An Eye For Murder: A Medical Thriller

by Martin Sherwood

  The branching to the left led to a long corridor with a row of empty rooms. In the past they had served to store sterile supplies and the belongings of the deceased until they were picked up by relatives. One room was reserved for the doctor on duty, and the last—Room 13—had an emergency exit used for transferring bodies into the ambulance. Due to the distance from the nurses’ station, Mrs. Hertz had reassigned a closer room for medical supplies, and the clothes of the dead were now piled in large bags in the basement.

  In splendid isolation, the residents’ room remained the only one active in the rear wing. Johanna passed by and continued to the back-treatment room. Since the clinical trial with Professor Efron’s eyedrops had accelerated, she’d converted it into a facility for small procedures and surgeries—a brilliant move on her part. This way she would not have to drag herself to the pathology basement in order to obtain ocular tissues.

  It was all there, all the equipment necessary to enucleate eyes. Before she began night shifts at Blue Meadows, she had practiced in the Oculoris labs on feline, bovine, and even Cynomolgus monkey eyes. Thus she had achieved the proficiency needed to detach the eyeballs from the muscular ring of Zinn, which controlled ocular movements, and sever the blood supply—all in less than five minutes.

  Later she would have the opportunity to enucleate human eyes. These were the eyes of lovable, old, terminally ill patients, people who grabbed her hand firmly during night shifts as she passed near their beds. They had that pleading look, the one she already recognized. Prudently she managed to get them to sign informed consents for organ donation, and duly honored their last wish.

  Johanna glanced at the clock. Everything was going according to schedule. The woman in Room 22 was responding quickly to the recent intravenous injection. In less than an hour she would be able to pronounce her dead. The patient would then be rolled into the rear treatment room, and from there, straight to her burial.

  Johanna heard a noise from the rear treatment room—the wind, whistling. Strange, she was sure she’d closed the window tight before she had double-checked that everything was ready, and the autoclave was to be used tonight for the last time.

  ***

  I rose on my tiptoes and glanced into the room.

  The floral curtains fluttered in the breeze. The room was bathed in darkness except for a nightlight over the sink. The two ladies were in bed, blankets tucked in, the edges of their hair spread out on the pillows. I didn’t notice them stir, except for an occasional relaxed exhale.

  I pushed up the window. The curtain was sucked in, reacting to the sudden airflow by creating a small paunch, but soon it flattened, and I landed without a sound on the floor inside. I shook the garden relics off my clothes and head and raked them with my shoe under the window. Zelda and Marijuszka lay supine, each covered with a blanket up to her chin.

  Zelda flipped sides and made a chewing sound, followed by a delicate snore.

  I approached the door and looked out.

  The treatment trolley was back at the nurses’ station; I could see nothing beyond that. The edge of the wall blocked my view, but I easily saw the room across the hall.

  The door of Room 22 was half open, and I could see Grandma sleeping. I noticed her breathing movements, her pigeon chest expanding. And there was no one else in the room.

  I heard the tap-tapping of steps. Nurse Boris passed by and disappeared inside the next room. After barking a brief instruction, he shut the door. I realized that a similar visit to the two ladies would expose me immediately.

  I looked around. Behind me there was a linen closet that stretched from floor to ceiling. I opened the three doors. The double set of drawers behind the two side doors were more crowded than my own linen closet, with shelves above, which left only the middle space, the size of a slit—good enough for me.

  I wriggled in and closed the door behind me, leaving only a crack.

  The hanger rack pressed against my neck, and my scabby elbows were pressed against a sharp corner of the linen chest. I prayed I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night shrunken and twisted. Every minute inside that closet seemed an eternity.

  But someone took care to shorten my stay.

  The closet door opened very slowly, and a barefooted Marijuszka, in pajamas speckled with elephants, tapped gently on my shoulder. She stood facing me, the nightlight shining behind her surrounding her ragged hairline with a messianic aura.

