Plan to Kill Read online

  PLAN TO KILL

  (Previously published as the lord)

  Gregg E. Brickman

  This is a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person, place, or event is entirely coincidental.

  Other Kindle and CreateSpace Works by the Author:

  Stand alone:

  She Learned to Die

  Tony Conte Mysteries:

  Illegally Dead

  Sophia Burgess and Ray Stone Mysteries:

  Imperfect Contract

  Imperfect Daddy

  Author Links

  Amazon author page

  Gregg E. Brickman's website

  Cover Design and Art by Victoria Landis

  Copyright © 2014 Gregg E. Brickman

  (previously published as the lord)

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Larry Brickman

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This story is a work of my imagination, though I've made every effort to present accurate, true-to-life details.

  Special thanks to: My husband Steve. He not only puts up with my talking about my imaginary friends and their adventures, but he reads about them, too. Our sons, Benjamin Bloch and Mark Brickman continue to be supportive, and you'll see a picture of our daughter-in-law Laurie Brickman on my website showing off the cover and her tan.

  My critique group is superb. Thank you to Randy Rawls, Victoria Landis, Stephanie Levine, Ann Meier, and Richard Hodes. They read, and reread, and provide helpful, thoughtful, and usually kind commentary

  Jennifer Samuels was an early reader, making line edits and tracking the plot. Geraldine Sutton read last. She has a marvelous eye for catching mistakes and also keeps me honest on the characterization of my nurses.

  Nurses and paramedics at my work helped with technical details. I thank them all for answering my questions.

  If I got it wrong, the blame is mine. If I got it right, those mentioned above get much of the credit.

  PLAN TO KILL

  1

  The white index cards glowed in the light filtering between the angles of the vertical blinds. From heaven, he thought.

  A paperclip hooked over a tack secured each card to the wall. He didn't want tape or holes, but he needed to move them around and rethink his plan. It was important to get the order perfect, the most meaningful first, then the rest. In order. He knew which one was last. No question.

  He shuffled the array, rearranging, rethinking, except the one on top and the one on the bottom. He tapped his finger on the name on the uppermost card. This one had to be first. The captain of the ship. The person in charge. The person responsible for all the deaths to come.

  Then who? He rearranged the middle. This time, he took the pins out of the wall and jammed them back in, resorting, creating a new view. To him, the flesh of the named people became the fiber of his wallboard. Again and again he shifted the pins, attacking, scattering small chunks of plaster, imagining blood running down the wall and covering his weathered desk.

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he removed the cards, being careful to maintain the order. He stacked them in the middle drawer, then used the key he kept on a chain around his neck to secure the lock.

  After taking a few minutes to arrange his daughter's pictures on the wall, he grabbed a beer from the fridge. He sat on his threadbare sofa, popped the can open, and picked up his Bible. As much as he wanted to shed their blood, he couldn't. Not yet. His methods had to be perfect, undetectable, and untraceable to him. He'd discuss it with her. She would have insight. She always did.

  Having made a decision, he relaxed and sipped his beer. He was, after all, the lord.

  2

  Miki Murphy, the petite night shift nursing administrative supervisor, watched the ritual.

  Several evenings a week, Madeline Walden's husband, John, waited for Dr. Peter Sanchez at the elevator of the Medical Center by the Sea's Continuing Care Unit.

  Walden hesitated a moment, then approached the doctor. Tonight he grasped the three-ring binder containing the medical chart.

  Though Sanchez continued to visit daily, he had long since signed off Madeline Walden's case, his part finished. The operation—an emergency repair following a ruptured tubal pregnancy—was a success, except for an egregious anesthesia error. The patient never awakened.

  "Evening, John. How is she?" Sanchez half-smiled, his expression heavy with fatigue. He tugged at the lapel of his white coat, then smoothed a wrinkle with his palm.

  "The same, Doc. She moved her hand a little today, but that's all." Walden flipped open the chart to the nurses' notes for the previous day, tipped it toward Sanchez, and pointed. "See. Yesterday, too."

  "Something to hope for at least."

  Sanchez seemed to notice Miki for the first time. "Evening, Miki. What's happening?"

  "I came upstairs to ask John to work the ER tonight." Walden, a paramedic, worked a twenty-four hours on, forty-eight off schedule for City by the Sea Fire Rescue. Like many medics, he moonlighted in the hospital's emergency room as a tech. She glanced at Walden, who nodded. "You know we can always use another tech for the Saturday night knife-and-gun-club after-midnight rush. I'll look in on Madeline while I'm here. I try to see her at least once a shift."

