The Taint (5 page)

FOURTEEN

“Don’t be scared,” Rachel said, patting Tina’s hand.

The girl did not appear to hear, her eyes wide and frightened, her body locked in a strong contraction.

Nathan entered the room and came over to where Rachel stood. “How is she?”

“Getting there. Any time now.”

He nodded. “I’m going to start the post-mortem on the accident victim from last night.” His voice was barely audible. “If you need me I’ll be in there.”

“You don’t want to wait until I can give you a hand?”

“I should’ve had it done hours ago. You just take good care of Tina.” He brushed the hair out of the girl’s face. She calmed at his touch and began to drift off in relief of her pain.

Rachel watched him go, and when Tina’s mother came in to sit with her she left.

Jon approached the nursing station just as Rachel left the labor room opposite it. The handheld radio he carried emitted faint static and he switched it to signal before facing her.

“What brings you here?” she asked.

“I need to talk to Tina Cruz about her husband.”

“What about him?” She leaned against the counter.

A nurse had come up to the desk and was making a great deal of noise looking through the supply shelves at the back of the station. Jon watched her for a second and looked at Rachel.

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“My office.” She turned to the nurse. “I’ll be in my office with Sheriff Scott if anyone needs me.”

They started off down the hall, Rachel a step ahead.

“You really do look like a doctor in those clothes,” he commented.

“You look like a sheriff with that gun on your hip.” She continued walking, aware that he had stopped momentarily.

“What does that mean?”

“I am a doctor.”

“I know that.”

“Then why do you look at me like you expect me to skip off down the hall? Or play . . .” she hesitated, searching her memory, “. . . hopscotch.”

They turned the corner into the south hall.

“Did you play hopscotch? Somehow, I can’t imagine . . .”

“I did. Eighteen years ago, when I was a child, which I’m not anymore.” She held the office door open for him to enter.

She closed the door behind him. The office was dark, the only light coming from the lanterns in the courtyard. She passed him and turned on the desk light. The same aftershave.

“Randy Cruz apparently wandered off sometime after midnight last night and hasn’t been home since,” Jon said.

“The poor girl. No wonder she’s so scared.”

“Earl said that he’d gone outside to investigate some noises, and I need to know what, if anything, she heard. From what direction.”

Rachel sat on the desk, regarding him.

“And?”

“And, if there’s any reason he might
want
to disappear.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe they had a fight. Maybe he owed some money. I don’t know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Why do people run away?”

She didn’t answer for a minute. “Sometimes they want someone to come after them.”

After another minute he said: “Earl looked for him.”

In spite of herself, Rachel laughed. “You are . . .” she began, and then left off.

“Can I talk to her?”

“Of course.” She looked at her watch. “She’s about ready to go into delivery. Want to watch?”

“Uh . . .”

“There’s a little observation room between the surgical suites.” She stood up. “You can even keep your gun on,” she said as she passed him on the way out.

It was a very small observation room, claustrophobic, even, but luckily it was a quick delivery. He had seen babies born before, even delivered a few, as a police officer in L.A. But there was something different about watching Rachel. She was calm and very natural, and her face glowed when she held the baby boy up for the mother to see. A few minutes later, when the nurse wheeled the mother and infant out of the room, she took off her mask and smiled at him, thumbs up.

“Tina,” Rachel said softly, “Sheriff Scott would like to ask you a few questions about your husband.”

“Randy . . .” the girl’s eyelids were drooping.

“Mrs. Cruz, I need to know everything you can remember about when Randy left last night.”

“He doesn’t know . . . about the baby.”

“That’s why I want to find him,” Jon said, “so I can tell him and he can come and see his son. But I need you to help me.”

The girl nodded.

“The sounds he heard, what did they sound like to you?”

“I asked him, not to go.” It was a whine. “I was scared. It sounded like some big animal . . . was killing something in the trees.” She clutched Rachel’s hand. “A lot of noise, terrible noise. I didn’t want him to go out there.”

“Did he take a gun?”

A nod. “He . . . he said not to open the door until I heard him shoot twice . . . the signal.” Her face twisted. “When he didn’t come back by morning, I called momma.”

“You didn’t hear anything else?”

Tears began to run down her face. “No . . . it just . . . stopped.”

Jon and Rachel exchanged a look, and he nodded.

“All right, now, I want you to rest.”

“You’ll find Randy?” Tina pleaded.

“I’ll do my best.”

Rachel wrote an order for a mild tranquilizer for Tina and noted that the infant was to be bottle-fed for the first day. She turned to Jon.

“Now what?”

“Now, I go out and look for Randy Cruz.”

“It’s getting dark out.”

He sighed. “It won’t be the first time I’ve stumbled through the forest in the dark.”

“Jon . . .” Rachel looked at him.

“Hmm?”

“Could you wait a few minutes? If Nathan’s finished the autopsy, I’d like to come with you.”

FIFTEEN

As always, that momentary hesitation as he held the scalpel above the body. He shook his head, slowly, his eyes fixed on the woman’s face.

She was very young, younger than Rachel, and that made it harder still.

