The Pain Nurse (Will Borders: Cincinnati Casebook 1)

“Is that what you studied in school?”

“No. It took a long time for pain management to get respect. A lot of doctors didn’t think pain was a critical issue. But I scrubbed in with a fabulous surgeon. What a character! He was a tyrant. Every day he would scream at me, ‘Had enough?!’ I would scream back, ‘I like you!’” She looked at Dodds to see if he was capable of a smile. His face stared ahead like the bow of a battleship. “But he was a big patient advocate and really cared about pain. I would check on his patients the day after surgery. He taught me a lot. I worked in the OR for eight years. Then I worked in a hospice for three years. They were doing cutting-edge stuff. Eventually, I ended up doing pain management seminars and Memorial hired me.”

“But why pain?”

“It really matters. I hate to see people suffer.”

“So this is personal. You had some experience with this in your life?”

“Yes,” she said, her mouth dry. “Someone I loved.”

They rode several minutes in silence before he spoke again. She didn’t like being alone with her thoughts and the silence.

“Where do you work?”

She looked at him quizzically.

“Do you work in a ward, in the recovery room?”

“I work all over.”

“So you have the run of the hospital. Interesting.”

The way he said it made her uncomfortable again. He wasn’t just making conversation.

“Detective…”

Just then something dark raced across the windshield and shattered on the roof of the car. She visibly jumped. Around them were lovely derelict buildings and an empty street, no sign of an assailant.

“Just the neighborhood knuckleheads.” Dodds drove on at the same steady pace. “I don’t have time to go start a riot tonight.”

He wasn’t smiling. He looked as if he never smiled. She looked back to see several silhouettes emerge into the street behind them. He drove two blocks over to Main Street and turned north. It was a cold night but people were on the sidewalks, nicely dressed and holding hands, going from bar to bar. The restored old storefronts glittered, a startling difference from the disrepair and neglect of even three blocks away. She looked the other way when they passed the bar where she had met Christine that night. They sat in a rear booth and drank. Christine had a martini, and Cheryl Beth ordered her usual Bushmills on the rocks. One was enough. Two was probably more than she could handle. She had drunk two. Christine had downed three martinis. A pair of handsome young men had actually hit on them. Cheryl Beth pulled her coat tighter against her.

“Detective.” She recovered her voice. “Why are you taking me to the hospital? Why were you following me tonight? I thought you had arrested the man who…”

“I still consider it an open case.” He spoke calmly, no malice in his voice, but Cheryl Beth felt her limbs go cold.

“That nutball didn’t do it,” he went on. “You might have. You have motive, because you were sleeping with her husband. You have opportunity: you have the run of the hospital. You can be anywhere, any time. Apparently you met with her the night she was killed. Maybe you two fought, and you followed her back to the hospital…”

“Wait a minute!”

“I haven’t read you your rights,” he said—same calm but domineering voice. “So if I were you, I’d just listen. Now it turns out that your lover lied about where he was that night. He has no alibi. So tonight I ask myself, what happens when Cheryl Beth Wilson leaves work? As it turns out, she drives out to Kenwood and trash picks. I find that very interesting.”

“I can explain.” She had no idea what she would say next.

Dodds ignored her. “Now maybe on television, something like this happens and the story makes it out to be some boogeyman, some serial killer. In the real world, it’s almost always somebody who knows ’em. Estranged spouses and romantic triangles. It’s usually that simple.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m warning you…”

“No.” Cheryl Beth could hear the sharpness in her voice. “You’re telling me you didn’t arrest the killer today? It’s not Lennie?”

Dodds was silent. She felt a sudden wave of nausea knock through her.

“You’re wrong about me. And there’s still a killer out there and somebody was standing in my damned flower beds looking into my house—after Christine was killed!” She knew she was over the top. She didn’t care. “Now, you either arrest me, or let me out at the hospital, because a patient needs me.”

They were pulling into the ER parking lot. “Don’t go far,” he said. “I know how to find you. When you’re done, come down to the basement. You know where.”