The Inquisitor

by Peter Clement

  Not daring to breathe, he slowly raised his right arm, intending to find a light switch and snap it on. He figured the surprise would cause the interloper to bolt, but not before Earl got a good look at her, or him. With all the shadows and the unisex nature of protective wear, he couldn't tell which.

  Except his reaching movement showed in the mirror.

  The figure stiffened, twirled, and charged him.

  Earl took the brunt of the hit in his chest and, caught off balance, felt himself lifted by a firm shoulder, then rammed into the tile wall behind his back. The blow turned his lungs into a pair of bellows, his breath left him in a roar, and a white light exploded behind his eyes. He crumpled to the floor, fighting a tumbling sensation inside his head and struggling to keep himself from spiraling down a deep, dark hole.

  But the blackness around him poured into his brain, and the high-pitched squeak of someone running on linoleum in crepe soles filled his ears. Like birds cheeping, he thought. Whoever it is mustn't be wearing paper booties.

  "Would you be tellin' us what the devil you were doing here?"

  Jimmy's alarmed voice penetrated Earl's skull like a drill bit. He opened his eyes to the brilliance of a ceiling light and saw the priest, flanked by two nurses, hovering over him. He moved to get up and found himself lying on the bare mattress. "Did you get him?"

  "Get whom?"

  Earl glanced at his watch. He couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. "The person who sandbagged me."

  "I didn't see anyone- I just found you like this when I dropped in to say my usual good night to Sadie." He looked around at the two nurses. "Where is she, by the way?"

  "I gave her a weekend pass," Earl said, managing to sit at the side of the bed. His head and back hurt like hell, even when he breathed. "Her son from Honolulu showed up a day early. As a surprise, he hired a private nurse and opened up the family home so he and Sadie could stay there a few days. When she couldn't reach Wyatt, and the residents didn't want to make the decision, she didn't know who else to call."

  "But then what are you doing here?" The priest's tone continued to sound strained.

  Earl looked past Jimmy and up at the nurses. The overhead light pierced his brain with the splitting force of a migraine. "With Sadie's room empty, I decided to conduct a spot check- see how often the night staff attended to their patients. Believe me, ladies, you failed to impress!" Not the whole truth, but enough to explain his presence. As his own thoughts raced to explain the intruder, he wasn't about to confess the far darker suspicions that had brought him here.

  They reacted with predictable indignation.

  "Why, how can you say such a thing?"

  "We treat these people as if they were our parents."

  Then pity poor Mom and Dad, Earl thought. "Tell me, were any of the nurses away on break during the last twenty minutes?"

  They looked surprised.

  The younger of the two had freckles to match the wisps of brown hair that protruded from under her surgery cap. "No! Hey, what do you want to know for?" Her voice still came across in a petulant whine. "You saying one of our people knocked you down?"

  He ignored her question. "What about orderlies? Would any of them have reason to come in here now?"

  "Of course not," the older woman replied, working a wad of gum under her mask with the sass of a street hustler. "We stripped Sadie's bed when she left. It will be made up just before she returns Sunday night."

  "Cleaners?"

  "At this time of night?" the younger one asked. Her eyes said, Gimme a break.

  He looked over to the night table. It contained a calendar, photos of a tanned young man whom he assumed to be Donny, and assorted pencils. He pulled open a drawer, finding only a Bible, tissues, and writing paper. "Did she keep jewelry or anything else that someone would want to steal?"

  "Probably took it with her," the chewer said. "After all, she knows there won't be many more times she'll get to wear it."

  Earl gritted his teeth at the coldness of the remark.

  "What about residents coming here to use an empty bed for a quickie?" the younger one said, sharpening her words with a twist of insolence. "Why don't you suspect them?"

  "Residents?"

  "Yeah, the cheapo kind that won't spring for a motel- you get my drift. You think that doesn't happen?"

  Of course he knew it did. Except would someone waiting for a cheap grope react so violently to being discovered?

