A Caduceus is for Killing (2 page)

    Andrea's rubbery arms and legs flailed in the clotted mess covering the floor. So much blood. And feces. Oh, my God! Feces.
    Clawing and scrambling, she grabbed for anything within her reach, something to get her the hell out of here.
    She crawled.
    She slipped.
    Her knees burned. She had to get away. From him. . . it. Finally, her fingers grabbed dry carpeting and, burying them in the plush, she pulled as hard as she could and collapsed.
    Andrea lay still, afraid to move. Her watch said only minutes had passed. The stench of death permeated everywhere making her a part of it, too. Everything today had been out of control. Especially since last night's dream.
    Slowly, she surfaced from the terror and became aware of the complete situation and her surroundings. A voice ricocheted through her brain.
The phone. . . get the phone.
    "Yes," she whispered. "The phone. Of course."
Now what
?
    
Call the police.
"Yes. Call the police."
    Drawing her bloodied knees toward her chin, she rolled over and sat up. Covered with the clotted mess, she fought the urge to run screaming from the building, stripping her clothes as she ran. But doctors didn't do that. They were professionals. They handled things. They coped in a calm manner. Staggering to her feet, she reached for the phone on Grafton's desk. It slipped through her shaking, bloodied fingers.
Three numbers. Can't think. Preoccupied.
    Numbers--numbers. What were the numbers?
Don't panic
.
    Like a robot, she grabbed up the receiver again and looked blankly at the number panel. As if they had a mind of their own, her fingers punched out nine-one-one. Numbness seeped into Andrea's body.
    Someone on the other end answered. She sucked in gulps of air--praying her asthma would remain quiescent.
    "T-there's been an accident. No. No. . .worse. Come. . .fast. . . Oh, I don't know."
    "Calm down," the dispatcher's voice said. "Take a deep breath. Please. Give me your location."
    "Can't breathe. . .I'm at DMC. . .asthma. . .I'm a doctor. DMC."
    "Asthma?" the voice on the other end soothed.
    "I'm sorry." She concentrated and her breathing slowed. "Dorlynd Medical Center. Faculty Clinic Building next to. . . to hospital. Fifth floor. Dr. Milton Grafton's Office. Hurry."
    The receiver dropped from her nerveless fingers, and Andrea shrank deep into the corner. Sliding down, she hugged her knees tight and tried to control her thoughts.
    This
was
a nightmare. Feeling awake was usually part of a nightmare. Wasn't it?
    The morning hadn't seemed right from the beginning. It was all a bad dream. Soon, she'd wake up to start the day.
    Moaning, she prayed it was true. "Okay, Andrea, time to wake up. Come on. Hurry up, police. Hurry. Please, God, why can't I wake up?"
    Nothing happened.
    Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her knees and waited.
    "SASQUATCH! HEY, Big-Foot, Sweetie, wake up," the day-Sergeant sneered, striking the dozing detective squarely on the nose with a large paper-wad. "Krastowitcz, someone found a body over at Dorlynd. Looks like a fresh one."
    "Fresh what?" Krastowitcz mumbled sleepily, sliding his size fifteens off his desk and sitting upright.
    Sergeant Gary Krastowitcz didn't mind the
Big Foot
remark. It fit his stature. At six-foot-seven, his thick, curly hair gave him a dark, wild-animal look that often startled. Only drunks or the insane gave him trouble during an arrest.
    "They've found a body. Nine-one-one called Dorlynd Security and they called us. Don't know any details except Regional said to send Homicide over, and you're Homicide. You'd better quit day dreamin' and haul your big ass over there."
    "Shit! I'll
never
get this report done. Did Trent clear the way and rope things off?"
    "Yeah, yeah, Krastowitcz. We always send the real cops in, first. It's the small clinic next to the hospital."
    "Faculty Building?"
    "Yeah, fifth floor, Medicine Department Chairman's office. There's a lot of upset people over there. They said to keep it hush-hush. Looks like another touchy one." The Sergeant chuckled. "Some rich doctor probably offed himself."
    Krastowitcz rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at the "hall of fame". Pictures of fresh homicides were displayed in a graphic montage of photographic horrors hung on his bulletin--board. Cause of death? Varied. But the causes weren't natural, unless violence was considered a natural phenomenon.
    What appeared to be a young man was stretched out on a road with bloody tire tracks emanating from his head, now smashed and broken like a pumpkin. No easy means of identification. Right this very moment the crime lab was tracing his clothing, but that's all they had.
