Harmful Intent (29 page)

 

Devlin pulled up to the house and parked. Leaning over, he glanced at the façade. It was a nondescript brick house like so many others in the Boston area. He looked back at his list. The house was listed as the Brighton residence of one Jack Everson.

Devlin had already been to seven Everson addresses. So far he'd had no luck whatsoever, and he was beginning to wonder if the ploy would pay off. Even if he did find this Christopher Everson, who was to say for sure the man could lead him to Rhodes? It could all be a wild-goose chase.

Devlin was also finding the Eversons a decidedly uncooperative clan. You'd think he'd been asking these people about their sex lives and not merely if they knew a Christopher Everson. Devlin wondered what made the average person in the Boston area so damn paranoid.

At one house he had to literally grab the grubby, beer-bellied man and give him a good shake. That had brought the wife out, who was uglier than the man, which Devlin had thought was an accomplishment. Like some kind of cartoon character, she'd brought her rolling pin with her and threatened to hit Devlin with it unless he let go of her husband. Devlin had had to grab the rolling pin and throw it into the next yard, where there was a big, nasty German shepherd.

After that they had settled down and sullenly told Devlin they'd never heard of a Christopher Everson. Devlin had wondered why they couldn't have said that in the first place.

Devlin got out of his car and stretched. No sense putting off the inevitable, he thought, much as he might like to. He climbed the steps and rang the bell, scouting out the neighborhood while he waited. The houses were nothing splashy, but the yards were well-kept.

He again faced the door, which was covered by an aluminum storm door with two large glass panels. He hoped he wasn't experiencing his second empty house. It would mean he'd have to drive back here if he didn't get a tip on Christopher Everson someplace else. Devlin had already found one house empty. It had been in Watertown.

He rang the bell again. He was about to leave when he caught sight of the occupant looking at him through the sidelight window to the right of the door. The man was another beauty with a beer-belly profile. He was wearing a tank-top undershirt that could not cover the full expanse of his abdomen. Tufts of Brillo-like hair stuck out from under each arm. A five-day stubble covered his face.

Devlin called out that he wanted to ask him a question. The man cracked the inner door open about an inch.

“Evening,” Devlin said through the storm door. “Sorry to bother you—”

“Beat it, bud,” the man said.

“Now, that's not very neighborly,” Devlin said. “I just want to ask—”

“What's the matter with you—you can't hear?” the man asked. “I said beat it or there'll be trouble.”

“Trouble?” Devlin questioned.

The man made a move to close the door. Devlin lost his patience. A quick, karate-style chop shattered the upper glass panel of the storm door. A swift kick with his boot took out the lower pane and kicked the inner door open.

In a blink of an eye, Devlin was through the aluminum door and had the man by the neck. The man's eyes started to bulge.

“I've got a question,” Devlin repeated. “Here it is. I'm looking for Christopher Everson. You know him?” He released his hold on the man's throat. The man coughed and sputtered.

“Don't keep me waiting,” Devlin warned.

“My name is Jack,” the man said hoarsely. “Jack Everson.”

“That I knew,” Devlin said, regaining his composure. “What about Christopher Everson? Do you know him? Ever hear of him? He might be a doctor.”

“Never heard of him,” the man said.

Disgusted with his luck, Devlin went back out to his car. He crossed off Jack Everson and looked at the next name on his list. It was K. C. Everson in Brookline. He reached forward and started the car. From his phone call earlier he knew that the K stood for Kelly. He wondered what the C stood for.

He made a U-turn to get back to Washington Street. That ran into Chestnut Hill Avenue and then on into Brookline. He thought he could be at this K. C. Everson's in five minutes, ten tops, if there was traffic in Cleveland Circle.

 

“Ms. Arnsdorf will see you now,” the secretary said. The secretary was male, about two or three years younger than Trent, or so Trent guessed. He wasn't bad-looking, either. He looked as if he pumped iron. Trent wondered how come the director of nursing had a male secretary. He thought it must have been a deliberate statement, some kind of a power trip on the part of the woman. Trent did not like Polly Arnsdorf.

