Chapter 2. See part 1 for triple disclaimer.
***
"To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents . . . "
Hippocrates, the Physician's Oath
***
Melinda was beautiful in that fragile, luminous way that is reserved for those on the brink of death who look back calmly with more satisfaction than regrets. The masterpiece of her life was completed, and in the final analysis, she wouldn't have changed it. Horatio and Adele both spoke to her quietly, reverently almost. She was so close to eternity right now that just being with her was like being in church.
"Yes, Angel was here most of the night, keeping me company. She went out four times to check on things or to give meds to other patients, but she always came straight back."
"Did she mention anything unusual about the night, anything that she might have seen but didn't seem important at the time?"
Melinda smiled. "The only unusual thing she mentioned is that Carol didn't fight her over taking her pills."
Horatio smiled back at her. "That's unusual?"
"Oh yes, she's notorious. She bites, Mr. Caine. She's so bad that no one person ever tends to her alone. We're not all well-behaved here, just like any community."
"So Angela would have taken Karen with her to deal with Carol?"
"Yes. But Carol didn't fight for once. Moody, she is. I heard she threw her supper tray last night, but when Angel saw her, she was calm."
Horatio met her eyes with softened but still direct intensity. "Did you notice anything yourself, Melinda? Hear anything at any point?"
She thought about it. "No. I'm sorry, Mr. Caine. I wish I could help you."
"You help us by not inventing things. Thank you for your time." Adele and Horatio both gently shook the skeletal hand that was offered to them. They left the room still subdued.
"I could never work here," said Adele suddenly.
Horatio nodded. "Some of them don't appreciate it, some of them don't understand it, and many of the most beautiful ones die."
"Exactly." Adele looked at him. "Where do you think we should go from here, H?" It was a long-standing but good-natured joke between them that he could never let her do her job unassisted.
"We need statements from Karen, as well as the other staff on night shift in the other wings. Almost everyone working here came running when Angela screamed, so we can talk to them under context of finding the body."
Adele nodded. "I'll get a list from Darla. You agree that they're all suspects at this point?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I think we've established that probably nobody got in, because the doors were locked. Find out from Darla about keys, but I doubt many people had one to the outside doors. Certainly not every employee. No reason for it. That means the murderer is probably either staff on third shift or patient."
"Patient?" Adele had started off, but she stopped at that.
"Alexx thinks, as a preliminary finding, anyway, that the murderer had medical knowledge."
"Leading us to the staff."
"And possibly to the patients," Horatio insisted. "These people haven't been in a nursing home forever. They did have lives, jobs. Probably some of them medical. And patient or staff, the murderer is still at large here. I'll check victimology, too. See if we can find any kind of motive at all. We can cross reference Grace with all the other names, looking for links." Darla herself fluttered up at that point, and Horatio addressed her. "We're going to need a complete list of the people working here last night. Also people with the outside door key." Darla hesitated, and Horatio cut off her protest. "And a list of the names of all of the residents."
Darla jerked to an offended halt. "I can't give you their names. There is such a thing as medical confidentiality. We take our responsibilities there very seriously."
"I'm not asking for their medical records, just their names."
"I can't share that information. It's confidential."
"Fine," Horatio said, spotting Speed exiting 36 just beyond them. "Speed." The trace expert came up to him. "Take a picture of this sign." Horatio indicated the bulletin board by the nurse's station that included the complete names and room numbers of all patients. Speed obediently focused and snapped. "Thank you. Now, go to every other wing and take a picture of all similar signs."
"Sure thing, H." Speed headed off with the camera, and Horatio turned back to a speechless Darla.
"If I were you, I'd keep your medically confidential information a little more private. One more thing. I'd like to talk to Mary, the roommate."
"It won't do you any good," Darla insisted.
"I won't know that until I try, will I?"
Darla's eyes fell first. "She's at the end of the hall, in the wheelchair. The lady with a blue sweater."
"Thank you. She's all yours, Adele." Adele rolled her eyes at him, and Horatio started down the hall toward Mary. Behind him, Adele, like a paperwork dentist, started painfully extracting information.
Mary was staring into the empty air. Horatio knew this was hopeless as soon as he saw her eyes, but he had to try. "Mary? Could I talk to you for a minute?"
She perked up and focused on him. "I need help."
"What do you need help with?"
A look of confusion crossed her face for a second. That wasn't the usual response she got. The train of thought that started promptly derailed in the fog of her mind, though, and she switched back to routine. "I need help."