He stepped on the floor pedal of the dictating machine and began to speak.

“The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished white female who appears to be the stated age of twenty-five. Preliminary examination reveals multiple abrasions and contusions and a grossly obvious neck fracture.” He lifted the scalpel again and stepped off the pedal. With the sophisticated technology of the recording equipment he used, he had found that if he dictated while actually cutting, many of the sounds were audible on the tape. Ripping, wet sounds.

He made the primary incision, and laid open the body.

He worked quickly, removing and sectioning the internal organs for microscopic exam. There were no abnormalities, no masses. Very little blood in the abdominal cavity.

Very little blood, indeed.

He looked closely at the contusions on the body. There was no bleeding beneath the tissue. He straightened, trying to recall what Jon had told him.

Found in a tree. The car in which she was riding had run off the side of a hill, and tossed her out.

He moved away from the table and paced twice across the room. Then he came back, lifting the head from the table, feeling the play in the neck. When he put his fingers beneath the fracture, he could feel bone scraping.

There was only one way to find out . . .

He’d assumed, from what Jon had told him, that the woman went through the windshield. There was glass in her hair, but no cuts with glass in them on her body. Her head might have knocked the glass out . . .

He got the razor and began to shave a patch of hair from her head, letting it fall onto the tile.

There they were; dozens of small cuts, the scalp puckered with them. And no subcutaneous bleeding.

Again he stood back, looking at the body.

The woman was dead when her head went through the windshield, or there would be blood in the scalp wounds. The woman was dead when her husband’s car slid off the road. Her neck was already broken when she landed in that tree.

He stepped on the pedal and after a minute he spoke.

SIXTEEN

He waited outside in the Bronco while Rachel changed clothes, his fingers drumming against the seat. It was dark now, the moon rising in the clear sky. He looked at the house. The light went off in her room.

She came out the door and down the steps, dressed in beige denim pants, a blue shirt and desert boots. She swung up into the seat and closed the door, turning to face him.

“Let’s go.”

“Don’t you have a jacket?”

“It’s summer.”

“If you say so.” He put the Bronco in gear and began to turn around in the yard. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.”

“I know my way around the forest . . .” she tucked one leg up on the seat.

The drive to the Cruz property was along the back roads, dotted with potholes and partially obstructed by brush. The road twisted so that it seemed as if they were traveling in circles, but finally they came to the clearing by the house.

A solitary light shone on the porch.

Jon pulled up and turned off the engine. Crickets serenaded the night. For a moment they just listened, not moving.

“It’s spooky out here,” Rachel said, rubbing her bare arms.

“And cold, isn’t it?”

“I’m not complaining.”

He reached over into the back seat and grabbed his jacket, handing it to her. “Put it on.” He opened the door and got out, then went around to the back of the vehicle and pulled a rifle out.

Rachel moved away from the Bronco.

“Hey, don’t wander off.” He walked toward her. The jacket was long on her and she held her arms away from her body, turning slowly.

“This is going to slow me down,” she said. “And if I fall in the lake, I’ll drown for sure.”

“Rachel, shut up.” He handed her the rifle as he passed her and started toward the trees at the rear of the house.

They stood at the edge of the woods, letting their eyes adjust to the dark. Something had moved, off to their right, and immediately they turned off the flashlight. Jon moved a step closer to her, his hand on his holster.

He started in the direction of the sound, stepping carefully, motioning her to follow. It was slow, going forward in measured degrees, testing the ground, listening.

They heard no other sound. Still they moved deeper into the woods. The trees were blocking the moonlight and the darkness was like a cushion.

“Jon.” Rachel’s whisper surprised him, and he turned, almost colliding with her and having to hold on to her to keep from losing his balance.

“What?”

“I can smell something.” They were still standing close, his hands on her arms.

“What?” His voice sounded hoarse.

“I’m sure I smell blood.”

A short distance off they found an area where the brush had been trampled, and blood splattered all over. The thick metallic smell of blood was overpowering.

Jon knelt by a drying pool of red. He collected a sample, careful not to disturb the scene.

“Do you think . . .” Rachel looked at him questioningly.

“Cruz? I don’t know. It could be animal blood. There are no clear footprints anywhere around.” He stood, surveying the site. “Whatever did this . . .”

Rachel shivered.

“Come on,” he said, “I’m going to take you home.”

She was silent on the way back to the house, staring out the window. He reached to take her hand.

They pulled up in front of the house and he turned off the engine, getting out to open the door for her. She stepped down, standing in front of him, and began to remove the jacket.

“I don’t want,” she said, “to have to tell her.” She looked up at him, the pain strong in her eyes.

“He may be out there somewhere.” He accepted the jacket from her and tossed it onto the front seat.

“But where?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. If . . . if he came upon a bear and disturbed it, he might have had to run and hide.”

“For this long?”

“He might have been injured.”

“In which case he’s out there, helpless.” She paused. “What do you really think?”

Jon frowned. “I think . . . Randy Cruz is dead, and that he was killed out there in that clearing.”

Rachel stepped closer to him, putting her arms around his waist and leaning against him. A tremor ran through her body and he closed his arms around her.

