Diagnosis: Danger

by Marie Ferrarella

  Or caring, Mike thought, as he walked into the room to see what Louis was talking about. There, lying in the casket that was on display, was Tolliver. Permanently, from the looks of it.

  Chapter 14

  Mike made his way over to the casket and placed two fingers to the side of Tolliver’s neck, trying to detect a pulse. There was nothing. Frowning, he then held the same fingers just before the man’s nostrils. Again, nothing.

  At his side, Louis raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Is he—”

  “As a doornail,” Mike concluded, dropping his hand for a moment.

  Louis nodded toward the man’s still chest, pointing out the obvious. “He’s got some kind of piece of paper on his chest.”

  “Gee, I would have missed that, Louis,” Mike said drolly. “Seeing as how it’s lying there on his chest.” Mike took out a fresh pair of plastic gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before reaching for the paper.

  The first thing he noticed when he unfolded it was that it was typed. Red flags went up instantly.

  “‘I did it.’” he read out loud. “‘I killed Clancy. I’m responsible for everything and I can’t take the guilt any longer.’” Mike carefully refolded the note and looked at Louis.

  “Tolliver committed suicide?” Louis said skeptically, looking at the man in the casket.

  Mike shook his head. “Not the type,” he commented. “I can’t see him climbing into the casket and then killing himself.” Setting the note on top of another casket, he began to examine Tolliver’s lifeless body. “No signs of struggle,” he noted, more to himself than to his partner. “No stab marks, no gunshot wounds.”

  “Poison gets my vote,” Louis volunteered. “Maybe he took some pills.”

  Lack of any other evidence would point to that, but from another venue, Mike thought. “Or someone gave them to him.”

  “You don’t think it was suicide?” It wasn’t really a question, but an assumption.

  Louis looked around, obviously wondering the same thing Mike was. Where was everyone? It wasn’t after hours, there should have been at least one attendant, besides the receptionist, yet the area was as dead as its director.

  Mike picked up the note again. “Most people about to kill themselves don’t usually sit down at a computer and print out their suicide note. It’s too impersonal and suicide is very personal. They scribble something dramatic down as their final words.” He indicated the note. “At a time like that, neatness isn’t their main concern.”

  “And unless the killer’s also a forger, he can’t take a chance on a handwritten note because the handwriting would be different,” Louis agreed. “So a printer’s his only option.”

  Nodding, Mike handed him the paper. “Give this to forensics, see if it can be matched to one of the printers here.” He was pretty certain that he’d seen at least two in Tolliver’s office, a laser printer and one that printed in color.

  Taking his handkerchief out, Lou placed it over two fingers and gingerly took the note from him. “So you think someone here did it?”

  Mike thought of the people he had encountered on his two other visits to the mortuary. None had appeared particularly devious. “Most likely whoever killed Tolliver just used what was on hand—unless they had already printed the note before they came to see him.”

  Still holding the note in his handkerchief, Louis looked down and studied the dapper-looking man whose appearance had apparently meant a great deal to him. Even in death, not a hair was out of place. “Think this means that we’re getting close?”

  It was hard to say. “Maybe. Or maybe whoever else is involved is worried about loose ends. Or the killer found out that Tolliver was careless.”

  Wavy eyebrows drew together like caterpillars huddling for warmth. “Careless?”

  “Natalya’s friend took photographs of the dead bodies, focusing on the incisions,” he reminded his partner. “I’d call that a pretty large loose end.”

  “Then whoever performed the ‘surgeries’ killed Tolliver?” Louis concluded.

  “Maybe,” Mike allowed. He didn’t like putting all his eggs in one basket. “Or maybe the person behind this whole scheme did it.”

  The room was too eerie for Louis. He moved over to the wall and turned the dimmer up to its maximum wattage. “Could be one and the same,” he theorized.

  That was another possibility, Mike thought, nodding his head. “Could be.”

  Louis blew out a breath, joining him. He had a perturbed expression on his face. “Not a whole lot of concrete answers here, are there?”

  “And that’s why they call it detective work, Louis,” Mike responded. He took out his cell phone and put in a call to the medical examiner’s office. The irony of where he was making the call from, and for whom, was not lost on him.

  “Tolliver’s dead.”

  Those were the first words of greeting Mike said to Natalya. He’d stopped by her office to pick her up for dinner. After she had called him to find out if he’d managed to get Tolliver to open his files so that he could get the list of names he needed.

  Instead of answering her, Mike had volunteered to fill her in as much as he was able to over a meal. He thought he’d detected a slight hesitation, but chalked it up to his imagination.

  Frozen in midstep as she led the way to the back doors of the E.R., Natalya slowly turned around to look at him. “Dead? Somebody killed Tolliver?”

  The conclusion interested him. “Now why would you ask me that? Why wouldn’t you just ask if he killed himself?”

  The thought of the man committing suicide never occurred to her. Now that Mike mentioned it, it still made no sense. Tolliver was…had been too arrogant.