Trent got up from the chair he'd been sitting in and stretched lazily. He wasn't going to rush into the woman's office after she'd kept him waiting for half an hour. He tossed the week-old
Time
magazine onto the side table. He glanced at the secretary and caught him staring.

“Something wrong?” Trent asked.

“If you want to talk to Ms. Arnsdorf I'd suggest you go right into her office,” the secretary said. “She has a busy schedule.”

Screw you, Trent thought. He wondered why everyone connected with administration thought their time was worth more than anybody else's. He would have liked to have said something cutting to the secretary, but he held his tongue. Instead he reached down, touched his toes, and stretched out his hamstrings. “Get kinda stiff sitting around,” he said. He straightened up and cracked his fingers. Finally he walked into Ms. Arnsdorf's office.

Trent had to smile when he saw her. All nursing supervisors looked the same—like battleaxes. They never could decide what they wanted to be: nurses or administrators. He hated them all. Since he was only staying at each hospital for eight months or so, he'd gotten to see more of them than he cared to in the last few years. But today's meeting was of an order he always enjoyed. He loved to cause the directors trouble. With the severe nursing shortage, he knew how to do it.

“Mr. Harding,” Ms. Arnsdorf said. “What can I do for you? Sorry to keep you waiting, but with the problem we had in the OR today, I'm sure you can understand.”

Trent smiled to himself. He could understand about the problem they had in OR. If only she knew how much he could understand.

“I'd like to give notice that I'm leaving St. Joseph's Hospital,” Trent said. “Effective immediately.”

Ms. Arnsdorf sat ramrod straight in her chair. Trent knew he'd gotten her attention. He loved it.

“I'm sorry to hear this,” Ms. Arnsdorf said. “Is there some problem that we could discuss?”

“I don't feel I'm being used to my full potential,” Trent said. “As you know, I was trained in the Navy and given significantly more autonomy there.”

“Perhaps we could move you to a different department,” Ms. Arnsdorf suggested.

“I'm afraid that's not the answer,” Trent said. “You see, I like the OR. What I've begun to think is that I would be better off in a more academic environment, like Boston City Hospital. I've decided to apply there.”

“Are you sure you won't reconsider?” Ms. Arnsdorf said.

“I'm afraid not. There's another problem, too. I've never gotten along well with the OR supervisor, Mrs. Raleigh. Just between you and me, she doesn't know how to run a tight ship, if you know what I mean.”

“I'm not sure I do,” Ms. Arnsdorf said.

Trent then gave her a prepared list of what he saw as problems in the organization and function of the OR. He'd always despised Mrs. Raleigh and hoped this chat with the director of nursing would give her some serious grief.

Trent came out of Ms. Arnsdorf's office feeling great. He thought about stopping and having a chat with her secretary to find out where the guy worked out, but there was someone else in the waiting room hoping to see the director. Trent recognized her. She was the day supervisor in the ICU.

Less than half an hour after his meeting with Ms. Arnsdorf, Trent walked out of the hospital with all his toiletries from his locker stuffed in a pillow case. He had rarely felt so good. Everything had worked out better than he could have hoped. As he walked toward the Orange Line of the MBTA, he wondered if he should go directly to Boston City to apply for a job. Glancing at his watch, he realized it was too late in the day. Tomorrow would be fine. Then he started to wonder where he would go after Boston City. He thought about San Francisco. He'd heard San Francisco was a place a guy could have fun.

 

When the doorbell rang the first time, Jeffrey's mind was able to neatly incorporate it into the dream he was having. He was
back in college and facing a final exam in a course that he'd forgotten he'd taken and had never gone to the class. It was a terrifying dream for Jeffrey, and perspiration had formed along his hairline. He'd always been conscientious about his studying, ever fearful of failure. In his dream the doorbell had become the schoolbell.

Jeffrey had fallen fast asleep with the heavy toxicology book balanced on his chest. When the doorbell rang a second time, his eyes blinked open and the book fell to the floor with a crash. Momentarily confused as to where he was, he sat bolt upright and looked around. Only then did he get his bearings.

