Picture Me Dead

by Heather Graham

  “So am I,” she said softly. “Good night, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Stuart was fine. His parents wouldn’t leave him. Not even a cop could slip in and harm him, not with the hospital personnel around and Stuart’s folks keeping vigil. It was still hard to believe a cop could be involved in his situation.

  Why? Cops were people, too.

  She was going to head straight to the hospital the next morning. And while she was there, she would make her decision about what to do with the information David Wharton had given her.

  Her heart quickened. Jake would be back….

  Maybe. Peter Bordon might linger for days.

  Maybe she should go to the hospital right now. She would close her eyes for just a second, then get up and go in.

  Mary Simmons was on breakfast duty. She enjoyed baking bread. While she kneaded the dough, she thought about the world and the peace she longed to find.

  Her life was good here. Quiet. And she prayed as she worked.

  She was startled when Ross, a young member of the Krishnas, came in to find her. “You have a visitor, Mary. He says it’s urgent.”

  “The cop?” she asked.

  Ross shook his head. “No. He’s—”

  He broke off. The visitor had followed him in. She stared at him and gasped.

  “Mary?” Ross said uncertainly.

  “It’s—it’s all right.”

  “Can we speak privately?” the man asked.

  “Yes, of course. Ross…?”

  Ross nodded warily but left them.

  “John!” Mary said incredulously.

  He strode over to her, going down on one knee, taking both her hands. “Mary, dear Mary, I’m so sorry to come here…to disturb you. You’ve found what you wanted, haven’t you?”

  “I think so,” she said, gently moving her fingers through his hair. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I was very close,” he admitted. “And then…letting the world think I was dead seemed like a good idea.”

  “But, John…”

  “Mary, I need your help.”

  “I can’t help you. I can’t help anyone.”

  “You can help me. You’re the only one who can.”

  “John, I have a life here.”

  “Mary, you need peace, and you’ll never have it unless you help me. I’m close…so close to those scumbags who nearly destroyed all our lives. You’ve got to help me.”

  “John…I can’t!”

  “Mary, for the love of God! Don’t you want…revenge? Justice against those who used us—all of us?”

  “John…I don’t want to go to jail. Do you want me to do something…illegal?”

  He looked into her eyes. “Yes. Illegal, but necessary.”

  She sighed, closing her eyes.

  Then she removed the apron she had tied around her waist.

  “I guess you have a car?”

  “Better than a car,” he assured her, his engaging grin coming into place.

  “I found God.”

  Jake jerked his head up. He wondered if he had imagined the words. Peter Bordon hadn’t moved. His eyes remained closed.

  Then he saw the man’s lips move.

  “I found God. I found God.”

  Jake leaned closer. The words were little more than a whisper. His eyes opened, but he was staring straight ahead, as if seeing nothing. “I found God,” he suddenly cried out. “Dear God, have you found me? Forgive me!”

  Jake looked up at Dr. Matthews who shrugged. “The man is dying,” he mouthed, then added in a whisper, “He’s delirious. It probably won’t do you any good, but try asking your questions.”

  “Peter, it’s Jake Dilessio. You needed to talk to me.”

  Bordon’s lips twitched. “Jake.” He tried to turn to look at Jake but couldn’t quite manage the feat. “Pain…pills…can’t think. God…they say God forgives.”

  “Peter, I need you to help me.”

  “Didn’t kill…I didn’t kill…but I…knew.”

  “Peter, who did the killing? Let us stop him. Peter, they say that God forgives. Help us. In the name of God.”

  “Something in me…pills, not pills, couldn’t swallow pills…but the pain…oh, God, it will be good not to feel the pain. God…I found God…has God found me?”

  “Peter, help me,” Jake repeated urgently.

  The man swallowed with great effort. Then he almost managed to turn to Jake, and Jake was amazed to see that tears had pooled in his eyes. “Your partner…Jake. Didn’t know…Nancy…she came…she was with me…no, no, didn’t kill…didn’t kill, but I knew…”

  “Peter, I can see your sorrow, see your remorse. Help me. I need names. I understand. Nancy came out to see you. You didn’t know her, because she hadn’t been at the property before, but someone there knew who she was and what she was doing. Who was it, Peter? Please.”

