Better the Devil You Don't Know

by Mairsile Leabhair

  “Good. I will repeat most of this in our briefing tomorrow morning, but for now, vacations are suspended and I will fill out the work schedule until further notice. I’m sorry, but I don’t see any other way around it. Josh, I’d like you to keep working nights as lead guard, along with Barney, Lula, Robby, and the temp, Kozlowski. Dorey will stay on days—”

  “Chief?” Lula stood up. “I want to work days so I can keep an eye on Michele.”

  “I appreciate that, but it isn’t just Michele I’m worried about. This picture could just be a trick to distract us from the real victim.”

  “And I appreciate that,” Lula rebutted. “But I don’t want to take that chance.”

  “What do you propose?” I inquired, knowing I was going to give in to her. Michele was the most vulnerable of the three because of her age.

  “If Michele is agreeable, I would like to be her bodyguard, 24/7.”

  “Seriously?” Michele asked, looking up at Lula.

  “Yes, seriously,” Lula replied, placing her hand on Michele’s shoulder. “And I’ll quit my job if that’s what it takes.”

  Grinning, Michele said, “You’d do that for me? That is so sweet.”

  “Excuse me!” I snapped, bringing their attention back to me. “Whether you work here or not, I still do not want to know about your inner-office affairs. I need all of you to be focused and on alert at all times. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Chief,” they said in unison.

  Nodding satisfactorily, I continued, “It won’t be necessary for you to quit, Lula, or to be glued to Michele while she’s at work. I believe that she, Ms. Thomas, and Dr. Aponte are safe here at the hospital. It’s when they leave the building that they could be a potential target, if in fact they are the real target in the first place.” Lula shook her head defiantly. “With that said,” I continued, ignoring her. “Dorey will stay on the dayshift as lead guard with Lula, and the temps Collins and Bennett. I’ll place Lucas on nightshift with you, Josh. Put him in the ER while you, Robby, and the temp patrol the hospital, especially the pediatric ICU where Ms. Thomas is. I want the temps with you at all times, understand?”

  “Roger that, Chief,” he responded.

  “Dorey, you take one temp, Lula, you stick with the other one. And I want extra patrols in the ICU and psych ward where Dr. Aponte will be at.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Celine huffed belligerently. “You’re not scaring those patients with a bunch of uniforms watching their every move.”

  “You are absolutely right,” I conceded, trying not to smile at an idea that suddenly popped into my head. I turned back to Dorey. “Have Barney man the camera monitors for that unit while Dr. Aponte is on campus.”

  There was a multi-monitor station in the PBX call center that all the campus cameras fed into. Because staff had been so shorthanded, no one was assigned to watch the monitors.

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  Celine was peeved, but she backed down.

  Josh raised his hand. “And when Dr. Aponte isn’t on campus, Chief?”

  “I’ve got that covered,” I replied.

  “And just how have you got me covered?” Celine asked.

  “I meant to say, Detective Littleton has that covered,” I said, not stating the entire truth, which was that I would be her bodyguard at night when she’s away from the hospital. I wasn’t about to tell her that though and risk starting another fight in front of my staff.

  “I don’t want uniforms in my clinic either, Detective,” Celine protested.

  “Yes, I’m well aware,” Becky snorted.

  “Wait, I remember something,” Michele said, her eyes darting back and forth. “Noel Collins, one of the new temps. He asked me if I had ever been abused before. I mean, it may not be anything, but it seemed like a really odd thing to ask. Well, maybe not that odd considering what I said to him, but it did come out of left field.”

  “Michele, what did you say to him?” I asked impatiently.

  “I told him that if someone in security abuses their authority, they lose their job. How he jumped from that to my being abused is the odd part.”

  “It’s the word itself that he must have focused in on,” Celine offered, then she looked anxiously at me.

  Was she subconsciously telling me that Noel was her patient? Suddenly it hit me; she had recognized him when he was making rounds with Dorey. I knew she would never admit to it, but it was too much of a coincidence to be ignored. I glanced at Becky who was taking copious notes. Should I betray Celine by telling Becky about my suspicions or wait to see what Becky found out about the man? My brain said wait, my gut said tell her. This time I’ll listen to my brain.

