The Inquisitor

Chapter 10

Three days later, Saturday, July 12, 12:45 a.m. Palliative Care, St. Paul's Hospital

Earl pressed back into the darkness.

He had seen something move through the shadows at the far end of the hall.

His muscles ached as if someone had winched them tight, and he shifted his weight for the hundredth time since he'd sneaked into the room nearly an hour ago.

Yet he kept his gaze locked on the black recesses where a person could hide.

And waited.

He'd initially felt foolish coming here at all. But his idea about a cluster study hadn't yielded much so far. At least Janet hadn't found any obvious patterns in the duty rosters and mortality figures, but they had a ways to go.

The job had turned out to be huge, and thank God he'd been smart enough to ask for her help. The idea had come to him out of the blue while they were having breakfast a few days ago. Not only did it give him a big edge in processing a ton of data, the project turned out to be exactly the carrot that convinced Janet to take an early pregnancy leave. Best of all, she thought it was her own decision. Funny how things just turned out sometimes.

Too bad their results weren't as obliging.

No one nurse had worked significantly greater numbers of shifts that corresponded to patient deaths than anybody else, and Monica Yablonsky's record seemed least suspicious of all. From what they'd looked at to date, she stayed on after evenings to work a double no more frequently than once a week.

"So maybe Hurst got it right. Patients are simply being admitted sicker and dying sooner," Janet had said last night, almost hopefully, even though they still had months of data to check.

Or a self-appointed angel of mercy could have anticipated a classic cluster investigation, then dispatched her victims when she wasn't on duty, he'd thought. So he set out to see how easily anyone could get in here and move about with no one the wiser. He also realized this line of thinking bore a striking similarity to that of the hard-core conspiracy nuts who turned up in ER occasionally. But he figured his being aware of the likeness mitigated against total lunacy. Unless Janet found out, in which case he'd plead complete insanity.

Coming up the back staircase unobserved had been no problem. He'd calculated that no one would be there after midnight, as might someone intent on committing a mercy killing.

When he'd reached the eighth floor, he hesitated in front of the door. If he pulled it open, light would spill into the corridor on the other side, and any nurse who might be there could spot it. He stepped over to a triple set of wall switches and flicked them off, casting himself into near darkness. The pale glow of the illumination from landings below barely reached this level. Shouldn't attract much attention now, he thought, and turned the handle.

He'd managed to slip all the way up to his destination, the empty room where he now stood, but he could just as easily have stepped into any door and done as he pleased with any patient on the floor. And he still hadn't seen a single nurse, just heard their radio and them chatting in their work station near the elevators. Judging from the relaxed tone of their voices and occasional laughter, they remained as indifferent to the lowing cries that floated through the hallway as when he'd visited last Saturday evening.

He found the noises impossible to ignore. They permeated the air with a forlorn sadness yet had the same soft urgency that went with the sounds of making love.

The longer he stood in the doorway listening, the angrier he grew. Having proved that any fool could waltz onto the ward, he felt an urge to stick around and see for himself how long these alleged caregivers would let men and women lie unattended in their last hours. While he'd skin his own staff alive if they ever allowed anyone to suffer like this in ER, the bunch up here did worse than fail to treat pain. Their indifference conveyed a message tantamount to telling someone in his or her final moments, "You don't matter, not even so much as for us to hold your hand while you die."

By God, he would give these so-called nightingales thirty more minutes in which to hang themselves. He'd keep watch while holding the door open with the toe of his shoe so he could personally attest that not one of them had taken the trouble to check on their charges during his time here. Then he'd nail them.

At least that had been his plan until he'd seen the figure that now galvanized his attention.

The person glided from doorway to doorway, coming ever closer, faceless as a ghost. Yet light from the distant workstation caught the shape's eyes, causing them to glitter in the blackness.

Earl shivered, certain they were looking right at him. He slowly withdrew his foot and smoothly closed the door until only a crack remained for him to see through.

The figure crossed the hall and, moving faster, reached forward as if to come in the room.

Holy shit! Earl thought, and leapt backward, then continued his retreat, tiptoeing in reverse toward the bathroom. He'd barely made it inside when the door he'd just left swung open without a sound and the intruder stood silhouetted against the dark grayness of the corridor. Earl froze where he stood, hoping the inkier interior of the small space would conceal him.

The person entered, restrained the door from swinging closed too fast, walked over to the blinds, and used the cord to open the slats. An orange glow from the sodium lamps outside the window immediately lined the entire room with tiger stripes.

The intruder then turned, looked at the bare mattress, and seemed to be surprised, going dead still, as if transfixed by the naked emptiness of it.

The hammering of Earl's heart so filled his head, he imagined the sound must be as loud as drumming on a hollow log. This must be the killer nurse! he thought on pure impulse, and got ready to pounce, until he saw his own reflection in a mirror that hung opposite the washroom where he stood. The lateral bands of light and darkness on his cap, mask, and gown lit him up like a mummy, and he wouldn't get a step into the room before his target spotted him. The pause also allowed him to consider a more rational explanation: what if it was simply someone here by mistake?

