A Man to Die for (16 page)

“Don’t be silly.” Helen giggled in delight. “That’s like saying you’re not Irish anymore.”

Casey thought to argue, but it occurred to her that her mother was right. There was still a lot of Jesuit in the policeman. It accounted for that ascetic look, for the impression that there were fires banked deep behind those hooded gray eyes.

Casey flipped off another lamp until she and her mother stood silhouetted by the light from the kitchen.

“He’s right, you know,” her mother suddenly said.

Casey stopped and looked over, but her mother was all shadow. Her voice was suddenly so certain, so clear. Casey wanted to turn the light back on and try to catch that rationality on her features. She wanted to pin her against the wall of delusions, so that she couldn’t escape back into the shadows again. But Casey was suddenly just as sure that it was the shadows that had allowed her mother the clarity.

“About what?” she asked instead.

“Leave that man alone. Stay far away so he won’t hurt you.”

“He’s not going to hurt me, Mom.”

For a moment all she could hear was her mother’s breathing. Soft, quick, like a frightened bird. “In the end they won’t listen,” she said. “And he’ll make you pay.”

Casey fought a shiver. The shadows seemed to shift and collect in the deep room. The pictures over on the wall threw off faint reflections like a crowd of people wearing glasses. Suddenly Casey felt stifled and afraid, and it was a fear that had nothing to do with Hunsacker.

“Mom?”

But Helen had expended too much effort. Rustling as if she were shaking out feathers, she carried the glass and cans into the kitchen with the bearing of a nun offering penance.

“You make sure and warn me the next time you invite him over,” she chirped, her shoes clicking against the tile floor. “I don’t want your gentlemen to think they’re not welcome.”

Casey turned after her. “He’s not—”

Helen spun on her, eyes distant and content once more. “He really is such a nice man, dear. Although I think he worries too much, even for a Jesuit. You tell him that, all right? He needs some weight on him. Good night.”

There was only one thing Casey could say in response. “Good night, Mom.”

She had the nightmare again that night. The same setting, same outcome. Only this time she heard arguing outside the door, and it frightened her almost as much as staying inside. Casey ended up reading until Helen got up for morning vespers.

There were days when Casey enjoyed a busy shift more than others. The next day was one of those. After the soul-searching she’d been forced into, the ghosts she’d carried through the night with her, she was looking forward to cleansing her palate with a little bloodshed and mayhem.

She got her wish.

She was still clocking in when the first helicopter landed, and it was nonstop business for the rest of the shift. Abe was on, and Marva and Janice, which made the work easier, even fun. If only work could be like this every day, she might not mind doing it for another twenty years or so.

Then again, Casey thought as she stared at the pile of paperwork she’d have to stay overtime to clear up, maybe the rock band wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Casey used her ten-minute lunch break to call over to Izzy’s. It was the next step on her list of things to do, and sometime in the early morning hours when she’d been left alone with the aftertaste of her accusations and the unsettled ghosts of her friends, she’d reached the decision that she had to follow that list. Sgt. Scanlon wouldn’t, past his one phone call and his interest in Crystal. He had a suspect everybody wanted to convict, the makings of an easy case, and from the looks of him the night before, a big enough workload without any extra help from her.

She couldn’t really blame Scanlon for taking the easy way out. She’d walked that street before herself. But for some reason, this was one of those times when she walked right to the door marked hassle and threw it open.

Her invitation to Betty Fernandez for lunch was made under the guise of setting up some kind of memorial to Evelyn. Betty accepted with alacrity, and Casey felt the dreadful anticipation build in her once again.

She returned to the hall only to discover Rescue 256 running for room three with the latest contestant to sign in, a very hirsute, overweight, sixty-something-year-old man who’d gone into cardiac arrest in one of the local motels. The team was already waiting in the room, so Casey joined the party.

“Down at least ten minutes before the call went out,” one of the paramedics panted from where he was sweating and pumping atop his patient. “History of heart condition.”

The team tumbled over the patient, assessing, treating, recording. At the door the chaplain blessed the air and left. X-ray pulled their machine in the door and the lab tech hovered alongside Casey waiting for her to strike blood.

“Wife just called,” one of the secretaries announced from the door. “She’s on her way in.”