  “Because he struck me as someone who thought of himself in terms of immortality. Immortals don’t kill themselves. They might kill others, but they don’t kill themselves.” She let the information he’d just passed on sink in. This whole thing was getting weirder by the moment. “I guess then you don’t need his permission to take a look at his files now.”

  The killer had inadvertently made things easier for him. “The drawers to the cabinet were opened, as if someone was looking for something.”

  “And nobody’d notice a little more ‘looking’ taking place,” Natalya guessed, tongue-in-cheek.

  He smiled. God, he’d been thinking of her all day. She kept popping up in his head, refusing to let him complete an entire thought. “We think alike.”

  She smiled as he took her into his arms. “I guess we do.”

  His eyes washed over her, memorizing the subtle features of her face. “So guess what I’m thinking right now.”

  She raised her eyebrows innocently. “How to solve the square root of pi?”

  Mike slowly ran the back of his knuckles against her cheek. “Guess again.”

  There they went, she thought, all her pulse points going off at once. “You want to skip dinner and go straight to dessert.” It wasn’t a guess, it was a fact. For both of them.

  He laughed, quickly brushing his lips against hers. “We do think alike.”

  She barely managed to maintain her innocent expression. “No, I just guessed what you’d be thinking, remember?”

  “Then you do want to go out to dinner?” Mike deadpanned.

  She cocked her head, her smile filtering into her eyes. “Actually, I think that I kind of like your idea about dessert. Just so happens that I had a late lunch today.” She didn’t add that it was half of Vicki’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich. All she could think of was being alone with him.

  He paused to kiss her again, this time with more feeling. “Dessert it is.”

  She could feel the hum of anticipation beginning to throb through her body.

  “Kady’s got the late shift in the E.R. tonight. We could go to my place.” She wanted to make love to him there, in her room. In her bed. “And, to tip the scales,” she added, “I actually have food in the refrigerator if you do get hungry.”

  He leaned his forearms
on her shoulders, lacing his hands behind her head. His eyes were intently on hers. “I am hungry,” he admitted. “But not for anything that’s in your refrigerator.”

  Her heart crawled up to her throat and lodged itself there.

  Okay, she needed to get this out of the way first. The tension of carrying this around was beginning to wear on her. But, she still didn’t have a clue how to broach the subject without making it sound as if she was making assumptions about the direction their relationship was heading.

  But she had to tell him this before things got any more complicated.

  Natalya took a breath, fortifying herself. Praying for inspiration. “Mike, I need to tell you something.”

  “Okay.” Mike’s expression was deadly serious. Nerves began to jangle within her. “But first I need to get something out of the way.”

  But before she could open her mouth to ask what that “something” was, Mike was answering her question by sealing his lips to hers. Within the space of ten seconds, the kneecaps she was trying so hard to save were completely eradicated. Natalya caught herself digging her fingertips into his shoulders to keep from sinking to the floor.

  “Now,” he murmured, his body heat mingling with hers as he held her close to his chest, “what is it you wanted to say?”

  If she told him now, he might not come home with her. And after that preview, all she could think of was being with him. Of making love with him until she was ready to expire from exhaustion.

  She shook her head, dismissing the subject. “It’ll keep.”

  “Are you sure?” His eyes searched her face once he’d brushed his lips against hers again.

  Was she sure it would keep? No. Was she sure she wanted to make love to him until eternity came to claim her? Absolutely.

  “I’m sure,” she breathed.

  “Good enough for me,” he told her.

  Not hardly, she responded silently.

  The air was heavy with the promise of winter. She could smell it as the wind glided along her face and body despite the warm coat and helmet she had on. The colder it seemed, the more she clung to him, hanging on tightly as much for warmth as any other reason.

  They arrived at her apartment building none too soon. She was grateful it wasn’t located that far from the hospital or she might have turned into an icicle. Holding on to his shoulders, she dismounted. “I think you need to think about getting a car.”

  He laughed. He supposed it was cold, but he decided to tease her. “A little brisk air is good for you.”

  Taking off the helmet, she shook out her hair. It rained like a red river about her shoulders. “What are you planning on doing if it snows?”

  “Same thing I did last year when it snowed.” He winked. “Wear heavier boots.” Mike locked up his helmet and hers, then looked at her as they walked into the building and headed to the elevator. “I thought you liked my motorcycle.”

  “I do,” she said quickly, then turned her face forward so he couldn’t read her expression. “I just don’t like thinking about you getting sick.”

  The elevator arrived and they got in. Natalya reached over to the two rows of buttons and pressed for the appropriate floor.

  “I never get sick,” he told her.

  Her fingers nearly didn’t make contact with the button. “Never?”

  “Never,” he answered glibly.

  She really doubted that, but she played along. “Does medical science know about you?”

  He looked at her significantly, then allowed a smile to slowly unfurl on his lips. “You do.”

  He made her crazy when he looked at her like that, she thought. She threaded her hand through his. “I think I’ll keep you a secret a while longer.”

  He looked at her in surprise, glancing at her hands. “Your hands are cold.”

  “Next time,” she said as they reached her floor and got out, “I’ll put them in your pockets.”

