Raney & Levine (12 page)

23


I
n the morning she decided she’d done a fat nothing.
Exhaustion combined with sleep creeping up played such tricks, made you think
you’d found something when you hadn’t.

So dread came back hard, a tightened chest, a high, whirring
wail growing louder inside her head. She felt it when they woke and
quick-showered; barely had time to tell David, rushing, about her post to
SurroMomsForum. The feeling continued through morning rounds – watching David
lead and teach the interns how to check on post-delivery patients. Her heart
felt squeezed but she managed to put on the Happy Face when worried patients
asked about seeing BOMB THREAT! on their TVs and lap tops, and hearing the
dogs, their dim barking coming from somewhere, everywhere.

“Just a precaution,” David kept reassuring. That calmed
them. One reported her oldest child’s school getting a bomb threat, another
reported a bomb threat in a mall, and another reported being in an airport that
had a bomb threat. Lawyer Kim Withers, still there, said her courthouse at 100
Centre Street got bomb threats “at least once a week.”

“The world’s gone crazy,” she said.

“Good people far outnumber bad,” David answered, wanting to
get back to teaching. “Now, about your episiotomy-”

“It hurrrts.”

“Understood.” He looked at the interns. “So what do we
do
about that?”

“Thirty milligrams of codeine to kill the pain,” Gary Phipps
said, rubbing an eye. He’d slept four hours.

“Also order a culture to be taken for infection,” Jill said,
sharp as a tack. She was surprised; inside she was frantic, wildly impatient to
do something
, but she was still functioning okay.

David’s eyes smiled at her, then smiled encouragingly at Kim
Withers. “We’ll take care of that.” He slid an order under her chart’s front
clamp and red-flagged it. Kim smiled gratefully at him. Had no idea how he was
feeling underneath.

In the hall between patients Jill had managed to whisper,
“Heard from the cops?”

“Nope.” He shook his head and his mouth tightened.

Twenty minutes later, he did. Excused himself, left the
interns to kibbitz with a glowing new mom, and stepped back out to the hall.

Jill followed.

“Good find,” said Pappas. David held the phone so Jill could
hear. “The DevilSpawn website is new, belongs to your Megaphone Man whose name
is Ralph Nash. We’d had him on tape from that day but not his name. Also had
his prints on that pamphlet Keri had him sign, but they didn’t match anything
in the system.” There was a pause. “The profile doesn’t fit, either. This
killer is smart, methodical, and Nash is a psych patient.”

Jill and David traded looks.

“Psych patients can be very intelligent, even cunning,”
David said into the phone, keeping his voice low. “They manipulate their way
into institutions all the time. Every department here gets ‘em.”

A nurse passed, then an orderly pushing an empty gurney.

“But wouldn’t staff at Saint Mary’s know if Nash was
sneaking out?” David asked Pappas. “The Sheehan murder happened around two in
the morning.”

Jill hurriedly yanked her scrub pockets inside out, holding
her hands palms up. David nodded, remembered. “Correction, St. Mary’s may have
laid off staff. They’re in financial trouble and the Archdiocese may be about
to close it.”

“How do you know?”

“A friend googled it. The church next door is already
closed. Plus they were letting Nash walk around if he promised to stay on his
meds, right? But he didn’t.”

“No.” Pappas sounded exasperated. “Well, nice going, we’ve
got his name, at least. That’s all the warrant allowed us from the website’s
server. But the psych place’s director Sister Something said Nash won’t talk to
us. Free speech, no probable cause, circumstantial - and this guy has to be
checked out.”

The detective paused for breath. “We’re at a dead end,” he
said gloomily. “Those brown fibers of Brian Walsh’s jacket turned up nothing.
No evidence he’d been in that alley where Jenna was attacked…”

Jill heard and smacked her palms to her face, frustrated,
pacing away a little, coming back frowning to hear more. Also checking her
phone.

“...his prints aren’t in the system either. Alex and Keri
now like Nash better but-”

“Hold on a sec, Jill has something.” She was suddenly
tugging at David’s scrub top - and held out her phone to him, whispering,
“DevilSpawn answered.”

He blinked, and read.

In her phone was an email. “
Thank you for your Christian
offer to help. I am afraid I’m being persecuted by the Devil Police! If you
dare their watchful eyes, it is now I who need help and a fellow pure soul to
talk to. I’m in a place at 512 Avenue B in nyc. Please ask for Ralph if you
come, and I hope you do! Please hurry, they’re watching me and there’s no
telling what they’ll do to me!”

“Whoa,” David said, coming back to his phone. “I gotta
forward this to you.”

