“And?”
“And what?”
“Weren’t you just a little bit curious as to what Hiller was doing there?”
“Curious can get you dead, Detective. Milty Hiller is not a nice man.” He put a palm to his forehead. “What an idiot! I should never have called you.”
“But you did turn around and go look, didn’t you, Walter?”
Another glance at the ceiling. “Yeah, yeah. Like I said before, just as I got back to the alley, Milty was going into the funeral home. That’s it. End of story.”
Yee scribbled a few words into her notebook, leaned back in her chair, and tried to intimidate Cooke with her eyes. He didn’t so much as blink.
“And you called me, because?” she finally said.
“Look, Charlie Auston isn’t one my favorite people, but I never suspected him of doing business with Milty Hiller. If he is, then that whole thing is screwed for me.”
“My sources tell me that the clandestine sale of body parts is a very lucrative business. Is that right?”
“So I hear,” Cooke said.
“Maybe … just maybe … it puts a few extra bucks into your pocket now and then, right?”
“No! No way! I don’t get involved in that sh--, in that kind of thing, Detective. Never!”
“Good! If you’re not into that kind of thing, you should be that much more willing to help me catch Milty Hiller. And maybe some of the people he’s been dealing with.”
“Detective Yee, I don’t think I can do that.”
“Yes you can, Walter, because I don’t think you want me looking too closely into your supposedly legitimate business, right?”
“Not supposedly, Detective. My business is on the up and up. I’ve never knowingly crossed the line.”
“Okay. Let’s leave it at that.”
Cooke tried to find help on the ceiling again, then slumped in his chair and looked across at Yee. “Whaddya want, from me, Detective?”
“Do you have an upcoming job at Auston’s Funeral Home sometime soon?”
“I never know. He calls me when he’s going to need me.”
“Good!”
“Why ‘good?’ Like, you expect me to do what?”
“To tell me the day and time you’re scheduled to be there, then give me a call as soon as you leave. We’ll take it from there.”
“I won’t have to stick around?”
“No, Walter, you won’t have to stick around. Now get the hell out of here and keep your nose clean. And you better keep your mouth shut.”
* * *
Yee sat with her feet defiantly planted on the corner of her desk, glowering again at the morning memo passed down through the chain-of-command that had burned itself in her brain.
NO MORE FEET ON DESKS.
Merry Christmas!
Thanks for the sentiments.
She lost interest, kept her shoes on the desk anyway and drifted off into a daydream, thinking about nothing in particular. Mainly, she was still avoiding the piles of unfinished paperwork sprawled in front of her.
A two-bell buzz. The distraction repeated itself. She moved only her eyes, burned holes through the plastic facing that covered the four extension line indicators on her desk phone.
Transfixed, she tried to wish away the flash-flash on Extension 101.
Then 102 began to buzz-buzz, flash-flash, followed by 103 and 104.
Every goddam line! Why me? Where the hell is everybody?
She shifted her gaze from the phone to the wall clock and its herky-jerky minute hand: 4:50.
Then silence. When she looked back at the phone, all the calls had been answered.
Fucking miracle! Just like that!
Not an hour into her shift and everything was again quiet. Maybe too quiet. It gave her the creeps.
She slid her feet off the desk, sat up straight.
4:51 Click 4:52.
Not long before Gina Mazzio would be getting off work.
Damn! Why can’t I get that Ridgewood nurse off my mind?
She revisited the primary question: Did she believe Mazzio’s story about the phone calls?
Yee didn’t like ifs and maybes; she liked the safety of absolutes, hard evidence. Mazzio’s story didn’t fit into that scenario, yet there was no reason to doubt the tale she’d spun.
She thought back to the last time she’d stuck her neck out without hard facts. Her spine tingled with the memory: Verbally assaulted one of the other detectives when his wife confided – at a police barbeque no less – that she was being beaten by the lug. She’d stood up for the woman, who in the end, backed down, refused to testify – claimed Pepper Yee was drunk.
