Barry Friedman - Dead End

by Barry Friedman

  Maharos said, “As I told you on the phone, we’d like to ask you a few questions about your former husband, Theodore Abelson.”

  “Uh-huh. And like I told you, I haven’t seen him for over three years—ever since he moved down to West Virginia. That was just after our divorce.”

  “Did you have children?”

  “Yeah. Gloria is ten and Sandy, that’s Sandra, is eight.”

  “What about child support and alimony?”

  “Well the alimony stopped after I remarried. He paid child support for the girls until he—died. He had insurance that we got after his death. That takes care of the child support.” Her tone became adamant. “I don’t get it. I told the West Virginia police all about it when they came up here and questioned me right after he died. What’s all this got to do with your investigation of his death?”

  Vandergrift said, “Some new evidence has come up that may help us get the person or persons responsible for his death. I can’t go into detail for obvious reasons but we’re trying to find out as much as we can about Mr. Abelson.”

  “What kind of ‘obvious reasons.’ His girl friend’s husband did it, didn’t he?”

  “Well, we’re not sure of that now. What I meant by ‘obvious reasons’ was, we want to keep this investigation as confidential as possible. If we can keep the killer from knowing where we are in our search, our chances of getting that person are much better. That’s why I’ll ask you not to tell anyone about this inquiry.”

  She shrugged. “Okay by me. I didn’t have a hell of a lot of use for him after he walked out on me and the girls to go chasing some twenty-year-old. But nobody deserves to be killed the way he was.” She smiled. “Although to tell you the truth, there was a time when I could have strangled him with my two hands.” She quickly covered her mouth with her hands. “Oops. Maybe I said the wrong thing to you cops.”

  Maharos said, “Don’t worry. You’re not a suspect.”

  He brought out his list of seventh-of-the-month-homicides.

  “Mrs. Swenson, do any of these names seem familiar to you?”

  She glanced through the list shaking her head. When she came to Burnstein. She stopped. “This name seems familiar.” She continued down the list. She pointed to that of Henry Gibson. “I heard of him, too.”

  Vandergrift said, “Did you know them? Or did your ex-husband know them?”

  She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I don’t know how I know them. But the names are familiar.”

  “Could it be you read about them?”

  She smiled as though she saw the light. “Of course. They were killed. I read it in the papers. That’s how I knew the names.” Her face grew serious. “Did the same guy that killed Ted killed them—?“ She stopped in mid-sentence and fixed a stare on Maharos. “Wait, Ted did know this guy.” She pointed to Burnstein’s name. “Wasn’t he a homosexual who was killed by his boy friend?”

  Maharos nodded.

  She said, “Yeah, he was killed a couple of months before Ted died.”

  Maharos said, “Actually, it was a month. But how do you know Ted knew him?”

  She dropped her head in thought for a moment. “Well, he was late with his child support check right after the first of the year. He was always on time, so I thought maybe the check was lost in the Christmas mail. I phoned him to find out about it. It turned out that he had been away for a week—went to Florida over the holidays. He said he would mail it right away.” She stopped and reflected, “Gee, that was his last check. The next month he was dead. Anyway, when I was on the phone with him, he told me he had read about this Burnstein being shot. He said it like he knew him.”

  Maharos said, “Did he say how he knew him?”

  She stared at the carpet, thinking, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t remember if he told me or not.”

  Vandergrift leaned forward. She was barely on the edge of the sofa. “Mrs. Swenson, this is terribly important. Please, try to recall if your ex-husband said anything that might give a clue as to how he knew Burnstein.”

  Her brows were drawn down. “I’m trying, I’m trying.” Finally she looked up. “I’m sorry. At the time I was only interested in knowing if the check had been mailed. If he said anything about how he knew Burnstein, I didn’t pay any attention to it.”

  “Do you remember his words, when he mentioned the fact that he read about Burnstein’s death?”