  I remained frozen inside the closet, my shoulders crushed between two hangers, feeling like someone who forgot to step out of his suit before giving it to the dry cleaners. “Shoosh… shooosh… shoosh,” was all I managed to utter.

  She nodded her head—or was it some strange, gleeful vibration?

  I put a hand over my lips, and the lady in the elephant pajamas responded with the same gesture. I made a quick and careful assessment of the situation. Even now, as had happened on my way to Blue Meadows, one half of my brain continued to skirmish with the other half. Had I made a grave mistake by not summoning the inspector to the nursing home, turning myself in at Grandma’s bed? If, God forbid, something should happen to her…

  I no longer cared whether or not Ramzi believed me. I was terrified of something going terribly wrong tonight ruining my plan to catch them on the act: the squad car appearing too early, the sirens yelling, an untimely alert…

  The final experiment would be postponed. My premature exposure endangered my entire scheme. I absolutely had to apprehend the person behind the murders of the elderly patients—had to catch them in the act. Otherwise they would continue slipping away, and I would have no evidence.

  I felt a moment of tense anticipation. Was this delusional old woman about to expose me? Even unintentionally, she could reach for the light switch. And if she did that, was I capable of silencing her?

  I continued staring at her while my mind raced feverishly between several possible courses. She followed my gaze toward the corridor. The door wasn’t locked, and even if I leaped out of the closet, I doubted I could make it in time to block her.

  There were several more seconds of accelerated heartbeat, and then—nothing happened. Marijuszka did not turn on the lights, did not scream, and did not flee to the nurses’ station.

  Actually, for a long moment she did nothing, only exchanged shiny-eyed glances with me, her cheeks awkwardly smeared with lipstick, and an undecipherable grin, which certainly did not belong to the lucid repertoire.

  “Brother Gregor,” she finally hissed, in a tone of amazement. “How good to see you.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled back, hesitantly at first, gradually exposing the full white of my teeth. She did not budge, only chuckled over her shoulder to the other woman, “Zelda, dear, look who’s here.”

  No response from Zelda.

  “Brother Gregor came to see me.” She smiled coyly and I nodded in encouragement.

  This time Zelda responded by grinding her teeth, her eyes closed.

  “Don’t say a word to Sister Ursula,” Marijuszka continued.

  To the best of my knowledge, Mrs. Hertz’s first name was Beatrice. I did not recall any Gregor or Ursula on the nursing home’s staff—but Grandma had told me once that “the twins” had survived the Holocaust in a Polish convent. Maybe the two women conversed in some sort of code, but it seemed more likely that the lady facing me was in the midst of a reverie, and I had come to visit at a very pertinent moment.

  Before I could manage to slip out of the closet and jumpstart my circulation, she handed me a glass of water with a trembling hand.

  “You must be thirsty, Brother Gregor.”

  I took a couple of sips. There was a rustle in the hall. Had we been heard? The sound of approaching footsteps soon faded into the room opposite. It took me too long to absorb this information.

  The room across the hall—Grandma’s room.

  I
reached out and grabbed Marijuszka’s hand. She felt like bare bone wrapped in thin, rough leather. I led her gently to the entrance. As in any other room, there was a side door leading to the toilet and adjacent bath/Jacuzzi. I squeezed into the corner between the toilet door and the entrance and closed it behind me, leaving just a slit. For an instant the speckled lady tried to detour me and go into the corridor, possibly to share her enthusiasm with everyone and celebrate “Brother Gregor’s” surprise visit. Just in time I pulled her back and signaled for her to stay behind me.

  “Not yet,” I whispered, and my partner in conspiracy nodded enthusiastically.

  56

  The overhead light in Grandma’s room was still on.

  Across the hallway was the mobile white curtain; I remained in the narrow alcove between the toilets and the entrance to Zelda and Marijuszka’s room. The narrow gap between the metal frame and the white cloth of the partition allowed me to observe what was happening in my grandmother’s room. A nurse went in and measured her blood pressure.

