Jon Talton - The Pain Nurse

“What do you want to know?”

“Did you kill her?”

“No.”

“Then why did that girl say you did? Why did Lennie think you were the devil?”

“You think I killed Christine Lustig? That would be quite a trick.”

“Don’t play games with me,” she snapped. “You know exactly what I mean.”

“I didn’t kill Theresa.”

“How do I know that?” she demanded.

“I was with Dodds that night.”

“But he said you lied to him. I heard you two, fighting in the morgue. He said you left homicide because he fired you, because you lied to him.” She pushed herself back into the seat and stared out at the park. “What did you lie about?”

He sighed and adjusted his tie. “Theresa.”

Something in the way that he said her name crashed against Cheryl Beth’s anger and mistrust, leaving her off balance. She said, “Were you sleeping with her?”

“Yes.”

There it was. Cheryl Beth looked straight ahead. The park was becoming a faded dream as their breath fogged over the windshield. It was growing cold inside the car, but she didn’t make a move to turn the key.

Will’s voice was drained of its previous excitement. “It was three years ago. I walked into a bar downtown. It was a slow evening and there weren’t many people there. I walked between the tables and knocked her purse over, and I bent down to help her. We talked for a minute. She looked so sad. I’d never seen anyone look so sad. But there was this beauty, this grace, hidden behind it. So I sent a drink over to her table, and in a minute she came and joined me…”

“You were cheating on your wife?” She noticed he wasn’t wearing a wedding band, but his chart showed a contact, Cynthia Holland, as his wife.

He gave a sour laugh. “We’d separated, again. She was seeing a man on the side. Or was it two?”

“So you and this woman…”

“Her name was Theresa.”

His voice sounded as if it had hit a sandbar.

“She didn’t want to get involved with a cop again,” he said. “But we did.” He spoke more slowly, pausing, his mind far from the cold inside of the car. “She’d never had anybody be good to her. Never had flowers sent to her. A car door opened for her.”

“Her husband, Bud, he found out?”

“They were separated. I knew Bud Chambers years ago, on patrol. We weren’t friends. The more I heard about the way he had treated her, I hated him. I checked him out. He was still a patrolman, never even made sergeant. He had a load of brutality complaints. But he was part of the ole-boy network on the force.” He shook his head. “She deserved so much better. But it was, like, I don’t know, once Cindy realized I was involved with somebody she suddenly said she wanted me back. I knew better, but it was hard. Cindy was the woman I’d married. But Theresa…”

He huddled deeper in his coat. “Her daughter kept pressing her to reconcile with Bud. The girl was, maybe, sixteen then. She didn’t know any better, wanted mom and dad together. Theresa was very guilt-ridden about it. She said she was probably doing the wrong thing, making the biggest mistake of her life. But she told me she’d decided to try again with Bud. I didn’t hear from her for almost a year. Then, the week before…” He swallowed hard. “Before she was murdered. She called and said he had moved out again. She’d thrown him out and gotten a restraining order. She said she didn’t want for me to have to get involved in it. But she said she’d come over soon. We made a date. It was for the day after…after…”

He took a gulp of air. “We were the primaries. The first detectives called to the scene. It was a beautiful day. Like the first real spring day. I prayed she had moved, that someone else was at that address. But I knew. I knew.” His voice slowed as he seemed to struggle to get the words out. “I knew he did it. I swore to her I’d make him pay, but I never did. I got him off the force, but he got away with it. And with those other girls he killed to cover his tracks. And now with Christine. He’s a killer. Who knows why? Who cares?”

She asked why he didn’t tell Dodds that he had been involved with Theresa Chambers.

“I knew how he’d react,” Will said. “It would be a distraction, too. I knew Bud did it. And command might take me off the case-too close to the victim and all that. So I didn’t tell him for two weeks, when the next woman was killed. When I did, he said he didn’t want to work with me anymore. He never told anyone. We stayed together until Craig Factor was convicted and everybody said we were supercops. But our friendship was over. I transferred to Internal Investigations, to try to get some of these dirtbag cops off the streets.” He paused. “That’s what I told myself. I just kept seeing her face, seeing her dead…”

Cheryl Beth felt light enough to float away, felt wetness at the edges of her eyes.

“Did you love her?”

Will didn’t answer. She could see him struggling not to cry. Men were funny that way. Most never knew the release of a good cry. She fought the impulse to take him in her arms. He was just a patient. She had hugged and comforted hundreds of patients. Why was she struggling? What was she struggling with? He leaned away from her, against the car door.

“Weepy Borders,” he laughed and half-sobbed.

“What?”

“Long story.”

Cheryl Beth tried to lighten her voice. “Did you have fun with her?”

“Oh, yeah,” he rasped. “I never knew it was possible.”

She started the car and drove slowly out of the park and into the downtown streets. As the defroster cleared the windshield, rain began pecking at the glass.

“You blame yourself.”

He was staring out the passenger-side window as they passed Fountain Square, decorated for Christmas, an impressionist painting as umbrella-shrouded office workers and shoppers scurried across, the buildings dissolving in the rain. He stared past her into Garfield Park, magically lit by the ornate streetlamps. It was five thirty and full dark. Cincinnati still had the bones of the major American metropolis it once was.

“Let’s just say when the tumor was found, I figured that God had given me what I deserved.”

“How can you say that?” Cheryl Beth gripped the wheel tightly. “I grew up with that crap, and that’s not the God I worship. Stuff happens, Will. Some gene betrayed you. It’s not the Lord’s punishment for anything you did or didn’t do with Theresa. You’re not to blame for what happened.”

He laughed mordantly. “Well, I haven’t had an erection since the surgery, so let’s say I don’t have to worry about women anymore.”

They were stopped at a traffic light. Cheryl Beth turned to him. “Stick out your tongue. Go ahead, I’m a nurse. Stick out your tongue.”

He did.

“You’ve got everything you need to make a woman happy.”

The light changed and her tires spun on the pavement. She could feel herself turning bright red. That was a routine she had done before with spinal patients, a little bit of fun, strictly professional. Now she was burning with embarrassment. It faded only slowly as she drove up the hill on Vine Street and the windshield wipers revealed the sleet that was now coming down hard. She drove with extra care. The sleet clung to the hood of the car, slathered the street. If it froze… But she also drove slowly because she didn’t want the day to end.

“Did you miss being a homicide detective?” She felt herself talking nervously, to break the spell that had fallen into the car.

“Some days,” he said. “I loved my job. That may be different from a lot of cops. They start out loving it, showing up at work early, everything’s new, they work past their shift without even thinking about filing an overtime slip. Later, it changes. A lot of them get bitter, hate everybody, marriages fall apart. Then they wait for their pensions. The best ones get in a zone. They know the job, the politics, how to put a case together and testify. They make friends off the job.”