The Pain Nurse (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

Cheryl Beth checked in on several patients, and each time she looked out the windows to survey the streets outside. From the promontory of the tower, nothing seemed to be moving on Pill Hill. She could even see a clot of red taillights at the foot of the street where the SUV had slid. Several blocks through the trees came the yellow pulse of lights, salt trucks, but so far she was stuck at the hospital. There were other ways down, but they all involved hills and she would not risk it. Cincinnatians became hysterical in even modest snowstorms. An ice storm on a city of hills was, as her grandmother would have said, a gracious plenty of a mess. If worse came to worst, she could use one of the cots the on-duty trauma teams slept on.

She noshed on the remains of a Christmas party on Five-West. Most of the nurses and docs were already gone. She was still in civilian clothes with her ID card hung around her neck by her red lanyard. She smiled attentively as a young nurse talked about her little girl’s part in the Christmas play. From somewhere down the hall, she barely but distinctly heard a small choir singing carols.
Hark, the herald angels sing…
The sound filled her with longing. She wanted to find these singers and listen.

“Hey.”

She turned to see Lisa surveying the remains of the food. “I am such a carb and sugar slut,” she said, picking up a piece of cold pizza. “Thank God they didn’t order in Aglamesis’ ice cream.” Her lean, tall body seemed to show no ill effects from her addictions.

“What are you doing here so late?”

“I’m trapped like everybody else.” She munched contentedly, but her eyes looked tired. “I gave notice today.”

“What?”

“I’m going to University. For years I thought I could make a stand here and make this place better. I’m just ready for a change.”

Cheryl Beth hugged her. “Who’s going to maintain the FDN list and keep me up to speed on all the gossip?” She felt like crying, even though Lisa was only going a few blocks away.

“You should come with me,” Lisa said. “They’d love to have you.”

“I know. Maybe not so much now that I’m the slutty nurse who was involved in a murder.”

“Oh, please. It just makes you more interesting. Anyway, you’re the most straitlaced person I’ve ever worked with. Not that the degenerates at this hospital are a good yardstick.” She stopped laughing and cocked her head. “You’re wheezing, babe. Asthma acting up?”

“I guess.” It was true. The cold and the stagnant Cincinnati air were hell on her lungs. She reached for her inhaler and the business card that the young man from SoftChartZ had given her fell out, fluttering down to the floor. It landed face down.

“Shit!”

“What?”

Cheryl Beth picked the card off the floor and read the handwritten message on the back: “Westin, room 560. I’m on West Coast time so am staying up late. I’d love to have company.” She turned the card to the front, which introduced Josh Barnett, Chief Executive Officer, beneath a SoftChartZ logo.

Lisa had been hovering, watching. “Way to go, Cheryl Beth! You will have such fun, and you’ll have that wonderful funny walk in the morning that happens after…”

“Stop!” Cheryl Beth nearly shouted. “You don’t understand. Now I remember. This is the guy you said was sleeping with Christine.”

“Young and strong.” Lisa’s smile was so broad it nearly broke her face in half.

Cheryl Beth held the card in a shaking hand, the paper nearly searing her skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lisa said. “It’s no questions asked, rules of the road…”

“His handwriting.” Cheryl Beth was almost talking to herself. “It’s the same handwriting as on the note in Mason’s car. I swear it’s the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cheryl Beth tried to explain as Lisa cocked a hip and rested her hand on it, looking at her as if she were a crazy woman.

“This was never some random murder,” Cheryl Beth said. “Christine somehow…” She tried to work through it, feeling light-headed. It seemed impossible that the baby-faced tech executive could be a killer. But so many millions of dollars were at stake, and the hospital was already in trouble. “This is why Stephanie Ott was so strange, why the hospital tried to keep this quiet. Why they moved her office down to the basement. Now I understand why Christine was so crazy that night…” To herself, she thought,
now I know why she held me so tight and kept asking, “Can I trust you, Cheryl Beth? Can I trust you…?”

Lisa put an arm around her. “You need to go home, babe, or take a cab to his hotel once the roads clear.”

“Ladies.” Dr. Carpenter sidled into the room, his voice booming. “My two favorite healers.”

They moved apart and greeted him. Cheryl Beth stared into the face she had known for so many years and wondered,
who can I trust now?

“Is my timing bad?” he asked. “Sorry if I interrupted.”

“Just women stuff,” Lisa said.

