The Inquisitor

Chapter 16

That same Wednesday night, 9:35 p.m. ICU, St. Paul's Hospital

You're doing fine," Janet said. A quick check of J.S.'s vital signs and abdominal and chest incisions assured her that the young woman remained stable. Sitting on the side of the bed, Janet leaned closer to her, determined no one would listen in on what she had to say next. The curtains that ringed the cubicle from ceiling to floor and the vertical shadows caught in their folds might make the place feel as claustrophobic as a jail cell, but the easily heard conversations from all the other beds dispelled any illusions of privacy. She also chose her words carefully, so as not to frighten the girl. "How are you feeling?"

"As expected, I guess." Her voice sounded frail, as if her struggle in the OR had drained all the fight from her.

But she must be warned. "J.S., I need help with a problem that's completely unrelated to your being here. Are you up to answering a few questions?"

"My help?" She seemed incredulous that anyone would ask anything of her.

Janet nodded, already wondering if it would be better to stop.

But a sudden spark of interest in J.S.'s eyes said otherwise. "I'll try."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Shoot."

"I must insist this stays absolutely hush-hush."

The caution further ignited J.S.'s pale brown irises toward far warmer tones, and her black eyebrows inched upward with curiosity. "Of course."

"Have you discussed your schedule in ER with anyone recently, even casually?"

"What?" Her forehead relaxed, and she frowned, looking disappointed.

"Just answer, please. Believe me, it's important."

"My schedule? Not at all. Work's the furthest thing from my mind."

"You're sure? Not with a visitor here, or anyone else even before today?"

"Before today? You mean at work? Probably. You know how it is with nurses. People want to switch all the time. And of course we all discuss what shifts we want with Susanne. But what do you want to know for?"

"Just bear with me. Do you have any particular criteria about when you choose to work, especially at night?"

"Not really. Why?"

Janet hesitated, still not sure how much to say. Even if Jane hadn't accidentally tipped anyone off, could she identify the killer? "Have you noticed anybody who always works when you do?"

"I think I'd like to know what this is about," she said, her voice hardening.

Janet noticed the change. Had she struck a nerve? "J.S., you've heard about the trouble Dr. Deloram is in?"

"Who hasn't?"

"And you're aware he may be tied to a rise in the death rate on the Palliative Care ward."

J.S. scowled. "Yablonsky ought to be shot, spreading that kind of garbage against him. Hell, I told Thomas a week ago I thought there were more codes being called up there lately, but it's probably a function of her bad nursing, the bitch. I sure as hell don't think Dr. Deloram has anything to do with it. I mean, he helped save my life…" The angry flash in her eyes extinguished itself.

Janet guessed that she'd realized the man's heroics didn't exclude him from being a killer. "Look, J.S., none of us wants him to be guilty," she whispered, "but to help him, we need evidence, not only that he didn't do it, but of who did. I won't tire you with the details now, but at least half of those deaths, if not all, were murders. So Thomas, Dr. Garnet, and I were looking at shift schedules, trying to see if any single person in the hospital had been around when people died unexpectedly in Palliative Care."

"You're doing a cluster study, like the one Dr. G. always gives a lecture about?" Her eyes sparkled with excitement, their washed-out appearance vanishing. "What a great idea! And Thomas is helping? That's wonderful." She made an effort to raise her head and sit up. "Who'd you find? Yablonsky?"

Janet gently motioned her to lie flat. "Easy, girl," she whispered, "or you'll pop a stitch. And remember-" She paused to hold a finger to her own lips. "Keep it down. No, we didn't get Yablonsky, or anyone else on the ward. So I threw the search open and ran a program on the entire nursing roster for St. Paul's."

The anticipation in J.S.'s stare sharpened. "And?"

Janet hated what she had to do. "Now, I assure you that Dr. Garnet, Thomas, and I know it's some kind of fluke, that there's no link whatsoever with anything illegal."

The young woman's eager gaze became guarded in a blink. "What is it?"

"We got your name."

J.S.'s face remained absolutely motionless, at least the part Janet could see. Yet everything changed. A grayness seeped through her eyes, covering her emotions like a lead shield, and she seemed to shrink in on herself. Even her breathing became less pronounced.

"Listen, J.S. We understand the deaths have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with you. But somehow your schedule corresponds to the killings, and we need to know why. Most important, you need to be careful."

J.S.'s expression didn't so much as flicker. It might have been frozen in ice. But after a few seconds a subtle transformation took place, no more substantial than the play of light and shadow on her skin, yet her features became haggard again, and her eyes, already sunk deep within their sockets, appeared to retreat further into her skull. "But those kinds of associations convict someone these days," she said. With her lips hidden behind the mask, her voice seemed to float out of her head.

