Playing God (39 page)

"I'll call the ambulance," she said, scooping up a woolen throw from the arm of the couch and offering it to him.

"Let's get our business done, first."

"But you're hurt."

"I'm pissed as hell, too, and now I've got the gun. So humor me, okay?"

"Okay." She glanced around the room as she tried not to look at the blood. "I honestly didn't know it was loaded."

When people said "honestly," did that mean the rest of the time they lied? He wanted to get out his notebook, but he had only one good arm. Memory would have to do. "You know stuff about the murder the public doesn't. Were you there?" She shook her head. "Then how do you know?"

"Kara told me what they were planning to do."

"Before or after?" She didn't answer. "Kara told you what happened that night, about murdering Dr. Pleasant?"

"She didn't kill him."

"She told you what happened that night?" Sarah nodded. "Did Randall Noyes kill him?" He'd never interviewed someone while bleeding onto their furniture before. Position and power balances and eye contact were all important.

"Randy didn't do it, either," she said.

Her goddamned stalling made him jerk with frustration and his body screamed in protest. Adrenaline was mysterious. It could carry you into danger and out again, sustaining you against all reason. Then, like a date who'd had a bad time, it dumped you and took off. He wanted to get through this before he got dumped. "Look," he said, "can you just, for Christ's sake, stop screwing around and tell me what happened."

"I can't stand this," she said.

"
You
can't stand this?" He closed his eyes. It felt like his body had sprung five new leaks. Or one big one. "Lady, what's your problem? You don't point guns at people if you don't want to hurt them. That's how it works."

"Are you trying to make me feel worse?"

"I don't give a rat's ass how you feel. You expected me. You had a gun waiting. What the fuck did you think? Now tell me the story. The sooner you talk, the sooner I go. Then you won't have to watch."

She grabbed for control and missed. "Oh, Jesus," she said, covering her face with her hands. "I didn't mean to—"

"Skip the fuckin' mea culpa. Tell me the truth, and maybe I won't arrest you."

Her hands dropped. She stared at him, horrified. "Arrest me?" Then, "You aren't going to die on me, are you?"

Like it would be even more inconsiderate to saddle her with a body. "In your dreams. Now talk."

She swallowed hard. "I don't know how to tell this without marking Kara look worse than she is."

"She went out to kill someone. You can't make that look like a Sunday school picnic."

Sarah bowed her head, then lifted it, looking over at the hanging quilts. "Yes. Okay. Kara and Randall did go looking for Dr. Pleasant. It was Kara's idea. Randy would have gone on forever, spinning in his own small, sad circle. Terrible waste of a good man."

"Goddammit! Will you please—"

"Sorry. When they found him, they decided they were going to..." Her voice faltered. "Going to kill him. They figured the way to do it was to entice him into a sexual situation in his car. And that's what they did."

"But you said—"

"I'm not finished." Despite the blanket, he was shivering. "Obviously, you know about the first part of the evening." She sighed. "How that girl could be so stupid, I don't know. She has a three-point-eight average. But she's been brooding for six years. She was there when her mother died. Something like that leaves a mark."

He'd been there. Done that. Knew all about the mark. But he wasn't here to get dragged back down into memories. When his need for self-protection butted up against his cop's instinct for solving a crime, he put the job first. "The story."

"Kara contacted some thug... some pimp, I suppose... that Randy'd located. Poor guy. Going down there and picking up hookers... the whole thing was so sordid. Kara asked this guy if he could set her up with Dr. Pleasant. I suppose some money changed hands, she didn't tell me. That night, she got the call that this creep had set up a party with Pleasant."

She pushed her hair behind her ears with nervous fingers. "I'm sorry. I know you want this neatly folded and delivered, like laundry, and I'm doing a crappy job. I just want to explain how Kara isn't a bad kid or an evil person and this isn't what you think."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

It was morning. Outside, in the growing light, twittering birds were coming to the feeder. He felt like shit, furious at himself for letting her shoot him. Some cop he was, couldn't cover his own ass. At least his anger kept him awake, fighting the desire to let go and curl himself around his pain, even if he was too full of wounded rage to let her tell it her way.

