A Man to Die for (27 page)

“Let’s get down to details,” he suggested, turning around to find her munching on an apple. She tossed the one in her other hand to Jack.

“You could use a little weight,” was all she said. “Ya know, I haven’t found out about your day at school yet. It must have been a beaut.”

Jack couldn’t think of anything less appetizing than apples and beer. He juggled the one and drank the other. Better than throwing both, which was what he was tempted to do. “Why do you say that?”

She offered a grin and a vague gesture. “You have that ‘God, I want to rub my stomach’ look on your face again.”

Jack refrained from grinning back, capitulating. For the moment. “Nobody’s supposed to see that.”

“Every ulcer patient I see has it,” she informed him. “Don’t forget, I usually don’t get them until they’ve waited too long.”

Jack held up the hand with the apple. “Thanks. The visual aids were graphic enough.” He tossed the apple again, its flight short and graceless. “Actually, my threat was less personal. The mayor got a call, so my chief got a call, so my captain got a call.”

Casey nodded. “Who said, ‘Don’t be absurd. He can’t be a murderer. He was in Millicent Adams’ column, for God’s sake.’”

Jack shook his head. “No. He’s seen murderers there before. But the mayor is up for reelection, and the idea of one of his police persecuting a prominent physician doesn’t sit well with him right now.”

“Especially when that physician has friends who help contribute to his campaign.”

Jack stopped just as he reached his chair. “You ever been a cop?”

She scowled and began mimicking again. “‘You can’t accuse her of stealing equipment to use for doing drugs. The hospital’s new wing is named after her mother.’ The world is not so mysterious after all.”

Before he sat down to business, Jack shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over the chair. He never noticed the hand that strayed back to his stomach.

An hour later Casey scraped her chair back. “I still don’t see this,” she objected, frustrated all’ over again, “He killed four women, but we’re just going to ignore a couple of them.”

Jack sighed and leaned back. They’d been over this. “For now. Don’t forget, Casey. I’m one person. One fairly unpopular person who has to conduct most of this investigation on his own time. And I’m up against a man who commits the most violent murders, and then tidies up like he was expecting company.”

She knew it. She really did. But Casey was a trauma nurse. Her training and experience didn’t inure her to waiting or ambiguities. She wanted action now. Any action. She wanted people to know that. Mrs. Peebles was as much a victim as Crystal was, even though the O’Fallon police couldn’t come up with anything more than unwitnessed suspicious death. Casey wanted someone to ask how Evelyn could have died without witnesses or evidence.

“I’m trying.” She rubbed again at the steady ache in her left temple. Her eyes were getting grainy, and all the typewritten words she’d read were beginning to blur. “So we turf Evelyn and Mrs. Peebles for the moment because of lack of evidence.”

“Let’s call it concentrating on Wanda and Crystal instead,” he suggested.

Casey nodded. “Wanda had a fight with Hunsacker. That very night she is seen bragging to Bobby Lee the Lizard that she’ll ditch the trailer life right after she has this meeting with some guy outside the Rose at nine-thirty.”

“Exactly nine-thirty,” Jack emphasized, pointing out an area on the clandestine copy of Bobby’s interview he’d brought along. “She emphasized that.”

Casey nodded. “Pointing right to Hunsacker. The only other people who are interested in exact time are the White Rabbit and Iranian terrorists. Wanda walks outside into the rain and is never seen again. Her car is left on the parking lot, and her body is found no more than half a mile away. Buddy doesn’t know anything about any of this. He’s been over the road in his eighteen-wheeler and gets home to find Wanda gone and his brothers-in-law suggesting he find new comfort.” What they’d actually said was pussy, but Casey was still too Catholic to say that even to an ex-priest. Thank God Frank Millard hadn’t used the
c
word.

“What does it tell you?” Jack asked.

“Tells me she was expecting a windfall from this meeting. I think she was squeezing Hunsacker.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Squeezing?”

Casey grinned. “She must have found out something she figured he’d pay to hear.”

“She’d do that?”

