"Is that him?" McKnight said.
She studied the image of a clean-shaven, broad-faced man with blue eyes and very closely cropped hair who might have been anywhere in that no-man's-land of age between the mid-twenties and early thirties. At least Richard, peering over her shoulder from the opposite side of the bed, couldn't peg it any closer.
Kathleen took a breath and, able to use her right hand to block her tracheal tube, said, "Yes." She could also turn her head slightly to that side, enough to look at the detective and back to the young officer who'd done the portrait.
"What about you, Doc? Is that the guy you ran into on your way out of ICU?" McKnight asked.
"It could be. But as I said, I hardly paid him any attention at the time. If it was, I was by him so fast I don't even remember getting a whiff of that awful aftershave he wears."
McKnight glanced up at the wall clock, which read 6:51 A.M. "Before the night shift goes off at seven, ask them to take a look as well," he said to the young policeman who was making backup disks of his work.
"Right, sir."
The man closed his case, shouldered it, and wandered off toward the nursing station. Soon he was surrounded by women who seemed as interested in him as his sketch. Richard's nemesis with the spiky hairdo and aquamarine eyes arrived and appeared particularly fascinated by him. Richard wondered if the cop would end up drawing her, in private. "Look out for sharp teeth if you do," he said under his breath.
". . . as many witnesses as possible usually gives us the best likeness," McKnight was explaining to Kathleen. "Then we'll e-mail copies all over the hospital and to the media, to see if anyone recognizes the creep. Now, we'll also check the cleaning cart and around this cubicle for prints, plus medical records, especially the shelf unit your Doc toppled on him to see if we get a match for all three areas, but with everything so public—""He wore . . . latex gloves . . . when he was ... in here," interrupted Kathleen.
"And I wouldn't be surprised if he kept them on the whole time," continued McKnight. "No, it'll be the picture of him that'll help us. That and the fact the motive here seems pretty obvious."
Something uneasy stirred within Richard. "You know, the way the guy was screaming about 'the Almighty's just punishment' and killing me off as an 'agent of the devil,' a rational motive may not exactly be the guy's strong suit."
"What are you talking about? It's clear this creep was trying to kill Dr. Sullivan before she could convince anyone that Hamlin and Lockman had done something to her. He obviously didn't know she had managed to communicate with us. And he probably went after you because he realized you were going through the charts and was afraid you'd finally figure out whatever is the secret of Hamlin's DOAs."
"So all the Jesus talk and the trouble he went to carving up Lockman, not to mention his leaving a twig at both murder scenes, it was solely to throw you off and make you think he was a crazy?"
"Why not?"
"Because the man I heard wasn't that coldly logical."
"You're not . . . suggesting . . . this psychotic . . . singled out . . . you and me ... by chance, Richard."
"Of course not."
"Good . . . because our . . . linking . . . the attacks . . . with the murders ... of Hamlin and Lockman ... is the . . . only way . . . everything . . . adds up ... in a sick way."
"I can't see it being otherwise," McKnight chimed in. "There's too much method in this guy's madness."
Her eyes skipped from Richard to the detective as lightly as if she were changing dance partners. "Exactly . . . it's the timing." Her face, until now a death mask, flickered to life, tiny movements that weren't there before appearing at the corners of her mouth. "Especially if. . . we consider. . . what he . . . would have accomplished . . . had he killed me . . . last night . . . before I could . . . tell you or anyone . . . about . . . Hamlin and Lockman."
McKnight nodded in enthusiastic agreement. "Precisely!"
"Had he succeeded ... in sending my secret ... to the grave . . . the investigation . . . into Hamlin's murder . . . and Lockman's . . . would have played out. . . very differently . . . with you and your colleagues."
The detective beamed at her. "My figuring exactly. We would never have known the two men were linked in some nasty business together, nor have had cause to think their murders might have been to silence them. In all likelihood we'd have figured some psycho was slaughtering doctors from New York City Hospital for a lunatic reason that had to do with the twig he left at the scene, just the way Dr. Steele suggested."
