The Pain Nurse

Chapter Thirty-one

Cheryl Beth checked in on several patients, and each time she looked out the windows to survey the streets outside. From the promontory of the tower, nothing seemed to be moving on Pill Hill. She could even see a clot of red taillights at the foot of the street where the SUV had slid. Several blocks through the trees came the yellow pulse of lights, salt trucks, but so far she was stuck at the hospital. There were other ways down, but they all involved hills and she would not risk it. Cincinnatians became hysterical in even modest snowstorms. An ice storm on a city of hills was, as her grandmother would have said, a gracious plenty of a mess. If worse came to worst, she could use one of the cots the on-duty trauma teams slept on.

She noshed on the remains of a Christmas party on Five-West. Most of the nurses and docs were already gone. She was still in civilian clothes with her ID card hung around her neck by her red lanyard. She smiled attentively as a young nurse talked about her little girl’s part in the Christmas play. From somewhere down the hall, she barely but distinctly heard a small choir singing carols. Hark, the herald angels sing…The sound filled her with longing. She wanted to find these singers and listen.

“Hey.”

She turned to see Lisa surveying the remains of the food. “I am such a carb and sugar slut,” she said, picking up a piece of cold pizza. “Thank God they didn’t order in Aglamesis’ ice cream.” Her lean, tall body seemed to show no ill effects from her addictions.

“What are you doing here so late?”

“I’m trapped like everybody else.” She munched contentedly, but her eyes looked tired. “I gave notice today.”

“What?”

“I’m going to University. For years I thought I could make a stand here and make this place better. I’m just ready for a change.”

Cheryl Beth hugged her. “Who’s going to maintain the FDN list and keep me up to speed on all the gossip?” She felt like crying, even though Lisa was only going a few blocks away.

“You should come with me,” Lisa said. “They’d love to have you.”

“I know. Maybe not so much now that I’m the slutty nurse who was involved in a murder.”

“Oh, please. It just makes you more interesting. Anyway, you’re the most straitlaced person I’ve ever worked with. Not that the degenerates at this hospital are a good yardstick.” She stopped laughing and cocked her head. “You’re wheezing, babe. Asthma acting up?”

“I guess.” It was true. The cold and the stagnant Cincinnati air were hell on her lungs. She reached for her inhaler and the business card that the young man from SoftChartZ had given her fell out, fluttering down to the floor. It landed face down.

“Shit!”

“What?”

Cheryl Beth picked the card off the floor and read the handwritten message on the back: “Westin, room 560. I’m on West Coast time so am staying up late. I’d love to have company.” She turned the card to the front, which introduced Josh Barnett, Chief Executive Officer, beneath a SoftChartZ logo.

Lisa had been hovering, watching. “Way to go, Cheryl Beth! You will have such fun, and you’ll have that wonderful funny walk in the morning that happens after…”

“Stop!” Cheryl Beth nearly shouted. “You don’t understand. Now I remember. This is the guy you said was sleeping with Christine.”

“Young and strong.” Lisa’s smile was so broad it nearly broke her face in half.

Cheryl Beth held the card in a shaking hand, the paper nearly searing her skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” Lisa said. “It’s no questions asked, rules of the road…”

“His handwriting.” Cheryl Beth was almost talking to herself. “It’s the same handwriting as on the note in Mason’s car. I swear it’s the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

Cheryl Beth tried to explain as Lisa cocked a hip and rested her hand on it, looking at her as if she were a crazy woman.

“This was never some random murder,” Cheryl Beth said. “Christine somehow…” She tried to work through it, feeling light-headed. It seemed impossible that the baby-faced tech executive could be a killer. But so many millions of dollars were at stake, and the hospital was already in trouble. “This is why Stephanie Ott was so strange, why the hospital tried to keep this quiet. Why they moved her office down to the basement. Now I understand why Christine was so crazy that night…” To herself, she thought, now I know why she held me so tight and kept asking, “Can I trust you, Cheryl Beth? Can I trust you…?”

Lisa put an arm around her. “You need to go home, babe, or take a cab to his hotel once the roads clear.”

“Ladies.” Dr. Carpenter sidled into the room, his voice booming. “My two favorite healers.”

They moved apart and greeted him. Cheryl Beth stared into the face she had known for so many years and wondered, who can I trust now?

