A Man to Die For

by Eileen Dreyer

  "Casey?"

  She looked up then, first at Jack and then at Bert. "Poppi was right," she said, still not quite believing it. "Wanda wasn't the first. Billie was. Billie Evans, the recovery-room supervisor from M and M who was killed on March third. Hunsacker ran over her with his car."

  Chapter 19

  Bert was already flipping through his notebook. "Tell me about it," he commanded. Jack filled in Billie's name in one of his blank slots. Casey did her best to look back to that night, the first night she'd met Hunsacker. The night she'd battled St. Paul and mourned a woman she hadn't liked.

  She remembered Paul. He was hard to forget. She remembered the code, and the condition Billie had been in. She remembered Hunsacker showing up, and she remembered the pelvic, the first one she'd seen him do. But the shift had been a real bitch. It was hard to pull it all together.

  She told Bert what she could, trying to keep to facts and not feelings, knowing that neither man wanted to hear how she'd empathized so much with that battered, empty body because Casey had seen so much of herself there. Knowing that they didn't need to hear that it bothered her that she'd put Billie so quickly behind her.

  Bert and Jack both scribbled as Casey talked. When she finished, Bert checked back over his own notes from Billie's case. "A black Porsche," he announced, pointing to one specific scribble. "One of the kids who works the nearby theater noticed it speeding away just about the time Billie might have gone down."

  "Plates?" Jack asked. "Hunsacker's are personalized. BBDOC."

  Bert shook his head. "Kid remembered K and 2, that's all. But they were standard Missouri plates. I remember, we checked all the foreign car places, but nobody reported fixing front end damage on a black Porsche with plates like that. We found shards of glass from the lights at the scene. I'll check again."

  Jack noted it. "We'll need to find out if Hunsacker has more than one set of plates."

  "He could have stolen 'em, too," Bert noted, getting up for the phone.

  "Want me to find out if he was arguing with Billie, too?" Casey asked.

  "Did he not get along with her?" Jack asked.

  "Nobody got along with her," Bert offered from where he was punching numbers. "More than one of her coworkers said they were surprised it had taken this long to happen. One guy offered to put up bail for whoever did it."

  Casey couldn't help remembering what Hunsacker had said about Wanda. "No, I didn't get along with her, but who did?" What better reason to kill a person?

  But what set Casey apart? She hadn't called him the names Wanda had, but she'd challenged him. Why hadn't he just targeted her along the side of the road like Billie, or lured her to the East Side? Why was she the audience and not the act? Whatever else they found out, Casey wanted that answer first.

  "Ernie," Bert said into the mouthpiece, "go get the Evans file. We need to recanvass the hospital, get a possible license from DMV, and recheck all the repair places. And then, if we're very good little boys, we get to call in a suspect for questioning."

  It took Bert a good ten minutes to fill in his partner. He'd just hung up when the phone rang again. Bert answered it out of instinct. "Some guy lookin' for you, Casey," he announced, handing over the receiver.

  Jack went right on alert, jumping up and sprinting for the living-room phone. Casey's heart stumbled. It couldn't be. He wouldn't be calling during the day.

  "Hello?"

  "Casey, you're home. Good."

  Casey sighed in exasperation. "It's okay, Jack," she said into the phone. "It's only my supervisor."

  There was a muffled click and then Jack could be heard walking her way.

  "What is it, Tom?" she asked, leaning against the wall.

  "Well, uh, I have some good news for you."

  What? she wondered. A tar-and-feather party? Public flogging? It had only been three days since her suspension. She didn't think she could hold out for Employee of the Month.

  "What is that, Tom?" she asked, reeling in her less-than-diplomatic tongue.

  "Can you come right in?" he asked. "I'd rather tell you here."

  "No, Tom," she answered. "I'm afraid I can't. I have the police here right now. I'm not sure if you heard, but somebody delivered some rather unpleasant gifts to my house the other night."

  Well, maybe she hadn't reeled her tongue in quite all the way. Casey could tell by Tom's uncomfortable silence that she wasn't breaking any news to him. Casey wondered desperately what he thought of it. She wanted to ask if he was missing any personnel.

