The Pain Nurse (Will Borders: Cincinnati Casebook 1)

“He was Theresa Chambers’ husband—estranged husband. We always thought he did it. He was our first suspect.”

Will told her about Chambers, while she remembered what Gary had said that first night, about the husband always being the prime suspect. She felt so tight inside, like all her organs had compressed together and were being wrapped around like the rubber band that propelled a child’s plywood airplane.

“So you thought he would pick him.”

“Yes,” Will said. “But I had to do it right, run it with several mug shots. I’ve been wrong before.”

“Really? You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

He seemed abashed. She laughed. “It’s fun to see you in your element.” He was sensitive. That was a nice quality in a man, especially a cop. But she switched to a serious voice.

“Did you show him pictures of Judd and Gary?”

“I did. He just glazed over, like he didn’t know them. The same with the other pictures. He only recognized Bud Chambers.”

“So why didn’t you arrest this Chambers in the first place?” Cheryl Beth asked.

“We worked it hard, and then we caught Craig Factor and the semen from Theresa matched.”

“But you were never convinced?”

“No. I knew some corrupt cops were covering for him. It’s not like this never happens. A few years ago, a cop was messing around with his wife’s sister. The sister knifes the wife to death—her own sister. We always thought the cop was present at the homicide and covering for his sister-in-law. Some of his buddies—rotten cops—gave him an alibi. Then they hired a lawyer, a former corrupt cop himself, and he gets the cop off and gets a sweetheart deal for the sister-in-law. When I joined Internal Investigations the guy retired. He came up to me and said he knew I was going to get him, and he was right. So this stuff happens. It did with Bud Chambers.”

“I just don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but…”

“But?”

“I don’t know…”

“Lennie’s not the best witness, but he’s a start. I can give this to Dodds and let him do the rest. I can spend my time learning how to walk again.”

She wondered about that. The murder had seemed to animate him, transport him out of his troubles.

“I’m not convinced.”

He seemed flustered, hunched down in the seat. “So, convince me otherwise.”

“Well, first of all, Gary still scares me. It’s like he’s lost it. When he was standing in that room, swinging his hand like it was a knife, I could see him killing Christine in a rage.”

“I understand, but I’ve never told you all the details about the Mount Adams Slasher.” He went on to recount the similarities to Christine’s murder: the folded clothes, the murder weapon hidden as if to taunt the police, and the amputated ring finger. By the time he was through, she had pulled the car to the curb and shifted into park.

“I know it’s upsetting,” he said.

“I’ve seen worse.” She tried to toughen her voice. But she hadn’t lived worse. She had lived all these “MOs” that night in Christine’s office—alone—where she had been summoned by a message that nobody remembered taking. “It was as if someone wanted me to come down there. To witness it, or to be killed along with her?” That night’s timeline telescoped in and out in her mind. “Maybe someone knew I would be back at the hospital that night. That’s not brain surgery. I go back a lot—people hurt at night. Maybe it wasn’t Christine who left the message for me at the nurses’ station at all. Only, I spent more time with that patient, and maybe I was late getting down to the basement. My God, maybe I was meant to be killed, too. Why?”

Will adjusted his left leg. Even though he wasn’t in pain, she could tell he was in constant discomfort. Finally, he said, “The only thing that joined you and Dr. Lustig was Gary. And the method of the killing would mean he killed the three other women, and planted the evidence that implicated Craig Factor. A cop could do it. A respected doctor? Talk about brain surgery.”

“That’s what he does for a living,” she said humorlessly. “He’s very bright. And he knows the layout of the hospital. He would know about the old morgue and the elevator. Someone is trying to kill me! What if it’s him? What are you smiling at?”

“You.” He paused. “You’d make a good detective.” He wanted to say how happy he was to be out with her, how he loved her voice, with its light Southern accent that made her sentences sound like singing. It wouldn’t be right to say any of that. “Cheryl Beth, if this were an ordinary homicide, I’d ask you what enemies you had, although I can’t imagine you have any. I’d ask you why someone might want you dead. But this is the Slasher. If he’s after you, it’s because he thinks you witnessed the murder.”

“I’m just not sure.”

“You said, ‘first of all.’ What else?”