Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

The name tag on the nurse across the admissions desk from Clare read HOLLI MURRAY, LPN, CMA, but it might as well have been HOLLI MURRAY, LPN, PIA for all the help she was. Pain in the ass, indeed, Clare thought, giving it one more try. “Just look her up. Millie van der Hoeven.”

“I’ve told you already, ma’am, we don’t have any Millie van der Hoeven registered.”

“I think her full first name is Millicent. Maybe they dropped part of her last name when she was admitted. Can you try Van Hoeven or just Hoeven?”

“Ma’am, we don’t have her.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes!” Clare dropped her hands heavily on the admissions desk to avoid clutching at her hair. “Could you check and see if she was admitted at Glens Falls, then?”

Holli Murray, LPN, CMA, gave Clare a condescending look. She was a tall, stick-thin woman, with peroxide-brittle hair and a heavy hand with makeup. She looked like she was auditioning for the run-down-and-tired “before” spot in an ad for iron supplements. “Ma’am,” she said, “are you a family member?”

“No, but I’m a priest.”

Murray’s overplucked eyebrows rose as she very visibly gave Clare the once-over, taking in her baggy, stained pants, her aged thermal shirt, and her hair, flattened by her hat and escaping in straggly pieces from the knot at the back of her head.

“Really!” Clare protested. “I’m one of the hospital chaplains!”

The Washington County Hospital was too small to have its own social worker, pathologist, and chaplain. The first two it shared with Glens Falls and the county medical examiner’s office. The latter post was filled on a rotating basis by Millers Kill’s Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers-and by its Episcopal priest.

“Uh-huh,” Holli Murray, LPN, CMA, said. “And I’m Clara Barton.”

The elevator chimed, and Clare caught sight of a familiar face getting out. Alta Brewer, the senior emergency department nurse.

“Alta!” Clare called. “Can you vouch for me?”

“Hey, Reverend Fergusson.” The nurse switched directions, bearing down on the admissions desk. A head shorter than Clare, Alta was built like a miniature Humvee and had the same approach to obstacles in her way. She glanced up at Murray. “The reverend’s on the roster. Give her what she wants.”

“But she was asking for confidential patient information,” Murray whined.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Alta bumped Murray away from the computer screen. “Go get yourself something to eat, will ya? Before you keel over and give us all more work to do.” She punched her password on the keyboard as Holli Murray, LPN, CMA, huffed away into the back office. “Fuggun’ stick women. Can’t stand ’em.” Alta glanced up at Clare. “Whatcha looking for, Reverend?”

“Millie van der Hoeven. She should have come in on an ambulance within the last half hour. She had been injured up in the-”

“I know who you’re talking about.” Alta keystroked furiously. “Holli couldn’t find her because she’s not Millie van der Hoeven.”

“What?”

“The cops went out to where she was found to have a look-see, and they got her purse. Her name’s Becky Castle.”

Clare felt her jaw drop like a character’s in a Warner Brothers cartoon.

“The name Millie van der Hoeven never even made it into the computer, because Chief Van Alstyne called with the update right after she arrived.”

“I saw her today! Becky Castle! At Haudenosaunee!”

Alta looked at her sharply. “Yeah?” She trundled around the desk and took Clare’s elbow. “Come with me. Holli!” she yelled toward the office. “Get back out here! You’re on duty!” She steered Clare toward the elevator.

“Why am I coming with you?” Clare asked, as the elevator doors opened, then closed behind her.

“The patient’s parents just got here. The mom asked for a minister.”

“It’s Dr. Feely’s week.”

“He hasn’t answered his page yet. You’re here.” The elevator chimed. Alta pushed her out onto the third floor.

“But…” Clare plucked at her grubby clothes. Alta looked at her unsympathetically. “I thought I was meeting Eugene van der Hoeven. Millie’s brother. He’s already seen me like this.”

“They asked for a minister, not a model.” She recaptured Clare’s elbow and led her to the surgery waiting room. “There they are. Go on.”

“What’s going on with their daughter?” Clare hissed.

“She’s in surgery now. Internal bleeding.” Alta gave her a little shove. “She’ll probably live,” she added, with the bluntness of a twenty-five-year veteran on the front lines.

Clare instantly recognized Ed Castle from their earlier meeting, and she kicked herself for not putting the two names together. She kept forgetting one of the primary rules of Millers Kill: Any two people who share a last name are related in some degree.

When Russ had introduced them, Ed Castle had been bundled up in a Day-Glo vest and camouflage jacket. Now he looked softer and infinitely more vulnerable in a flannel shirt and padded windcheater. Most of his hair was gone, and he had the pale line of a farmer’s tan high across his forehead. He was sitting with his head in his hands, and she could see his neck, cracked and lined from decades of exposure to the elements.

The woman next to him was, like Ed, in her early sixties. Her pastel makeup was marred by streaky shadows of mascara, and her mouth was wiped clean of lipstick. Despite her too-good-to-be-true blond hair, she looked old, stitched and seamed by a lifetime of hard work or the strain of the recent news.

“Excuse me,” Clare said, her voice low. “Mr. Castle? I’m Clare Fergusson. We met this morning at Haudenosaunee. I was one of the team searching for Millie van der Hoeven.”

He looked up at her blankly. “Oh,” he said. “The lady minister. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.” He waved a hand at the woman sitting next to him. “This is my wife, Suzanne.”

The woman’s good manners kicked in and she automatically smiled at Clare, as if she really were glad to meet her, here in the hospital where they waited on word of their daughter. When she isn’t ravaged by grief, Clare thought, she must have a soft, sweet face.

“What did you say your name was, dear?”

“Clare Fergusson. I’m the priest at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. I understand you asked for a minister. Is there anything I can do to help you? Anyone I can call?”

The older woman looked vaguely across the waiting room. “My younger grandson is already here. I let him go to the gift shop, poor thing. It’s hard for him to sit around waiting.”

“Hard for me to listen to that damn Game Boy of his,” his grandfather grumbled.

“Our other girl, Bonnie, is working up at the new hotel today. I’ve left a message there and on her answering machine at home. I’m sure as soon as she gets word, she’ll be here.” She smiled again, but the effort seemed too much for her, and the expression slid off her face into oblivion.

At that moment, a woman with dark blond hair and reddened eyes appeared in the waiting room entrance. “Mom? Dad?” She hurried toward her parents, her arms open.

“How is she? Have you seen the doctor yet?”

“Just for a moment,” Suzanne said. “She’s in surgery now. She was bleeding internally.” Her soft features crumpled. She leaned her head on her daughter’s shoulder and began to cry.

The woman-Bonnie, Clare guessed-looked over her mother’s head to her father. “What happened?”

“Internal injuries consistent with assault,” Ed said, his voice low and hard. “You know what that means? Some bastard beat the crap out of her. Broke her ribs and busted her up inside and left her on one of my logging roads up to Haudenosaunee. One of my roads.” Ed Castle bowed his head again, exposing his shiny skull and thread-fine silver hair. A penitent, hopelessly seeking forgiveness. “It was my fault.” His voice broke. “I should never have sent her up to Haudenosaunee alone. I knew that other girl was missing. But I was too damn full of myself to give her the lousy damn insurance papers.”