C. Lawrence - Silent Screams

"Well, then, why doesn't someone do something about it?" he muttered. "Why all this goddamn pussyfooting around?

Butts stepped forward. "I think the first thing that someone should do is to send you home. You're not-"

But he never got a chance to finish his sentence. Nelson growled and threw a punch at him. He was too drunk to make contact, though, and ended up flat on his back on the other side of the room.

"Oh, you wanna get into it?" Butts said. "Come on-bring it on! I'm ready for you."

"Stop it!" Chuck barked. "All right, that's it," he continued, kneeling beside Nelson. "We'll take a little break and start up again in a few minutes." He pulled Nelson to his feet. "What's the matter with you?"

"I'll tell you what's the matter with me," Nelson answered. "This damn psycho has us all by the short and curlies-that's what's the matter with me.

"This isn't helping things," Chuck said. "Why don't you go home until you can sleep this off?"

Nelson looked at Lee, who said, "I think you know Chuck is right."

It took more convincing to get Nelson to leave. After he had gone, a pall settled over the room. They were all emotionally exhausted, and Nelson's behavior reminded them how close to the edge they all were.

"All right," said Chuck. "Let's just try to concentrate for a moment, can we?"

"I know how Dr. Nelson feels," Florette said, adjusting his already perfectly centered silk tie, "but don't you think a fresh set of eyes might be a good idea at this point?"

"I'm surprised they've got anyone to spare, with all the antiterrorism work they're doing right now," Butts remarked.

"I trained with some of these guys at Quantico, and they're terrific, but it'll take time to bring them up to speed." Lee said.

"What you said before is right," Butts pointed out. "The bottom line is getting this guy off the street as soon as possible."

"Yeah," Lee agreed. He went to sit down, felt faint, and almost fell.

"Hey," Chuck said, "maybe someone else should be going home right about now."

"I'm fine," Lee replied tersely.

Butts squinted at him. "Is there any chance that your infection was caused by-by something that was done to you?"

Lee stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Could he have-I mean, can someone cause that kind of infection in another person?"

"I think that's unlikely," Florette interjected. "I was a med student as an undergraduate, and I never heard of a case of bacterial meningitis that was the result of deliberate contamination. It's not-"

"Okay, so let's move on," Chuck said, coming around to lean on the front of his desk. "Did you have any luck tracing Samuel Beckett?" he asked Detective Florette.

"Not really. We looked into the handful of people with that name, but no one came even close to the profile-an old retired sailor on Staten Island, one rich, middle-aged French businessman on the Upper East Side, and a would-be playwright using it as a nom de plume in the East Village, most definitely gay."

"Any follow-up on how he got into the hospital room at that hour?" Chuck asked Butts.

"One of the night nurses found a discarded orderly jacket in a broom closet, but there are no workable prints on it," Butts replied. "Probably wore gloves again-God knows there are plenty of those in a hospital."

"Yeah, and he's too smart to discard those in the hospital," Lee remarked. "He would know that prints can be lifted from the inside of latex gloves."

Chuck looked at his watch. "Look, it's late. Why don't we all get a few hours of sleep, and meet first thing tomorrow morning?"

"Okay," said Butts. "My wife's gonna be real shocked to see me-says she hasn't seen me for so long that she's forgotten what I look like. Which, in my case, maybe isn't such a bad thing," he added with a rueful smile.

They all headed out for their various subway trains as the city settled into early evening stillness. A few clouds punctuated an otherwise clear night sky, and there was a smell of fresh earth in the air.

Lee and Florette took the express train downtown together as far as Times Square.

"You know," Lee said as the local stops flashed past the windows, "there's got to be some key to this whole thing."

Up on the walls of the subway car was an advertisement for horse racing at Belmont Park, a speeding thoroughbred with a jockey leaning low over its muscular neck. As Lee looked up at the picture, an idea slowly formed in his mind.

"Oh, my God-that's it! A key."

"What?" said Florette.

"Eddie," he said. "The racing form-that was the key!"

"What key?" Florette asked, still confused.

He explained his idea to Florette as the stops continued to rush by.

Half an hour later, he was on East Seventh Street, headed for his apartment. The minute he got inside, he dialed Chuck's number in New Jersey. After two rings a woman answered.

"Hello?"

It was Susan, her voice low and liquid, smooth as olive oil. Lee had seen her once since her drunken Christmas party confession, at one of the 9/11 police funerals, and he had done his best to avoid her then. He considered hanging up, and rejected the idea-knowing Susan, she would have caller ID, and hanging up would only make things worse.

He took a deep breath. "Hello, Susan." He tried to sound natural, and ended up sounding completely forced.

"Hello, Lee." She stretched out the l's, rolling her tongue over the consonants sensually, like a cat stretching itself. "Long time, no see." It was an accusation, an implication, and an invitation. Lee wondered if she was faithful to Chuck.

He took another breath and swallowed hard.

"Is Chuck around?"

"Yes, he's in the basement working out. Just a minute-I'll get him."

She put down the receiver, and he could hear the click of her heels as she crossed the kitchen floor. Since being married to Susan, Chuck had become devoted to his weight routine, buffing his already athletic body to a burnished movie star musculature. If he didn't exercise regularly, he was given to thickening around the middle-unlike Lee, whose appetite came and went, Chuck had been renowned at Princeton for his eating ability. He once ate four dozen Maryland crabs at a seafood festival, and Lee had seen him down a sixteen-ounce steak.

Susan had kept her looks, too-she worked hard at it. Hours at the gym, Botox, implants, micro this, retinol that-her body was a project. Within a week of giving birth to her son, according to Chuck, she was doing crunches in front of Oprah reruns. She'd get her beauty any way she could have it. From a bottle, a box, or a scalpel-it was all the same to her.

Susan came back on the line. "He's coming," she purred. "And don't be such a stranger-come out and see us sometime. It doesn't always have to be about business, you know."

Oh, yes it does.

Chuck came on the line. "Hello?" he said, sounding out of breath. Lee imagined him standing on the immaculate kitchen floor, toweling off, being careful not to get a drop of sweat on the perfectly waxed floor.

"Listen, Chuck, I have an idea."

"Yeah?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but I think Eddie's racing form may hold the key-"

"What racing form?"

"Eddie Pepitone called me before he died to say he had an idea about the killer's identity."

"And?"

"He had just won some money on a horse called 'Lock, Stock, and Barrel.'"

"So?"

"Eddie was a superstitious guy. I think he bet on that horse because of something he knew-or thought he knew-that he wanted to tell me."

"What would that be?"

"Well, you know how this guy has been getting into the churches so easily?"

"Yeah. But some of the churches told us they often leave doors open."

"I know. But remember how he got into the hospital the other night with no problem?"

"Right."