  He'd about had it with the sullen resentment from these two, and pointed to the one with the freckles. "Get hold of security. Tell them to look for a person without shoe coverings." It would likely be a useless exercise. There were bins all over the hospital with supplies of protective wear. His assailant had probably pulled on a new pair within a minute of leaving the floor.

  "Why would someone take off his or her paper boots?" she asked.

  Jimmy did a Fred Astaire shuffle, his feet sliding easily on the floor. "For traction." He still sounded tense.

  She nodded and left.

  Earl got up off the bed, and Jimmy moved to help him.

  "Thanks." He grabbed the man's arm for support as his head did a few twirls around the room. The wooziness persisted, and he sat back down.

  "Maybe I should be takin' you down to your own ER and let them check you out?"

  He must really be unnerved by what happened, Earl thought. The Irish lilt appeared only when he kidded around or got shaken to the core. "No, I'll be fine. I couldn't have been out more than five minutes, tops. Anything under twenty doesn't usually even warrant a CT." Not exactly true, but close enough to get him out of here. He wanted his own bed.

  "Maybe we should ask how you got in here, Father," the one with the gum asked, her tone more sour than ever. "We didn't see you come in. Hardly ever do." She looked over to Earl. "Or is it only the lower ranks who make good suspects?"

  Jimmy's eyes flared like stoked embers.

  Earl leapt to his feet. "That tears it-" A sudden swirl inside his skull sat him down again. He steadied his head in his hands, only to watch in disbelief as Jimmy leaned toward her, his hands up like a prizefighter's but open, not clenched, fingers spread wide and pointed right at her.

  "Ya don't see me because ya never take your noses out of your coffee cups or your minds off whatever important chatter constantly fills your heads. If so, you might not only catch me walkin' by, but actually hear what's all around you." He directed his fingers skyward. The muted wailing ebbed and surged the way it always did, steady as a distant sea. "If you listened, actually listened to what you've become deaf to, just maybe you'd be finding it in your hearts to comfort a tormented soul or two as they slip away, alone and afraid."

  She recoiled, eyes wide with surprise. "Now wait a minute-"

  "Because if you don't"- he moved a step closer-"when it's your turn, every one of those tormented souls will be circling, waiting for you at St. Peter's gate, ready to testify as to your good works and send you down."

  She flushed as crimson as if scorched by a sunburn. "How dare you threaten-"

  "Threaten? Oh, no, my dear. It's called old-time preachin'- puttin' the fear of the Lord into a miserable sinner to save her soul." His eyes crinkled into the accompaniment to a smile, but their flash was as hard as diamonds.

  She chewed her wad of gum a few more times, appeared to roll it from one side of her mouth to the other, then retreated to the hallway.

  "God forgive me, but she needed tellin'," Jimmy said, his jaw so bulging with tension it made his mask look a size too small.

  "No doubt about it," said Earl. But he'd never seen the man so steamed.

  Jimmy feigned a double take. "Well, what a difference a week makes. To think just last Saturday you were tellin' me to ease up on my fight with Wyatt and his crew. Now you're cheerin' me on."

  His lilt had definitely acquired an edge. Earl tried to chuckle, hoping to lower the tension a notch, but the sound came out dry and cheerless.

  The fire
in Jimmy's eyes died, and he let out a loud sigh. "Sorry, Earl. I guess I'm on a hair trigger as much as everyone else these days."

  Earl shrugged. "It's understandable."

  "I also can't help thinking that if I hadn't goaded you into coming up here last

  Saturday, you wouldn't be in the mess-"

  "Hey, I needed to see what goes on."

  "I sure didn't mean you to get obsessed by it and go sneaking around the place at all hours."

  "I'm not obsessed."

  "And look what happened tonight. You could have been badly hurt. For God's sake, play it smart. There's probably nothing more to this than you interrupted a bit of petty larceny. If we know the nursing is slack up here, so must the thieves in our little community."

  "Play it smart?"

