by Jaime Maddox
Life after Helise wasn’t much fun. His body had grown accustomed to hers, and suddenly his hand wasn’t at all as satisfying as it once was. And most sixteen-year-old girls from Rumson, New Jersey did not put out. At least not to nerds like him. He’d even tried guys, because they were perpetually horny. At a rest-stop bathroom on the Garden State Parkway South, he’d eventually earned his second certificate. He’d planned the sex but not the murder. The guy got creepy, though, so Edward hit him with a rock from the ground beside the picnic table where they’d just fucked.
It had been a long year between those first two victims. He’d examined his conscience, denying himself the satisfaction of killing again until he knew he wouldn’t be implicated in Helise’s murder. The wait was torture, but during that time he came to understand himself better. He was a killer. A murderer. He loved committing homicide more than he loved sex or power or money, and he’d chosen a career path that gave him access to a bountiful garden of potential victims. He’d come to embrace his murders as some admired their art or music. Each death certificate, like the one before him on the desk, represented a masterpiece of cunning and planning and execution. He was now at master level. Number one hundred.
Even the most notorious mass murderers didn’t reach a hundred kills. Gacy had only a few dozen bodies beneath the floorboards, and Bundy had scattered perhaps forty bodies across the Pacific Northwest. Yet everyone knew them! They were famous. One day, he would be, too.
Picking up his pen, he began the process of completing the document. Name. Date of Birth. Sex. Time, Date, and Place of Death. And then, the part he loved most. Writing the deed almost gave it life. Cause and Manner of Death. The causes varied but still gave him shivers. Writing the word homicide made him tremble so violently the pen shook in his hand.
When he finished, he read it over for the sheer pleasure of it, and to proof it as well. When he was satisfied, he pulled out his smart phone, photographed the document, and then uploaded it to his iCloud. In seconds, the document was safely stored, away from prying eyes and hot flames and all other conceivable methods of destruction. He immediately deleted the photo from his phone, then began scrolling through the photos saved in cyberspace. One hundred of them, arranged in chronological order, dating from that first one more than twenty years earlier. One hundred deaths made possible by his hands, nearly a quarter of them in the past six months. He shuddered as he did the math. His recent career change had put him in a most wonderful position to see a record on the horizon. A macabre record, a dubious pathway to celebrity, but a means nonetheless. If he continued at his pace, he’d have the opportunity to become the first serial killer to earn a comma. One thousand victims!
Then, he’d do something spectacular to announce his achievement. Perhaps an interview on prime-time television. He’d have fun with that. Or a front-page story in The New York Times. That would get the attention of all the people in New Jersey who’d thought he was a nobody. He’d furnish the newspaper with copies of all the death certificates, but he’d save the originals for posterity. Perhaps the national crime museum would want them. They had Bundy’s car, after all. Closing his eyes, he imagined it all—the national-television interview, and later a spread in the National Enquirer or People magazine, featuring him. He would include a high-school-graduation photo, and perhaps an anonymous acquaintance would contribute a more recent one. Multiple photos of the victims with catchy little captions beneath them would fill the pages. They’d come up with a clever nickname for him, too, he was sure. Dr. Death? Emergency Monster? Caduceus Killer? It was so exciting an erection began to stir. He touched himself with one hand as he caressed the paper on the desk with the other.
“Better keep you safe, little guy,” he said to the paper, mocking the death of Christian Cooney, who’d died of a venous air embolus. “You could be famous one day!”
He carefully tucked the paper into the secret compartment of his briefcase against another that hadn’t yet made it to the safety of the bank box where the first ninety-eight were stored. He liked the sound of that. He said it out loud. “The first ninety-eight victims of the world’s most prolific mass murderer, Dr. Edward Hawk.”
