He smiled at how easily he’d sent Mark rushing off half-cocked. A carefully staged mention of smotherings and eugenics, combined with the young man’s lifelong resentment of all things Braden, and he assumed the worst, taking Lucy with him. Such a hothead, just like his father.
What better way to deflect an investigation that might discover his former baby business – purely a commercial venture, albeit illegal – than have his chief accuser run around making the charges so extreme no one would take them seriously? Just imagine, Charles Braden III as some crazed fanatic who had murdered deformed newborns, then buried them under the orphanage lawn. He chuckled at the outlandishness of it.
Of course, setting Mark up like that had been risky, but after O’Connor arrived on the scene he’d had to take the chance. A more sober questioning of the birth records might have revealed the truth.
Still, as much as it might be a masterstroke luring them to their deaths the way they had tonight, everything would have been over and neater had they died in the blast. For one thing, they couldn’t have saved the talkative old crone. Fortunately, she still didn’t pose much of a threat. According to one of his cronies at Saratoga General, she was a “likely,” as in “likely to croak.”
One reassuring fact – there would be such a media furor in the wake of charging Collins with so many murders, including Kelly’s, none of the recent events in Hampton Junction would garner much scrutiny anyway. His past secrets, and the present one at Nucleus Laboratories, should be safe.
As long as his men found the woman with Victor’s files. They’d been damn lucky to overhear that conversation.
He took another sip of espresso.
As he waited for the buzz to hit, he heard the thud of heavy rotors arriving over the hospital and raised his eyes.
Must be Chaz’s case, he thought.
Chaz huddled in the doorway leading to the heliport on the hospital roof. The blast of the rotors stirred up clouds of dust and debris, making it necessary for him to turn away, protect his eyes, and cover his mouth. Beside him the men and women of the ER team did the same. He stayed apart from them a little to keep out of their way as they would be the first to the helicopter. However, they were all puzzled by how little advance information they’d been given. All they knew from dispatch: they were receiving two hypothermia cases, a man and a woman, one of them a near-drowning victim in critical condition. Normally they would get vitals, names, and circumstances. Nobody liked surprise packages in this business.
The craft rocked to a landing on the pad, the rotors whined down, and the ER people, crouching low, ran for the doors. The crew already had them open and slid a stretcher halfway out the craft to their waiting hands. As nurses, residents, and orderlies crowded around their charge, Chaz, still hanging back, couldn’t tell if it was the man or woman. He was able to see that IVs were up and running through warming coils, that one of the attendants was ventilating the victim, that the oxygen passed through a tube immersed in what he assumed was a basin of hot water, a pretty good improvisation. Wires lead to an O2 saturation meter, a catheter bag dangling from a side rail indicated urinary output – Jesus, he thought, everything’s been done. There must be a doctor on board.
Someone still inside the ambulance handed out a half dozen tubes of blood, then a syringe wedged in a styrofoam cup overflowing with crushed ice, the standard way to preserve serum slated for acid-base testing. No doubt about it, a physician had gift-wrapped this case so it could bypass emergency and go straight to intensive care. Chaz stepped forward to take charge when a nurse lifted down a portable monitor that beeped out a very slow pulse. As she moved to secure the piece of equipment at the foot of the stretcher, the victim’s face came into view.
“Lucy O’Connor?” Chaz said, so stunned he waded into the throng of people who were beginning to wheel the woman into the hospital, getting in their way.
“Hold it right there, Chaz!” said a man’s voice over the noise of the helicopter. “Your services won’t be required.”
He looked up to see Mark Roper, wrapped in blankets but standing, being helped out of the passenger compartment. Stunned, Chaz yelled, “What the hell’s happened?”
Mark brushed off supporting hands and walked right by him, leaving the ambulance attendants shaking their heads in dismay.
“He ought to be on a stretcher,” one of them said to Chaz.
“Yeah,” echoed his colleague. “Instead, he took care of her the whole way.”
“I’m fine!” Mark yelled over his shoulder. “First I get Lucy to ICU.” He swung his gaze to Chaz. “Then you and I are going to talk.”
Melanie Collins ran across the parking lot toward the front door. She could still make this work. Her gaze traveled up to the floor where Earl lay sedated and helpless. Acutely psychotic patients had been known to possess super-human strength, enough to smash a window despite being drugged, and jump. An early-morning haze of dust, exhaust, and grime blurred the outlines of the building and would provide her with the cover she’d need to break the glass with a chair and shove him through. He overpowered my attempt to stop him, she could claim, appearing suitably shaken and distraught, maybe even verging on hysterical, after screaming for help.
But high overhead, a streak of azure showed through tattered gray clouds and tried to pin a blue ribbon on the start of an otherwise mediocre-looking day. It just might succeed, judging by how quickly the smog seemed to be dissipating. By the time she got to his room, there’d not be enough mist to conceal her from the street.
No, better stick to her original plan. She slipped a hand into the pocket of her lab coat and fingered the loaded syringe of short-acting insulin. It might take an hour to produce seizures, perhaps longer, but in the end would be neater. Convulsions were a natural complication of the E. coli 0157:H7 organism; it accumulated on receptor sites in the brain as well as in the kidney. And she’d be at the resuscitation stressing that fact, loading him up with antiseizure medication that wouldn’t work and dismissing the need to give him sugar if anyone suggested it. She didn’t necessarily need to kill Earl, just let the seizures knock off enough neurons that he would never talk again. Like Bessie.
Still, having to rush a case like this made her uneasy. She usually took days to plan her approach and pick her times. Even with Bessie, rushed as that was, she’d prepared carefully, substituting the contents of a multidose heparin bottle with just enough insulin that the nurse would draw up the shot, then throw the bottle away. The result – someone else gave the agent and disposed of the evidence. That’s how she liked doing things – cleverly, cleanly, and at a distance. Earl would be a hands-on operation.
At first the corridor was empty when she arrived, it being another twenty minutes before people would begin to show up for shift change. Then halfway down the hallway a nurse emerged from a patient’s room carrying a flashlight. She’d be conducting the last bed check before going off duty. “Body search,” the residents called it, since this was when the people who’d died in their sleep were usually discovered.
“Morning,” said Melanie. “Dr. Braden phoned me about Dr. Garnet. How is he now?”
“Out like a light,” said the woman.
“I’ll just peek in on him.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
The nurse shrugged and went on with her work.
Melanie paused outside Earl’s door, checked that no one else was near, and went in.
Charles Braden finished a second espresso and glanced at his watch. What was taking Chaz so long? He must be having trouble with his case, but they ought to be spending this time mapping out the best way to approach the dean.