"Thank you, Mary." Horatio patted her on the shoulder and turned away. He would look in on Eric, then surprise Adele by telling her to head on out alone to witness questioning. He wanted to check on Alexx. He walked down the hall to 36 again, passing several residents. Confused eyes, resentful eyes, and, worst of all, lonely eyes. He rarely met a job that made him think his was easy in comparison, but this one came close.
***
Calleigh was just starting to examine the scissors when she felt him. "Hi, Handsome."
"Hi, Beautiful. How's it going?" The words were utterly professional. The smile was not. She returned the smile full-force herself but stuck to business, following his lead.
"I'm just getting started. They look like plain scissors, though. The nursing home probably has several pair. I'll check for fingerprints."
"Do that. How's Alexx?"
Calleigh put down the scissors and faced him directly. "She didn't want to talk about it, at least not yet. She said she needed to think through some things first. I've never seen her like that, have you?"
"No. I'll go down and check on her. See you later." He kissed her, then started for the autopsy room. He was almost at the door when his cell phone rang. "Horatio."
It was Alexx herself. "Horatio, I've got results on the post. Also, I've got a request, not specifically involving the case. I'd like to see you some time today, if you can squeeze it in."
Horatio opened the autopsy room door. "How about now?"
Alexx jumped, startled, then smiled at him. "Now would be fine."
"Let's go up to my office." He had a feeling this conversation would be easier as a private one.
"Thanks." They headed in that direction together. "First, I owe you an explanation."
"No, you don't," Horatio corrected.
"Well, you deserve one. And it does matter to the favor I want to ask you."
"Okay." Horatio yielded. They reached his office and settled down with the desk between them. Alexx wouldn't feel distanced by it, and Horatio had a feeling somehow that this conversation would be professional as much as personal. He sat back and looked at her, opening the lines of communication without saying a word, letting her set the tone.
She started in a low voice. "I've always wanted to be a doctor. Since I was a kid. I was the oldest of six, and I basically took care of the others, cleaned the house, everything. I loved it. I realized then that I wanted to spend my life caring for people who needed it. So I went to medical school." A smile crossed her face briefly. "I met Jonathan there on the first day of residency. Somebody who shared the same passion I did. We were working our way through it together, and all my dreams seemed to be coming true. And then I caught an error in a chart one day. One of the most respected doctors on staff was involved. His name was Sterling." She still refused to call him doctor.
"What did you do?" Horatio was fascinated. He never pried into the details of his workers' distant backgrounds, granting them that much privacy. He only looked for their present qualifications and their present attitudes. If those satisfied him, their pasts were none of his business.
Alexx's eyes fell, studying her hands which were clenched together. "Nothing. I thought there must be some mistake. He was the head of the surgery department, and all the residents loved working under him. He was going to teach us to be successful doctors, he said."
"Successful?"
She looked back up to face him. "That's how he put it. Successful. All the evidence was there for me to recognize what he was, even before I caught the error, but I wouldn't see it. He cared more for the prestige and the power than the patients. He enjoyed playing God, and unfortunately, the medical world is set up to encourage that too often. All through the program, we were told to respect the older doctors. They were our teachers, mentors. We never contradicted them, because they always knew best. Especially Sterling. Everyone in the medical community looked up to that man. I even thought I was mistaken, that he hadn't overlooked something in that patient's history. I knew better, but I couldn't admit to myself that this man I had actually admired had nothing at all inside. So the woman went on into surgery without being prechecked for a condition she should have been checked for. All the indications were there, but Sterling was too busy polishing his image to put them together. She died, Horatio." She hesitated for a minute, and he let the silence build, both of them offering it together to the memory of that wronged patient. "Afterwards, I confronted him. He threw the blame for the error onto me. I couldn't even say I hadn't noticed, because I had; I just didn't speak up. He tried to get me thrown out of the program, and I managed to save my degree only because there were some other doctors who spoke for me. But he never took any responsibility for that mistake. Then, when I did graduate from the program, he managed to get me blacklisted. He had influence. He'd spent his whole life building influence. I couldn't get a position anywhere in the city as a doctor. I loved it there, always dreamed of working there to give something back to those people, and he ruined it for me. I finally got a position with the coroner's office, totally as a last resort. I wanted to treat life, not diagnose death."
"You feel differently now, though."
She nodded. "They need me. I realized that slowly. These people deserve just as much consideration as patients, just as much caring and dignity, and no one speaks for them."
"You do."
"I do now. I made a vow to myself, too, that I'd speak up when I saw errors or potential for harm. I'd never just bury it again, no matter who was involved." Her eyes met his directly. "I'm keeping that promise now."
