by Robin Cook
A scream started in Janet’s throat but was stalled before it could get out by the hideousness of the image that confronted her. A man was in her bathroom dressed in baggy dark clothes. A knotted segment of nylon stocking had been drawn over his head so that his features were grotesquely compressed. At shoulder height he clutched a butcher’s knife menacingly.
For an instant, neither of them moved. Janet quiveringly aimed the ineffectual hair dryer at the ghoulish face as if it were a magnum revolver. The intruder stared down the barrel in shocked surprise until he realized he was looking at heating coils, not the innards of a handgun.
He was the first to react, reaching out and snatching the hair dryer from Janet’s hand. In a burst of rage he threw the apparatus aside; it smashed the mirror of the medicine cabinet. The shattering of the glass jolted Janet from her paralysis, and she bolted from the bathroom.
Tom reacted swiftly and managed to grab Janet’s arm, but Janet’s momentum pulled them stumbling into the bedroom. His original intent had been to stab her in the bathroom. The hair dryer had thrown him off guard. He hadn’t planned on her getting out of the bathroom. And he didn’t want her to scream, but she did.
Janet’s first scream had been stifled by shock, but she more than made up for it with a second scream that reverberated in the confines of her small apartment and penetrated the cheaply built walls. It was probably heard in every apartment in the building, and it sent a shiver of fear down Tom’s spine. As angry as he was, he knew that he was in trouble.
Still holding onto Janet’s arm, Tom whipped her around so that she careened off the wall before falling crossways on the bed. Tom could have killed her there and then, but he didn’t dare take the time. Instead he rushed to the slider. Fumbling with the curtains and then the lock, he yanked the door open and disappeared into the night.
SEAN HAD been loitering on the balcony outside Janet’s open living room slider, trying to build up the courage to go in and apologize for trying to make Janet feel guilty. He was embarrassed at his behavior, but since apologies weren’t his strong suit, he was having difficulty motivating himself.
Sean’s hesitation dissolved in an instant at the sound of the shattering mirror. For a moment he struggled with the screen, trying to slide it open. When he heard Janet’s bloodcurdling scream followed by a loud thud, he gave up opening the screen properly and threw himself through it. He ended up on the shag carpet, his legs still bound in the mesh. Struggling to his feet he launched himself through the doorway into the bedroom. He found Janet on the bed, wide-eyed with terror.
“What’s the matter?” Sean demanded.
Janet sat up. Choking back tears, she said, “There was a man with a knife in my bathroom.” Then she pointed to the open bedroom slider. “He went that way.”
Sean flew to the sliding glass door and whipped back the curtain. Instead of one man, there were two. They came through the door in tandem, roughly shoving Sean back into the room prior to everyone recognizing each other. The new-comers were Gary Engels and another resident who’d responded to Janet’s scream just as Sean had.
Frantically explaining that an intruder had just left, Sean led the two men back out onto the balcony. As they reached the handrail they heard the screech of tires coming from the parking lot behind the building. While Gary and his companion ran for the stairs, Sean returned to Janet.
Janet had recovered to a degree. She’d slipped on a sweatshirt. When Sean entered she was sitting on the edge of the bed finishing an emergency call to the police. Replacing the receiver, she looked up at Sean who was standing above her.
“You okay?” he asked gently.
“I think so,” she said. She was visibly shaking. “God, what a day!”
“I told you you should have stayed with me.” Sean sat next to her and put his arms around her.
In spite of herself, Janet gave a short laugh. Leave it to Sean to try to smooth over any situation with humor. It did feel wonderful to be in his arms.
“I’d heard Miami was a lively city,” she said, taking his lead, “but this is too much.”
“Any idea how the guy got in here?” Sean asked.
“I left the slider in the living room open,” Janet admitted.
“This is learning the hard way,” Sean said.
“In Boston the worst thing that ever happened to me was an obscene phone call,” Janet said.
“Yeah, and I apologized,” Sean said.
Janet smiled and threw her pillow at him.
