John Lutz - Serial

Rose shook her head adamantly. “I can’t be responsible for-”

“But you will be, Rose. Responsible for another woman suffering as Officer Weaver now suffers. That is, if you don’t let her and I simply exchange a few words. Then she can rest all the better knowing she’s done her duty and we know who did this heinous thing to her. I beg you, Rose, to let her finish what she set out tonight to accomplish.”

Rose gave Quinn a long, hopeless sigh. He wasn’t sure if it meant surrender or exasperation. Rose was hard to read.

Quinn moved closer and lowered his voice even more. “Young as you are, my impression is you’ve been a nurse for some time. You must know your real responsibilities in gray areas such as this, dear. Vital gray areas. We all know there are rules that must in special times be circumvented to prevent tragedy.”

“You are so full of bullshit,” Rose said.

Quinn’s earnest smile was undaunted.

“You can be in the room with us,” Quinn said.

“You’re damned right I can,” Rose told him, and led the way.

As soon as they were in the room, Rose examined the IV bottles hooked up to the tube leading to Weaver’s arm.

Weaver’s eyes flickered open. “Quinn…?” she managed to groan from her bed.

He touched her lightly on the forehead. “Don’t try to talk, Nancy, unless I ask you something.”

“I’m in goddamned pain. The bastard hit me with something that looked like a nightstick.”

“Who was it, Nancy?”

“I was following Sanderson.”

“Jock Sanderson? Why?”

“I read Pearl’s notes from her interview with him. They didn’t look right. The guy got to her, gave her a load of crap instead of straight answers.”

Quinn had read the interview and didn’t see it that way. And not too many people got to Pearl. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. So I decided to tail Sanderson and see what there was to learn. I got the feeling he was tailing someone. Stalking her.”

“Her?”

“I’m guessing there,” Weaver admitted. She took a deep breath. “Damn, that hurts!”

“Sanderson did this to you?”

“Must have. I was tailing him one second, and the next he was pounding away on me with that club of his.”

“You saw his face?”

“No. It was dark and he was wearing a balaclava. I could just see his eyes and mouth.”

“So you couldn’t identify him for sure.”

“No. Guess not…”

Weaver’s voice was wavering. She was obviously getting weaker.

“We’re done here,” Rose said.

“No,” Weaver said. She tried to grasp Quinn’s arm but couldn’t move her own. “I scratched his face hard under the balaclava. I remember that for sure. I did damage. Then I smelled ammonia-”

“Ammonia…”

“That’s it,” Rose said, and reached for the valve on the IV tube.

“He cleaned under my fingernails,” Weaver said. “I could feel the scraping…”

Rose readjusted the plastic valve.

“He might be our Skinner,” Weaver said.

“Skinner?” Rose asked. “The animal who’s killing those women?”

Quinn nodded. “The very same.” He looked down at Weaver, whose eyes were closed again. “Nancy?”

Weaver’s breath evened out and her features relaxed.

“She’s resting,” Rose said, “as she should be. And if I ever find again that you’ve tampered with medical equipment in a patient’s room, I’ll sic the authorities on you like a pack of mad dogs. There’ll be no more asking me to break the law for you. And you a policeman yourself.”

“I-”

“Don’t bother to deny it, please. I’ve heard enough lies.” She sighed loudly again. It seemed to be her signature way of expressing herself. “Have you got a card, Quinn?”

He looked at her.

“A business card, man!” Another trailing sigh.

Quinn dug his wallet from his pocket and handed her one of his Q and A business cards.

Rose tucked it in a pocket of her nurse’s uniform. “When the patient comes around again and you can count on her actually making sense, I’ll straightaway give you a call.”

“Thanks, Rose. I’ll have someone standing guard on Weaver here at the hospital. If you notify him, it’ll be the same as notifying me.”

“I hope you catch the murdering psychopath,” Rose said.

“We will,” Quinn assured her. He moved toward the elevator, and Rose walked alongside him. At the elevator doors, they paused. Quinn smiled his surprisingly beatific smile and gave Rose’s elbow a gentle squeeze. “You did the right thing, dear.”

“I was told those very words once after extramarital sex. It was a lie then and it is now.”

Edmundsville, Missouri, 2006

“You almost fell on your you-know-what,” May Ann said.

Beth had stumbled during an underarm turn on the crowded dance floor. May Ann had been the last of the group to arrive, and was still playing the chaste Catholic schoolgirl all grown up. Beth knew that was going to change in a big way after a few more drinks. Already May Ann was beginning to laugh too loud and bat her eyelashes.

The place was the 66 Road House, though it wasn’t anywhere near the new or old Route 66. The music was Hank Williams. There was sawdust on the dance floor, and the garage band that played the 66 was loud and almost on the beat. Beth was dancing with her friend May Ann Plunkert. The two women’s other friends, Gloria Trish and Sami Toyner, were at the table near the Stag Beer sign, sipping bourbon and water on the rocks. That and scotch and beer were pretty much what the 66 served. A drink with a parasol would probably result in a fight.

In the time she’d worked at Arch Manufacturing, Beth had made some good friends. Lots of single women were employed there, and there were plenty of cliques and enough ways to spend time if you weren’t too tired after work. Beth had fallen in with a group of about a dozen who called themselves the Sole Sisters. They weren’t particularly wild, but they had their fun.

Beth hadn’t made any close male friends, but she’d gone out on the occasional date. Nothing worked for her romantically, or for the men passing through her life. It was difficult for her to become involved with someone. The men she’d dated who were interested in more than sex broke off the relationship after learning she had a fourteen-year-old son. Baggage. People Beth’s age had baggage, and that was the way some of these jerks saw Eddie.

Beth truly loved Eddie. Tonight he was on a camping trip with his best friend Les and Les’s father. Eddie was turning into quite the outdoorsman. He especially loved fishing.

Since she’d left Hogart, things had worked out well. She had a job, a house, a life. Most important of all, Beth had her son to raise. She had all that, and she liked her work well enough at Arch, but now and then she found herself thinking there had to be more in life.

Like Wayne Westerley. Had she been an idiot to break off her affair with Wayne? A part of her didn’t want to leave him, but she knew that if she was going to find any happiness and get Eddie away from the fallout of what had happened to her, she had to leave Hogart.

The town wasn’t much to leave, anyway, a blink-of-the eye business loop off the Interstate and a dozen tree-lined side streets featuring houses that would have been historic but for the fact they were cracker-box shacks on the day they were built.

From time to time she did miss Wayne, not only their sexual involvement but the quiet times on her front porch, the leisurely walks along Trout Lake. He’d helped her to heal, and it wasn’t his fault that the healing could never be complete.

Westerley had driven to Edmundsville to see her several times after she’d moved, but she’d stopped that, too. It was as if he brought a part of the past with him, and it was a past Beth needed to escape. Eddie was the finest and only part of her earlier life she wanted to carry into the future.