She defiantly clunked her heels back up on the desk one at a time. Yeah, she was the one who was hung out to dry, took a licking from her fellow palookas. Her compatriots shunned her like she was an Amish fornicator. Not only that, she’d lost a grade in rank. That really fried her.
No fooling around with second-hand evidence after that. She was only going with the sure bet if she was the one having to put a reputation on the line.
Yee looked at the clock again.
4:55.
What about the women Mazzio claimed might have been murdered by some maniac who called her on the telephone?
Back to the top of the list of her questions: where the hell were the bodies?
Most of her cases began with a corpse. And that’s the way she liked it. Corpses were the real thing, the kind of stuff that made her sit up and take notice. A loose stiff was usually a murdered stiff. One plus one equaled two – a dead body equaled a perp.
She looked at her aching feet, frowned at the scuff-marked shoes and their three-inch heels.
Who the hell can work trying to walk on these stilts?
Well she did – she was too damn short. Usually wore heels around the station so her “buddies” wouldn’t ride her for being a peanut. Out in the field, she didn’t give a rat’s ass – she would slip into sneakers, sometimes even boots to get the job done. Right now she was in her hurtin’ heels.
Should have become a nurse, like Mazzio. Nice soft shoes all the time.
Mazzio!
Why does that chick and her weird story keep coming back to bug me? I should be concentrating on Milty Hiller and his ghoulish operation. Like where are all the extra bodies he sells coming from?
True, Shelly Wilton and Arina Diaz were missing. The nurse was right about that. And her boss backed her up.
She searched among the loose papers on her desk and found her notebook, opened it to a fresh page. She picked up a pencil and began to draw boxes – small ones, big ones, square ones, rectangular ones. Mindless doodling always organized her thinking.
After filling an entire page with geometric shapes, stick figures, and abstract flowers, she finally tore out the useless page, tossed it into the wastebasket and started from the beginning again.
1 – Serial killer?
2 – Telephone nut?
3 – Random disappearances?
4 – Coincidences?
Gina Mazzio, RN
A Advice nurse at Ridgewood General Hospital
B. Co-worker with Shelly Wilton.
C. Knew Arina Diaz.
D. Contact with killer? (Telephone)
E. Stressed personal life.
F. Believable?
Alan Vasquez, Ridgewood Administrator
A. Uncle of Arina Diaz.
B. Acting for the family.
C. Pressing for action.
That filled one page and she was back to the little boxes before writing again.
Telephone Creep
A .Only contact, Gina Mazzio
B. Does he exist?
C. Cuts? Slices?
D. Breather. Wheezes. Deliberate? Physical?
E. What kind of nut is he? Nurses?
F. Female symbols?
G. Where does he stash the stiffs?
H. Where does he stash the stiffs?
Yee was getting a head
ache.
And still nothing to go on other than the word of one nurse at Ridgewood General.
She shouldn’t even be involved in this. Mazzio wanted to talk to Mulzini, only Mulzini was on vacation.
“Damn him and his lousy vacation! Damn him for leaving me here to get stuck with Gina Mazzio and her damn suspicions!”
₪ CHAPTER 27
Gina entered the Labor & Delivery Unit through the waiting room where three men were hanging out, two of them pacing back and forth, bisecting the area as though they were involved in a strange ancient ritual. The third sat casually reading a magazine, or pretending to.
She was a little surprised – most men stayed with their women in the labor rooms, and there was no end to her speculation as to why these three weren’t inside.
Whatever.
She pushed through the swinging doors and headed down the hall, looking for Katie Rifka, her first stop to see what she could find out about Arina Diaz, the administrator’s missing niece.
An RN in burgundy scrubs raced past her, yelling out IV orders to someone in the meds area. Rifka sat in the nurses’ station, typing notes into the computer. She looked up at Gina with tired, red-rimmed eyes.
