Deadly Medicine (36 page)

Show time.

*

Pushing aside the dusty curtain, Edward looked past the rocking chairs, across the massive front porch of the cabin and the expanse of flowered field beyond. The convoy of ATVs that had come up over the mountain was now parked, and it looked like the riders were preparing for a day of fishing. Fuck! Just what he needed. It was only a matter of time before one of them had to use the bathroom and headed up to the cabin. He had to get out of here.

Glancing at his watch, he weighed his options. It was 7:45. Ward Thrasher would be here in less than an hour. But did he have that long? He didn’t think so. He’d have to kill these three now and then intercept her on the road. There was only one road to the cabin, so she’d have to use it. He could meet her there, at the entrance to the hunting club, a mile away from the prying eyes of the guys on the ATVs. She’d have to slow down to make the turn from the main road onto the dirt and gravel driveway into the property. He’d shoot her then, head straight to JFK, be in Florida in six hours and out of the country by nightfall. What other choice did he have?

He sighed. How had this gone wrong so quickly? He’d been successful for twenty years because of intelligence and meticulous planning. Other than the first time, when he’d been driven by anger, his kills had been well orchestrated and unemotional. He’d deviated from that pattern by spontaneously abducting Jess, and now he was in trouble. He had three witnesses to get rid of, and his avenue of escape was closing quickly.

He’d planned on a shooting, a double murder-suicide, but he could hardly start shooting with the riders so close. They’d be raiding the cabin before he had a chance to get out of the driveway. If only he hadn’t brought Zeke, he’d have had one less headache to deal with. He might have been able to sneak the women out of the cabin, but not the six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound sheriff. But Zeke was a talker, and he’d given Edward a lot of useful information on that day he’d brought him to the cabin to go shooting. Jess was in a lesbian phase. She’d been involved with Ward Thrasher. Jess adored the lake and had spent much of her free time here when she was young.

When Jess disappeared, Zeke had been bound to show up at the cabin looking for her, possibly with reinforcements, so he’d figured it was better to get him out of the way from the start. At least then, the sheriff wouldn’t surprise him at an inopportune moment. Who knew his plan would turn into such a disaster.

It had taken hours of intimidation before Jess finally told him what had aroused her suspicions. It was so ironic that, under other circumstances, Edward might have laughed. He’d killed a hundred mostly innocent patients, and the one that tripped him up in the end had been one who really deserved to die. Anyone stupid enough to ride an all-terrain vehicle in the dark forest while under the influence of alcohol should be killed before having a chance to reproduce and make more idiots.

Christian Cooney had been alive when he came in to the ER but had multiple broken ribs and a collapsed lung. His heart was bruised and beating irregularly. He was in shock, with pitifully inadequate veins. The paramedics had tried multiple times to insert an intravenous catheter but failed. Edward had inserted a large catheter into the subclavian, the large vein beneath the clavicle, just a few inches from the heart. When the nurse turned her back, he injected a large shot of air into the tubing. It only took a second for the air pocket to make its way to the heart, and the air lock it created instantly shut down the man’s circulation. Blood couldn’t get out of the heart to the lungs for oxygen. There was no blood for the lungs to send back to the heart, no blood to feed the brain and coronary arteries. Almost instantaneously, the heart rhythm went from normal and steady to a fatal, fibrillating dance of death.

Edward had worried as the nurse began CPR. Sometimes, the chest compressions squeezed the air bolus through the circulation or broke it up into tiny, more manageable bubbles of air, and the patient survived. Fortunately, that good luck had never befallen his patients. On one prior occasion when he’d killed with air, he’d had quite a scare when the patient experienced a transient return of his pulse, but the heart had quickly tired and given out. This time, he’d watched the monitor intently, ordered meds which he knew would be useless, even volunteered to do compressions himself, which he was careful to do incorrectly. However, the broken ribs had made CPR difficult, as the full force of energy wasn’t transmitted into the heart. The resuscitation efforts were futile, and Edward had another death certificate to add to his collection.

No one could prove he’d murdered Cooney. But Ward Thrasher, following him on his journey through the mountains, had seen some sort of pattern. That wasn’t truly a mistake on his part, was it? How many ways were there to murder a medical patient without leaving evidence? He only had so many options. Repeating his methods was necessary if he wanted to continue killing. And he wanted to continue killing. As soon as Ward arrived, he’d kill all of them and then get out of town. He’d move someplace far away and start over.