Horatio pieced it together. "You want me to check out Sterling? We don't know that he's the murderer, Alexx. In fact, he's down the list of suspects. I'll rule him out, of course, but a lot of better suspects were there last night. We don't know that he was."
She shook her head. "I'm not asking you to pin something on him that he didn't do. In fact, I agree. He didn't kill her. It was a single stab, by the way, perfect angle, between the ribs and to the heart. I'd swear that whoever did that had medical knowledge. Quite a bit of strength, too. Either a man or a strong woman."
"So how are you ruling him out?"
"The viciousness of it. Whoever killed that poor woman cared about doing it. Sterling doesn't care enough to kill like that. If he killed anyone, he'd use poison or something, not stab them with a pair of scissors. Everything he stands for is polish, success, and influence. Everything about this murder is pure hate. The scissors actually went in even further than necessary. One violent blow. That isn't Sterling. He'd be subtle."
Horatio shuddered. Pure hate. Having that quality at large among those nursing home residents made him even more fired up to find this perp. "Then what are you asking me to do, Alexx?"
"Sterling isn't there to help the elderly. Nursing home staff physicians aren't overpaid, and he never did anything out of altruism in his life. It worries me to have him loose there. Whatever he's up to, it isn't benefiting them." She leaned forward to give more intensity to her words. "I want you to find out whatever it is he is doing, and I want you to take him down, break him, and take away his power to hurt any more people." Her eyes implored him.
Horatio considered, and it was her turn to let the silence build. She realized what she was asking him. He was the only person she knew capable of fighting Sterling on his own level and adding caring besides, but the fight would cost him, as all such fights inevitably did. When he spoke finally, his voice was as quiet and even as ever. "Answer one question for me, Alexx." He paused, and she nodded. It was the one question she had known he would ask. "Who are you doing this for?"
Her warm eyes met his with complete sincerity. "It isn't for me. I'll admit it, ten years ago, it would have been for me. But I've moved past him now. This is for them."
He weighed her reply, then nodded, and she stood up, knowing this conversation was over. "Okay, then, Alexx. For them."
"Thank you, Horatio." Alexx left the office, once again carefully inspecting her own feelings about what she had just unleashed on Sterling. He had deliberately tried to shatter her dreams and ruin her career. There was no glee, though, no revenge. There was only relief and, finally, a chance to atone for her own fatal silence all those years ago. Not for herself, but for them.
***
"To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents . . . "
Hippocrates, the Physician's Oath
***
Melinda was beautiful in that fragile, luminous way that is reserved for those on the brink of death who look back calmly with more satisfaction than regrets. The masterpiece of her life was completed, and in the final analysis, she wouldn't have changed it. Horatio and Adele both spoke to her quietly, reverently almost. She was so close to eternity right now that just being with her was like being in church.
"Yes, Angel was here most of the night, keeping me company. She went out four times to check on things or to give meds to other patients, but she always came straight back."
"Did she mention anything unusual about the night, anything that she might have seen but didn't seem important at the time?"
Melinda smiled. "The only unusual thing she mentioned is that Carol didn't fight her over taking her pills."
Horatio smiled back at her. "That's unusual?"
"Oh yes, she's notorious. She bites, Mr. Caine. She's so bad that no one person ever tends to her alone. We're not all well-behaved here, just like any community."
"So Angela would have taken Karen with her to deal with Carol?"
"Yes. But Carol didn't fight for once. Moody, she is. I heard she threw her supper tray last night, but when Angel saw her, she was calm."
Horatio met her eyes with softened but still direct intensity. "Did you notice anything yourself, Melinda? Hear anything at any point?"
She thought about it. "No. I'm sorry, Mr. Caine. I wish I could help you."
"You help us by not inventing things. Thank you for your time." Adele and Horatio both gently shook the skeletal hand that was offered to them. They left the room still subdued.
"I could never work here," said Adele suddenly.
Horatio nodded. "Some of them don't appreciate it, some of them don't understand it, and many of the most beautiful ones die."
"Exactly." Adele looked at him. "Where do you think we should go from here, H?" It was a long-standing but good-natured joke between them that he could never let her do her job unassisted.
"We need statements from Karen, as well as the other staff on night shift in the other wings. Almost everyone working here came running when Angela screamed, so we can talk to them under context of finding the body."
Adele nodded. "I'll get a list from Darla. You agree that they're all suspects at this point?"
"Unfortunately, yes. I think we've established that probably nobody got in, because the doors were locked. Find out from Darla about keys, but I doubt many people had one to the outside doors. Certainly not every employee. No reason for it. That means the murderer is probably either staff on third shift or patient."
"Patient?" Adele had started off, but she stopped at that.
