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Denise shrugged. “That gossip never made it to the graveyard shift. Maybe he was another one of Lustig’s conquests gone wrong. They want to know who killed her, they ought to look at the list of her old boyfriends. I think it’s called the Cincinnati phone book. There’s one other thing.”
Cheryl Beth waited, watching Denise swallow conspicuously.
“I had to stop by employee benefits today,” she said. “So I’m in street clothes, in the upscale part of this dump. Out in the hallway I see Stephanie Ott talking to Dr. Carpenter, and I distinctly hear your name.”
“He said he’d have my back,” Cheryl Beth said.
“Hmmm.” Denise closed her eyes for a second and shrugged. “He told me he’d have my back, too, and next thing I knew I was kicked out of ICU. Today they looked pretty chummy, his arm on her shoulder. And I heard your name and Lustig’s name more than once.” She stroked her cheek in thought. “Something I’ve thought about…”
After a pause, Cheryl Beth asked her to continue.
“Oh, you know, after being done in by Ott once before I believe in conspiracies. But think about this. Lustig is working on the digital medicine project—every patient record will be online, every order or change of treatment entered instantly. Think what that would do to docs who screw up.”
“They couldn’t blame the nurses anymore.”
“Right,” Denise said. “Old Doc Palmer? He’s got lawsuits against him. He’s way past his prime. Dr. Stewart—I watch his stuff like a hawk. I’ve seen major screwups from residents that were quietly ignored. How many times have the doctors closed ranks to protect one another? The new computer system, if it worked, would make that a lot harder. They couldn’t bury their mistakes anymore.”
“You’re saying there are powerful docs who wouldn’t have wanted the project to succeed. Who might have wanted Christine… God, if Christine was really pushing the project, it could have threatened a lot of people.”
Denise laughed. “Oh, forget it. I’m just scaring you when you’re already scared. I’m probably being paranoid. But I did see Carpenter talking to Ott about you. Watch out, baby girl. Hospital politics can be murder.”
Cheryl Beth stared at Denise, then found her bearings and walked through the wide doorway. In the first bed was a gaunt young man with skin nearly the color of white paper. He implored her with wide, scared eyes. Faces told so much.
“I’m a pain management nurse,” she began. “One of your doctors wanted me to see if we could make you feel better…”
***
Forty-five minutes later, she took the elevator down to the basement. Her feet felt like lead, making this familiar trip. She never used the basement shortcut now. She had already decided that if the hallway were deserted when the doors opened, she would immediately close the door and go back to the first floor. The car was cold but she was burning up. She should have asked a guard to come down with her.
But when the doors opened, the hallway was brightly lit and she heard voices. She followed them toward the doors that led to the old morgue. The voices were loud and angry.
“We always assumed that he forced those women to take their clothes off, fold them neatly, and be carved up. Don’t you get it? He didn’t, maybe not even with Theresa. He cut them to pieces, then took off their clothes and put them in a garbage bag. Then he folded up clean clothes from their closet, or maybe he even brought some.”
“How do we know any of that?” That was Dodds’ voice. She recognized it instantly.
“How do we not know it? We didn’t know what we were missing. Are you going to call crime scene or not?”
It was Will. She had not heard his voice when it was agitated.
“Why would he do this?” Dodds demanded. Cheryl Beth stood against the wall listening, ten feet from the door.
“He wants to show he’s all-powerful. He can make a woman disrobe for him, make her welcome death.”
“So why would he, or she, leave them here?”
Cheryl Beth shuddered when she heard the pronoun. Leave what?
Will answered, “He must have been interrupted. Maybe he was going to come back for them. Put in a video cam and a transmitter and leave them here once crime scene’s gone over it.”
“Maybe your pain nurse did it.”
Cheryl Beth leaned back against the wall. Somehow just him saying it made her feel guilty. It was like a cop pulling into traffic behind you. It was way worse than that.
“You know she didn’t,” Will said. “Quit being such an asshole.”
“You always had a weakness for the pretty girls, Borders. I think she’s lying. You’ll see.”
“You’re wasting time.”
