The 5th Horseman

Chapter 109

A LITTLE LATER at our table, Cindy’s face looked electric, charged up, excited, and maybe a little scared. She was giving us a detailed update on the malpractice trial when Yuki arrived at Susie’s, very late, and looking like hell, even worse than me. She slid into the booth beside Cindy, who squeezed her hand protectively.

“You got here just in time,” Cindy said.

“In time for what?”

“I’m about to drop a bomb.”

As radiant as Cindy looked, that’s how totally drained Yuki looked in comparison. Her hair was dull, her eyes were shadowed, and there was a button missing from the front of her pale silk blouse.

As Cindy set up her tape recorder on the table, I mouthed to Yuki, “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” she said with a thin smile.

“So you’ve got your bomb in that little thing?” Claire asked Cindy.

Cindy grinned. “I can’t reveal her name,” she said, cuing up the tape. “But she’s a nurse who works at Municipal. Wait’ll you hear this.”

A bad feeling was coming over me.

I hoped to God that I was wrong.

The tape rolled, and a woman’s staticky voice came from the small machine.

Noddie Wilkins had dropped another dime, this time to the Chronicle.

“I’ve seen them myself,” Cindy’s source said. “Like in the black of night. You go into the room and the patient is dead, and there are these buttons on their eyes.”

“Let me make sure I’ve got this right,” I heard Cindy say, her tinny voice incredulous. “When patients die, buttons are put on their eyes?”

“No, no, not every patient. Just a few of them. I’ve seen it three times, and other people have seen them, too.”

“I have a million questions, but let’s start with the basics. What do they look like?”

“They’re metallic buttons, like coins, embossed with a caduceus. And nobody’s ever caught anyone in the act.”

“How many patients have been found with these buttons on their eyes?”

“I don’t know. But a bunch.”

“Do you see a pattern? Does anybody you’ve spoken to? Like a certain age or ethnic group or illness?”

“I’ve just seen the three, and they were all different. Listen, I have to go now—”

“One more question. Please. Have you told anyone about this?”

“My supervisor. He says they’re someone’s sick idea of a joke. But you tell me. It’s scary, right?”

Noddie’s voice became muffled, as if she was covering the receiver with her hand. She spoke to someone. Her voice was terse when she got back on the line.

“I gotta go. I’m working and we’re busy. Understaffed.”

“Call me again if anything—”

Cindy shut off the tape recorder and looked into our shocked faces. Then she focused on me.

“Lindsay, tell me, please, is the hospital covering up multiple homicides?”

I closed my mouth and pushed back from the table.

My mind was spinning.

I’d just apologized to Cindy for asking her not to write a story that she had every right to report.

How could I ask her again?

“Lindsay, you knew,” Yuki said, picking up something in my expression that I didn’t know was there. “You already knew about those buttons, didn’t you? You knew.”

“Ah, I can’t talk about it.”

“Lindsay?” Cindy pressed, incredulous. “You knew about the buttons? Tell me. Tell me what it means!”

“I’ll tell you,” Yuki said forcefully. “Someone is marking those patients. Maybe even killing them. It’s arrogant. It’s psychopathic. And who does that sound like, Lindsay?”

I threw a long sigh, looked around for Loretta, and ordered another pitcher. Suddenly, Yuki reached across the table and clasped my forearm.

“Please,” she said. “Don’t let Garza get away with murder.”

I looked into Yuki’s dark, sad eyes. She’d saved my butt when I needed her, and besides, I loved her dearly.

“We’re on it,” I told my friend. “If Garza is guilty of anything, anything at all, I promise we’ll get him.”