  "All right, then," he offered. "How 'bout this? How would you like to come back to work tomorrow?"

  Casey instinctively looked over at Jack, as if he could have heard. Maybe he'd be able to come up with a decent reaction. She was drawing a dead blank.

  "Casey? Did you hear me?"

  "Why?" was all she could manage, stunned by the sudden reversal. She'd just gotten used to the idea that she was an outcast, just beginning to revel in her sense of self-righteous indignation at the idiocy of her workplace and medicine in general.

  "Dr. Hunsacker apologized," Tom said. "He said he'd been so stressed by the continuing press that he reacted too strongly. He evidently misheard you during the pelvic, and came in to ask us to reverse your suspension."

  "And my license?"

  "The board still has to decide, since it's already gone that far."

  "And I suppose I'm still on probation."

  "For two months. I've scheduled you to return tomorrow. I'm short a couple of nurses, and Barb has to teach a CPR class."

  So that was the rush. Not magnanimity, staff crisis. Casey was sorely tempted to tell him no. But she knew better. She'd just paid her bills and knew how much leeway she and Helen had. Once again she bit back her shame at having to surrender for survival's sake.

  "Fine," she said, stifling the frustration. "I'll see you then."

  Tom didn't ring off yet. Casey knew damn well he was waiting for her to thank him for his efforts on her behalf. But there was only so much Casey could do for her job. By the time she hung up, her AKQ was damn near invisible.

  "You're not going to believe this," Casey announced, staring at the phone she'd just replaced.

  Jack had returned to his chair, but hadn't sat yet. "Believe what?"

  She turned to him, now really needing his reaction. She couldn't trust her own. "My suspension has been lifted. I'm merely on probation now. Hunsacker intervened again."

  Casey was confused. Bert was confused. Jack was livid.

  "You're not going back to work," he told her simply, his posture rigid, his eyes hard.

  Casey's laugh was bitter. "I can't not go," she retorted. "This is my job. My career. I'm one screw-up away from history."

  "You're one whim away from Hunsacker's list!" he shouted.

  "You think he's gonna slice and dice me at work?" she demanded, hands on hips. "He's gonna call me in to help with a pelvic and kidnap me instead? Come on, Jack. All he's interested in is getting me to grovel, and he's just done that without once showing his face."

  "If you go back, you're playing his game again."

  She shook her head, ashamed and furious and tired. "I just told you. I'm already playing it."

  * * *

  "You can't go back to work!" Helen protested the next afternoon as Casey slipped into her lab coat. "I'm used to the company. It's been so lovely having people here."

  Having police here, Casey thought dryly as she strapped on her Mickey Mouse watch. "Mom, I don't have a choice. Votive candles aren't free, ya know. Not to mention all those meals for the police." Dinner again, and breakfast. Casey was starting to get used to seeing Jack scowling at her in the morning. She was beginning to anticipate it, which unnerved her more than just a little.

  She'd walked in last night from dropping Helen off at vespers to hear music. Piano. The notes had cascaded from the walls like sparkling water, jazz improvisation that was both dark and sensuous. Benny had only played classics, and it had a different text
ure, like old paper. This was asphalt and glass. When she'd walked into the living room, Jack stopped, the look on his face guilty, almost shy. Casey shook her head.

  "Is that one of the requirements for the seminary?" she demanded with a wry grin.

  He smiled back, and she could see the residue of passion in his eyes, the kind she'd never known from music. She envied him that kind of torment.

  "Some temptations shouldn't be avoided," he said, moving to close the keys away again.

  Casey stepped forward, a hand preventing him. "You can't imagine how good it sounds," she admitted stiffly. "Don't stop."

  He'd been even more uncomfortable than she, as if music were something a man shouldn't admit to. But he'd played, and filled the echoing rooms with a color and whimsy and vitality they'd never known.

  Standing here with her mother, Casey missed the life in that music.

