and the bedroom: 'No Comment.' A one-car garage was attached to the den.
Like a new buyer, he inspected each of three rooms and its contents before moving to the next: soft Drexel pieces before the living room's fireplace; the table-dominated kitchen surrounded by blue counter-tops and canary yellow appliances; the den with computer, martial arts trophies, miniature deer figurines and collection of opera CD's. There, piles and rows of books engulfed his computer corner:
Kathy's words, 'the little house,' rang in his ears. Little, but cozy. Maybe too dimly lit, even sloppy. She should sleep over more often.
There were nine phone messages from state newspapers. He decided not to answer any and vowed not to help sell newspapers, then or ever, having soured on the print media long ago. Something to do with misquotes and inaccurate reporting. He went to his computer in the pine-paneled den, one of two rooms separated from the main street by a thirty-foot-deep yard. He entered:
Tuesday, January 13.
MURDERS
Chas. Bugles-hacked in O.R.
Raphael Cortez-stabbed in surgeons' locker room.
Witnessed Bugles' killing from observatory balcony.
Both most likely killed by same person.
Killer knows some anatomy and? surgery. Blood trail leads to Tanarkle's dept.? suspect. Ambushed in parking garage.
Kathy and new supervisor assigned from Homicide. Gave me blank check incl. forensic support. Bowie County pissed we got Certificate of Need for transplant program.
David stopped short to listen to a car idling out front. He heard a thud against the house. He ducked. Again, the screech of tires. In one motion, he hit the floor and withdrew the Minx which was still holstered to his shoulder.
Scrambling to his feet, he dashed to the back of the house, his breath stalled in his throat. An eternal five minutes brought no explosion so he eased back through the den to the front door. He widened a crack slowly, looking from side to side, the grip of his pistol pressed against his chin. Slipping out, he maneuvered behind a foundation shrub to the base of his bay window where he spotted an egg-like object embedded in the superficial snow cover. He rolled it over with the barrel of the Minx, covered it with a handkerchief and picked it up. It was a rock bound by two crossed adhesive strips. In the light streaming from the window, he rotated the rock in his beefy hands as he read the precise lettering on one of the strips:
LET COPS HANDLE THIS
David felt a heat surge at his temples. Bullshit to you, buddy. He looked at the window and wanted to throw the rock through it himself. He ran to the street. Vague remnants of tire tracks had been obliterated by the persistent snow.
Inside, he put the rock in a plastic bag, placed it in Friday and marched with it to the basement. He stood thinking in the center of a room circumscribed by gun cabinets, their metallic odor unchecked by glass doors. All sizes. All heights. All filled. There was a cabinet for weapons according to manufacturer: Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Charter Arms, Dan Wesson. According to calibers:.25, 32, 38, 45. Cabinets for pistols, for revolvers, for rifles and carbines and machine guns and shotguns. One was engorged with spare parts and ammunition.
On a table near the Ruger cabinet, David opened Friday and replaced the.38 Special with a Super Blackhawk.44 Magnum.
Chapter 4
The following morning, Wednesday, David glanced at the tower clock as he rounded the entrance to the doctors' parking lot. It was eight forty-five.
He chanced that Virginia Baldwin, the Surgical Nursing Supervisor, was in her office. David had a thing against calling ahead, anywhere, unless it involved traveling great distances. When reminded by whomever-family, friends, colleagues, teachers-of the virtue of courtesy or, at least, of good time management, he would respond, 'Courtesy's in my family's genes. So, big deal, a generation was skipped.' It had some bizarre connection with nature. Unannounced keeps everything natural. No pretense. No makeup. Nothing staged. Of course, they don't have to receive me. It's their choice, not mine. But then they're the discourteous ones, right?
It might not have been entirely germane, but, somehow, he used house calls as an illustration. That's why I like to make them. The patient and the family are in their natural setting. I get to see how they live. That might help in my counsel even though I'm nobody's primary care physician.
Nurse Baldwin was in. She sat at a desk besieged by papers, folders and schedules. She looked less massive without surgical cap and gown. Glasses were perched low on a thin nose, unsuited for a puffy face, as if she had forgotten to take a diuretic pill.
'I'll tell you, David, I never want to see another day like that again. Never.'
'Amen. You were up close. Can you remember how tall he was?'
'Well … not your size, that's for sure. Average, I'd say, maybe five-ten or so.'
'That certainly narrows the field.'
She thinned her lips.
'Sorry Ginny, just thinking out loud. Was there anything distinguishing about him?'
'Only that he was so quiet. I remember thinking how different that was. Usually, the big shots who come through here can't stop talking, you know.'
'You make up the daily schedules, right?'
'Right.'
'There were no other cases at three-thirty?'
'Not starting then. The G.I.s and neurosurgicals started early but were over by then. We had a couple hips but they were over, too. E.N.T., some vein stuff-they were on at two-thirty and were still going.'
'So, most likely no one else was in the locker room just before three-thirty?'
'Most likely.'
'Ginny, thanks-see you.'
'Wait. Are there any suspects?'
'Not yet, but I think I've ruled out a couple.'
'Oh, who?'
'You and me. By the way, have the police talked to you yet?'
'Last night-not today. They cut it short, though. I was too upset.'
David sauntered through the administrative offices of the O.R. wing, speaking briefly with nurses, unit clerks and orderlies. He wrote their names on a pad. Next to each he added a zero.
He had more to do at the hospital but decided to make a quick run to the Hollings Police Department. He wanted to deliver the taped rock to Sparky for analysis and perhaps have the results by noon.
Ten minutes later, David pulled into the department's parking lot and climbed the steps of a new prefabricated entranceway, harsh against walls of blanched brick and pitted mortar. He tucked Friday under his arm like the guardian of a kryptonite sample. He greeted friends at the dispatch window and was buzzed into a maze of hallways and interconnecting rooms. Steam radiators banged, and the floor creaked beneath half partitions and shiny modular furniture as employees traipsed about their filing cabinets and worked their computers. David proceeded directly to the Lilliputian crime lab, past benches of microscopes, chemical bottles, latent fingerprint
