The Pain Nurse - страница 16

Will nodded and wheeled to watch Dodds. He knew that Dodds liked to walk a crime scene, sometimes repeatedly, always slowly. Now the big man moved leisurely down the neuro-rehab unit. It might make no sense to an outsider, even to many cops. But Dodds always had his way of things. They had made a good team once, Dodds seeming plodding and distracted, Will garrulous and focused. That was part of Dodds’ camouflage and also how his mind worked. He would have done his slow move with the nurse, with everyone he interviewed for this case. The long pauses between questions, only to pause an even longer time after the subject had answered. What could his silence mean, they wondered? Dodds was a master. So, too, with his “homicide stroll,” as Will called it. Dodds would walk a scene, keeping his opinions to himself until later. It was interesting he was working alone on this case.

Will could still see Dodds walking that day in Mount Adams. Theresa Chambers had been discovered murdered in her house. Borders and Dodds, the primaries. She had been splayed on the floor, totally nude, with vicious slash marks on her arms, legs, face, breasts. It didn’t take the medical examiner to know she had died from a deep cut to the throat, but that had only come after the other wounds had been delivered. Her ring finger had been cut off, probably as she had been dying. Her clothes had been neatly folded and there was no sign of a break-in. Will had watched from the porch as Dodds had ambled down the street, into the little sidewalk between the houses, back to the alley. Theresa Chambers, who had been separated from her husband, Bud Chambers, a Cincinnati cop, who had no alibi for that night. Theresa Chambers, who was the first. But they couldn’t know that then. All Will knew on that first spring morning was that Dodds’ homicide stroll had been especially unhurried.

Now Will watched as he followed the wall with his hand, seemingly absent-minded. Dodds hadn’t seen him. There were enough people, enough wheelchairs and food carts and pieces of obscure medical equipment to give Will some concealment. Dodds opened an exit door and looked inside. He walked more quickly to where the ward connected with the main part of the hospital and did the same thing. This time, he didn’t emerge from the exit and the door closed behind him.

Will realized he was now one floor above the old basement, where Dr. Christine Lustig had been killed.

The elevator emptied out on the first floor and Will rolled himself in alone. When the car settled at the basement level and the big doors opened, he was uncomfortably aware of its heavy sound, the light spilling out into the dim corridor. He quickly crossed into a shadow behind a large, unused linen cart. He waited for the doors to close and the elevator to resume its return journey up into the tower. Once again he was in the darkened basement corridor, its silence still profound. His hands felt for the rim of the wheels and he cautiously moved out on the old tile floor.

Dodds was coming toward him, suddenly illuminated in one of the few light fixtures that was working. Will felt his heart rate explode and he quickly backed up behind the cart. He spun around, feeling a sharp eruption in his back, and pushed the chair into a side hallway. The pain consumed him, wrapped around his back and ribs, penetrating up into his chest. A phosphorescent glow came to the edge of his vision. He bit the fleshy part of his hand to keep from crying out, as the pain seared out from his middle back down to his hips. He was in complete darkness. This corridor might end suddenly or it might have held the entire membership of the Mount Auburn Boyz. The only sound was a distant mechanical throb. He felt ahead of him into black, empty air, then crept forward again. The cold, smooth wall gave way and he cautiously backed into yet another space. There was nothing to do but wait. Dodds’ distinctive tread passed in the main hallway. The small beam of his flashlight played in front of Will’s feet. Will hoped he couldn’t find a way to turn on more lights. Another minute passed and he heard Dodds walking in the other direction.