  "Yeah. Play it smart. We all have big enough problems to deal with as it is. Let security take care of creeps who would sneak into rooms and steal stuff from little old ladies. I'm serious about this, Earl."

  It sounded like good advice.

  "Maybe Sadie herself would have an idea who it could be," Jimmy added, "if she noticed anyone taking too close an interest in her stuff."

  Maybe.

  Except Jimmy didn't know that the creep sneaking around tonight could be killing patients. From the size it might have been anyone. Even a woman, come to think of it. Certainly Monica Yablonsky had the physique to knock him on his can. As for males, so did that bulldog Wyatt if he was involved. Even Stewart might have done it because of whatever he might be trying to keep secret up here. Or most troubling of all, it could be a person he didn't know, a cipher among the four thousand people who worked at St. Paul's and were not doctors, his or her motive totally unknown.

  He shivered.

  A search vast enough to discover someone like that would be hopeless. Better this attacker turn out to be just some small-time crook after all.

  He declined Jimmy's offer of help and made it outside to his car by himself.

  As he unlocked the door, his brain spun into overdrive, unable to shake the idea that what had happened tonight was somehow connected to the unexplained deaths on that floor. And the possible suspects expanded anywhere from those who might be on some twisted mission, seeing themselves destined to put cancer patients out of their misery, to anyone who'd stop at nothing to cover up a scandal. Anyone from Hurst on high to God knew who down low. Nor could he keep the nightmare scenario from popping up again, that it could be anyone and the motive anything.

  Faces flashed through his head. He couldn't shut them out.

  Friends, colleagues, anybody the least bit zealous about euthanasia in the past, pro or con, came to mind, even… No, that went too damn far. Time to go home and get some sleep.

  A few deep breaths of the cool night air slowed the maelstrom in his head. But an image played repeatedly in his thoughts during the drive home, then recurred later that night, during his dreams.

  In it a shrouded figure with glittering eyes hovered over Sadie Locke's bed, reaching for her.

  Chapter 11

  The dreams came at the end of sleep this time.

  Sometimes I stood at the top of the stairs and called down to her.

  No answer.

  No lights on in the basement either.

  Yet I'd definitely heard a noise down there.

  Other times I walked along the corridor leading to his office.

  The lights were dim.

  As I drew closer I heard the sound of water running. Lots of water. Like someone filling up a bathtub.

  Except there should be no such thing down here.

  Or the dream would begin with no hint where it would ultimately take me. It could start in the middle of a sunny day at a park with green grass, cool caressing breezes, and warmth under the blaze of orange and yellow leaves. Or were those clues as well? Had it been sunny that day? Did we go to the park? I couldn't remember. But yes, the season would be fall. Not that I recalled seeing the colors of the foliage. I knew because of the date, November 9, 1989- a date that had become lodged in my head like a bullet, a day the world changed for the better but my universe collapsed.

  Was that why he'd chosen that day- to make sure no one would ever forget the anniversary?

  Maybe.

  Or perhaps our imminent visit had precipitated the choice- he couldn't face us- and he simply took advantage of a coincidence of history, a time when everybody else would be glued to the television and wouldn't interrupt.

  Sometimes the points of view got changed about, and I would be inside Jerome's head, forced to experience how alone he must have felt in those desperate yet methodical moments.

  And then I'd be back at the beginning again, dreading but not precisely knowing the events to come.

  But no matter how or where they started, all the dreams led me to the same spot and all ended the same way.

  I stood in darkness, listening to the cascade of water on the other side of the door. There were also strains of barely audible music. The dripping from my shoe when I took a step made me realize that a puddle had spilled under the threshold to form around my feet.

  I called out again.

  No answer.

  I tried the handle.

  Unlocked.

  I turned it and pushed.

  It swung open, and the sound of the streaming torrents trebled in volume. I could also recognize the song now.

  "Hello?" I raised my voice to be heard above the din and peered into the semiblackness of the laboratory.

  Still no response.

