The Taint (7 page)

TWENTY-ONE

Five minutes after she arrived at the hospital she was standing outside Tina Cruz’s room. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Tina was lying on her side, facing away from the door, but she turned. She was pale and she looked very young, tiny blue bows holding her hair back from her face. She looked at Rachel and reached up to twist a strand of blonde hair.

Rachel waited until she was next to the bed before speaking. “Tina . . . I’m afraid I have some bad news, about Randy.” She took the girl’s hand. There was no gentle way to put it. “He’s been killed.”

The girl’s throat tightened, her eyes glistened, but she did not cry out.

“I knew he’d be here if he could,” she whispered. “To see the baby.” Her eyes widened suddenly. “The baby’s all right? They haven’t brought him . . .”

“The baby’s fine,” Rachel soothed. “The nurse is feeding him because I felt you needed a sedative and any medication that you take would be in your milk. They’ll bring him in later.”

“Little Randy,” she said softly. “He’s a beautiful baby, isn’t he?”

“Very.”

“Like his daddy.” The strand of hair was tightly twisted and she released it, fingering another.

“Can your mother come and stay with you when you’re ready to go home?” The secluded house was no place for a new mother and child.

“I’ll go to my parents’ home.” She began brushing at the sheet. “It will be just like he was never here.” She met Rachel’s eyes. “Except for the baby.”

“Tina, it’s all right for you to cry,” Rachel said softly. “It’s all right for you to miss him. I know you’re feeling these things, and even anger because he left you alone.”

“She . . . she . . .” a single tear ran across her cheek.

“You don’t have to be strong right now, you can be strong later. Go ahead and cry.”

“. . . told me . . . he was dead,” Tina gasped, her eyes wild.

“Who? The nurse?”

Tina shook her head and closed her eyes.

“Your mother?”

“No! Last night . . . Miss Samuels . . .” she struggled to talk through the suffocating tears. “She told me . . . he was dead.” The last vestige of control collapsed and she gave in to it, allowing Rachel to hold her, until finally she fell asleep, exhausted.

TWENTY-TWO

“Doctor,” Emma Sutter came up beside her. “Your uncle is in with the Thomas boy, and he’d like your assistance.”

“I’ll go right in. There’s an order for continued sedation for Mrs. Cruz; please make sure that she gets it on time.” She handed Emma the chart and walked down the hall to 107.

“Good, you’re here,” Nathan looked up when she entered. “I’m having a hell of a time with this boy’s veins. They keep closing up on me.”

She crossed to the bed and turned the boy’s limp hand, running her finger along the inside of his arm. “They’re tiny,” she agreed, and searched the IV tray for a butterfly. “What’s happening with him?”

“Temperature is up to a hundred and four.”

“His skin is very dry.” She wiped the arm with an alcohol swab after tightening the tourniquet. She covered his hand with her own, making it into a fist and pumping.

“I’ve got the blood work running through the machine right now, but there’s nothing remarkable on physical exam. Except the fever.”

“And dehydration.” The needle punctured the smooth skin and she probed gently. “Ah! Got it.” The needle penetrated, a drop of blood welling from the shaft. She attached the tubing after running a few drops of the solution. Nathan handed her a strip of clear tape, and she secured the needle to the arm, and then the arm to an armboard.

“You have such tiny hands,” he said. “I’m afraid I stuck him twice without hitting the mark.”

“What do you think it is?”

“Something viral, I suppose.” He picked up a Frisbee from the bedside table, turning it in his hands. “Hospitals are hothouses of germs.”

“Or he brought it in himself.”

“Well, maybe I’m jumping the gun, but I’m going to run blood cultures on him. See if I can’t isolate it.” He tossed the Frisbee onto the foot of the bed. “By the way, I’d like you to check on Mr. Tyler . . . see if we agree what his problem is.”

Wendall Tyler was still, his eyes open and fixed. The leather restraints limited the movement of his arms and legs but he appeared unaware. She moved closer to the bed until she could see his eyes, and presumably he could see her.

“Mr. Tyler, can you hear me?”

A slight flicker.

“I’m Dr. Adams,” she said, her voice quiet and low, her face composed in case he should look at her. “I’d like to talk to you about the accident.”

A rapid eye movement, a perceptible contraction of the pupil. His body remained motionless.

She took his wrist, finding the pulse. A slight increase in heart rate.

“Can you tell me about the accident?” She waited a full minute before speaking again. “When you were walking along the road, when the deputy found you, who were you looking for? Was it Louisa?”

His pulse was racing, his eyes blinking rapidly.

“Tell me about Louisa.”