  “That’s good, Michele,” I said in a docile tone. “If any of you hear or see anything, even if it’s odd things that you think are inconsequential, let me or Detective Littleton know immediately.”

  A chorus of roger that rang out.

  “Wow, for some reason, I remembered you saying that as a child you had been abused by your parents, like me, Michele” Josh said.

  “I’m not sure why you would think that, Josh. I had wonderful parents,” Michele countered. “God rest their souls.”

  “Dr. Aponte,” Becky said, putting her ink pen down. “Have you met with the other doctors yet?”

  “We’re meeting for drinks this evening, as a matter of fact. And before you ask, we’d prefer to meet without the police present.”

  “What about me?” I asked, sure that she would turn me down also. She put her hands to her lips in a move that I’ve come to know as her thinking it over, so I added an enticement. “I might be able to ask the right questions that would have them looking at the answer non-clinically. I’m sure you know this, but serial killers make up the rules as they go along. They don’t follow predicted behaviors, and this one seems to be particularly unstable.”

  “All right, you can come, but no interrogation, understand?” she insisted.

  I smiled and nodded in compliance.

  “Oh, great, an unstable serial killer is after me,” Michele quipped, burying her head in her hands.

  Damn my mouth. “I’m sorry, Michele,” I said, regretting having frightened her further. “Lula, maybe you’d better take her home now.”

  “Roger that, Chief. Come on, honey, uh…” She glanced at me apologetically. “I mean, Michele, let’s go.”

  Michele did not move. “Chief?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’ll catch the bastard, right?”

  My captain told me once that a good detective never makes a promise she’s not sure she can keep. Right now, I didn’t feel like a very good detective. “Yes, Michele. I will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Michele Michaels

  On the way to my apartment, we dropped Dorey off at her house. I was afraid to leave her there all alone, even though she wasn’t a target, so we stayed and talked until her husband and son arrived. Then we talked some more about the killer, until they started arguing about her going back to work. As a police officer, he, of course, had heard of the Dumpster Butcherer even though if wasn’t in his area. I know he didn’t mean to, but by the time we left her house, he had me so terrified I could barely breathe.

  My apartment wasn’t large, but it was enough for me and Denali, my shelter cat. I wondered what Lula would think of my decorating skills. It took me a while, but I decorated my living room with an overstuffed chair and ottoman, and an overstuffed loveseat that I never actually thought my lover would sit on, mostly because at the time I bought it, I didn’t have a lover. The kitchen was almost as large as the living room, with plenty of cabinet space and a small table shaped like a picnic table. I used it to feed the cat on so I don’t have to bend over all the time. There’s one bedroom with a walk-in closet that was too full to walk into. The bathroom, where my cat and I seem to be on the same schedule, was tiny, but efficient. I decorated it all in seashells and lighthouses.

  “Are you all right,
Michele?” Lula asked as I unlocked the door to my apartment. “You didn’t say a word on the drive over here.”

  “Oh, um… I was trying to remember if I emptied the cat litter box.”

  She looked at me like I was crazy. “That’s what you were worried about?”

  “You haven’t been inside before, and I don’t want the first thing you notice to be my cat litter.”

  “Oh, honey. You are one of a kind,” she replied.

  “Yes, but is that a good thing?”

  She laughed and said, “It’s a very good thing.”

  We walked in and I locked, latched and chained my door. Living on the third floor, with only one door entry, I had always felt safe, until tonight.

  She inhaled deeply and squinted her face. “Nope, can’t tell that a cat lives here.”

  I swatted her on the arm and walked into the kitchen. “She’s probably sleeping in the bedroom. Do you want something to drink? I have beer, milk and coffee.”

  “A beer would be great, thanks,” she said, still standing in the living room. “Did you paint these yourself?”