Upstairs, a door opened and slammed shut. Quick footsteps came down the stairs. Sarah Merchant's hand went to her mouth, watching the girl come in.

"I couldn't do it," she said, shrugging off her jacket. "I couldn't just run away and leave you to deal with my mess, Aunt Sarah." She wore jeans and a blue sweater the color of her eyes. Even in the dim light and to Burgess's jaundiced eyes, she was beautiful.

She crossed the room and knelt by her aunt's feet, putting her head in Sarah Merchant's lap. Then she rose and turned to look at him. "This is so weird," she said. "A cop all wrapped up like a granny. What'd you do? Shoot him?"

Sarah's "yes" was a low, choked sound.

The girl looked at him again. Then, though she didn't actually roll up her sleeves, he saw a mental transformation from skittish girl to woman in charge. She tied back her hair and pulled away his blanket. "Kara Allison, R.N." A whisper of hesitation. "Almost. Where are you hit?"

"Never mind that. Tell me about the night Pleasant was killed."

"In good time," she said calmly. She opened his jacket, moving him with professional skill, then she started working on his shirt, unbuttoning and un-tucking so that she was staring at his blood-soaked tee-shirt. She rolled it up, looking with dismay at his bloody torso. "Aunt Sarah, have you called an ambulance?"

"He won't let me. Says he came here to ask questions and that's what he's going to do." Her niece's return had restored some of Sarah Merchant's composure.

"Tough guy, huh?" Kara said. "If I tell my story, will you let us get you some help?"

"Just tell the goddamned story," he said.

"This is all my fault," she said. She pulled down his shirt, closed his coat, and stepped back. "Make you a deal," she said. So goddamned cool.

"You're hardly in a position—"

"Neither are you. I'll tell you what happened if you'll let me call a doctor."

"Let's just get the talking over with," he grunted, "before we invite other people to the party. I'm okay."

She studied his face and checked his pulse. He gritted his teeth, not wanting her touching him. No comfort from the enemy. "Aunt Sarah, we need a warmer blanket, some tea and orange juice."

Sarah Merchant was glad to leave the room.

Kara Allison took her place on the couch. "You have a peculiar idea about what constitutes okay." When he didn't respond, she said, "The story, huh? It's pretty sordid." Sitting there, she became a nervous young girl again. These women morphed in a way that seemed unreal, though he knew it was reality. "And I'm supposed to want to help people. Like you. To make things better. But then..."

Her pause was long and considered. "That's what Pleasant was supposed to do, too. But he never gave a damn about the people he treated." Her lip was trembling and her eyes swam with tears. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. "I'm not proud of what I did."

"Hold on. Are you about to confess?" He struggled to sit up straighter, to rise to the formality of the occasion.

"Stay still," she ordered. "I really don't know. You'll have to hear it and decide."

"Then I've got to tell you about your rights."

"Miranda?" she said. "Don't bother. I'll waive it."

"I have to—"

"Just let me get this off my chest, okay?"

"I need a formal waiver," he insisted. "You have to sign something."

"You're kidding. I can't just say it?"

"Under the circumstances, I'd like it in writing."

Sarah Merchant came in with a tray, a blanket under her arm. Kara took the blanket and tucked it around him. "Aunt Sarah," she said, "will you be a witness that I understand and am waiving Miranda rights?"

Sarah Merchant gave him a poisonous look. "I don't think you want to do that, Kara."

Screw her and her crazy-ass entitled attitude, Burgess thought. Woman oughta be on her way to jail and she's whining about rights and procedure.

"I'm fine," Kara said.

Her aunt turned and left the room.