"Trust me, we won't even mention your name in connection with the investigation. The worry is, this killer apparently operates the same nights you're on duty."

J.S. looked dazed, as if having difficulty comprehending it all. "I see," she finally said. "You think someone I always work with is a murderer." Her words still had an eerie, disembodied sound.

"Do you know anybody who's always taking shifts when you are, and not necessarily just in nursing? It could be a clerk, a porter, a secretary, perhaps an orderly, maybe a doctor-"

"In ER we're all together one time or another," she interrupted. "Even Dr. G. would fit that criteria."

The sudden sharpness in her tone surprised Janet. It had a harsh bite. "But we're mainly talking nights," she explained, trying to mute her own intensity so as to come across less like an inquisitor. "That ought to narrow it down. Think of someone who's around more than anyone else."

J.S. said nothing, her stare far away.

Janet again second-guessed the wisdom of having even discussed the problem. "I know it's a hell of a thing to dump on you, especially now, but-"

"No, no, it's good you told me. Absolutely the right thing to do. I had to know." J.S. spoke with the singsong cadence of someone reciting a cult mantra.

Alarmed, Janet gave her a moment to collect herself, then said, "Please understand, I'd do this all with a computer, but it could take forever and might even miss the person we're after."

J.S. didn't respond. The soft sounds of ICU at night reverberated from beyond the curtains- the hiss and pop from ventilators, murmuring voices, a steady chirp of monitors like birdsong in a forest of wires and IV tubing.

Might as well press on and try to get the answers we need as quickly as possible, Janet decided, there being no way to take back the upset now. "So any ideas who-"

"None," J.S. said, her voice at a slightly higher pitch.

Janet also noted the quickness of her reply and sensed that the interview had been terminated. "Do you want me to order you a sedative?" she asked as gently as possible, not wanting her to withdraw further. "All this is understandably upsetting."

J.S. shook her head. "I have to think. And of course I'm upset. You just asked me to imagine the worst of everyone I work with in the place where I have never been happier." She managed to bestow an angry edge to every second syllable.

Janet forced a smile and hoped it showed in her eyes. After so many months in a mask, the tiny movement against the material irritated her lips and cheeks. She reached to take J.S.'s hand, instinctively wanting to comfort her. But those same instincts told her that J.S. had thought of someone and kept back the name. "Anyone whom you come up with need never know we checked him or her out," she said, admiring the woman's natural reluctance to implicate colleagues, "provided, of course, there's been no crime committed-"

"Excuse me, Dr. Graceton!" a woman's voice called from somewhere outside the cubicle.

Janet got up and parted the curtains.

A silver-haired nurse wearing wire-rimmed spectacles, the lenses tinted a matching gray, stood at the workstation, phone in hand.

Behind her the banks of monitors recorded the progress of this evening's patients, the fluorescent green squiggles heaping beat upon beat in a steady ticker tape of rising and falling fortunes.

"Dr. Garnet's on the line," she said. "It's urgent."

9:45 p.m.

Had Graceton believed her?

Jane couldn't tell, never having been a good liar.

Nor was she in any shape to deal with this. Last night they'd curetted away much more than the remnants of an unborn child. She felt completely hollowed out, emptied of her spirit and cored of its strength, her courage no more substantial than an eggshell, its contents sucked dry. Yet when Graceton asked if anyone always seemed to be around, she'd found the heart to cover up for him.

His name naturally came to mind, and of course she wouldn't mention it. Couldn't. Because ever since Susanne had told her he could marry like any other man, she'd realized he'd been coming around all this time to see her. Not an oh-my-God-what-am-l-going-to-do-about-it? type of realization. Just a quiet awareness of his attraction to her that she enjoyed, savored even, both flattered by it, and comfortable that he'd never make her act on it or put pressure on her to betray

Thomas. She could indulge in the pleasant boost to her ego that came with having a strong, handsome man like him drawn to her, safe in the knowledge he'd do everything necessary, including keep a certain distance, so as not to complicate her life. In return, he'd be the last person she would cause trouble for. Besides, whoever they were after, Jimmy wouldn't be the guy. He couldn't have anything to do with killing people. But if not him, then who?

