by JA Schneider
“You bowl?” she asked conversationally.
“Just started. Gettin’ kinda good at it,” he said limply, then focused on her. “Are you a doctor?”
What now? Say she was EMS? No. He’d know that EMTs wouldn’t be walking around with controlled drugs, they would need authorization.
“Uh-huh,” Jill said.
“Lucky you had meds with you,” Keri said; and Alex said, “Why were you here anyway?”
Good. Pretending to start their investigation out here, in the hall.
“Nash asked me to come. I came prepared.” Burrell’s nose only needed a couple of tissues. There was no place to put them, so Jill put them in her jacket pocket.
Alex even asked for her identification.
“In my purse.” Jill pointed to Nash’s open door.
A cue for them all to move into the room, including Burrell, who sank onto the chair near the window. Gary Clark had pulled the second chair closer to Nash’s bed, and was watching him. His eyes were open to furious slits when they entered, but he quickly closed them. His fingertips twitched. And twitched more as he clearly listened to the two cops opening and closing drawers, picking up papers, commenting about his computer.
“First thing,” Alex said, stepping to the desk. “Take down that damned website.”
Jill saw Nash scowl with his eyes closed.
A new female voice behind her said, “What’s all this?”
She turned.
A nun, plump with a kindly face, stood in the doorway. Her habit was modern, reaching to just below her knees, and her head covering was short. “I’m Sister Meg, St. Mary’s Hospital director.” She looked around at the activity, then questioningly at Gary Clark, who explained what had happened.
Jill said, “I had Valium with me. Twenty milligrams injectable.” She hesitated. “I’m a physician.”
Gary looked at her, surprised. So did Sister Meg, until her eyes went to both detectives, who nodded encouragingly. Oh, her look said. This is a police doctor?
Alex stood, snapping off a latex glove to extend his hand to the nun. Then he introduced Keri, and handed Sister Meg the warrant. She read it carefully, then looked up.
“Yes,” she said sadly. “It’s time. I’m so sorry it’s come to this.”
Another sad glance at Nash on the bed, then she crossed and bent to Rick Burrell, concerned and asking him questions.
Alex sat back down at the desk, scrutinizing Nash’s awful website. Jill’s heart kicked hard as she and Keri looked over his shoulder, silently reading the few newer posts.
“No one agreeing with him,” Alex muttered as they read. YOU burn in hell, asshole …Hey mister, I know what YOU need!… Izis a Halloween joke?
“It’s the ones who don’t post…” Jill breathed.
“We know.” Alex stopped scrolling. “That’s it. Pappas says they’ve copied the whole site so…down it goes.” On the upper right corner, he hit a link to another link, then hit “delete account.”
Gone. DevilSpawn.com ceased to exist in cyberspace.
Jill took a deep breath. “Relieved that it’s gone,” she whispered. “But a lot of unknowns have already seen it, and do we know our friend here is really the killer?” She glanced at Nash on his bed, glaring around in woozy fury. Then looked at Sister Meg, just straightening from palpating the back of Burrell’s head.
“Sister?” she asked.
The nun smiled kindly. “Yes, Christine?”
“Uh…”
The nun crossed the small space, her hand extended. “In all this confusion, I didn’t get the chance. You’re Christine Connor, Ralph’s visitor. Willy in front phoned to say you were visiting. I didn’t realize you were a police doctor.”
Awkward, awkward...
Jill saw Keri and Alex trade glances. She said, “Sister, have you ever seen me before?”
A surprised look. “No, I don’t believe I have.”
“Do you have television here at St. Mary’s?”
“Yes, an old one in back, in our small staff room.” The nun shook her head. “What’s left of our staff. The Archdiocese has sold St. Mary’s church next door and is trying to sell our poor hospital. We don’t even know where we’ll all be scattered to yet.” She looked lost and troubled for a moment, then came back to the question, frowning gently. “The news and shows on TV are so awful these days. Who’d even want to watch?”
