“Back up to me, Dodds.” The big man slowly complied and Chambers used his left hand to ratchet the cuffs tight. Will watched as Dodds’ temples and mouth reacted. “There,” Chambers said, a smile creasing his puffy face. “That’s the way I like ’em with dangerous Negroes, nice and snug. Now go sit again.” Dodds eased into the chair. “Lean back, get your feet off the floor. If your feet touch the floor, I’ll kill you.”
Chambers turned the gun on Will now. He had never been on the receiving end of a gun barrel without having a weapon in his hand. His insides felt as if they were liquefying.
“Now just because I don’t trust the cripple, and he’s so dressed up and all, I want you to open his coat and pull up his pants legs to make sure he’s not packing.” Cheryl Beth complied. Will wished his service weapon hadn’t been locked away. He would have pulled it long before now.
“You’re always in the way, Borders,” Chambers said, gesticulating with his free hand. With the gloves, he looked like a malevolent clown or a cartoon character. “This was going to be a simple plan tonight. Just tie up a few loose ends with Detective Dodds and the pain nurse here, and I’d be gone. Two birds, one stone. Once again, you’ve mucked it up.”
Will’s brain was a riot: every rampaging channel of training, thought, and instinct asking how to get out of this. How to play for time.
“Where were we?” Chambers said. “Oh, yes. You were about to tell these fine ossifers why you lied about being in the bar with Christine.”
Cheryl Beth stared at him, almost in a daze.
“Sit down,” he ordered, and she slid against the wall between Will’s wheelchair and Dodds. He aimed at Dodds. “Keep your feet up!” To Cheryl Beth, “Why were you there?”
“I ran into her!” Cheryl Beth set her jaw and Will could see moisture forming in her eyes. “I didn’t plan it. I got off work and wanted a drink. I went inside and she came up to me. She wanted to talk. So we got a table.”
“What did she want to talk about?” Chambers said, his voice impatient.
“Gary.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Gary and I…”
“I know all about you, Cheryl.” Chambers slid the pistol into his lab coat, its outline falling heavily into the pocket. “I’ve watched you. I’ve been in your house. I’ve been in your fucking underwear drawer. You ought to buy more black. I know you stopped seeing Gary months ago, so she didn’t want you for that. She had plenty of her own distractions. She didn’t give a damn about his.”
“She wanted to know what it was like between us,” Cheryl Beth said. “She wanted graphic details. I thought she was very drunk and very distraught, and I just tried to calm her down.”
“Bullshit!” As he shouted, she jumped.
In a quiet voice, he said, “This is just business. Tell me what I want to know and everybody gets out alive.”
“There’s nothing to tell!” Tears were tracking down her cheeks now and her voice broke. “Christine seemed very upset, but not at me. She was all over the place. I’d never seen her like that.”
“What did she say about the hospital?”
“Nothing.”
He ripped her up from the floor, delivering a brutal open-handed blow to her face. Then he shoved her down to the floor. She rose on her haunches and charged him.
“You son of a bitch!” Her fist connected with his nose before he got hold of her. He pushed her hard into the wall and she slid to the floor.
“A little fighter.” Chambers used the sleeve of his lab coat to wipe the trickle of blood from his nose. “Get your hands off her, Sir Galahad.” Will had reached out to touch Cheryl Beth. He slowly pulled his hand back into the confines of the wheelchair.
Chambers loomed over her. “She talked to you! She gave you something!”
“No.”
“She did. She gave you something before she came back to the hospital.”
“She didn’t! And don’t you think you’ve made me cry, you bastard. I cry when I’m mad!”
“What did she give you?”
“Nothing.”
“Where is it?”
“What?” she yelled in frustration.
“Have it your way.” Chambers pulled out the gun and approached Will. He felt the steel against his temple. It was smooth and surprisingly warm.
“Don’t hurt him!” she said. “You want to know what she did that night? You really want to know? She said she was afraid she might lose her job and she didn’t know who to talk to. But then she slid next to me and held me, crying. But then she kissed me. She had her hands all over me and kissed me, told me she wanted me to come home with her, she didn’t want to be alone. I freaked out and left. That’s what happened. When she left word for me later, I was afraid she was going to start all over again.”
Chambers seemed momentarily confused. “Well, I’ll take you with me and we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other and talk. I’ll find out where you put it.”
Dodds said, “It’s all over, Chambers. We know everything. We have a warrant on you. We know about the cabin at Rabbit Hash. Make it easy on yourself.”
Chambers gave a low chuckle, the dimple in his chin deepening. “Spoken like a true professional. But you don’t know much of anything.” He laughed louder this time, watching the gun as if it would share his mirth. “You know what? They told me I wasn’t smart enough to be a detective. That’s what the bastards said. But here I have the two supposedly best detectives in the Cincinnati Police, and you’ve been five steps behind me all the way…”
“So you killed Christine,” Will said, “just like you killed the others.”
“Now you’re only four steps behind.”
“But Christine was a hit,” Will said.
Chambers stared at him, unsure of whether to put away the gun again. He kept it in his hand but let his arm fall. Will continued, “It’s ‘just business,’ you said. You were paid to kill Dr. Lustig. You framed Judd Mason. But since you’ve always been a narcissistic fuckup, Marion, you couldn’t do a simple job. You had to imitate what happened on Mount Adams. You think you’re an artist. You had to give this one your signature strokes, right, Marion?”
Chambers’ right cheek twitched at the mention of his given name.
“You wanted to get back at us, get back at me,” Will said. “You killed two women to cover up the murder of your ex-wife. You took their ring fingers as trophies. You killed Christine for money, but you didn’t close the loop.” He fought to control his fear, make his voice speak in a slow disdain. The deep anger he felt made it possible. “Marion, Marion… Something’s still out there and your masters want you to get it.”
Chambers leaned casually against the wall near the door. “I have the right to remain silent.”
“It’s about SoftChartZ,” Cheryl Beth said. “That’s it. Josh Barnett gave me his business card tonight. He wrote a little note on the back. It’s the same handwriting that was on the threatening note I saw with Judd Mason.”
“You’re pretty good, honey,” Chambers said. “The software is hopeless. They can’t make it work, and when that comes out the company is done.”
Will said, “SoftChartZ needed the continued cash flow coming in from the hospital while they were frantically trying to debug the software. They needed this to look like a success, so they could win contracts from other hospitals, keep it going.”
Chambers clapped very slowly. “Very good, Detective Borders. Why else would their stock be a hundred dollars a share? All these morons buying into the future of digital medicine. My ass. The lady doctor realized it was a sham and she was going to go public. They had a problem and wanted somebody to solve it. Good old Berkowitz told Barnett to talk to me. Berkowitz just thought they needed help with a security breach.”