"In effect ... a perfect . . . cover-up."
"You got that right," said McKnight, shaking his head at the dire possibility.
"All . . . but for the fluke ... of my getting Richard ... to bring you in . . . Detective McKnight."
Richard wasn't sure whether he saw a tinge of crimson spreading over the big man's ebony cheeks, but there was no mistaking his delight with Kathleen or his enjoyment of their bouncing ideas off each other. "What d'ya think, Doc?" he said, turning toward him and breaking into the kind of goofy grin a man wears when he's found a beautiful woman who agrees with him. "Is all this motive enough for you or what?" What Richard wanted to say was that the love of his life was flirting, which probably meant she had something in mind she knew he wouldn't go for and intended to pursue it through McKnight. Instead he replied, "I don't know, it's just that the more I think about what I heard down there, the more it seems . . ." Richard cast around for a word.
"Crazy?" offered Kathleen, the ends of her lips twitching to give a hint of a grin. "What else . . . would he . . . make himself. . . sound like . . . silly. ... It was . . . the whole point."
Mc Knight turned to her and let out a deep chuckle. "Hey, that's a good one."
"Why, thank you."
Why didn't she just bat her eyelashes at him, thought Richard, still wondering what she was up to.
A second later, she did exactly that.
Oh, Jesus, he thought, smiling in spite of everything. "Maybe you two can stop congratulating each other and explain why this guy would bother pretending he was nuts if he was going to kill me anyway."
"Who knows? Maybe he's into Method acting and stays in character," said McKnight. "Now, Doc, what's your best guess was in the syringe? For him to complete his cover-up, I figure he'd have had to make her death appear to be from natural causes, so as not to suggest any link with the other murders . . ."
As the detective talked, Richard kept his eyes on Kathleen, wondering if she should take a break, since she'd been off the respirator much longer than she was used to. Yet the color suffusing her cheeks wasn't the blue of cyanosis but a flush of excitement, something totally absent since the stroke felled her two weeks ago. As bizarre as it seemed, her playing intellectual leapfrog with McKnight in pursuit of the creep who had tried to murder her appeared to be bringing her even more alive. Maybe the prospect of soon closing in on him gave her back some sense of control.
". . . and it would have to be something nobody could trace."
"Potassium chloride," answered Richard, having already mulled this one through. "Are you sure you want to hear this?" He squeezed Kathleen's hand. "It scares the hell out of me, how close a call it was."
"Don't think ... I haven't already . . . figured that out."
"Okay then." He fixed his gaze on McKnight, finding it less disconcerting to describe Kathleen's near death by not looking at her. "A bolus of it directly into theIV would have been his logical choice. It would have taken seconds to administer with a syringe while he was cleaning near her bed. The heart would be rendered useless within a minute, enough time for him to walk out of ICU with no one even having taken much notice that he was ever there. And a cardiac arrest from massive hyperkalemia can be difficult to treat. . . ."
As he talked, his voice seemed to distance itself from him, as if someone else was speaking and referring to a poor woman other than Kathleen. Yet he couldn't keep himself from imagining what might have happened, her body bluish-white fr
om death surrounded by strangers sticking her with needles and pounding on her chest, her limbs convulsively jerking then flopping back lifeless after each countershock from the defibrillator, her eyes, still alive, staring straight at him.
". . . the high potassium would have been noted," he continued, struggling to keep his words layered in calm by imagining he was stressing a teaching point with his residents, "but there'd be a number of explanations offered, from unexpected renal failure to a nursing error, none of them satisfying. Yet throughout it all there'd still be no cause to suspect a deliberate act, providing, as you both said, the killer succeeded before Kathleen made it clear someone had a motive for wanting her dead."
"But for dumb luck," muttered McKnight."I feel ... I just attended . . . my own autopsy," said Kathleen.
Richard squeezed her hand again and gave her a kiss beside her ear. "You know you're getting your smile back," he whispered.