Cheryl Beth stuffed the card back in her pocket just as her pager buzzed: the main switchboard.

“You have a call from Detective Dodds, to meet him down in Dr. Lustig’s office, uh, former office.”

“Now?”

“The call just came in.”

Cheryl Beth put the phone back in the cradle. She was excited, but she was also afraid. Why did Dodds suddenly want her? And why there? Maybe she would ignore the page, try to make it home through the ice. Then she would, what? Think it through… Maybe… She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t right. Just then, she saw one of her favorite guards pass on an intersecting hallway.

“Don!”

She ran and caught up with him. “Could I ask a favor? Would you walk me down to the basement?”

“Now?”

She said now, and they headed to the main elevator bank, talking about the ice storm. He said the radio was reporting wrecks and impassable streets all over the city. “We’re pretty much cut off for awhile,” he said. “I guess the ambulances have chains. But I haven’t seen one of those for an hour, either…” She was barely listening. The downward movement of the elevator was making her ill. As it left the fifth floor, as the car deviated from its normal run to the lobby, the lighting seemed to change and darken, the buttons looked filthy and worn, the walls pocked with stains and creases, gravity making her feel heavy, as if her body would crumple in on itself.

The elevator car settled and a deep mechanical thud came from somewhere far above them. Don just shook his head and they stepped into the hallway. The single bank of fluorescent lights was starting to go out. Its insistent flickering made them look like characters in a silent movie. It made the beds and big supply carts parked against the walls cast trembling, diabolical shadows. Her body was wound tight and her lungs felt small and fragile. She finally used the inhaler.

“You sure somebody called you down here?” he asked.

Then they saw the light streaming out of the office. “I guess so.” Twenty more steps and she looked inside to see Dodds and Will. At the sight of Will, she smiled spontaneously.

“It’s okay, Don.”

“You’re sure?”

She said yes and thanked him. Then she watched as her Danskos again crossed the threshold into what had been Christine’s office. Dodds was sitting in Christine’s chair, all but concealing it with his bulk. Will had wheeled himself to the far wall by the desk and they both looked surprised.

“What are you doing here?” Dodds said. “And where’s that guard going?”

“What?” She appraised the expressions of both men. “You called me. I got a page from the switchboard to meet you here.”

“It didn’t come from me,” Dodds said. “We were told to meet the hospital security chief down here. Where the hell is Stan ‘Don’t Call Me David’ Berkowitz?”

Cheryl Beth stepped into the room, feeling an awkward chemistry from the two. Will barely acknowledged her.

“Well, since you’re here, maybe you’ll tell your boyfriend here why you lied to him?”

“I didn’t…” She got the words out, but her insides were tied up with dread.

“We’ve got time until Berkowitz gets here, so tell him, tell us,” Dodds slowed his voice into a falsely friendly tone, “why you were at a bar with Christine Lustig the night she was found murdered.”

“I…oh, shit. I know what you’re thinking. Will, it’s not…” Her eyes stung with tears. She tried to speak, but was wheezing again. She looked at Will, searching for a connection, but his eyes were opaque.

She pulled out the card and handed it to Will. “Look at this.”

“Just tell me the truth, Cheryl Beth.” Will spoke for the first time, and his voice was taut with emotion. His face looked troubled and distracted.

She said, “Look at the back of the card, the handwriting. It’s the same handwriting as on the threatening note to Christine. But it wasn’t written by Judd Mason. It was written by the head of SoftChartZ. He made the threat! What if Christine found out something about the project? Something that could get her killed?” Dodds looked through her, bored. She got angry. “You called me down here, so at least listen to what I’m telling you!”

“I did not call you down here,” Dodds said. “But since you’re here… You were with Lustig in a bar on Main Street the night she was murdered.” He went on to give her the very same warning she had heard in a hundred police shows: silent…used against you…lawyer…do you understand?… She wasn’t really listening. Will looked pale.

“This isn’t right,” Will said suddenly. “We need to get out of this basement right now…”

Will’s premonition was instantly telegraphed to Cheryl Beth and she instinctively reached for him, to wheel him out of the room. In that same second the walls shook with the sharp noise of the door slamming shut. They were closed in.

They were not alone.