  I walked back in carrying two bottles of beer and glanced at the paintings she was referring to. A portrait of an Eskimo woman in Alaska, another of the Matterhorn in Switzerland and one of palm trees framing a volcano in Hawaii. “Yes, I painted them many years ago. I used to love to paint from looking at pictures in the National Geographic. Places that I dreamed of going to one day.”

  “They’re beautiful, Michele. Why did you stop?”

  “Because I stopped dreaming,” I replied and walked over to the recliner and sat down.

  “Is that your cat in the painting of Mt. Denali?”

  “Yes,” I laughed. I had juxtaposed her in the lefthand corner of the painting, sitting supreme in front of the mountain. “She’s named for that mountain.”

  “That’s very clever,” Lula replied.

  I gazed at her intently. “So, are you seriously planning on staying the night?”

  “Yes, I am,” she answered pointedly. “I can sack out on your sofa; you won’t even know that I’m here.”

  I shook my head. I had a much better idea. “Or we can throw caution to the wind and sleep together.”

  “It would be better if I didn’t let you out of my sight for the foreseeable future.”

  Laughing, I added, “And it will certainly give us a chance to get to know each other much faster.”

  “Yeah, I figure by the time they catch the bastard, you and I will either be in love, or hate each other’s guts,” she said with a laugh.

  I was in love with you the second you walked into my office. “Well, I’m one of those who fall in love way too easily, so be careful, okay?” I’m not sure why I suddenly got serious. I guess because I was in fact falling in love with her and it scared the shit out of me. What if it was one sided? What if she really did end up hating me?

  Lula patted the loveseat and nodded for me to join her, which of course, I did. My loveseat with my potential lover sitting on it. Will it be three times the charm? I sat my beer on the ottoman and then sat down beside her. She wrapped her arm around my shoulders and I leaned into her, fitting perfectly against her side.

  “Like I said, I’ll go as slow as you need, and we’ll just let things happen as they may.”

  “And they may not happen at all,” I inserted, throwing a damp rag on the fire.

  “Maybe not, but we’ll have a hell of a good time finding out,” she retorted.

  “I sure hope I live long enough to enjoy it.”

  She pulled me tighter and I snuggled into her, feeling her strength and warmth like a blanket. It was a very nice feeling.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Michele. And neither will the chief.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. She gave in to you a little too easily. I can tell that she’s worried.”

  “She used to be a detective; it was her job to worry. But the fact that it could be one of our own people is what worries me.”

  “Well, technically, the temps aren’t our people yet, but I understand what you’re saying. It gives me the creeps to think I may have stood beside the murderer and offered them coffee without even knowing it. Like Eugene who’s always frowning. I’ll bet he’s the killer.” My body shivered at the thought that I had to go back to work tomorrow and work with someone who might be a murderer.

  “Let me take you someplace where it’s safe, Michele,” Lula said as she took my hand in hers. “Just until this blows over.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked. I had some vacation time built up that I was saving for Christmas, but this would be more fun. I usually spent Christmas with Dorey and her family, mostly because I hated spending Christmas alone. Too many years I did that and it always depressed me for weeks afterward.

  “Oh, I don’t know. We could go to my father’s cabin in the mountains and hope for an early snow. Or, if you don’t like the snow, we could go to my mother’s second home in LA where it’s nice and warm.”

  “Either or!” I exclaimed.

  “Yeah, but which one?” she laughed.

  A cozy mountain cabin with a roaring fire where we’d make love on a bear skin rug, or a balmy beach house on the oceanfront where we’d make love in the sand while drinking cocktails with an umbrella in them. That’s a tough decision to make. Suddenly I felt ashamed. I’m not sure why my mind went from a sandy beach in California to a little boy fighting for his life at the hospital, but it did. His mother, looking so worn out and defeated, holding his tiny little hand while we prayed, not knowing that there was a killer running loose who might possibly come after her. She couldn’t leave, and I knew that Dr. Gorgeous wouldn’t run and hide, so how could I?

  “It’s a wonderful idea and thank you for wanting to do that for me, Lula, but, honey, I can’t go.”