  “Let me see if I can remember. It was something like, ‘Hey, I read that Burnstein was killed. He was a fairy but a real nice guy.’”

  Vandergrift pressed her. “Wouldn’t you have asked him how he knew Burnstein?”

  Swenson shrugged. “Maybe I did, or maybe I didn’t much care.”

  Maharos said, “Mrs. Swenson, this may be a little embarrassing for you to answer. But you do know that some men are both heterosexual and homosexual. Is there any chance that your ex-husband was one of those?”

  “Ted? You gotta be kidding. He was a woman chaser all the way. That’s why we finally split. No. He was definitely not a homo.”

  “Maybe he knew Burnstein from his work. Where did he work?”

  “Ted was a car salesman. He worked for Quality Chevrolet for a few years, for Stanley Plymouth, for Chick Hadley Toyota Agency. That’s one thing about car salesmen. They move around a lot. For all I know he sold the guy a car or two.”

  Vandergrift said, “Burnstein was a male nurse at Mercy Hospital. Was your ex-husband ever there as a patient?”

  “No. He was healthy, Ted was. He was never sick. He was a macho athlete. Used to play softball in a league. Every Sunday morning. Soon as the weather got warm enough.”

  “Was he ever injured playing?”

  “No—I take that back. He broke his ankle sliding into base once. I almost forgot. It’s got to be at least three, four years.”

  “He must have been treated in a hospital, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t Mercy. It was that place over on 5th. I forget the name.”

  “St. Agnes?”

  “That’s the one.”

  The officers looked at each other. Vandergrift’s hands were in her lap, her fingers crossed.

  TWENTY-ONE

  St. Agnes Hospital was the oldest hospital in the city. The central section had been built in 1915 and from the outside was a dull gray granite. On either side, wings of a lighter hue had been added giving the entire complex the appearance of a bird in flight. Inside, the wood and vinyl floors gleamed and the place smelled of lemon cleanser rather than the medicinal odor of a hospital.

  The volunteer at the reception desk directed Maharos and Vandergrift to the office of the Executive Director.

  Mother Superior Agatha Cavanaugh sat erect at her desk in her white robe, a large cross suspended from her neck. She peered through wire-rimmed glasses as Maharos explained.

  “First, could you check your records and see if you had a nurse here named Frank Burnstein? It would have been about three or four years ago.”

  She nodded slightly. “I don’t have to check. I remember Mr. Burnstein. We don’t have that many male nurses. He worked here for about two years. I can get the exact years for you, if you wish.”

  Maharos said, “Yes, that would be helpful.”

  She started to pick up the phone on her desk, then waited with her hand poised over the telephone. “Was there some other information you wanted?”

  He took from his jacket pocket the list of names of the seven homicides they had connected with the serial killer, the six men and a woman. “Yes, we’d like to check your patient records to see if any of these people were patients here. If they were, we’d also like to know when they were here.”

  She took her hand off the phone and a faint smile touched her lips. “You know, of course, that any information about our patients is privileged. I couldn’t give it to you without a release from a responsible family member and the attending doctor in each case.”

  Maharos nodded. He expected a roadblock. He also
knew that today was July second. In less than a week someone would be taking an unscheduled trip down I 77 for an appointment with a pair of bullet holes in the back. “Yes, I know that, Mother Agatha. However, this is a homicide investigation. Actually, all of the names I’ve given you are homicide victims. I’m sure we could get permission from their families. We could also get a court order, if necessary. But we’re working under some time constraints here. I was hoping that we could save time and a lot of effort if we could just get a simple yes or no answer to whether they have been patients in St. Agnes, and when. We can take it from there. We’re not interested in their medical problem.”

  She tapped her chin with an index finger then toyed with the cross at her chest for ten seconds. Finally, she picked up the phone.

  Maharos and Vandergrift sat in the small anteroom outside Mother Agatha’s office for twenty minutes. They sipped coffee out of Styrofoam cups until a stocky woman in her mid-forties came in carrying a sheet of paper. She knocked on the door to Mother Agatha’s office and went inside. A minute later, she came to the door and asked the officers to step inside.

