Her Lawman on Call

by Marie Ferrarella

  “If I am not involved, I can’t be doing my work,” he told her simply and she knew it was true. While others maintained their sanity by separating themselves from the events of the crimes they were working on, Josef Pulaski dove in and immersed himself in the details and the situation until, on some level, he lived and breathed his work. Caring was his key when it came to solving cases. Caring defined the man.

  “You do what you think is best, Daddy,” she finally said. “But I am not,” she warned quickly, “wearing a bulletproof vest to the hospital.”

  She heard him chuckle. “You were always a step ahead of me.”

  Sasha sincerely doubted that, but it was nice to hear.

  “Gotta go, Dad.”

  “I will see you later.”

  That, Sasha thought, hanging up, was what she was kind of afraid of.

  Chapter 8

  He couldn’t catch a break.

  Pulling his chair in closer to his desk, Tony suppressed an exasperated sigh. His back ached and his nerves were frayed and getting more so as he struggled to tune out the noise around him.

  For the last hour, he’d been staring at the same files he’d already gone over so many times in the last few weeks, he could recite what was on each page verbatim without bothering to look.

  Two weeks had gone by since the last murder. That made it a total of five weeks and nothing. No headway, no ground gained. Theories about the murders still flew around from every direction, to be discounted or placed on a list of possibilities. But five weeks after Angela Rico was first discovered on the lower level of the hospital parking structure, they were no closer to finding her killer or the killer of the other two victims than they had been when the security guard had first stumbled across her body.

  Surrounded by a stack of files, Tony drummed his fingers on his desk, an outward sign of the impatience festering beneath the surface.

  Each murder was the same. A single bullet to the head. An execution. Each victim had the same note clutched in his or her hand. A note that could have come from any one of a thousand printers located in the general vicinity. There were no prints on the paper other than the victim’s. The only trace of a stray fiber found on any of the three bodies had come from the first victim. A single, almost imperceptible blue thread that the lab technician ascertained had come from a uniform. The kind that the security guards at Patience Memorial wore.

  That brought their attention momentarily back to the initial security guard. But all it took was a simple re-questioning. Walter Stevens told Henderson that he’d bent over the body, hoping against hope, to see if the slain woman had the slightest pulse still beating.

  Tony heard a squeak that seemed amplified above the rest of the noise. He glanced over in Henderson’s direction. His partner was leaning back in his chair as far as it would go.

  As if sensing that he had eyes on him, Henderson looked in his direction. “It’s like he vacuumed and scrubbed the victim and the crime scene before he left.”

  There was no doubt that these murders were completely premeditated. Those were the hardest criminals to deal with, the ones who operated with no soul, who conducted their crimes with cold logic instead of being driven by heated passion. On some distant, vague level, the latter could be remotely forgivable, the former could not.

  Tony tossed down the pen he’d just picked up. “This is one hell of a sick, methodical bastard,” he declared.

  Raising his eyes, he looked around the office, trying to clear his mind and focus on something, anything that might trigger an original thought about the case. A thought that might take him a little further than this blank wall he found himself mentally staring at.

  The captain had finally been persuaded to authorize extra manpower and the extra hours that were needed to search for the Hospital Stalker, as the local papers had dubbed their killer.

  Along with the task force and the publicity came the cranks. The phones rang constantly with people calling to offer information that, at this point, either proved useless or was entirely a figment of the caller’s imagination. They had also started getting confessions. There were eight so far, all of which had fallen apart when further pursued.

  It never ceased to amaze him how deranged and lonely some people were that they would actually make up something like committing a murder just to garner attention, even if only for a few moments. Some things, he decided, were just outside his frame of reference, even though he knew firsthand what it meant to be so lonely. Didn’t matter how lonely someone got, claiming to be a serial killer just didn’t sound like a cure for the blues.

  This was why the piece of information about the note found clutched in all the victims’ hands had deliberately been omitted from all the news releases. The captain had insisted that Lauren James refrain from saying anything as well. The hospital administrator ate up the spotlight like a thirsty flower drew in rainwater, but she had reluctantly agreed. It was the department’s only way of verifying whether or not their killer was making a legitimate full confession.

  So far, none of the people who had called, confessing, could have possibly committed any of the murders, let alone all three. There were enough holes in their so-called confessions to drive a Mack truck sideways through them.

  The restlessness that was so much a part of his life was beginning to surface again. Tony hated being cooped up indoors for any length of time. He supposed it came from having spent so much of his childhood confined to a corner of the small bedroom that he shared with his brothers, always for some minor infraction of Aunt Tess’s rules.

  “I’m going back to recanvas the hospital,” Tony said abruptly as he pushed his chair away from his desk.

  “Going to talk to that lady doctor again?” Henderson wanted to know.

  Tony glanced in his direction.

  Actually, that was his intent, to find the doctor again and see if she’d heard anything new herself. She had two sisters associated with the hospital and from the way she conducted herself, he was willing to bet that she was friendly with a good portion of the staff. People would be more likely to tell her things than they would a police detective.

