There had been remarks made in the papers. Matisak was picking up cues from the news items. He must have put it together, must have decided that her staying on this long on a case that was supposedly closed signaled that there was more. Ironically he had more confidence in her intuition than her superiors did. How fitting, she thought, that the only one who had any faith in her at the moment was a madman and serial killer.
“ You're right, you know,” he said. “I was wrong before. Helfer is crazy, and he has been a bad boy, but he doesn't really turn into the Claw any more than he's this Ovid character. He's just a weak kitchen mop, a dishrag, used by the Claw, set up by him. That's what you believe and that's what I've come to believe.”
“ What have you based your belief on, Matisak?”
“ You, Dr. Coran. I'm basing it on you.”
“ A vote of confidence from you isn't going to do me much good.”
“ But it has.”
“ What're you talking about?”
“ Why do you suppose O'Rourke allowed you to stay on?”
“ Son of a bitch,” she muttered into the phone.
“ That may be, but all the same-”
“ Why are you even interested, Matisak?”
“ You know the answer to that. Besides which this guy is as cunning and dangerous as I am, and I wouldn't want to read of your death, Jessica. I still fervently believe you're mine, and one day when you least expect it, Doctor, you and I will return to that interrupted dance. I still taste the blood I drew from your throat as fresh and as wonderful as if it were only-”
“ Shut up!” she shouted.
“ Look for a nurse who knew this guy Archer when he was a punk intern.”
She hung up on the madman in Philadelphia. She was shaken by both his threat and the revelation that O'Rourke was more willing to accept the recommendation of a convicted serial killer than her own. But she was even more shaken by his suggestion to investigate Archer's past. Her reports were being funneled to Matisak. She resolved to have it out with Chief O'Rourke on her return.
Matisak was playing his own game of averages. Since he knew that Simon Archer had interned somewhere, the doctor would have had to work with many other doctors and nurses during his residency. Doctors kept secrets while nurses didn't. Matisak also knew that the grueling “boot camp” of a residency could make or break a would-be doctor. With all his time to think about the case from his safe and objective distance, Matisak was telling her what she already knew.
Jessica had embarked on her own search into Archer's background, and it had quickly led to rumors of the sort that cling to anyone in the profession-her included-that the doctor who sliced and diced the dead perhaps enjoyed himself just a little too much for the comfort of others. So came the usual stigma. Archer was called names behind his back. Just as Jessica was called “the Scavenger,” Dr. Archer'd come to be known as both “Arrowhead” and “Dr. Ghoul” for his penchant of getting his “head” deep into his work, and for the undeniably long hours he spent in the company of the female bodies in particular. Morgue humor was something that followed every M.E. she had ever known, but usually such remarks were made by cops and lab assistants in gallows jest with some redeeming quality of black humor about them. In Archer's case, for some unaccountable reason, the remarks seemed devoid of humor, black, white, yellow or otherwise.
She continued to dig into his past, and the trail led to a retired nurse named Felona Hankersen. Lou Pierce had been persuaded to drive Jessica into the ghetto where Mrs. Hankersen lived. The thin, once pretty Mrs. Hankersen didn't want to talk to her, had nothing to say and pleaded with her to leave, but Jessica kept hammering at her with a barrage of questions about Dr. Simon Archer. As soon as Felona Hankersen heard the name, she blanched, weakened and crumpled, retreating to the safety that the interior of her apartment afforded.
Inside, several grandchildren scampered and played with toy pistols.
“ I took early retirement. Left that part of me behind. Don't know nothing about Dr. Archer anymore.”
“ I just want to ask you a few questions,” Jessica insisted, baring her teeth.
“ I've been out of that so long. I can't help you.”
“ From your record, from what I saw, you were an excellent nurse, and then something happened. A lawsuit settled out of court-a wrongful-death claim-and suddenly you were taking early retirement. Is that right?”
Her eyes had filled with thick tears.
“ I'm sorry, Mrs. Hankersen, but it's very important.”
“ I… I took the fall,” she muttered.
“ You were blamed for the boy's death, Mrs. Hankersen? Is that right?”
“ That was a lie!” Her tears left milky gray streaks along her black face.
“ Who lied, Mrs. Hankersen?”
“ What difference it make now? I just don't want no more of it. Said my piece at the time and there wasn't one of them wanted to hear the truth, not one!”
“ I do, Mrs. Hankersen… I do.”
“ It's been too long.”
“ Please.”
“ They believed the intern and I was quietly let go, and the parents were paid to keep shut. Officially the boy died of pneumonia with complications, but it all come about because of a mistake.”
“ Whose mistake?”
“ Mistaken dosage.”
“ Who ordered the dosage?”
“ Dr. Archer, but then you already know that. Whatchu need me for?”
“ You told the hospital authorities? There's no record of any such thing.”
Her eyes flared in anger. “You expect there to be? I saw and I told, and it got me gone. I questioned Dr. Archer's motives but nobody was listening. Now, I don't care to talk 'bout it no more. Now, if you will, please, just go.”
“ I can't do that,” Jessica fired back. “Please, what you say to me could save another's life.”
The elderly woman's eyes had been held by Jessica's gaze, but now they went to her trembling hands. Jessica reached across and covered her hands with her own. “I know it's difficult.”
“ He… the little boy…” she began tentatively, her lip quivering, “was gettin' better when he… he got into some mischief. Climbed out of bed night before… got to wanderin' the halls, you know. God… good God…” She sniffled and fought back more tears. “I… I wasn't believing a word the boy said. He looked like one of my own when they was little, sweet thing, and I just thought he was having a nightmare, you know, or maybe he was full of a devilish imagination… I don't know.”
“ What did the boy tell you?”
“ Told me”-she gasped for air-”told me he saw one of the doctors, and the man was cuttin' out a woman's heart and… and that he was eating the heart.”
Jessica drew in her own breath now, surprised by this, having expected something else. “Did he say where he had seen this?”
“ Somewhere in the basement. He was running when I caught him. Ran frightened into my arms.”
“ Basement in a hospital,” she muttered. It added up to the morgue in her mind.
“ Boy said, this doctor had blood all over his face, like a hungry dog. Said he saw the boy scramblin' outta there.”
“ And the boy was hysterical?”
“ Screamin' this mad tale? Yeah, he was hysterical.”
“ And you gave him sedatives? Valium?”
“ I didn't put nothing into that boy,” she said Firmly.
“ The reports say otherwise.”
“ The reports are full of lies.”
“ What steps did you take, then?”
She looked off as if to do so helped her think. “I called for help. Called the boy's doctor, who, over the phone, prescribed sedatives.”
“ Then you administered the sedative?”
“ I did, on doctor's orders.”
“ A Dr. Grisham?”
“ Yeah, Grisham… later threw me to the wolves to protect one of his own.”
“ Then what? Did Grisham come down?”
She shook her head in slow, thoughtful motion, saying, “No. Said to get the resident intern to look in on the boy.”
“ Archer?”