The Inquisitor (31 page)

Detective Lazar studied him.

The young man furiously scribbled down notes.

Earl pegged him as a rookie, at least to the homicide business. Cops were just like medical residents. The ones who wrote everything down were the least experienced and would know squat.

"This is all very interesting conjecture, Dr. Garnet," Lazar said after a few seconds. "But presumably something else got you suspicious enough to be so skeptical. Frankly, I would have taken this as a suicide, however ineptly done. Stewart, you said his name was?"

"Dr. Stewart Deloram. Yes, there are reasons to believe someone did this to him. But they're very complicated."

"Try to keep it simple."

Her partner got ready with the pen again.

Earl took a breath. Maybe notes would be useful after all. "Well, it started over two weeks ago with the death of a terminally ill patient named Elizabeth Matthews…"

10:43 p.m.

One moment they were talking.

Then the car lurched right and roared forward.

Janet screamed and thought the accelerator had jammed.

They went over the edge of the road and plummeted down the bank. The headlamps carved a glistening tunnel through darkness pierced with a million silver streaks of rain. At the bottom a tree trunk loomed larger, like a crosshair in a target that drew them toward itself. And while their descent happened fast, it also appeared to unfold slowly. She got both knees up in time to brace her abdomen against the crash.

10:53 p.m.

When Earl finished speaking, Lazar regarded him with a puzzled frown that suggested she might at least consider his version of events. "How would this someone who'd been setting Dr. Deloram up get in the house?" she asked. "There's no sign of forced entry, and nobody can pick the kind of locks he has without leaving some marks."

"Stewart always left his keys lying around in the hospital. Anyone could have grabbed them and made a copy."

She looked over toward Tocco and frowned. "Then why didn't the dog bark at the killer and wake the victim up?"

"Maybe she did and Stewart didn't hear. He'd been up all night at the hospital, so he probably slept pretty heavily. And don't you read Sherlock Holmes?"

She smiled and nodded. "You mean the dog could have known the person and therefore not barked?"

"That's right. Tocco remained friendly with people once she got to know them."

She glanced around the room, and her eyes fell on Stewart's laptop. "How'd the killer get into the victim's computer to write the suicide note, brief as it is?"

"Everyone knew he used the dog's name for the password."

"Tocco?"

"Tocco. The computer belonged to the teaching office. Stewart used it to file residency schedules, night call lists, teaching rosters for medical staff and nurses, seminar calendars, journal club articles- all kinds of stuff. And he gave everybody access so they wouldn't be bugging him for the information all the time."

She turned back toward Stewart and studied him, as if viewing a statue. "Why leave him the stool at all?"

"To make him suffer? Prolong his dying? Who knows?"

"When do you think he died?"

As the questions continued, the professional neutrality of her cop face began to say that she wanted to believe him and her inquiries, though still probing, became more a test to see if his story held up rather than an attempt to tear it apart.

After a few more minutes of interrogation, she said, "Stay put in case we need you."

He sat in the living room while people in dark blue jumpsuits with BPD emblazoned on the back began to arrive. Some pulled on latex gloves and started to poke around the house with tweezers, bagging stray hairs or anything else they found interesting. A few others brushed a fine powder onto any surface that a killer might have touched. A photographer headed toward the basement.

Enough waiting. Janet had sensed that J.S. might be shielding someone. A sample of what that someone might be capable of hung from a pipe in the basement beneath him.

He pulled out his cell phone and called the one person who probably knew as much about J.S.'s schedule as she did herself.

He had hardly ever contacted Susanne at home, even though she'd entrusted him with her unlisted number. He knew her fierce need for privacy and respected it.

"Hello?" said a woman's voice.

"It's Dr. Garnet speaking. Is Susanne there, please?"

"One moment."

