Angel of Mercy (22 page)

“Similar?”

“Suicides with the same MO.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t keep up with the jargon. MO?”

“Modus operandi. How the crime or the act was committed,” he explained.

“I see. And these suicides all have the same MO?”

“Well, these people all turned to some form of medicine to use as a poison. And when you see something like that, naturally, you get curious about it.”

She didn’t respond, but she fixed her eyes on him intently. ú

“And there are some other coincidences, shall we say.”

“Namely?”

“Well, I checked the records, and you were the private-duty nurse for the spouses on each occasion.”

Faye sat back, her shoulders straight.

“If you please one patient and his or her family, they often recommend you to friends in need.”

“Yeah, well, I suppose that’s true, but…”

“It’s more than true, Detective Samuels; it’s very common. The rule instead of the exception, as they say.”

“I’ve had the opportunity to look at only a few with more attention, but in every case so far, your sister was, employed to care for and clean the home of the surviving spouse.”

“Oh, I see. That coincidence troubles you. Well,” she said leaning forward, “my sister was born with one leg shorter than the other, which caused a problem that can only be alleviated by wearing a brace.

Consequently, she grew up very shy, introverted. I’m the one who goes out and gets her the employment. She thinks everyone’s looking at her limp. She’s very self-conscious about wearing the brace. I’ve always had to look after her. If I didn’t f?“nd her the work, she’d remain in this apartment cleaning and recleaning it, watching those inane soap operas all day, reading those gossip magazines,” she added, nodding toward one on the table, “and eating junk food.”

“I see. Well, there are other interesting details. Like the time factor. Every one of the men who committed suicide did it soon after his wife passed away.”

“Losing a loved one, one you’ve been with for years and years, is devastating.” She paused and stared at him, her expression becoming hard, cold. “What are you suggesting, Detective Samuels?”

“Remember what I said about the unusual pattern?

If I research your work in Florida, will I come up with similar circumstances? You the nurse, your sister their maid?”

“I’m not sure I like where this conversation is headed,” Faye said.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be having this conversation. I know of too many instances of wrongful malpractice cases that ruined good nurses and doctors.”

“I wasn’t thinking in terms of a malpractice case, Miss Sullivan. I was thinking in terms of someone helping a depressed individual take his own life. Do you believe people are sometimes better off dead? Did you or your sister ever advise anyone to do himself in?

Maybe show him how?” Faye glared at him.

“I’m a nurse, someone dedicated to alleviating pain and suffering, someone dedicated to helping people get well. I don’t advise people to die. I advise them on how to get well. And Susie, Susie couldn’t hurt a fly.

That’s literally true. She won’t kill an insect when she cleans.

She’ll spend hours trapping it and then throw it out of the house.”

“Nevertheless, I’m afraid I’m going to have to have a talk with her.

I’d like you to bring her into the police station tomorrow,” he said standing. “What’s a convenient time for you?”

“I’m on call tomorrow,” she said, “but I should know by nine if I’m getting an assignment. Can I let you know then?”

“Sure. If there’s a problem, I’ll come here,” he said.

“Fine,” she said, “but I must warn you, Susie is very shy and can become very nervous, burst out in tears..

ú It’s best that I’m with her when you speak to her.”

“Well, we’ll do the best we can,” Frankie said. Faye didn’t like his tenacity. She followed him to the door.

“If your sister has such serious problems,” he said, “you wouldn’t be helping her by ignoring them.” His implication was clear.

“I think I know best how to take care of Susie,” Faye replied.

“Okay. Thank you,” he said. She watched him leave and then closed the door. Susie was already standing in, the living room when Faye turned.

“Did you listen to that conversation?” Faye asked.

Susie nodded, her face nearly in tears. “Now do you understand why we have to do what we have to do, and do it quickly?”

“Yes, Faye.” Susie stepped back. “How do I look?”

Faye inspected her.

“Open another button on the uniform,” she instructed. “I want him to see more cleavage.” Susie complied.

“My perfume?” Faye asked.

“I put it on. How do you like my hair?”

