Kitabı oku: «Her Lawman On Call», sayfa 3

The sensation that had shimmied through him was a surprise as well.

Sasha thought for a second. She supposed, to the detective, it must have appeared stupid. In hindsight, she had to agree. But she’d been going alone to the parking structure every night since they’d found Angela’s body. Besides, she didn’t think of herself in terms of mortality.

Sasha’s hands tightened around the container. “No one else was leaving when I left and I don’t like inconveniencing people.”

His eyes met hers. “Murder is the ultimate inconvenience,” he commented. Satisfied that the woman could understand him and process his questions now, he began by asking the obvious one. “Did you know the victim?”

Sasha bit back a sigh. She nodded. “Her name’s Rachel Wells. She’s a nurse. And a grandmother.” Sasha suddenly realized where he was going with this. “I didn’t know her well. Just to nod to, that kind of thing. She once showed me a photograph of her grandchildren. It was a Christmas-card photo,” she added.

Santini gave no indication that he was pleased or displeased with her answer. She didn’t like faces she couldn’t read. Everything that any of her family felt was right out there for everyone to see.

“Did the other victim know her?” he wanted to know.

The feeling of helplessness swaddled her. She hated being useless, but there wasn’t anything useful she could tell him.

“They were both nurses. I suppose they knew each other, but I really couldn’t say for sure.” Did he think there was a serial killer out there, focusing on PM’s nurses? She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“I don’t know yet,” he told her simply, even though as a rule he didn’t like having questions about his methods being put to him. “I figure if we ask enough questions, we might wind up finding an answer that’ll tell us something.”

That made sense. Right now, it was difficult to pull her thoughts together coherently. “Do you think this is some kind of a serial killer, going around murdering nurses for some twisted reason?”

He didn’t answer at first. “What do you think?”

Sasha looked at the detective sharply, her mind kicking in for the first time since she’d looked down to see her second victim in a little more than two weeks. Was he toying with her? Baiting her? She raised her chin slightly.

“I don’t know what to think.”

Tony inclined his head, as if in agreement. “Neither do I,” he admitted mildly.

That was a crock. She didn’t buy it for a minute. Detective Anthony Santini looked like the kind of man who knew exactly what he thought at all times. Moreover, he looked like a man who was on top of everything, be it situations or people, and he undoubtedly made it a point to remain that way.

And then she saw a spark enter his eyes. His interest seemed to sharpen, as if a new idea had just occurred to him. Sasha wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what it was.

The next moment, she decided that she had to know what it was. If she didn’t find out, she knew she would have no peace.

“What?”

Tony pointed out the obvious, straddling a fence, as if to see which side he was going to climb down on. “You found both bodies and both victims were holding the same note.”

For the first time, she felt something other than grief for the victims and the family members who were left behind. Was he actually saying he suspected her of being the one who’d killed both women? How could he possibly even think something so stupid?

“The guard found Angela,” she reminded him. “But technically, I guess you could say that, yes,” she allowed. Her stomach felt as if it was on its way to meet her throat. Dear God, she hoped she wouldn’t wind up doing something stupid, letting her nerves get the better of her. “Why?”

This doctor might or might not be the common thread here, he thought, since they had no other viable lead. It seemed an incredible coincidence that she was in the same vicinity as both of the victims.

“Do you know anyone who might be doing this to get your attention?”

It took her a second to absorb the question.

“My attention?” she repeated incredulously.

“You know, like a cat coming into the house and laying whatever they’ve killed down by your feet.” He saw the revulsion enter her eyes. He’d thought doctors didn’t become grossed out. “To them, it’s a flattering gesture, not a sickening one.”

Sasha pressed her lips together. Someone was killing their nurses and this man was talking nonsense. “No, I don’t know anyone who would bring me dead bodies as a gift.”

The ghostly pallor was receding from her cheeks, he noted. He was getting her angry. Righteously, or was that bravado? “You said you were a female doctor?”