At first he expected Kelly to get the door. But then he remembered that she'd left to go to St. Joe's. He got to his feet, but too quickly. A little sleep on top of his general exhaustion made him suddenly dizzy, and he had to put a hand on the arm of the couch to steady himself. It took him a full minute to orient himself before he could pad his way on stocking feet through the kitchen and dining room to the front hall.

Grasping the doorknob, Jeffrey was about to open the door when he noticed the peephole. Leaning forward, he took a glance. Still groggy, he wasn't thinking quite straight yet. When he found himself staring straight at Devlin's bulbous nose and red, watery eyes, his heart leaped to his throat.

Jeffrey swallowed hard and warily took a second look. It was Devlin all right. Nobody else could be that ugly.

The door chimes rang again. Jeffrey ducked from the peephole and took a step back. Fear gripped him tightly around the throat. Where could he go? What could he do? How did Devlin ever manage to track him down? He was terrified of being caught or shot, especially now that he and Kelly had made progress. If they failed to discover the truth now, who was to say when the fiend responsible for so much death and anguish would be caught, much less stopped?

To Jeffrey's horror, the doorknob began to turn. He was fairly confident the dead bolt was thrown, but from experience he knew that if Devlin aimed to get somewhere, you could bet he'd get there. Jeffrey watched as the knob began to turn the other way. He took another step back and brushed against the tea service on the foyer table.

Both the silver creamer and silver sugar bowl fell to the floor with a tremendous clatter. Jeffrey's heart leaped in his chest. The doorbell rang several times in a row. Jeffrey feared it was all over. He was through. Devlin had to have heard the crash.

Then he saw Devlin press his face against one of the narrow sidelights that lined the front door. It was covered on the inside by a lace curtain, so Jeffrey had no idea what Devlin could see. Quickly Jeffrey sidestepped through the archway into the dining room.

As if anticipating Jeffrey's movement, Devlin next appeared at the dining room window. Just as Devlin cupped his hands and leaned against the glass, Jeffrey dropped to his hands and knees and crawled behind the dining room table. Then, scurrying like a crab, he retreated into the kitchen.

Jeffrey's heart was racing. Once he'd made it to the kitchen, he got to his feet. He knew he needed to hide. The partially open door to the pantry beckoned. He rushed over and slipped into the aromatic darkness. As he did so, he clumsily bumped a mop that was leaning against the wall just inside the door. It fell out onto the kitchen floor.

Loud banging on the front door seemed to rattle the entire house. Jeffrey was half surprised Devlin didn't just shoot his way in. Jeffrey pulled the pantry door shut behind him. He worried about the mop, and debated if it was worth the risk to open the door to pull it back inside, but decided against it. What if Devlin was circling the house and caught a glimpse of him through one of the windows off the back?

Something brushed against Jeffrey's leg. He jumped and hit his head on a shelf of canned goods. Some of the cans fell to the floor. An awful feline screech resulted. It was Delilah, the pregnant tabby. What else could go wrong? Jeffrey wondered.

After the loud pounding on the front door had ceased, silence descended on the house. Jeffrey sweated and strained to hear anything that might give him a clue as to what Devlin was doing.

Suddenly there were heavy footfalls on the deck that extended off the back of the house. Then another door was rattled with a vehemence that promised to rend it off its hinges. Jeffrey guessed Devlin was at the door from the deck to the family room. He was sure that any minute he'd hear glass breaking to signal Devlin had come inside.

Instead, silence returned after the last clatter on the deck. Two minutes went by, then three. Jeffrey was not sure how much time passed after that. It could have been ten minutes by the time he relaxed his death grip on the inside panel of the pantry door. It seemed like an eternity.

Delilah seemed eager for attention. She kept brushing up against his leg. Jeffrey hoped to keep her quiet. He leaned over
to give her a few strokes. Once he started to pet her, she gratefully arched her back and stretched. After a while, Jeffrey lost all sense of time. He could only hear his pulse in his ears. He could see nothing in the inky blackness. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck. The temperature in the small pantry was steadily rising.

Suddenly there was another noise. Jeffrey strained to listen. He was afraid it was the sound of the front door being opened! Then he heard a noise that he definitely recognized: the front door banged shut with a force that shook the house.