  The digital readouts on the equipment, fluorescent green and fire red, cast a neon glow that shimmered on the surface of the flooded floor. At the middle, like an inverted fountain, a huge cascade of water spouted from what must have been a broken pipe in the ceiling. The spray caught enough illumination to glitter like a downpour of emerald and ruby sparkles, but something dark and solid hung in its center.

  I should have just turned and left, gone for a maintenance man.

  But that dark shape drew me forward.

  As I stepped closer, it became a human form, like someone standing under a shower, head slumped forward and shoulders rounded to receive the full force of the streaming water on the neck and upper back. Nearer still, I felt droplets from the spray as it cascaded off the top of the person's crown, creating a domed effect. Knowing I shouldn't, I ducked inside the watery cupola and looked up to see a downturned face looking at me. Its wet skin reflected the ambient light, making it seem coated in a sheen of olive and purplish paint. The eyes bulged as if he were enraged, his cheeks were bloated to the bursting point, and a tongue swollen to the girth of a Polish sausage hung twisted from the side of his mouth.

  I screamed and woke in a sweat.

  For an instant I felt the relief that always flooded through me when I escaped the nightmare.

  But dawn slashed across my eyes, a light shredded by the horizontal blinds, and reminded me of the old woman's room.

  And Garnet's ambush.

  The never-ending dread of getting caught settled in for another day. I could hardly escape it anymore. Even in my other self, it would leech through from time to time, which meant someone might spot that I'm scared and get suspicious.

  Shit.

  At least Earl hadn't recognized me; if he had, the police would already be at the door.

  But what the hell had he been doing there? And how did he know to get the old lady to safety? Could he be on to everything, could he have figured it all out? Christ, he might even have been the creeper on the ward last week.

  My skin grew clammy again, adding to the sour aroma from the already damp sheets. I threw them off in disgust, retreated to the shower, and turned the cold water on full. The blast of icy needles overrode my runaway thoughts and helped me focus, not that that offered much comfort. As I tried to rein in my worst fears and sort out pure imaginings from fact, a few gnawing realizations shoved everything else into the shadows.

  Whoever had been the figure in the
hallway, it didn't change the fact that Garnet had been skulking around last night. And whatever reason Garnet had had to move the old lady out and keep watch in her room, he now knew for certain that she'd been in danger. Which meant he'd be more watchful than ever up there, and there'd be no delaying or diverting him until he got at the truth.

  The trouble would be, which truth? The one I planned for him to discover, or the reality behind it? But false leads might not fool the likes of Earl. All the pieces in their entirety were there to be found, and he definitely had the smarts not only to find them but also to fit them into place.

  Time to accelerate the plan.

  Sunday, July 13, 6:10 p.m.

  "Sit down, Thomas." Jane felt eerily calm and totally in charge. She'd had a sense of complete control all weekend, first refusing to see him, then instructing him to show up at her apartment. That he'd arrived twenty minutes early only enhanced her heady my-way-or-the-doorway attitude.

  He didn't stretch out on her living room rug as he usually did while waiting for supper, but took one of the upholstered chairs, which seemed a size too small, making him bend like a half-folded lawn chair.

  The sight of him made her giggle.

  He immediately smiled. "Well, that's better. God, I thought you had bad news, it felt so serious in here."

  She said nothing.

  Immediately he leaned forward, his features funneling into a pointed look of concern. "What's up, J.S.?"

  She never really liked how he'd appropriated Dr. G.'s nickname for her. It felt like an intrusion on something private she shared with a special friend.

  She studied Thomas's sleek, sturdy frame and lean, bearded face, thinking how his appearance had fed her schoolgirl ideal of a Tennessee woodsman, hard as an oak ax handle, yet still more boy than man. Well, time to grow him up. See what he could make of himself.

  "I'm pregnant."

  He appeared to stop breathing.

  The seconds crept by in discreet silence, as if trying not to eavesdrop.

  "Thomas, did you hear me?"

  "Jesus, Jane, give me a moment. That's quite a shock."