How archaic did that sound? “I’m an OB-GYN,” she corrected.

His eyes never left her face. “Lose any mothers or babies lately?”

Did he think some deranged husband or parent was killing innocent people because they were trying to get back at her?

“You are crazy,” she told him, taking umbrage for her patients and their families.

He never batted an eye. “Part of the job, ma’am.”

Tony glanced over toward the yellow taped-off area. As he’d instructed at the first homicide, one of the crime scene investigators was scanning the area with a video camera. He wanted to compare tapes, see if anyone who had come to the first homicide turned up at the second. Besides the good doctor here.

He turned his attention back to her. “I’m afraid I’m going to need you to give me a statement again.”

She’d expected as much when she’d placed the 911 call to report the murder.

And then something suddenly dawned on her. “Do you think I did it?”

“I think everyone did it,” he answered. “Until I can weed the non-suspects out, one at a time.”

This seemed just too fantastic for her to absorb. That someone would think she was a murderer boggled her mind.

“Why would I kill Angela and Rachel?”

His eyes met hers. She’d never seen such serious eyes in her life. “If I had the answer to that, this would be easy.”

“Then I’ll give you an answer,” she told him heatedly. He was wasting his time with this line of thinking and the sooner he moved on, the closer he would get to catching Angela and Rachel’s killer. And maybe preventing another murder as well. “I didn’t kill them. I didn’t kill anyone. I don’t even step on bugs.”

There was just the barest hint of amusement evident. “Maybe you should. Their population is really exploding these days. Had to move out of my last apartment because the roaches reclaimed the building.”

Sasha shook her head. “You’re insane.”

“So you already pointed out,” he told her, unruffled. He took the empty cup from her and saw her stiffen indignantly.

“If you want my prints,” she told him tersely, “you just have to ask. My DNA, too.”

He laughed softly, humorlessly. “Everybody’s a CSI wannabe.” Glancing around, he beckoned over a policeman. “Sergeant, take the doctor down to the precinct. We need to get her statement.”

“I can do it,” Henderson volunteered, pocketing the small notebook he always used to take down information that came his way.

“I need you here,” Tony told him. “I’ll have a patrolman drive her in.” He spared a glance at Sasha. “I’ll see you at the station.”

“Doesn’t matter where you’ll see me,” she informed him, “the answers will still be the same.”

He merely nodded, walking away to speak to one of the patrolman. “Good, means you’re not lying.”

Sasha felt a flash of temper. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, feeling it more prudent not to say anything until she had more control over what could come out. All she knew right now was that the detective was getting under her skin at an amazing speed and rubbing her completely the wrong way.

Chapter 4

“C an I get you anything?”

The voice came from behind her. Sasha twisted around in the hardback chair to see Tony approaching her in the squad room. She’d been sitting beside his desk for the last fifteen minutes, waiting for him to make an appearance. She couldn’t help wondering if he was making her wait on purpose.

“A time machine,” she quipped, turning back around to face him as he moved his chair out.

Tony sat down and turned on his computer. A low grinding noise began to hum through the office as it went through its paces.

“Why?” he asked. “How far back would you go?”

“Two weeks.”

He looked at her. Two weeks was the amount of time separating the two murders. Was she making a backhanded confession?

“And maybe I’d start taking the bus to work,” Sasha added, thinking out loud. “Coming across one victim was bad enough. Two…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head.

Then she raised her eyes to his and Tony found himself thinking that he’d never seen eyes quite that shade of blue before. Intense. Beautiful. And pretty damn hypnotic if he allowed them to be. Mentally, he pulled himself back.

“I know you’re overworked here and under-staffed,” she said, edging closer on her chair, “but you must have some kind of a lead, a clue, a hunch—”

Tony regarded her with mild interest. People didn’t usually attribute human frailties to the police department. They expected tireless, around-the-clock vigilance. And crimes to be solved in a timely fashion—as in yesterday. All the best crime dramas on television made it seem easy.

