by Jon Talton
“Lennie’s harmless.”
Lisa looked over her glasses. “Nobody’s harmless, Cheryl Beth. Speaking of which, have you run into our newest urologist?”
“Oh, no.”
Lisa was the keeper of the FDN List, as in Funny Doctors’ Names List.
“Dr. Small! Get it?” She squealed with laughter. “He had a patient come into the ER with a hard-on he’d had for six hours. And the guy’s name was Dick Wood!”
“He did not.”
“Well, his name really is Dr. Small.”
The FDN List, lovingly maintained over the years, included Dr. Aikenhead, Dr. Dingfelter, Dr. Buderlicker, Dr. Hyman Pleasure, Dr. Pine-Coffin (a pathologist), and Dr. Cutter (a surgeon). There was Dr. Payne, of course, and Dr. Hurt.
“So back to Christine. My God! How much had she bled out?”
“Lisa, my head is about to explode right this minute.” The page from neuro-rehab rescued her. Everybody wanted to talk about the murder. Nobody else had been in that office, bloody and useless, as Christine lay dead.
“At least I may not have to go to any more of those goddamn SoftChartZ meetings,” Lisa went on.
“Lisa!”
“You know how they spell it? SoftChartZ all run together, with a capital Z on the end. Isn’t that cutting edge? Christine was really into it, but she could be such a pain in the ass. Well, she could! Gag, these endless meetings, and where’s the ‘totally digital work environment’? Lord knows how much we’re paying these smart young things from Silicon Valley to do it. They look at me like I’m an idiot. The lead guy, Josh, he’s twenty-six and rich—can you believe it? I think Christine’s slept with him.”
“I’m leaving…”
“You know how she was. And he’s cute. Anyway, young and strong, go all night. Change your life, Cheryl Beth. You ought to get one of those.”
***
Cheryl Beth heard the yelling, a man’s voice spewing profanities. A cluster of nurses stood outside a door. As she approached, a compact young Indian doctor came into the hall, handing Cheryl Beth a patient chart.
“Maybe you can deal with him,” she said. “He was in a motorcycle accident.”
“Quad?” Cheryl Beth asked.
“His legs are probably lost to him,” the doctor said.
She quickly scanned the chart amid the verbal barrage coming from the room. Then she carefully stepped inside.
“What the fuck do you want?” The first thing she noticed was the swastika tattoo that snaked around the man’s neck. Involuntarily, she thought of the wound on Christine’s neck. “Bitch!” His scream brought her back to reality. It came from a florid-faced young man encased in bushy red hair and beard.
“I’m hurting here, and nobody will help me.”
“We’re going to help you,” Cheryl Beth said softly.
“I want it now!”
“Take it easy. My name is Cheryl Beth Wilson, and I’m a pain management nurse. Your doctor wanted me to see if we could control your pain better.” She read the chart but already knew she was dealing with an addict. Even before his accident, he had likely been on high levels of OxyContin. So his body wasn’t responding to the level of painkillers he was now receiving.
“Tell me what kinds of pain drugs you were on before the accident.”
“Nothin’!” His eyes bulged.
“I’m not the cops. I’m the pain nurse. I need to see what kind of dosage…”
“Fuck you!”
She sighed. “Mr. Baker, tell me about your pain. Tell me how much it hurts, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the…”
“Fuck you!” His head rocked violently around the pillows, his arms waving, tossing IV lines around like so much fishing tackle. The rest of his body lay like concrete.
“Stop!” Cheryl Beth yelled, dropping the chart on the bed and clenching her hands. The man was suddenly silent.
“You want to help us help you? Or you want trouble?” She waved her arm, beckoning him out of the bed. “You think you’re such a bad-ass! Get out of that bed. I’m not afraid of you!”
The man looked at her with wide eyes.
“Come on. Let’s get it on.”
“I… I…”
“Get out of that bed. I’ll fight you.”
“It’s okay, lady,” he said. “Just take it easy.”
***
The doctor was smiling when Cheryl Beth left, but just beyond the smile stood the black detective, Dodds. He intercepted her and they walked together toward the elevators.
“That’s quite a bedside manner, Cheryl.”