  Mother Agatha said, “This is Mary O’Brien, our Record Room Librarian. Here’s the information I believe you asked for.”

  Maharos and Vandergrift read the neat handwritten notations opposite each of the names on the list they had given the director. Three had been patients in St. Agnes: Marlon Graves, Henry Gibson and Theodore Abelson. The dates during which all of them had been in the hospital, overlapped. Opposite the other four names, she had written, “No.” Underneath the list of names she had written the dates of employment for Frank Burnstein. He had been a nurse at St. Agnes during the time the three had been patients there.

  They stared at the list and a wave of exaltation went through Maharos. They had found the key. They were almost home free. Almost.

  Mother Agatha moved some papers around on her desk and cleared her throat. Their time was up. She said, “Is that all?”

  Maharos said, “It’s a big help, thank you, Ms. O’Brien. I wonder if you could tell us just one other thing—well, three things: First, were the three men that you’ve marked as being patients here, all in the same room? Second, was Mr. Burnstein one of their nurses? Third, who was the doctor in charge of the three?”

  Mother Agatha looked down at her desk and shook her head, “Now, really. You’re taking advantage of my good nature. I give an inch and you take—.“ She turned to the Record Room Librarian.

  “Mary, would you take these people back to the Record Room and find out what they just asked me? They are not to see the patient’s records, is that clear.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Vandergrift said, “Thank you, Mother. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

  Mother Agatha nodded as Vandergrift and Maharos filed out after the librarian.

  The Record Room was in an adjacent corridor. It was a moderate-sized, windowless room. All the walls were fitted with shelves on which were manila folders containing patient records. Mary O’Brien’s desktop was covered with stacks of charts. A microfilm reader stood on a long writing table in the center of the room. A green six-drawer file cabinet stood next to the librarian’s desk.

  O’Brien took three, oblong microfiche films that had been on her desk and placed them next to the reader. She asked the officers to take seats opposite her, across the table. It was obvious that she was positioning them so that they could not see the image projected on the reader screen. Vandergrift glanced sideways at Maharos and smiled faintly. Maharos thought the precautions were ridiculous. Even if they could have read what was in the record, they would probably not understand the terminology.

  She examined each one carefully in the viewer, moving the film from side-to-side and up and down. She made notes on a blank piece of paper at her side. When she had finished, she handed the paper to Maharos. “As you see, these three men were all in 320-West.

  “Each of them had a different doctor in charge of his case. I’ve written the names of their attending doctors down here.” She pointed to the sheet. “I checked the Nurses’ Daily Progress Notes to see if I could tell whether or not Mr. Burnstein had signed any, but I couldn’t be sure of the nurse’s signatures. I’ll take you over to the Head Nurse’s office. Maybe she can check her records to see what ward he served on.”

  Maharos and Vandergrift followed the librarian to an office across the hall where a gray-haired nurse in a crisply starched white uniform sat at a desk. A plastic nametag on her collar identified her as Helen McNamara, R.N.. She listened while O’Brien explained what information they wanted. When she had finished, the nurse shook her head. “Our employment records only indicate the days on and off duty for each nurse. They wouldn’t tell us which ward that nurse was working on. Such a record would be hard to keep because, except for the head nurse on each ward, we move the nurses from one ward to another from day-to-day depending on the workload. Frank Burnstein was never a ward head nurse. The only way we could tell which nurse was on duty for any particular patient would be to look in the patient’s record and see who signed the Nurse’s Progress Notes.”

  O’Brien explained that she had tried but was unable to get that information.

  The nurse said, “What room were these patients in, Mary?”

  “Three-twenty West.”

  McNamara nodded, “Frank was on 3-West at least part of the time he was here. I’m not certain if the dates were the same as those of the patients you’re interested in, but that’s the best I can do.”