During the day and earlier in the evening, dozens of nurses and colleagues had dropped by on their breaks to wish her well. As tiring as the visits were, she'd welcomed their company. Now she found herself wondering if one of them had been the murderer. She also remembered Susanne's concern over all the missing syringes. It frightened her how, in spite of her reluctance, she came up with doubts about many of the people she worked with. And if her imagination could run loose like that, someone might do the same against her, and probably would, once word of the cluster study got out. She shuddered at the prospect of a public rending. But it's only a matter of time, she thought, however much Graceton promised to protect her. Secrets didn't stay secret at St. Paul's, especially not those kind. And once suspicions about someone took hold, they could feed on themselves and grow like a cancer. Anybody could make a case about anybody.

So should she warn Jimmy? Give him a heads-up that Dr. G., Dr. Graceton, and Thomas were comparing her schedule to others' and any matches could mean big trouble for him as well? Even without a cluster study, sooner or later it might occur to someone how often Jimmy showed up whenever she worked, day or night.

Except…

The image of when she had walked in and caught him going through the utility cupboard popped to mind.

Later she'd told herself that his story about the urine cup and a pending medical checkup had just been another excuse to drop around and see her, like the earring business.

Now she fell prey to thinking the worst.

God, what's the matter with me? she reprimanded herself, and felt sick at having, even for a second, allowed that there could ever be a connection. She'd certainly never told anyone, especially Susanne, about finding him in there on the afternoon the needles went missing. As far as anyone knew he'd dropped by to get his ear pierced, and it should stay that way. No one would be given the opportunity to twist innocent circumstances against the man if she could help it.

All the more reason to warn Jimmy. She could just imagine the argument that could be made against him if some busybody had seen him go into that utility room, thought nothing of it at the time, but, on hearing he'd been associated with the deaths, had a resurgence of memory.

She grew increasingly uneasy, and not just about his safety.

Being afraid for him had also forced her to acknowledge more than she'd wanted to about her and Jimmy. Lying there, spiked with the aftermath of fatigue, fear, and morphine, she felt the gloom of the place close in on her, adding to her sense of isolation.

She wanted to see Thomas. The nurses had told her he'd been at her side all morning, until they sent him home to sleep. But she barely remembered his being there. Now she wanted to feel the warmth of his hand and the soothing sound of his voice.

Yet her thoughts drifted back to Jimmy.

Until now she'd only admitted to herself how clearly he sought her out; she'd avoided examining too closely how she felt about him. Graceton's bombshell galvanized her out of that convenient haze. Being frightened about his safety pushed her to face the fact that she'd grown a lot fonder of him than she'd realized. Not that she'd been actively denying her feelings for him. She'd just chosen to enjoy their time together and not complicate the situation with questions.

But now she had to accept that emotions might have matured well past liking on both her and Jimmy's part. The way he'd stayed by her side all night suggested a much stronger sentiment on his side. And the strength she'd drawn from the touch of his hand holding hers, the way his words had penetrated her fear, had reached her even as she went unconscious- She pulled up, surprised at the intensity of her reactions to him. They confused her.

Obviously I'm an emotional basket case, she insisted to herself, trying to blame her near-death ordeal for the unexpected feelings that were ambushing her from all directions. But she couldn't evade the fact that Jimmy had affected her far more than she realized.

She heard someone approach, and gasped when Dr. Graceton stepped inside the curtains. The woman's luminous, steady gaze and warm expression from minutes ago had vanished. She looked stunned, with her eyes blank and her face as white as her mask.

"Sorry, J.S., I've got an emergency." The words came out clipped and fast. "Sedation orders are written. Get some sleep. I'll be back first thing in the morning and we can talk more then." She wheeled and headed for the exit, disappearing out the sliding door in seconds.

Something must have happened at home, Jane thought. Otherwise why would Dr. G. be the one who telephoned? Besides, last night had been her last on call for obstetrics.

A terrible possibility flew to mind, accompanied by a sense of dread that made it seem certain.

My God. Dr. G., Dr. Graceton, and Thomas were working on the cluster program tonight. They might have already matched Jimmy's schedule to mine.

She rang for a nurse.

The woman with silver glasses and matching hair listened to her request, then tried to argue that Dr. Graceton had left specific orders there were to be no more visitors.

"But I want to see the chaplain. He's not a visitor. At least let me talk to him on the phone."

The lady looked about to say no.

"Surely you wouldn't deny a patient spiritual comfort, especially not in here."

"I know he's your friend," she said, sounding annoyed, but brought her a phone anyway.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick's hand held steady as he replaced the receiver in its cradle.

He had taken the call at a patient's bedside and used the lack of privacy as an excuse for not being able to speak very long.

But he'd heard enough to set his heart racing and send himself running back to his office.