If only.

“How do you know we’re overworked and under-staffed?” he wanted to know.

Was the man born antagonistic, or had he just acquired the habit along the way? She was trying to be nice here.

“Well, aren’t you? Why should you be any different from the rest of the world? Besides,” she sighed, sitting back again, “that’s the way it always was when my father was with the two-six in Queens.”

She’d succeeded in getting his attention, Sasha thought. The look in his eyes changed. “Your father was on the job?”

Tony noted the way she smiled before she answered. Pride mingled with memories. A family girl, he thought. He should have realized that. Because of his own situation, he had a tendency to think of people simply as detached individuals. He wasn’t close to either one of his brothers, even though they both lived in the city and worked for it, Joe as a detective in Brooklyn and Tim as a firefighter in Staten Island. But for all the contact they’d had in the last five years, they could have just as well have been spread out all over the country.

“Twenty-six years,” she told him. Definitely pride there, he thought. It was audible in her voice. “Josef Pulaski. He made detective before he retired.”

Just like his father had been, he thought. Except that he was willing to bet that was where the similarity ended. If he’d ever been proud of his father, that had changed a long time ago—by the time he could understand what was going on behind his parents’ closed door.

He nodded in response to her words. “So that makes you more aware of procedure than most of the people who’ve sat in that chair.”

She couldn’t tell if he was attempting to extend an olive branch or not. “If you mean do I know that you have to rule me out as a potential suspect before you can move on, yes.”

Maybe she wasn’t going to give him trouble after all, he thought. The computer sat, ready, its grinding noise reduced to a soft, constant hum. Time to get started.

“No run-ins with—” Tony paused, referring to his notes. The victim’s name had momentarily escaped him.

“Rachel,” Sasha supplied before he could flip to another page. He raised his eyes to hers. “No, no run-ins. I don’t know all that much about her, actually,” she warned him. She and the older woman hadn’t been friends by any stretch of the imagination, although their paths had crossed a number of times. “Only that she was past retirement age.”

The woman had looked it, Tony thought. “Then why didn’t she retire?” In his experience, retirement was the carrot people coveted. “She love the job that much?”

Sasha thought of the couple of times she’d overheard the slain nurse complaining about conditions at the hospital, or about a supervisor who was riding her. “I think it was more of a case of her tolerating the job.”

“Then why—?” Tony left it to her to fill in the rest.

“The same reason a lot of people stay at a job they don’t like. Money. She needed the money,” Sasha emphasized. “Rachel had two grandchildren to raise. Her son’s sons. Eight and ten I think.”

She was making his job easier for him.

He raised his eyes to hers for a second. “Where’s the son?” he asked, tapping slowly on the computer keyboard. He typed like someone who had no knowledge of where the letters were arranged.

Sasha shrugged. “Ran off somewhere.” She tried to remember what the hospital gossip had been. “I don’t think she knew where.”

He stopped searching for keys. “So this son took a powder, leaving his kids high and dry, and Rachel stepped in?”

Sasha nodded in response to his question. “According to what I heard, he left the boys with her for the weekend two years ago. Mailed her a letter a month later, said he couldn’t handle being a father. Rachel complained about it.” To anyone who would listen, she recalled. “But she said she couldn’t just let the county raise the boys.”

Her words struck a chord. Aunt Tess had said something similar once. Tony shut down the momentary flashback.

Staring at the keyboard, he hunted and pecked in the new information. “Anyone else in the picture?”

He typed so slowly, she had the urge to push him aside and take over. Sasha knotted her hands in her lap. “Her husband. He’s a handyman. I think he does work for the apartment complex where they live.” She stopped trying to remember bits and pieces and looked at the detective who was engaged in a hopeless duel with the keyboard. “Why are you asking me this? Wouldn’t you get more information from PM’s Human Resources Department?” They all had forms they’d had to fill out when coming to work for the hospital. PM was extremely careful about who they ultimately hired.