Chapter Thirty-two

Bud Chambers leveled the SIG Sauer 228 at them. His hands were encased in latex gloves. The weapon was graphite colored, accurate, and reliable. It could be chambered to nine millimeter or .40 caliber, but what did that matter right then? As Will remembered, it was a favored semiautomatic of the feds and could hold fourteen rounds. Chambers wore green scrubs, a white lab coat, even a hospital ID card clipped to his left pocket. His shoes were covered with the kind of footlets they wore in surgery. The better to avoid tracking blood, perhaps. He had been hiding in the same dead space behind the inward-opening door where Will had stayed that day when he had snuck behind Dodds into the office.

Somehow, deep in the premonitory brain cells that told him something was stalking him long before the tumor came, somehow he always knew it would end this way.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Chambers flexed the semiautomatic at Dodds, holding it in both hands. “Don’t even think about it, fat man. You!” He cocked his head at Cheryl Beth. “Reach in his coat and get his gun, and do it slowly.”

The room was crushed with still silence.

“No,” she said.

“You’d be amazed how soundproof this room is,” Chambers said, pulling his thick eyebrows into a dark overhang above his eyes. “Nobody’s going to hear you. The hospital’s shut down by the ice. Don’t try to be a hero, honey.”

Cheryl Beth spoke in a quavering voice. “Fuck off.”

Chambers took two quick steps and his left hand flashed toward her face, instantly sprawling her over the desk. She let out a cry and Will tried to raise himself out of the chair.

“Sit down, cripple.” He spoke without taking his glance or gun off Dodds. “I’ll take that.” He grabbed Josh Barnett’s card out of Will’s hand, glanced at it, and slid it into his pants pocket. “What a fucking little moron.” His gun arm stiffened and he snarled at Cheryl Beth. “Now get that goddamned gun!”

“Just do what he says,” Dodds said quietly.

She pushed herself up and reached into Dodds holster, pulling out his Smith & Wesson nine. Her left cheek was bright red. “Slow,” Chambers commanded. “Now hold it by the barrel and hand it to me. Thank you.” He stepped back, placing Dodds’ weapon on the bookshelf against the far wall.

“Now get the backup piece on his ankle.”

Will groaned inside. The bastard was too thorough. Cheryl Beth knelt and retrieved the five-round .38 Chief’s Special from the ankle holster on Dodds’ right leg. Chambers repeated his move, placing it on the shelf beside the larger semiauto.

“Stand up. Up!”

Dodds slowly stood. Chambers ordered Cheryl Beth to take the handcuffs from Dodds’ belt and shackle his hands behind him. She did it slowly, glancing at Will. He wished he knew what to telegraph to her. He wished he knew how. The handcuffs clicked into place.

“Back up to me, Dodds.” The big man slowly complied and Chambers used his left hand to ratchet the cuffs tight. Will watched as Dodds’ temples and mouth reacted. “There,” Chambers said, a smile creasing his puffy face. “That’s the way I like ’em with dangerous Negroes, nice and snug. Now go sit again.” Dodds eased into the chair. “Lean back, get your feet off the floor. If your feet touch the floor, I’ll kill you.”

Chambers turned the gun on Will now. He had never been on the receiving end of a gun barrel without having a weapon in his hand. His insides felt as if they were liquefying.

“Now just because I don’t trust the cripple, and he’s so dressed up and all, I want you to open his coat and pull up his pants legs to make sure he’s not packing.” Cheryl Beth complied. Will wished his service weapon hadn’t been locked away. He would have pulled it long before now.

“You’re always in the way, Borders,” Chambers said, gesticulating with his free hand. With the gloves, he looked like a malevolent clown or a cartoon character. “This was going to be a simple plan tonight. Just tie up a few loose ends with Detective Dodds and the pain nurse here, and I’d be gone. Two birds, one stone. Once again, you’ve mucked it up.”

Will’s brain was a riot: every rampaging channel of training, thought, and instinct asking how to get out of this. How to play for time.

“Where were we?” Chambers said. “Oh, yes. You were about to tell these fine ossifers why you lied about being in the bar with Christine.”

Cheryl Beth stared at him, almost in a daze.

“Sit down,” he ordered, and she slid against the wall between Will’s wheelchair and Dodds. He aimed at Dodds. “Keep your feet up!” To Cheryl Beth, “Why were you there?”

“I ran into her!” Cheryl Beth set her jaw and Will could see moisture forming in her eyes. “I didn’t plan it. I got off work and wanted a drink. I went inside and she came up to me. She wanted to talk. So we got a table.”