“Gina Mazzio! Haven’t seen you for ages. Not since you left Oncology. Coming to work here, I hope, I hope, I hope?”
“Don’t think so, Katie. Just stopped by for a quick chat.”
A couple of doctors came down the hall, lost in serious conversation about a crash C-section. One complained how he’d had to start cutting a patient open before the woman was out of it from the anesthesia. Gina didn’t hear the rest as they continued on until they exited the unit. Probably taking a dinner break.
“Okay, but make it quick. Don’t really have a moment to pee much less chat. This place is a mad house.”
“Yeah, I can see you’re looking kind of stressed. Maybe I should catch you some other time.”
“Honey, there is no better time. I may quit tomorrow, the way things are going.” Rifka rubbed at her neck. “What do you need?”
“Actually, I’m a little miffed. Arina Diaz promised to get together with me last week, but I haven’t heard from her. Is she out sick or something?”
“Don’t even mention that traitor’s name. If she’s sick, she sure as hell didn’t call in.” Katie’s eyes flashed, her cheeks turned a bright red. “We’re all on 12-hour stints because she bugged out on us.”
“Not too cool.”
“Tell me about it! Staff was already down two bodies before she fell off the face of the earth.”
“Is this something she’s done before?”
“No, but right now, census is through the ceiling. And she knew that. We’re fried!”
Gina sat down next to her. “Not a clue as to what happened?”
“Shit no.”
“When did you last see her?”
“I can almost tell you to the minute.” Katie signed off her notes. “Last Monday night we got off about five, after two hours of overtime, and we were supposed to ride the bus together. You know, the protection-in-numbers kind of thing. All kinds of creeps ride that damn bus.”
“And?”
Rifka’s face softened for the first time since Arina’s name was mentioned. “The poor kid was beat. This is a rough gig for anyone, and she’s about as green as they come. But she’s been on it, holding her own. Fitting in, you know? Doing a damn good job.”
“So?”
“I got on the bus, she didn’t. Sat her butt down on the bus stop bench. Said she was going to go shopping, or something.”
“And that was the last time you saw or spoke to her?”
“Yep! Our manager’s called her apartment, her boyfriend’s been around looking for her, and now you, for God knows what reason. What gives?”
Before Gina could think up a plausible explanation, Rifka was called away from the station. Relieved she didn’t have to make up a story on the spot as to why she was looking for Arina, Gina sat on the tall stool and watched the swirl of activity in the L&D unit. Within a few minutes, Rifka was back.
“You gonna get off any time soon?” Gina asked.
Rifka gave her a cross-eyed look and stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth, the accepted, if insensitive, “Q” sign for an expired patient. “Seven at the earliest, hon. Why?”
“Had a couple of more questions I wanted to ask you about Arina.”
“Look, if you guys are thinking of recruiting her for Advice, forget it! We need her here. Besides, I don’t think she’s got enough experience to go on the phones.”
Gina raised both hands and leaned back. Now she was stuck; she didn’t want to cause any kind of problem if she could help it. “No, this isn’t a staff raid. It’s just that a, well, a friend of Harry’s saw her and would like to meet her.”
“Harry? Speaking of which, I heard you two were on the outs.”
“Yeah, well, when did you start believing everything you hear?”
Rifka looked up and down the hallway. “Look, I was about to take a break … whether they want me to or not. If you want to go down to the cafeteria, we can talk there. I’ll tell you what I can about Arina, you can tell me about this on-again, off-again thing with Harry.” She grinned. “If he’s available, I might be interested.”
* * *
Gina swirled a tea bag around in a tall paper cup while Rifka sipped on a Coke and nibbled at a bagel, all the time repeatedly checking her watch.
“Is Arina close with any of the other nurses?” Gina asked.
“Not particularly. We usually ride the bus together because we live in the same neighborhood. Other than that…” Rifka broke off a piece of bagel, smeared it with cream cheese, and was about to stuff it in her mouth, then held the morsel in suspension, a couple of inches from her mouth. “Wait! I do think she’s gone to the movies a couple of times with Shawna … Shawna Jordan.”
