Raney & Levine (19 page)

37


N
inety minutes later, in the outpatient OB/GYN clinic,
Jill had whipped through three routine exams and a post-delivery checkup when
her phone buzzed.

It was Rick Burrell, elated. “I just got the chance to tell
Sister Meg about Dara, the whole situation. She’s horrified, and said to help
any way I can. So I can come right after lunch.”

“That’s great.” Jill stepped awkwardly aside for someone
rolling an instrument table. She was back to using her crutch. Now her leg
ached and her armpit ached.

“Things are under control here,” Burrell said. “There are so
few patients left anyway and they’re medicated. Greg and Sister Meg can handle
the afternoon. Hey, I can visit and
still
get to bowl.”

“Greg’s better?”

“His scissor stab is sore and bandaged, it wasn’t too bad,
so he’s back to work. So…I’ll see you after lunch?”

“If I’m free. Give me a call.”

In a blur Jill went back to work, but kept looking over her
shoulder. For what? Someone who looked like they may have snuck in dynamite?
Between her second and third patients she’d peeked out at the waiting room. The
same faces, it seemed. Anxious or bored…no monks in long black robes. One man -
a relative? – looked crossly at her, and she ducked back to the clinic.

Tricia and Gary were working with her.

“Try to relax, you’re wound so tight,” Tricia urged,
stopping to hug her as the two rushed between cubicles. And, “Hey, no snakes,”
Gary said brightly, patting Jill’s arm.

She went white.

“Phipps, you are
such
an idiot,” Tricia told him.

“Just trying to
help
.” Gary looked injured.

At lunch in the cafeteria the three joined Ramu and George
Mackey. David was in surgery but Jill texted him that Rick Burrell was coming
sooner, after lunch. Then she flipped to watch Jesse, getting changed, his tiny
arms flailing happily.

She smiled a little, but she couldn’t eat.

Had the cops found Brian Walsh? Gotten a warrant for his
apartment yet? What would they find there anyway? He must know he was being
hunted. Was probably holed up in some crappy hotel or hiding place, laying low
until…

Don’t go there, don’t, don’t…

She picked at her food while the others, feeling the
hospital tension in their own way, talked about the harm that religious
extremism had done through the ages. Ramu, in his lilting U.K. English, told
some hideous stories from England’s sixteenth century Reformation. “Catholics
were executed under treason laws. Then during Mary’s reign, Protestants were
hacked and burned at the stake. When her sister Elizabeth took over, it was
back to executing Catholics and
even priests were beheaded
.”

“Under Napoleon too,” Mackey said, munching.

“School boys,” Ramu continued intently, “used some poor
priest’s head as a football. To this day, there are secret tunnels under some
of the grand old houses for the priests to hide in.”

Gary looked unusually thoughtful. “Now in Syria priests are
getting beheaded, while crowds cheer and scream for more. Extremists
enjoy
their hate.
They get off on it.”

The room dipped and swam. Jill was now reliving her dream
about Galileo when her phone buzzed.

Burrell. “I’m here! I mean, just coming out of the subway. I
forgot to ask what room Dara’s in.”

Jill told him and said to go right up. Seconds later she
frowned at her phone, remembering something.

He just got out of the subway, she thought.

Am I losing my mind? Dammit, I forgot my plan…

Grabbing a roll and excusing herself, she crutch-hurried
back to her call room. Found the medallion on the dresser, and put it in her
pocket.

The line was long. Burrell wore a leather jacket and
gloves, carried a big bouquet, and pulled his Rolling Thunder two-ball bowling
bag. He waited patiently.

The dogs were calm, barking just a little, sniffing and
straining as far as their leashes let them, while their handlers smiled and
reassured over and over. “Just a precaution”…“for your protection”…“her name’s
Ollie, sure you can pat her.”

