A pus-filled abscess bursting near his heart. Exactly like Boc-caccio’s story.
Anger and desperation rolled through me. I looked from Eric to the other doctor. “But they did blood work and a tox screen last night when he got here, right? Why didn’t they catch it?”
“The lab is twelve hours backed up,” Eric said. “Half of it is still being renovated.”
“We were going to finish the tox screen this morning,” the doctor added.
I cursed loud enough for the nurse to respond by pressing a gentle finger to her lips, and I realized she was probably concerned not just about my language but about me waking other patients on the floor. I stepped back from the bed. Tried to calm down. Refocus.
Movement beside the door caught my attention. The police officer I’d seen in the hallway had entered the room and now looked at me nervously.
“Who was in here last night?” I said.
“No one, sir. I swear.” He pointed to the nurse standing beside me. “Not since she came by two hours ago to check his vitals. And I stayed with her the whole time.”
We would interview the hospital staff who’d been treating Thomas Bennett, yes, obviously we would, but I doubted they had anything to do with his death. Somehow John had managed to get to him.
“What about the officer from the earlier shift? The one you relieved?”
He shook his head and pointed again to the nurse, then to the doctor. “He told me they were the only people who’d been in here.”
I tried to relax, to regroup by letting my mind replay the last twenty minutes-after getting Tessa to the car I’d phoned my mother and arranged for Tessa to stay with her “while I met with the people I needed to” at Baptist Memorial. Then we’d arrived at the hospital, and Tessa, who’d managed to change clothes in the backseat, left for my parents’ house.
I’d made two final calls, one to the Bureau’s cybercrime division to see if they could trace the origin of the last call received on my landline, and then, since John had somehow gotten my phone number and I didn’t want to take any chances that he would get to my family, I called dispatch to have a car stationed at my mother’s place.
And now here I was, in the room beside the body of another man I’d failed to save.
My attempt to calm myself down didn’t work. I slammed my hand against the wall, and the four people in the room stared at me quietly.
“I’m all right,” I said.
No, you’re not.
John’s winning.
Eric discreetly nodded for the others to follow him to the hall, but I said, “No. I’m leaving.”
Then I headed to room 228 to check on Kelsey Nash.
I found Kurt standing outside her room, speaking with a police officer.
“She’s OK,” Kurt announced as I joined them. “The doc is in there now.”
I peeked through the doorway.
Kelsey was reclining on the bed, conscious and aware. A slim middle-eastern woman in doctor’s scrubs bent over her while a male nurse checked Kelsey’s vitals. Kurt motioned for the officer beside us to enter the room, and as the man went inside, he left the door partially open. Kurt stepped back so I could monitor what was happening inside the room while we spoke.
“Bennett died of an infection,” I told him.
“I know. I was just up there.”
I shook my head. “It looks like John covered his bases-whether he died from a dog bite or the infection in his heart, Bennett’s death would still match Boccaccio’s story.”
The doctor wrote a few notes on her clipboard, then made a call from the room’s phone.
“Is Thomas’s wife safe?” I asked Kurt.
He nodded. “Protective custody. They’re bringing her over to see the body. We have a female undercover officer at her house and a car down the street. If John shows up looking for Marianne, we’ll be ready for him. Also, we’re looking into any possible connections between the ranch and the mine. Nothing so far.”
As he finished speaking, the doctor joined us in the hallway. “Ms. Nash is stable,” she said. “The lab just called in, and her blood work came back fine. Physically, she’s recovering very well. But mentally, emotionally…” She hesitated. “I don’t know. She hasn’t spoken in almost twenty-four hours. I’m suggesting we put her on suicide watch.”
“Do it,” I said. “Do whatever it takes to help her. She’s our only eyewitness.”
The doctor nodded. “All right. I’ll have her transferred to psych.”
I hated to admit it, but it was true: John had been right about Kelsey too.
She was dying of grief.
After the doctor had left, the officer returned to the hallway, and Kurt gave him specific instructions. “You stay with Ms. Nash every second, even while they’re transferring her to the psych ward.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If anything goes down, anything at all, call me. Got it?”
A nod.
A sad kind of tension crept into the hall, wrapped around us, then Kurt said to me, “I can’t just stand around here. Walk with me to my car.”
We started for the stairs and I asked him if he’d had any luck with the sketch artist last night.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t here. Reggie brought him in, but apparently Kelsey wouldn’t meet with him, and Bennett had nothing new for us to go on. Oh yeah, Missing Persons found out half an hour ago that no one has seen Father Hughes, one of the priests from St. Michael’s, since Tuesday. Apparently, he sent a text message to some relatives in Baltimore, told them he was coming, but never arrived. I’m letting Missing Persons look into it for now. They’re keeping me posted.”
“He disappeared on Tuesday?” I said softly.
“Yeah, I know. The timing fits for story number two from The Decameron. I tried calling you this morning to tell you, but your line was busy.”
All at once I realized that Kurt still didn’t know I’d spoken with the killer. “You aren’t going to believe this. John called me.”
“What!”
“I was so focused on seeing if Kelsey was OK that I-”
“Did you get a recording of it?”
“No. Cybercrime is doing a backtrace on it, but I doubt they’ll find anything. I’m betting our guy used a prepaid and tossed it.”
“So what did he say?”
“Taunted me. Hinted at Bennett’s cause of death. I’ll transcribe the conversation. We can circulate it to the team, see if it rings any bells with anyone.”
“You can remember it?”
“Yes.”
“The whole thing? Word for word?”
“Yes.”
A slight pause. “OK.” The stairwell was just ahead. “One more thing: the warrant for the library records is still going through, but we did find out that DU offers two courses on Renaissance Humanist literature. Only college in the state that does. Both classes cover The Decameron. The instructor is an English prof who also teaches a few classes in the journalism department. No one from the suspect list took his classes, but a number of people from the Denver News did: Rhodes, Amy Lynn Greer, at least a dozen others.”
“The prof’s name isn’t John, by any chance?”
We descended the steps.
“No. Adrian, Adrian Bryant. But he doesn’t look good for this. He was out of town yesterday, speaking at a conference in Phoenix, so he couldn’t have been the guy you chased at the ranch.”
Arriving at the first floor, we walked past the nurse’s station. “Do we have actual confirmation that he was there, or just anecdotal?” I asked.
“We’re working on that.” The automatic exit doors slid open in front of us.
We stepped outside.
The day was getting colder. The sky, darker.
Kurt gave his watch a quick glance. “I gotta head home. Cheryl’s not too happy about my hours this week.”
As sensitively as I could I said, “So how are things? Any better?”
He wasn’t quick to answer. “They are what they are.” I heard deep remorse in his voice. Then he took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’ll call Jake and Cheyenne; fill ’em in. Don’t forget, we meet at HQ at one o’clock. I know how much you love briefings, and this one’s extra special. Jake’s going to run down the psychological profile of the-”