The door opened on the blackest dark he had ever experienced. The little overhead light of the elevator barely penetrated past the threshold. A musty smell assaulted his nose. The door started to close as if it didn’t want to linger in such blackness. Will dug into his fanny pack and pulled out the small flashlight he had kept in it since long before it became his bag of provisions in the hospital. Powered by two C-cell batteries, it was enough to illuminate a few feet in front of him. Still, he hesitated and stayed in the elevator car, keeping the door open. Ahead of him was a ten-foot-deep space with scuffed gray walls and rubber mats over a broken gray linoleum floor. No light switch was visible. Then the space made an abrupt right turn.
Will hadn’t been afraid of the dark since he was six years old. He had to banish that fear to take care of his younger brother, who had night terrors. It was a good attribute for a policeman, who might be alone in the empty night inside one of the abandoned industrial cathedrals of Cincinnati. But he still hesitated, studying the utilitarian walls ahead of him, somehow comforted by the fragile light of the elevator car. But there were questions. Questions he and Dodds had never answered. It had been that kind of case. The door banged against his hand and the car started buzzing. Will clenched the small flashlight in his teeth and wheeled himself out onto the rubber mat. The elevator closed behind him and he was alone, armed with the small cone of light.
His hands pushed lightly, moving the well-machined wheels of the wheelchair forward. He stopped at the angle and took the flashlight in his hand to play across the next space. A nearby wall held an old time clock. Like so many antiques, it had a black metal plaque with the manufacturer’s name and “Cincinnati, Ohio.” So many things used to be made in this city. The clock was broken at 12:13 and covered with dust. He made a quick sweep with the light and at first thought this might have been an old kitchen. It was a large room with tile walls, metal shelves, large sinks, and what looked like freezer doors. Water and rust stains marked the walls. A rickety wooden ladder sat askew against one. The silence wrapped around him.
But it was no kitchen. It was a morgue.
A shiver slithered up his left shoulder blade to his neck. It was a silly thing. He had been in countless morgues. Here, the distinctive porcelain autopsy tables were still in place. In new postmortem labs they tended to be stainless steel and fancy. This place was old and probably hadn’t been used in years. The old elevator must have been used to bring down the dead, out of the sight of families and patients. Still, the smell of decaying flesh lingered. Will gave it a once-over with the flashlight and rolled toward a set of double doors.
He knew he was on borrowed time. The pain meds Cheryl Beth had given him would soon wear off and he was far from the nurses’ station in neuro-rehab. He pushed the chair to the double doors. They were secure, but he noticed the remains of a push bar. The bar was gone but the lever was still in place. He leaned against it and the doors gave way. Now he was in a long, wide, dark corridor, but a bank of fluorescent lights was visible maybe a hundred feet away. And suddenly he knew exactly where he was.
Christine Lustig’s office was a hundred and twenty feet straight ahead. Cheryl Beth had walked down this hallway alone that night, finding a nude body with dozens of slash marks. She might have seen the doctor’s clothes folded neatly on a desk or a shelf. Did she scream that night, out into the empty dark hallway? Did the killer know Cheryl Beth was going to be there?
Will turned back to the doors to the old morgue. They were tightly locked and the buttons on the latches refused to budge. But when he trained the beam of the flashlight on where the doors joined, he saw how the lock could easily be picked. He was playing a hunch, a long shot. But it might not only answer a question about the night Lustig was killed, but also one of the most puzzling issues about the Mount Adams Slasher. He fished in the fanny pack and pulled out a slender black-and-silver object. He pressed his thumb against the button and a blade flashed out and locked into place. It was a switchblade he had taken off a suspect years ago and he had kept it. It was illegal and useful in tough situations. Will slipped the blade between the doors and easily released the latch. He pulled the door open and wheeled himself back inside. He discovered the lights and, using the knife instead of his fingers, turned them on. Gradually the old fluorescents came alive, giving the spacious room a yellow-green tint. He carefully studied his surroundings.
A newer plastic wastebasket sat by one shelf. Inside were torn condom wrappers and used condoms. Some of the living had been having fun down here. He wheeled himself to the dozen freezer drawers, lined in two rows one on top of the other. He pulled down his sleeve to cover his hand to keep his fingerprints off the handles and began opening the doors. The refrigerator hadn’t been on in years and the decaying flesh smell worsened. Meanwhile, pain was starting to radiate out of the middle of his back like mercury rising in a thermometer on a summer day. It scared him more than the old morgue around him.
Just a little more time. A little more…
It was the drawer on the lower tier, one drawer in from the left. Will slowly pulled out the body tray, making a loud metal-on-metal racket. Just inside was a black trash bag. He carefully folded back the bag and saw the bloody clothes. Using the switchblade, he poked through the fabric until he found something solid. The knife hooked into it and Will pulled. The blade had caught on a lanyard used to hold an ID card. It was the kind of hospital identification Will had seen on every employee at Cincinnati Memorial. This one was caked with dried, dark blood, but not so much that Will couldn’t see the photo of a beautiful, auburn-haired woman and the lettering. It said Christine D. Lustig, MD.
Chapter Seventeen
She wanted nothing more than a long, hot shower and a Bushmills on the rocks. She could almost feel the softness of the robe against her as she waited to take her first sip. She would make it downstairs, bring the drink up to her bedroom, and lock herself in with her music and a book. With the commotion and arrest today, there was no reason she couldn’t get back to her old habits and just enjoy the downstairs. But not tonight. The day had been too intense. In addition to Lennie, she had been overloaded with patients. Just as she had been leaving, she had been paged to the emergency room with Trauma Team One. An ambulance had brought in a burn patient.
He should have gone straight to the burn center at University Hospital, but there had been a mix-up. Now they had to stabilize him. A twenty-three-year-old kid who had been using gasoline to set a building on fire. He had deep, thick burns on both legs and the smell of burned flesh filled the exam room. The usual morphine dose didn’t work, of course-too many years using narcotics on the street. He moaned and screamed like a child. Just seeing the team set up made him more agitated. Cheryl Beth pushed as far as she could to ramp up the IV morphine dose, but he never really settled down. She could still smell the burned flesh.
A hot shower and a Bushmills would settle her down. She might even smile recalling how the cop in the wheelchair had taken Lennie down. But after she left the parking garage, she pulled into the valet parking lane at the hospital and watched the garage behind her. Soon the Honda Accord emerged. She couldn’t explain why she did what she did next. It just happened. She let the car reach the end of the block, where the long red light annoyed drivers, and she pulled out behind him. It was as simple and foolhardy as lingering beside that car, which had caused her to see the letter inside, addressed to Christine Lustig.
She was only half a block along when he turned right on Madison and disappeared. She gunned the little Saturn engine to keep up and made a rolling stop at the light. He was already several blocks down the avenue. Traffic was light and the asphalt was dry. Would he keep going straight into Walnut Hills, Mount Lookout, and Hyde Park? No. He turned onto Interstate 71 and headed north. She felt her stomach in a vise, but pushed to make it through the light so she could follow him. Soon they were both going seventy. Cheryl Beth had never tailed anyone in her life. She had only seen it done on television. It was an odd guilty, exhilarating feeling. She hung back several car lengths, trying to keep herself from being distracted by other taillights.