He did, from Jill’s phone – and then his own phone beeped.
He put Pappas on hold and listened: Two new deliveries just arrived, one
already dilated to seven centimeters, contractions galloping. He switched back
to Pappas as the interns filed out behind him, saying, We’re done, What now?

With the phone at his ear he muttered sharply, “Holloway and
Greenberg need help with two deliveries. Check with Holloway first, his sounds
closer. Tricia and Ramu, help Woody take the second one’s history, check her
vitals, albumin. She’s never had any prenatal care. Gary and Charlie, get the
charts updated –
what?”

“Got it and read it,” Pappas said tightly. “This Nash guy’s
ready to blow.”

“Jill wrote him at two in the morning.”

“Christ, you two are good.”

“He’s schiz. Paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe too much so
.
”

Silence at the other end. A nurse passed, then a strolling
patient in a pastel robe, stopping to pat a dog, chat reassuredly with the
police officer.

“Come again?” Pappas growled in David’s phone.

“Ralph Nash might have touched too many buttons. Like I
said, psych patients are often very smart. They know their diseases, have
studied up on them and
know how to sound
. They’ve been in and out of
institutions and know what doctors look for. Nice deal for a standard psych
patient - free meals, a warm bed - plus a religious place might be easier to
play than a regular institution.”

David pulled in a breath. “On the other hand, this could be
real. Ralph Nash could be completely violent paranoid schiz.”

“You’re not a shrink. How do you know?”

“Any doctor knows. They play us all.”

A brief silence. “He called us the Devil’s Police.”

“Sounds like you’ve joined his list.
And
if it’s him,
add this hospital, the devil’s workshop that must be destroyed. That’s a lot of
people he hates.”

“’Destroyed’ goes beyond free meals and a warm bed. That
message on Nikki Sheehan’s pillow had the same wording as the website and
we
can’t question him.
”

“Wait a sec.”

Jill had gripped David’s arm. “I’ll go,” she said, looking
resolute. “I’m not a cop. I can talk to him, pretend to look under his bed for
persecutors and see if he has any firearms, explosives.”

David gaped at her. “No way, too dangerous.”

But Pappas had heard. “Keri and Alex can meet her. Stay
close, wire her if necessary. Illegal as hell but we need a look at this guy.
We need all the help we can get,
fast.
”

Jill was suddenly pacing, her mouth set, and she was wearing
that look David knew too well. There’d be no stopping her. She had all the
detectives’ numbers, and she’d call them herself if he tried to stand in the
way.

She met his fretful gaze. “Ralph Nash looks better than
Walsh,” she whispered fiercely. “He
is
ready to blow and
what if he
gets past the dogs? Could dogs have detected inside those Boston pressure
cookers?”

“Now they’d
check
pressure cookers,” David flared
back.

“What about glass? Plastic? There’s always some flower vase,
and cell phones can set off from a distance - or
right there
if cops
find-”

“David? David?” from the phone.

He came nervously back to it.

“Here’s what I suggest,” Pappas said. “Jill answers that
email, same emotional tone but not sounding too eager. Say she can’t get away
from her job till something like three o’clock. That will keep him happy – a
like-minded visitor’s coming – and avoid him suspecting she’s Devil Police out
to get him.”

The knuckles on David’s hand gripping the phone were white.
“What job would she be free from at three o’clock?”

“A dog walker.”

Jill heard that and grabbed the phone from David. “A dog
walker, perfect!” she said. “Should I call Keri or Alex? Where should we meet?”

“Keri will call you,” Pappas said. “She was going to
anyway.”

24


T
hey argued, and continued to argue in the OB linen
closet.

Ironically, the same walk-in linen closet where, over three
months ago, they’d begun their relationship with a fight: two Stubborns butting
heads with Jill the brazen intern telling her boss he was doing it wrong.
They’d forgotten since what the “doing it wrong” thing was. But it was time to
butt heads again.

“I don’t like this. It’s too dangerous.” David’s face was
taut. “You
can’t
go alone and I have to stay here. Let Alex and Keri
find a way.” He leaned stiffly on the jamb, his tall, broad-shouldered frame
blocking the exit.

She kept her back to him, pawing furiously through a pile of
sheets and accidentally toppling towels.

“I’ll be
fine
,” she insisted, bending to scrabble up
the towels. Her face was blotchy red. “Keri and Alex-”

“Will what? Wire you and listen from outside and burst in if
they hear you getting attacked? What if this creep has a
knife
? In
prisons they sharpen their toothbrushes-”

“Staff will come.”