"Alexx thinks, as a preliminary finding, anyway, that the murderer had medical knowledge."
"Leading us to the staff."
"And possibly to the patients," Horatio insisted. "These people haven't been in a nursing home forever. They did have lives, jobs. Probably some of them medical. And patient or staff, the murderer is still at large here. I'll check victimology, too. See if we can find any kind of motive at all. We can cross reference Grace with all the other names, looking for links." Darla herself fluttered up at that point, and Horatio addressed her. "We're going to need a complete list of the people working here last night. Also people with the outside door key." Darla hesitated, and Horatio cut off her protest. "And a list of the names of all of the residents."
Darla jerked to an offended halt. "I can't give you their names. There is such a thing as medical confidentiality. We take our responsibilities there very seriously."
"I'm not asking for their medical records, just their names."
"I can't share that information. It's confidential."
"Fine," Horatio said, spotting Speed exiting 36 just beyond them. "Speed." The trace expert came up to him. "Take a picture of this sign." Horatio indicated the bulletin board by the nurse's station that included the complete names and room numbers of all patients. Speed obediently focused and snapped. "Thank you. Now, go to every other wing and take a picture of all similar signs."
"Sure thing, H." Speed headed off with the camera, and Horatio turned back to a speechless Darla.
"If I were you, I'd keep your medically confidential information a little more private. One more thing. I'd like to talk to Mary, the roommate."
"It won't do you any good," Darla insisted.
"I won't know that until I try, will I?"
Darla's eyes fell first. "She's at the end of the hall, in the wheelchair. The lady with a blue sweater."
"Thank you. She's all yours, Adele." Adele rolled her eyes at him, and Horatio started down the hall toward Mary. Behind him, Adele, like a paperwork dentist, started painfully extracting information.
Mary was staring into the empty air. Horatio knew this was hopeless as soon as he saw her eyes, but he had to try. "Mary? Could I talk to you for a minute?"
She perked up and focused on him. "I need help."
"What do you need help with?"
A look of confusion crossed her face for a second. That wasn't the usual response she got. The train of thought that started promptly derailed in the fog of her mind, though, and she switched back to routine. "I need help."
"Thank you, Mary." Horatio patted her on the shoulder and turned away. He would look in on Eric, then surprise Adele by telling her to head on out alone to witness questioning. He wanted to check on Alexx. He walked down the hall to 36 again, passing several residents. Confused eyes, resentful eyes, and, worst of all, lonely eyes. He rarely met a job that made him think his was easy in comparison, but this one came close.
***
Calleigh was just starting to examine the scissors when she felt him. "Hi, Handsome."
"Hi, Beautiful. How's it going?" The words were utterly professional. The smile was not. She returned the smile full-force herself but stuck to business, following his lead.
"I'm just getting started. They look like plain scissors, though. The nursing home probably has several pair. I'll check for fingerprints."
"Do that. How's Alexx?"
Calleigh put down the scissors and faced him directly. "She didn't want to talk about it, at least not yet. She said she needed to think through some things first. I've never seen her like that, have you?"
"No. I'll go down and check on her. See you later." He kissed her, then started for the autopsy room. He was almost at the door when his cell phone rang. "Horatio."
It was Alexx herself. "Horatio, I've got results on the post. Also, I've got a request, not specifically involving the case. I'd like to see you some time today, if you can squeeze it in."
Horatio opened the autopsy room door. "How about now?"
Alexx jumped, startled, then smiled at him. "Now would be fine."
"Let's go up to my office." He had a feeling this conversation would be easier as a private one.
"Thanks." They headed in that direction together. "First, I owe you an explanation."
"No, you don't," Horatio corrected.
"Well, you deserve one. And it does matter to the favor I want to ask you."
"Okay." Horatio yielded. They reached his office and settled down with the desk between them. Alexx wouldn't feel distanced by it, and Horatio had a feeling somehow that this conversation would be professional as much as personal. He sat back and looked at her, opening the lines of communication without saying a word, letting her set the tone.
She started in a low voice. "I've always wanted to be a doctor. Since I was a kid. I was the oldest of six, and I basically took care of the others, cleaned the house, everything. I loved it. I realized then that I wanted to spend my life caring for people who needed it. So I went to medical school." A smile crossed her face briefly. "I met Jonathan there on the first day of residency. Somebody who shared the same passion I did. We were working our way through it together, and all my dreams seemed to be coming true. And then I caught an error in a chart one day. One of the most respected doctors on staff was involved. His name was Sterling." She still refused to call him doctor.