"Hey, I'm here so much, everybody thinks I work when they do," he had said to J.S. No telling if she'd bought it.

He'd known when he started it might all come down on his head. That still didn't make him ready to be led away in handcuffs for murder. And he definitely hadn't anticipated this twist involving J.S.

He fumbled the keys as he opened the lock and shut the door behind him but didn't turn on the light. Somehow he felt less panicky in the dark. He had enough ambient glow to see from the sodium lamps over the parking lot outside his window.

He'd gotten used to working in that ambient glow.

Around him were the bookshelves that held the words he'd chosen to live by. The Bible, of course, but also the philosophers he'd studied with such enthusiasm and love. Perfect thoughts from Aristotle, pupil of Plato, teacher of Alexander the Great, first in the struggle to reconcile science, ethics, politics, and the soul. John Locke, champion of empiricism and the inherent right of man to life, liberty, and a patch of land to call his own. Jean-Paul Sartre, who liberated all individuals to the lonely burden of defining right and wrong by themselves, then condemned those same individuals to the cold ethical void of existentialism. Sartre alone probably came closest to re-creating the ice bath of freedom and responsibility that God threw Adam and Eve into when He kicked them out of Eden.

Who could read any of the great teachers from all the ages, take their writings to heart, and not become an outlaw spirit?

At least that's how he'd read his calling among the realities of today at St. Paul's. How else could a man live for the greater good, help the meek, define right, and back it up with action if he wasn't willing to step outside the law now and then? Not to be pretentious, but he saw his predicament as merely a smaller-scale version of what had always been the dilemma for philosophers, people of God, and defenders of the oppressed who dared turn beautiful thoughts into concrete acts. Whether Jesus Christ, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, or Zorro, they were rebels all, and he would have been proud to work at their sides whatever the period. No way was he just the grandstanding swashbuckler out of his time that Earl made him out to be.

At least that's how he'd thought of himself in the heady days at the start of their plan when getting caught seemed nothing more than a vague but unlikely possibility. He'd even promised the others they would never be found out, that, if necessary, he alone would take the blame and, by standing proud for what he did, make the deeds seem courageous and noble.

His head reeled in disgust at having been so naive and reckless, forcing him to grip the side of his desk.

Whom had he been kidding?

His downfall, if it came, would be a seedy, petty event, the stuff of tabloids blaring news of yet another disgraced priest.

He ran into the bathroom and threw up.

His stomach, emptied out, clenched itself tight as a fist, and he staggered back to his desk where he collapsed into his chair.

He could still get away with everything if he acted fast.

In the minimal light he pulled out the lower right drawer where he kept his prayer shawl, folded and ready for use. He lifted it out.

Next he withdrew a small mahogany box lined with purple velvet that held his holy oils and pyx, a circular container for consecrated wafers. He laid the kit unopened beside his shawl.

Reaching back into the drawer, he removed the false bottom in its recesses. There lay the syringes he'd stolen from ER. Beside them stood two vials of morphine, one provided by Stewart, the other by Michael.

9:55 p.m.

Janet had told Thomas to wait for her in the doctor's lounge. She found him there with mask off and sipping tea. He'd made an entire pot, and alongside it on a low magazine table sat a mug with cream already added, exactly the way he'd seen her take it after dinner hours earlier.

When she came closer, he jumped to his feet, eyes wide with alarm. "My God, are you all right? Is J.S. okay?"

"She's fine, other than scared and worried. I ordered sedation, and you must let her sleep. But there's other bad news-"

"What did she say?"

"What we expected. She hasn't a clue how her schedule could match the killings. And when I asked her if anyone always seemed to be around during her shifts, the denial came a little too quickly for my liking. Probably afraid to get a friend in trouble, so tomorrow see if you can get her to talk."

"I'll go see her right now." He started to get up.

Janet put a restraining hand on his chest. "Whoa! I just had the nurses sedate her, remember. She's safe enough until morning."

He hesitated, then said, "Here, sit down," and motioned her to an overstuffed, leather lounge chair.

The decor in here hadn't changed since Reagan had been president, and maroon must have been a popular color back then. Even on a good day the furnishings jangled her eyes.

"And drink this. You look as though you could use it." He poured the steaming brown liquid to the mug's brim, gave the mix a stir, and handed it to her. "Now what's the other bad news?"

She pulled down her mask and took a sip, savoring the warmth as it traveled to her stomach. "It's about Stewart," she began, and described how Earl had discovered his body.

Thomas's face fell slack in disbelief.

Having to tell the story left her feeling leaden.