“You’re doing just fine.” Hitting the period that brought the last sentence to an end, he sat back and regarded her for a second. “For someone who didn’t know the victim, you have a lot of information at your disposal.”

Was it her imagination, or was that a veiled accusation of some sort? Sasha could feel herself growing defensive. “I pay attention when people talk.”

The look he gave her was very pointed. “So do I.”

Except, she thought, in his case, what he listened to was probably all related to his work. Detective Santini didn’t seem the type to be concerned about people as people, the way she was. Concern was what had brought her into medicine in the first place. It was her overwhelming desire to heal, to fix, to make things right if she could that had made her decide to become a doctor. She’d gone into obstetrics because there she also had the added thrill of seeing new life coming into the world.

It helped balance out the times when she couldn’t fix things or make them right again.

“A man who listens. Your wife must be a lucky woman.” It was a flippant, sarcastic thing to say, but she was edgy and wired and heartsick all at the same time. She’d forgotten that he’d told her he was widowed.

Santini looked at her sharply. Had she been standing, Sasha thought, she would have reflexively taken a step back, like someone on the receiving end of a physical blow. Obviously, the wound was still very fresh. It wasn’t like her to have forgotten something like that, even if he was a stranger. She attributed it to the fact that she was very shaken.

“Sorry,” she offered.

His voice was completely dead when he responded. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

The silence hung between them, thick, uncomfortable. At least, it felt that way to her. Sasha took another stab at making amends. “I got personal and I shouldn’t have. It’s a habit I have.”

His eyes met hers again. “Talking first and thinking second?” he guessed.

That stung. “Your turn to apologize,” Sasha said after a beat.

A small, faint smile played along his lips before retreating. She had guts, he thought again. Brains, beauty and guts. On a good day, she was probably a very dangerous lady to tangle with. “I guess that makes us a couple of sorry people.”

She didn’t know if he meant it as a joke, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt and smiled anyway.

Tony asked her a few more questions, including inquiring about her immediate whereabouts around the time of the murder and if there was anything further she could tell him about the victim.

She noticed that he used the word victim rather than Rachel’s name. It made it sound so impersonal, so detached. But, she supposed that was probably a defense mechanism on his part. Otherwise, after all the horrible things he’d undoubtedly encountered as a homicide detective, he would have become completely paralyzed emotionally.

She wasn’t completely certain that he wasn’t now.

Taking a breath, Sasha told him everything she could remember.

“Rachel didn’t stay after hours and socialize,” she told him. “At least, not that I know of. She came, did her work, and went home.” Rachel never tried to get away with anything, but neither did she feel the need to give more than she was being paid for. She wasn’t one to go the extra foot, much less the proverbial mile.

Tony looked thoughtfully at what he’d typed. “Except for tonight.”

“Except for tonight,” Sasha repeated softly. And then she looked at him as a fresh thought struck her. “Who’s going to tell her husband? Who’s going to tell Arthur?”

Arthur. That had to be the handyman husband, Tony thought. “I am.” He’d done it more times than he cared to remember, and he hated it each and every time, but someone had to and he was not one to shirk responsibilities. He rose from his chair. They were done here for the night. “As soon as I take you home.”

She got to her feet as well. “To the hospital,” Sasha corrected. “My car’s still in the parking structure.”

“Okay,” he agreed, mentally changing his route, “I’ll take you to the hospital. There are still patrolmen there.” Dropping her off would be safe.

“Look, why don’t you take me to Rachel’s place first?” she suggested suddenly. Tony looked at her quizzically. Now what? “This is going to be a huge shock for her husband when you tell him. He’s not in the best of health. He had a heart attack just before the children came to live with them. You don’t want to chance that happening again.” She gave a half shrug. “Maybe I can help soften the blow.”

Tony searched her face, looking for signs of logic, trying to understand her reasoning. “How do you do that, Doc? How do you soften death?”