  But all he was willing to say to Henderson was, “She’s part of the case,” with his usual degree of carelessness. Then his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Why?”

  Henderson’s expression was affable. “No reason, just wondering.” And then he added with a broad smile, “Mighty pretty lady.”

  Slipping on his black leather jacket, Tony shrugged off the observation. “Yeah, maybe.”

  The look on Henderson’s face said he wasn’t buying into his display of disinterest. “No maybe about it. If I were your age…” Henderson deliberately let his voice trail off.

  Tony left the jacket unzipped for the time being. “You’d have another partner because I’d still be in grammar school.”

  Henderson leaned back in his chair in order to continue watching him as he walked toward the doorway. “I’m not that old.”

  “Yeah, you are,” Tony tossed over his shoulder.

  “Be sure to say hello for me,” Henderson called after him.

  Tony raised his hand above his head and waved away the words without even turning around.

  He didn’t see why, after all this time, Henderson had suddenly decided to butt into his business. Maybe, Tony mused as he decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator, that was because until now there hadn’t seemed to be any business to butt into.

  There still wasn’t, he told himself. The sound of his shoes hitting the metal steps followed him down the stairwell.

  Leaving his vehicle parked in one of the spaces in the small parking lot that was directly adjacent to PM’s emergency room, Tony was just about to cross the hospital’s threshold when he was knocked off his feet. A disheveled-looking man in his early twenties came flying through the double glass doors just as Tony was about to enter the building.

  Reflexes that had been finely honed on the job, not to mention the neighborho
od where he’d grown up, had Tony grabbing the man by the leg and bringing him down before he could make good on his getaway. But not before the man had somehow managed to twist around and slash him with the knife he had clutched in one hand.

  The soft black leather he was wearing was the first casualty, the arm beneath it was the second. Tony held on tighter, pinning the fugitive to the ground.

  The assailant cursed his luck, the hospital and him. Within less than a minute, the security guards who’d been chasing the man caught up to their quarry.

  “Thanks, mister,” the tall, blond-haired guard who was first on the scene said. Grabbing the runner’s arm, the security guard took possession of his quarry. Smaller, with a slighter build, the fugitive hadn’t a prayer of getting away.

  “Detective,” Tony corrected. Refusing the hand the other, older guard extended to him, Tony rose to his feet on his own power, doing his best not to wince. He tightened his fingers around his left arm. Blood still managed to ooze through the barrier.

  “Hey, you’d better have that looked at,” the older guard said, concerned.

  Tony bit back the urge to point out that the advice was unnecessary. He had no intention of just letting his wound bleed indefinitely. But for the moment, he was more interested in the man whose escape he’d just foiled.

  Ordinarily, his first thought might have been that this was the killer they were looking for. But something told Tony as he quickly assessed his assailant that though the man looked somewhat deranged, he didn’t look clever enough to be able to cover his bases. And whatever else the killer might be, there was no denying that the man was clever.

  Tony nodded at the cursing captive the blond guard was holding onto. “What’s he done?”

  “Stole some drugs from the supply room,” the younger guard said to him with a look of disgust on his face. “Somebody forgot to lock it.”

  “What floor?” Tony wanted to know. Maybe that somebody had deliberately left the supply room’s door unlocked in preparation for another execution. After all, the first two had been in the parking garage, maybe the next two were supposed to be in the same kind of location as well. It would be a sign of an obsessive-compulsive inclination. Tony had learned long ago never to rule anything out, just in case.

  “Fifth,” the older guard told him. “We got the call from a Dr. Pul-something-or-other.”

  “Pulaski?” Tony supplied. Fifth floor. That was the maternity floor, he remembered. Where the doctor made her rounds.

  The other man smiled, not attempting to repeat the name. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  And that’s her, Tony thought, as he saw the woman suddenly burst into the other end of the corridor located outside the emergency room.

  His eyes on her, Tony took out his cell phone and called the precinct. With an economy of words, he identified himself, reported the incident and requested that a patrolman be sent out immediately to take the suspect to jail.

  He’d just pushed the end-call button when the doctor reached him. She had obviously been running longer than the length of the corridor. There was something very captivating about watching the rise and fall of her chest as she tried to regulate her breathing.

  And it bothered him that he enjoyed the view.

  Sasha had just finished looking in on her newest patient. Carol Smith was an eighteen-year-old unmarried first-time mom who would have had her baby in an alley if Sasha hadn’t spotted her less than an hour ago. She’d brought the girl into the hospital just as her contractions were coming less than two minutes apart.

  Carol had no insurance, but PM never turned anyone away. The patients who ultimately couldn’t pay their hospital bills provided PM with their tax write-offs at the end of the fiscal year. They also provided the hospital with an opportunity to do good works.

  Carol’s less-than-savory boyfriend, someone she called Duane, had tagged along for the delivery. Carol had a death grip on his hand for the first half of her ordeal. Duane told anyone within hearing range that he wasn’t the baby’s father.

  What he was, it became painfully clear just a little while later, as Carol was being taken into recovery, was a junkie. A junkie who was looking to score something. Anything.