He retrieved his car keys and his wallet from the briefcase, locked it, and headed toward the door. The local sheriff had offered to take him shooting, and the idea intrigued him. He’d never used a gun before. Perhaps it was a way to broaden his horizons a bit. He’d used his hands on the first dozen victims, varying the details enough so police in Rumson and the Jersey shore communities wouldn’t suspect the same man was at work. Hell, no one even knew about him! Later, when he had ready access to hospital patients, he took full advantage. After all, hospital patients were supposed to die, and other than that incident at his last job, he’d managed to kill hospital patients for over a decade without detection. But maybe changing things up would be good. Or adding to them. Maybe a hunting accident would be fun.
His mind spinning with ideas, he whistled as he walked to his car.
Chapter Twenty
Golfer’s elbow
“Nice shot!” Ward watched her drive soar into the clear blue sky and land in the middle of the fairway, two hundred and fifty yards away. The lush green fairway was surrounded by even more green—the rough, at first a few inches high, and then taller until it melted into the forests lining both sides from the tee box to the putting surface. She turned back to the three women standing behind her, framed by tall trees, and nodded. “Someone has to carry this team,” she told them.
“Cocky one, aren’t you?” Abby whispered as Ward stood beside her and Frieda teed up her ball.
Ward said nothing, but she tilted the left corner of her mouth upward. She felt cocky. Since the moment she’d first seen Abby and felt the attraction, her self-confidence had returned. It hadn’t started to come back as a slow process, like drips of water filling a bucket. It had returned suddenly, like a fire hose shooting the container full in a split second, overflowing the edges.
“Good ball,” Ward said as Frieda’s drive landed somewhere close to hers.
“Let’s get back in the cart, Abby. Save your energy for the next one. How many holes have we played, anyway? I have to pee.”
“We’ve played eight holes, Mom. If you can hold it, you can use the indoor plumbing on the turn.” The tournament format was a shotgun start, but their group had started on the first hole.
“Oh, I prefer the woods, but I guess I can wait.”
Abby followed her mother to the cart they shared, and Ward walked beside Frieda. “Five bucks says I outdrove you,” Frieda said.
The balls sat so close together and were hit so far, it was impossible to tell from this distance which was actually the longer drive. “Do you gamble on everything, Frieda?” Ward asked.
“Pretty much.”
“Okay, five bucks it is.”
Ward took her spot behind the wheel and began driving along the cart path, her eyes on the little white spheres floating on the sea of green far ahead of them. Her ball lay to the right of Frieda’s, and as they drew closer, it became sadly apparent to Ward that the ball on the left had come to rest a few yards ahead of the other.
“Fuck,” she said softly, prompting a laugh from Frieda.
“Well, youngster, we can go double-or-nothing on the approach shot.”
“Oh, no. That shot’s not in my bag. How about a putting contest?” Her strength was on the tee box. Her drives usually went a long way and often landed on the fairway, but her game fell apart after that. She had a slim chance of hitting the green on her second shot. Once she did, though, her putter was a great weapon.
“I may be a dumb farm girl, but I’m not stupid.”
Everyone climbed out of the carts, and Abby stepped next to Frieda’s ball to check the yardage to the pin. As she pushed her sunglasses onto her head and brought the GPS device to her eye, Frieda called out. “Eighty yards.”
Judi countered her estimate. “Eighty-four.”
Ward
checked Abby out as she measured the yardage. Long, tanned legs stretched from beneath neat white linen shorts. A button-up cotton top in various shades of blue and green draped to her waistline. Her feet were planted hip-width apart, and she arched her back a little as she rested both elbows on her breasts and held the distance finder to her eyes. Ward imagined her arching her back in another situation, but before she had the opportunity to dwell on that vision, Abby dropped the device to her side and glared at her mother and Frieda. “Eighty-two yards.”
Frieda hooted as she held up her palm, and Judi smacked it enthusiastically. “We could have saved you a few hundred bucks,” Frieda said to Abby.
She just shook her head and grabbed the pitching wedge from her bag. With club in hand, she took the spot beside Ward at the front of her cart. They waited. And waited. The foursome in front of them was still chipping.