Awkwardly, he fumbled his notebook out, unfolded a waiver form, and passed it to her. She read it over and signed it. "This really isn't necessary," she said.

"It's procedure," he said wearily, putting it back in his pocket. It wasn't. This situation didn't fit the criteria, but he'd rather be safe than sorry. "Go ahead."

"I started out doing this for Randy, because of how it's ruined his life, and he's such a good guy. Then I was doing it for me. Now I see all I've done is cause trouble to people I love, like Aunt Sarah. That's not what was supposed to happen, you know?" Looking for understanding. He didn't understand. "It was all my idea. Finding him. Setting him up. The weapon. The whole thing. Randy just did what I asked."

"From the beginning," Burgess said.

She looked down at her clenched hands. "My mother died when I was fifteen. She had cervical cancer, but what she died of was complications of Dr. Pleasant." Something hard and raw had come into her voice. "We were very poor and she didn't bother with medical care. She got it for us but not herself. That's how she was. Always giving. She would have given away the shirt on her back if she thought it would help somebody, but she didn't have a clue about how to care for herself."

Like his own mother, he thought.

"She could be wise, and infinitely generous, but life scared her. She couldn't handle stress. I see now that she was probably a little bit crazy, so she self-medicated. She drank." Kara pulled a strand of hair loose and began winding it around her finger. Like Alana. Like a hundred girls he'd interviewed. Something older women didn't do. "She was getting radiation for her cancer. She'd dwindled down to the tiniest little thing. Always in pain and sick. The pain wasn't managed. Her health wasn't managed. Her doctor didn't pay any attention, gave her welfare medicine..."

Her hands pressed against her stomach. "I'm sorry," she said. "I still can't... give me a minute, okay?" She walked to the window, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. The room was cold. She picked up her coat and put it on. "What I remember of that time is a muddle. I have a confused sense of not understanding what was going on, of being sad and scared and feeling this terrible helplessness, but I have pictures in my mind. How scared she was. Her anger when the doctors treated her like a moron. The nights she cried."

He wanted to tell her cut to the chase, but if she needed to tell the whole story, he'd listen.

"The last part of her treatment..." She swallowed. Started over, her voice softer. "What was supposed to be the last part of her treatment... she went into the hospital for a procedure where they isolate the patient and deliver a dose of radiation directly to the spot with this cesium rod. She was supposed to stay very, very still."

She let the tears come. "My mother was an alcoholic. They knew that. They'd sent her away, refused her treatment before because she'd been drinking. But they didn't monitor her. They didn't sedate her. They told her she had to lie there for forty-eight hours, perfectly still, and then they went away and left her." Kara shook her head. "She got restless and delirious. Punctured her uterus with the rod. Collapsed on the floor and bled."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It was a long time before they found her and then it was too late. They put her in intensive care to treat her, the DTs, the shock. We sat beside her for three weeks, in that room with all the machines. The nurses braided her hair up with ribbons. She looked so cute, only she wasn't really there." Absently, Kara's fingers gathered clumps of hair and started braiding.

"There were tubes everywhere. Her hands and feet swelled up. Once or twice, it seemed like she responded to Randy's voice, but..." The silence of memory lay heavily between them. "All those days and nights. Waiting and hoping. She never woke up. One day, she's trying to get things done around the house before she goes into the hospital, and the next, it's all over. We never got to say good-bye."

Kara shook her head, as if the suddenness and finality of what had happened still shocked her. "It was his carelessness that killed her. What he knew and didn't bother to pay attention to. That's why..." The challenging blue eyes met his, fierce and angry. "That's why it had to be a rod, you see. As ye sow, so also shall ye reap."

Had he just heard a confession? Burgess closed his eyes against her pain and his own. Against the memories of intensive care. The hope you clung to when the result seemed inevitable, your own pain so vivid you longed for your own dose of morphine. The way the urge for revenge could grow in the cold confines of that place, fueled by the respirator's
sotto voce
mantra. Hate, hate, hate.