ADRENALINE: New 2013 edition (22 page)

He went over what he knew about her again, looking for some angle of attack, some leverage. She was in her mid-forties, never married, and lived alone. Unfortunately, that was about all he knew. Whenever he thought of her, the only image that came to mind was her standing outside the hospital back entrance, huddled and shivering in a corner with the other die-hard smokers, braving any degree of winter’s severity to light up. He shook his head. Some people just had no self-discipline. He jammed on the brake to slow down; he almost missed the next street sign—Oak Street. Damn tree lovers. He ignored the stop sign and roared down the road.

She seemed to have a thing for Landry, but then so did half of the OR nurses. Goddamned playboy. He’d heard the scuttlebutt—Landry getting it on with that new SICU bitch. Whatever happened to family values? Landry had a slew of kids for Chrissakes. No morals. That was what was wrong with this hippie generation—free love and all that crap. Landry deserved what he got; in fact, he wasn’t through with him yet. He felt himself getting heated up. This was good. It would make it easier to carry out his plan.

The sun sank below the horizon, and the sky took on an eerie luminescence peculiar to cold December evenings. The few clouds on the western horizon were strongly backlit, appearing dark purple, almost black, against the pinkish sky glow. The clouds stood out sharply, as if cut by a knife. The wind howled outside the car, as if it too were bothered by the unnatural appearance of the sky.

“Birch Street! About fucking time!” He jerked the wheel hard, and the Saab squealed around the turn. Up ahead was the sign for Tree View Terrace Apartments. He quickly parked on the street, barking his front tire on the curb. As he opened the driver’s door, the wind threatened to rip it from its hinges. Climbing out onto the frozen ground, the cold, slashing air took his breath away and was truly bitter. He searched a bit before finding Apartment IIA.
Her name was printed in bold, black letters on the buzzer/mailbox arrangement—DRAYBECK, M.

He pushed on the buzzer, heard it ring inside, and waited. Nothing. He pushed it again. Still nothing. Luckily, as he had hoped, the lock was one of those cheap jobs that matched the flimsy metal door. He pulled out his toolkit and picked it with ease.

He stepped into the narrow hallway, which posed as a foyer and was immediately struck by the stale cigarette odor that hung heavily in the air. He closed the door behind him and locked it, interrupting the wind in mid-howl. He froze; he heard a television in the living room with a newscaster droning out the early edition of the evening news.
Oh shit
. He had thought she was out. What should he do?

“Hello,” he called out. “Anybody home?”

No answer.

“The front door was open,” he said, “so I let myself in.” He glanced down the hallway again—there was a single overhead light fixture, and an opening to the kitchen, five feet down on the left. The hallway emptied out in ten feet into what appeared to be the living room. No windows in sight.

He walked quietly toward the living room. As he passed the empty kitchen, he smelled something cooking, probably from the meatloaf family, he guessed. He continued forward, the TV getting louder as he went.

The living room was also deserted. The room was poorly lit by a single lamp on a little table; he couldn’t tell if the bulb was just inadequate or if his vision was hampered by the smoky haze. The remaining furniture consisted of a small sofa and one sitting chair and a portable TV resting on a metal cart with wheels. One window at the far end of the room overlooked the parking lot. He saw a framed photograph of Melissa on top of the TV and walked over to it. She was a plain woman with long, straight brown hair. The photo was close enough to show she had a generous supply of
wrinkles, no doubt courtesy of her beloved cigarettes. They made her look much older, he thought. He could see another hallway, presumably leading to the bedroom, but the door was shut.

He called out again. “Hello, Ms. Draybeck. Are you here?”

No reply.

He headed toward the bedroom. He passed a little bathroom that was also empty. His heart began to pound. Was she here? Why didn’t she answer? Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan? Maybe he should leave? He opened the bedroom door. A loud hissing noise stopped him in his tracks, and his heart banged painfully in his chest. A large tiger tomcat squirted out of the room bumping his leg on the way by.

“Jesus Christ!” He sucked in some big breaths, clutched his chest, and leaned on the doorway. Thank God, the bedroom was empty. She must’ve stepped out for something, but she’ll be back soon. Need to hurry. The fucking cat gave him an idea, and he smiled. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

Melissa came through the front door carrying her milk, bread, and
People
magazine.
God, it’s cold out there
. As soon as she closed the door, she thought she could detect an unfamiliar odor. Strange, she thought. Perhaps the meatloaf is burning? She walked into the kitchen, set her grocery bag down on the table, and slung her coat over one of the kitchen chairs. She opened the oven and checked the meatloaf. Everything was OK. Where was Tony? she wondered. Normally he’d be all over her at this time of the day, impatient for his dinner. “Tony,” she called. “Mommy’s home. Want some din-din?”

She opened the pantry, pulled out some Meow Mix, and poured it into his plastic bowl. The cat food clattered distinctively, and she knew it was a sound Tony couldn’t ignore even if he was playing aloof.

