The Pain Nurse (19 page)
Cheryl Beth took Will into the neuro-rehab unit, signed the paperwork that showed he had been returned to the ward, and went back to her car. The streetlights illuminated the sleet descending in thousands of vertical needles. Inside the car, she looked again at the makeshift Christmas card, then carefully tucked it into her purse. She smiled and shook her head. She would have to think about this man with his wavy hair and undercover idealism, his surface calm and inner fires.
She pulled carefully out from the overhang and waited while a black SUV sped past. She followed it as it reached the spot where the street hit an abrupt downgrade. Fortunately, she was driving slowly, deep in thought, letting several car lengths gather between them. Suddenly the red taillights ahead of her danced to the left, back to the right, and momentarily out of sight, only to be replaced by headlights. It was the same SUV. The hill had frozen and the vehicle lazily looped its way around and down until it crashed into a parked car. The muffled sound of smashing metal and composites reached her ears. She stopped immediately, called 911 and tried to back up. The road under her offered traction. Ahead was a down-bound street of black ice. She reversed the Saturn and drove around the level drive into the employee garage. She would work until the city came to put salt on the hill and clear away whatever other hapless drivers went down the slalom. She parked and double-checked that the glove box, with its lethal cargo, was locked. Five minutes later, she was inside her cramped office, leafing through the latest paperwork.
Cheryl Beth worried about her patients, especially at night, even when another nurse was covering for her. They came as impersonal consult sheets: a thirty-three-year-old male, motorcycle accident, with fractures of one femur, his pelvis, and elbow. He denied he was in pain and refused to ask for medication. When she talked to him she got little, but his body language was a vivid storyteller, the way he didn’t want to move, the set of his face. He had a name: Ron Morton, he was from Dayton, worked in an auto plant, and his dad had taught him never to show pain, never complain. She could only gauge the time between injections by the look on his face.
A forty-six-year-old female with ovarian cancer, metastasized throughout her abdomen and liver. Her name was, with cruel perversity, Hope—Hope Mundy and she wanted to live to see her daughter graduate from high school. The doc had her on a continuous morphine drip, which also left her in a stupor. When it was cut back she moaned all the time, and the other patients complained. Cheryl Beth adjusted the doses daily, sat with her and listened, taught her how to relax through her breathing, put cool compresses on her forehead.
The new consults came every day. Pain made people angry, stoic, sometimes darkly comic. The woman in the busy ER who had screamed, “Who do I have to give a blowjob to, to get an epidural.” Fortunately, Cheryl Beth had learned how to give epidurals years ago, so no oral sex was required. Often they were in the cruelest agony. They were grateful for the smallest things. Some days she thought it would drive her insane, especially when the suffering was caused by the hospital’s inattention. Most days she knew she could help them. Sometimes she caught addicts, trying to scam new pain meds.
She always had the hardest cases: the most painful shootings, stabbings, chest tubes, spinal and lower back problems, abdominal surgeries, and cancers. It seemed as if Will’s job had been that way, too. But his “consults” were dead people. His symptoms were “MOs.” She was still on a high from the day: the latent danger of the jail, the way Will had elicited information from Lennie and Darlene. She would make a good detective, he had said. She doubted that. If she did his job, she would be too haunted by the ghosts of the dead and their very live, hurting families. She would be afraid of getting hurt. But just like her job, to do it well, he must have relied on skill, instinct, and, truth be told, bending the rules when it was necessary to help people.
She tried to think systemically about all she had seen and heard, as if it were a new consult. And she tried to listen to her gut. Will seemed so sure: the killer was this Bud Chambers. He was sure of it as a police detective, and surer of it as the avenger for the woman he had loved. It was still not so clear to Cheryl Beth. Her mind was branded with the memory of finding Christine—why would this man have killed a doctor he didn’t even know? It was branded with the brief note she had dug out of Judd Mason’s trash, written in the neat script. Obviously the police had found more about this strange, silent man—Mason was in jail for the murder. But, even there, she just wasn’t sure, wasn’t sure. What about Gary? He had lost his mind—enough to kill Christine? Yet she knew Gary’s doctorish scrawl and he was incapable of writing as clearly as the script on the threatening note. Then there was Denise’s self-described paranoid thought about the digital medicine project—it could have threatened any of the medical personnel at Memorial with something to hide, whether it was mistakes or stealing drugs.