  Bordon mouthed something.

  “What? Please, Peter, for the love of God.”

  The dying man’s eyes were closed again. Jake longed to grab him and shake him by the shoulders, but he was afraid that any movement would kill the man when he still might speak.

  “Peter, help us,” he said urgently. “A name, Peter. I need a name.”

  Again the man’s mouth moved. “So beautiful.”

  “What was beautiful? Who was beautiful, Peter?”

  “Partner…She was beautiful. I told her I was sorry.”

  “I know you’re sorry, Peter. Help me catch her killer…yours.”

  “Cops!” the dying man shouted suddenly.

  “Peter, give me a name! Other people could die,” Jake said, his voice grating with desperation.

  “Jake…your partner…sorry…sorry…didn’t want…God forgive me…”

  “He’s just ranting,” Dr. Matthews said quietly.

  “He said he’d have me killed…proved it…dead man…dead man…”

  Bordon’s lips kept moving. No sound was coming. Then, “Jake…” Barely a breath.

  Jake’s ear was nearly against the man’s mouth as Bordon’s lips kept moving. Then went still.

  A moment later, Dr. Matthews came over and examined the man. He closed Bordon’s eyes.

  “He’s…”

  “Gone,” Matthews announced. “I’m sorry, Detective Dilessio. You’ll get nothing more from him. He’s beyond human judgment and pain. He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Just after opening, Katie called out to Nick that Sharon was on the phone.

  He excused himself to the customers he’d been serving and picked up the receiver.

  “Nick,” Sharon said softly.

  “Hi, baby, what’s going on?”

  “I…need you to come and meet me.”

  “Sharon, we’ve just opened. It’s Saturday afternoon.”

  “Please.”

  “What’s the matter? Is something wrong? Can you tell me?”

  “Not—not on the phone.”

  She’d been acting so strangely lately. More strangely than ever now, it seemed. He looked around the place. Already jumping, and they’d barely opened the doors. Katie was there, though, and a full staff. Ashley was still sleeping, but if Katie got desperate, she could wake her.

  “Nick, I—I need you. I’m afraid. I’m afraid to even talk to you once I see you in person. But I have to. I have to get this out…now. Today. Whatever comes after.”

  “All right, all right…of course, if you need me, I’ll be right there. I need an address.”

  She gave it to him.

  “What kind of a place am I looking for?”

  “You’ll know when you get here,” she told him.

  “You’re crazy, absolutely crazy,” Mary told John Mast. “The hospital’s too busy. There must be hundreds of visitors.”

  “We need those hundreds of visitors.”

  He adjusted the surgical mask he had just stolen from the supply room. He studied Mary, who was stuffing a strand of her hair under her cap. Good. No one cou
ld see anything but her eyes. Pretty, pale blue eyes. Nondescript, along with the scrubs she was wearing.

  No one would recognize him either, because only his eyes were visible. He had donned contacts. He was pretty good with makeup. Shaggy, graying white brows, easily attached. He’d checked his reflection, and he’d done a good job. He’d be judged as a man of at least fifty by any witnesses.

  “You’re crazy,” she repeated.

  “I’m not crazy. Just desperate,” he said. “Well…it’s almost showtime.”

  Jake was on the road home by two.

  Exhausted, he forced himself to stop for coffee at the hundred-mile mark. What little he had gleaned from Bordon whirled through his mind. His list of “facts” waltzed before his eyes, along with a number of weekend vacationers and huge semis.

  At the turnpike rest stop, he grabbed a sandwich and more coffee, then headed back to his car, eager to reach home. He had a strange feeling that he couldn’t get there fast enough. Like an itch, an intuition that gnawed at him physically.

  As he walked across the lot to his car, there was a dull pain in his heart, as well. Bordon hadn’t given him any names, but he had admitted his own complicity, though he’d denied the physical act of murder himself. Not a surprise. But where Jake had once believed Bordon had been issuing the directives, he now knew that hadn’t been true at all.