For a moment Jill thought how nice it must be to live in a convent, or to have such a peaceful, convent way of thinking. Then she saw the nun’s gaze turn to dismay, watching Alex and Keri bagging scrawled papers, tossed paper cups, and Nash’s transistor and computer.
Sister Meg pointed to the last two. “You’re taking those?”
From his chair Gary Clark groaned, “He’d only put his site back up, Sister.”
Alex, easing evidence into his bag, said, “Reasonable suspicion, Sister. For the safety of the patient and the public.”
“Oh.” Sister Meg clasped her hands together. “But Ralph will get violent again, and I’m afraid he’s built a tolerance to the drugs…including Valium, I’m afraid.” A regretful look to Jill. “He insists his transistor’s the only thing that really calms him.”
Right. God speaks to him from his transistor. But it’s gotta be at the right frequency.
Jill caught Nash glaring narrowly at her, then quickly fake sleep. Alex and Keri saw the silent exchange.
Keri asked, “Is there a place where we can talk, Sister?”
Peter Gregson from Pathology had called an hour earlier.
The surgery was finished and David found Peter’s voicemail, muttering in tired relief to Sam and Woody who went off to “collapse somewhere.” At an OR table crowded with surgery and OB residents, they’d helped save two lives. The mother, aged twenty, now in Intensive Care, and a seven-month-old female preemie delivered by C-section, now in the NICU.
It was hard for David to concentrate, switch gears, but Gregson’s excited “Snake! Found something!” banished fatigue and sent him running up to the ninth floor.
“Blister Disease,” Peter said excitedly as David approached his workstation. “I’d seen it before with my brother’s pet snake, but I had to look it up again.”
“Meaning what?” David pulled up a stool.
Peter’s gloved finger pointed to the chapel’s dead snake, coiled and slit open lengthwise on a porcelain tile. “See those tiny white puffy sores on the skin? That comes from being in too much water. Garter snakes aren’t aquatic, they just like to be near water. Which right away is odd; no garter would get to this size and length with this disease, the infection would kill it. Which in turn means that the snake’s environment changed fairly abruptly.”
David’s jaw tightened as he tried to contain his impatience. He’d checked his phone again on the way up. Nothing from Jill since they were crossing Tompkins Square Park. Where are you? What’s happening?
“Next,” Peter said, poking the snake, rolling it over a little, “I found toxic chemicals like motor fuel, exhaust emissions, asphalt, soot, and concrete washout not just in its intestines but also in its brain and liver. So!” He grinned, rushing his words. “This snake comes from a suddenly-too-watery place near traffic and demolition. Some building that got demolished.”
“Great,” David muttered. “That really narrows it down in New York.”
“Ah, but now for the best part. I found a mosquito in this guy’s stomach.” He tapped the snake again.
“A mosquito.” David leaned forward, frowning.
“Yup.” Peter beamed as if this was the most fascinating bit of biology and pathology he’d done since med school. “Used the electron microscope - and in the mosquito’s stomach was Alphavirus, family Togaviridae.”
David blinked. He straightened, caught his breath. “I know that one. It’s…damn, my head won’t work, it’s…”
“EEE!” Peter said triumphantly. “Eastern Equine Encephalitis, it kills horses. Now where in bleeping hell could EEE
be in New York?”
They ran to a near computer and logged on to the CDC.
30
In the small waiting room near the front, Jill watched Alex make a quick call, then lead the interview about Ralph Nash’s recent behavior. Keri scribbled notes. Greg Clark stayed behind to watch Nash.
Sister Meg and Rick Burrell both described Nash’s increasing obsession with the church, especially the Vatican’s condemnation of all made-in-the-lab human reproduction.
“He’s gotten worse lately,” Burrell said, rubbing the sore back of his head.
“Yes, but there might be a reason,” Sister Meg said feelingly. “You see, Ralph and his younger brother were orphans. His brother was adopted, Ralph wasn’t, and suffered through some horrible foster homes.”
“You have records of this?” Alex asked.
“Very little,” Sister Meg admitted. “He was found homeless, spent time at Bellevue and was then brought to us. He couldn’t even remember his name at first. Still has no idea where he was born.”