“It’s fine.”

“I feel funny not wearing abra. You can see my nippies.”

Faye smirked.

“Only Corpsy will see you, and that won’t matter very much, will it?”

“I guess not.”

“You had better not mess this up, Susie,” Faye warned.

“I won’t,” Susie promised. “But I can’t help being afraid. I wish I was more like you.” Faye finally smiled.

“I told you: I’ll be with you every moment. When ever you get frightened or nervous, just listen for my voice and the things I’ve said. Okay?” Susie nodded.

Faye went to the window and looked out to be sure Frankie was gone.

“Give me a few minutes,” she said. “And then we’ll go, and you’ll do what has to be done.”

Susie nodded, but her heart was beating so hard, she felt sure Corpsy

Ratner would hear it and know what she had come to do to him.

Susie sat in the car and looked anxiously at the door of unit 31.

Beside her on the passenger’s seat was her purse, inside of which was only one thing: the hypodermic filled with Tubarine, a neuromuscular blocking agent Faye had prepared in a lethal dosage. She had assured Susie that the effect would be immediate.

All the way up to the motel, Faye had recited the plan move by move, as if she were writing a screenplay for a feature film: how Susie should enter the room, how she should speak and behave once she was inside, even how she should flutter her eyelashes. She was still whispering behind Susie’s ear, sitting in the back in the shadows and whispering, chanting at her like some cheerleader of the damned, encouraging her, building her confidence to commit murder.

Of course, they didn’t view it as murder. It was killing only in the sense that a doctor kills a germ or a surgeon cuts out a cancer. “We kill bad things so that good things can live,” Faye told her. “Death is just another tool in the arsenal against the evil that lurks in and around our precious bodies. If we’re not healthy in mind and in body”and we don’t live in a protected environment, we can’t do good deeds, can’t we?”

Susie didn’t need to be convinced of their motives; she just needed to be bolstered and sustained’. She had to know her strong, intelligent sister was with her, behind her, ready to come to her aid if need be.

“You’ll do fine,” Faye whispered. “You won’t have any problems with him. He idolizes you. Look at what he has done … come all this way just to see you.

You’re all he thinks about, talks about. He lives and breathes you.

He will not be suspicious. We do not suspect those we love and who we think love us,” she added, but with some bitterness. “This won’t be the first time someone who had such faith in another person was betrayed.

“But you mustn’t think of it that way,” she added quickly. “Think only of us and what we must do to go on together. You want us to be together, don’t you, Susie?”

“Yes.”

“Then there is no choice. You have what you need, and you know what to do. If you get nervous or afraid, just think about me and what I would do and how I would act, okay?”

“Yes, Faye.”

“It’s time, Susie. There’s no one around here right now. Get out and go to the door before someone pulls into the lot and sees you entering his unit. Go ahead, honey,” she said, and she kissed Susie on the cheek.

Susie took a deep breath, grasped her purse carefully, and stepped out of the car. She looked back once, but Faye wasn’t visible in the window. Without further hesitation, she hobbled over the gravel to Corpsy’s door and knocked.

Corpsy had just finished shaving. He wiped his face dry and dabbed on his favorite lotion, maybe putting on a little more than most men would because of his paranoia about that formaldehyde thing. He was in his briefs, no shirt, no socks, when he heard the rapping at’ his door.

It couldn’t be them, he thought quickly. It’s too early, even for drinks before dinner, isn’t it? But who else could it be?

He wrapped a towel around himself and went to the door.

“Who is it?” he asked. For a moment there was no response. Maybe it was a couple of kids pulling a prank, he thought. He was about to turn away when he heard, “It’s me. Susie.”

If he had stepped on an exposed electric wire, he couldn’t have had a more sudden shock pass through his body. He was numb. The charge that shot through him left the back of his neck ice cold. He staxted to slammer and then closed his mouth and seized control of his tongue.

“Susie?” he said, and he opened the door to see her standing there, not more than a foot away from him.

“But you’re so early. I didn’t… expect you and…”

He looked beyond her. “Where’s Faye?”