  Bordon had been murdered. It might take the prison officials some time, but they would find out just who had started the brawl that had killed him. Jake couldn’t wait for that news, though, so…

  Fact: Peter Bordon had been with Nancy Lassiter. He must have been the man with whom she’d had consensual sex the night she had died. She’d been on to something and willing to bend the rules to get to the truth. She’d been a good cop. His heart ached to think of the moral dilemmas she must have faced as the night progressed.

  And all the while, she’d had no idea she was going to die.

  As he sat down, he noticed the pad on the passenger seat. He set his coffee in the cup holder and picked up the notebook. He flipped the pages. His own notes. The picture of the scene of the accident that had convinced him the cases were related. He frowned, realizing that two pages were stuck together.

  He forced them apart, and his heart skipped a beat.

  Ashley had done another sketch. And it was of John Mast, also known as David Wharton. The man who’d been hanging around the hospital. Sending the cops on wild-goose chases.

  He broke out in a cold sweat, fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone. He tried Ashley’s cell first. Her voice mail picked up. “Whatever you do, Ashley, stay away from David Wharton. Do you understand? Stay away from him. I’m on my way home.” He hesitated. “Whatever you’re feeling about me right now, Ashley, it doesn’t matter. I believe that man was involved with the murders of four women and possibly the attack on your friend.” He hung up, then tried the bar. He prayed that Nick would pick up. He didn’t.

  Katie came on. Nick was gone; she didn’t know where.

  “Ashley?”

  “Ashley slept until noon, can you imagine? Then it was a zoo here, and, let me think…”

  “Is she still there, Katie? It’s urgent that I talk to her.”

  “No, no, that’s what I was just about to tell you. She left for the hospital about an hour ago.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  He tried the hospital, and went through a series of recordings and instructions to push different numbers, none of which got him anywhere. He swore, hung up and pulled the car out onto the highway.

  He called Carnegie and told him he was certain that the man who had been calling himself David Wharton was really John Mast, former cult member, presumed dead, but alive and well. “Ashley has been talking to him pretty recently. I need you to get to the hospital yourself and tell her to be careful. It’s imperative that we find him—now.”

  He’d covered another thirty miles when Carnegie called back. “Jake, I’m at the hospital. Something is going to break soon. The doctors are convinced Stuart Fresia is coming out of the coma. All sorts of brain activity and stuff I don’t understand. Anyway, they’ve taken him for some kind of a scan or something. They think he could be talking by tonight.”

  “What about Ashley Montague?”

  “She was here just a few minutes ago. She went to be with her friend’s parents during the scan.”

  “Did you tell her what I told you?”

  “Yes. She assured me that she’d hang around until you get here.”

  Jake exhaled. “Keep her there. No matter what, keep her there.”

  As he drove, he played everything in his mind, again and again. Every word that Bordon had said. Every fact, every supposition. Then he saw that his message light was blinking, and he frowned. Someone must have called while he was talking to Carnegie. He didn’t recognize the number on his caller ID, so he quickly hit the message key. “Jake.” She sounded very stiff. Well, they hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. “I got your message from Carnegie. Sorry—I’ve managed to lose my cell phone. I’ve had some strange conversations with David Wharton. I know you say he’s John Mast, and I guess it could have been bull, but…he sounded sincere. All right, go ahead, tell me I’m an inexperienced idiot, but he’s convinced that there’s a cop involved somewhere. Or cops. I’m here. At the hospital. I—I have to admit, I don’t know who to trust anymore. If…for any reason you don’t see me, I left you something. In a ‘tight’ spot. I—I’ll see you when you get here.”

  He almost veered off the road.

  He heard Bordon shouting again. “Cops!”

  No. It couldn’t be.

  His stomach churned and tightened. That was just Mast, blowing smoke. And yet…

  He looked at the speedometer. Bordon had been with Nancy. He knew about her killing; he might even have witnessed it. But he hadn’t carried it out. So beautiful…your partner…

  Screw the speed limit. Broward cops liked to ticket Dade cops. Not today. He turned on the siren and floored the gas pedal.