  She let go of my hand and sat up, turning to look me in the eye. “Why the hell not? You’re not safe here, Michele.”

  “I know. But neither are Ms. Thomas and her son. I want to stay and help keep them safe.”

  The shocked look on Lula’s face morphed into a hungry look of desire. “You are just too precious,” she said, leaning close and kissing me on the forehead. I read somewhere once that a kiss on the forehead meant that I was being protected, loved and desired. I hoped it meant that I was about to be made love to, because my temperature shot up ten degrees from the feel of her lips on my skin.

  “Michele, I want you so bad right now. Is that okay?”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” I growled and took the beer out of her hand and sat it on the ottoman. I grabbed her arm and pulled her into my lips, and she wrapped her arms around me as she entered my mouth. “Make love to me,” I panted as I entangled my fingers in her hair and groaned when she set fire to my lips, my tongue, my entire body.

  Suddenly, the warm heat of her tongue was gone, and I felt cold.

  “Uh, something’s scratching on my leg and I’m pretty sure it isn’t you,” Lula said, pointing down at my cat. Denali jumped up in her lap and just sat there, staring at her.

  Would she accept Lula, or pee on her foot, like she did the cable guy? She did not like that cable guy, but then, he was a dog person. I wasn’t sure what Lula preferred. If she hated cats, that would be a real problem for me.

  “Well, hello, gorgeous,” Lula cooed, scratching Denali under the chin.

  Denali was a pure white American short hair that I rescued from the pound. She reminded me of one of the mountains I had always wanted to see so I named her after it. Denali purred under Lula’s caresses and I knew just how she felt. Apparently she approved of Lula because she laid down in her lap and started bathing.

  “I didn’t think to ask if you even liked cats.”

  Lula picked her up and placed her on the floor. Denali flicked her tail indignantly and jumped up on the recliner.

  “I love cats, but I’d rather make her owner purr. Can we go into your bedroom?”

  “Oh, yes indeed,
” I proclaimed and grabbed her hand.

  We made it as far as the door, when she twirled me around and pushed me against the wall, possessing me with her lips as she groped at my blouse. Young people are always so impatient. Thank God! I fumbled with her shirt as she unbuttoned my blouse and in the blink of an eye, our garments tangled around our feet. She wasn’t wearing a bra and I actually drooled at the sight of her young, firm breasts, her nipples erect and pointing at me as if to say hello. I had a sudden trepidation as she unlatched the hooks on the front of my bra. Unlike Lula’s, my breasts weren’t so young and firm anymore. They weren’t drooping down to my knees yet, in fact they were large and full for my size, but they were beginning to wrinkle and pucker in the wrong places. That didn’t mean they weren’t sensitive to touch, I just wasn’t sure that she’d want to touch them.

  She looked at each one as if they were delicate flowers. “My, God, they’re so beautiful, Michele,” she said, and cupped them softly, squeezing deeply.

  If I hadn’t been so overwhelmed by her touch, I would have cried from her compliment.

  “Lula,” I said breathlessly. “It’s been a long time for me and—”

  She quieted my concerns by lifting my right breast and suckling it. The heat from her lips sent prickles of tantalizing electricity straight down to my thighs.

  “Oh,” I groaned, unable to think clearly anymore. “Oh, yes.”

  “I like the taste of you,” Lula groaned, sensing my capitulation. “I like the way your breast hardens and swells under my tongue,” she said, flicking her tongue around the nipple, kneading the other with her hand.

  My heart was racing, my mind swirling, as the bones in my legs liquefied. My God. What a glorious feeling. I arched my neck and inhaled with anticipation. She moved her lips to my earlobe and blew hot breath as she kissed the soft, sensitive skin under my ear. I dug my fingers deeper into her hair and she slid her hand to the nape of my neck, bringing me closer still. I had the sensation of walking and a moment later we were falling into bed. I heard someone giggling and laughed again when I realized that it was me. I can’t remember the last time I let out a deep-throated chortle like that.