Читать книгу The Memory Killer - J. Kerley A. - Страница 13

The new victim’s room flanked Dale Kemp’s room and we peeked in on Kemp. He had fallen back into himself after the delirium, his face seeming a somber mask waiting only the closing of the casket lid.

We stepped to the next room and found Morningstar and, to my surprise, Roy McDermott, who offered a sheepish grin. “I couldn’t help myself, Carson. After your tutorial in the case, I got interested. I’ve got some free time, since it ain’t like I’m J. Edgar, right?”

Roy was referring to J. Edgar Hoover’s involvement in every aspect of the FBI, micro-managing, they call it now. Roy was hands-off, hiring the best people and trusting them to get the goods on the bad guys. “I don’t really care what y’all do,” Roy had once told me. “I just want to see files stamped Case Closed.”

My eyes moved to the patient on the bed, victim two. Light brown hair with a buzz cut. Closed eyes. Had I not known the vic was male, I would have thought him female, the features small and delicate. His hands lay outside the sheet and I saw digits smudged with fingerprint ink. The fingernails showed traces of red polish. I lifted the edge of the sheet, again the fading abrasions of ligatures on wrists and ankles.

“Got a hit on prints from a bust last year, Carson,” Roy said. “No biggie, caught at a traffic stop with a half-doob in the ashtray. Name’s Brian Caswell, works under the name Brianna Cass. He was reported missing eleven days ago.”

“Works as what?”

“Female impersonator, drag queen. Day job is at a nail salon.”

“How’d you find this out?”

“Checked with Missings at MDPD. I also called to see if anything new had come up, but nothing.”

“You talked to Rod Figueroa?”

Roy nodded. “Nice guy, eager to please. He asked if we could handle it as a joint case with the FCLE in full lead. Basically it means we copy him on reports.”

I shook my head in disbelief. If Figueroa had any more faces to spin he’d need gimbals in his neck. But at least it was cooperation. I studied Caswell’s motionless face. He would have been good at the cross-dressing thing, I figured, given the bone structure and lips so full I suspected collagen enhancement.

“Age?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Injuries the same as Kemp?”

Roy’s eyes went to Morningstar, so mine followed.

“Semen found orally and anally. Lots of tearing, like the attacks were violent and repeated.”

Eleven days allowed a lot of time for attacks. “Under the influence of the datura, you think?”

“It makes sense, Carson. After feeling ill, the victim starts hallucinating violently, then crashes into semi-consciousness, unable to fend off attacks or even comprehend them. If the toxins are administered on a regular basis …”

“The mind could be permanently wounded.”

“So even when a vic recovers,” Gershwin said, “we’re screwed?”

Morningstar nodded. “Ask who he saw raping him and the answer might be a purple dragon.” She looked at me. “You saw the effect on Dale Kemp.”

“It’s insane,” I said. “And yet totally rational and brilliant. After the initial capture and restraint, the perp has no need to keep victims bound. He drugs them so heavily that they’re trapped inside themselves. When he tires of them, he simply trades them for fresh meat. Even if they recover, they’ll never ID him.”

I paused as a nurse entered the room, a guy in his mid twenties, intelligent green eyes, chestnut hair just long enough to cover his ears. He had a runner’s carriage, slender and with a bounce in his steps, as if about to break into a sprint. A stethoscope hung around his neck.

“Uh, excuse me, Nurse …” Roy said.

“It’s OK, sir,” the guy said. “I’m cleared.”

The exact facts of the case were being tightly managed, the suggestion being druggings with rohypnol – more common, unfortunately. We were keeping the ingredients of this particular cocktail under wraps for three reasons: keeping secret a fact only the perp knew, legal reasons there; avoiding panic when the press dubbed the altered drinks Devil’s Cocktails or Loco-tinis or whatever; and avoiding nutbags wandering the woods with bad intentions and a botanical field guide.

Roy had outlined the situation with the hospital administration and the nurses were chosen for competence and ability to keep a secret. Plus MD-Gen was where ill or injured criminals were sent, so the staff were used to cops taking over rooms. It was, after all, Miami.

The nurse did nurse things, writing numbers from the monitors on the chart, checking the fluid drips and wires, listening through the steth. He popped the protective tip from one of the syringes loaded with the anti-robinia preparation and injected the victim. Roy stood and approached the nurse.

“You look familiar. Your name is …?”

“Patrick White. We met once before, Mr McDermott. Last fall when, uh, Mister Green was here. I was one of his nurses.”

Mister Green was Sergio Talarico, a narcotics smuggler who’d suffered a heart attack while in solitary confinement. He’d been rushed to MD-Gen where he’d had a triple bypass and seven weeks of convalescence, all without attracting the notice of his enemies, who wanted him dead so they could usurp his territories.

Roy grinned and pumped the guy’s hand. “I remember now. Past midnight and the floor’s goddamn security cameras blew a fuse or whatever, went black. Everyone freaked, thinking Talarico’s enemies were coming down the halls with AKs. All the other staffers disappeared out the exits.” Roy turned to me. “It was just this guy and two cops hunkered in Talarico’s room, not knowing what was going on.”

“Why’d you stay?” I asked White.

He winked and made a syringe-plunging motion with his fingers. “No one messes with a Patrick White patient, sir. I am one bad-ass dude with a hypodermic needle.”

I chuckled despite the grim surroundings. The guy not only had cojones, he had a sense of humor. “You been here long, Mr White?” I asked as he turned to drop the used syringe into a receptacle on the wall.

“Trained here, work here. Now I’m going for my Nurse Practitioner license here.”

The three of us wished White well as he blew out the door to his next patient, our eyes returning to the man on the bed, Brian Caswell, AKA Brianna Cass. No one spoke a word as I approached, put my hands on the bed rails, and leaned low.

“Where have you been, Brian? What did you see?”

All I heard back was the hiss of oxygen into nostrils.