“Cheryl Beth,” she corrected. “That was an exception. I prefer to make people laugh.”
“Mmmm. So why do they call you the pain nurse, Cheryl Beth?”
“I’m the pain in the butt nurse, probably.” She tried a smile, feeling so uncomfortable around him. His face was hard. “It’s pain management nurse. That’s my specialty.”
“So you have easy access to drugs for yourself.”
Cheryl Beth laughed at him. “Alcohol is my drug of choice.”
He steered her into an empty section of the large waiting room. He sat heavily and she followed. “I want to go over your timetable Friday night again.”
“We’ve done this twice before.”
“Humor me,” Dodds said, opening a notebook. “We have a killer at large.” Again Cheryl Beth told how she had returned to the hospital for a patient and had then been summoned to Christine’s office.
“And she called you?”
“She left a message at the nurses’ station.”
“Why do that? Why not page you?”
Cheryl Beth shrugged and shook her head.
“Did you keep the message?”
A flustered sigh escaped her mouth. “No.”
She watched him closely but he said nothing. He regarded her with large brown eyes. Finally, “Why would you go into pain management? Do you have a drug problem? Does this make it easier to score?”
“No.” She tried to keep her face calm. She knew he was trying to rattle her. “I have a great record. I’ve never had drugs go missing. You can check it.”
After a long pause, Dodds said, “I have.” He raised his head and studied her anew. “Why do you wear a lab coat?”
“I get cold, and I need all the pockets.”
He fell silent for what seemed like an hour. Maybe it was five minutes. He just watched her, his eyes not quite kindly, not quite hostile. If he talked again it would seem as surprising and sudden as a stopped heart that suddenly began beating on its own.
Finally: “And it gets you more respect?”
“The coat? Maybe. I guess.”
He made a humming sound, looking at her for a long time before returning to the notebook and leafing through it. She sat back in the seat, then squirmed forward again.
“Were you wearing a lab coat on Friday night?”
She nodded.
“Is this it?”
“No.” She explained that lab coat had been smeared with blood and she threw it away in a hazmat container.
“Why would you do that?” His voice was even, but his eyes were large with suspicion. This was a man who did most of his talking through his eyes.
“It was ruined. What should I have done with it?”
“It was evidence. You should have given it to the police.”
“It would have been nice if the police had told me that.” She heard the defensiveness and stress in her voice.
He made notes—an impossibly long paragraph—and sat back studying her. He spoke after a long pause.
“So how long have you been seeing Dr. Nagle?”
“Damn it.” She spoke quietly but vehemently. “Who told…?” She stopped herself, feeling small and off balance. “We saw each other for about a year.”
“While he was married?”
“He was separated.” She sighed. “Part of that time, but, shit, sure, he was married.”
“Did Dr. Lustig know?�
��
She became only gradually aware of the avalanche bearing down on her. “Am I a suspect?”
Dodds pursed his lips. “I can declare you a person of interest. That’s not quite a suspect.”
“Holy crap,” Cheryl Beth said. “You can’t think I could…? I found her!”
“Dr. Nagle told us that you and he had an affair.”
“Why isn’t he a suspect? Because he’s a hotshot neurosurgeon?”
“You might both be suspects,” Dodds said.
“Look, Detective.” Cheryl Beth touched his arm and drew back. “This isn’t what you think…Hell, I know you hear that all the time. You’re used to people lying to you. Me, too. It goes with my job. I broke it off with Gary three months ago. Christine probably knew about it for a long time. But we weren’t enemies.”
Dodds again let the conversation fall into another canyon of silence. He hadn’t mentioned that Cheryl Beth and Christine had been at a bar together that night. That meant Gary hadn’t told him, despite the threat he had made at her house. Why? She realized she didn’t know Gary at all. Indeed, she was now afraid of him.
“How would you characterize your relationship with Dr. Lustig?”
Cheryl Beth was aware of how fast her breaths were coming. “Coworkers. Colleagues.” She nervously added, “In another life maybe we could have been friends.”
“Really?” Dodds’ comeback was sudden. “Funny way to treat a friend.”