  With the cleverness that desperation brings, Duane had managed to break into the supply room where the medicines were kept.

  Returning from recovery, Sasha was looking for him when she saw Duane trying to sneak out of the room, clutching his jacket to him as if he were smuggling a kitten off the premises.

  There were no kittens in the hospital—but there were a lot of valuable things stored in the supply room. Suspicious, Sasha had called out to him. Duane broke into a run immediately. She quickly called for security even as she started running after Duane herself. She’d been the one to bring Carol into the hospital, in her mind that made her responsible for the theft.

  Looking at the detective’s arm and what was leaking through his clenched fingers, Sasha felt even more responsible for the domino effect her one act of charity had brought about.

  “Detective, you’re bleeding,” she said, horrified.

  Tony looked down at his arm. The leather was slashed in two places. “Damn kid ruined my new jacket,” he complained heatedly.

  Sasha took charge. “Never mind the jacket, he could have ruined you.” If there was anger in her voice, it was directed at herself. “Take it off, Detective,” she instructed.

  He looked at her, mildly amused. “I don’t know if we know each other well enough for that, Doc,” he deadpanned. The older of the two guards chuckled.

  Sasha never even cracked a smile. Her guilt ran deeper than the wound she was looking at. “Hold him for the police,” she ordered the security guards who seemed to come to attention at the command. “You—” she looked at the detective “—come with me.” She began to lead the way into the E.R.

  “You get your medical degree using the G.I. bill?” he asked, following her into the depths of the E.R. When he caught a half-quizzical look from her, he added, “You give orders like a marine.”

  “Only when I’m met with resistance,” she tossed over her shoulder. Waving to a nurse at the nurses’ station, she called out, “Eileen, I need a free bed.”

  Behind her, she heard the detective laugh dryly. “Doc, I’m on duty. Maybe later.”

  She shot him a silencing look. This wasn’t funny. She still didn’t know if something vital hadn’t been cut, although since he was on his feet, she tended to think not. “Save it,” she snapped.

  “Number three is empty,” Eileen told her, checking the chart located directly behind her on the wall.

  “Number three it is.” Without missing a step, Sasha headed in that direction. “I’m going to need a suture kit,” she added.

  “You got it,” the nurse replied. By the time Sasha had reached number three, Eileen met them with the requested kit. She paused only long enough to give the doctor’s patient an appreciative look, then returned to her post.

  “No painkillers,” Tony told her tersely. Feeling ill at ease and far from happy about the turn of events, he perched on the side of the bed, ready to take flight at the slightest provocation.

  Sasha lowered the injection she’d prepared. Not giving it was against her better judgment. “It’s going to hurt,” she warned.

  “No painkillers,” he repeated. He had to stay focused, alert. Painkillers might take the edge off the pain, but they also took the edge off him. Not a good trade-off. “I don’t mind pain. A little bit of pain makes you feel alive.”

  Threading the needle, she stopped to look at him for a long moment. Reading between the lines and hearing what wasn’t being said.

  “If that’s the only thing that makes you feel alive, Detective, I’d say you have a bigger problem than just a knife wound.” Without repeating her instruction, or waiting for him to comply, she placed the needle back on the tray and stepped behind him. He felt her small hands begin to pull his jacket down his shoulders. He shrugged out of the garmen
t, careful not to move his arm any more than he absolutely had to.

  He was working with her, Sasha noted with satisfaction. Very gingerly, she slid the jacket down the arm that had been wounded. “It can be fixed,” she told him.

  That was the whole idea behind his sitting here, preparing to be a pincushion, he thought. “It’s just a cut,” he pointed out.

  Slipping on a fresh set of gloves, she swabbed the area with antiseptic. Sasha spared him a glance before she took the first stitch. “I meant the jacket. My mother’s cousin is a tailor. He can sew and repair anything. You won’t even know it was damaged.”

  She felt him stiffening beneath her hand. “You double as a part-time saleslady?”

  “I’m not making a pitch,” she informed him. She heard him take in a breath and hold it, even though he was trying to be subtle about it. It was difficult not to grin. Men with their macho pose, she thought.

  Tony released the breath he was holding. The pain was manageable if he concentrated on something else. On her. On the way her hair seemed to cascade into her face like a black sea. On the soft, subtle scent that seemed to surround her.

  After a beat, his eyes met hers. “I am,” he said quietly.

  He was what? she wondered. When she couldn’t come up with an answer, she decided to ask the question out loud. “Come again?”

  “That’s part of it,” he allowed. Damn, but he was feeling a little light-headed. That shouldn’t be happening. It was only a little needle. But the loss of blood, he realized, had not been so little. “Coming here again,” he clarified when the confused look on her face only intensified.

  “And the pitch?” she prodded, still not certain what he was driving at. He wasn’t full of painkillers, but she’d known strong men to pass out at the sight of their own blood.

  “Includes coffee,” he told her. “And dinner. If you’re free.” He heard himself talking and was surprised by the sound of his own voice. Maybe he was out of his head, he thought. But he didn’t take back the invitation. There was a part of him that wanted to hear what she had to say.