It took the police twenty minutes to arrive. They pulled up in a squad car with lights flashing but no siren. Two uniformed officers from the Miami police department came up to the apartment. One was a huge bearded black man, the other was a slim Hispanic with a mustache. Their names were Peter Jefferson and Juan Torres. They were solicitous, respectful, and professional as they spent an unhurried half hour going over Janet’s story. When she mentioned that the man was wearing latex rubber gloves, they canceled a crime scene technician who was scheduled to come over after finishing a homicide case.
“The fact that nobody got hurt puts this incident into a different category,” Juan said. “Obviously homicides get more attention.”
“But this could have been a homicide,” Sean protested.
“Hey, we do the best we can with the manpower we got,” Peter said.
While the policemen were still there gathering facts, someone else showed up: Robert Harris.
ROBERT HARRIS had carefully cultivated and nurtured a relationship with the Miami police department. Although he decried their lack of discipline and their poor physical shape, characteristics that set in approximately a year subsequent to their graduation from the police academy, Harris was enough of a pragmatist to understand that he needed to be on their good side. And this attack on a nurse at the Forbes residence was a case in point. Had he not developed the connections he had, he probably wouldn’t have heard about the incident until the following morning. As far as Robert was concerned, such a situation would be unacceptable for the head of security.
The call had come from the duty commander while Harris was using his Soloflex machine in front of his TV at home. Unfortunately, there’d been a delay of nearly half an hour following the dispatch of the patrol car, but Harris was not in a position to complain. Arriving late was better than not arriving at all. Harris just didn’t want the case to be cold by the time he got involved.
As Harris had driven to the residence, he thought back to the rape and murder of Sheila Arnold. He couldn’t shake the suspicion—improbable though it might seem—that Arnold’s death was somehow related to the deaths of the breast cancer patients. Harris wasn’t a doctor so he had to go on what Dr. Mason had told him a few months ago, namely that it was his belief that the breast cancer patients were being murdered. The tip-off was the fact that these patients’ faces were blue, a sign they were being somehow smothered.
Dr. Mason had made it clear that getting to the bottom of this situation should be Harris’s primary task. If word leaked to the press, the damage to the Forbes might be irreparable. In fact, Dr. Mason had made it sound like Harris’s tenure depended on a quick and unobtrusive resolution of this potentially embarrassing problem. The quicker that resolution came about, the better for everyone.
But Harris had not made any progress over the last few months. Dr. Mason’s suggestion that the perpetrator was probably a doctor or a nurse had not panned out. Extensive background checks on the professional staff had failed to uncover any suspicious discrepancies or irregularities. Harris’s attempts at keeping an unobtrusive eye on the Forbes breast cancer patients hadn’t turned anything up. Not that he’d been able to keep watch over all of them.
Harris’s suspicion that Miss Arnold’s death was related to the breast cancer patient deaths had hit him the day after her murder while he’d been driving to work. It was then he’d remembered that the day before she was killed a breast cancer patient on her floor had died and turned blue.
What if Sheila Arn
old had seen something, Harris wondered. What if she’d witnessed or overheard something whose significance she hadn’t appreciated—something that made the perpetrator feel threatened nonetheless. The idea had seemed reasonable to Harris, although he did wonder if it were the product of a desperate mind.
In any case, Harris’s suspicion hadn’t left him with much to go on. He had learned from the police that a witness had seen a man leaving Miss Arnold’s apartment the night of the murder, but the description had been hopelessly vague: a male of medium height and medium build with brown hair. The witness had not seen the man’s face. In an institution the size of the Forbes Cancer Center, such a description had been of limited use.
So when Harris was told of yet another attack on a Forbes nurse, he again considered a possible connection to the breast cancer deaths. There had been another suspicious blue death on Tuesday.
Harris entered Janet’s apartment eager to talk with her. He was extremely chagrined to find her in the company of the wiseass medical student, Sean Murphy.
Since the police were still questioning the nurse, Harris took a quick look around. He saw the shattered mirror in the bathroom along with the broken hair dryer. He also noticed the panties amid the debris on the floor. Wandering into the living room, he noted the large hole in the screen. It was obvious the screen had been a point of entry, not escape.