Chapter Six
Dodds clapped his large hands on the tops of his thighs and stood, leaving the nurse sitting, staring at his back as he did his heavy stomp away. Then she put her head in her hands, just for a few seconds, before sweeping back her light-brown hair, adjusting her white coat, and at a brisk pace joining the flow of people headed into the main part of the hospital. She had large, attractive eyes and moved with an intuitive grace. Will watched from his wheelchair and turned to follow Dodds.
Two tough-looking, muscular black men stood outside one of the rooms, arguing with a uniformed officer. Leaving, they nearly ran into Dodds. They wore hoodies and very baggy pants, the mainstream gang attire that Will’s own son favored. The shorter of the two chewed on a toothpick. They wore blue do-rags, signs that they were Mount Auburn Boyz, friends of the kid shot the night the doctor was murdered. Now he lay in that hospital room, three doors down from Will, unable to move his arms or legs. Dodds knew they were “representing” with hand signals and slang, but merely gave a look of bored contempt. They gave him the typical dead-eyes expression, before sidling down the hall in an oscillating pimp roll, sweeping past Will. “Monkey five-oh,” one of the bangers said to the other.
“What’s the deal?” Will asked the uniform, a petite young woman who recognized him. “I thought he tried to shoot a cop. Why isn’t he in the jail unit?”
“They haven’t charged him. He was just in the crossfire, and now maybe he’ll tell us who the real bad guys were. I’m just here to make sure some of his buddies don’t try to keep that from happening.”
Will nodded and wheeled to watch Dodds. He knew that Dodds liked to walk a crime scene, sometimes repeatedly, always slowly. Now the big man moved leisurely down the neuro-rehab unit. It might make no sense to an outsider, even to many cops. But Dodds always had his way of things. They had made a good team once, Dodds seeming plodding and distracted, Will garrulous and focused. That was part of Dodds’ camouflage and also how his mind worked. He would have done his slow move with the nurse, with everyone he interviewed for this case. The long pauses between questions, only to pause an even longer time after the subject had answered. What could his silence mean, they wondered? Dodds was a master. So, too, with his “homicide stroll,” as Will called it. Dodds would walk a scene, keeping his opinions to himself until later. It was interesting he was working alone on this case.
Will could still see Dodds walking that day in Mount Adams. Theresa Chambers had been discovered murdered in her house. Borders and Dodds, the primaries. She had been splayed on the floor, totally nude, with vicious slash marks on her arms, legs, face, breasts. It didn’t take the medical examiner to know she had died from a deep cut to the throat, but that had only come after the other wounds had been delivered. Her ring finger had been cut off, probably as she had been dying. Her clothes had been neatly folded and there was no sign of a break-in. Will had watched from the porch as Dodds had ambled down the street, into the little sidewalk between the houses, back to the alley. Theresa Chambers, who had been separated from her husband, Bud Chambers, a Cincinnati cop, who had no alibi for that night. Theresa Chambers, who was the first. But they couldn’t know that then. All Will knew on that first spring morning was that Dodds’ homicide stroll had been especially unhurried.
Now Will watched as he followed the wall with his hand, seemingly absent-minded. Dodds hadn’t seen him. There were enough people, enough wheelchairs and food carts and pieces of obscure medical equipment to give Will some concealment. Dodds opened an exit door and looked inside. He walked more quickly to where the ward connected with the main part of the hospital and did the same thing. This time, he didn’t emerge from the exit and the door closed behind him.
Will realized he was now one floor above the old basement, where Dr. Christine Lustig had been killed.
***
The elevator emptied out on the first floor and Will rolled himself in alone. When the car settled at the basement level and the big doors opened, he was uncomfortably aware of its heavy sound, the light spilling out into the dim corridor. He quickly crossed into a shadow behind a large, unused linen cart. He waited for the doors to close and the elevator to resume its return journey up into the tower. Once again he was in the darkened basement corridor, its silence still profound. His hands felt for the rim of the wheels and he cautiously moved out on the old tile floor.