"He hung himself?" Thomas said when she'd finished, his voice as incredulous as his saggy-eyed expression.

She nodded. As the misery of Stewart's death sunk in, displacing her initial shock, she took another sip of tea. It tasted even more mellow than the first. "They found a tape playing at the scene that sounded like recorded interviews of people in a near-death state," she continued. "Some of them included the patient's name, so it will be easy to compare them to our list of suspicious deaths. But the interviewer is whispering the whole time. While we can presume Stewart is the one asking questions, they won't be able to verify it. Apparently, according to the detectives, a whisper can't be matched the way speaking voices are."

Thomas sank back where he sat and regarded the ceiling, slowly shaking his head.

"If all that isn't weird enough," she went on, "the first quarter of the tape is of Roy Orbison singing 'Pretty Woman.' Nobody can even hazard a guess what that's about."

Up came his head, an expression of dismay on his face. " 'Pretty Woman?'"

"And get this. They found a small bottle of chloroform. The cops think he used it to put his dog to death, then made a noose with the animal's leash for himself."

He leaned forward. "Wait a minute. You're saying Stewart had been the guy in the hospital subbasement who left you there-"

"Stewart left no explanations. All they discovered in the form of a suicide note were two words written on his personal computer: 'I'm sorry.' The machine had conveniently been left on sleep mode so it came to life as soon as one of the cops touched the keyboard." She paused and took several more swallows from her mug. The familiar comfort smoothed away the tightness in her gut.

"But it seems as if everything Yablonsky accused him of turned out to be true," Thomas said, his voice quiet, as if he was thinking aloud.

Janet shook her head. "Not according to Earl."

"What?"

"Come on, Thomas. Where's your healthy sense of skepticism? Every good clinician has one."

"I don't understand."

"It's all too neat. Everything, from the tapes to the chloroform to the hanging."

"The hanging?"

"Yeah. Apparently a researcher in New York hung himself exactly the same way fourteen years ago, and Stewart may have had a hand in what drove him to it."

"Wait a minute. Another researcher hung himself? Who?"

Janet downed her tea. "Come on, drive me home, and I'll explain on the way. But it all stinks to high heaven- too much like a package wrapped up in a nice ribbon. And to top it all, Earl thinks Stewart left a sign to say he didn't commit suicide, but had been murdered."

Thomas's eyebrows notched a quarter inch higher. "A sign?"

"I'll tell you in the car."

10:10 p.m.

Neighbors began to appear in the street, huddled under umbrellas. They stood around like clumps of black mushrooms despite the storm picking up force again.

"Don't touch the body, and treat the house as a murder scene," Earl had said to the first officers who arrived over thirty minutes ago. "Above all, protect this tape." He indicated the microcassette on the floor that continued to broadcast the whispered interviews. "You'll want to check it for fingerprints," Earl said, though if this was the clever setup he thought it to be, the only prints on it would be Stewart's. Then he added, "And by using the cue numbers, we can work backward to determine when someone started it."

The eerie questions and answers floating out of the miniature speaker had brought a frown to the fresh young face of the cop who knelt down to inspect it. "What the hell am I listening to?" she asked. A blond ponytail dangled out the back of her peaked cap. The big gun on her tiny hips seemed incongruous with her cheerleader appearance.

"I'm not sure," Earl had said, but in fact he had a damn good idea.

"Get me a set of gloves," she'd ordered her partner. Minutes later, her hands appropriately garbed in latex and holding the device by a corner so as not to smudge any traces of its previous handler, she pressed stop using a ballpoint pen. After writing down the cue number and the time, she again used the pen, pressing rewind. But when she started the tape at the beginning, and they heard the familiar strains of "Pretty Woman," he'd no clue at all what to make of that.

He'd called Janet and broken the news to her, then waited in the living room as more cop cars pulled up. Some of the newly arrived officers came inside and went downstairs. Through the front window he saw others run yellow tape around the perimeter of the property. He gave a brief statement about discovering Stewart's body to the woman with the ponytail, all the time thinking she couldn't be any older than J.S.

That had been ten minutes ago.

Now he had nothing to do but watch the onlookers outside as they watched him.

Finally, at 10:20, a pair of plainclothes homicide detectives walked in and said they'd be in charge of the investigation.

The older of the two, a tall, blond woman about Janet's age, introduced herself as Detective Lazar. She wore a Burberry raincoat and carried a sadness in her eyes that most cops eventually assume. Her colleague, a man of equal height but at least ten years her junior, his perfectly coiffed black hair and square jaw suitable for a recruitment poster, stood with pen and pad in hand, ready to take notes.