“No she’s not,” Janice countered sharply from where she was sliding the identification bracelet around the patient’s wrist proclaiming him Mr. B. until they could get his papers completely filled out. “I just put her in the waiting room.”

Everybody looked up. Then they looked at Mr. B. “I don’t think that’s the wife,” the secretary said. “She was just on the phone.”

Abe turned to Janice from where he was pulling a sterile towel from a pacemaker kit. “Is your wife young, blond, and have a lot of makeup?”

Janice nodded. “Yeah.”

She was met by a chorus. “Then that’s not the wife.”

“Oh, shit,” she groaned, swinging for the door. “I just gave her his wallet.”

“He never had a chance to get his pants off,” Abe mourned, bending over the dusky chest and probing for the subclavian vein. “Just think, he hadn’t even come and he was gone.”

But the surprises weren’t over. Janice had just walked back into the room clutching Mr. B’s wallet when Marva let out a howl.

“Watch out. We got a fashion alert.”

She’d been setting up to insert a catheter. When she’d pulled at his trousers, she’d unearthed Mr. B’s real secret.

“Sweet Jesus have mercy,” she crooned in wonder.

“Leopard skin,” Abe mused with a shake of his head. “It doesn’t go with the black lace at all.”

“Your beast would look lovely sheathed in all those spots, Abe,” the X-ray tech offered.

“You’d need bigger spots,” Casey retorted.

“
Much
bigger,” Michael agreed from where he was assisting Abe.

“Check that woman out there and see if she’s missin’ some nylons and a garter belt,” Marva demanded.

Uncapping the blood drawer’s syringe from her line and hooking up the IV, Casey couldn’t stop chuckling. She’d wondered sometimes what Ed would look like in twenty years. She’d been right. It wouldn’t have been worth sticking around for.

Janice shook her head, her gaze brushing past Casey’s and then away before either could react. “Those aren’t hers,” she announced with some disdain. “She has better taste.”

“Where the hell did he get one that wide?” the paramedic demanded, still pumping, his only reaction a funny gurgling noise in his throat as he tried to keep from laughing on top of his patient.

Casey uncapped the epi with her teeth and began to push. “Check his wife when she comes in.”

Marva didn’t have the slightest compunction about laughing. “Well, what do I do now?”

“You want help?” Abe countered, still probing around in doughy flesh in an attempt to insert the catheter for the pacer. “I’m real good at getting garters loose.”

“I’m sure he’d be thrilled.”

Abe went on probing without success. “I got news for you. He’s never going to be thrilled again.”

“Serves him right,” Janice announced from the door with surprising conviction. “If I were his wife, I’d bury him in the damn things. Face down, just like he died. In an open coffin.”

“I’d pay to see it,” Abe retorted, not really paying attention.

Casey wasn’t so blithe. She looked up from pushing drugs to catch the flare of pain in Janice’s eyes. Their gazes locked for just a moment, tight and significant across the jumble of staff and equipment.

Casey had forgotten. In everything else that had gone on in the last few weeks, she’d shoved Janice to the background. This time she didn’t feel guilty, though. She felt frustrated. Yet another problem, another friend in need of help. Another burden.

They had no sooner called the code when Janice waylaid her. Marva was finishing notes and Casey was pulling equipment.

“Casey,” Janice asked, her hands restless. “Are you doing anything for lunch tomorrow?”

Now Casey did feel guilty. She looked up to see the fresh turmoil in Janice’s eyes and realized that she was grateful that she had an excuse.

“Oh, I can’t Jan,” she hedged, knowing Janice wanted to talk about marriage and divorce and decisions. “I’m having lunch with some of Izzy’s nurses tomorrow.”

Janice, who had never faltered before any situation, who had always remained as poised as a duchess amid the muck and mire of the halls, hesitated. She shifted on her feet, took a shaky breath. She picked at one of her perfect nails, and Casey knew the trouble was big.

“How ’bout after work tomorrow?” she capitulated. “I’m not scheduled for any all-night novenas or anything.”

Janice only allowed a brief nod of relief before turning back to work.

In parting she offered a grin toward the still semiclad body on the cart. “It’s impressive in person.”