Dodds was coming toward him, suddenly illuminated in one of the few light fixtures that was working. Will felt his heart rate explode and he quickly backed up behind the cart. He spun around, feeling a sharp eruption in his back, and pushed the chair into a side hallway. The pain consumed him, wrapped around his back and ribs, penetrating up into his chest. A phosphorescent glow came to the edge of his vision. He bit the fleshy part of his hand to keep from crying out, as the pain seared out from his middle back down to his hips. He was in complete darkness. This corridor might end suddenly or it might have held the entire membership of the Mount Auburn Boyz. The only sound was a distant mechanical throb. He felt ahead of him into black, empty air, then crept forward again. The cold, smooth wall gave way and he cautiously backed into yet another space. There was nothing to do but wait. Dodds’ distinctive tread passed in the main hallway. The small beam of his flashlight played in front of Will’s feet. Will hoped he couldn’t find a way to turn on more lights. Another minute passed and he heard Dodds walking in the other direction.
Will slowly emerged into the main corridor and followed Dodds at a distance, making sure to stay short of the overhead light. The big man paused, suddenly hunching his back. He hummed an incomprehensible tune. It was amazing how little he had changed since they had worked together. Then Dodds walked more purposefully. At the door of Lustig’s office, he produced a small knife and slit the evidence seal on the door. The door unlocked loudly and then light fell out onto the hallway tiles. Will rolled quickly through the brief lighted zone and returned to darkness. Just a few feet from the door, he pulled in behind another large cart, concealing himself in its shadow. The oppressive absence of sound settled over the hallway. He imagined Dodds standing in the doorway, then in a far corner, finally behind the desk, imagining what the killer and victim saw. Take your time, Will thought. He struggled to make his body relax enough that the hurting might ease.
Maybe ten minutes went by before Dodds’ footsteps resumed. Will looked around his barricade and saw Dodds’ massive back walking farther down the hall. It was the same direction Will had been wheeled that night, to his MRI. He made a quick, reckless calculus and w
heeled himself into the office. The wide doorway opened in and easily accommodated the wheelchair. But inside, the office was just a confined box. This was a doctor’s office? Who had she pissed off? Hearing Dodds returning, he tried to back himself behind the open door. The wheelchair pivoted awkwardly, too slowly. The noise of rubber wheels against the polished floor barked out too loudly. Then he was against the wall, trying to slow his breathing. He was sure those panicky breaths could be heard as far as downtown. Leaning forward, he saw that Dodds’ notebook sat invitingly on the doctor’s desk.
Will took a baby’s breath when Dodds returned to the threshold, then stepped inside. Will sat up straighter, as if he could somehow reduce the profile of the wheelchair. Only the bulk of the open office door separated the two men. The sound of a chair. Dodds was sitting, probably making some notes. Will felt his bladder starting to grow full. How could Dodds not see him there, barely six feet away? The distinctive high-pitched wheeze of Dodds came from the desk. Will made himself look around. The office was square-shaped, with another door that probably held a closet. A metal desk cubicle faced the far wall. Was Christine Lustig facing away from the door when the attacker entered? Did the murderer even take her by surprise or somehow win her confidence?
Then the chair creaked and Dodds crossed the room, turned out the lights and closed the door. Will was in darkness again, realizing that he didn’t even know if the door might have a dead-bolt that could keep him from getting out again. Will had never been fearful or superstitious on murder scenes, but something about this was different. The darkness seemed almost to have mass and substance and to be narrowing in on him. He felt along the wall, and when it seemed safe, turned on the lights. Yet the sinister presence still weighed against him. He shook his head, adding to his pain, but somehow snapping the spell.
The room wasn’t much. It looked as if it might have been an exam room once, and it still had a wall of white cabinets and shelves, a sink, and a red box on the wall labeled “biohazard,” presumably for disposing of used needles. Otherwise, a desk, chair, and filing cabinet had been added. He looked more closely. The phone cord had been pulled from the wall. It now sat wound up on the top of the doctor’s desk. The Slasher always disabled the phones. A Tiffany lamp sat unmolested on the desk. It would have seemed a natural casualty of a fight to the death, even by a woman who was paralyzed by fear. Indeed, the main evidence of trouble was dried blood on the Persian rug before the desk, the tile floor, the drawers of the desk, the wall.