Earl gave his name, led them downstairs, and proceeded to explain why he thought Stewart had been murdered.

"First, look at his feet," he began.

Though the body remained suspended enough that it seemed to be standing tiptoed, the balls of the feet were pressed a good inch into the soft vinyl surface of the stool under them. "Have you ever seen hanging victims before, Detective?"

She nodded.

Her partner did the same but found it necessary to also flex his eyebrows in an attempt at a boy-have-l-seen-hanging-victims look.

Earl ignored him. "Then you know most end up dying slow, strangling themselves." He directed his comments only to Lazar. "They're ignorant about the benefit that a drop from a gallows provides- haven't a clue how the momentum causes the rope to mercifully snap the neck at the second cervical vertebrae and, if the victim's lucky, severs the spinal cord, bringing as near-instantaneous brain death as possible. Instead, they linger in the noose and suffer hideously. Stewart wouldn't make that mistake. If he wanted to die by hanging, he'd have launched himself at the end of a rope out a second-story window." He looked at his friend's limp body, the rumpled trousers stained with the indignity of death, and shuddered. "Never ever would he have set up something so amateurish as this. At the very least, he'd have kicked the stool away. I think he deliberately didn't do that, at the price of excruciating agony, to signal us this is not a suicide." A mix of pity, sorrow, and horror swept through him as the terror of Stewart's final moments hit home. He grimaced and grew angry. "You may be willing to render such a brave last act meaningless by ignoring it, but I'm not."

Detective Lazar studied him.

The young man furiously scribbled down notes.

Earl pegged him as a rookie, at least to the homicide business. Cops were just like medical residents. The ones who wrote everything down were the least experienced and would know squat.

"This is all very interesting conjecture, Dr. Garnet," Lazar said after a few seconds. "But presumably something else got you suspicious enough to be so skeptical. Frankly, I would have taken this as a suicide, however ineptly done. Stewart, you said his name was?"

"Dr. Stewart Deloram. Yes, there are reasons to believe someone did this to him. But they're very complicated."

"Try to keep it simple."

Her partner got ready with the pen again.

Earl took a breath. Maybe notes would be useful after all. "Well, it started over two weeks ago with the death of a terminally ill patient named Elizabeth Matthews…"

10:43 p.m.

One moment they were talking.

Then the car lurched right and roared forward.

Janet screamed and thought the accelerator had jammed.

They went over the edge of the road and plummeted down the bank. The headlamps carved a glistening tunnel through darkness pierced with a million silver streaks of rain. At the bottom a tree trunk loomed larger, like a crosshair in a target that drew them toward itself. And while their descent happened fast, it also appeared to unfold slowly. She got both knees up in time to brace her abdomen against the crash.

10:53 p.m.

When Earl finished speaking, Lazar regarded him with a puzzled frown that suggested she might at least consider his version of events. "How would this someone who'd been setting Dr. Deloram up get in the house?" she asked. "There's no sign of forced entry, and nobody can pick the kind of locks he has without leaving some marks."

"Stewart always left his keys lying around in the hospital. Anyone could have grabbed them and made a copy."

She looked over toward Tocco and frowned. "Then why didn't the dog bark at the killer and wake the victim up?"

"Maybe she did and Stewart didn't hear. He'd been up all night at the hospital, so he probably slept pretty heavily. And don't you read Sherlock Holmes?"

She smiled and nodded. "You mean the dog could have known the person and therefore not barked?"

"That's right. Tocco remained friendly with people once she got to know them."

She glanced around the room, and her eyes fell on Stewart's laptop. "How'd the killer get into the victim's computer to write the suicide note, brief as it is?"

"Everyone knew he used the dog's name for the password."

"Tocco?"

"Tocco. The computer belonged to the teaching office. Stewart used it to file residency schedules, night call lists, teaching rosters for medical staff and nurses, seminar calendars, journal club articles- all kinds of stuff. And he gave everybody access so they wouldn't be bugging him for the information all the time."

She turned back toward Stewart and studied him, as if viewing a statue. "Why leave him the stool at all?"

"To make him suffer? Prolong his dying? Who knows?"

"When do you think he died?"

As the questions continued, the professional neutrality of her cop face began to say that she wanted to believe him and her inquiries, though still probing, became more a test to see if his story held up rather than an attempt to tear it apart.

After a few more minutes of interrogation, she said, "Stay put in case we need you."

He sat in the living room while people in dark blue jumpsuits with BPD emblazoned on the back began to arrive. Some pulled on latex gloves and started to poke around the house with tweezers, bagging stray hairs or anything else they found interesting. A few others brushed a fine powder onto any surface that a killer might have touched. A photographer headed toward the basement.