Casey grinned back. “Even more impressive in action.”

Marva waited only long enough to see the door swing shut behind Janice. “What Isidore nurses?” she demanded without looking up from her work.

Casey went back to hers, preparing the body for transport down to the morgue. “Some of the OB crew. We’re talking about a memorial of some kind for Evelyn.”

She must not have sounded nonchalant enough. Marva anticipated her again. “Evelyn your friend who was murdered? That Evelyn?”

Casey refused to look up. “Uh huh.”

“The one who was murdered right before you took to reading all the police reports in the paper.”

“That’s her.”

“And you’re gonna talk about her memorial.”

“That’s right.”

“You’re takin’ about trouble,” Marva countered fiercely. “Aren’t you?”

Casey tried her best to be offhand. “Yeah, well, you know me. Never satisfied to be gainfully employed and well thought of by my betters.”

Marva gave her head a slow, mournful shake. “You really convinced, aren’t you? You think Hunsacker’s poppin’ people in the streets.”

Casey suddenly understood the look in Janice’s eyes a minute ago. It had been the need to share, to confess. She had it now herself. She wanted somebody else to know what she suspected. Somebody besides a cop who didn’t know her, didn’t trust her, and probably wouldn’t do anything about what she brought him.

“I know for a fact that there are two women from Izzy’s who had big arguments with Hunsacker and then died or disappeared,” she said. “And a third, the hooker I was reading about the other day when he came in…” Casey drew a breath, looked around. Both doors were closed. Nobody could hear her. Still, she thought her voice was too loud. “Grapevine has it that he was seeing her.”

“And you think he killed her.”

This time Casey didn’t flinch from Marva’s hard brown eyes. “I think he killed her.”

“The same man who cried for an hour after losing that little girl.”

“Hitler liked dogs, Marva. How do I know what makes Hunsacker tick? He’s…there’s something about him I can’t explain.”

“That only you can see.”

Now it was Casey’s turn to be hard. “How many pelvics have you done with him?”

“A few, why?”

“Tell me, is he gentle? Does he warm up the speculum and wait if his lady’s afraid and go in real gentle so he doesn’t hurt her?”

Marva’s eyes gave her away. She’d seen it, too. “Lots of OBs are assholes. It doesn’t make them killers.”

Casey straightened, faced her friend with her suspicions, the dread that only a woman could understand, the intangible that made most sense to her. “He does a pelvic on every woman he sees. No matter what. And not out of concern, Marva. I think it’s his way of controlling them. Of violating them without their even knowing it. They come to
him
to be hurt. They ask for it. They cave in to that smile and then let him abuse them, and nobody says a thing. Evelyn heard he’d been doing the three-finger special.”

Marva battled Casey’s words in silence, the repugnance of her accusations tightening the black woman’s features and drawing her mouth into a taut line of contention.

“It’s still not murder,” she countered, struggling to hold on to her neutrality.

“It’s a symptom. So is murder. At first, I thought he was just your garden-variety sociopath. You know, amoral, manipulative, that kind of thing. God knows, we got enough of ’em in medicine, one more wouldn’t be noticed. But I’m telling you, Marva, I’m beginning to think he’s a grade-A psychopath. Serious stuff.
Real
serious stuff. He really gets off on not just controlling people, but hurting them. If you think I’m completely nuts, tell me so. If not, just don’t rat on me. I need to find out.”

“Baby.” Marva sighed, a hand out in commiseration. “You ain’t nuts. Not like that. But you is the stupidest creature alive if you think this man’s so bad and you still want to go after him.”

Fortified by her friend’s understanding, Casey offered a smile in return. “I won’t argue with you there. I’d rather be back home knitting altar cloths. But I’ll be damned if I can let him get away with it.”

Marva reclaimed her hand and bestowed another shake of the head. “Jus’ as long as you don’t know my name when the administration interrogates you.”

Casey grinned. “Whose name?”

“You still have to work with him,” Marva said. “How you gonna do that?”

Casey took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Hold my tongue and hope he doesn’t smell me sweat.”

He did smell her sweat. He must have smelled it all the way down the hall, because the minute Casey opened the door from that room, he turned where he stood at the far end and smiled at her.