpack.

  Buck found nothing. Got busy with the next punk as his handler told the first kid, “Stay safe, have a nice evening.”

  More and more cell phones were being watched for tweets and updates of the bomb threat. Reporters had arrived in all their flurry. Most of those waiting and getting checked were calm, no one hysterical. After all, these crazy times we live in…what was unusual about a bomb threat?

  The police would take care of it…

  “But that was the last time, and she called me!”

  Brian Walsh was on the edge of the couch, gesturing urgently. “She wanted to make amends. Said she’d found some liberal priest who said what she was doing was okay, even blessed if she’d – well, I heard liberal and we fought again…I mean, argued. That’s all.”

  “When did she call you?” Brand scribbled as Pappas retook his seat. Keri Blasco touched Tricia’s arm, said something, and went to rejoin her colleagues.

  “The night before her appointment here,” Brian sputtered. “No, maybe it was two nights before…”

  Dara Walsh exhaled scornfully, “It was the night before,” she said as if her husband was stupid. Her low, raspy voice dropped lower.

  Tricia left the lounge as David, not wanting to enter with Pappas, passed her with a tiny grin. In his scrubs and white jacket, he looked like any resident. No one glanced at him as he went to the fridge, took out someone’s leftover Chinese, and peered into the squished white box. Maybe two inches of dried-up rice. The fridge was crowded with white boxes.

  He got busy with the microwave; bopped the buttons, waited, nothing. Opened and closed the door, looking frustrated. Shot only a quick sideways glance at the Walshes.

  A new stage was set in the surgical lounge.

  And just outside, Tricia dropped down next to Jill. “That woman is scary,” she said. “Dara Walsh is angry and smart. This is the first the cops’ve been able to question her. They asked her to come in for questioning last night, and she refused.”

  “Knows her rights, huh?” Jill said from some still-functioning part of her brain, while the rest obsessed about Pappas’s No protection is perfect.

  “Yeah.” Tricia watched a food trolley pass. “She told them last night if they wanted to talk to her they could just wait to see her today at the hospit
al. Y’know? I don’t think she and her husband like each other.” Tricia shook her head. “Tough woman.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Nurses’ aide, works four nights a week at a hospice in the Village. Probably does a lot of lifting people. Did you see the muscles on her?”

  “No, she had her jacket on.”

  “She’s scrawny and muscular. Bet she works out too.” Another food trolley passed. “Have you eaten yet?”

  “No.”

  “I’m gonna faint from hunger. Can I get off duty tonight if I faint?”

  From inside the lounge they heard, loud again, “So check my phone records! Or hers!”

  Then, mutter mutter…

  “Dammit, wish I could be in there,” Jill said. Her chest felt tight. In her mind she heard Pappas again: Same creep, hours after his attack on Jenna Walsh. He’s excited, moving fast.

  And he’d been in the hospital during the night. The chapel…

  “David will tell us what they’re saying.” Tricia watched the food trolley stop outside a patient door, and a laden tray get carried in. She groaned, got up, and said she was going to go find a vending machine.

  Jill slid closer on the bench to the door.

  And David inside had the microwave unplugged, out from under the cabinet and on the counter, unscrewing screws with a knife and pretending intense repairs – clunk! - while Pappas questioned Brian Walsh.

  “She wanted to meet? Where?”

  “Some café on Third.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “Uh, Bistro. On the corner of 37th.”

  “Three blocks from this hospital,” Kerri Blasco said. “Two blocks from the alley where Jenna was attacked. You’re sure local surveillance tape won’t show you there?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “But you knew where Jenna would be. Maybe she waited, you watched from across the street, then followed when she left the café?”

  “No!”

  David shot another quick glance at Walsh as his voice turned whiney, defensive. “I tried to call her and cancel a couple hours before, but I got her voicemail. Maybe she was in the subway.”