Was he insulting her? Sasha looked at him. “Are you always this abrasive, or do I just bring it out in you?”

He didn’t answer. Not directly. “Actually, this is one of my better days.”

Sasha rolled her eyes and shook her head. “God help the world.”

“My thought exactly.” It was a droll remark at his own expense, she thought. Except that he was looking at her when he said it. “Okay, you want to come, come.” She was surprised he didn’t offer more of a resistance. “You can help with the kids if they’re up.”

Sasha walked toward the doorway. “We seem to be on the same page, Detective.”

“I wouldn’t get used to that if I were you.”

She looked at Santini a second before she preceded him into the corridor. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Detective.”

As it turned out, Rachel’s grandsons were not up and neither was her husband. It took a great deal of knocking and ringing before the sound of any sort of rustling was heard from within the first-floor apartment.

Opening the door a crack, leaving the chain securely fastened and in place, Arthur Wells looked like a man who’d been pulled out of the arms of a very deep sleep. His eyes at half-mast, he resisted taking the chain off even after Tony held up his badge for inspection. It was only after he heard Sasha introduce herself and say that this was about his wife that he finally opened the door for them.

“Rachel’s mentioned you, Doctor,” Arthur told her, gesturing toward his living room. “She worked with you in the ER once,” he recalled for her benefit, in case she didn’t remember. “Said you were something to watch under pressure. My Rachel doesn’t usually give favorable comments.” A smile quirked across his lips nervously, as if he was instinctively attempting to forestall something he knew he didn’t want to hear. He looked from her to the detective. “Can I get you something?” Arthur began to edge away toward the small kitchen. “Coffee? Water? I’ve got some soda in the refrigerator, but—”

“Mr. Wells,” Tony began, his tone serious, his expression more so.

Frightened, nervous brown eyes darted toward the detective, then toward her, silently imploring her not to allow any words to be said that couldn’t be taken back. Words that would ultimately shatter and destroy his small world.

Sasha stepped in between the detective and Mr. Wells. Barefoot, he was shorter than she was, but almost as wide as he was tall. At the moment, he looked completely devoid of strength, as if every one of his years weighed heavily on his shoulders. She took the man’s hands in hers. They were large, capable and rough, reminding her of her father’s hands. There was nothing that her father couldn’t repair or build if he set his mind to it. She had a feeling Arthur was the same way.

Her heart went out to the man. “Mr. Wells,” she began softly, “I am very, very sorry—”

“No,” he moaned, tears springing to his eyes, “No, no, no.”

The burly man began to sway. Sasha threw her arms around him and was just barely able to keep him from sinking to the floor. She looked over her shoulder at the detective. “A little help here.”

Tony stepped in quickly, assuming the bulk of the sagging weight. Between them, they managed to get Arthur to the sofa.

“Not the best bedside technique,” Tony commented, stepping back from the man.

Obviously a case of the pot calling the kettle black, she thought. For the sake of the grieving man on the sofa, she bit back a more terse retort and merely replied, “Like you said, there’s really no way to soften a blow like this.”

Arthur’s wide, florid face looked drained. He took two quick breaths to sustain himself before trying to speak.

“Is she—is she—?” But he couldn’t bring himself to finish the question, to say the words that would acknowledge his final separation from the wife he’d loved and fought with for forty-three years.

Tony delivered the news swiftly. To him, it was like removing a Band-Aid. You tore it off quickly. Anything else only prolonged the agony. “Someone killed her in the parking garage at PM.”

Arthur’s eyes widened in confusion. “The parking garage?” he echoed, shaking his head as if there had to be some sort of mistake, some sort of mix-up. “We don’t even have a car.”

“Then someone must have lured her there,” Tony concluded.

Under what pretext? he wondered. Another piece of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. Yet. And instead of a single murder, or two, it looked as if they had a serial killer on their hands. Targeting nurses? All nurses, or just those from that particular hospital? Or was there something else entirely going on?