  Helen took hold of her arm, desperate and unhappy. "Casey, please," she begged. "Since you've been home, it's... Mick has... I can't let you. Please."

  Casey couldn't bear it. Her mother's eyes were huge and wet, her hand trembling. There was dirt under her fingernails from the garden and a cobweb trailing from her bandanna from rooting around in the basement for old letters from Mick.

  "Mom, I'm not about to let that man intimidate me into staying home."

  Helen's hand tightened. "He's your father," she protested. "You can't talk about him like that."

  "I'm not talking about Daddy," Casey insisted, wishing she could pry those fingers loose. "I'm talking about the man I'm trying to put away. The one Sgt. Scanlon is always over here talking to me about. Dr. Hunsacker."

  But it didn't seem Helen had heard. "He did his best," she insisted, her grip tighter, her face a study in agony.

  He didn't, Casey thought. But it didn't matter now. "Yes, Mom. Now remember, the number's on the board. Call if you need anything." She wasn't going to be able to handle it much longer. There were just too many people pulling her in too many different directions. Jack wanted her to stay home. Helen wanted her in church, and Hunsacker wanted her in his sight. And Casey? Casey just wanted to stop feeling angry and tired and confused.

  Helen lifted those startled, frightened eyes to Casey. "Don't go," she begged.

  Casey's ghosts stalked her dreams. Helen's were bolder. They seemed to slip out of hiding the minute Casey walked out the door.

  "Mr. Rawlings will come over if you want," she soothed, patting the trembling hand as she pulled it loose. "I'll be home as soon as I can."

  Casey let herself out the kitchen door and headed around for the driveway. She was all set to swing her bag into the car when she realized she was blocked. There was a Mustang in the driveway behind her, the top down and jazz drifting from the radio.

  "You just happened to be in the neighborhood," she taunted.

  Jack didn't even bother to smile. "I think you'll find that your car's broken," he said, his hand draped over the steering wheel. "You'll need a ride to and from work."

  She damn near swung her bag at his head. Damn him for looking so tired and worried. She felt guilty for even being pissed that he was trying to control her life.

  "I can fix plugs and distributor caps," she warned blackly.

  He was unfazed. "I heard it was an alternator problem."

  Casey didn't move for a minute, fuming. Frozen with indecision. She was unspeakably touched by his concern, furious at his patronization.

  "And just how do you get anything else done?" she demanded, finally giving up and stalking his way.

  He leaned over and opened her door. "I'm a very organized man."

  "Anal," she snarled, plopping into the white vinyl seat and slamming the door shut after her. She saw the crook at the corner of his mouth and ignored it. "Are you going to do this every day for the rest of my life?"

  "Only until we get Hunsacker," he assured her and turned the engine over. "I needed to talk to you anyway," he admitted, his attention behind him as he backed out. Two kids swept toward him on skateboards and he waited until they passed.

  Suddenly Casey was nervous. "You found the woman?"

  "No," Jack admitted, sounding surprised. "She hasn't turned up yet. Yablonsky says there's a good chance she's in Hunsacker's basement until he can safely dispose of her."

  "Oh, great." Casey laughed blackly, pushing the hair out of her eyes as they headed down the street. "The Frontenac city council is going to love that one. They don't even have rats in Frontenac. They have 'night squirrels.' Wait till they find out Hunsacker's hosting Name That Body Part right under their noses. So, what else is it?"

  "What I needed to ask you about was your friend Billie."

  Casey's first reaction was to say "She wasn't my friend." But she remembered the emptiness of Billie's death, those half-open, opaque eyes no one had missed, and she couldn't say it.

  "What about her?"

  "That envelope on the floor," he said, motioning. "Can you look inside without losing the papers all over Webster?"

  Casey scowled at him as she bent to pick up the envelope in question.

  He didn't bother to look away from the street. "DeClue worked pretty fast. He's talking to Hunsacker now. He found out that the Evans woman had, in fact, had a big falling out with Hunsacker over one of his patients. Nobody heard details, except that she threatened to report him and he threatened her license."

  "A favorite theme," she acknowledged.

