Karen set the cup down on the bedside tray and regarded the doctor, trying to collect herself. He had the single day’s growth of beard that she found attractive and a voice that was deep and sexy. She pegged him as an outdoor enthusiast who played doctor during the week. As much as Markov gave her shit about her need to be in control, what she found most attractive in a guy was a true sense of manliness. Markov was half right. She may have been controlling by nature, but she wanted to control a real man, who fought with her and tried to be in control himself. Karen liked a challenge.
“I was inspecting the Pathologist’s workstation,” she began, “And then I saw something on the ground. When I bent down I got a splitting headache like a migraine. I must have passed out from the pain.”
Doctor Logan scratched a few notes into his pad and then stared back at her with pale blue eyes and a look that made her tingle. Karen couldn’t tell him about the suspicious green fluid or the visions that occupied her head. She would sound like a crazy woman. Hardly a guy in the world wanted to date a crazy person. No, she decided she would stick to the basics for now. Her stomach turned and growled loudly. Karen hoped only she could hear it.
“Is there any way I can get something to eat?”
“Just a few more questions, then we’ll find you something to eat,” Doctor Logan said, looking at the blonde nurse and communicating with his eyes.
She nodded and went to the door, beckoning a nurse’s aide. Even the hospital had its chain of command. Karen stymied a laugh.
“In the past couple of weeks, have you felt dizzy or nauseated?” Doctor Logan asked.
“No.”
He checked a box, and then asked, “Do you have a history of migraines or severe headaches.”
“I’m a cop,” she replied sarcastically.
Check.
Karen’s heart was racing. She was aware of everything she did and every word she spoke. She found herself acting nonchalant, perhaps overly confident.
“Do you have a history of iron deficiency?”
“Nope.”
Check.
“Are you currently pregnant or trying to become pregnant?”
“No!” Karen answered quickly, blushing.
Check.
The nurse suppressed a laugh while writing down Karen’s pulse on her clipboard.
“Well, Ms. Hall,” Doctor Logan began, “I’d like to take some blood just to be cautious, but I think you just had a quick spell and fainted. How many hours per week are you working?”
Karen gazed at her feet. How many hours did she work? The days seemed to roll into the next seamlessly sometimes. Maybe the visions were her tired imagination telling her she needs more sleep. She did watch that Syfy B-Movie marathon with Gizmo last weekend. She thought of giant ants and flying sharks before answering.
“More than 60?” she guessed.
He nodded. He shouldn’t be one to talk. Being a doctor he probably never left the hospital, unless it was for some shirtless zip-lining adventure cover shoot. She imagined him without his shirt and bit her lip. She’d buy that magazine.
“You need to take a few days off and rest,” he said, scribbling an illegible note and ripping it off his notepad.
He handed her the note and said, “Take this time to get some sleep, you’ve earned it.”
Karen took the piece of paper reluctantly, avoiding eye contact. If there was one thing she hated more than a day off, it was being vulnerable in front of a cute doctor.
“I’ll send in a technician for that blood work and make sure you get your discharge papers,” Doctor Logan said with a smile.
“Thanks,” Detective Hall replied in a mousy voice.
One of these days she was going to meet a guy when she wasn’t lying in a hospital bed or arresting him for murder. There had to be a middle ground, right? Markov had once told her she was too abrasive to ever find a man. She had told him to ‘suck it.’
•
Neil Meriwether maneuvered the decrepit Ford Taurus down Mission Street, swerving the wheel with one hand while clutching his aching stomach with the other. In trying to keep the vehicle straight, he ran a red light and narrowly missed being hit by a blue Prius. Flashing lights glared off the Taurus’ rear-view mirror and a siren blared behind it. Neil stepped on the gas, letting out a cry of agony as he did. He could feel every rib jut out beneath his hand. He was growing weaker with every turn of the wheel.
He swerved left onto 8th Street, weaving in and out of cars and going twice the posted speed. A motorcyclist riding a black sport bike leaned hard to the right to avoid the Taurus, losing control and skidding down the street into a parked car, sending a trail of sparks in his wake. Neil was hunched over the wheel, contorting his body to find a position that didn’t make him burn for sustenance.
Two more police cruisers pulled out from an intersection right on his tail. Their lights reflected off the rear view mirror and burned Neil’s eyes. He flipped the switch on the mirror for night driving and tried to ignore his side mirrors.
He felt a familiar twinge of pain behind his eyes in the unreachable center of his mind. Images flashed in his head and he lost track of the road. A voice echoed inside him; pleading, begging for admittance. Neil didn’t have the will to fight the urge to let go. He hungered for a moment without pain.
“Not now,” he said through tears of anguish. “Not again.”
Neil was scared he would crash the car if he succumbed to the voices. The whispers grew in power until they were unbearable to hear. They were a symphony of strings too loud to enjoy; too raucous to understand. Neil shut his eyes and prayed to a god that had done nothing for him in his miserable life. Neil would never remember opening them.
14
1900 Hours – Day 2 – St. Mary’s Hospital
“Yes, Captain,” Detective Hall remarked irritably. “I’m leaving now.”
