Angel of Mercy

Angel Of Mercy

By Andrew Neiderman

Synopsis:

Whenever one of nurse Faye Sullivan’s patients dies, her twin sister Susie moves in on surviving bereaved spouses who soon afterward die as well, and retired detective Frankie Samuels finds the occurrences suspicious.

Faye Sullivan drove into the parking lot of the Murrays’ apartment complex and hurried out of her car toward their unit. She was dressed in her nurse’s uniform and looked as though she had just come from work.

She pressed the buzzer, waited, then pressed the buzzer again. When no one came to the door, she dug under the welcome mat and came up with a key. She inserted it in the lock and opened the door.

“Susie?” she called. “Susie, are you still here?”

Faye raised her eyebrows quizzically in the ensuing silence. Her heartbeat quickened. Her sister had been cleaning and caring for Sam Murray since late in the afternoon, but when Faye called from the hospital just before the end of her private-duty shift, there was no answer. She knew what that usually meant.

Faye took a deep breath and made her way directly to Sam Murray’s bedroom. She couldn’t help but notice how neat and tidy the apartment was—clearly her sister’s handiwork.

“Susie!” she screamed as she peered in through the bedroom door. She approached the bed. Sixty-six-yearold Sam Murray lay on his back, his left arm dangling over the side, his face locked in a look that suggested surprise more than anything else. Under his right hand, which was placed palm down on his chest, was a framed picture of him and his wife.

Faye lifted Sam’s wrist and felt for his pulse. Then she looked up and shook her head as if she were giving an anxious relative the bad news.

She placed his arm beside his torso. After she closed his eyes, she turned to the night table where Susie had left the hypodermic needle and the bottle of insulin.

“A wad of cotton,” she remarked out loud. She scooped it up and placed it in her pocket. Then she dug into her uniform pocket and pulled out a pair of her surgical gloves. She picked up the hypodermic needle and empty insulin bottle. She wiped them both clean before squeezing Sam’s fingers around them and placing them back on the night table. Then she perused the room once more before turning to leave the apartment.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled up to her own apartment complex and parked in her carport space.

She slammed her car door hard and hurried up the steps. Jabbing her key into the lock, she pushed the door open and stepped into the apartment.

Her babyblue eyes were cold with determination. Her normally soft, full lips were stretched thin with resolve.

“Susie!”

Her twin sister limped out of the kitchen and smiled.

Except for the brace on her leg and the fact that her hair was shoulder length while Faye’s was cut neatly just below her ears, they were identical. They even had the same dimple in their left cheek.

“Hi, Faye. Guess what? I did all our supermarket shopping already. I thought you should rest. You have a full schedule ahead of you, special nursing from twelve to eight every day for Mrs. Sylvia Livingston, right?”

“Forget about Mrs. Livingston. ! just came from the Murray apartment.”

“Oh. Did you see the smile on his lips?”

“Smile? What smile? I saw a dead man. That’s what I saw,” Faye snapped.

“He smiled like that when he set sight on Mrs. Murray, and realized they would be together again forever.

I’m sure.”

“You fool. You little fool. Do you know what I found on the night table? A wad of cotton dabbed in alcohol.” She held it up.

“What? Oh. I just try to do it right,” Susie said.

“Even a half-assed policeman would wonder why a man about to commit suicide would care about disinfecting the area around the needle puncture.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that. I don’t think of the police.”

“Well, you should.”

Faye plopped into the easy chair

“I’m sorry, Faye. I know I should, but I’m thinking too much about how happy they’re going to be when they’re together again. That’s why I used insulin. It was her medicine.

“I know what her medicine was. I was her private nurse until she died, wasn’t I?”

“Just like Daddy and Mommy, they’ll be together again,” Susie said, her face beaming.

“If Daddy and Mommy are truly together again, I assure you, they’re not happy,” Faye quipped.

“What? Of course they are, Faye. How can you say such a thing?”

Faye was silent.

“How can you?” Susie was almost in tears.

“Let’s not talk about it, Susie. I’m not in the mood right now.” She looked up sharply. “We’re going to have to leave another place.”

“No, we won’t,” Susie insisted. “You stopped in after me and made sure everything was all right, didn’t you’?” Susie smiled and relaxed.

“Just like you always do.”

Faye stared at her.

“I know you look after me. I know you always will.

You’re my sister.”

Faye continued to stare at her. She always did look after her.

“What am I going to do with you, Susie?”

“I don’t know. What?”

Faye just shook her head.

“Did you see how clean their apartment was?” Susie asked proudly.

“I saw.”

“There was this terrible stain in the rug. I had to work like the devil to get it out. You would have been exhausted, but I kept imagining Mrs.

Murray complaining.”

“And she would have, too,” Faye said. “All she ever talked about was that apartment. I can still hear her talking, stringing together one household experience after another, reminiscing about her home and her family chores as though she were telling old war stories, outstanding accomplishments.”

“I know. Remember Mother? Remember how she would know if someone had moved the salt and peppershakers two inches? Like the mother bear in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Mother would go raving through the house, crying, ‘Who’s been in my kitchen? Who’s been sitting in my chair?””

“Mother was a neurotic,” Faye said. “Which was what drove Daddy away from her eventually.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“She became obsessed with cleanliness, with orderliness. Eventually, she even regarded sex as something dirty, no matter if it was sex between two married people.”

“Stop it, Faye.”

“You can’t blame Daddy for the things he did.”

“I don’t blame him for anything. He didn’t do anything. He loved Mommy and they love each other now and forever… in heaven.”

“Right,” Faye said sitting back. “In heaven.”

Susie sat down and folded her hands in her lap, her face brightening like the face of a little girl about to be told a wonderful fairy tale.