  "Problem is, he has another great alibi."

  "What?"

  "You."

  Casey almost let go of the envelope. She stared at Jack in astonishment. "Me? What the hell did he say?"

  "That he was with you when she came in. And that he was at Barnes when she was hit. It's in his notes on a patient there. He says you should know, because you reached him there, and he came right over."

  No, Casey wanted to say. That wasn't right. Something didn't fit. She lifted the paperwork out of the envelope and found copies of her chart on the memorable Mrs.VanCleve and doctor's notes from a patient at Barnes. There it was on her notes, that Hunsacker had arrived to see his patient at 8:20 PM. And his last note at Barnes read 8:00 PM. Just enough time to get between the two hospitals and park.

  "What time was Billie hit?" she asked.

  "Near as they can guess, just about eight."

  Casey checked the chart and then her notes again. She remembered dealing with the lovely Mrs. VanCleve. She also remembered that her chart had gone on a huge pile to be finished at the end of shift. Casey hadn't charted on it until three hours after the woman had left, and now she realized that something was missing. She wasn't sure what. But something wasn't right.

  "He did come in just before Billie did," she murmured, peering at the pages that flapped in the wind. She gave her hair another swipe, already knowing it was useless. "But..."

  He looked over then. "But what?"

  Casey could only shake her head. "I don't know. Something." She looked over at Jack. "Give me some time on this, okay?"

  Nodding, Jack returned his attention to traffic. They turned into the emergency drive and pulled to a halt outside the ambulance entrance as Casey stuffed the envelope into her work bag.

  "I'll be here at eleven," Jack assured her.

  Casey tried another scowl. "What if I don't get off then?"

  "I'll read a good book."

  "Go home and get some sleep instead."

  Jack just shook his head. "I won't get any sleep until this is over. Now, go on and get in to work."

  Still, she didn't move. She clutched her bag in taut hands and faced the back end of the ambulance in front of them, trying her best to summon courage, or words, or both. She'd been planning on having time alone to screw her proverbial courage to the sticking post.

  Jack was ahead of her. "Casey."

  She turned to him, knowing damn well he could see the precarious state of her self-confidence.

  Jack's smile was at once dark and empathetic. "Fuck 'em if they can't tak
e a joke."

  Casey was surprised by a sharp laugh. The good Sgt. Scanlon was better acquainted with uncertainty than he let on. It said something about the situation she'd landed herself in that it was a man she'd only met going to report a crime who was the one person she could rely on right now.

  She flashed him a sharp grin and nodded. "I'm okay, you're okay, but they're assholes, right?"

  "It's one way to look at it."

  At least when she opened the car door she was still grinning.

  Casey would never have believed she would be hesitant about walking back on the halls. When the doors swished open before her and the triage staff looked up, she wanted to turn back around. She expected hostility and curiosity, and there was no question she at least saw uncertainty and curiosity on their faces.

  It seemed that the shift wasn't going to be normal in any way. When Casey opened the door to the lounge, she braced herself for just about anything. She didn't think that included finding her ex-husband the only person there to greet her.

  She instinctively looked over her shoulder, just to make sure she'd walked into the right hospital. Then she turned back to Ed, who was getting to his feet and straightening his double-breasted suit.

  "I was wondering if I could talk to you, Casey," he said.

  Casey almost ran out to catch Jack before he got away. "What's wrong with the phone, Ed?"

  "I hear it's tapped."

  Casey abruptly sat. "Where did you get that information?"

  Ed walked up to her and held out a hand. "Your supervisor said it was okay if you got on the hall a little late. Let's take a walk."

  Casey looked around, fully expecting to see Hunsacker step in the door. "Where?"

  Ed sighed. "Casey, you've become paranoid over this whole thing. I'm alone, acting on my own behalf. I just want to talk. And it was your mother who told me about the phone. I think she wanted to scare me off."

  Casey didn't know quite what to do, but one thing, she'd long since learned about Ed was that he was harmless. Giving in to curiosity, Casey got up and walked out the door with him and headed for the exercise paths that circled the campus.