Not daring to breathe, he slowly raised his right arm, intending to find a light switch and snap it on. He figured the surprise would cause the interloper to bolt, but not before Earl got a good look at her, or him. With all the shadows and the unisex nature of protective wear, he couldn't tell which.

Except his reaching movement showed in the mirror.

The figure stiffened, twirled, and charged him.

Earl took the brunt of the hit in his chest and, caught off balance, felt himself lifted by a firm shoulder, then rammed into the tile wall behind his back. The blow turned his lungs into a pair of bellows, his breath left him in a roar, and a white light exploded behind his eyes. He crumpled to the floor, fighting a tumbling sensation inside his head and struggling to keep himself from spiraling down a deep, dark hole.

But the blackness around him poured into his brain, and the high-pitched squeak of someone running on linoleum in crepe soles filled his ears. Like birds cheeping, he thought. Whoever it is mustn't be wearing paper booties.

"Would you be tellin' us what the devil you were doing here?"

Jimmy's alarmed voice penetrated Earl's skull like a drill bit. He opened his eyes to the brilliance of a ceiling light and saw the priest, flanked by two nurses, hovering over him. He moved to get up and found himself lying on the bare mattress. "Did you get him?"

"Get whom?"

Earl glanced at his watch. He couldn't have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. "The person who sandbagged me."

"I didn't see anyone- I just found you like this when I dropped in to say my usual good night to Sadie." He looked around at the two nurses. "Where is she, by the way?"

"I gave her a weekend pass," Earl said, managing to sit at the side of the bed. His head and back hurt like hell, even when he breathed. "Her son from Honolulu showed up a day early. As a surprise, he hired a private nurse and opened up the family home so he and Sadie could stay there a few days. When she couldn't reach Wyatt, and the residents didn't want to make the decision, she didn't know who else to call."

"But then what are you doing here?" The priest's tone continued to sound strained.

Earl looked past Jimmy and up at the nurses. The overhead light pierced his brain with the splitting force of a migraine. "With Sadie's room empty, I decided to conduct a spot check- see how often the night staff attended to their patients. Believe me, ladies, you failed to impress!" Not the whole truth, but enough to explain his presence. As his own thoughts raced to explain the intruder, he wasn't about to confess the far darker suspicions that had brought him here.

They reacted with predictable indignation.

"Why, how can you say such a thing?"

"We treat these people as if they were our parents."

Then pity poor Mom and Dad, Earl thought. "Tell me, were any of the nurses away on break during the last twenty minutes?"

They looked surprised.

The younger of the two had freckles to match the wisps of brown hair that protruded from under her surgery cap. "No! Hey, what do you want to know for?" Her voice still came across in a petulant whine. "You saying one of our people knocked you down?"

He ignored her question. "What about orderlies? Would any of them have reason to come in here now?"

"Of course not," the older woman replied, working a wad of gum under her mask with the sass of a street hustler. "We stripped Sadie's bed when she left. It will be made up just before she returns Sunday night."

"Cleaners?"

"At this time of night?" the younger one asked. Her eyes said, Gimme a break.

He looked over to the night table. It contained a calendar, photos of a tanned young man whom he assumed to be Donny, and assorted pencils. He pulled open a drawer, finding only a Bible, tissues, and writing paper. "Did she keep jewelry or anything else that someone would want to steal?"

"Probably took it with her," the chewer said. "After all, she knows there won't be many more times she'll get to wear it."

Earl gritted his teeth at the coldness of the remark.

"What about residents coming here to use an empty bed for a quickie?" the younger one said, sharpening her words with a twist of insolence. "Why don't you suspect them?"

"Residents?"

"Yeah, the cheapo kind that won't spring for a motel- you get my drift. You think that doesn't happen?"

Of course he knew it did. Except would someone waiting for a cheap grope react so violently to being discovered?

He'd about had it with the sullen resentment from these two, and pointed to the one with the freckles. "Get hold of security. Tell them to look for a person without shoe coverings." It would likely be a useless exercise. There were bins all over the hospital with supplies of protective wear. His assailant had probably pulled on a new pair within a minute of leaving the floor.

"Why would someone take off his or her paper boots?" she asked.

Jimmy did a Fred Astaire shuffle, his feet sliding easily on the floor. "For traction." He still sounded tense.

She nodded and left.

Earl got up off the bed, and Jimmy moved to help him.

"Thanks." He grabbed the man's arm for support as his head did a few twirls around the room. The wooziness persisted, and he sat back down.

"Maybe I should be takin' you down to your own ER and let them check you out?"

He must really be unnerved by what happened, Earl thought. The Irish lilt appeared only when he kidded around or got shaken to the core. "No, I'll be fine. I couldn't have been out more than five minutes, tops. Anything under twenty doesn't usually even warrant a CT." Not exactly true, but close enough to get him out of here. He wanted his own bed.

