The Pain Nurse - страница 53

“How do we know any of that?” That was Dodds’ voice. She recognized it instantly.

“How do we not know it? We didn’t know what we were missing. Are you going to call crime scene or not?”

It was Will. She had not heard his voice when it was agitated.

“Why would he do this?” Dodds demanded. Cheryl Beth stood against the wall listening, ten feet from the door.

“He wants to show he’s all-powerful. He can make a woman disrobe for him, make her welcome death.”

“So why would he, or she, leave them here?”

Cheryl Beth shuddered when she heard the pronoun. Leave what?

Will answered, “He must have been interrupted. Maybe he was going to come back for them. Put in a video cam and a transmitter and leave them here once crime scene’s gone over it.”

“Maybe your pain nurse did it.”

Cheryl Beth leaned back against the wall. Somehow just him saying it made her feel guilty. It was like a cop pulling into traffic behind you. It was way worse than that.

“You know she didn’t,” Will said. “Quit being such an asshole.”

“You always had a weakness for the pretty girls, Borders. I think she’s lying. You’ll see.”

“You’re wasting time.”

“Quit trying to tell me how to do my job!” He bellowed it.

Will yelled, too. “Then do your job.”

“What am I going to have to do to make you stop meddling in a homicide investigation? I will arrest your ass if you don’t stop.”

“This isn’t about me or you. This is what a psycho cop would do.”

“Oh, hell, Borders.”

“This is the best breakthrough we’ve ever had in this case,” Will said. “I’m asking you as a friend.”

“No,” Dodds cut him off harshly. “We’re not friends. You make up any story you want about going to Internal Investigations, but you know. I fired your ass as a partner because you lied to me.”

There was a long silence with only the background noise of a distant generator. Cheryl Beth walked in as if she had just arrived.

“You. What took you so long?” Dodds glared at her with hostile eyes. Will looked as if he were about to crumple and fall out of the wheelchair.

“We need to get you upstairs,” Cheryl Beth said.

“That can wait.” Dodds opened a leather portfolio with a legal pad in it, then picked through several pages of dense handwritten notes and diagrams. He was leaning against one of the old autopsy tables.

“Why are you in here?” she asked.

“Maybe I should ask you that. Come in here often?”

Cheryl Beth felt instantly defensive. “I’ve never been in here. I knew it was here, but they stopped using it before I was even hired.”

Dodds slid a pair of reading glasses over his nose. He silently paged through the notes. “We’re going to do this again, Ms. Wilson. The night you say you discovered the body of Dr. Lustig. I want to hear your story. All over again, from the top. Then I want you to walk me through it, from where you started down here, to when you claim you found her, to what you did next.” He looked over the glasses at Will. “You can leave.”

Will wheeled himself out the double doors, and Cheryl Beth told her story in a hoarse voice. Then she took him out to the main elevator bank, walking down past the shadows of old carts to Christine’s office, then showing him the path she had taken to the stairwell that brought her back to the first floor to get help. It all looked benignly alien with the full lights on. Will trailed well behind them in his wheelchair, saying nothing. His face was a mask of pain and exhaustion. Dodds ignored him.

“So you get off the elevator, walk down the hall, see the light coming out of her office…”

“That’s right.”

“What else?”

“What do you mean, ‘what else?’ There’s no more else. I walked down the hall…” And she remembered. Dodds could see it in her face but he said nothing.

“I heard a sound. It was like metal on metal. I just remembered…”

“From where?”

She took her time, but she was sure. “From that direction.” She pointed toward the old morgue. Will, who had rolled closer, looked sharply at Dodds.

“What kind of keys do you have to the hospital?” Dodds asked.

“Oh, come on,” Will said.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dodds snarled at him, then turned again, looming over her.