  Could it be that nothing was wrong, and I was just hysterical? Was I imagining? But then why the white screen?

  I wanted to dash immediately into Grandma’s room, but knew I had to resist temptation. The wait was unbearable—torture. But unavoidable. My only hope was to catch the villains in the act.

  I kept monitoring closely and was about to sigh in relief when I noticed another hand in the room beside the nurse’s. A figure in a long white coat displaced the nurse from Grandma’s bedside. What was the doctor doing in there?

  From my viewing angle I saw only a nape above elevated lapels, and a silhouette bent over the skinny body lying limply on the sheet. For an instant, I noticed the coat casting a jagged shadow on the floor. Something in the body language was familiar.

  My gaze returned to the head of the bed. A gloved hand pointed at the treatment cart. A clank of metals was followed by a squeak. The gloved hand tried to unlock the side of the bed, but the handle got stuck; the nurse came to aid.

  My eyes focused on the ECG machine coming to life, and the paper reel flowed down like an albino snake. Hanging on the side of the cart, a bag carried latex gloves, tourniquets, alcohol swabs, and Venflon infusion needles.

  On the doorframe, above the entrance to Room 22, the light bulb began to flicker. Grandma seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Someone reached out and silenced the chirp of the monitor.

  No one made a sound.

  Was she just asleep?

  Was I too late?

  Still standing obediently behind me, Marijuszka patted my back

  She continued tapping me on the shoulder, whispering, “Brother Gregor, Brother Gregor.” I made the mistake of shaking her off.

  Quickly I realized that I would have an acute problem should I continue to turn my back to her. I turned around and gave her a reassuring smile. By her dejected expression I understood she was deeply offended. I needed one more minute of silence. Only one minute, dammit!

  I leaned over and kissed Marijuszka on her cheek, and her eyes lit up again. Just as she opened her arms toward me, I darted through the door, knocked the screen aside, and crossed the hallway.

  But I never made it all the way to Grandma.

  An arm emerged suddenly from behind, grabbed me firmly by the neck, and moved rapidly to seal my mouth. The other hand pushed me toward the rear of the corridor. My glasses slipped to the floor, followed by a crunching sound. I clung to the metal frame of the screen with all my might, but its wheels slid forward soundlessly, and I sailed along.

  The Irishman dragged me around the corner before anyone noticed that the screen had moved away. When I tried to free myself and rise, I felt a sudden sharp pain at the top of my skull, which radiated to my orbits and spread along the temples like electric currents.

  My fingers still clutched the moving sheet, and Gibbons slapped me hard. I released my grip and met his stale breath—whiskey fumes combined in my inner sensors with the Lysol of the cool tile floor. He pushed me into the rear treatment room and closed the door.

  The room was dark except for the light penetrating from outside. That wing was the farthest from the main entrance and the street, hidden behind thick vegetation. That splendidly isolated section of Seneca Park had no footpaths.

  Gibbons pinned me against the wall and made a motion to suggest that should I decide to open my mouth and scream, I would not even hear my own voice.

  After the ringing slap on my face, I had tinnitus in my ear every time I tried to tilt my head or turn around. “My grandmother… sh… sheee… is…” I moaned and pointed to the door.

  Gibbons made no special effort to oblige. I saw he was mulling over what to do with me. Finally, he unbuckled his belt and tied both my wrists together. Then he used my shoelaces to bind my ankles. He finished tying me and grinned. His hand frisked my sides, went into my pocket, and fished out the screwdriver. He swung around, whistled mockingly, and threw it out the half-smashed window—probably how he had gotten in. On his way back to me he grabbed a folded towel from beside the sink and crammed it into my mouth. He picked up an elastic support bandage and stretched it over my mouth. It circled my head several times, each round tighter than the last.

  Once my head was mummified, he hefted me on his shoulder to a side door behind the curtain that led to an adjacent cubicle housing a giant laundry cart, half-filled with bloody sheets and soiled linen.