“What did she want to talk about?” Chambers said, his voice impatient.

“Gary.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Gary and I…”

“I know all about you, Cheryl.” Chambers slid the pistol into his lab coat, its outline falling heavily into the pocket. “I’ve watched you. I’ve been in your house. I’ve been in your fucking underwear drawer. You ought to buy more black. I know you stopped seeing Gary months ago, so she didn’t want you for that. She had plenty of her own distractions. She didn’t give a damn about his.”

“She wanted to know what it was like between us,” Cheryl Beth said. “She wanted graphic details. I thought she was very drunk and very distraught, and I just tried to calm her down.”

“Bullshit!” As he shouted, she jumped.

In a quiet voice, he said, “This is just business. Tell me what I want to know and everybody gets out alive.”

“There’s nothing to tell!” Tears were tracking down her cheeks now and her voice broke. “Christine seemed very upset, but not at me. She was all over the place. I’d never seen her like that.”

“What did she say about the hospital?”

“Nothing.”

He ripped her up from the floor, delivering a brutal open-handed blow to her face. Then he shoved her down to the floor. She rose on her haunches and charged him.

“You son of a bitch!” Her fist connected with his nose before he got hold of her. He pushed her hard into the wall and she slid to the floor.

“A little fighter.” Chambers used the sleeve of his lab coat to wipe the trickle of blood from his nose. “Get your hands off her, Sir Galahad.” Will had reached out to touch Cheryl Beth. He slowly pulled his hand back into the confines of the wheelchair.

Chambers loomed over her. “She talked to you! She gave you something!”

“No.”

“She did. She gave you something before she came back to the hospital.”

“She didn’t! And don’t you think you’ve made me cry, you bastard. I cry when I’m mad!”

“What did she give you?”

“Nothing.”

“Where is it?”

“What?” she yelled in frustration.

“Have it your way.” Chambers pulled out the gun and approached Will. He felt the steel against his temple. It was smooth and surprisingly warm.

“Don’t hurt him!” she said. “You want to know what she did that night? You really want to know? She said she was afraid she might lose her job and she didn’t know who to talk to. But then she slid next to me and held me, crying. But then she kissed me. She had her hands all over me and kissed me, told me she wanted me to come home with her, she didn’t want to be alone. I freaked out and left.
That’s
what happened. When she left word for me later, I was afraid she was going to start all over again.”

Chambers seemed momentarily confused. “Well, I’ll take you with me and we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other and talk. I’ll find out where you put it.”

Dodds said, “It’s all over, Chambers. We know everything. We have a warrant on you. We know about the cabin at Rabbit Hash. Make it easy on yourself.”

Chambers gave a low chuckle, the dimple in his chin deepening. “Spoken like a true professional. But you don’t know much of anything.” He laughed louder this time, watching the gun as if it would share his mirth. “You know what? They told me I wasn’t smart enough to be a detective. That’s what the bastards said. But here I have the two supposedly best detectives in the Cincinnati Police, and you’ve been five steps behind me all the way…”

“So you killed Christine,” Will said, “just like you killed the others.”

“Now you’re only four steps behind.”

“But Christine was a hit,” Will said.

Chambers stared at him, unsure of whether to put away the gun again. He kept it in his hand but let his arm fall. Will continued, “It’s ‘just business,’ you said. You were paid to kill Dr. Lustig. You framed Judd Mason. But since you’ve always been a narcissistic fuckup, Marion, you couldn’t do a simple job. You had to imitate what happened on Mount Adams. You think you’re an artist. You had to give this one your signature strokes, right, Marion?”

Chambers’ right cheek twitched at the mention of his given name.

“You wanted to get back at us, get back at me,” Will said. “You killed two women to cover up the murder of your ex-wife. You took their ring fingers as trophies. You killed Christine for money, but you didn’t close the loop.” He fought to control his fear, make his voice speak in a slow disdain. The deep anger he felt made it possible. “Marion, Marion… Something’s still out there and your masters want you to get it.”

Chambers leaned casually against the wall near the door. “I have the right to remain silent.”

“It’s about SoftChartZ,” Cheryl Beth said. “That’s it. Josh Barnett gave me his business card tonight. He wrote a little note on the back. It’s the same handwriting that was on the threatening note I saw with Judd Mason.”

“You’re pretty good, honey,” Chambers said. “The software is hopeless. They can’t make it work, and when that comes out the company is done.”

