As we enter the office’s anteroom, I see Hurley standing just inside the far door that leads to Nelson’s office area, staring grimly into the room where Nelson sees his patients. Off in the corner to my left, three EMTs are huddled around someone in a chair. I push past Izzy, taking care to avoid the trail of bloody footprints I can see leading from the office into the anteroom, and take a stand beside Hurley, who acknowledges me with a quick glance. Then I look into the counseling room.
Reclined on the sofa is Carla Andrusson—at least I think it’s Carla since the build and distinctive hair color look like hers and the clothing matches what I saw her wearing earlier. But the face is unrecognizable, misshapen and covered with gore. There is blood everywhere—on the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, the sofa, the chair—and one of Carla’s arms is hanging off the sofa, her hand cupped on the floor, pooled with blood. Inches away from her hand lies a mean-looking gun, and a nasty, acrid smell that I now know is a combination of blood and gunpowder, permeates the air.
My initial instinct is to dash into the room and check her for vital signs. But I quickly realize it would be a waste of time. I feel sick as my hope that Carla had nothing to do with this shatters into pieces.
Izzy steps up beside us and takes in the scene.
Hurley turns to us as if to say something, but then hesitates, staring at me intently. “Are you okay?” he asks, looking concerned. Then he backs away from me. “You’re not going to puke on my shoes again, are you?”
I shake my head.
“What’s the story?” Izzy asks.
“According to the shrink, that’s Carla Andrusson, one of his patients. Apparently she busted in here carrying a gun and went off on the doc about the awful state of her marriage, and how hopeless her life was. Then she shot at the doc before turning the gun on herself.”
“She shot Nelson?” I ask.
Hurley nods.
“Where is he?”
Hurley gestures toward the anteroom and I step back to look out the way I came. I see now that the patient the EMTs are tending to is Luke Nelson. He looks pale and shaky, and there is a blood-soaked bandage around his left arm, but he appears otherwise fine.
Izzy says, “Well, I guess we best get to it.” He sets down his scene case and then dons a biohazard suit, goggles, and gloves. When he realizes I’m not dressing for duty he says, “You coming?”
“In a sec. I need to talk to Hurley first.”
As Izzy makes his way into the room, I turn and speak to Hurley in a low voice. “This is all my fault.”
“Your fault? How do you figure?”
“Carla was helping me with something and we . . . um . . . sort of discovered something about Nelson.”
“Such as?”
“You have to hear it.”
“Hear it?” Hurley says, looking confused. “From whom?”
I start to tell him but I’m interrupted by the sound of Nelson’s voice behind me.
“This is an awful thing,” he says. “Clearly I missed something. I didn’t think she was suicidal. I feel so responsible.”
I whirl around and find myself face-to-face with the creep. “Of course you’re responsible, you snake. What did you expect? You—”
I’m cut off when Hurley grabs my arm and pulls me back. “Mattie, what the hell?” he hisses.
At the same time, one of the EMTs says to Nelson, “Sir, you really need to go to the hospital to get checked out. Even though the bullet only grazed your arm, you might need a couple of stitches. And your blood pressure is extremely high. You need something to lower it.”
“A couple of deep slices across your throat ought to do it,” I toss out angrily.
“Damn it, Mattie,” Hurley says. He yanks me by the arm to the far corner of the room, positioning himself between me and Nelson. He grabs me by the shoulders using his body to block my view of the others, but I can hear the EMTs walking Nelson back out to the anteroom. Hurley turns and shuts the door behind them before shifting his focus back to me. “What the hell has gotten into you?” he asks. His tone is more concerned than angry but I can tell he is a little peeved.
When I look up at him, I manage to calm myself some, momentarily afloat in the serene blue depths of his eyes. His body is so close I can feel the heat radiating from him, and a part of me wants to collapse into him, have him wrap his arms around me, and just stay there. Forever. But I’m too sick with disgust, guilt, and sadness to do anything but sag against the wall beneath the weight of his hands.
“Nelson is a sick, perverted bastard,” I tell him. “He was drugging Carla Andrusson and having sex with her during her appointments without her knowing it. And if he was doing it to her, I’m betting he was doing it to others, too.”
Hurley’s eyebrows shoot up nearly to his hairline. “And you know this how, exactly?”
“I have it on tape.”
“You have videotape of Nelson having sex with drugged patients.” It isn’t a question, but rather a statement, made with more than an innuendo of skepticism. I’m not sure if his doubt is due to disbelief or shock, but either way, it’s partially justified.
“No, not videotape. It’s audio.”
Hurley closes his eyes and shakes his head as if he’s trying to rattle something in there loose. “Let me see if I’ve got this right,” he says, dropping his hands from my shoulders. I miss the warmth of them immediately. “You have a tape of the sound of Nelson having sex with a drugged patient?”
“Yes, with Carla.”
“How can you tell she’s drugged? And how can you be sure what you’re hearing is the sound of sex?” I start to answer but he doesn’t let me get a syllable out. “And even if you’re sure that’s what it is, how do you know it wasn’t consensual? How do we know who exactly is making the noises? Do they announce themselves on the tape? And just how the hell did you get your hands on something like that in the first place?”
I realize he’s going to be pissed when I tell him what I did. Worse yet, I’m afraid I might have compromised any case we have against Nelson since the tape likely can’t be used as legal evidence.
I see movement from the corner of my eye and see Izzy standing in the doorway to the counseling room eavesdropping on our discussion. And that’s when I wonder if my foolishness might also cost me my job.
Belatedly I see the ramifications of what I’ve done, and the very steep price I might have to pay for my dogged suspicions of Nelson and my half-baked plot to catch him out. Though it’s chump change compared to Carla’s cost. With this one single act I may have let a killer go free, ruined a handful of lives, and lost my job, Hurley’s respect, and Izzy’s friendship. I can tell tonight is going to be a two-carton session with Ben and Jerry.
I take the recorder out of my purse and hand it to Hurley. “I met with Carla Andrusson yesterday to talk with her about Nelson and his alibi. And in the course of doing that, I discovered that something about her sessions seemed wrong. Carla thought so too, though she didn’t know why. So I convinced her to take my recorder along in her purse. It taped her entire session.”
Hurley squeezes his eyes closed and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why would you do that?” he asks. His question has the same ring to it my mother has when she asks me why I’m divorcing David: abject disappointment.
“I’ve had the sense all along that something is wrong with that guy,” I tell him. “And I was right. The tape proves it.”