He turned his head a fraction of an inch, his mouth opening. She could see the muscles in his throat moving, his jaw unclenching, but no sound came from him. Under her fingers she felt the tension in his arm, and the strain as he pulled against the restraints.

Still he did not speak.

“We heard him,” Nathan said later in his office. “Joyce was in the room, and Jon and I heard him all the way down the hall in the lab.”

“But he was dreaming, or having a nightmare.” Rachel paced. “I think he is hysterically mute.”

“It could be one explanation,” Nathan agreed.

“He wanted to talk to me, I think.”

“You know, there is a possibility that he killed his wife before the accident. She was dead in that car with him when it ran off the road.”

“Or he saw her killed, and it so traumatized him that he can’t talk.”

“So . . . what do you suggest? If the man is a killer, I’d rather prefer to know.”

“Hypnosis?” The pacing stopped and she faced him. “I studied hypnosis in my last year of med school. I think I could do it.”

“But is it safe? I don’t like the idea of you unleashing all of his tortured memories.”

“Someone can stand by, outside the door, just in case.”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt. But I think we should give him another day or two . . . he might come out of it on his own.”

Rachel nodded. “I don’t want to push him into remembering before he is ready to deal with it, but if he didn’t kill his wife, and he knows who did, we need to know as soon as possible.”

As soon as she left Nathan’s office, Rachel headed toward Nora Samuels room. If the woman had overheard someone talking about Randy Cruz’s death Rachel wanted to know about it. The fact that she would tell Tina, based essentially on hearsay was inexcusable. And if any of the nurses were talking about sensitive subjects too close to the patient rooms, they would have to be warned. Privacy and confidentiality were too easily violated in hospitals, even more so, perhaps, in a town where everyone knew everyone else.

Nora Samuels was not in her room. Rachel turned and went to the nurse’s station. Reverend Frey was standing at the counter.

“. . . and she’d like her usual room,” he was saying to Emma, who smiled painfully at him and nodded.

“Excuse me,” Rachel said, interrupting. “Emma, have you seen Nora Samuels?”

“No, but she does tend to wander around.”

“Thanks.” Rachel started down the north hallway.

“Do you think,” Reverend Frey was saying behind her, “that the cook might serve chicken on Sunday night? Amanda does love chicken on Sunday.”

She walked through the entire hospital and the courtyard, looking for Nora Samuels, then returned to the woman’s room on the chance she might have returned. The room was deserted.

She opened the small closet and checked the drawers. Empty. Even the personal items supplied by the hospital were gone—tissues, toothbrush, soap, hand lotion.

And in the waste can—Nora Samuels’ hospital ID bracelet.

TWENTY-THREE

The body of Randy Cruz lay naked on the autopsy table and Nathan, standing at the door, frowned. The world was going to hell in a handbasket. Two people killed within hours of each other.

He had lived in Crestview for thirty years, coming to escape the insane slaughter in the cities, freed from financial concern by his own innate investment expertise. He couldn’t recall another murder in all those years. He’d thought he’d left this behind.

The body was covered with stab wounds and slash marks, dozens and dozens of them. He took a couple of photographs and then rinsed the dried blood off the body.

He’d delivered Randy Cruz, and his brothers as well. Held him up by his heels, again naked and bloody, full of life and pinking as the air filled his lungs.

Nathan made the incision in the chest.

He was washing up when Rachel came in, lathering soap up beyond his elbows.

“Nora Samuels has disappeared,” she said. “She’s not in the hospital, and her things are gone from the room.”

“How long ago?”

“Emma said she was in her room for lunch at 11:30, and it’s one now.”

“Then she can’t have gotten far. Hand me a towel, would you.”

“Has she done this before?”

“Once or twice. She’s probably headed home. I’ll call the sheriff’s office and get them to look for her.”

“I already did.”

Nathan suppressed a smile. “Good. They’ll find her.”

Rachel looked at the table. The body was covered with a sheet. “Any surprises?”

“He had ninety-one knife wounds on his body. And . . . he lived for quite a while. The fatal wound was to the heart, but he’d already been cut to pieces when it came. It was a painful death. And . . . there are no defense wounds on the hands or arms.”

“None?”

He shook his head.

“You mean, he just let someone stab him to death and he didn’t fight back?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Well, you’ve both managed to miss lunch,” Emma said as they approached the nurse’s station.

“As usual,” Nathan said. “How’s Peter Thomas?”

“Better, I think. He’s down to one hundred point eight, and he’s well-hydrated.”

“Good. Any other crises?”

“None that I know of, but it’s certainly been a day already.” She looked at Rachel. “Aren’t you glad to be back in the peace and quiet of mountain living?”

“Words can’t express.”

“I think I just might run into town and have lunch,” Nathan announced. “Care to join me?”