  That was where I was heading.

  I landed inside just in time to squint at the nightlights reflected from the glass doors of the medicine cabinet. I bid a brief farewell to the treatment cart covered with a sheet and the sharp edge of the metal gurney. Next to it, under the ceiling light, there was a granite surface that housed the alcohol swabs and anesthetic vials, and a deep rectangular sink with a double-armed faucet, similar to the one in the university’s animal care facility.

  An autoclave stood by the sink. To my bewilderment someone had turned it on, and the control lamp was flickering, and steam hissed behind the door with the safe-shaped handle.

  Someone had plans to operate here soon.

  ***

  Johanna closely monitored the breathing rate of the patient in Room 22.

  She lifted the sheet, loosened the tie in the pajamas and stared at the shriveled chest cage. The arch of the ribs rose and sucked in every free oxygen molecule in the room. The rate increased—twenty… twenty-five…—and the lips turned cyanotic blue.

  “Connect her to oxygen, four liters per minute,” the attending physician ordered the chief nurse. This was not out of genuine concern for the patient, but rather for ample oxygen saturation in the ocular tissues. Good perfusion was critical to avoid damage to the lenses during the dying stage.

  The nurse was deep inside the room, absorbed in her emergent duties, adjusting the mask and the oxygen flow. Then she went to the adjacent supply alcove to reach for more fluids. The hanging bag of saline was running low.

  Johanna was about to leave the room when she saw the screen in the corridor moving from its position facing the door. The noise of the wheels was so subtle that had no one heard it in the nurses’ station. For an instant, she could make out the two shadows behind the partition.

  Both of them here! How could that be?

  She froze like an owl suddenly caught in strong light. Thick saliva dried in her throat. Her complacency had been premature. The Irishman was here. And Milbert too. How was it possible? Where had she gone wrong?

  The police were searching for Milbert, a wanted fugitive; his photo was being broadcast on all TV channels. So how had he managed to sneak in here? The Irish psychopath had torn pages from her folder. He must have sent them to Lister, who would have discovered that all the volunteers lived in the same nursing home. With that information he could easily calculate the exact date of last termination and ‘sacrifice.’

  But she could relax.
The real tube #12 had been in her possession. Without it everything would be worthless. And tonight the price would soar.

  She peeked out into the hallway. Gibbons had Milbert by the neck and was dragging him silently toward the rear treatment room. Apparently he had already discovered the advantages of the isolated wing—he could eliminate the meddlesome punk right there and dispose of his body. A sharp slope stretched from under the window into an out-of-sight wild park enclave; it was padded with slippery leaves courtesy of the last rains. The corpse would roll down into the triangle under the porch, and it could take weeks for someone to find the poor student. The Irishman would not be around to mind.

  She could expect a similar end, if he caught her with the tube.

  Johanna returned to Room 22, closed the door behind her and glanced around, looking for a proper hiding place for the tube. The linen closet occupied the whole wall next to the door but contained only a few items. Two drawers were empty. Her gaze swept the window opening. Cool air ruffled the leaves of the philodendron.

  Johanna smiled and took the tube out of her coat pocket.

  57

  Sharp pain kept me alert.

  There was little room to stretch my limbs inside the laundry cart and, due to the kinked position, I lost sensation from the waist down.

  I tried to raise my arms, but every attempt to reach shoulder height produced an agonizing stab. Finally, I pushed the lid up with my head, and a heavy tray that had been placed on it fell loudly to the floor.

  I wanted to sit up, but the tight binding and the laces dug deeper into my flesh. The support wrap pressed on my jaws, sending pain radiating to my teeth. I collapsed, defeated, on the rolled blanket.

  The good news was that I was alive. The bad news was that my grandmother did not have much time left. Their schedule required waiting until nine, in order to get maximal concentrations of the drug in the eye and blood. But they certainly knew how to cut corners when necessary. I was an uninvited guest. The Irishman did not leave loose ends.