Enough waiting. Janet had sensed that J.S. might be shielding someone. A sample of what that someone might be capable of hung from a pipe in the basement beneath him.

He pulled out his cell phone and called the one person who probably knew as much about J.S.'s schedule as she did herself.

He had hardly ever contacted Susanne at home, even though she'd entrusted him with her unlisted number. He knew her fierce need for privacy and respected it.

"Hello?" said a woman's voice.

"It's Dr. Garnet speaking. Is Susanne there, please?"

"One moment."

He'd been aware that the woman's first name was Rachel and that she'd been Susanne's partner for ten years- but not because Susanne had told him. He'd picked up enough fragments from those few whom Susanne confided in, such as Mrs. Quint, to piece things together over the years. At first he'd found it odd that in this day and age someone as self-assured and comfortable with herself as Susanne hid her personal life. But as time went on and she still never talked about her partner at all, he began to suspect her reticence reflected a deep respect for the privacy of those she loved and it would have been the same no matter whom she lived with, man or woman.

So he had never presumed to call Rachel by her first name, staying outside the boundary of familiarity that Susanne had set up for him. Old-fashioned? Who cared? So was loyalty, courage, and guts, and Susanne had those in spades. If she needed the distance to feel comfortable, she'd get it.

"What's up?" Susanne said, coming on the phone. She sounded alarmed.

"You'd better prepare yourself. I've got bad news." He again relayed the evening's events, just as he had to Janet. The retelling didn't lessen the ghastliness of it.

She remained silent for a long while after he'd finished. Finally he heard a stuttering intake of breath. "So bright, yet so alone," she finally said, her voice breaking.

"I'm afraid there's more. And this has to stay absolutely confidential." He told her about J.S.'s schedule coinciding with the cardiac arrests in palliative care.

"Oh, God, no," she moaned.

"Don't for a moment think I believe it's her," he quickly added, wondering if Susanne would revisit her own take on J.S. the way he had. It needn't be a big process to do damage. Just a hint of doubt could infringe on the easy trust there'd always been between the two. He felt angry at how such suspicions about so many had spread through him lately, like a contagion. "Since you draw up her schedule, I hoped you might have a clue if it mirrored someone else's."

"Not that I know of."

"You don't use any specific criteria for assigning her shifts, especially on nights?"

"None. She gets the same treatment as all my other nurses."

"Does she make many special requests?" People in ER were always wanting to keep this weekend or that free, or asking for specific vacation times months ahead of the desired date.

"Just the opposite. She's more likely to offer to take a night or weekend than to request to be excused from it." She paused, then added, "It's pretty public now, so I can say what I only guessed before. She seemed to like working when Thomas Biggs had a shift."

"Thomas?"

She made an attempt at a little laugh but still sounded close to tears. "Hey, as Janet is wont to say, 'Ain't love grand?'"

He felt a spark of hope. "So did you end up giving her lots of nights?" That would explain J.S. being around the times of the cardiac arrests more than anyone else.

"Not overall. Just kept her in mind for last-minute replacements, but always gave her fewer nights the next time. In the end she did no more than anyone else."

So much for that idea.

"J.S. certainly never requested I put her on the schedule just when her boyfriend would be there, if that's what you're thinking," Susanne added. "She's too good a soldier to pull anything as unprofessional as that. She worked just as many nights when he was off, more even, probably three out of four."

And so must have the killer. He'd just have to grill J.S. himself.

"I guess that means you can eliminate the residents as well." Susanne added.

"Pardon?"

"I mean, residents work one in four, and nurses take their graveyard shifts in blocks of at least a week at a time. So just by the luck of the draw, she'd be with all the house staff about the same amount of time."

"Yes, of course, no surprise there," he agreed, but privately something about one in four bothered him. Thanking her, he hung up, and immediately called home.

Annie answered.

"No sign of Janet yet?"

"None. But don't worry. I'll stay as late as you like. By the way, you got a message."

"Oh?"

"A Dr. Cheryl Branagh in New York. Said it wasn't urgent, but she'd gotten some information for you, and you could call her at home before ten tonight, or tomorrow morning."

He glanced at his watch. It was 10:55.

Damn. He thanked Annie, took down the home number Branagh had left, and tried now anyway. He'd have to break the news of Stewart's death to her. And if she'd found out anything connecting him to Jerome Wilcher, the police should hear about it as soon as possible.

