“Motive. She was Nagle’s lover and Lustig’s rival. Opportunity. There could be an hour or more between the time Cheryl left the bar and the time she claimed she found the body. And she’s been lying to us.”
Will rubbed his temples, feeling his head start to ache. Was it a headache because Cheryl Beth had lied to him, or a brain tumor? Finally he shook his head and forced a laugh. “Reach, reach, hell, your arms are long.”
Dodds ran his hand across the top of his head, as if searching to see if any hair had escaped his daily shaving. “There’s some weird shit going on at this place, and she knows what it is. I still like Mason for killing Lustig. I’m keeping his ass in jail. But maybe Cheryl Wilson is in on it, too, and this Nagle asshole.”
“Her name is Cheryl Beth.”
“Mason’s fingerprints are on the threatening letter. He also has a knife collection. Have you seen him? He’s one of these no-affect types-you don’t know if they’re just fucked up or a killer. I say a killer.”
“What does he say?”
“He says he was in love with her, that the letter was clipped on the windshield wiper of his car one day at work, after Lustig was killed. Nice try, but the stamps had been canceled. He had to have taken it from Lustig’s mailbox to cover his tracks.”
“Unless somebody steamed the stamps off a canceled letter and applied them to the letter found with Mason.”
Dodds snorted. “Let me guess. Damn, Bud Chambers. He’s killed everybody in Cincinnati! But it could still have been your girlfriend, Cheryl Beth. She could be the killer.”
“I thought you said you liked Mason!” Will’s angry voice echoed in the large, empty room.
“He’s involved. Hell, maybe they were all sleeping together. We’ve seen stranger shit. Stuff like that even happened in the department.”
“And they somehow found out the confidential information on the MO of the Slasher to do it? Give me a break. You know this is the Ring Bearer again.”
Dodds mouth tightened and they locked eyes. Finally, “You can find anything out on the Internet now. Maybe a patrolman told his wife, who told her girlfriend, who told…I don’t have it all worked out yet. Maybe I need to check into the hospital so I can be as good a detective as you.”
Will sat in the acid of betrayal, silent. Dodds just watched, with his preternatural patience. Will’s heart banged against his chest wall as Dodds’ cell phone rang. The conversation was brief.
“Dispatch,” Dodds said. “Hospital security asked if I could meet Berkowitz down in the basement.”
“Lustig’s office?”
“Yep.”
Will stared through the blackness of the windows, now accumulating ice around their edges. “Have fun.”
“Fuck you very much.” Dodds stood up. “But you’re working, too. Quit feeling sorry for yourself because you’re on the job and coming with me. Back to the murder room, Detective Borders.”
Will put his hands to the wheels and rolled toward the doors. “Just like old times, Detective Dodds.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Cheryl Beth checked in on several patients, and each time she looked out the windows to survey the streets outside. From the promontory of the tower, nothing seemed to be moving on Pill Hill. She could even see a clot of red taillights at the foot of the street where the SUV had slid. Several blocks through the trees came the yellow pulse of lights, salt trucks, but so far she was stuck at the hospital. There were other ways down, but they all involved hills and she would not risk it. Cincinnatians became hysterical in even modest snowstorms. An ice storm on a city of hills was, as her grandmother would have said, a gracious plenty of a mess. If worse came to worst, she could use one of the cots the on-duty trauma teams slept on.
She noshed on the remains of a Christmas party on Five-West. Most of the nurses and docs were already gone. She was still in civilian clothes with her ID card hung around her neck by her red lanyard. She smiled attentively as a young nurse talked about her little girl’s part in the Christmas play. From somewhere down the hall, she barely but distinctly heard a small choir singing carols. Hark, the herald angels sing…The sound filled her with longing. She wanted to find these singers and listen.
“Hey.”
She turned to see Lisa surveying the remains of the food. “I am such a carb and sugar slut,” she said, picking up a piece of cold pizza. “Thank God they didn’t order in Aglamesis’ ice cream.” Her lean, tall body seemed to show no ill effects from her addictions.
“What are you doing here so late?”
“I’m trapped like everybody else.” She munched contentedly, but her eyes looked tired. “I gave notice today.”
“What?”
“I’m going to University. For years I thought I could make a stand here and make this place better. I’m just ready for a change.”
Cheryl Beth hugged her. “Who’s going to maintain the FDN list and keep me up to speed on all the gossip?” She felt like crying, even though Lisa was only going a few blocks away.
“You should come with me,” Lisa said. “They’d love to have you.”
“I know. Maybe not so much now that I’m the slutty nurse who was involved in a murder.”
“Oh, please. It just makes you more interesting. Anyway, you’re the most straitlaced person I’ve ever worked with. Not that the degenerates at this hospital are a good yardstick.” She stopped laughing and cocked her head. “You’re wheezing, babe. Asthma acting up?”
“I guess.” It was true. The cold and the stagnant Cincinnati air were hell on her lungs. She reached for her inhaler and the business card that the young man from SoftChartZ had given her fell out, fluttering down to the floor. It landed face down.
“Shit!”
“What?”
Cheryl Beth picked the card off the floor and read the handwritten message on the back: “Westin, room 560. I’m on West Coast time so am staying up late. I’d love to have company.” She turned the card to the front, which introduced Josh Barnett, Chief Executive Officer, beneath a SoftChartZ logo.
Lisa had been hovering, watching. “Way to go, Cheryl Beth! You will have such fun, and you’ll have that wonderful funny walk in the morning that happens after…”
“Stop!” Cheryl Beth nearly shouted. “You don’t understand. Now I remember. This is the guy you said was sleeping with Christine.”
“Young and strong.” Lisa’s smile was so broad it nearly broke her face in half.
Cheryl Beth held the card in a shaking hand, the paper nearly searing her skin.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lisa said. “It’s no questions asked, rules of the road…”
“His handwriting.” Cheryl Beth was almost talking to herself. “It’s the same handwriting as on the note in Mason’s car. I swear it’s the same.”
“What are you talking about?”
Cheryl Beth tried to explain as Lisa cocked a hip and rested her hand on it, looking at her as if she were a crazy woman.
“This was never some random murder,” Cheryl Beth said. “Christine somehow…” She tried to work through it, feeling light-headed. It seemed impossible that the baby-faced tech executive could be a killer. But so many millions of dollars were at stake, and the hospital was already in trouble. “This is why Stephanie Ott was so strange, why the hospital tried to keep this quiet. Why they moved her office down to the basement. Now I understand why Christine was so crazy that night…” To herself, she thought, now I know why she held me so tight and kept asking, “Can I trust you, Cheryl Beth? Can I trust you…?”
Lisa put an arm around her. “You need to go home, babe, or take a cab to his hotel once the roads clear.”
“Ladies.” Dr. Carpenter sidled into the room, his voice booming. “My two favorite healers.”