Detective Hall couldn’t wait for the discharge paperwork. She had a case to solve and the more time she spent waiting around was more opportunity for the killer to strike again. The Captain might get an angry phone call or two about her from her antics, but he couldn’t argue with her results.
“Good. Detective Goldberg has identified the St. Mary’s killer as one Neil Meriwether,” Captain Riggs said. “He’s an insurance salesman from Berkeley. Wife and two kids. No record.”
“I guess it’s the quiet ones.”
Captain Riggs ignored her and continued giving her the rundown.
“We have units in pursuit as we speak. Where’s Markov? He’s missed calling in twice.”
Detective Hall had almost forgotten about Markov. Where was he? For as tough as he talked about keeping his feelings in check, whenever she was in trouble he was always close by. Karen finished buttoning her blouse and slipped on her shoes. She couldn’t wait for him. She needed to find this guy before he got more people killed.
“I haven’t seen him,” Karen said coolly. “Now, where am I going?”
“He was last seen heading South on 8th Street, he’s headed right for you.”
“I’m on my way,” Karen said and opened the door to her hospital room.
The hospital was busier than she expected at that time in the evening. Most of the bar fighters and whack jobs wouldn’t be coming in for hours, so they must have all come in after work. By the nurse’s station she briefly saw two men in suits. Several people walked in front of them and they were gone. Maybe she did need some sleep.
“Turn your scanner to channel 2 for updates.”
“Got it, Captain.”
“And Karen?”
“Yeah?”
“I want this one alive.”
Karen stood still outside her room, anger bubbling up under her skin. There was always a caveat with the Captain. He would never tell her to get someone dead or alive. For a moment she wished she lived in the Wild West. Her job would be a lot easier if the bad guys always ended up at the gallows. Maybe it would dissuade people from a life of crime to begin with. Her
views weren’t very popular in San Francisco.
“Fine,” she replied through gritted teeth, then hung up the phone and continued walking at a brisk pace toward the parking garage. A couple of nurses looked up from their central workstation as she passed, then returned to reading their romance novels with scantily clad couples emblazoned on the covers. Karen huffed. If she knew it was that easy to leave a hospital without discharge paperwork she would have done so much earlier.
She tried calling Markov’s cell and received an out of service message.
Great, she thought.
Markov was always there when she needed him. Well, except when he wasn’t. He was there the time she was being choked in an alley by that gang member in China Town. But, he missed the time she was shot by the drug dealer in Golden Gate Park. He wasn’t even around when Karen caught the Midtown Slasher in the act. Come to think of it, Markov had a way of missing out on the big busts. Maybe that’s why he was always ready for the next case, she thought. Despite his seniority, Markov hadn’t seen nearly the scum and filth of the city that she had.
Sometimes it was hard to cope with the things she’d seen, though she wouldn’t be caught dead talking about it. Her left shoulder still clicked from where the drug dealer’s bullet struck. Every time she rotated her arm was a constant reminder of that day. A few more seconds and she would have been toast.
Karen was a rookie detective working narcotics. She and her partner, Collins, were questioning suspects about the recent movement of more than 5 kilos of Heroin into the city. It turned ugly fast and one of the suspects got the drop on her partner, knocking him to the ground. Karen pulled her gun, but she was too slow. She took a .38 caliber bullet to the shoulder. That’s where the story would have turned real bad, if it weren’t Detective Karen Hall.
She shot the suspect square in the chest twice, just like her daddy taught her. The man who was beating her partner saw his buddy hit the ground and ran. Detective Hall shot him in the leg, chased him down, tackled and cuffed him with her good arm. After interrogation, the department was led right to the shipment of Heroin. No one seemed to notice she shot a guy who was running away. Then again, that wasn’t exactly the story her and Collins told their Lieutenant.
Detective Hall entered the parking garage and found her car after searching a few rows. She blamed a distracted mind, but it wouldn’t be the first time she lost track of her piece of junk car. Sometimes she thought she was subconsciously trying to lose it so she could justify getting a new one. Her father always taught her that it’s better to fix something that’s broken rather than start from scratch. That wisdom had held true for a lot of things, but sometimes there’s no amount of super glue or duct tape that’ll fix your problem.
Karen twisted her key three times before the engine turned over. When it finally did, she patted the dash and said, “Good girl.”
She set the police scanner to channel 2 and listened for directions. The suspect’s car had begun moving east. The suspect was only three blocks away. Karen quickly backed out of her spot, the sound echoing off the walls of the parking garage in a loud screech. She shifted to first and looked up to see two burly hands on the hood of her car. Detective Markov stood with his mouth agape, heaving like he just ran a marathon. His large frame made his blazer look tight across his arms and chest. He came around the passenger side and hopped in.
“Markov, where the hell have you been?”
He wiped beads of sweat off his forehead with his hideous brown tie. She hadn’t seen him that flustered since the Hong Kong Diner egg roll mix-up of 2012. He turned his thick neck and faced her with a serious glare.
“Just drive.”
15
1909 Hours – Day 2 – Southeast San Francisco
“All units, be advised, suspect is headed East on Folsom Street, move to intercept.”
