Chapter Three

Rachel had not expected a hero's welcome when she returned to work the following day, especially considering that she had not done anything to deserve it. She hated to think her co-workers felt sorry for her; she never liked being fussed over to begin with, and she liked it even less when it was out of pity. She merely tolerated their ham-handed attempts at offering condolences, and secretly rolled her eyes at the sickeningly sweet smiles she received from whomever she happened to pass in the hall. All in all she handled it fairly well, at least until she overheard a conversation between Barry and McDaniel in the staff room.

"As long as he's there, it might not be a good idea for her to be on that case," McDaniel was saying as Rachel entered the room.

"It's not a good idea for me to be on what case?" she asked, startling him as she came up behind him. One of the benefits of being the only woman on the force was that she was never mistaken when she suspected someone was talking about her.

"Oh, Rachel," Barry blurted out. "Um...well, there was an...incident at Brookhaven early this morning."

"A murder?"

"For now we're just calling it a suspicious death," McDaniel explained. "Anyway, I am very much aware that you don't like for others to make decisions for you, Rachel, but I'm advising you to use your own discretion on whether you want to take this case or not. It could be a conflict of interests."

"Oh, that thing with my uncle. That was nothing. They've got him doped up on some shit...I'm not surprised that he acted that way, really."

Barry raised an eyebrow at this. "You're sure? I mean, we could leave it for the others..."

"No way." Already she was heading for the door. "Come on, I'm bored. I need a little action." As soon as she said this she caught herself, and turned around to see McDaniel suppressing a giggle, while Barry lowered his head and turned every shade of red imaginable. She shook her head.

"Perverts."


Rachel couldn't help smiling rawly to herself at the dirty looks she received from the receptionist as she and Barry entered the hospital. There was a certain self-loathing part of her that enjoyed antagonizing people, and it had been in full swing for the past few days.

"Good morning Christy," she peevishly greeted the taciturn blonde as they passed the reception window. Barry just shook his head.

"By my count, you've made at least one, uh, 'friend' at every single crime scene we've investigated," he said.

"What can I say? I'm a people person." She smirked inwardly as they met the coroner in the hall near the doctors' lounge.

"Well, looks like the gang's all here. Let's get this party started." Peter Seals, the town's medical examiner, approached the pair.

"Yeah, let's crack us open a nut."

Seals just shook his head. "Same old Rachel," he said as the trio stepped into the elevator around the corner.

A moment later they emerged in the morgue, an appropriately dingy room with gurneys lining either side. The majority of said gurneys held bodies covered with white sheets.

"Damn, people are just dying to get in here, aren't they?" Rachel said.

Seals smiled a little. "Usually they handle deaths internally. They only call us in when something looks suspicious...like our friend here." He led the detectives to one of the gurneys in the far corner. The bluish-purple feet of a corpse peeked out from under the sheet. A paper tag dangled from one of the big toes, labeled "#6". He pulled the sheet down to reveal the male victim's lifeless body. The fatal injury appeared to be a stab wound to the neck.

"According to the staff, he wasn't an admitted patient," Seals explained. "They found him in a poor mental state on the hospital grounds and decided to admit him temporarily for observation. They found him early this morning, holding a kitchen knife. I determined the time of death to be roughly 11 p.m. last night. They assumed it was a suicide, but they said that wound angle looked suspicious. It does to me too."

Rachel leaned in for a closer look. "Yeah. It goes downward at a sharp angle, like someone brought the knife down." She demonstrated the motion. "But you know, I have to wonder who would give a confused mental patient a knife to play with. I mean, I'm already under the impression that the staffers here aren't the swiftest chicks in the henhouse anyway, but still..."

"Right," Seals laughed. "Anyway, they said they got no corroboration from the patient residing in the same room, so they broke down and called us."

"What's the patient's name?" Barry asked. "Maybe we can talk to him."

"Guy's name is Stanley Coleman. They say he's usually pretty cooperative, so I guess it'd be worth a try. But," he added, "they say he's more willing to talk with women, so it might be a good idea for Rachel to talk to him alone."

"Hot damn..."

A few minutes later, Rachel was sitting in the visiting room with a relatively normal-looking patient. He had light-brown hair and a prominent eyebrow ridge that cast a shadow over his somewhat beady brown eyes. He appeared very calm, sipping water from a plastic cup as the detective studied him.

"Mr. Coleman," she began.

"Please, call me Stanley," the young man said. He eyed Rachel intently as he spoke.

"Okay then, Stanley. Do you know why you're here right now?"

"Yes," the man answered. "It was destiny. Fate intended for me to meet you."

"Uh..." She hesitated. "It did...?"