"Maybe we should ask how you got in here, Father," the one with the gum asked, her tone more sour than ever. "We didn't see you come in. Hardly ever do." She looked over to Earl. "Or is it only the lower ranks who make good suspects?"

Jimmy's eyes flared like stoked embers.

Earl leapt to his feet. "That tears it-" A sudden swirl inside his skull sat him down again. He steadied his head in his hands, only to watch in disbelief as Jimmy leaned toward her, his hands up like a prizefighter's but open, not clenched, fingers spread wide and pointed right at her.

"Ya don't see me because ya never take your noses out of your coffee cups or your minds off whatever important chatter constantly fills your heads. If so, you might not only catch me walkin' by, but actually hear what's all around you." He directed his fingers skyward. The muted wailing ebbed and surged the way it always did, steady as a distant sea. "If you listened, actually listened to what you've become deaf to, just maybe you'd be finding it in your hearts to comfort a tormented soul or two as they slip away, alone and afraid."

She recoiled, eyes wide with surprise. "Now wait a minute-"

"Because if you don't"- he moved a step closer-"when it's your turn, every one of those tormented souls will be circling, waiting for you at St. Peter's gate, ready to testify as to your good works and send you down."

She flushed as crimson as if scorched by a sunburn. "How dare you threaten-"

"Threaten? Oh, no, my dear. It's called old-time preachin'- puttin' the fear of the Lord into a miserable sinner to save her soul." His eyes crinkled into the accompaniment to a smile, but their flash was as hard as diamonds.

She chewed her wad of gum a few more times, appeared to roll it from one side of her mouth to the other, then retreated to the hallway.

"God forgive me, but she needed tellin'," Jimmy said, his jaw so bulging with tension it made his mask look a size too small.

"No doubt about it," said Earl. But he'd never seen the man so steamed.

Jimmy feigned a double take. "Well, what a difference a week makes. To think just last Saturday you were tellin' me to ease up on my fight with Wyatt and his crew. Now you're cheerin' me on."

His lilt had definitely acquired an edge. Earl tried to chuckle, hoping to lower the tension a notch, but the sound came out dry and cheerless.

The fire in Jimmy's eyes died, and he let out a loud sigh. "Sorry, Earl. I guess I'm on a hair trigger as much as everyone else these days."

Earl shrugged. "It's understandable."

"I also can't help thinking that if I hadn't goaded you into coming up here last

Saturday, you wouldn't be in the mess-"

"Hey, I needed to see what goes on."

"I sure didn't mean you to get obsessed by it and go sneaking around the place at all hours."

"I'm not obsessed."

"And look what happened tonight. You could have been badly hurt. For God's sake, play it smart. There's probably nothing more to this than you interrupted a bit of petty larceny. If we know the nursing is slack up here, so must the thieves in our little community."

"Play it smart?"

"Yeah. Play it smart. We all have big enough problems to deal with as it is. Let security take care of creeps who would sneak into rooms and steal stuff from little old ladies. I'm serious about this, Earl."

It sounded like good advice.

"Maybe Sadie herself would have an idea who it could be," Jimmy added, "if she noticed anyone taking too close an interest in her stuff."

Maybe.

Except Jimmy didn't know that the creep sneaking around tonight could be killing patients. From the size it might have been anyone. Even a woman, come to think of it. Certainly Monica Yablonsky had the physique to knock him on his can. As for males, so did that bulldog Wyatt if he was involved. Even Stewart might have done it because of whatever he might be trying to keep secret up here. Or most troubling of all, it could be a person he didn't know, a cipher among the four thousand people who worked at St. Paul's and were not doctors, his or her motive totally unknown.

He shivered.

A search vast enough to discover someone like that would be hopeless. Better this attacker turn out to be just some small-time crook after all.

He declined Jimmy's offer of help and made it outside to his car by himself.

As he unlocked the door, his brain spun into overdrive, unable to shake the idea that what had happened tonight was somehow connected to the unexplained deaths on that floor. And the possible suspects expanded anywhere from those who might be on some twisted mission, seeing themselves destined to put cancer patients out of their misery, to anyone who'd stop at nothing to cover up a scandal. Anyone from Hurst on high to God knew who down low. Nor could he keep the nightmare scenario from popping up again, that it could be anyone and the motive anything.

Faces flashed through his head. He couldn't shut them out.

Friends, colleagues, anybody the least bit zealous about euthanasia in the past, pro or con, came to mind, even… No, that went too damn far. Time to go home and get some sleep.

A few deep breaths of the cool night air slowed the maelstrom in his head. But an image played repeatedly in his thoughts during the drive home, then recurred later that night, during his dreams.

In it a shrouded figure with glittering eyes hovered over Sadie Locke's bed, reaching for her.