  As they walked through the lobby on their way out, Vandergrift glanced at Maharos. He walked slowly, thinking.

  She said, “I’ll bet you’re thinking the same thing I am. We know there’s a connection between four of the men that are dead: the three patients and the nurse. But where does that lead us. Obviously, none of them is the killer. The three that were patients didn’t even have the same doctor.”

  Maharos suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute. I’d like to take a look at the room they were in. Maybe we’ll get some ideas there.”

  The woman at the reception desk was talking on the phone as they passed on their way to the elevator. Each of the other visitors in the elevator held a blue card that read “Visitor’s Pass.” A white-coated doctor stood alongside in the elevator car, his hands clasped behind him, staring at the roof.

  Vandergrift whispered to Maharos, “Got a spare stethoscope in your pocket?”

  He whispered back, “Don’t need one. I can hear your heart beat from here.”

  She stepped on his foot.

  They got off on the third floor and followed a sign indicating the direction of Rooms 300-320. As they passed the rooms, they peered in. Most were occupied by two patients. A few contained a single bed.

  Room 320 was at the end of the corridor away from the nurses’ desk. It was larger than the others. From the doorway they saw that it contained four beds, a patient occupying each. If this was a four-bed room and if three of the victims: Gibson, Graves and Abelson were patients in that room, who occupied the fourth bed?

  Maharos said, “You see what I see?”

  “Uh-huh. Sure would like to talk to whoever was in that fourth bed three years ago. I’m afraid it’s going to take an edict from the Pope to find out who it was.”

  “Probably. Let’s give it a try. We’ll start up here and work down.”

  They stopped at the nurses’ desk. Vandergrift was in uniform, she did the talking. None of the nurses on duty had been working at St. Agnes longer than two years. Maharos knew there was no point wasting time trying to get the information from them.

  Back on the first floor, they walked into the Record Room. O’Brien was surprised to see them. “I thought you had left,” she said.

  Maharos said, “We thought of something else to ask you: How can we find out the name of the fourth patient in 320-West at the time Graves, Gibson and Abelson were there?”

  She stood shaking her head while he was talking. “I can’t give
you any information without Mother Agatha’s permission.” She was almost in tears.

  Vandergrift said, “Ms. O’Brien, we certainly don’t want to get you into any trouble. But this is a murder investigation, and I’m sure you can appreciate the importance and the urgency of collecting all the information we can.”

  O’Brien’s face was crimson. “Please, officer. I can’t. Believe me, I can’t.” She buried her face in her hands.

  Maharos sighed. “Okay. Let’s talk to Mother God.”

  Mother Agatha’s office door was open. When the pair walked in her thin lips compressed into a thinner line. Vandergrift fingered the handcuffs on her belt as they walked to her desk. If Mother Agatha was in any way intimidated, she did a great job of bluffing. She pointed a bony finger at them. “If you don’t leave this minute, I’m calling the police.”

  Maharos said, “What do you think we are? Keystone Kops?”

  “Why don’t you two go away and leave us alone.”

  “Mother, there’s someone running around killing people. Not only is that a violation of the law, if you’ll look in that black book on your desk you’ll find it’s also a violation of one of the commandments. I think it’s number six.”

  “Detective Whatever-Your-Name-Is, I don’t need any of your sarcastic remarks.”

  “How can I get through to you that you hold the key to our finding out who killed several people connected with this hospital? Now, please, it’s not asking too much for you to try to find out—and it does not in any way, shape, or form violate your patients’ right to privacy.”

  Mother Agatha breathed in and out rapidly. Some of the fire went out of her eyes. “What is it you want to know now?”

  “Three men who were patients in Room 320-West three and one-half years ago, have been murdered in the past year. In addition, a male nurse who probably was on duty on that ward at the same time, was also murdered. As you know, that room is a four-bed ward. We would like to find out who occupied the fourth bed at the time all these people were here.”

  “You think he was the one who killed the others?”