And what of Will? She was growing too fond of him. But could he have killed Theresa in a rage? Was he capable of that? She had made mistakes judging men before, but it was hard for her to believe. It was impossible to believe he had killed the two other girls, and then somehow come right out of the ICU and murdered Christine.
It had to be Judd. Why else would he have retrieved the note and tried to dispose of it?
She leafed through the roster of the circulating nurses. Judd Mason had most recently spent two months in the pediatric ward. She grabbed her purse, turned off the lights, locked the door, and walked to the other side of the hospital, to the peds ward.
The hospital was emptying out for Christmas. Everyone wanted to be gone, and patients tried hard to get discharged. With visiting hours winding down, the normal crunch of people in the hallways was missing. The PA system, without its seemingly unending summonses of doctors and trauma teams, seemed more omnipresent by its silence. Only the most serious cases were here. Those, and the forgotten and abandoned. She waved and made small talk as she passed the nurses’ stations, but nothing could stop the constricting in her throat and chest as she neared the bright blue-and-yellow doors. She would walk in briskly, say hello, and look over some of Judd’s charts. If anyone asked, she would say one of the docs wanted her to double-check something. She would not look at the abundance of donated toys in the play areas and waiting rooms. She would not look into the rooms, or into the frightened, haunted eyes of the parents. She would avoid the doctors who had, as a matter of course, to tell mothers and fathers that their children were dying.
They had named her Carla Beth, after Andy’s mother, with Cheryl Beth’s middle name. After her, Cheryl Beth couldn’t have another child; it had been a difficult delivery, a wondrous result. She had the wheat-colored hair that Cheryl Beth had as a little girl, before it had darkened, and she had loved unicorns and the color yellow and laughing. And Carla Beth was dead before her fourth birthday. And it was a story she would tell no one. It belonged to her. The grief and guilt and bottomless sorrow, the lock of her hair, her last expression—hers alone. Andy returned to Corbin, remarried, and had three children. Cheryl Beth stayed in Cincinnati. When people asked if she had children, she would simply say no. Every person in this hospital had been stunned by calamity, and why should she be different? She had to make the decision between sitting in a chair, staring at a wall, and waiting to die, or returning to her life helping people. But she could not work peds. She could barely stand to be in the ward.
She leafed through the charts looking for one with Judd Mason’s signature. She found it on the fifteenth chart. The details of the case—she made herself skip over them. But the chart contained several pages written by Mason. The handwriting was not the same as on the note to Christine, not at all. She slammed the chart shut, shelved it, and nearly ran from the ward.
***
The Starbucks in the lobby was already closed by the time she got there. She was hoping to grab a cup of coffee that was better than the swill at some of the nurses’ stations.
“Hi, there.”
She knew she had jumped when she heard the voice, but she instinctively smiled as she turned and faced the young man. He was seated at one of the tables.
“I missed them, too,” he said. “Seemed like a good night for a hot latte.”
“Well, it’s always something.” Cheryl Beth stood there awkwardly. She knew this man. The young software millionaire. He had walked out of Stephanie Ott’s office that day she had received her dressing down. He still looked like a college student on a pub crawl, this time wearing black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black leather jacket. That jacket reminded her of what Christine had worn the last night of her life. Stretched out in the chair, the man was compact, with an unlined face, sleepy blue eyes, and a crop of moussed sandy hair.
“You’re the one they call the pain nurse.”
She introduced herself and he stuck out his hand. “I’m Josh Barnett. Care to join me?”
“For a minute,” she said, curious. She still felt wobbly and was grateful to sit. “Not that anybody’s going anywhere until they get salt on those streets.” She nodded her head toward the front doors.
“I saw you at Stephanie Ott’s office,” she said.
“And I remember you as well.” He looked her in the eye.
“Why would that be?”
“Well, don’t be put off by this, but you’re a very attractive woman.”
She laughed and shook her head. He was nearly twenty years younger than she. But there was the irresistible allure of a compliment.
“Ms. Ott is quite the taskmaster,” he said. “The accreditation process has them all jumpy.” His expression was pleasant, but his eyes were deep like a friendly well; something moved far down, but she didn’t know what.
Cheryl Beth leaned back. “So you’re not from around here?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “Silicon Valley. I’m not used to this kind of weather. If you don’t think I’m out of line, could I ask if you were the nurse who found Dr. Lustig?”
