Jon Talton: The Pain Nurse

He was alive.

Later he would learn that the surgery had lasted more than ten hours, but to him it was one lost instant that began after the anesthesiologist had opened his leather case and said, “Bar’s open. What’s your pleasure, Detective Borders?” Will had laughed and called for good Kentucky bourbon and a Christian Moerlein chaser. Next he was awake on his back, looking at a lighted ceiling, and at Cindy’s face, telling her how much he loved her, how grateful he was to be alive. They could start fresh. They would have Christmas. He would live to see another Christmas. He had just been babbling, a long series of moans, but these words are what his brain so clearly heard him say.

Can you wiggle your toes? Can you feel this? Yes, yes!

He was alive. This elation kept him going through the hours in the ICU, when he sweet-talked the nurse into giving him more ice than she probably should have. His thirst was primal. The ice was salvation. He could feel his feet and toes, kept wiggling them anxiously. Then he had been wheeled up to a patient floor, a good sign surely, and Cindy had sat with him for a while. Then she had poured him water and left. The persistent sleep that had annihilated the past few days again took him. Everything else could wait. He was alive.

Suddenly this madman had appeared, vowing to take him for an MRI. It was midnight. Will had protested ineffectually as they slid him to a gurney and wheeled him like tardy cargo through the empty halls of the hospital. For the first time since waking from the surgery, Will was afraid. The nurses hadn’t heard about this trip to the imaging department. He overheard a hushed conversation. And the attendant seemed so careless, so quick to take a fast turn with the gurney that might have sent Will sprawling onto the floor. The corridors were empty. Could the MRI even be operating this late? Yet he was a prisoner, flat on his back, barely able to move below the waist.

He felt profoundly vulnerable: part of his vertebrae was missing and a long, fresh wound was cut down his back, held together by sutures that could easily rip apart. The drugs and exhaustion had made him feel oddly disembodied. From the safety of his bed, he had studied the assorted tubes coming out of his arms and chest with an abstract disregard. Now they looked like menace, like death attached.

He felt utterly alone.

It didn’t help Will’s apprehension that he was at the mercy of a young black man who hated cops. The man had made that tendency clear to everyone he encountered. There had been another shooting of a black by a police officer, no doubt a white officer. Will Borders was a white police officer. He feigned sleep and hoped that his tormenter didn’t know his occupation.

After an hour of being banged inside the futuristic coffin of the MRI-thank God, he wasn’t claustrophobic-he was again loaded on the gurney and wheeled to the elevator. This time they took a long, circuitous route, through bleak corridors that looked as if they hadn’t been used in years. Will was growing sleepy until the gurney jerked to a halt and he looked ahead to see a hallway blocked with yellow tape. It was crime-scene tape.

“Can’t go this way.”

“What? I can’t use the A-Main corridor. The cops blocked that, too. I got a man who needs to get back to his room.”

It was the first time the orderly had shown any more concern for Will than for a cart of someone else’s groceries.

“Wait.”

Will strained to see in front of him. He could make out two uniformed police officers standing outside an open doorway, their regulation white shirts and badges glowing in the reflected light. Will was too exhausted to be curious. The thrill of being on the other side of police tape had passed years before.

“Let him through…stay over this way.”

The gurney moved again and Will opened his eyes, just in time to look through the door. It was an office and blood was on the walls and floor. A technician stepped carefully to take photos of the scene. The body was still there, a woman, nude, and badly slashed. Will studied the view with a trained eye, suddenly engaged. His stomach was turning to ice. His throat threatened to close.

“Stop!” Will tried to pull himself upright, got his trunk a quarter of the way up, and fell back. “Stop!” he said again.

“Are you nuts, man? You move around too much and you could reopen your sutures.” The orderly looked alarmed.

“That woman in there,” Will said. “Look at her left hand.”

“Yeah, she’s stone cold…”

“No, look at her left hand. What do you see?”

The orderly’s voice rose an octave. “Shit, man, somebody cut off her finger!”

“Come on, move along.”

Will knew the voice instantly and a tired, sour feeling enveloped him.

“What, you don’t see enough blood in your job…what’s this?” A broad ebony face bent down and surveyed Will. “Well, well, Internal Investigations will do anything to sneak up on real working police.”

Homicide Detective J. J. Dodds assumed his usual lordly stance. He was not merely big but downright fat. He grew fatter every year, regularly outgrowing his suits. Will didn’t know how he passed his annual physical. He did know how to dress, though. Tonight Dodds wore a blue pinstriped suit, starched dress shirt, and a burgundy tie.

“What the hell happened to you, Borders? Having a boil removed from your ass?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Oh, yeah, what? You look like shit.”

The orderly asked, “You guys know each other?”

“Yeah, I arrested him once,” Dodds said. “Morals charge.”

Will ignored him and nodded toward the room. “That victim. Did you see her hand?”

“I saw. Why are you here? Enlighten me.” A moment before the cops had been rushing them by. Now Dodds’ meaty hand held the gurney fast. The orderly sighed loudly and lounged against the wall. A few feet away stood the pretty nurse he had seen on the elevator going down. Her clothes were streaked with blood and her face was ashen.

“What ailment, Borders? Surely not something in the line of duty.”

Will’s throat was still sore from the intubation for surgery. He swallowed hard and wished he had some water. “A spinal cord tumor, okay?”

“Spinal cord what?” Dodds’ exotic, cynical eyes widened. Then he blinked the moment away. “I’ve got a bad back, too.”

“Her hand, Dodds. Her hand.”

“I saw it.” He lounged nonchalantly against the rails of the gurney.

“Dodds…”

“What are you telling me, Borders? That you believe in ghosts? The Mount Adams Slasher died at Lucasville last summer.”

“Maybe he wasn’t the Slasher.”

Dodds lifted the sheet and studied Will. “Shit, you’ve got tubes coming out of you. That’s gross. You in pain?”

“Who was this woman? Do you have a suspect?”

“They’ll just go lay it on an innocent brother like they always do,” the orderly grumbled. Dodds ignored him.

“This is none of your concern, Mister Patient.” Dodds carelessly replaced the sheet. “You’re the only one in town who ever had a doubt over that case, and as I recall you left the Homicide Unit. You make a living ratting out police officers.”

“He took her ring finger, goddammit. Just like the Mount Adams cases.”

“So it’s a copy cat.”

Will hissed, “We never released that information about the crime and the media never reported it!” His back was starting to hurt, a low, spreading fire of pain. “I bet you found her clothes folded neatly, too. Dodds!”

“Borders…”

“You know who did this. You know it.” Will heard an unfamiliar pleading in his voice. “Look for the knife!”