The Crucifix Killer

Twenty-Seven

The Good Samaritan Hospital building stands imposingly on Wilshire Boulevard, in downtown LA. Its main entrance is through a circular driveway on the east side of Witmer Street. On a normal day, the trip from Griffith Park would’ve taken Hunter around thirty minutes; this time he made it in less than twenty, almost giving Garcia a heart attack in the process.

They rushed through the spotlessly clean glass doors of the entrance lobby, towards the admissions desk. Two middle-aged nurses were busy shuffling through piles of paper, answering telephones and dealing with the demanding crowd of patients surrounding the desk. Hunter disregarded the line of people and pushed his way to the front.

‘Where’s your emergency ward?’ he asked with his badge in hand.

One of the nurses looked up from her computer screen through the top of the thick-rimmed pair of glasses she had balancing on the tip of her nose and merely studied the two men in front of her. ‘Are you two blind? There’s a line of people in front of you.’ Her voice was calm as if she had all the time in the world.

‘Yeah, that’s right, we’re all waiting here, get in line,’ came a protest from an elderly man with his arm in a cast, igniting shouts from the other patients.

‘This is official business sir!’ Hunter said. ‘The emergency ward, where is it?’ The urgency in his voice made the nurse look up again. This time she checked both of their badges.

‘Through there, take a left at the end,’ she said reluctantly, pointing to the hall on her right.

‘Damn cops, not even a thank you,’ she murmured as Hunter and Garcia disappeared down the corridor.

The emergency ward was a busy shuffle of doctors, nurses, orderlies and patients all running around as if the end of the world was about to take place. The area was large, but with the chaotic movement of people and wheel stretchers it appeared crowded.

‘How can anyone work in a place like this? It’s like Carnival in Brazil,’ Garcia said, looking around with a worried expression.

Hunter surveyed the messy scene looking for someone who could offer them any information. He spotted a small, semi-circular counter against the north wall. A sole nurse sat behind it, her face flushed. They wasted no time in getting to her.

‘An emergency patient came in about five or ten minutes ago. We need to know where he’s been taken to,’ Hunter said in a frustrated tone of voice as he approached the large woman.

‘This is the emergency ward, sweetie, all the patients that come through here are emergency patients,’ she said in a tender voice with a very strong southern accent.

‘A crime victim, Griffith Park, about thirty-something years of age, completely covered in blisters,’ Hunter shot back impatiently.

She pulled a brand-new Kleenex tissue from a super-sized box on the counter and wiped the sweat from her forehead, finally gazing at the detectives with her black pearl eyes. Realizing the urgency in Hunter’s voice, she quickly checked a few documents behind the counter.

‘Yeah, I remember him being brought in not that long ago’ – she paused to take a deep breath – ‘if I remember correctly… he was DOA.’

‘What?’

‘Dead on arrival,’ she explained.

‘We know what it means. Are you sure?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not one hundred percent, but Doctor Phillips admitted the patient. He’ll be able to confirm it.’

‘And where can we find him?’

She stood up to survey the room. ‘Right over there… Doctor Phillips,’ she called waving her hand.

A short, bald-headed man turned, his stethoscope swinging around his neck; his white overall looked old and wrinkly, and judging by the dark circles under his eyes, he hadn’t had any sleep in at least thirty-six hours. He was busy in conversation with another man who Hunter immediately recognized as one of the paramedics who had pushed his way through to get to the victim’s car in Griffith Park.

Both detectives went over to the two men before they had a chance to come to the small counter. They quickly went through the customary introductions.

‘The victim from the park, where’s he? What happened?’ Hunter asked.

The paramedic’s eyes avoided Hunter’s, using the floor as refuge. The short doctor shifted his stare from Hunter to Garcia a couple of times. ‘He didn’t make it. They had to turn off the sirens five minutes away from the hospital. He was DOA – dead on arrival.’

‘We know what it means.’ Hunter sounded annoyed.

The short silence that followed was broken by Garcia. ‘Shit! I knew it was too good to be true.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the paramedic said with a distressed look. ‘We tried everything we could. He couldn’t breathe. He was choking on his own blood. We were about to perform an emergency tracheotomy, but before we had the chance…’ his voice trailed off as Doctor Phillips took over.

‘By the time the ambulance reached the hospital there was nothing more anyone could do. He was pronounced dead at three-eighteen this afternoon.’

‘What was the cause of death?’

Doctor Phillips gave Hunter a quick nervous laugh. ‘The body just came in, but take your pick, suffocation, cardiac arrest, general organ failure, internal hemorrhage, your guess is as good as mine. You’ll have to wait for the official autopsy report to find out.’

An announcement came through the loudspeakers and Doctor Phillips paused and waited for it to be over. ‘At the moment the body is isolated.’

‘Isolated? Why?’ Garcia sounded concerned.

‘Have you seen the body? It’s covered in blisters and sores.’

‘Yes, we’ve seen it. We thought they were burn marks or something like that.’

Doctor Phillips shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you what they are without a biopsy, but they certainly aren’t burn marks.’

‘Definitely not,’ the paramedic agreed.

‘Viral?’ Hunter asked.

Doctor Phillips looked at him intrigued. ‘At first glance, yes. Like a disease.’

‘A disease?’ The astonished question came from Garcia. ‘There must be some kind of mistake, doc, he’s a murder victim.’

‘Murder?’ Doctor Phillips looked perplexed. ‘Those blisters weren’t inflicted on him by anyone. His own body produced them as a reaction to something, like an illness or an allergy. Trust me, what killed that man was some sort of terrible disease.’

Hunter had already figured out what the killer had done.

He’d infected the victim with some sort of deadly virus. But it had only been a day since the dog race – how could the reaction have come so quickly? What disease could kill a man in a day? Once again he would depend on Doctor Winston’s autopsy examination to give him any sort of clue to what had happened.

‘We need to determine what this disease is, if it is indeed a disease, and if it’s contagious or not.’ The doctor’s eyes wandered over to the paramedic. ‘That’s what we were talking about, first-hand contact with the patient. Have any of you two…’

‘No,’ the answer came in unison.

‘Do you know of anyone who did come in contact with him?’

‘Two agents from the Special Tactics Unit,’ Hunter snapped back.

‘They’ll probably have to come in for some tests, depending on the biopsy result.’

‘And when are you expecting the results?’

‘As I’ve said, the body just came in. I’m gonna send a tissue sample to the lab as soon as possible with an urgent request. If we’re lucky we might get a result sometime today.’

‘How about the body and the autopsy?’

‘The body will be sent to the Department of Coroner today, but its condition and the fact that it has to be kept in isolation make things more difficult, so I can’t tell you exactly when. Look, detective, I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m very concerned about this. Whatever killed that man did it very fast and in a very painful manner. If it’s some sort of contagious disease, judging solely by his state when he came in, we could be facing some very horrific epidemic here. The whole city could be in danger.’