“Tell me about your new patient, Mrs. Livingston.

What’s wrong with her?”

“She had a coronary and she’s just been moved out of CCU because the doctor said she made enough improvement.”

“Just like Mother,” Susie said, “only her doctor was wrong.”

“Mother didn’t have a private-duty nurse, and by the time the floor nurse got to her, she’d already succumbed to the second heart seizure,”

Faye said.

But Susie’s comparison made her think. Mrs. Livingston had been out of CCU almost the same length of time as their mother had. Tomorrow would be the exact number of days Mother had survived the first attack, and Mother, just like Mrs. Livingston, had had a strong, defiant heart, an organ that beat on almost out of anger. Sometimes it did seem to Faye as if parts of the bodies she nursed were at war with other parts. It wasn’t a pleasant sight: people disappointed with their own kidneys, lungs, gall bladders, talking about their bodies as if they had been betrayed by trusted friends.

Nursing was a great deal more demanding than people thought, especially private-duty nursing. True, the patients were often comatose, and even if they were not, they were too sick to make many requests, but look how it affected her private life. Attractive and nearly thirty, she should at least have a meaningful relationship. Instead, she was living with and caring for her handicapped twin.

But most of the men Faye had met had resented her dedication to nursing anyway. She knew she should regret that, but she didn’t. No matter how they complained about the time she gave to her work, she didn’t regret a moment of it. Only now she had other problems.

Susie was getting out of hand. Soon, soon she would have to do something serious about her, something that would break her heart, but something that had to be done. She couldn’t let her continue believing that she had been put on this earth to be an angel of mercy.

Could she?

“He’s going into the wash!” Frankie Samuels screamed.

Rosina Flores turned the wheel sharply, sending their patrol car bouncing over the sidewalk and up to the top of the knoll. The hill descended into a cement gully constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent the sort of flash flooding that had nearly destroyed Palm Springs in the past. Still in the throes of a major drought, the area was bone dry, and there was no promise of rain in the white clouds that lay listlessly against the soft blue sky.

Their robbery suspect was attempting to escape by driving his motorcycle down the wash. They watched him maneuver over the rocks and earth. It looked like he might be successful, but at the bottom of the hill, he took a spin and flew headfirst over his handlebars.

Frankie got out of the car. He was five-feet-eleven, fifty-eight years of age, and his two hundred and ten pounds was a burden, most of it accumulated at the bar reviewing old war stories with retired cops.

With soft brown eyes, thick brown hair, and a hairline that was barely receding, Frankie didn’t show his age. Up until now, he had lived hard, too, rushing at life with a bull dozer mentality as if he would miss something if he didn’t forge ahead at full tilt. His impulsiveness had gotten him into trouble on a number of occasions from kindergarten on, but especially since William Nolan had become chief of detectives in Palm Springs. An ex-military policeman, Nolan was a teetotaler and something of a physical fitness fanatic.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Frankie muttered under his , breath. Nolan had deliberately made Rosina Flores Frankie’s partner in order to rein in his temper and his barroom language. Frankie resented Nolan’s aim, but he sincerely respected Rosina, who, in addition to being the best shot with a thirty-eight, was also the most intelligent member of the department. She was certainly heads above Nolan.

The suspect, a Caucasian who looked about twenty, rolled down to the wash but unexpectedly got to his feet and started to run.

“Shit,” Frankie said as he began to run down the hill.

“Wait, Frankie,” Rosina called. “We’ll get back into the car and cut him off before Gene Autry Trail.”

“You get back in the car. I’ll pursue on foot,” he insisted.

The trip down the rocky hill was difficult. Frankie slipped and slid and cursed when he scraped the palm of his right hand in an attempt to keep his footing. Finally, he hit the pavement and started after the younger man. Nolan’s criticism of Frankie’s weight and physical condition began to replay in his mind. With every added breath and stride, Frankie relived the most re cent dressing down.

“You know, Samuels, I have nightmares about you.

I see you pursuing a suspect, running down Palm Springs Boulevard on one of those summer days when the temperature hits a hundred and ten, and you bust a heart valve all over the sidewalk. The next day, the Desert Sun headlines: ‘Overweight Palm Springs Detective Drops Dead in Pursuit of Shoplifter.” Have you lost any weight since we last spoke about it, Samuels.

“Couple of pounds.”

“It looks like they were off your brain.”

Frankie hated to admit it, but as the blood pounded and his breath grew shorter, he realized Nolan wasn’t wrong. He increased his stride, swinging his arms out and pounding the cement with every bit of energy he could muster. This son of a bitch wasn’t going to get away from Frankie Samuels. No one had ever done it before. He just had to keep close on his ass and drive him toward Rosina.

But the bastard did something unexpected when he looked back, maybe because he saw how hard Frankie was huffing and puffing, his tongue hanging out like a hound dog’s. He turned and started up the bank, digging his boots in with expertise and success.

Frankie felt his body go “Oh no” as he turned with the suspect and started to charge up that hill. His thigh and calf muscles felt as if they were being jabbed with needles and his heart was pounding so hard, he thought it would split his chest open. He started to reach for his pistol, deciding to fire a warning shot, when it hit him like a bullet from a gun inside him, shattering his chest as if it were made of thin crystal.

He dropped his pistol and clutched his heart. The world around him spun. He gasped and tried to lean forward but was pushed back until the sky appeared. A moment later his back hit the ground and all went black.

He woke up in the ambulance and saw Jack Martin, the twenty-six-yearold paramedic who was on his bowling team, gazing down at him with a smirk on his face as the vehicle careened around a turn and sped down Sunrise Way toward the hospital. “How are you doin’, Grandpa?”