Detective Karen Hall heeded the dispatcher and maneuvered her clunky tan sedan toward Folsom Street, spurring a sound of protest from beneath the hood. Markov reached under the seat and found her siren. He rolled down the window and attached it to the roof of the car. It kicked to life, but the flashing red light was an afterthought amid the setting ruby sun. It let out a halfhearted wail into the coming dusk.
“Why do you still have that thing?” Markov asked over the intermittent noise. “Go ask the supply guys for a new one.”
“It still works! I just need to mess with the wiring.”
Detective Markov retrieved a pack of menthols from his right blazer pocket and found a lighter in his khakis.
“Right, and this piece of crap just needs an oil change,” Markov said while lighting a cigarette.
“Hey!” Karen protested. “You’re quitting that crap.”
Karen snatched the cigarette from his hand and threw it out the open window.
“And you don’t talk about Stella that way. She’s kicked men tougher than you out the door for less.”
“See, this is what I’m talking about. This is why you can’t find a man. By the way, I’m going to have to write you a ticket for littering.”
Karen huffed and angrily blew blonde locks out of her eyes. She turned to glare at Markov, who sat back in his seat smiling smugly. That bastard knew how to push her buttons better than anyone. The radio erupted with new directions. The suspect was headed South on 4th Street. She turned the wheel hard and threw Markov against the window. That would teach him.
“So where the hell were you before?” Detective Hall asked, changing the subject. “And why aren’t you driving your mid-life crisis mobile?”
Markov nervously rubbed his shoulder and looked out the window.
“I got caught up in a misunderstanding at the morgue, and the ‘Stang isn’t ready for a police chase anyway.”
“Did you track blood in here?” Karen asked, staring at his shoes.
Detective Markov’s smile faded. He gazed down at his shoes and back up to his partner.
“Well I wasn’t going to track it in my new car!”
“Unbelievable,” Karen said while thrusting her closed fist at his shoulder. Markov winced. A few moments passed in silence as Karen followed additional instructions from the dispatcher, blowing through an intersection in the process.
“What’s this about the morgue? Did the coroner mistake you for one of his patients again?” Karen snickered. “I told you to use those conversation starters I gave you. This is why people don’t like you.”
“Ha, ha. For your information, this is the first time I worked with Dr. Ellis, and I was able to find out what killed that Pathologist.”
“What was it?”
“Some weird parasite, I don’t know.”
Karen shot him a look of frustration. He said he knew what killed the pathologist, but then he didn’t know the details. Typical Markov. If it involved anything technical he ran for the hills. That used to be his ex-wife’s job. Karen thought of a few jabs she should throw him but decided against it. She didn’t want to get in an actual argument.
The dispatcher keyed the radio and gave new directions for the suspect. Karen maneuvered her clunker of a car to match.
“So what was the misunderstanding?” she asked over the noise of the street rushing by.
“What do you mean?”
“You said there was a misunderstanding at the morgue.”
“Oh, that. Well, Dr. Ellis thought we might have been exposed.”
Karen leaned against her window, putting distance between her and Markov and moving her shirt over her nose. She wasn’t a germaphobe per se. Only when it was an infectious pathogen. This wouldn’t have been the first time she was quarantined. Being a detective for the SFPD was interesting, to say the least.
“Great, infect us both.”
“I’m not infected, smart ass.”
They were coming up on several police cars already in pursuit of the suspect. Detective Hall didn’t like being the last to arrive on a scene. Every time she showed up late someone died. It happened two years back when sh
e was working narcotics and she was too late to save a teenager from overdosing. It happened last year when she and Markov were beat to the scene by Detectives Goldberg and Garcia. That gang leader had killed Garcia minutes before they arrived. Nothing good ever came from showing up late. She could hear her father’s voice in her head repeating that same phrase to her as a little girl.
“So how did you find out?” Karen asked.
“How’d I find out what?”
“That you didn’t have some parasite.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Markov evaded.
“Oh, come on,” Karen said pleadingly, then gave him a coy smile and asked, “Did they probe you or something?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Markov growled, and then said while pointing at the road, “Pay attention!”
Karen swerved, narrowly avoiding a small hybrid car.
“Those things sneak up on you,” Karen said, embarrassed. “Too quiet.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.”
They passed several restaurants and Karen’s mind wandered to her stomach. Her favorite thing about San Francisco was easily the food. So many cultures intermingled to create some really great dishes and fusions. She and Markov were on a mission to try them all.
Through the row of police cruisers Karen could see the suspect’s red Taurus veering between lanes at random. The Taurus broke hard, cutting down a side street at the last second. Two of the cruisers collided, sliding into a parked SUV on the side of the road. The remaining two cruisers and Detective Hall made the turn, following the suspect East on Bryant.
“Officers down, send medical to 4th and Bryant,” Karen said into the radio, and then added, “Request additional units. In pursuit of suspect East on Bryant.”
Karen swung the wheel with her free hand, narrowly avoiding a Harley and its plump, tattooed rider.
“You drive,” Markov said, taking the radio from Detective Hall. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Is this where you make one of your woman driver jokes?”
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