  John Mast knew the hospital layout better than the back of his own hand. He had known how to approach the cop at the door, the Fresias, even Ashley Montague, where she sat in the room with Stuart and his parents, waiting, hopeful. He had Stuart’s chart, and he’d given the right papers to the floor nurses. He had copied Dr. Ontkean’s signature to a T, and he was calm, cheerful and able to carry out his mission with no trouble whatsoever. He was friendly to the on-duty cop who had challenged him at the door, assuring him that he was certainly welcome to come along and guard the patient during any medical procedure, and convinced the Fresias to go to the cafeteria for coffee.

  It was once they started walking down the hall that Ashley began to look suspicious. “This isn’t the way the sign said. I thought they did the CAT scans closer to the emergency room.”

  “Is she right?” the cop following them demanded.

  John glanced at Mary. This was her department. He prayed she wouldn’t falter. He needed to leave the hospital with Stuart, and that meant keeping everyone calm until he could deal with them.

  Now that she was involved, Mary had things under control. “We’re being especially careful with this patient,” she said to Ashley, sounding as certain and assured as could be.

  “Through here,” he said, and looked at the cop as he waved Ashley into the room ahead of them. “If you want to give me a hand, pushing the bed around the corner there…”

  He nodded at Mary. She drew a hypodermic needle from her pocket and stuck the cop in one quick fluid motion.

  He was slumping over before Ashley even noticed. Just then she turned back, frowning. “I’m no doctor, but this isn’t—”

  She broke off when she saw the cop lying on the hospital floor. But by then Mary was at her side, a second needle drawn from her pocket. Almost instantly, Ashley slumped down beside the cop.

  “Good job, Mary. We’re halfway there. We’ve got to get her up on the gurney with him, then pull the shee
t up over their faces.”

  “Why do they have to be covered?” Mary asked.

  “The best way out of here is through the morgue,” he told her.

  Mary lowered her head. “Let’s move, then.”

  At first she was in a fog. Reliving the events before the world had gone black. From the very beginning. Waking late, so late. She couldn’t believe it. She never slept that late. She’d showered quickly, hurried out to have a word with Nick, only to find that her uncle was gone and Katie was swamped. She’d helped Katie until the lunch crowd had thinned out.

  Still no Nick. She was irritated. She couldn’t call him, because he loathed cell phones and refused to carry one. She’d tried Sharon’s number but only got her voice mail.

  Then to the hospital. Seeing Stuart’s parents. Carnegie coming by, to warn her about David Wharton. She’d tried to get Jake, but had only been able to leave him a message. There had been a policeman on duty—whom she had then looked at suspiciously. Still, Stuart’s parents…happy, hopeful. Vigilant. They’d all been allowed in the room at once, and they had chatted quietly.

  And then…

  The technicians who had come to do the scan. Charming, answering questions, though their voices were muffled behind their masks, reading the chart and happy to have the cop accompany them.

  And that, she realized, was what had done her in. She should have recognized David Wharton—especially after Carnegie’s warning. She had done so, but too late. She’d been an idiot. She should have recognized his eyes, even with the contacts and the fake eyebrows.

  She was awake, she realized suddenly. Conscious. She didn’t dare open her eyes at first. She lifted her lids incredibly slowly.

  “Ashley?”

  She heard her name, as if from a distance. And the voice….

  There was a face hovering over hers. She opened her eyes fully. Neither her mouth nor her brain wanted to work at first.

  “Stuart?” she said incredulously.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  He wasn’t more than five miles from the hospital when Carnegie called him. He listened in astonishment as he heard that Stuart Fresia had been kidnapped. He barked out questions like a drill sergeant then and knew he owed Carnegie an apology. But that would have to come later. Right then he listened to everything Carnegie knew. Everything had appeared to be in order. The technicians had come with a chart and a signed authorization, they had cleared everything through the nurses’ station. They had even invited the cop to accompany them.