“Your witness,” Peter Jefferson joked, coming into the living room. His partner followed in his shadow. Harris had met Peter on several occasions in the past.
“Anything you can tell me?” Harris asked.
“Not a whole lot,” Peter said. “Perp was wearing a nylon stocking over his face. Medium build, medium height. Apparently didn’t say a word. Girl’s lucky. The guy had a knife.”
“What are you going to do?” Harris asked.
Peter shrugged. “The usual,” he said. “We’ll file a report. We’ll see what the sarge says. One way or another it’ll get turned over to an investigative unit. Who knows what they’ll do.” Peter lowered his voice. “No injury, no robbery. It’s not likely this will become a number-one priority. If she’d gotten whacked it’d be a different story.”
Harris nodded. He thanked the officers and they left. Harris stepped into the bedroom. Janet was packing a bag; Sean was in the bathroom collecting her toiletries.
“On behalf of Forbes, I want to tell you I’m terribly sorry about this,” he said.
“Thank you,” Janet said.
“We’ve never felt the need for security here,” Harris added.
“I understand,” Janet said. “It could have happened anyplace. I did leave the door open.”
“The police told me you had difficulty describing the guy,” Harris said.
“He had a stocking over his head,” Janet said. “And it all happened so fast.”
“Is it possible that you might have seen him before?” Harris asked.
“I don’t think so,” Janet said. “But it really is impossible to say for sure.”
“I want to ask you a question,” Harris said. “But I want you to think for a minute before answering. Has anything unusual happened to you recently at Forbes?”
Janet’s mouth went instantly dry.
Overhearing this exchange, Sean immediately guessed what was going through Janet’s mind: she was thinking about their break-in into the chart room.
“Janet has had a rather difficult experience,” Sean said, stepping into the room.
Harris turned. “I’m not talking to you, boy,” he said menacingly.
“Listen, jughead,” Sean said. “We didn’t call the Marines. Janet has spoken to the police. You can get your information from them. She doesn’t have to talk to you, and I think she’s been through enough tonight. She doesn’t need you pestering her.”
The two men faced off, glaring at each other.
“Please!” Janet shouted. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “I can’t stand any tension just now,” she told them.
Sean sat down on the bed, put his arm around her, and leaned his forehead against hers.
“I’m sorry, Miss Reardon,” Harris said. “I understand. But it is important for me to ask you if you’ve seen anything unusual while you worked today. I know it was your first day.”
Janet shook her head. Sean glanced up at Harris and with his eyes motioned for him to leave.
Harris fought hard to keep himself from slapping the kid around. He even fantasized about sitting on him and shaving his head. But instead he turned and left.
AS THE night advanced toward dawn Tom Widdicomb’s anxiety gradually increased. He was in the storeroom off the garage huddled in the corner beside the freezer. He had his arms around himself and his knees drawn up as if he were cold. He even intermittently shivered as his mind constantly tortured him by replaying over and over the disastrous events at the Forbes residence.
Now he was a total failure. Not only had he failed to put Gloria D’Amataglio to sleep, he’d failed to get rid of the nurse who’d prevented him from doing so. And despite the nylon stocking he’d worn, she’d seen him up close. Maybe she could recognize him. More than anything, Tom was mortified to have mistaken that stupid hair dryer for a gun.
Because of his idiocy, Alice wasn’t speaking to him. He’d tried to talk with her, but she wouldn’t even listen. He’d disappointed her. He wasn’t “her little man” anymore. He deserved to be laughed at by the other children. Tom had tried to reason with her, promising that he would help Gloria that morning, and that as soon as he could he’d rid them of the meddlesome nurse. He promised and cried, but to no avail. Alice could be stubborn.
Getting stiffly to his feet, Tom stretched his cramped muscles. He’d been crouched in the corner without moving for hours, thinking his mother would eventually feel sorry for him. But it hadn’t worked. She’d ignored him. So he thought he’d try talking to her directly.