Her face brightened. "I thought ... I felt it . . . and look at this," she said, making her foot move her covers as if a nest of mice were scurrying underneath.
Richard chuckled with genuine delight."When did that happen?"
"Last night. . . . And how long . . . have I been off. . . the respirator this morning?" she asked, the whispering quality of her speaking not able to hide the note of triumph.
"A little over an hour and a half," he said, glancing at the oxygen saturation monitor. He couldn't believe what he saw. "It's ninety-five percent?"
"What's that mean?" said McKnight.
Richard swallowed. "It's nearly normal."
"And I don't . . . feel tired."
"It's amazing, Kathleen. In fact it's wonderful." He felt ecstatic at what all at once seemed to be a leap of progress, until his own words fell like a shroud. It makes them do incredibly well, then kills them.
"Uh, excuse me, I've only got a few more questions, then I'll leave you two," said McKnight, obviously embarrassed by the intimate little exchange. "Uh, Doc, about Hamlin's charts, you didn't tell us the stuff you found. Did any of it give you an idea what he was doing to his patients?"
"No," he lied, not wanting to get into the details of DOAs, rebleeds, and what the records suggested was in store for her even if she did recover. She had to be frightened enough about what was ahead without him adding stuff like that. All he'd told her while waiting for McKnight was about Hamlin's patients going to Adele Blaine's rehabilitation institute. He also suggested it was better they didn't mention Blaine's possible involvement to McKnight just yet, explaining how it would be wiser not to put the woman on the defensive by sending in the cops since he intended to con her into showing him the files he still wanted to see.
But McKnight wasn't to be deterred, his eyebrows giving a skeptical salute. "Nothing at all?"
Richard immediately felt guilty. "Hey, the guy interrupted me before I got anywhere," he said, thinking the explanation would make the detective back off. He'd fill him in later, out of earshot of Kathleen, at least the parts not involving Blaine.
His manner only grew more incredulous. "You're sure?"
"Not even . . . with the DOAs?" joined in Kathleen. "Hamlin himself. . . seemed certain . . . you'd catch on . . . if you took a . . . good look ... at those."
"Yeah, Doc," McKnight continued to press, "and the guy who attacked you probably figured you'd not only see their secret, you'd see it pretty fast. Why else would he have broken off his attempt on Dr. Sullivan?"
"He said it was because I'd wronged God's works."
McKnight's eyebrows shot up another inch. He hadn't appreciated the wiseass remark. "What's your point?"
Jesus, McKnight's cop instincts were in overdrive and he seemed to be getting pissed that Richard was holding out. Yet Richard would be damned if he'd upset Kathleen. "My point is the same as before. The man didn't seem to be pretending he was crazy. I've heard enough religious manias in ER to know." Richard heard his own voice growing testy. "There's definitely something screwy about your idea the killer's putting on an act that he's insane and what I heard him say down there was just for show. Believe me, it sounded like the real thing."
"So what are you inferring? The guy's a bona fide madman, the attack on you wasn't part of an elaborate cover-up and isn't connected to the murders—"
"No, no, not at all," said Richard, still marveling at how a ridiculous spat could grow so heated. All he wanted was to get McKnight off the subject of charts. "And I agree it's important I keep looking through the charts, okay?" He'd set things straight with Mc Knight outside. "I presume your investigators will be finished in medical records soon."
"I'll tell them to let you in even if they're not."
"Great. Anything else?"
"Yeah. Do you have any idea who the other people Lockman referred to might be?"
Richard instantly thought of Francesca Downs and Paul Edwards as well as Adele Blaine, but stuck with his decision to say nothing.
The air between him and the detective went polar.
"Excuse me . . . both of you," cut in Kathleen. "Detective McKnight . . . I'm surewhat . . . Richard's so blatantly . . . trying to avoid saying ... is something ... he probably fears . . . would frighten me."
"I didn't avoid anything," said Richard.
McKnight clamped a cop stare on him, but didn't utter a word.
"Richard, tell him. . . . Nothing you could say... is as bad as . . . what I've already . . . imagined ... is in store for me."