He'd been aware that the woman's first name was Rachel and that she'd been Susanne's partner for ten years- but not because Susanne had told him. He'd picked up enough fragments from those few whom Susanne confided in, such as Mrs. Quint, to piece things together over the years. At first he'd found it odd that in this day and age someone as self-assured and comfortable with herself as Susanne hid her personal life. But as time went on and she still never talked about her partner at all, he began to suspect her reticence reflected a deep respect for the privacy of those she loved and it would have been the same no matter whom she lived with, man or woman.

So he had never presumed to call Rachel by her first name, staying outside the boundary of familiarity that Susanne had set up for him. Old-fashioned? Who cared? So was loyalty, courage, and guts, and Susanne had those in spades. If she needed the distance to feel comfortable, she'd get it.

"What's up?" Susanne said, coming on the phone. She sounded alarmed.

"You'd better prepare yourself. I've got bad news." He again relayed the evening's events, just as he had to Janet. The retelling didn't lessen the ghastliness of it.

She remained silent for a long while after he'd finished. Finally he heard a stuttering intake of breath. "So bright, yet so alone," she finally said, her voice breaking.

"I'm afraid there's more. And this has to stay absolutely confidential." He told her about J.S.'s schedule coinciding with the cardiac arrests in palliative care.

"Oh, God, no," she moaned.

"Don't for a moment think I believe it's her," he quickly added, wondering if Susanne would revisit her own take on J.S. the way he had. It needn't be a big process to do damage. Just a hint of doubt could infringe on the easy trust there'd always been between the two. He felt angry at how such suspicions about so many had spread through him lately, like a contagion. "Since you draw up her schedule, I hoped you might have a clue if it mirrored someone else's."

"Not that I know of."

"You don't use any specific criteria for assigning her shifts, especially on nights?"

"None. She gets the same treatment as all my other nurses."

"Does she make many special requests?" People in ER were always wanting to keep this weekend or that free, or asking for specific vacation times months ahead of the desired date.

"Just the opposite. She's more likely to offer to take a night or weekend than to request to be excused from it." She paused, then added, "It's pretty public now, so I can say what I only guessed before. She seemed to like working when Thomas Biggs had a shift."

"Thomas?"

She made an attempt at a little laugh but still sounded close to tears. "Hey, as Janet is wont to say, 'Ain't love grand?'"

He felt a spark of hope. "So did you end up giving her lots of nights?" That would explain J.S. being around the times of the cardiac arrests more than anyone else.

"Not overall. Just kept her in mind for last-minute replacements, but always gave her fewer nights the next time. In the end she did no more than anyone else."

So much for that idea.

"J.S. certainly never requested I put her on the schedule just when her boyfriend would be there, if that's what you're thinking," Susanne added. "She's too good a soldier to pull anything as unprofessional as that. She worked just as many nights when he was off, more even, probably three out of four."

And so must have the killer. He'd just have to grill J.S. himself.

"I guess that means you can eliminate the residents as well." Susanne added.

"Pardon?"

"I mean, residents work one in four, and nurses take their graveyard shifts in blocks of at least a week at a time. So just by the luck of the draw, she'd be with all the house staff about the same amount of time."

"Yes, of course, no surprise there," he agreed, but privately something about one in four bothered him. Thanking her, he hung up, and immediately called home.

Annie answered.

"No sign of Janet yet?"

"None. But don't worry. I'll stay as late as you like. By the way, you got a message."

"Oh?"

"A Dr. Cheryl Branagh in New York. Said it wasn't urgent, but she'd gotten some information for you, and you could call her at home before ten tonight, or tomorrow morning."

He glanced at his watch. It was 10:55.

Damn. He thanked Annie, took down the home number Branagh had left, and tried now anyway. He'd have to break the news of Stewart's death to her. And if she'd found out anything connecting him to Jerome Wilcher, the police should hear about it as soon as possible.

"You have reached the residence of Dr. Cheryl Branagh. I cannot take your call right now…"

He left a message.

He next called Janet's cellular number.

She had it shut off.

Must still be in the hospital, he thought. But he'd been under the impression she intended to sedate J.S., then leave, and not tell her about Stewart.

He called ICU.