  His eyes were dancing as he walked to her door. “Looking forward to it.” He waited until she unlocked the door, then walked in behind her. Once inside, he simultaneously closed the door and pulled her to him. “About that dessert…”

  She tilted her head up to his, her eyes on his lips. Warmth spread out through her limbs, coating them. “Coming right up.”

  It was all the encouragement he needed.

  He took his time, making love to every part of her. It had been an extremely long day and he wanted nothing more than to expunge it from his brain.

  Wanted, he realized, to think and feel nothing but Natalya until all traces of the day were completely washed away.

  Each time he made love with her, it was the same thrill. And yet, it was different.

  Mike made love to her in so many ways, she couldn’t begin to keep track, couldn’t manage to keep up. It was like running beside a train, her belt caught in the door. She couldn’t slow down, couldn’t catch up. All she could do was run.

  He made her aware of all the different, gloriously erotic spots on her body, spots she’d never even known were there. Pleasure mushroomed and spread all through her like liquid sunshine.

  She worked hard to please him, to create, at least remotely, the same kind of pleasure for him that he created within her. But it was hard to stay focused on his pleasure when he made her want to do nothing but relish hers.

  Each part of her vibrated with anticipation, with desire, with a need to feel and savor what was happening down to the lowest depths of her soul. He made climax after climax erupt through her body like a moment in time forever looped, before finally joining her for the ultimate sensation.

  The euphoria that she’d felt growing finally exploded, raining its fragments down around her. Through her.

  And then, it withdrew by tiny increments until it was gone. Leaving behind only shadows. And the nagging thoughts that continued to plague her, that whispered along the borders of her mind, reminding her that she was being dishonest by not telling him what he needed to know.

  Mike rolled off her and she lay there, staring up at the ceiling, searching for words, at a loss as how to string them coherently together. All she knew was that she loved him and she didn’t want this to end. But it would. Once he knew, it would.

  “Is this a solitary journey, or can I come along, too?”

  It took her a second to realize that he was speaking, another to realize that he’d asked her a question. She turned her face toward him. “What?”

  “You look lost in your thoughts,” he explained, pulling her closer against his side. “I was just wondering if you were going to let me in on them.”

  She took a breath, shading her eyes with her hand. With every fiber in her, she tried to block out the sensations his very presence next to her kept resurrecting. “I don’t think you really want to know that.”

  There was something about her tone that made him uneasy, but he pushed on. “Wanting to know is the definition of a detective. Try me.”

  She almost didn’t say it, almost just turned toward him and began to kiss him. But then the words just spilled out. “I can’t get pregnant.”

  Of all the things he would have guessed her saying, this wouldn’t have even remotely been on his list. Stunned, Mike sat up and looked at her. “Have you been trying?”

  Caught up in her thoughts, his question threw her. “What?”

  “I thought you were on birth control pills,” he told her, trying to make sense out of what was going on here. “Have you been trying to get pregnant?”

  “No!” As if trying would ever make it happen.

  “Then—” Words deserted him. He began again. “I don’t understand,” he confessed, waiting for an explanation.

  It hurt even to think about it, much less say it. “I can’t get pregnant—ever.”

  Natalya made it sound like a conscious decision. The thought shook him as he struggled to comprehend. “Because you don’t want kids? Because, if it’s the profession you’re in, don’t let it get to you. I’ve heard a lot of people say t
hat once you have kids of your own, it’s different—”

  “You’re not listening,” she insisted, breaking in. “I can’t have kids. Not because I don’t want to but because I physically can’t.” She felt tears beginning to dampen her eyes and fought them back. She wasn’t going to be one of those weak, weepy women. She didn’t want him to stay because of tears, but because he loved her. “When I was nineteen, I came down with endometriosis. A really bad case,” she emphasized. The mere memory made her want to shiver. “The pain was unbelievable. The doctor cured me so I didn’t have to go on enduring a living hell—at least not physically. But…” Her voice trailed off, words deserting her again.

  She searched for the best way to put this. But there was no best way. There was only the painful, barren truth. “The upshot is that I can’t have children. That’s why I became a pediatrician. I figured that was the only way I’d get to hold a baby in my arms.”

  Reaching for the robe she kept at the foot of her bed, she turned her back to him as she slipped it on. When she turned around again, he’d gotten dressed.

  A knot formed in her stomach.

  He’s leaving.

  She shouldn’t have told him. At least, not yet. Not until she had gotten him to the point that he couldn’t just walk away from her.

  So what had been her plan? To keep him by being silent? That was the sin of omission. And she wasn’t the kind of woman to hold on to a man by deception, vocal or silent.

  But loving him had made her want to throw away all the rules, to do anything in her power to make him stay.

  If you love something, set it free.

  Great words for a philosophy, she thought cynically. Not so great in real life.

  The silence threatened to eat her alive. “Say something,” she finally implored.

  Mike felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule.

  He was in no hurry for children, but he’d always thought, when he was ready, they would come. It was the most natural thing in the world, having children. So many of the people he had been around in the housing projects where he grew up seemed to pop them out every nine months or so. Nothing to it.