Richard ripped free of the spell McKnight's eyes had cast on him and looked down at her. Seeing the brave effort she was making to smile even with what little movement she had, he knew she was right. He couldn't protect her from any of this. "Okay," he said, stroking the side of her face, and he told McKnight everything he hadn't wanted Kathleen to hear. She then insisted he also confide the need to get at the records in Blaine's rehab center without putting the woman on the defensive.
"If she is guilty, I doubt you'll con her into showing you anything," said the detective, after hearing his concerns. "But we'll think of a way to get a look at them."
"I already have," said Kathleen.The two men looked at her.
"You send me there ... as a patient."
"The place is crawling with cops," Paul Edwards said into his private phone a few floors above, his voice so squeezed into a higher pitch it sounded as if someone had him by the neck. "I'm not even sure where Francesca Downs keeps records of her protocols and test results, but it sure as hell isn't the time to go sneaking through her office."
"Why not hack them off her hard drive?"
"I tried. Too many passwords protecting it."
"Are the police onto her?"
"I don't think so."
"And what about Hamlin's research. Are the detectives investigating his death likely to turn it up?"
"No. Thank God he kept his stuff off the premises, with Adele Blaine, for safekeeping. As long as they don't have cause to go snooping around her rehab center, they'll be safe."
"So you can get at those?"
"I hope so. But, none of us are exactly buddy-buddy with each other these days, and she's an even bigger genius than Francesca when it comes to computers."
"And Norris's work? There's no deal without that."
"Again, I'm sure it's in his lab, but I'll need time to get at it."
"You don't have time, my friend. My backers want the material now, while it's still confidential. And I remind you, the price we discussed presumes the data will give them at least a two year head start on the rest of the world. That means you must guarantee the silence of your colleagues. If any one of them goes public, or the homicide investigation gets too close and the story's liable to end up on the evening news, the deal's off. After all, no one's going to pay four million for something they'd be able to get off the Internet a few weeks from now."
"Don't worry. I'll handle everything," said Edwards, trying to sound confident while feeling anything but. He caught a glimpse of his appearance in a gilded mirror that matched a
set of Louis XIV chairs arranged invitingly in a corner. His face looked a size too loose, hanging off him as if it were about to slough onto the floor. He gave the impression of a man who couldn't handle a trip to the bathroom without pissing himself, he thought, and felt relieved his caller couldn't see him.
After hanging up, he eyed the tray of croissants his secretary had left him and shoved it away, his stomach one huge, swollen bubble of acid.
A needle of morning light came through the window at the far end of the long narrow room and pierced him as if singling him out and pinning him to the wall. He made no attempt to avoid the pain, knowing he deserved it. Let the movement of the heavens decide when he'd paid sufficient penance, he declared, going over and over where he'd gone wrong.
He'd felt such a surge of confidence when Steele had appeared. He'd been so certain that a divine power had intervened to redirect the mission, that he would dispatch two agents of Satan back to Hell where they belonged, and what a night it would have been for the Legion of the Lord!
Yet the Devil had triumphed. Because I surrendered to the sin of willfulness and didn't follow orders.
He had crept up the stairs to his lair, closed the door behind him, and sunk to the floor an hour ago. The high ceiling over him reminded him of a coffin lid. His skin, already clammy from his hasty retreat through the streets, released a sour odor that disgusted him. It mingled with the other smells permeating the stale air, the stench of urine from the wooden boards under him that persisted no matter how much he'd scrubbed them, and a constant fragrance of cabbage that always seemed to fill the entire building.
"Forgive me my disappointing you, oh Lord," he whispered, over and over, seeking comfort from the words as he would from a catechism. But no solace came.
He got up and began to pace, passing a triangular countertop wedged into a corner beside a blackened sink. The tiny area served as his kitchen, but barely held a toaster oven and a single place setting of dishes. A few pans and a coffeepot filled a shelf underneath. The mere thought of food evoked an angry growl from the pit of his gut.
Critical Condition Page 18