“Frieda, do you have a gun in that truck? Maybe a few shots at their feet will move them along.”
“Mom!” Abby chastised her. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“Oh, be quiet! You’re too politically correct.”
Frieda nodded but frowned. “This whole generation. That’s their problem.”
“That and a few other things.” Judi sniggered, and she and Frieda laughed.
Abby looked to Ward for support, and Ward studied the two older women. They’d really hit it off, and Ward was delighted to see Frieda having such a nice time. Ward suspected she was lonely living in the farmhouse with only Hershey and Irene for company, with no close neighbors to nag her and no job to occupy her time. Maybe when Ward went back to Philly, Judi would take her place as Frieda’s golfing buddy.
“Behave, you two, or I’ll have to separate you,” Ward said as she wagged a finger at them. Then she leaned against the front of her cart and looked toward the green. “And stop complaining. The slow play seems to favor us. We’re five under par through eight holes, and this one looks like another birdie opportunity to me.”
At eighty-two yards, both Abby and Frieda had the ability to land the ball close to the pin. Judi would likely be in the woods, and Ward would be in the sand, but they would still have two balls on the green, close enough to one-put. Oh, the joy of team golf! Their well-balanced foursome was doing what they were supposed to do. Ward got off the tee, Abby got them onto the green, and Judi could putt. Frieda did everything. They’d mixed and matched shots for eight holes, and the results had been great.
“Don’t jinx us!” Abby warned them.
“While we’re waiting,” Judi said, “I should talk to Ward about the ER committee meeting.”
“Oh, Mom, knock it off. We’re having fun,” Abby said.
“Abby, a doctor is never off duty,” Judi retorted.
Ward decided to intervene. This was the first time she’d spent time with Abby and her mother, and she was unsure of their family dynamics. Maybe bickering was typical of them, but she was picking up a hint of frustration from Abby and didn’t want it to ruin their day.
“It’s okay, Ab.” She winked, then looked at Judi. “What’s up?”
Judi looked smugly toward her daughter before turning her full attention to Ward. “As you know, our director has been out sick for a few months. The QAs are starting to pile up. I was hoping you could take a look at some of the charts and give an opinion.”
“What are QAs?” Frieda asked.
Abby spoke first. “Quality Assurance. When there’s a bad patient outcome, we always review the chart to see what happened. What did we do wrong, what can we do better next time.”
“What do you mean by bad outcome?” Frieda asked.
Abby didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. “Unexpected deaths.”
“What’s unexpected? Isn’t everyone expected to die?”
Ward fought her smile but turned toward Abby, who didn’t. Behind her, the sun hid behind a cloud and Ward could see her features clearly. Her sunglasses were still atop her head, and her squint produced tiny lines at the corners of her eyes. Ward found them incredibly attractive. Her cheeks had a slight blush, possibly the result of the day’s warmth, or perhaps it had been applied with a brush. Either way, it defined them and made her look so alive. The gold streaks in her hair seemed even brighter against the backdrop of the clouds. Her beauty startled Ward. Abby seemed to be growing more lovely every day.
Suddenly feeling the heat, Ward looked away, toward the green. The flag had been pulled, and the four men were studying their putt as if a green jacket from the Master’s Championship were on the line.
“If they have a pulse when they arrive but not when they depart, we review the case.”
Ward turned back to Abby and shook her head, dropping her chin to her chest to keep from laughing at Abby’s colorful description.
“Humph. I wish they’d review my neighbor’s chart. I’m telling you, something funny happened there.”
Ward watched Frieda shake her head and Judi place a comforting hand on her arm. “Were you close?”
“Knew ’im since we were kids. He was healthy as a horse one minute, and the next he was dead.”
“Probably his heart,” Judi said.
Frieda leaned forward slightly, resting her weight on the golf club in her hands. “That’s the thing. He had some sort of weak spell, and they took him to the hospital. My brother works there so I got the whole story. He said they checked his cardiogram and his blood, and he definitely wasn’t having a heart attack. They called me to come get him, and when I got there, he was dead in his room.”