Still no Tony. This was definitely strange. She walked into the living room. The five o’clock Pennsylvania lottery drawing was on the TV, but no sign of the cat. Again, she caught a whiff of some unfamiliar scent. Immediately her anxiety skyrocketed and threatened to overwhelm her. She tried to calm down, telling herself her nerves were just shot today. A cigarette was in order, she quickly decided. Melissa backtracked to the kitchen. She lit up despite her shaky hands and inhaled deeply. Ah, that was better. She saw the phone on the wall. Perhaps she should call Dr. Landry now? No, she had to find Tony first. This was too weird.

She headed toward the bedroom. She thought she could make out Tony’s shape on her bed, but the room was dark; maybe it was just a trick of the shadows or some clothes. She entered the room and flicked on the light switch by the closet.

There was Tony on the bed all right, but his head was bent back in an unnatural angle and some drapery cord was wrapped tightly around his neck. His tongue stuck out grotesquely, his eyes bugged out, and he was motionless. Melissa stood there shaking violently from head to toe and screamed.

Before she got much more than a peep out, she felt a gloved hand clamp over her mouth and nose and a large arm encircle her neck. She panicked, screaming all the louder. She managed to get several muffled bursts out.

“Stop screaming for Chrissakes!” he yelled at her.

The voice was familiar. She felt herself being propelled to the wall by his massive body. Suddenly her head was accelerated and collided savagely with the wall. She actually heard her skull make a horrible cracking sound when it hit, like a baseball bat smacking a line drive.

She didn’t lose consciousness completely. She flopped to the floor and felt her attacker straddle her and begin to throttle her with both hands. She stared up at him but the image was blurry. Her brain reeled to grasp what was happening.

Finally her eyes focused, and she recognized Dr. Raskin, his face contorted with exertion and suffused with blood. Things clicked into place. He had been the shadowy figure in OR#1, no doubt doing something terrible. He had killed Tony, and now she was next. She must free herself and tell Dr. Landry. She clawed at him with her hands but could inflict little damage through his winter parka. She saw that Tony had scored several deep scratches across his cheek. Her air hunger was becoming unbearable.

Raskin watched as her eyes bulged out first, then her lips became increasingly cyanotic, then her struggling dwindled and ceased and her pupils dilated. It all took less than five minutes.

Raskin slumped over her body, sucking in ragged breaths. He felt sick. He hadn’t meant for it to turn out this way. He had just wanted to scare her. Now this. He looked at her face, mottled and blue in death, and felt another wave of nausea.

It wasn’t his fault, though. She had to come home when she did. He had just about finished his work. And then she had to scream. Jesus, why did women always scream? He couldn’t let her do that. Anyone could see that.

He stood up and staggered to the living room on stiff legs. His hands still ached, but his breathing had evened somewhat. Damn nuns! Damn Carlucci! It was all their fault. That fat Polish bastard wasn’t supposed to die either. Could he help it if Carlucci screwed up the resuscitation? Even the great Dr. Landry himself couldn’t pull that one out of his ass. He knew he had done a better job with Danowski and his patient; monkeying with the vaporizers—now that was clever.

Raskin reached a gloved hand to his face. “Ow!” The glove came away bloody. “Fucking cat!” He looked around the apartment to make sure he hadn’t left anything. The nausea had left him.

The phone rang and Raskin jumped. After four rings, Melissa’s answering machine clicked on loudly. “Hi, this is Melissa. I can’t come to the phone right now—”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Raskin murmured.

“—I’ll get back to you as soon as I can—”

“Don’t hold your breath, asshole.” He began to cackle. For a moment, Raskin wondered about his sanity. He had just killed somebody, by accident of course, but nonetheless she was dead, and here he was laughing. His thoughts were cut short, however, as he recognized the voice coming through.

“Hi, Melissa, this is Doctor Landry. I’m returning your call. Uh, you said it was urgent. Please give me a call whenever you get in tonight. Otherwise, I’ll talk to you tomorrow at the hospital. OK, bye.”

“Sakes alive! Douglas fucking Landry!” God, that guy really burns me up. “Too bad you’ll never know what she wanted,” he said to the phone as he prepared to leave. “Better get the fuck out of here!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Two V-tachs in one week! That’s pretty unusual isn’t it?” Rusty asked and then stuffed the remains of a poppy seed bagel into his mouth. He paced back and forth in the confines of the small anesthesia on-call room, his sneakers squeaking noisily.

“Absolutely,” replied Doug, who was sitting on the sofa also working on a bagel. “I’ve been here twelve years, and I can’t recall ten episodes.” It was Tuesday morning, and Doug still felt drained from his on-call weekend and ordeal with Mr. Lehman yesterday. He gulped down most of his second cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would kick in soon.

Mike appeared at the doorway with his own cup of coffee. He hesitated briefly and entered the room. “Morning, Doug,” he said sheepishly. “Hi, Rusty.”

“Hi, Mike. How are you?” Doug asked. He was still torn up about his friend’s drug use, and their confrontation Friday remained fresh in his mind.

“Fine,” Mike replied and walked over to his desk. He didn’t look so fine; he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Mike picked up a framed picture of Colleen and the girls and gazed at it with a pained expression. Doug studied Mike looking for subtle clues. Is he still using? Nobody said anything further, and the silence became awkward, interrupted only by the sound of Rusty’s sneakers.