“But now he remembers those details about a brother?”
“That came after weeks here. He thinks he was maybe four or five when his younger brother was adopted.”
“Wound up in juvie,” Burrell said. “Wouldn’t tell me for what, just kept obsessing about IVF every time he read online about it, and that’s all he read. ‘Why don’t they adopt?’ he’d say, and start to rage. Once we tried taking his computer away. It got him upset.”
Sister Meg said, “His medications were working until recently.” She looked at Jill. “You gave him how much Valium?”
“Twenty milligrams.”
A slow headshake. “Not enough. His tolerance to it has so built, same with Xanax...and you saw how he fights it.”
Sister Meg rubbed her hands together; looked anxiously at Alex. “On calmer days his usual meds are ten milligrams by mouth every four hours, but more than once he tricked Rick and Gary and only pretended to take his pills…” Her voice trailed, and she looked suddenly older.
While she focused on Alex Jill subtly texted David: Nash’s nurse, named Rick Burrell, is that same corduroy jacket guy we saw watching Nash with his megaphone. She found Burrell’s picture from that day and sent it.
Keri was scribbling, and Alex had changed tacks. “Sister Meg, back in Nash’s room, Christine asked if you’d ever seen her before. Care to rethink that?”
The nun peered at Jill and shook her head, confused. Alex asked the same of Burrell, who creased his brow and said, “Well, now that you mention it, maybe…” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure.”
Alex told them who Jill really was. The intern Jill Raney, from that same hospital and obstetrical department against which Nash had been urging violence.
The nun and Burrell both looked stunned.
Then Burrell breathed in sharply. “Now I place you.” He pointed at Jill. “You’re her? I did see you on TV!”
He caught Sister Meg’s look, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I go back there sometimes. Check out the TV news when the place is asleep.”
Jill asked, “Even though the same news is online?”
“I don’t get much free time during the day.”
Jill looked harder at Burrell and leaned forward. “Could Ralph Nash have gone back there too? Watched the news in the wee hours? The screen’s bigger on a TV. I’m wondering if he really did recognize me. If it was all an act with me. Paranoid schizophrenics can sometimes be good at faking.”
Sister Meg sighed heavily. “It’s time. He should have been on Thorazine already. I’ll ask the doctor about that when he comes, possibly tomorrow.”
“Possibly? Sister, did you know that the cemented lock on Ralph’s window has been broken?”
“Oh…no!” The nun’s eyes rounded in dismay. Burrell’s jaw dropped open. “I’d never thought to check,” he said, looking guilty.
“Thorazine, ASAP,” Sister Meg said in alarm. “But we’d need a prescription, and the doctors…it’s been so haphazard. There are a few practically volunteering, but they’re spread so thin.”
Footsteps in the hall, and a young uniformed cop entered, excusing himself. Exchanged quick words with Alex, took his black gym bag loaded with evidence, and left.
Keri closed her notebook, and Alex seemed about done with his questioning. “By the way,” he asked abruptly. “Why was Ralph so intent on going to the church next door?”
“For a rally.” Sister Meg inhaled and clasped her hands as if in prayer. “Oh, the Lord does work in mysterious ways. The church was to be replaced by a luxury high rise. The rectory’s already demolished, and workmen had started tearing off the church’s roof. But, a miracle - demolition has been stopped for months because preservationists and community groups came together to fight the developers. And 3:30 today is their rally to save the church! Isn’t that wonderful? These people … I’ve heard they’re mostly not even Catholic, or religious at all. They’re saying the church is a historic landmark.”
As she spoke Jill subtly texted David again: Nash has been under-medicated. Doctor visits sparse, erratic.
Gary Clark looked in to say Nash was asleep.
“You’re sure he’s asleep?” Sister Meg asked.
“Yes, yes.” He’d heard most of what she had said. “Oh, the church. I had to accompany Ralph there once, just to walk around outside.” Clark looked at Burrell. “You too, huh?”