    Another was a young female, slashed mercilessly until the skin of her face and neck resembled dripping red fringe. Until recently, Omaha homicides had been the simple by-products of child molestation, family disturbances, rape, or gang-related felonies. Lately, however, there'd been a rash of bizarre killings involving male sexual mutilation.
    "Krastowitcz," Captain Dunnally called to him from his office. "You've got to come up with something on that so-called hit and run. I need that report on my desk. I'm getting heat from the Chief because we can't produce. Some guy's head is all over the highway and we've got nothing. I don't understand it. Not even so much as car paint on the body. It's almost too clean."
    Krastowitcz leaned his head against the door frame. "Listen, Cap, you've got to give me some time to get it together." He strolled in, grabbed the Excedrin bottle on Dunnally's desk and carefully doled out four tablets. "Now, there's this call over at Dorlynd."
    "I know what you're going through, but things haven't changed. This ain't no Sunday social and I've got the same order from the Chief. As soon as you get back from Dorlynd, follow up anything you can come up with. We need to I.D. that body fast." Dunnally glanced at him almost sympathetically, but his words remained harsh. "And don't try that headache routine on me, Krastowitcz, I've got a big one of my own."
    "Tough shit!" Krastowitcz walked out the door, tossed the tablets over his tongue, and gulped a bitter swallow of cold coffee. On the Omaha Police Department for a life sentence, he'd joined the force at twenty-one after kicking around Omaha working odd jobs for three years. Slowly, he'd worked his way up from jail guard to rookie patrolman and, ultimately, homicide investigator where he was content to stay for eternity. No one would call him ambitious, but they'd all agree he was fiercely loyal to his profession and honest to a fault.
    He did everything in moderation. His ego couldn't tolerate embarrassment. He was an enigma, a truly honest cop. He had a fierce temper and Herculean libido, although the AIDS scare kept him relatively celibate.
    Forty, he'd married only once, but his perfectionist ways had finally taken their toll and his wife, Ramona, had left him. Not only did he have to deal with a backlog of investigations, but Ramona took all the credit cards, including some he hadn't even known about, and had charged them to the limit. Now, he had a shitload of debt to unravel. If only he hadn't been so preoccupied with work. Hell, at this point, all he could do was see it never happened again. Staying away from relationships was the only way, and that's exactly what he planned to do.
    "Come on, darlin'. They can't wait forever." The day-Sergeant's jibe broke his thoughts. "The body might decompose by the time you haul your carcass over there."
    "Okay, okay, on my way." Krastowitcz shook his head to clear it and hurried to the garage. What kind of mess waited at Dorlynd? He fondled his Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, snugly nestled in his shoulder holster. These constant interruptions only got him more behind in his already burdensome paperwork. Being one of only two homicide investigators didn't help. The city just didn't have enough cops, and this crap always happened to him. The Police Department was too small to sustain more detectives on a regular basis. So, two of them took care of assaults, threats, robberies, and anything else unsolved. Homicide in this territory wasn't exactly high volume, but when murder did happen, the pressure was on, like now, from the higher-ups to "clean `em up fast."
    Driving into the white-hot glare of the morning sunlight, Krastowitcz watched the Omaha humidity slam against the windshield in small droplets of condensation. He flipped the air conditioner to high, creating a foggy haze he scraped from the glass by hand. Using Dodge Street, the main roadway, his drive from Central to Dorlynd Medical Center took only four minutes.
    Nestled on the banks of the Missouri River, the hospital was an impressive, cream-colored concrete structure dominating the hill on the west-end of the Dorlynd University campus. Large picture-windows studded the building front. Toward dusk, when the sun hit the windows just right, Dorlynd looked transparent, as if totally made of glass. Everyone in Omaha called it DMC. He turned onto the street that cut in front of the hospital. The closer he got, the larger it seemed with its twelve stories overshadowing the smaller Dorlynd buildings. On the prairie, a twelve-story building was a high-rise.
    Krastowitcz stopped his `84 Charger in front of the Faculty Clinic Building. He smiled at two guards hurrying forward, waving their arms in an attempt to move his vehicle ahead.
Rent-a-dummies
, Krastowitcz sneered silently.
Basic butt-wipes of the trade.
    Recognizing him as a superior, they stopped abruptly, their raised arms conspicuously frozen in mid-air. This better not take too long. Hopefully, some rich doctor really had gone ten-seven. Permanent-like.