“In a minute. Wanda was a great tech. Good with women. She hated men, though. Especially authority figures. She was a walking encyclopedia of childhood abuses, and it sometimes spilled over. I can sure see Hunsacker setting her off.” She sat a moment, considering the sketchy information, thinking of Wanda. “I wonder what she did with whatever it was she had on him.”

“Or if Hunsacker got ahold of it.”

Casey looked up to see the homicide officer in Jack demanding pragmatism from her. “Or if Hunsacker got it,” she conceded.

He didn’t go so far as to nod. But she knew he was judging her in his way. Asking for something from her only he recognized and making his next decisions based on it.

He took another quick look at the paperwork, as if fortifying himself with it. “Is there anybody who might know?”

Casey thought about it a moment. A terrible realization occurred to her. A truth that would have seemed nothing more than expedient no more than a few weeks ago. For a moment she resented Jack for expecting this of her. “Well,” she offered as she fingered the grainy photocopies. “He’s been dating a good half-dozen people in at least two hospitals. There’s bound to be at least one nurse who’s mad at him.”

It took her some courage to face Jack.

“A vindictive woman?” he asked with a suspiciously crooked eyebrow.

Casey bristled. “Desperate measures,” she allowed stiffly. “I’ll start nosing around tomorrow and see if I pick up any interesting rumors.”

Jack just nodded and scribbled something in his own notebook. Not as nice as Hunsacker’s, this one was dog-eared and small, with cryptic messages and even more cryptic drawings crammed into pages that had been curled and creased from fitting into various pockets. Casey wondered briefly what the notations connected with her own name looked like. Probably something along the line of pain in the ass and delusional.

“So,” she said, fingering the papers in front of her. “If Hunsacker did pick her up, what did he drive? He has a Porsche. Somebody at the Rose would have said something about it.” Or thrown something at it.

“Something rented. Something stolen: Franklin’s still checking on it.”

Casey allowed herself a smile. “I’d really love to be along when he shows up to interview all the A list who were supposed to be at the fund-raiser with Hunsacker the night Wanda disappeared.”

Jack never looked up from his scribbling. “You’re looking forward to it more than Franklin is.” He stabbed his pen at the other file, the fatter one. “Okay, let’s take another look at that chart copy from Mother Mary,” he suggested, changing tack as quickly as he checked his watch. “I want to know if there’s any chance to break his alibi for Crystal.”

There was another question Casey had about Wanda, a curiosity about what Franklin had found among her personal effects when he’d searched. He’d only noted that he hadn’t found anything suspicious. Suspicious to a cop might be different from suspicious to a nurse. But Jack had already switched gears. Besides, what Casey was considering wouldn’t be something he should know.

Casey pulled the pages back to her again. She didn’t need to check her watch to know it was late. She’d been dragging since walking back in this house. And Jack didn’t look much better. He’d at least gotten comfortable enough to ditch the formal attire. His sleeves were rolled up and his tie slung over his jacket. He didn’t look as if he felt much better, though. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and the hollows along his cheeks seemed deeper, the creases in his forehead sharper. Captains must hang even more heavily over the head than nursing supervisors.

Casey found herself wanting to pull all the paperwork out of his hands and shove him out the front door. She wanted to lecture him about good food and better schedules and sleep. But he was the same kind of cop that she was a nurse. Only she could leave the emergency room where it was. Murder seemed to follow a person home. She fought a sigh of frustration for both of them and turned to her information.

The chart pages belonged to Mrs. Beverly Williams, late of the postpartum division at M and M. On the night of Crystal’s murder, Hunsacker charted having been in to visit the lovely Mrs. Williams along about eight o’clock. The murder had been committed at eight-fifteen.

When contacted, Mrs. Williams couldn’t verify when the doctor had been in. The rooms at M and M didn’t have clocks in them. She’d been in for five days, after all, each of which had entailed a visit by the doctor. He often visited before dark, she remembered, which would have been anytime before nine.

The nurse on that night had charted once every two hours. She mentioned Dr. Hunsacker in the eight o’clock notes, but failed to mention when he’d come in. “PMD to see pt” is not one of your more eloquent statements.

“PMD,” Jack queried.