Then another thought occurred to him. What if Thrasher had somehow arrived in Garden early and come over the mountain on those ATVs? What if she hadn’t been in Philly but was still in the mountains and was out there now, waiting for him? He looked down the hill, trying to get a better look at the riders, then snagged a pair of binoculars hanging on a hook. He couldn’t see their faces clearly from this distance, but they all appeared to be burly men. Thrasher looked a little boyish in scrubs, but she wasn’t that tall, and she was thin. Still, he wondered. Could she have disguised herself? He looked around the cabin suspiciously.

“Who are they?” he demanded of Zeke as he reached over and brutally pulled the gag from Zeke’s mouth.

After swallowing a few times, Zeke finally found his voice. “I imagine it’s the guys who ride up here all the time. Mostly retired guys, some of their sons. They ride and fish.”

Edward used his knife to slice the tape that bound Zeke’s legs to the chair, then roughly pulled him to his feet. “Take a look. Tell me who they are.”

Zeke took the proffered binoculars and raised his hands, still cuffed, and gazed through them. “Can’t say. They’re too far away,” he said as he set the binoculars on the windowsill.

“There was no one fucking here that day we came to shoot!”

Zeke shrugged and backed up as Edward motioned him toward his chair. As Edward was about to retape the sheriff’s legs, a noise drew his attention back to the window. “What now?” he asked as he pulled the curtain aside and peered out. A red pickup truck had pulled up at the side of the cabin. “I don’t fucking believe this. Who the hell is that?”

He looked at Zeke. “Come here and tell me who this is!”

Zeke struggled to his feet.

“I don’t have all day, Sheriff!”

“My balance isn’t so good. Don’t forget, you put quite a lump on my head.”

“I’ll do more than that if you don’t move a little faster.”

Zeke swayed and reached out to grab the counter as he walked that way, resting a moment.

“Move it!”

A second later, he stood beside Hawk at the window and pushed the curtains aside. “Looks like Frieda Henderfield to me,” he said, and in a flash he raised his right elbow and jammed it into Hawk’s nose. He followed the initial blow with a whack to the head, using the binoculars, and several swift kicks in the groin.

With Hawk kneeling on the floor, bleeding profusely, Zeke opened the cabin door. “Frieda Henderfield, I’ve never been so happy to see someone in all my life. Could you do me a favor and call the state police?”

Traumatic Arrest

Ward ran toward the cabin as soon as she heard Zeke’s booming voice, with Abby and the two men right behind her. The men below had been carefully watching from their place by the lake, and Ward saw them all racing to the ATVs for the trip up the hill. As she burst through the door of the cabin, she nearly cried with relief.

Zeke had his gun in his cuffed hands, trained on Edward Hawk, who was curled on the floor, blood pouring from his nose. Hawk’s moans of anguish weren’t the only cries in the cabin. Jess and Wendy, both gagged and bound, sat in chairs beside the cabin’s large table, rocking and murmuring as Frieda worked to free them. They seemed to be making a frantic effort to get her attention. Did they possibly think she wouldn’t notice them?

She closed the few feet to the table in a fraction of a second, pulling the tape first from Jess’s mouth and then from Wendy’s.

“It’s all right, now. You’re safe,” she said, but in spite of her desire to hug Jess, she turned to find a knife to help Frieda. “Abby, can you grab some water?”

Ward pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer and knelt before Wendy. For some reason, she wasn’t ready to touch Jess yet. “Thanks,” Wendy said to Abby when the water was placed to her lips. Her raspy voice told Ward she’d needed it.

Abby repeated the offering with Jess, and she drank but remained silent. Ward studied her as she carefully worked the ropes on Wendy’s wrists. In spite of the fact that the cabin was cool, Jess was sweating profusely. Her pupils were dilated, and the hairs on her arms stood straight up. Tears poured in streams from both eyes, and even though she was tied to the chair, it was moving with the tremors wracking her body. Jess was in withdrawal.

While Frieda worked on Wendy, Ward started on Jess’s ankles. “How are you? Are you hurt?”

Jess cleared her throat. “Every muscle in my body is cramped. He shot me with IM sux.”