"Dr. Graceton left here over an hour ago, Dr. Garnet," the nurse whom he'd spoken with earlier told him, "shortly after she talked with you."

He started to get a bad feeling.

A rotten night for driving, terrible visibility, some jerk traveling too fast- his tendency to conjure up worst-case scenarios kicked into action. Despite Janet's efforts to lighten him up, at his core he nurtured pessimism. The business of ER demanded it. In the pit his ability to read a situation and anticipate what could go wrong saved lives. In private life, it made him hard to live with. He reined in his anxiety. She and Thomas would be taking their time driving in the storm. And she may have sat him down to tell him about Stewart before they left the hospital. Working through that kind of bad news could take time. "How's Miss Simmons?" he asked.

"J.S.? She's fine. I found her dozing and turned out her light. She'd asked to see

Father Jimmy, but it looks like whatever had been bothering her can wait until morning."

"Father Jimmy?"

"Yes. She spoke to him on the phone just after Janet left, then told us he'd be paying her a visit."

He didn't know what to make of that. Probably shouldn't even try to read anything into it. The kid could simply be frightened. No surprise there either, considering all she'd just been through, And since she and Jimmy were friends, it would be only natural she call him.

Still, he didn't exactly trust Jimmy these days. And come to think of it, he could be considered someone who saw a lot of her at work. Maybe Janet's suspicion of his being secretly in love with J.S. hadn't been off the mark. But then he saw a lot of everyone in ER, constantly dropping by the way he did.

"Did you want to know anything else, Dr. Garnet?" the nurse said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"No. Just keep a close eye on her."

He cut the connection, got up, and began to pace, unable to sit still any longer.

"Can I go now?" he asked Detective Lazar.

"We need your prints," she said. "It won't be long."

11:15 p.m.

Jane Simmons started awake. Her nurse must have turned off the night-light because she found herself in darkness. It took a few seconds to realize someone stood in the shadows at the end of the bed.

"Jimmy?" she whispered.

"Hey, J.S.," he answered, very softly. "Sorry to be so late, but I had business to take care of. And I was just going to leave. You obviously need to sleep."

"Come here." She held out her hand to him. "What I need is that we talk."

He came out of the shadow and sat on the side of the bed. She could see his face in the green glow from her monitors. His hair looked shiny, as if recently wet. But the unnatural color of the illumination highlighted every fold and hollow above his mask, rendering him gaunt, and the laugh lines around his eyes, normally so ready to deepen with his smile, splayed toward his temples like claws.

"Oh, no." The words escaped her as involuntary and inaudible as a sharply drawn breath. In that instant she knew that disaster had struck and somehow this mess involved him. Simultaneous flashes of pity, sorrow, fear, and love packed themselves into a single heartbeat, and a plummeting sensation filled her chest. The reflex to help him came as natural as her urge to put her arms around him, even without knowing what he'd done, or why. That she could learn later. For now it felt right just to reach up and pull him toward her, the instinct to protect him overwhelming all other emotions. "Have you told anyone?" she asked, not sure where even that rudimentary piece of information would lead. Whether he had or not, she'd no idea what to do. Absently she noticed the dampness of his shirt under her palms.

At first he widened his eyes in a feeble pretense of not knowing what she meant. "Told anyone what-"

"Don't lie to me, Jimmy. It's too late for that."

His eyes sank back into their hollows. "No," he said, his voice barely audible. "But how did you guess-"

She silenced him with a finger to his lips.

In Grand Forks she'd hung out with her share of bad boys. It complemented her choice to dress and act hard. Some, she had heard over the years, had gone on to be bad men. Some had fared better, especially the ones who hadn't gotten caught. She'd helped a few of them in that regard, taking charge when they'd been scared shitless of being picked up for this or that petty larceny, helping them forge an ironclad story, even claiming to have been with one or two of them when she hadn't.

So she'd had some practice in getting men out of trouble. And in forcing them to level with her. "No, you won't lie to me, or no, you haven't told anybody about whatever mess it is you're in?" Even in a whisper, her question sounded more like a command.