“Private medical doctor,” Casey said. “No information about what he did or how long he stayed. The way these notes read, he could have been there anytime from six to eight.” Casey didn’t recognize the name of the nurse, but her notes stank. For all you could tell from these, Mrs. Williams did nothing but eat and sleep.

“I don’t know how the nurse feels about Hunsacker,” she said, wishing she had more of the chart, to see if there was a charting pattern Hunsacker had depended upon to protect himself. All they’d obtained was the one day’s worth. “She might cover for him or be willing to hang him out to dry. Want me to find out?”

Jack made it a point to check his watch again.

Casey grinned. “There are still one or two people who’ll talk to me. Even at this time of night.”

The night supervisor had worked with Casey before her promotion. Getting up, Casey stretched out the kinks and headed for the phone. “I still hate ignoring Evelyn,” she admitted. “After all, she’s the reason I got into this in the first place.”

“We don’t have so much as a hint over there,” Jack reminded her as he got to his own feet.

Casey shook her head. “But don’t you want to know how he did it?”

“I want to know how Paul Newman makes his salad dressing,” Jack assured her dryly. “That doesn’t mean he’s gonna tell me.”

The phone was over by the pantry door. Helen had stuck little magnetic holy things on the board alongside, and added the cryptic note, “He won’t let you.” Casey ignored it.

“By the way,” Jack offered, back over by the window. “Just so you know. I found out about the ex-wife.”

Casey stopped halfway through the hospital’s number. “And?”

His expression was rueful. “Happily remarried with three kids and a cat.”

It took a moment for Casey to admit she was disappointed. She’d been hoping for validation at another woman’s expense. “Does she talk glowingly of him?”

“Said he was as randy as a barnyard rooster. She put him through school and then he left for the good life.”

“Nothing about intimidation, coercion, abuse.”

“Not over long distance.”

Casey turned back to the phone, pensive. She’d been sure they would have found something with the ex-wife. “Any medical records yet?”

“Not without a subpoena. I’m looking into his work record, though.”

Casey offered a dry grin. “You’ll never hear the words
pain in the ass
about Hunsacker from any official.”

“I’m looking more for cookie crumbler.”

Casey’s call took all of seven minutes. In that time she caught up on the night supervisor’s bad marriage, good kids, backbreaking schedule, and common passion for romance novels. She also found out that the supervisor knew the postpartum nurse in question. She described her as a pretty, vapid girl with the minimum necessary brain cells for the job and a real need to please. As for whether she got along with Hunsacker, the supervisor implied “got along” was a little mild. “Got along” usually didn’t provoke glances that come straight out of the pages of one of her favorite books.

It was all Casey needed to know.

“No chance,” she announced, hanging up. “Whether that nurse remembers when Hunsacker walked in the door is irrelevant. She’ll swear to whatever he tells her.”

She’d been ready to head back to the table when the phone rang again. Casey didn’t even think before picking it up. She just figured that the supervisor had remembered something else and called back.

Silence.

“Hello?” she asked again, her voice automatically slowing.

There was someone there. Casey could feel it, skimming the ends of her nerves like static electricity. Recognition, interest. Malice. An invisible entity touching her with no more than thought and intent.

Casey didn’t even realize that her hand had come up to her chest, pressing against the sudden stab of fear. The silence washed over her, tumescent and dark. There wasn’t a word that needed to be said, because the silence said it all. The heavy, pulsating void carried its own threat.

Click
.

Soft, careful, as if the other person didn’t want to disturb her, as if the contact were polite and proper. Casey battled a flush of revulsion.

“Casey?” Jack asked behind her. “What’s wrong?”

Casey didn’t turn around. She didn’t hang up the phone. For a moment the contact hung suspended, as if even the phone equipment needed time to assimilate the message. And then, the flat clacks of disconnection, and the familiar comfort of a buzz.

It shook Casey out of her reverie.

“Casey?”

She whipped around, his voice too close, as close as the presence on her line. As suddenly threatening. He stood right behind her, his features creased with concern, his cop’s instincts too deadly accurate.

Before he got a chance to slip into Casey’s brain and discover the truth, Casey flashed the policeman a smile.