"Yes, it did." Stanley leaned forward, staring eerily into her eyes. "Tell me dear...what are you doing in this place all alone? Where is your husband?"

"Buried in my backyard," she replied nonchalantly, surprised that she could come up with an appropriate smart-ass remark under such circumstances.

"I see." He did not seem fazed, let alone amused. "What about a boyfriend?"

"He's buried next to my husband."

"Well, at the risk of sounding morbid, I find this most fascinating," Stanley said. "So then tell me, dear...why don't you have a man in your life?"

"Because I'm tired of fucking digging."

Stanley actually laughed this time, taking her by surprise. "It seems I wasn't mistaken. I always knew she would have a delightful sense of humor."

"Who?"

"The woman who would save me. The woman who would take me from this place."

"Um...okay." She took a moment to collect her thoughts. "Well, I'm not here for that today, I'm afraid. I just need to ask you a few questions about your roommate."

"Oh, him." Stanley waved a hand and crossed his legs casually. "Ghastly business, that. I know they think I had something to do with it, but I didn't, I assure you. I didn't hate him, though he was a liar."

"Tell me about it. Why was he a liar?"

"He...he said that no woman would ever want anything to do with me, that no one would ever come to rescue me from this place. But you're here, Rachel. You came for me. That's proof he didn't know what he was talking about." He gazed at her dreamily, and she fought the urge to cringe. She quickly diverted attention back to the subject at hand.

"So you two did argue occasionally?"

"Well he was only my roommate for a couple of days, but right away he started picking fights. I tried to just shrug it off, but he made it hard at times. He was very intent on offending me. I think that's why they put him in with me in the first place. Those idiot doctors don't give a damn about my feelings."

"Mm-hmm." Rachel took notes on a notepad, glancing up periodically at her increasingly creepy suspect. If he licked his lips one more time, she swore she was going to jam her pen in his eye socket. That was when she heard it.

"Help! Rachel, help!"

"Barry?" The scream sounded very close outside the room, and Rachel bolted from the table and ran out into the corridor. Sure enough, Barry was cowered in a corner of the hallway as one of the nurses converged on him, hands extended as if she intended to throttle him. Of course, Barry being Barry, this wouldn't look strange under normal circumstances, but there was something unusual about the way the woman moved. Then all of a sudden she lunged forward, grabbing Barry around the throat. Immediately Rachel reached for her gun; her primary weapon of choice, a Ruger P85. This would make anyone's day, but she never liked to have to use it.

"Put your hands up!" she shouted, but the nurse continued to strangle her victim. Rachel reached for her stun gun and charged at them, plowing the electrodes into the crazed nurse's neck. The woman let out a primal scream as her body was racked with convulsions, and swung her left arm around to backhand Rachel across the mouth with enough force to knock the cop flat on her back. Within seconds the nurse was on her, her hands latched around the detective's neck with almost superhuman strength.

"No!" Barry yelled, and a moment later a gunshot echoed through the halls. The nurse froze, her grip loosening, and slumped over on top of Rachel. Rachel stared into the empty eyes of the dying woman, and cringed as some of the foam that frothed from her mouth landed on her face.

"Holy shit..." Barry breathed as he holstered his gun, then pulled the body off of her and helped her to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." She dragged a sleeve across her face. "You?"

"I've been better." He sighed and leaned against the wall. "Twelve years on the force and I've never seen nothin' like this." He then looked over at her and raised a hand to her face, wiping at the corner of her mouth. "You're bleeding."

"Oh." She dabbed at the rapidly congealing rivulet of blood that oozed from her mouth. "Never mind that. What the hell happened here anyway?"

"Well, I was walking down this hall when I met that nurse. She was acting kinda weird, like staggering a little as she walked. I asked her if she was all right and then she just jumped me. I thought she was gonna choke me to death."

"Strange." Rachel sighed wearily. "Well something weird is going on here. I think we should...oh shit." She bolted down the hall to the visiting room and barged inside, only to find it deserted.

"Stanley...?" Clearly he was long gone. "Shit."

"What's wrong?" Barry asked from behind her.

"It seems our suspect was a flight risk," she said. "At any rate, there's still a murderer running around this place."

He nodded. "We'd might as well split up and look around. I'll head upstairs."

"Alright, I'll stay down here and check it out." She started to walk in the opposite direction when Barry stopped her. "Hey Rach, hang on a sec."

She turned to face him, expecting to see him squirm and fidget like an awkward teenager as he always did, but was surprised to see him looking more serious than she had ever seen.

"Be careful, okay?"

"Yeah, you too."

"Oh, one more thing." Now the fidgeting started. "Thanks...for saving me back there."

She waved nonchalantly over her shoulder as she walked away.