“Succinylcholine?” Ward asked to clarify.

“Yes. And let me tell you, it’s as bad as they say.”

With her binding free, Wendy stood and began stretching. “Oh, yes. It’s that bad.”

“You, too?” Ward asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Jess’s feet were free and Ward stood, looking at Hawk on the floor. The posse had arrived, and they filed in to survey the situation. Several of the men pulled Hawk to a seated position and began to bind him with the same rope he’d used on his victims. Someone shoved a handful of paper towels into Hawk’s face to staunch the bleeding.

“Don’t suffocate him,” Ward said.

“Why the hell not?” someone asked. “It’d save the taxpayers the cost of a trial.”

“She’s right. Go easy on him. He don’t seem the type that can handle any rough treatment.”

“Do I look like I give a shit? This scum don’t deserve no special treatment.”

Ward ignored their arguing and turned back to Jess. “You look like shit, Jess.”

“In a good way?” she asked, her voice quaking but the humor unmistakable. The joke took Ward aback. That was the old Jess, the one she hadn’t seen in years.

Ward leaned close enough to smell Jess’s shampoo and sweat, and whispered in her ear. “Are you okay?”

Jess seemed to understand the deeper meaning in Ward’s question. “No. I’m pretty shaky right now.”

Ward saw it all so clearly now. The moods, Jess’s desire to be alone, her disinterest in things she’d once loved, including Ward. She thought back to the day before. Jess had disappeared sometime around the time of her seven o’clock shift. Presuming she’d taken her last dose of the oxycodone at her bedside then, she was about thirteen hours out from her last dose. An addict on a regular schedule of this drug would start craving it after just a few hours and be in withdrawal at this point. The COWS, short for clinical opiate withdrawal score, would probably measure Jess in moderate withdrawal based on the severity of her symptoms. That was only going to get worse.

“Jess, why don’t you walk around, see if you can get those muscles to loosen up a little. Do some stretching.” Ward didn’t mention that it might relieve some of the anxiety associated with opiate withdrawal as well.

Ward motioned to Zeke, who followed her onto the porch. “You still keep your medication in your truck?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. I always keep it with me, for emergencies.”

Zeke’s doctor had prescribed him oxycodone for the arthritis in his knees. “I want one of your pain pills. Jess is in agony, and it could be another twenty minutes before the ambulance arrives.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, then folded them into Jess’s hand. “I’m sorry, Ward, for chasing you away. You’re a good girl, and if it wasn’t for you comin’ in with the boys, me and those two would most likely be dead now.”

Ward accepted the compliment with a shrug. “It’s over, Zeke. No worries.”

“Promise me you’ll take care of Jess.”

“I will,” she said and nodded at him, then turned and nearly ran over Abby.

“Hi,” she said.

Abby’s expression told Ward she’d heard the conversation with Zeke, but Ward had no words for Abby right now. Her adrenaline was running out, and combined with the lack of sleep and the jumbled thoughts in her head, she wasn’t sure she could form a coherent sentence.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I just needed to get out of there. Too much testosterone.” Abby shrugged.

“They haven’t killed him, have they?”

“Not yet.”

“Give me a sec, Abby. I need to get some medications for Jess. She’s really hurting.”

Abby eyed her with concern, or perhaps suspicion, but Ward just winked at her before turning toward Zeke’s truck. It was parked in the shadow of the hearse, and she was glad the multitude of men hovering about couldn’t see her reach in and pull Zeke’s medication pouch from the glove box. Fishing for the right bottle took a few tries, but then she pulled out the oxys and studied the label. They were five-milligram tabs, only half the strength of the tablets on Jess’s bedside cabinet.

The problem Jess faced now was the acetaminophen dose. Each tablet of oxycodone, the medication Jess needed to fight her withdrawal symptoms, also contained acetaminophen, a common drug that wreaked havoc on the liver. Ward could give Jess only three of the tabs without risking trouble. Jess wouldn’t die from the withdrawal. While narcotics leave misery in their wake, they only kill when they’re used. Alcohol and benzodiazepine withdrawal, on the other hand, are fatal. Letting Jess sweat it out might have been a great way to teach her a lesson, but Ward feared that her reputation would suffer if someone figured out opiate withdrawal rather than succinylcholine toxicity had caused the constellation of symptoms Jess was exhibiting.