    That would be unusual at the Medical Center. Mostly the Dorlynd dentists did themselves in. The suicide rate for dentists was particularly high--even in Omaha. Of course, that was understandable. He chuckled to himself. Who really liked dentists, anyway? Even hard-core cops couldn't handle that type of constant rejection.
    "Sorry Officer Krasto--" the young guard stammered. "Didn't recognize your unmarked.
    "No problem, Tom." Krastowitcz smiled.
    He walked into the Faculty Building, noticing the new gray and mauve velvet chairs and highly polished oak tables in the visitor's waiting area. Beautiful, but within six months they'd be antiques. Names and epithets would soon be carved into the expensive oak tables and the darkened velvet matted with filth. This wasn't a posh West Omaha hospital, no matter how hard they tried to give that impression. Dorlynd served the poor, who not only went there for health care, but usually hung out in the lobby trying to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Unattended rag-tag children ran the halls. Although no one publicly admitted it, fact was, other Omaha hospitals wouldn't touch the poor. They were immediately transported to Dorlynd.
    Krastowitcz checked his note pad.
Fifth floor, Medicine Department, Chairman's Office.
He entered the crowded elevator and pushed five. The aroma of stale sweat, tobacco, gin--or was it whiskey?--and onions wafted up surrounding his face, almost smothering him. The door opened, and he pushed his way through the crowded elevator to the fifth floor lobby and fresher air. He followed the large painted arrow pointing the way and entered a set of glass doors marked "Administrative Offices." In the corner, clusters of women huddled together, tearfully whispering to each other. A large, saltwater aquarium in the center of the waiting area, bubbled with blue and yellow clown-fish. Running his hand over the stuffed chairs, he realized the covering was beige leather.
    
Wow! Real leather
. Evidently the dregs of life hadn't made it this far.
    Another Dorlynd security guard directed traffic.
    Several uniformed police officers circled around Sergeant Sam "Trent" Trenton, his best friend and uniformed field investigator, already on the scene. A shock of black, curly hair hooded Trenton's dark eyes. Tiny creases gathered at the corners, suggesting a smile, a smirk, a royal smart-ass waiting for an opportunity to jibe.
    The entire area had been roped off. Krastowitcz entered the inner office and Trenton pulled him aside.
    "You're not going to believe this shit. When I got here, I found a woman, covered with goop, huddled in the corner of the room staring off into space. She's the Chief Resident," he flipped a page of his notebook. "Dr. Andrea Pearson."
    "Yeah? What else?"
    "Found her boss draped over the toilet, managed to literally swim in his shit and knock him on top of her. Wait'll you see in the bathroom. You won't believe it."
    "You, my dear WOP friend are just like your father--always exaggerating."
    They walked side by side. Sam Trenton was a second generation Omaha police officer. His full-blooded Italian mother had fallen instantly for his father. A New York police officer, he'd reluctantly removed to Omaha narrowly escaping a Mafia grudge just because he wouldn't go along with the take. Sam Senior, had been tall, blond, and powerful and Nina Sutera was no match for the street-wise cop who usually got his wish.
    Sam, Junior, favored his mother's dark coloring. The only resemblance Sam bore to his Irish father was his height. At six-foot five the younger man was one of the tallest officers in Omaha. Krastowitcz held the record. In their rookie days, they were often assigned the more difficult cases--the ones nobody wanted, the criminally insane, hostages, or hyped-up druggers.
    He and Krastowitcz stalked past the crowded outer office into a small inner room. "Trent, has the area been kept clear?"
    "Shit," Trenton said. "You can see everyone's footprints in the blood. Everyone around here, except the perp's. We don't have much to go on. Not a fresh print. Nothin'. Looks like we've got our work cut out for us."
    "Again." Krastowitcz continued through the adjoining door-way and entered a much larger office. The familiar odor of decomposing flesh and old shit greeted him. It never failed to remind of his rookie days when he'd been the first officer to answer a missing elderly person call, or people not heard from for weeks. Entering these homes had been a horror of smells and sights. Bodies, bloated and melting into the surroundings, were welcome receptacles for flies attempting the procreation of their young. Those new-born maggots wriggled in the eyes and ears of the deceased. Once, a family feline had avoided starvation by dining on its master. Krastowitcz never forgot the smell or the sight. He'd carry both to his grave.