Covenant

57

Suicide.”

The word fell from Tyrell’s mouth to the floor with a thud.

“Two hours ago,” a nurse said as she stood with him in the corridor. “We attempted resuscitation, but it was too late.”

Tyrell stared at the tape cordon blocking access to Daniel Neville’s room. The door was propped open by a small wastepaper bin. Inside, the bed looked recently used. There was no sign of a struggle except for the broken plastic of the door window. Nearby, a tall man with blond hair sat sullenly in a chair with his back to the wall.

“What happened?” Tyrell asked the nurse, feeling numb.

“Daniel was guarded constantly by the police officer you assigned to him. Daniel ate food that was brought here by his mother from the kitchens, and she left once he was tucked up in bed. The police officer remained at the end of the corridor after she left.”

“Who found him?” Lopez asked.

“The handyman, Casey Jeffs. He was walking down the corridor with drinks for the patients when he saw Daniel lying on his bed in a pool of vomit. He shouted for the keys to the room but the duty nurse wasn’t quick enough, so he punched through the plastic window and unlocked the door. Your police officer went with him to help, but Daniel had already passed away.”

Tyrell looked across at Casey Jeffs and recognized him as the man who had been swabbing the floors when they’d first arrived to speak to Daniel Neville. Casey’s hand was bandaged, a soft pink stain betraying where the plastic had cut into his knuckles.

“Casey is a former patient,” the nurse said softly to Tyrell. “He was kept on here as an assistant to help him get on his feet. Daniel’s death has hit him pretty hard.”

As they spoke, the young Latino beat cop assigned to protect Daniel appeared from down the hallway. Tyrell gestured him to join them.

“Officer Gomez,” the cop introduced himself as he shook Tyrell’s hand. “Listen, I don’t know how this happ—”

“Forget it,” Tyrell said. “I just need to know how you found the kid.”

Gomez pointed into Daniel’s room as he spoke.

“Right there, layin’ on his back. Looked like he’d choked on his own vomit. There were pills around him on the bed and on the floor, and one o’ those small bottles they come in. Thing is, the kid was a mess and couldn’t have smuggled anything in there if he’d tried. The staff are real strict about drugs and the patients get their meds hand-fed to them once or twice a day.”

“Who was the last person to see him alive?” Lopez asked.

Gomez thought for a moment.

“I guess I was, an’ before that you were, along with Mrs. Neville and Michael Shaw, one of the orderlies here. Michael wasn’t in the building at the time of death, as his shift had ended. We’ve checked the security cameras already and nobody entered Daniel’s room between the time he was left here and when he was found by Casey.”

“What about Casey? Where was he?” Lopez asked.

“Was just back off his break,” Gomez said, and then called out, “Hey, c’mere, Casey.”

Casey got to his feet and shuffled across to them. Tyrell judged him at about six-three and at least two hundred forty pounds. A pair of listless blue eyes shyly met his. Tyrell extended his right hand and Casey reached out for it, the shake limp and damp.

“Can you tell us what you saw, Casey?” Tyrell asked.

“Nothin’,” Casey said in a whispering Texan accent. “I just happened by, doing my drinks rounds when I saw Daniel. He’d been sick, his eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at anythin’, and there were a lot of pills around him. I couldn’t open the door, so I went in through the window instead.” He shrugged. “Din’ know what else t’do.”

“You did good, Casey,” Gomez said reassuringly.

Tyrell frowned, looking back into the room.

“How does a bedridden former drug addict in a controlled hospital gain access to enough drugs to overdose?”

The nurse beside them sighed softly.

“There is only one way,” she said, and gestured down the hall.

Walking toward them, flanked by two police officers, was Claretta Neville. Gone was her defiant bravado. Claretta walked with shoulders slumped, staring at the floor, her huge arms dwarfing those of the officers’ looped through hers.

“You’re kidding?” Lopez snapped. “There’s no way.”

Claretta came to a stop in front of Tyrell, looking up at him. No psychologist was needed to see that the events of the day had entirely sapped her of her will.

“You know what happened here?” he asked her simply.

Claretta shook her head once.

“I told ’em everythin’.” Glistening pools appeared beneath her eyelids. “I don’t know why he’d have done somethin’ like this. I din’ give him no pills.”

Tyrell looked into the empty room where Daniel Neville’s short life had come to an end, and then looked at the nurse and Officer Gomez.

“Daniel Neville was suicidal with pain,” he said softly before looking at Officer Gomez. “A locked room, no way of getting contraband in or out, cameras on the corridor. You’re absolutely sure all of those criteria were met by the hospital staff?”

Both Gomez and the nurse nodded without hesitation.

“Couldn’t have got in any other way,” Gomez said sadly.

Tyrell nodded, and turned to Daniel’s mother. “Claretta Neville, I’m arresting you on suspicion of first-degree murder. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney …”

From the corner of his eye he saw Lopez’s jaw drop. Claretta Neville stared at him with drops of liquid quivering in her eyes as he read her her rights, the two officers flanking her remaining stonily silent.

Claretta held his gaze for a few seconds.

“This one’s for real,” she hissed at him.

One powerful arm snapped free and whipped across Tyrell’s face with a sharp crack.

Bright pain stung his face but he did not respond, watching silently as Claretta was brusquely handcuffed by the officers and led away down the corridor.

“Go with them,” Tyrell said to Gomez, gesturing after the other officers. “Keep an eye on Claretta for me back at the station.”

As Gomez moved off with Casey and the nurse, Lopez moved to stand in front of Tyrell. “The hell d’you think you’re doing?” she whispered.

“Buying us some time,” he said quietly.

Lopez pointed abruptly down the hall. “You just booked her, for Christ’s sake! This isn’t a mercy killing, she wanted us on Daniel’s case!”

“I know,” he replied. “Daniel might have overdosed but he still had to get hold of the pills somehow.”

Lopez eyed Tyrell testily, but he saw her forcing herself to consider the possibilities.

“They said the cameras saw nobody enter or exit the room,” she said, “so he was definitely alone. The security door at the end of the hall was locked, Officer Gomez was beside it and Daniel couldn’t even feed himself let alone overdose. So if Claretta didn’t provide him with the pills, who could have?”

“Call the morgue,” Tyrell said quietly. “I want Daniel Neville’s body tested for foreign DNA samples: hair, skin, blood, anything. There was one thing we never learned about Daniel: why he alone survived these experiments.”

“Even if forensics found DNA samples, there’s no guarantee that they belong to a murderer, and how could the perp have gotten into the room without being seen on camera? Even if we could find a way, it doesn’t mean that they were in the room at the time of death.”

Tyrell nodded.

“I know, but we need everything we can get.” He hesitated, looking thoughtfully back down the corridor. “Find everything you can on Casey Jeffs, Michael Shaw, and Claretta Neville just in case.”

“What for?” Lopez asked.

“Just do it,” Tyrell said as they started walking. “Anyone who’s a witness is a suspect right now. Then I think that we need to pay a visit to the great pastor himself.”

“If he’s involved in this, he’s not going to just open up,” Lopez pointed out as they walked down the corridor. “And Claretta’s arrest might not be enough to let them drop their guard, whoever they are.”

“We’ll play it as though it’s just a routine questioning,” Tyrell said. “He’s bound to be expecting something along those lines after what’s happened here.”

“If Powell finds out about this, he’ll hit the goddamn roof.”

“Sure he will,” Tyrell agreed. “But if we find the link we need, he’ll be forced to keep the case open. What was the name of that surgeon again?”