The 5th Horseman

Chapter 95

I TOOK THE STAIRS to the ICU two fast steps at a time. A homicidal maniac might be roaming the hospital, and right now might be my best opportunity to tag him.

I badged the senior nurse at her station outside the ICU, and stayed in her face as she paged the ICU’s attending physician.

Dr. Daniel Wassel materialized moments later. He was a thin man in his thirties with a long, narrow nose and sleepy, red-rimmed eyes.

I identified myself, told him that I was doing an investigation and needed a list of everyone on the staff who was on the floor when a patient named Anthony Ruffio was checked into the ICU after surgery.

And I told him I wanted to see Ruffio’s body right now.

The doctor became alarmed, his sleepy eyes widening as he shook off his torpor. “I don’t understand, Lieutenant. Why is this patient’s death a police matter?”

“For now, I’m calling it a suspicious death.”

“You are so off base, I can’t believe it,” he said.

Dr. Wassel opened the sliding door to the darkened stall, flipped on the light switch. The fluorescent light flickered.

My eyes went right to the body.

I felt a shiver of apprehension as I peeled the sheet down from the dead man’s face.

Ruffio looked shocked that he’d been wrenched from life. His mouth was open, his skin pale, almost translucent.

There was dried blood around his nostrils and the sticky remains of tape in the corner of his mouth where the respirator tube had been.

Pulling the sheet down farther, I saw the shocking, fresh surgical incision, a stitched line from his sternum to his navel.

I covered Mr. Ruffio with the sheet right up to his hairline.

When I turned away, I saw a pair of caduceus buttons winking at me from the console beside the bed. I stood between the buttons and Dr. Wassel.

“For now, this room is off-limits to hospital personnel,” I said. “Someone from the crime lab will be here shortly, and as soon as they’re done, the ME will transport Mr. Ruffio to the city morgue.”

“I have to tell someone in authority here.”

“Go straight to the top, Doctor.”

I took latex gloves and a glassine envelope from my jacket pocket, scooped up the buttons before they could disappear. I phoned CSU and located a pair of night-duty criminalists, who said they’d be right over. And I called Jacobi. Got him out of bed.

While I waited for support to arrive, I mounted my own investigation. It was like gunning a motorboat across the chop in a squall-tossed sea.

I flashed my badge repeatedly, questioned harried, irritated doctors, nurses, aides, and orderlies, asking, “Where were you when Anthony Ruffio was admitted to Municipal?”

“Where were you when he died?”

During each interview, I looked for a gesture, a tone of voice, a “tell” that would light up the board and spell out killer.

I detected nothing of the kind, nothing at all.