“Is my timing bad?” he asked. “Sorry if I interrupted.”

“Just women stuff,” Lisa said.

Cheryl Beth stuffed the card back in her pocket just as her pager buzzed: the main switchboard.

“You have a call from Detective Dodds, to meet him down in Dr. Lustig’s office, uh, former office.”

“Now?”

“The call just came in.”

Cheryl Beth put the phone back in the cradle. She was excited, but she was also afraid. Why did Dodds suddenly want her? And why there? Maybe she would ignore the page, try to make it home through the ice. Then she would, what? Think it through… Maybe… She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. It wasn’t right. Just then, she saw one of her favorite guards pass on an intersecting hallway.

“Don!”

She ran and caught up with him. “Could I ask a favor? Would you walk me down to the basement?”

“Now?”

She said now, and they headed to the main elevator bank, talking about the ice storm. He said the radio was reporting wrecks and impassable streets all over the city. “We’re pretty much cut off for awhile,” he said. “I guess the ambulances have chains. But I haven’t seen one of those for an hour, either…” She was barely listening. The downward movement of the elevator was making her ill. As it left the fifth floor, as the car deviated from its normal run to the lobby, the lighting seemed to change and darken, the buttons looked filthy and worn, the walls pocked with stains and creases, gravity making her feel heavy, as if her body would crumple in on itself.

The elevator car settled and a deep mechanical thud came from somewhere far above them. Don just shook his head and they stepped into the hallway. The single bank of fluorescent lights was starting to go out. Its insistent flickering made them look like characters in a silent movie. It made the beds and big supply carts parked against the walls cast trembling, diabolical shadows. Her body was wound tight and her lungs felt small and fragile. She finally used the inhaler.

“You sure somebody called you down here?” he asked.

Then they saw the light streaming out of the office. “I guess so.” Twenty more steps and she looked inside to see Dodds and Will. At the sight of Will, she smiled spontaneously.

“It’s okay, Don.”

“You’re sure?”

She said yes and thanked him. Then she watched as her Danskos again crossed the threshold into what had been Christine’s office. Dodds was sitting in Christine’s chair, all but concealing it with his bulk. Will had wheeled himself to the far wall by the desk and they both looked surprised.

“What are you doing here?” Dodds said. “And where’s that guard going?”

“What?” She appraised the expressions of both men. “You called me. I got a page from the switchboard to meet you here.”

“It didn’t come from me,” Dodds said. “We were told to meet the hospital security chief down here. Where the hell is Stan ‘Don’t Call Me David’ Berkowitz?”

Cheryl Beth stepped into the room, feeling an awkward chemistry from the two. Will barely acknowledged her.

“Well, since you’re here, maybe you’ll tell your boyfriend here why you lied to him?”

“I didn’t…” She got the words out, but her insides were tied up with dread.

“We’ve got time until Berkowitz gets here, so tell him, tell us,” Dodds slowed his voice into a falsely friendly tone, “why you were at a bar with Christine Lustig the night she was found murdered.”

“I…oh, shit. I know what you’re thinking. Will, it’s not…” Her eyes stung with tears. She tried to speak, but was wheezing again. She looked at Will, searching for a connection, but his eyes were opaque.

She pulled out the card and handed it to Will. “Look at this.”

“Just tell me the truth, Cheryl Beth.” Will spoke for the first time, and his voice was taut with emotion. His face looked troubled and distracted.

She said, “Look at the back of the card, the handwriting. It’s the same handwriting as on the threatening note to Christine. But it wasn’t written by Judd Mason. It was written by the head of SoftChartZ. He made the threat! What if Christine found out something about the project? Something that could get her killed?” Dodds looked through her, bored. She got angry. “You called me down here, so at least listen to what I’m telling you!”

“I did not call you down here,” Dodds said. “But since you’re here… You were with Lustig in a bar on Main Street the night she was murdered.” He went on to give her the very same warning she had heard in a hundred police shows: silent…used against you…lawyer…do you understand?… She wasn’t really listening. Will looked pale.

“This isn’t right,” Will said suddenly. “We need to get out of this basement right now…”

Will’s premonition was instantly telegraphed to Cheryl Beth and she instinctively reached for him, to wheel him out of the room. In that same second the walls shook with the sharp noise of the door slamming shut. They were closed in.

They were not alone.