Moving in front of the chest freezer he snapped open the lock and raised the lid. The frozen mist inside the freezer swirled as it mixed with a draft of moist, warm Miami air. Gradually the mist dissipated, and out of the fog emerged the desiccated face of Alice Widdicomb. Her dyed red hair was frozen into icy tangles. The skin of her face was sunken, blotchy, and blue. Crystals had formed along the edges of her open eyelids. Her eyeballs had contracted slightly, dimpling the surface of her corneas which were opaque with winter-like frost. Her yellow teeth were exposed by the retraction of her lips, forming a horrid grimace.
Since Tom and his mother had lived such isolated lives, Tom had little difficulty after he’d put her to sleep. His only mistake had been that he’d not thought of the freezer soon enough, and after a couple of days she’d started to smell. One of the few neighbors with whom they occasionally spoke had even mentioned it, throwing Tom into a panic. That was when he’d thought of the freezer.
Since then nothing had changed. Even Alice’s social security checks continued to arrive on schedule. The only close call had been when the freezer compressor conked out one hot Friday night. Tom hadn’t been able to get someone to come to fix it until Monday. He had been terrified the guy would need to open the freezer, but he didn’t. The man did tell Tom that he thought he might have some bad meat in there.
Supporting the lid, Tom gazed at his mother. But she still refused to say a word. She was understandably scared.
“I’ll do it today,” Tom said pleadingly. “Gloria will still be on IVs. If not, I’ll think of something. And the nurse. I’ll get rid of her. There’s not going to be any problem. No one is going to come to take you away. You’re safe with me. Please!”
Alice Widdicomb said nothing.
Slowly Tom lowered the lid. He waited for a moment in case she changed her mind, but she didn’t. Reluctantly he left her and went through to the kitchen into the bedroom they’d shared for so many years. Opening the bedside table he took out Alice’s gun. It had been his father’s originally, but after he’d died, Alice had taken it over, frequently showing it to Tom, saying t
hat if anyone ever tried to come between them, she’d use it. Tom had learned to love the sight of the mother-of-pearl handle.
“Nobody’s ever coming between us, Alice,” Tom said. So far he’d only used the gun once, and that was when the Arnold girl tried to interfere by taking him aside to say she’d seen him take some medicine off the anesthesia cart. Now he’d have to use it again for this Janet Reardon before she caused more trouble than she already had.
“I’ll prove to you that I’m your little man,” Tom said. He slipped the cold gun into his pocket and went into the bathroom to shave.
6
March 5
Friday, 6:30 A.M.
As she drove along the General Douglas MacArthur Causeway heading for work, Janet tried to distract herself by admiring the impressive view over Biscayne Bay. She even tried to fantasize about taking a cruise with Sean on one of the dazzling white cruise ships lined up at the Dodge Island seaport. But nothing worked. Her mind kept returning to the previous night’s events.
After confronting that man in her bathroom, Janet wasn’t about to spend the night in 207. Not even Sean’s apartment seemed a safe haven to her. Instead, she insisted on moving to the Miami Beach unit she’d rented. Not wanting to be alone, she’d invited Sean to come with her and was relieved when he accepted and even offered to sleep on the couch. But once they got there, even Janet’s best resolutions fell to the wayside. They slept together in what Sean described as the “Platonic fashion.” They didn’t make love, but Janet had to admit, it felt good to be close to him.
Almost as much as the intruder’s break-in, Janet was troubled by her escapade with Sean. The episode in the administration office the previous night troubled her deeply. She couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened had they been caught. On top of that, she’d begun to wonder what kind of man Sean was. He was smart and witty, of that there was no doubt. But given this new revelation of his past experience of thievery, she questioned what his true morals were.
All in all Janet felt profoundly distraught, and to make matters worse she was facing a day in which she was expected to obtain deceitfully a sample of medicine that was highly controlled. If she failed, she faced the possibility of Sean packing his things and leaving Miami. As she neared the hospital Janet found herself thinking longingly about Sunday, the first day she was scheduled to have off. The fact that she was already thinking about vacation time at the start of her second day on the job gave an indication of her level of stress.