Burrell nodded in frustration. “Oh, yeah. He couldn’t go in, it’s all boarded up. That got him crazy, but there was that save-the-church bunch he met with there, on the sidewalk. They seemed to know him and calmed him down a little. I think he was emailing some of them.” Burrell grimaced. “They got my email address too. Next thing I knew I was getting bombarded with pleas to help paint posters, come to meetings, make calls to organize, that sort of thing.”
“Did you?” Jill asked.
Another frustrated gesture. “A bit. It just seemed like a losing cause. That church, I’m sorry Sister, but you can practically smell the tree rot from outside.”
Gary Clark was leaning on the doorjamb. “I hadda give one of those people my email too. Helped once, that was it. Ralph kept begging me to take him back to the church, but I said no. He got crazy-mad, said he’d go himself if Rick and I wouldn’t go with him.” Clark looked in annoyance at Burrell. “I didn’t take him seriously. His window was supposed to be cemented closed, right?”
Burrell shook his head in self-reproach. “Yes! I sealed it good and hard. Never thought to look again. Got so busy …” He shook his head again. “This is scary. Who knows how many times he was in and out that window?”
So Ralph was obsessed with the church too. Alex and Keri traded looks. Let’s go check out that rally.
They gave Sister Meg their cards and thanked her. Jill did too and headed with them down the steps.
“God bless you,” Sister Meg called, smiling sadly and waving from the front door.
The time was 4:05.
The CDC guy sounded surprised. They’d called and gotten the damned menu, been switched from one department to another until they got some double-PhD who’d just gotten back from a meeting.
Gregson explained about the mosquito. They were calling from Pathology’s office where they’d dislodged a secretary. Peter had flipped on the speakerphone while David paced.
“A vet called us, like, just two days ago,” the virologist continued. He sounded young and chatty. “Some lady’s dog had it. He was sharp, that vet, knew some animals besides horses get it. So he researched it, and yeah, it was EEE all right, he sent us his report and virus image. We’re trying to get a team together to go up and spray, drain the water. Can’t aerial spray of course ‘cause it’s in the city, also because it’s under some building…waitaminnit” – sound of papers riffling – “Here it is. There’s water exposed at the site of some church rectory just demolished, and water unexposed under the closed church in front of it. In the basement, probably, judging by t
he new water table the demolition’s created. Jeez, we don’t even have this online, yet. How’d you guys find this?”
David, pacing, felt his phone vibrate. Two texts from Jill: Nash’s nurse, named Rick Burrell, is that same corduroy jacket guy we saw watching Nash with his megaphone; and, Nash has been under-medicated. Doctor visits sparse, erratic.
Peter on the phone was sympathizing with the virologist about their budget cuts. “I know,” he was saying. “It’s the same here. Budget cuts everywhere.”
“Well, we’ve gotta get somebody up there to evaluate, arrange for drainage and spraying. They’re spread so thin! There are two teams out now investigating dengue outbreaks, another’s doing a bird flu place - this late in the season, can you imagine? Three others finally got funding to drain and treat no end of water-born places mosquitoes love, it’s gotta be done before everything ices over, because – wham! – it’s spring before you know it and the damned skeeters start to party again. Humans getting EEE is rare, thank goodness-”
David tore off a piece of lab sheet and scribbled thanks, I’ll call. Patted Gregson on the shoulder as Peter looked up, rolling his eyes hearing about changed water tables since Hurricane Sandy, reports still pouring in – ha! no pun! – and Staten Island already icing over…
Seconds later David was back in the stairwell, texting Jill. Avoid the church. DON’T GO THERE!
He sent, and ran down the rest of the way.
The time was 4:14.
31
RALLY! JOIN US! SAVE OUR HISTORY!
In the chill, fading light they chanted, carried signs, and marched before the venerable old church. Some cried to onlookers, “My grandparents were married here!” …“It’s heartbreaking! … “Three generations of my family worshipped here!”
Some from the crowd watching joined in. There was a police barricade before the church, but they marched in front of the yellow barriers and the rally was mostly peaceful. Except for one moment when a woman gripping a rosary ran up to a uniformed cop and cried, “They’re killing me! They’re erasing my past!”