“She’ll be here later,” Susie said. “May I come in?”

“Oh, but… sure,” he said stepping back quickly.

“It’s not much of a room, as you can see.”

She paused inside the door and gazed around at the worn carpet, the stained wallpaper, the unmade bed, and the dull brown night table and dresser. There was one chair by a small table to the left.

“I was just finishing dressing,” he said, permitting himself to look directly at her. Of course, he had never been this close to her before, but he wasn’t disappointed. If anything, he thought she was prettier than Faye, especially because of the way her hair framed her face.

Faye’s short hair made her face look chubbier.

He was surprised to see that Susie wore her maid’s uniform. Maybe she really didn’t have any wardrobe.

But why couldn’t she have borrowed something from Faye? However, the uniform looked different. With the buttons undone and the collar pulled apart, it was a far sexier garment. Enough cleavage was revealed for him to see that there was a tiny birthmark on the inside of her left breast. He longed to touch it with the tip of his finger.

When he looked up and into those cerulean blue eyes, his heartbeat not only quickened, it skipped. His own partial nudity added to this unexpected but delightful excitement. The erection that was building nudged against his briefs. He felt his skin warm. She smiled softly, her lips wet, the tip of her tongue just visible between them.

“It’s okay,” she finally said. “A room is a room.

What makes it nice is the people who are in it, don’t you think?”

“Oh sure. Yeah. Sure. Um… I don’t have anything to offer you.

Just water.” “I don’t need anything. She turned her shoulders in just a little, but the move pushed her breasts up, giving them even more exposure, “Faye thought it would be nice for us to have a chance alone first,” she said.

The revelation of this motive put Corpsy into a frenzy .for a moment.

They were actually alone, weren’t they? He looked about, trying to decide what move to make next, what to offer.

“That’s very nice of her. I guess I should finish getting dressed, though, huh?”

“No,” Susie said quickly. “Let’s just relax. When people are relaxed, they are more honest with each other, right?”

“I suppose. Yeah,” he said. There wasn’t anything she could say or do that he would disagree with right now, he thought.

She surprised him by sitting on his bed.

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t make that. I don’t usually leave things messy.

I took a nap this afternoon and…”

“I don’t mind.” She ran the palm of her hand over the exposed sheet.

“It still feels warm. You must have a warm body. Faye says some people’s normal temperature can be a full degree or two above what’s considered normal.” Suddenly, she sat forward and put that palm against his chest.

He started to pull back, but Susie touching him and him feeling her so soon was too wonderful and unexpected a pleasure to deny.

“Yes,” she said, “you are a warm man.” She smiled and laughed. “Well?” she asked.

“What?” He didn’t know what to say or where to put his nervous hands.

“Aren’t you curious about me?”

“Curious about… you mean, whether you’re warm or not?”

“Yes, silly.” She reached down and seized his left wrist, bringing his hand up to her exposed chest. She pressed his fingers on her bosom and looked into his shocked face. “So?”

“You’re warm, too,” he said, pulling his hand back.

“I know. Sit down beside me,” she said, patting the bed. “You must tell me about yourself. I don’t remember seeing you in Phoenix.”

Gingerly, he sat down and held his towel closed.

“Well, I was nervous and shy about meeting you then,” he said. He blushed. “I used to watch you from a distance.”

“You used to spy on me?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could say that. But the moment I set eyes on you…”

“What?” she asked in a breathy, excited way.

“I thought you were beautiful and someone I had to know and maybe could love,” he confessed.

“That’s so nice. No one has ever said anything like that to me before.

Probably because of this,” she said, lifting the skirt of her uniform so her brace was fully visible.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. “Why should your handicap make any difference. It doesn’t make you less of a person or less beautiful.

In fact… it kind of makes you more beautiful to me.”

She stared at him with her warm smile, her eyes brightening.

“My sister said that any man who would come so far to meet me must be sincere,” she said.

“I am. I don’t even like the idea of your being in here alone with me.

I never intended…”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I know you’re not that sort, but we should be alone and we .should see if we do care for each other, shouldn’t we?”