“Doesn’t sound like they
have
much staff.” David
stepped closer to her, his face coloring. “And why would the cops
want
to wire you? They can’t
use
anything recorded, it’s inadmissible,
illegal, unconstitutional-”

“Right!” Jill whirled on him, squeezing bunched up towels. “
Their
hands are tied
and who’s this nut going to go after maybe tonight? Or
sooner? Another woman? The whole hospital? Some uniformed cop on the street
just doing his job protecting people? Whacko’s been provoked. He’s added the
Devil Police to his list.”

“Nash will recognize you.” David’s voice dropped lower, like
it always did when he was stressed. The vein on his brow bulged. “You’ve been
all over the media.”

“I’ll wear a disguise.” Jill threw the bunched towels into a
canvas laundry hamper. “And I still have the Mace from last summer.”

David looked away, exhaled heavily, then turned back with
tight-lipped resignation. He was beaten, of course. What to do? Jill’s tenacity
had almost gotten them killed last summer.

It had also saved lives. No telling how many.

A long moment passed.

Abruptly he said quiety, “I’m being selfish.”

Jill stood glaring at the ugly canvas hamper. She softened a
little, but her face was pinched and he saw that her eyes were tearing.

“Jill,” he said plaintively. “I could be called any minute.
You only have clinic duty which I know you’re going to switch - and I can’t go
to Nash with you.”

Her face unpinched and she sniffled. “Better you don’t
come,” she said, softening further. “Together we’d really be recognized.” She
shot him a quick look with eyes that were reddened, but achingly vulnerable.
“Why did you say you were selfish?”

He came and bent his face to her.

“Because I’m afraid. I’m crazy-terrified of losing the best
thing I’ve ever had or will have. That’s you. My God, how do we get
into
these situations?”

“I practice.”

She shrugged at her thin witticism, and then her face
crumpled. “It’s really my fault,” she said in a stifled voice, her head
dropping. “If I hadn’t started all that snooping into bad cases, and found
Jesse…”

“Stop.” He took her in his arms. She snuffled again and
hugged him back, tentatively at first, then melting into his shoulder. He
breathed in with huge relief.

It felt so good to stop fighting.

“You did a great, great thing,” he said in the gentlest
voice. “You’re still-”

A harried-looking Gary Phipps stuck his head in, holding up
a paper. “Get a room, you two. Hey David, that thirty milligrams of codeine for
Withers, the nurse says you didn’t sign the order.”

Cussing softly, David turned and said, “Yes I did.” He
pointed to his scrawl at the bottom of the sheet.

“
That’s
a signature?” Phipps looked and screwed his
face. “The nursing supervisor says it isn’t a signature.”

“It is, dammit.”

Phipps left and David turned back to Jill. She had her phone
out and was tapping an email.

He looked over her shoulder.

“Dear Ralph,” it began. “Yes, I can come to you…”

He stiffened again. “I’m
really
hating this. I have a
bad feeling.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Dear Ralph, I am so sorry to hear your woes. Yes, I
can come to you, but not until around three o’clock, if that’s okay. I can’t
leave my job until then. I now want to help more than ever. Please let me know
if three or possibly a little later will be okay. Your friend in righteousness,
Christine

Jill stared at her email, frowning.

Christine, her middle name. She never thought of it – why
had it just popped up? She really didn’t like the name; it had been her
mother’s. Mom the prosecutor. Mom the unhappy, frustrated Assistant D.A. who’d
always wanted to rise higher, and never did. She got her name in the papers a
lot, though. Chris Raney, Chris Raney, Assistant District Attorney battling bad
guys. Jill used to come home from school to an empty apartment and read about
her mother, online, in newspapers. Fighting at trials, addressing reporters,
attending fundraisers; no mention that she was a divorced, absentee mother…not
there
even when she was at home. She was on the phone, studying briefs, always too
busy. Jill had grown up lonely, bookish. Studying hard for good marks and a
little attention from Christine.

On other people, the name Christine was beautiful. It just
made Jill mad, maybe that’s why it popped up. Feeling mad banishes feeling
afraid, helpless. It helps you move forward.

She stared again at her email, her finger poised over
“Send.” Of course she felt afraid, but hadn’t wanted David to see. Instead
she’d thought of Jenna Walsh, dying so piteously; had imagined the terror and
suffering she’d gone through in that alley attack. And Nikki Sheehan, unknown
but still so tragic… And
snakes left just last night in the hospital chapel.

Same creep, same signature. Excited, moving fast…

Is it Nash? What are the odds?

Jill took a deep breath, and sent the Dear Ralph email.

Then went to find David. He’d gone to chew out the nursing
supervisor who’d sent Phipps back with complaints about his handwriting.