"You have reached the residence of Dr. Cheryl Branagh. I cannot take your call right now…"

He left a message.

He next called Janet's cellular number.

She had it shut off.

Must still be in the hospital, he thought. But he'd been under the impression she intended to sedate J.S., then leave, and not tell her about Stewart.

He called ICU.

"Dr. Graceton left here over an hour ago, Dr. Garnet," the nurse whom he'd spoken with earlier told him, "shortly after she talked with you."

He started to get a bad feeling.

A rotten night for driving, terrible visibility, some jerk traveling too fast- his tendency to conjure up worst-case scenarios kicked into action. Despite Janet's efforts to lighten him up, at his core he nurtured pessimism. The business of ER demanded it. In the pit his ability to read a situation and anticipate what could go wrong saved lives. In private life, it made him hard to live with. He reined in his anxiety. She and Thomas would be taking their time driving in the storm. And she may have sat him down to tell him about Stewart before they left the hospital. Working through that kind of bad news could take time. "How's Miss Simmons?" he asked.

"J.S.? She's fine. I found her dozing and turned out her light. She'd asked to see

Father Jimmy, but it looks like whatever had been bothering her can wait until morning."

"Father Jimmy?"

"Yes. She spoke to him on the phone just after Janet left, then told us he'd be paying her a visit."

He didn't know what to make of that. Probably shouldn't even try to read anything into it. The kid could simply be frightened. No surprise there either, considering all she'd just been through, And since she and Jimmy were friends, it would be only natural she call him.

Still, he didn't exactly trust Jimmy these days. And come to think of it, he could be considered someone who saw a lot of her at work. Maybe Janet's suspicion of his being secretly in love with J.S. hadn't been off the mark. But then he saw a lot of everyone in ER, constantly dropping by the way he did.

"Did you want to know anything else, Dr. Garnet?" the nurse said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"No. Just keep a close eye on her."

He cut the connection, got up, and began to pace, unable to sit still any longer.

"Can I go now?" he asked Detective Lazar.

"We need your prints," she said. "It won't be long."

11:15 p.m.

Jane Simmons started awake. Her nurse must have turned off the night-light because she found herself in darkness. It took a few seconds to realize someone stood in the shadows at the end of the bed.

"Jimmy?" she whispered.

"Hey, J.S.," he answered, very softly. "Sorry to be so late, but I had business to take care of. And I was just going to leave. You obviously need to sleep."

"Come here." She held out her hand to him. "What I need is that we talk."

He came out of the shadow and sat on the side of the bed. She could see his face in the green glow from her monitors. His hair looked shiny, as if recently wet. But the unnatural color of the illumination highlighted every fold and hollow above his mask, rendering him gaunt, and the laugh lines around his eyes, normally so ready to deepen with his smile, splayed toward his temples like claws.

"Oh, no." The words escaped her as involuntary and inaudible as a sharply drawn breath. In that instant she knew that disaster had struck and somehow this mess involved him. Simultaneous flashes of pity, sorrow, fear, and love packed themselves into a single heartbeat, and a plummeting sensation filled her chest. The reflex to help him came as natural as her urge to put her arms around him, even without knowing what he'd done, or why. That she could learn later. For now it felt right just to reach up and pull him toward her, the instinct to protect him overwhelming all other emotions. "Have you told anyone?" she asked, not sure where even that rudimentary piece of information would lead. Whether he had or not, she'd no idea what to do. Absently she noticed the dampness of his shirt under her palms.

At first he widened his eyes in a feeble pretense of not knowing what she meant. "Told anyone what-"

"Don't lie to me, Jimmy. It's too late for that."

His eyes sank back into their hollows. "No," he said, his voice barely audible. "But how did you guess-"

She silenced him with a finger to his lips.

In Grand Forks she'd hung out with her share of bad boys. It complemented her choice to dress and act hard. Some, she had heard over the years, had gone on to be bad men. Some had fared better, especially the ones who hadn't gotten caught. She'd helped a few of them in that regard, taking charge when they'd been scared shitless of being picked up for this or that petty larceny, helping them forge an ironclad story, even claiming to have been with one or two of them when she hadn't.

So she'd had some practice in getting men out of trouble. And in forcing them to level with her. "No, you won't lie to me, or no, you haven't told anybody about whatever mess it is you're in?" Even in a whisper, her question sounded more like a command.

He took a breath, then let it escape slowly from his pursed lips. It sounded as if he were deflating. "The latter."

She felt a glimmer of relief. There would be time. She'd hear the details of what he'd done, then they could decide on a plan.

Never once did she think to be afraid of him.