The 5th Horseman

Chapter 101

IT WAS QUARTER TO 9:00 in the seamless, bright night of the hospital corridors. Garza had left his office many hours before, waving to me as though we were old friends, smirking as he slithered out through the pneumatic doors to the street. He’s having fun with this, isn’t he?

As I haunted the halls between the ER and the ICU, I’d expanded my view.

Maybe Garza wasn’t a killer.

Maybe he just smelled like one.

But if it wasn’t Garza, who could it be?

I’d been stalking this same path for so many days, I’d blown my own cover.

I sought fresh ground, took the stairs up to the third-floor oncology ward.

I’d just stepped out of the stairwell when I saw something that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck bristle.

A white male, about thirty, five eleven, 165 pounds, sandy hair under a blue baseball cap, a gray hoody, and black cargo pants, was talking to a weathered-looking white nurse in the hallway.

The man’s posture felt wrong — the furtiveness as he exchanged conspiratorial looks with the nurse, an exchange that jarred me, my instincts saying, this is wrong.

Cappy McNeil is a seasoned homicide pro. He’d worked for years with Jacobi and was now stationed on the floor below.

I called him on my Nextel, and a minute later, we converged at the door to room 386 — just as the sandy-haired man slipped inside the patient’s room.

I stiff-armed the swinging door open, calling out sharply, “Stop right there.” I flashed my badge and, grabbing his arm, spun the suspect around. Slammed him against the wall, feeling it shudder.

Behind me, Cappy blocked the exit with his two-hundred-fifty-pound bulk.

“What’s your name?” I asked the young man.

“Alan Feirstein. What is this?”

“Keep your hands on the wall, Mr. Feirstein. Do you have anything in your pockets I should know about? Drugs? A needle? A weapon?”

“I’ve got a toothbrush,” he hollered. “I’ve got car keys. I’ve got a box of Good and Plenty!”

I patted him down, all ten pockets. “I’m removing your wallet,” I said.

“Honey?” Feirstein half-turned his face, sending a pleading look toward the wan woman in the bed. “Are you awake?”

Swags of tubes and electric leads ran from her arms up an IV pole, over to a cardiac monitor.

“He’s my husband,” the woman said in a drugged, barely audible voice. “Alan’s my husband.”

I examined Feirstein’s license, my stomach shrinking, my heart sinking.

This guy wasn’t armed, had no buttons on his person. Shit, he even had the sticker for organ donation on his license.

“What are you doing here?” I asked weakly.

“I’m spending the night,” he said. “Carol has lymphoma. End-stage.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m so very sorry,” I said to Feirstein. “What just happened was an awful mistake, and I can’t apologize enough.”

The guy nodded, letting me off the hook, for which I was grateful. I told his wife, “You take good care, okay?”

Then Cappy and I walked out into the hallway.

“Man,” I said, “I feel terrible, Cappy. It sure looked like some kind of deal was going down. The guy was sneaking in to sleep on the floor! How could I have been so dumb?”

“It happens, boss,” he said, shrugging. “Back to square one.”

Cappy returned to his post, and I returned to the waiting room outside the ER.

I was disappointed and embarrassed, but worse, I’d never had such a feeling of grabbing at smoke.

Carl Whiteley, the hospital’s silky CEO, had stated repeatedly that the mortality rate at Municipal was within range for similar hospitals, and that the caduceus buttons were a joke.

I’d gotten Tracchio to go along with me based on little more than my instincts.

Risky for him. Risky for me.

The vending machines in the corner of the ER waiting room hummed, ready to dispense cheerful colored boxes of goodies in this bleak, soul-sucking place.

I dropped a dollar in quarters into the slot, stabbed a couple of buttons, and watched the orange packet of Reese’s Pieces clunk down the chute.

I was here for the night. I wanted to believe that we were going to unmask a depraved killer and save lives.

But there was an awful possibility that all I was doing was making an ass of myself. Jesus, that poor guy and his wife. What a disaster.