They also hand searched through purses, opened shopping bags
and backpacks. When they got to him, they took extra pains with the flowers.
Examined the blue glass vase, made sure it was filled with water – one of the
K-9s even nosed closer wanting a drink – then opened his Rolling Thunder bag to
find two bowling balls, and smelly shoes and socks.

Nothing else. One of the cops made a face zipping the bag
closed.

“Next,” said another cop handling a dog straining toward
someone’s gift-wrapped package. “Sorry, Ma’am,” he said. “We’ll have to put
that through the X-ray.”

Rick Burrell crossed the foyer past more dogs and reassuring
cops. Even stopped to pat a friendly Lab and smiled.

Then he squeezed himself and his rolling bag into the
elevator crowded with other visitors.

Someone had already pressed for the fifth floor.

OB got so many visitors.

In short, painful minutes Jill was at Dara’s bedside. Dara
was asleep. Painkillers can do that, make people sleepy. Could she lift Dara’s
head and slip the chain around her neck?

No, she’d wake, get hostile.

Jill looked around, her heart thudding. Was Burrell already
in the elevator? Probably. No time…

Stoopid
, she thought. He might recognize the
medallion anyway and wonder what the hell – it was possible, wasn’t it?

Quickly, she wound the chain small and put the medallion on
the bedside table, behind a small lamp.

A sound startled her, and she turned.

Rick Burrell was in the doorway, carrying flowers and
pulling his bowling bag, blinking feelingly at Dara in her bed.

“Hi,” Jill said, crutch-crossing to him. “She’s sleeping
lightly. You can wake her. She’ll be happy to see you.”

He shrugged uncertainly. “If you say so.”

“I do. Oh, pretty flowers.”

“Where should I put them?”

“Next to that lamp where she can see them. That was sweet,
Rick.”

“You’re using a crutch.”

“Just for aches. I’ll leave you two alone. Try to ask her if
she remembers anything.”

At a safe distance down the hall, Jill called Alex Brand.
Got his voice mail and told him where the medallion was now.

“Turn your end back on,” she said. “Do you have to be
closer? Yards away or something? I don’t know how those things work, but Dara
may be transmitting any minute. Tune in…”

Minutes later, a surveillance vehicle rigged to look like
a cable TV repair van pulled up outside the hospital. A uniformed cop
approached to say don’t double park. He stopped to answer his shoulder phone,
listened, and turned away.

Inside, two men adjusted their earphones while others
checked their police radio, transmission connection, computers, and printers
for photos and reports. Someone also checked the overhead luggage rack - used
to conceal the antennas for high-powered radio equipment.

“Audio on,” said the first man in earphones, and the other
flicked a switch.

“…really sorry to wake you. Want me to leave?”

“No…”
Weak. Muffled.

“I’m so sorry about what happened.”

Silence.

“Hey, don’t cry. Lemme wipe those tears. You and your
baby are gonna be okay. The doctors told you that, didn’t they?”

A long, feeble sigh.
“Yes.”

“Aww, that’s what I want to see, a smile. Try to consider
this behind you…except for them to catch the bastard who did it. Do you know
what happened?”

Silence.

“Did you see who did this to you?”

“It was dark. I…think I saw…”
A sudden moan.
S
ound
of a sheet thrashing.

“Hey, easy. It’s over and you’re safe. Stay calm for the
baby.”

Long, confused silence.
“For…the baby.”
Voice weak
again.
“They’re sure…it’s okay?”

“Absolutely. So did you see-“

“Pray with me, Rick.”

“Huh?”

“Hail Mary… full of…grace…
The
Lord…is…with…”

Silence.
“Dara?”
Silence.
“You
asleep, Dara?”

More silence. Then the scrape of a chair,
footsteps.

In the van a female officer called in on the
police radio. “Got it? Subject questioned. Vague, fell back to sleep.”

“Stay,” a voice said on the other end. “I
like that ‘
I think I saw…’
We’ll get him back.”

38


“C
an you get him back in there?”

“Hope so. This is good, she was
talking
to him?”

“Yes. Get him back.”