Cheryl Beth sighed. “Now tell me how you would know that?” The edge was obvious in her voice.
“I’ve been working here, on a contract. People talk. I’d heard it was you. I was working with Christine.”
“I see.”
“It’s a terrible loss for us,” he said quietly. “And she was a wonderful person. Just a devastating loss.”
“Makes me wonder why the hospital moved her down to that basement office. Do you wonder about that?”
“Well, the office was private, and I imagine she needed the quiet to get the evaluation of the project software done. We were under a very tight deadline to complete it.”
He waited as a crowd of civilians walked past, bearing flowers and boxes in Christmas wrapping. “Did you know Christine, Cheryl Beth?”
She shifted in her seat, suddenly hot in her coat. “I did,” she said, and slipped off the coat. She pulled out two of the new consults and studied them, ignoring him. For a long time she thought he might just stand and leave.
“I know this sounds weird,” he said, a small smile lighting up his face. “But would you have dinner with me? I’ve been cooped up writing computer code for months and haven’t had dinner with a beautiful woman.” His eyes were different now. She had his full attention. “Maybe you’d show me your city. I’m not some weirdo Californian, I promise.”
Cheryl Beth stopped herself from laughing. She was rusty with a gentle brush-off. He was an attractive young man with a sly and sexy smile. But she was not looking, and in any case she liked tall, big men. Maybe when she was feeling better she would tell Lisa this story and chuckle about it. “I can’t,” she said. “But you’re sweet to say that, Josh.”
“I mean it,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. She could see the logo SoftChartZ. Another reach produced a pen and he wrote something on the back of it.
“At least take my card. I put my hotel number on the back. Just in case you change your mind.”
Cheryl Beth pocketed the card and turned away, eager to find Will so she could tell him about her sleuthing in the peds’ records.
Will had watched with apprehension as they neared the hospital, knowing his day out was ending. The hospital tower was illuminated by spotlights and it looked like a building from an old comic book, a perch for a superhero. It was just a box of the sick and dying, a base camp for perilous journeys and ascending prayers, and for now it was his home. He had watched Cheryl Beth walk away, seeing in those well-fitting civilian clothes her confident long-limbed strides, knowing she thought him a fool for giving her the Christmas card. Or she thought worse of him. And as she walked out the door, he felt the almost supernatural buoyancy that had kept him calm and functioning after the tumor was diagnosed, through the first days of dismal prognoses and dire worries, through the surgery and days of pain, through Cindy’s final jettisoning of him, through the murder investigation—he felt it disappear.
He asked the aide to give him his dinner in the large rehab room. He couldn’t bear to take off his suit and get in the cursed bed yet, even though his legs and back ached and he was battered by exhaustion. So he sat alone in the room, feeling the cold seeping through the windows, and surveying the precise little scoop of mashed potatoes, three tablespoons of corn, and two slices of meatloaf. He had enough money to buy a Diet Coke, which he used to take his pain meds. This was his life now. He had lived twenty-five years on the other side of the crime-scene tape and the emergency lights, a quarter century where his badge gave him a pass anywhere in the city. That was gone. Tomorrow or the next day, he would have to endure a visit from his brother and his family, bearing gifts they probably resented giving. He would have nothing to give in return. And the day after that, and every day he was given, he would assess every little pain or change in his body with the knowledge that it might be nothing, or it might be catastrophe. Theresa’s face and then Cheryl Beth’s hovered in front of him, her kiss still warm on his cheek, as he lapsed into sleep.
The next image that broke into his consciousness was J. J. Dodds. Will shook his head to clear away the medicine haze and was fully awake.
“Detective Dodds.”
“Detective Borders.” Dodds sat in a chair turned backward, his blue, polka dot tie hanging over the chair’s back. “I risked my neck on the ice to bring you good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
Will pushed himself up in the wheelchair and said he needed good news.
“Darlene is in protective custody, her kid, too. She gave Chambers up. We’ve reopened the case and we’ve got a warrant for his arrest. I think we can get him for the three women in Mount Adams.”
All this, Will thought, and Dodds was not angrily berating him for interfering.
“So what’s the bad news?”
“He’s gone. We sent a tactical unit to his apartment and he wasn’t there. We’ve got it staked out.”
“Where does he work?”
“He’s some kind of independent security consultant, so he works out of his place. We’re running down family, friends. So far, no Chambers.”
“Hell.” Will’s mind pulled out of its depression and began plotting how they could find him.