"What did you do?" Horatio was fascinated. He never pried into the details of his workers' distant backgrounds, granting them that much privacy. He only looked for their present qualifications and their present attitudes. If those satisfied him, their pasts were none of his business.
Alexx's eyes fell, studying her hands which were clenched together. "Nothing. I thought there must be some mistake. He was the head of the surgery department, and all the residents loved working under him. He was going to teach us to be successful doctors, he said."
"Successful?"
She looked back up to face him. "That's how he put it. Successful. All the evidence was there for me to recognize what he was, even before I caught the error, but I wouldn't see it. He cared more for the prestige and the power than the patients. He enjoyed playing God, and unfortunately, the medical world is set up to encourage that too often. All through the program, we were told to respect the older doctors. They were our teachers, mentors. We never contradicted them, because they always knew best. Especially Sterling. Everyone in the medical community looked up to that man. I even thought I was mistaken, that he hadn't overlooked something in that patient's history. I knew better, but I couldn't admit to myself that this man I had actually admired had nothing at all inside. So the woman went on into surgery without being prechecked for a condition she should have been checked for. All the indications were there, but Sterling was too busy polishing his image to put them together. She died, Horatio." She hesitated for a minute, and he let the silence build, both of them offering it together to the memory of that wronged patient. "Afterwards, I confronted him. He threw the blame for the error onto me. I couldn't even say I hadn't noticed, because I had; I just didn't speak up. He tried to get me thrown out of the program, and I managed to save my degree only because there were some other doctors who spoke for me. But he never took any responsibility for that mistake. Then, when I did graduate from the program, he managed to get me blacklisted. He had influence. He'd spent his whole life building influence. I couldn't get a position anywhere in the city as a doctor. I loved it there, always dreamed of working there to give something back to those people, and he ruined it for me. I finally got a position with the coroner's office, totally as a last resort. I wanted to treat life, not diagnose death."
"You feel differently now, though."
She nodded. "They need me. I realized that slowly. These people deserve just as much consideration as patients, just as much caring and dignity, and no one speaks for them."
"You do."
"I do now. I made a vow to myself, too, that I'd speak up when I saw errors or potential for harm. I'd never just bury it again, no matter who was involved." Her eyes met his directly. "I'm keeping that promise now."
Horatio pieced it together. "You want me to check out Sterling? We don't know that he's the murderer, Alexx. In fact, he's down the list of suspects. I'll rule him out, of course, but a lot of better suspects were there last night. We don't know that he was."
She shook her head. "I'm not asking you to pin something on him that he didn't do. In fact, I agree. He didn't kill her. It was a single stab, by the way, perfect angle, between the ribs and to the heart. I'd swear that whoever did that had medical knowledge. Quite a bit of strength, too. Either a man or a strong woman."
"So how are you ruling him out?"
"The viciousness of it. Whoever killed that poor woman cared about doing it. Sterling doesn't care enough to kill like that. If he killed anyone, he'd use poison or something, not stab them with a pair of scissors. Everything he stands for is polish, success, and influence. Everything about this murder is pure hate. The scissors actually went in even further than necessary. One violent blow. That isn't Sterling. He'd be subtle."
Horatio shuddered. Pure hate. Having that quality at large among those nursing home residents made him even more fired up to find this perp. "Then what are you asking me to do, Alexx?"
"Sterling isn't there to help the elderly. Nursing home staff physicians aren't overpaid, and he never did anything out of altruism in his life. It worries me to have him loose there. Whatever he's up to, it isn't benefiting them." She leaned forward to give more intensity to her words. "I want you to find out whatever it is he is doing, and I want you to take him down, break him, and take away his power to hurt any more people." Her eyes implored him.
Horatio considered, and it was her turn to let the silence build. She realized what she was asking him. He was the only person she knew capable of fighting Sterling on his own level and adding caring besides, but the fight would cost him, as all such fights inevitably did. When he spoke finally, his voice was as quiet and even as ever. "Answer one question for me, Alexx." He paused, and she nodded. It was the one question she had known he would ask. "Who are you doing this for?"
Her warm eyes met his with complete sincerity. "It isn't for me. I'll admit it, ten years ago, it would have been for me. But I've moved past him now. This is for them."
He weighed her reply, then nodded, and she stood up, knowing this conversation was over. "Okay, then, Alexx. For them."
"Thank you, Horatio." Alexx left the office, once again carefully inspecting her own feelings about what she had just unleashed on Sterling. He had deliberately tried to shatter her dreams and ruin her career. There was no glee, though, no revenge. There was only relief and, finally, a chance to atone for her own fatal silence all those years ago. Not for herself, but for them.