Jill had stayed close. Was crossing the hall between one
patient’s room and another’s when Rick caught her eye. He stood, looking
uncertain, outside Dara’s room three doors down.

Jill went to him.

“She fell back to sleep,” he said, peering back into the
room again, shrugging
well I tried
at the cop stationed feet away.

The cop smiled tightly back.

“Her meds have almost worn off, I checked her chart,” Jill
said, reaching to close Dara’s door. “Would you try again in a bit?”

Burrell looked down at his bowling bag. But he didn’t bowl
until evening!
Think of something.

“Are you hungry? There’s homemade Danish down in our coffee
shop. Oozing with icing, cinnamon, raisins…”

His eyes lit. “Oh, I’m there. Skipped lunch. How long before
she wakes?”

It was 1:10. “Twenty minutes, max. Figure 1:30.”

Jill saw the cop’s eyes check the wall clock.

“Okay, be back then,” Burrell said. “I see now I can help.”

“Definitely. So far she’s only talked to you.”

He looked pleased with himself and pulled his bowling bag to
the elevators. Pressed the button, patted a police dog while he waited.

Wag, wag.

Nash was on Thorazine, but you wouldn’t know it. He looked
alert, bitching about his restraints and hollering about his transistor. “I
need
God. He can’t speak to me without my transistor!”

David passed the cop stationed near the bed, and Nash looked
pleased to see him. White jacket and scrubs. A new doctor to cajole?

“I
hate
these straps, and they won’t give me my
transistor,” he whined.

“Maybe they’re afraid you’ll throw it at someone,” David
said.

Nash’s eyes turned angry, not suspicious. He’d never seen
David.

“Throw God? That’s blasphemy! Just the sort of thing Erik
would say.”

“Who’s Erik?”
A new name…
What’s this?

Ralph Nash sulked. His expression changed from reproach to
slow, bitter resentment. “He’s someone who betrayed me. It was supposed to be
our secret.”

You didn’t have to be a shrink to see that Ralph Nash wanted
to talk. David stepped closer to the bed, looked sympathetic, even nodded
encouragingly.

“It hurts to feel betrayed,” he said.

“Hurts?”
Nash yelled, yanking violently at his
restraints. “For something like this? You science types think it’s all fun and
games until you get thrown in hell with Satan and his demons because you won’t
repent and turn from your sins!”

The psych resident who’d been watching, yards behind David,
came up and said softly, “He’s getting agitated.”

David turned to him and whispered, “Scram.” The resident
looked worriedly from David to the cop, who stood next to the bed with his arms
folded, his narrowed eyes saying the same.

The psych resident backed off.

Nash was still pulling at his restraints. “Erik said it was
God’s will even more than the work I’d been doing to put up that web site - to
reach more believers to
our
cause
! When I woke in the morning he
said it was God who put the writing on it. But
that site lost me my
transistor
– so he must have lied!”

“Did Erik give you a list of women’s names?”

“List? What list?”

“Did Erik commit those murders?”

“What are you
talking
about? Murder is a mortal sin!
A mortal sin! A mortal…”

He was still hollering and for the psych residents it was
upping the Thorazine as David moved away and got out his phone.

He’d already seen Jill’s text about Burrell coming right after
lunch. He speed-dialed, and when she answered he asked, “Burrell arrived?”

“Yes,” she said low, her free hand checking a sleeping
patient’s chart. “Dara fell asleep so I sent him down to the coffee shop.”

“Okay, so who’s Erik?”

“Erik?” Jill frowned. “Wait.”

Out in the hall she said low, “That’s a new one.”

He told her fast about Nash’s ranting. “Said someone named Erik
told him God posted that text on his site while he was sleeping. He woke to
find it there, sounds like he’d presumed Erik a friend, co-believer.” A pause.
“Was Burrell carrying anything?”

“Yes. Flowers and a bowling bag …” Something horrible
dawned. Jill stared wildly up at the ceiling, as if she could see through it to
David and the psych floor he was on.