“There’s more,” Dodds said. “Darlene said Chambers has a cabin down by Rabbit Hash. We never found it before because it’s in his father’s name. It’s empty right now, but we’ve got Kentucky State Police sitting on it. If he doesn’t show up there in the next day, we’re going to execute a search warrant. What do you want to bet we find some very interesting things hidden down there?”
“That doesn’t sound like bad news.”
Dodds’ mouth turned up in an imitation of a smile. “That’s because there’s more bad news.”
Will pushed away the food tray and waited.
“Your girlfriend’s been lying. I always had this gut feeling about her.”
“What girlfriend? You mean Cheryl Beth?”
“She was with Dr. Lustig the night she was killed.”
“Oh, bullshit.”
“Real shit,” Dodds said. “Dr. Nagle said he saw the two of them talking and drinking at a bar on Main Street the night the doc was murdered…”
“He’s just trying to save his own skin, since he doesn’t have an alibi anymore.”
“Will you let me finish? Thank you. After you so industriously had this girl Amy Morton come back and say she lied about Nagle’s alibi, well, I brought him in for a chat. He’s very full of himself. Know what he calls himself? The Two Million Dollar Man, for all the surgeries he does. But he tells me he was on Main Street that night and saw the two of them together. Unfortunately for your girlfriend…”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Will said through a sour mouth.
“Unfortunately for your girlfriend, I took their pictures to the bar and the bartender and one of the waitresses positively identified them. She was with Lustig that night.”
Will stared into the table, ran his hand lightly back and forth over its smooth surface, and felt himself breathe. His stomach was now the home to a heavy, spiky rock. How could she have lied to him? “So what are you saying?”
“Motive. She was Nagle’s lover and Lustig’s rival. Opportunity. There could be an hour or more between the time Cheryl left the bar and the time she claimed she found the body. And she’s been lying to us.”
Will rubbed his temples, feeling his head start to ache. Was it a headache because Cheryl Beth had lied to him, or a brain tumor? Finally he shook his head and forced a laugh. “Reach, reach, hell, your arms are long.”
Dodds ran his hand across the top of his head, as if searching to see if any hair had escaped his daily shaving. “There’s some weird shit going on at this place, and she knows what it is. I still like Mason for killing Lustig. I’m keeping his ass in jail. But maybe Cheryl Wilson is in on it, too, and this Nagle asshole.”
“Her name is Cheryl Beth.”
“Mason’s fingerprints are on the threatening letter. He also has a knife collection. Have you seen him? He’s one of these no-affect types—you don’t know if they’re just fucked up or a killer. I say a killer.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he was in love with her, that the letter was clipped on the windshield wiper of his car one day at work, after Lustig was killed. Nice try, but the stamps had been canceled. He had to have taken it from Lustig’s mailbox to cover his tracks.”
“Unless somebody steamed the stamps off a canceled letter and applied them to the letter found with Mason.”
Dodds snorted. “Let me guess. Damn, Bud Chambers. He’s killed everybody in Cincinnati! But it could still have been your girlfriend, Cheryl
Beth
. She could be the killer.”
“I thought you said you liked Mason!” Will’s angry voice echoed in the large, empty room.
“He’s involved. Hell, maybe they were all sleeping together. We’ve seen stranger shit. Stuff like that even happened in the department.”
“And they somehow found out the confidential information on the MO of the Slasher to do it? Give me a break. You know this is the Ring Bearer again.”
Dodds mouth tightened and they locked eyes. Finally, “You can find anything out on the Internet now. Maybe a patrolman told his wife, who told her girlfriend, who told…I don’t have it all worked out yet. Maybe I need to check into the hospital so I can be as good a detective as you.”
Will sat in the acid of betrayal, silent. Dodds just watched, with his preternatural patience. Will’s heart banged against his chest wall as Dodds’ cell phone rang. The conversation was brief.
“Dispatch,” Dodds said. “Hospital security asked if I could meet Berkowitz down in the basement.”
“Lustig’s office?”
“Yep.”
Will stared through the blackness of the windows, now accumulating ice around their edges. “Have fun.”
“Fuck you very much.” Dodds stood up. “But you’re working, too. Quit feeling sorry for yourself because you’re on the job and coming with me. Back to the murder room, Detective Borders.”
Will put his hands to the wheels and rolled toward the doors. “Just like old times, Detective Dodds.”