“I’m not even hungry yet.” She stretched. “I think I’ll just go relax in the courtyard—get some sun.”

“She’s in the courtyard,” Emma said. “Did you find Nora yet?”

“No, but Earl’s out looking for her.” Jon paused. “How’s Tyler doing?”

“Same as he has been . . . quiet.”

He started back down the hall.

Rachel was sitting with her eyes closed when he saw her and he crossed the yard quietly. He watched her for a moment before speaking.

“Rachel.”

Her eyes opened slowly. “I was just about to fall asleep.” A smile and she raised her arms above her head, stretching. It was as familiar to him as the sound of her voice and he watched, fascinated.

“Something I can do for you?” she asked.

“The autopsy on Cruz?”

The smile faded. “Nathan just finished it right before he left. It was pretty bad.”

“He went down hard.”

“Yes.”

“How’d his wife take it?”

“That’s what I’d like to talk to Nora Samuels about.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somehow, she found out that Randy Cruz was dead, and during the night she sneaked into Tina’s room and told her.”

“Why on earth would she do a thing like that?”

Rachel stood. “She’s dying. Maybe she resents anyone else’s peace of mind.”

They started walking back to the entrance.

“One thing bothers me,” Rachel said. “What time did you find the body?”

“A little after three a.m., why?”

“That’s very strange, because Tina was medicated last night, and the nurse’s notes say she slept very soundly after two.”

“And . . .”

“From what I can gather, Nora Samuels told Tina that her husband was dead
before
you found the body.”

TWENTY-FOUR

The Reverend Martin Frey pulled up in the driveway which ran between the church and the house, his mind full of Sunday’s sermon. He needed an ending, a careful blend of condemnation and forgiveness, to illustrate the complex mercy of God. He sighed. It was much easier before the advent of television preachers.

Amanda was in the kitchen, as usual, and his lunch was under covered dishes on the table. He kissed her on the cheek and sat down to eat.

“How did your visits go, dear,” Amanda asked, rolling dough out on a floured board.

“Quite well.” He lifted the cover off the largest plate. His favorite egg salad and black olive sandwiches, made on white bread with the crusts cut off. Cherry tomatoes, celery and carrot sticks. He smiled and lifted the smaller cover. Bread pudding. A perfect meal.

Amanda came to the table and poured steaming water into the teapot which sat beside the fruit bowl. Lemon wedges were arranged on a crystal plate to the left. “Anything else you need?”

He beamed at her. “Thank you, no.” She really was the perfect wife, and he watched her fondly as she returned to her baking. Pies, today.

He turned his attention back to his lunch and indulged himself in guiltless appetite. Amanda continued to bustle about, shaping pie crust into the glass dishes, lined two deep along the counter. Then she began to fill them from an enormous mixing bowl. Apple, what, with raisins?

“You really shouldn’t work so hard,” he admonished as she manhandled the large bowl, scooping the apple mixture into the pie dishes.

“We have the potluck tomorrow afternoon,” she reminded him. She finished filling the dishes and lugged the heavy bowl to the sink. For a second she leaned against the cabinet. “I’ve done the gelatin salads,” she counted on her fingers, “the banana nut bread and the noodle casseroles, and now the pies. All that’s left are the hams, and I’ll put them in as soon as the pies are done.”

“You must remember your health. Dr. Adams has arranged for you to have another transfusion Sunday evening.”

“I’d almost forgotten . . . is it time again?” She looked around the kitchen.

“Yes, and the rest will do you good.” He finished the last of the bread pudding. “By the way, were you able to find the wax Mrs. Price was telling you about? The altar is sadly neglected.”

“I’ll do that this afternoon.” She rushed back over to the pies.

“And Tina Cruz has lost her husband. Maybe you could take a hot dish by the house.”

She latticed the pie crust strips over the apples, her fingers working furiously.

“The poor child . . . whatever comfort we can offer . . .” He poured another cup of tea. “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?”

“The water’s gone cool, I’m afraid.”

She turned the fire on underneath the kettle, and put the first two pies into the oven. She stood for a moment, putting her hand to her head.

“Are you feeling faint?”

“I’ll be fine.” She began to clear the table in front of him.

He stood. “Well, I’d better get over to the church and work on my sermon.”

The kettle whistled behind her. “But your tea . . .”

“My dear, I think you should have the tea. You look very pale . . . it will do you good.” He paused. “Did you ever finish hemming the choir robes?”

“Oh, I’d forgotten . . .”

He smiled his kind smile. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have them done by tomorrow. You always take care of things so well.” He kissed her again. “Maybe you’ll learn to take care of yourself.” The door closed behind him.