Will said, “SoftChartZ needed the continued cash flow coming in from the hospital while they were frantically trying to debug the software. They needed this to look like a success, so they could win contracts from other hospitals, keep it going.”

Chambers clapped very slowly. “Very good, Detective Borders. Why else would their stock be a hundred dollars a share? All these morons buying into the future of digital medicine. My ass. The lady doctor realized it was a sham and she was going to go public. They had a problem and wanted somebody to solve it. Good old Berkowitz told Barnett to talk to me. Berkowitz just thought they needed help with a security breach.”

“Kind of funny,” Will said. “The software company hired a hit man with a bug inside his fucked-up hard drive.”

The low chuckle rumbled out of Chambers’ chest again. “They offered to pay me in stock. I took cash, and it’ll be offshore waiting for me. Unfortunately, they’re pretty sure the doc made a copy of some incriminating documents and gave them to someone for safekeeping. Obviously I’ve got to get them back to get paid. What are you doing, Borders?”

“It’s hot.” Will undid his necktie and tossed it to the floor. He didn’t want Chambers to use it later to choke him. Chambers wasn’t paying attention. He returned to the shelf, put down the SIG and retrieved Dodds’ nine millimeter Smith & Wesson.

“Do be comfortable,” he said. His tongue flicked out of his mouth. “I lied. I wanted the two of you down here tonight so I could kill old Dodds here. You know how many cops eat their service weapons. The despair of the job and all that. And I was going to take a little road trip with Cheryl here and get the information I need. Hell, if I was in the mood, I was going to stop by your room,” he looked at Will, “and smother you with a pillow. Sleep apnea’s a real problem. Then I’d be free and clear. It was all going to be nice and neat, no loose ends. Mason would still be in jail for killing the lady doctor. But you had to show up again, Borders.”

Will fought back the panic smashing against his chest. “I just have an asshole detector and have to follow it, Marion.” Chambers glared at him with hate, his eyelid nervously fluttered, and suddenly Will felt a strange calm inside himself.

“After I take care of Dodds and handcuff Cheryl, you and I are going to settle up,” Chambers said. “This will be pleasure, not business.”

He strode to Dodds, chambered a round in the pistol and, using the gloved clown hand, brought it up to his temple. At that instant, Will used every molecule of his adrenaline to launch himself out of the chair. With a sharp exhale, he shot straight out toward Chambers, who desperately tried to re-aim the gun at Will. But they were now too close. Will’s legs started to give way—
damned legs, damned spinal cord!
—but not before he fired a savage uppercut with the heel of his hand.

It connected with the base of Chambers’ jaw with a snap and bony crunch, and he lurched backward onto the floor. The nine came out of his hand and slid all the way to the door. Will fell forward like a bag of potatoes, breaking his fall with his hands. He fought to disentangle himself from the footrests of the wheelchair. He relied on his strong right leg, using his right foot as a hook to catch the left and pull it free. Then he was flat on his belly, trying to crawl an eternal distance to the gun.

“Will, watch out!” Dodds yelled. Chambers was on his hands and knees, slowly shaking his head. Then he stood and advanced on Will. “I’m gonna kill you,” he slurred. His shadow was over Will when glass shattered. Chambers wobbled to the side. Cheryl Beth had grabbed the Tiffany lamp from the desk and struck his head. But it was not enough. He delivered a brutal backhand and Cheryl Beth careened into the wall, hitting her head. Her eyes were closed and she didn’t move.

Pain exploded in Will’s side and a second later another kick came. Bright lights flashed around the edges of his eyes…he thought he was going to throw up. He fought to breathe. The foot came again and Will deflected it, getting the surgical footlet in his hand. Then his scalp erupted in fire. Chambers pulled him up by his hair and smashed him in the eye. He went momentarily blind, felt dizzy, and his cheek and eye socket burned in agony. Something felt loose in his face. Chambers was cut and bleeding from the lamp. The look in his eyes was the devil’s, the last look those women saw, that Theresa saw.

He picked up Will and shoved him into a cabinet. Another cascade of pain blasted through his back. Will was showered by a mass of used needles and other medical flotsam. The red hazmat disposal box had come down on him and split open. He tried to get to his knees, every joint aflame, but Chambers kicked him again. Will fell backward into the footrests of the wheelchair and he was trapped. Chambers spun wildly around, as if another adversary might appear. Then his eyes focused on the floor in front of Will.