AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As my partner and I struck out along the underground route to the psychiatric hospital, the little voice in my head was pleading, Doreen Something, are you our killer? Please, God. Give us a sign.
CHAPTER 77
I HAD BEEN feeling that we were playing beat the clock with the Stealth Killer, that this maniac could be winding up for another random hit. Was it possible that he was close by, that he worked at the Hyde Street Psychiatric Center?
Conklin and I found Dr. Terry Hoover in the common room of the Center’s North Ward. He was tall and bespectacled, wore his tie loosely knotted and his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. He waved us into his glass-walled office, which had a 360-degree view of the busy corridor that ran past Ward Six and the nurses’ station. He kept his eyes on all 360 degrees as we spoke with him.
I downplayed our reason for this sudden visit by the SFPD, telling Dr. Hoover that Conklin and I were investigating illegal use of succinylcholine, that an empty vial of sux found near a murder scene had led us to Saint Vartan’s.
I explained that the vial had come from an expired lot that had been marked for destruction in the hospital furnace.
“While we were at Saint Vartan’s we were told that one of your nurse’s aides had been seen poking around their drug incinerator.”
“One of our aides? I don’t understand. Wait, this isn’t about those murders I read about?
“We just have to check it out,” I said to the doctor. “What can you tell us about a nurse’s aide, first name Doreen?”
“Doreen Collins. She’s been with us for about four years. A very kind woman. I can’t imagine why she would be anywhere near the furnace,” said Hoover. “Does she need a lawyer?”
“No, no,” said Conklin. “We just want to ask her a few questions.”
“Let me talk to her,” said Hoover.
Conklin and I went with the doctor down the long hallway to a busy ward where Doreen Collins was massaging a patient’s hands. She looked to be about thirty, wide through the hips, not more than five two, with short, choppy blond hair.
Hoover said to the patient, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fritz. I need a few words with Doreen.”
The nurse’s aide came over to us and she looked terrified. Why? Hoover asked, “Doreen, these are police officers, looking into missing succinylcholine. Do you know anything about that?”
She shook her head vigorously and said, “No, I don’t know anything. Why would anyone want sux? Why are you asking me?”
Hoover said, “Apparently, someone saw you hanging around the furnace in the basement.”
The woman’s hands went to her face and she dissolved straight into tears.
“I’m diabetic,” she said. “I’m sorry, Dr. Hoover. I was looking for insulin. The door was locked. I punched in my code, and when it didn’t work I left. I didn’t take anything.”
“Please don’t do that again, Doreen. Stealing drugs will get you fired. Expired insulin could get you killed. Do you understand?”
Hoover took his eyes off Ms. Collins, flicked them past the crowd of patients and staff who were slow-walking past the doorway.
He said, “Sergeant, Doreen is, in fact, diabetic. She has a perfect performance record at Hyde Street Psych. Is she a suspect?.”
Doreen said, “I only did this once,” she said. “I swear to God, I didn’t take anything. I swear to God.”
CHAPTER 78
CONKLIN AND I questioned Ms. Collins in an exam room down the corridor from Dr. Hoover’s office. She accounted for her whereabouts at the time Mr. Beardsley was killed. She said she had been here at Hyde Street Psychiatric, had reported to the nurses’ station at four in the afternoon, and had worked with patients and other staff members, not leaving the center until midnight, when she punched out. She took us to her locker, opened her handbag, and showed us her time card. And while we were there, she gave us a go-ahead to search her bag and and her locker.
In short, she had a solid alibi for the time of Beardsley’s death. I took her contact info, as well as that of her mother and roommate, gave her my card, and asked her to call us if she had any ideas that might help the SFPD.
Conklin and I returned to Dr. Hoover’s office. He was distracted, and after we gave him our cards, he was done.
“I don’t see how I can help you further,” he said with finality.
We left Hoover in his office and edged through a swarm of milling patients in the common room, one of whom came up to us. His hair was silver-shot blond. I made him to be five four, 130, and possibly in his fifties. He had an awkward stance, proportionately short arms, and an overall gnomelike appearance.
“I’m Neddie,” he said in a high-pitched, cartoonish voice. He grinned at me. “I’m good. Are you good?”