“Bowling balls are made of thick layers of plastic, hard
resin,” David said. “Glass and plastic, polymers, sniffer dogs can’t detect
through them.
Think Erik’s anyone we know?”

“Oh God. I’ll check.”

Officer Terry Smith in his size fourteen boots crashed his
battering ram through the door. As it splintered open, the smell knocked them
all back, with groans of “Oh shit,” and “Jeez I
hate
this.”

But in they went to Brian Walsh’s apartment, gloved and
grimacing, stepping carefully around the entrance perimeter and neat living
room.

No sign of forced entry or violence. Walsh had admitted his
visitor. Knew him.

In the little kitchen, in a thick pool of clotted blood,
they found Walsh’s body. It had been stabbed in the back and its throat was
slit, with a long, dead black snake tied tightly around it. Smeary red trails
ran this way and that. There were live snakes there too, writhing, their bloody
tracks left under chair legs, the table, the little counter. More groaning,
swearing, hollering for Animal Control.

Someone had sneaked past the cop cars guarding that church.
It had been a dark, cold night. Maybe that someone had been watching, saw his
chance when reinforcements were handing out fresh coffee?

“You need fuckin’ boots!” someone yelled at the CSU bunch
just arriving. Minutes later Joe Miranda, who headed the unit, looked grimly up
from the body and estimated the time of death at least sixteen hours ago.

Before the attack on the victim’s wife.

“That rules him out for that one,” Miranda said into his
phone. “Maybe for the others too? We got snakes here. Lotsa snakes. He got past
the cars watching. Left bloody footprints too. First time he’s left evidence.
That’s it, he’s outta control. Gonna hit again faster.”

He listened, nodded, hung up and got back to work. Outside,
the medical examiner’s morgue van had just arrived.

Gregory Pappas called David, told him fast about Walsh.

Then David told him about Nash. “Just now,” he said,
breathing hard. “Ranting about someone named Erik who filled in that website
while Ralph was asleep. Told him God wrote the text.”

“An insider,” Pappas said tightly.

“Named Erik. Think Rick could be a nickname?”

“Yeah. We gotta find Burrell.”

“He’s in the hospital now.”

Seconds later David was pounding down the stairwell.

“It got confusing,” Sister Meg said. “You see, Eric –
that’s spelled with a ‘c’ – is really Greg’s
first
name, and the
patients got it mixed up with Rick’s name, which is Erik spelled with a ‘k,’ so
we decided to use Eric Gregory Clark’s
middle
name, which made it
easier. Greg actually prefers his middle name.”

“So Rick’s first name is really Erik?” Jill’s voice was
shaking.

“Yes,” Sister Meg said. “By the way, I’m just so
bewildered
by
him. He just…
left
this morning, sometime after ten it must have
been. No explanation, no request for permission, he just rushed out and left
Greg and me terribly short-handed. I’ve tried to be patient, but he’s
been…different, sometimes erratic since his mother’s death.”

“When was that?”

“Last March. She was just eighteen when she had him, and his
childhood was awful, off and on in foster homes…oh, I really should stop there.
Luckily, Doctor Sweet showed up today – they have no schedule, these volunteer
doctors - so thank goodness God sent him and he stayed on to help.”

“That’s wonderful. I have to hang up now, Sister. Thanks for
clearing up my confusion.”

“You’re most welcome. Any way I can help, just call, dear.”

It was twenty-five past one.

Adrenaline surged. Barely using the crutch, Jill raced into
Dara’s room and saw…Dara’s face. It was blue. Jill’s heart dropped. On leaden
feet she moved closer, felt Dara’s carotid out of habit.

Nothing.

Dara was dead. No pulse. No heartbeat. Nothing.

A sound startled her, and she wheeled.

Burrell stood there, his back to the door he’d slipped
closed.

“I pillowed her face and turned off her monitor,” he said,
smiling. “Couldn’t have the code going off, could I?”