“Who? Why?” Arthur cried, his voice cracking with each word.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Mr. Wells,” Tony told him. He began to ask the man a question, but Sasha cut him off.

“Do you have anyone we could call for you? Someone who could stay with you?” Sasha asked. She could feel Tony glaring at her, but right now, this was more important, making certain that the man didn’t remain alone in the first few hours of his grief.

Arthur looked at her blankly, as if thinking was far too hard a process for him to cope with. And then, just as she was about to repeat the question, he nodded. “Rachel’s brother. Her younger brother.” The words were tumbling out, disjointed. He was struggling not to cry. “Jerry. I can call Jerry.”

Sasha was already taking out her cell phone. “Give me his telephone number, Mr. Wells. I’ll call him for you.”

Arthur swallowed, nodding his head. It took him a few minutes before he could remember the numbers in the right order. But before she could begin pressing the proper buttons on the cell phone keypad, he caught her wrist.

“Could you stay with me until Jerry gets here?” he asked brokenly. “If the boys wake up—oh God, what am I going to tell the boys?” He looked at her, stricken. “Their father and mother already walked out on them. How are they going to deal with this?”

“Kids are more resilient than you think,” Tony told him before she had a chance to reply.

Sasha looked at the tall detective, wondering what he had gone through in his own life that would make him say something like that. He didn’t strike her as the kind of man who would offer up empty platitudes in order to comfort anyone. She doubted if he knew how.

“I’ll stay with you,” she promised, then pressed the keys that connected her to Rachel Wells’s brother. She braced herself for the ordeal.

His hands shoved into his pockets, Tony waited until she finished talking to the victim’s brother. When she terminated the call, he took her aside.

“Why are you doing this?”

The blunt question caught her off guard. Didn’t this man have a clue about what people felt? “Because I hate to see anyone in pain,” she said simply. And that was it, the long and the short of it. The sum total of what motivated her.

He glanced over toward Arthur, then back at her. “Look, I can’t—”

She anticipated his words. “You don’t have to stay here with me. I can catch a cab back to the hospital and get my car after his brother-in-law gets here.” She paused for a second, trying to conquer the kernel of fear that threatened to erupt, then asked, “You’ve got patrolmen posted there, don’t you? I mean, it’s still a new crime scene, right?”

“Right.”

She was trying to mask it, but she was afraid. Fear was a good thing, it kept civilians from doing reckless things—something he didn’t put entirely past her. Tony blew out a breath. He didn’t like the idea of her going back to the parking structure alone. His men had swept through all the levels, but there were no guarantees in life about anything.

“Hang on,” he finally said. “Let me make a call.”

Before she could ask why he was even bothering to mention making a call to her, Tony had turned away, connecting to someone with a single press of a button. With a shrug o f her shoulders, Sasha turned her attention to the broken man sitting on the sagging sofa.

He looked, she thought as she came over to him, as if someone had stolen his soul.

Sitting down beside him, she placed her hand over his. “You need to stay strong, Mr. Wells. For your grandsons’ sake. They’re going to need you more than ever.”

“What about me?” Arthur wanted to know, his voice breaking. “What about what I need?”

“That comes later,” she said softly. “You do what you have to to get through a day, and then two days and then a week. A month…until there’s enough time between you and the pain for you to be able to attempt to handle it.”

Arthur shook his head. A tear slid down, hitting the top of her hand. “I don’t think I can.”

“You can.” Her voice was firm beneath the soft tone. “We’re all stronger than we think we are.”

Numbly, Arthur nodded his head, staring straight ahead at the framed candid shot of his wife on the coffee table. She was laughing. He looked as if he never would again.

Sasha could sense the detective’s eyes on her before she looked up to see him standing there. Santini was less than a foot away, looking at her with an expression she couldn’t begin to read.

He flipped the phone closed. “I’ll stay with you until his brother-in-law comes.”

There was no room for selfless protests so she didn’t bother making any. She welcomed the company.