Ward cringed, not only at hearing the terrible story, but at the way Melvin had violated the patient’s confidentiality.
“It sounds dreadful, Frieda, but unfortunately, it does happen,” Ward said sadly. In fact, it had once nearly happened to her. Only the hand of God had saved her patient, whose paperwork had gotten jammed in the printer. Twenty minutes later, as the patient was walking out the door, she collapsed. The new EKG revealed a heart attack, and Ward and the rest of the team were able to revive her. The heart team went to work and opened a blockage in one of her coronary arteries. She lived to see her fortieth birthday.
“Well, I still think they should investigate.”
Abby tried to reassure her. “You might not be aware of it, but I’m sure they did. The hospital has a huge stake in patient survival.”
“At least until they pay the bill, right?” Frieda said.
Everyone was silent, but when Frieda started to laugh a second later, the tension was broken. On cue, the men in front of them began their trek off the back of the green.
Their rotation had been established on the first hole, and it had been working. Judi, the weakest golfer, always hit first off the fairway. After allowing an appropriate few seconds for the men to clear the green, she stepped up to the ball, took a choppy backswing, and whacked the ball. It flew half the distance to the green on a soft line drive, then hopped on, and to the utter astonishment of everyone watching, it struck the flagstick and dropped into the hole.
They mobbed her amid hooting and hollering, and when the foursome behind them started cheering, Judi faced them and politely bowed. As they walked back to their carts, Frieda patted her on the back. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked.
Judi looked perplexed. “I buy the drinks?”
“No, silly. That tradition is for a hole-in-one. It means we have time to pee.”
Everyone laughed, and they did indeed stop at the restrooms before beginning the back nine. When Abby and Ward emerged a few minutes later, to their shock, Judi and Frieda were rearranging the golf clubs on the carts.
“What are you doing?” Abby asked.
“I decided to ride with Frieda on the back nine. You two don’t mind, do you?” Judi asked.
Abby looked from her mother to Ward, a question in her sparkling eyes. Ward shrugged. “I don’t mind.”
When they were out of earshot, Ward nudged Abby. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think your mo
m is flirting with Frieda.”
“Why would I take it the wrong way?” she asked. “I think they’d make a cute couple.”
Ward’s jaw dropped. “Abby, is your mom gay, too?”
Abby nodded.
“Wow. What a team.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Sepsis
Ward awakened gradually, ignoring the assault on her senses that tried to pull her into the day. The sun bathed her eyelids with a warm wash of light. Birds chirped outside her window, gossiping back and forth, then singing together in chorus. Silky, soft sheets caressed her naked skin. The sweet scent of sex filled her nostrils. Among her senses, only taste was denied satisfaction this morning, and if she concentrated, she could still imagine the tangy taste of Abby on her tongue.
It was Sunday afternoon. Two weeks had passed since her first visit to Abby’s, or was this still the first visit? She’d left a few times, but only for the essential tasks like work and grocery shopping, golf and kayaking. She hadn’t been home to Philly, or to Jeannie’s, and the bed in the house beside the hospital had been essentially undisturbed. She had spent all of her nights—the ones outside the hospital, anyway—at Abby’s house. She’d messed up her own sheets only to catch some sleep after her night shifts. On one of those mornings, just as she’d been about to pull on her mask and crawl into bed, a knock at the door had surprised her. Abby had warmed her bed for an hour before heading to work. They hadn’t made love that morning, just spent an hour talking before Abby’s first meeting of the day. They tended to spend a good deal of their time talking—about everything.
Stretching, Ward rolled onto her side and studied the room. It was Abby, and the more she knew of her, the more Ward liked both her and her house. For fifty hours each week Abby dressed in skirts and heels and roamed the sterile world of the hospital, but when she came home, she was a jeans-and-T-shirts girl, warm and cozy in the woods of her home and the woods that surrounded it.