“Is Shawna on duty today?”
“Along with every other warm body we got.”
“Point her out to me when we go back.”
“Why all the questions, Gina? I thought you were trying to hook her up with a date, or something like that. But the Gina Mazzio I know doesn’t get involved in the matchmaking thing. Besides, Arina already has a boy friend. In fact, he was here today looking for her.”
“Jorge, right?”
Rifka’s eyes drifted to the ceiling. “Now there’s a piece of work.”
“A character?”
“A male chauvinist pig! I know it embarrasses her, but she sort of shrugs and gets on with her work. The rest of us have tried stonewalling him, but he just keeps calling back until he gets her on the phone. Yuk!”
“You say he came by here today trying to find for her?”
“Around noon. Was real nasty about it, like we were hiding her or something. Tried to go looking into patient rooms. Had to call Security to get him out of here.”
“Maybe she does need to go out with someone else,” Gina said.
“I couldn’t care less about her personal gig,” Rifka said. “If she wants to be involved with that shmuck, much less live with him, that’s her thing. I just want her ass back here on the floor.” She looked at the wall clock. “I better get going before they send a posse out for me.”
They collected and disposed of their trash before going out to the elevator.
“I’ll point out Shawna,” Rifka said. “But I’m not fooled, Mazzio. I know you’re not giving me the real lowdown on why you’re so interested in little Ms. Diaz.”
* * *
Gina was able to grab Shawna on the run back in L&D. She practically chased after her down the unit’s hallway.
“A couple of movies on Friday nights after work,” Shawna told her. “No double dates or anything like that. Jorge takes up most of her time and he doesn’t like doubles.”
“She never complains about him, or anything like that?”
“Arina? I‘ve never heard her bad-mouth anyone. Besides, I think their
families are real tight, even though Arina did say her folks don’t really like him.”
When Gina finally got out to her car, she felt like she hadn’t really achieved anything. Arina was a nice kid, good at her job, everyone liked her … and she was missing.
Gina wasn’t looking forward to calling Vasquez in the morning.
She hoped that perhaps Yee might come up with something positive by then.
Yeah, sure!
₪ CHAPTER 28
Megan Ann stepped out of the hot shower stall into the steamy dressing area and dried herself with a large, fluffy bath sheet.
When she yanked off the plastic cap that protected her hair, billows of moisture turned her mass of red hair into a pile of Orphan Annie ringlets. She raked her fingers through it, trying to straighten out the tight curls, but they immediately sprang back into place, as she knew they would.
Tucking her towel around her, she walked barefoot back to her locker and stared inside at the contents. Her mind drifted into an airy nothingness.
“You’re going to catch your death of cold standing around like that, Megan Ann. Get some clothes on!”
The sarcastic voice of the nurse wasn’t lost on her. It was one of the same RNs who had witnessed her sharp exchange with Gina outside the cafeteria.
“Thanks for giving a damn,” Megan Ann called out to the departing back.
She re-tightened the towel around her and reached out to caress the moss green woolen dress she planned to wear on her date with Eddie St. George. She had plenty of time to get ready to meet him at The Hideaway around 5:00. Her shift had ended at 3:30 and she was using every minute to ready herself. There was no way she would go out with that man in grubby, day-old scrubs. The shower had refreshed her, but instead of getting dressed immediately, she stared again inside her locker, specifically at a blue nylon bag. Her stash.
No! Not now.
She hurried to get into her underwear, pulled the dress out, and worked her way into it. The soft material fell around her, but her mind remained on the vodka minis and Valium tabs inside the blue bag.
Three doctors had contributed to the large Valium vial, now crammed with two hundred pills – a safety net and her perfect solution for when she absolutely couldn’t stand her miserable life anymore.
Sin & Bone: A Medical Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 2) Page 15