They stood that way for a long time.

Driving back toward the main road, he could smell the scent of her on the jacket and he breathed deeply.

SEVENTEEN

Joyce Callan walked quietly into the laboratory, two cups of coffee in her hands.

“Nathan?” He was peering into a microscope.

“Yes?” He looked up and smiled.

She handed him a cup and sat on one of the tall stools. “Susan’s gone home.” She sipped at the coffee. “She told me the strangest thing.”

“Strange-how?”

“The patients seem to be running temperatures according to some sort of mathematical formula.”

“What?”

She laughed at the look on his face. “That’s what I thought at first, but then she showed me the charts. During the day shift, each one of the patients showed a point four degree temperature elevation. And, on her shift, all of the temps went up another point two degrees.”

“That
is
strange,” Nathan agreed.

“I can hardly wait to take the next vitals.”

“I’d be very interested to see if the trend continues.” He finished his coffee and placed the cup on the counter before standing and facing her, holding his arms out. “Come here.”

She complied, her heart racing.

He kissed her soundly. “I’ve been waiting all day to do that.”

“I stayed up this morning after work; I thought you might come by.”

“Ah.” He released her, holding her at arm’s-length. “I wanted to, but with Rachel home . . .”

“I thought she might be here with you tonight,” Joyce said carefully. “I’d like to meet her.”

“You will.” His gaze softened. “I intend to tell her about us, don’t worry.”

“I am worried. What if she doesn’t approve?”

“Rachel is my niece,” he reminded her.

“And your only family. She might not appreciate my coming into your life just when she’s come home.”

“Rachel came home for reasons of her own, not to run my life for me.” Nathan kissed her gently. “And what’s not to like about you? You’re very nearly perfect.”

“Nearly?”

“Perfect.”

The emergency buzzer rang, and Joyce hurried down the hall to answer it, brushing her hair back from her face and hoping the flush would fade from her cheeks. She looked through the peephole; it was Sheriff Scott.

“Dr. Adams in?” he asked when she opened the door, although Nathan’s truck was in sight in the parking lot.

Joyce felt the blush creeping back into her face and avoided his knowing eyes.

“In the lab,” she said, and locked the door behind him, giving him time to get down the hall. Then she went back to the nursing station, her face averted as she passed the lab door.

“Jon,” Nathan said, “this is a surprise.”

Jon smiled faintly and continued walking around the lab, looking at the equipment, running a finger across the counter.

“Nice,” he said, and smiled, facing Nathan.

“I haven’t talked to Rachel; how did your search go?”

Jon withdrew the vial containing the blood sample and handed it to Nathan. “I need to know if this is human blood.”

“You didn’t find him?”

“No.” His eyes continued to take in the room. “But we found a clearing where the brush had been trampled down, and blood all over.”

Nathan had already begun setting up to test the sample, his actions precise, his movements economical. He crossed to a glass enclosed cabinet and unlocked it, searching the shelves for only a second before finding what he wanted.

“So he’s probably dead?”

“Probably.” He leaned against a counter. “You finished the autopsy on Louisa Ann Tyler?”

Nathan stopped his preparations. “That’s peculiar as well.”

Jon waited expectantly.

“She was dead before the car ever left the road.”

Jon straightened. “Dead of . . .”

“A broken neck, but not received in the accident. Someone broke her neck.”

“Her husband?”

Nathan shrugged. “He’s still noncommunicative.”

“So someone killed her, she didn’t break her own neck in a fall, or . . .”

“There are two very distinct bruises at the base of the skull, and along her jaw. Someone came up behind her, put his thumbs on either side of the spinal cord, and snapped her neck.” He paused. “I sent a copy of my report down to your office earlier this evening.”

“Hm? Oh, I haven’t been back to the office, I’ve just come from dropping Rachel off.”

Nathan picked up the phone and began to dial. “I’d better have her lock the doors. If Randy Cruz is dead, that means we have two murders on our hands. And Wendall Tyler, whether or not he killed his wife . . .”

“. . . probably didn’t do both.”

Joyce stood, her fingers on Wendall Tyler’s wrist, her eyes watching the seconds pass by as she counted. His pulse was even and steady, seventy-two beats per minute.

He was breathing easily, the slow rise of his chest just visible in the indirect light from the hall. She replaced his arm by his side and turned to leave.

Behind her, he sat up, his eyes wide, a cry breaking the silence.

She spun, frightened, backing toward the door.

“No! No!” the man screamed, struggling against the bedclothes, his breath ragged, gasping. Then the fear on his face turned to horror, his eyes wider still and fixed upon some distant sight, all hope gone, his hands flew up and covered his ears, and a tortured soundless scream, the veins standing out in his neck, the awful silence.

He collapsed back on the bed.

She could hear them running down the hall toward the room, and again, the sound of him sleeping.

They put the leather restraints on Tyler and cleared the room of objects which might be used as weapons. They positioned the bed so that it was observable through the small window in the door.

When she gave Nora Samuels her medication, the woman whispered to her: “He has seen.” And later, when she was alone, she stood at his door and watched him sleep.