  "You might as well come with us," Sanchez said as he headed toward Madeline's room. He stopped next to a trashcan and removed something from his mouth before stepping in. "Bitter."

  "What?" Miki's wide set, brown eyes followed Sanchez's hand.

  "Troicki gave me a piece of his damn gum. It seems like he offers one every time he sees me. I don't know what he sees in the stuff."

  "Just say no." Miki laughed.

  "It's easier to take it and move on." Sanchez shrugged. "You understand how it is with him."

  "I do." The board chairman was infamous for his boisterous and demanding manner, his woman-chasing ways, and his foul-smelling clove gum. Miki followed Walden into the room to see his wife.

  The emaciated thirty-year-old woman lay on her side, propped by pillows. A thin plastic tube ran from a suspended container filled with cream-colored liquid and disappeared under her blankets. A thicker tube appeared from under the covers near her knees. Cloudy dark-amber urine dripped into a drainage bag hung on the side of the bed. The pink-flowered wallpaper and rose-colored linen did little to brighten the scene.

  Miki stooped to inspect the urine. Another urinary tract infection? "Is she on antibiotics again?"

  "Dr. Levine started them today." Walden pointed to an intravenous infusing into Madeline's forearm. "She said Madeline needs a central line, so the surgeon is coming tomorrow to put it in. It doesn't ever stop for her. Needles. Sores." He uncovered a foot and placed a finger on her reddened heel.

  Dr. Sanchez took his stethoscope from his lab coat pocket, slipped it into his ears, and listened for a moment to the young woman's heart. Then he drew back the covers and palpated her abdomen. "No distention. Good." He looked at Walden. "Seems the same to me. I keep hoping."

  "Me, too." Walden nodded towards a chair. "I brought you coffee from the shop across town you like so much. Miki, I didn't buy an extra cup, but I'll share my tea if you want to sit for a few minutes."

  Miki looked at her watch. "If I'm not intruding."

  "Not a chance," Walden pulled a third chair near Madeline's bed to form a tight circle. He bent his long, thin body and sat.

  "You shouldn't keep buying for me. I appreciate it, but..." Sanchez reached for his wallet. "Let me give you money for a few rounds at least."

  "Nah, Doc. I do it because I want to. I appreciate that you come every day. I really do." Walden pulled two small thermoses from a battered backpack and reached for a Styrofoam cup from the bedside table. "Don't know why they put these
here. She never uses them."

  "They know you do." Miki sat, keeping forward in the easy chair so her feet touched the floor.

  Walden poured a full cup of cappuccino. He turned the black-capped container on end, emptying every drop, and passed it to Sanchez. "I put the sugar in already." Then he divided the contents of the white-capped thermos. "Here." He offered a container to Miki. "Sorry, it isn't quite full."

  "No, this is good. It's the start of a long night."

  "They have a good selection of tea at the shop, too. I prefer tea."

  "How's Katie?" Sanchez said.

  "She's fine." Walden patted Madeline's thin arm.

  Miki said, "How's it going with her living at your mother's?"

  "Better. I keep Katie every day I'm not on duty. Take her down the street to my place and give Mom a break. My mother is finding it easier to have Katie at her house instead of running between her place and mine."

  "I'll bet Elsie enjoys it. When she quit working here to help with Katie, she seemed excited," Miki said.

  "Well, I know she doesn't miss being a patient care assistant. Her work was taking a toll. That's one of the reasons I arranged things like I did."

  Sanchez finished his last sip, then wiped his dark mustache with the napkin. He paused a moment before refolding it and running it across his balding head and forehead. "Hot in here."

  "Didn't notice, but if you say so," Walden said.

  "You're pale." Miki touched Sanchez's forehead with the back of her fingers. "I don't think you have a fever. How do you feel?" She felt the pulse in his wrist. "Doctor, your pulse is slow and irregular. Is that usual?"

  "No. Maybe I'm getting the bug. Headache. Nausea."

  "I'll take you to the ER and have Dr. Ephraim examine you."

  "No—" Sanchez bolted from the chair and quickstepped into the bathroom. He closed the door with a bang.

  Miki heard retching. "John, see if you can find a wheelchair. He's going to the ER whether he likes it or not." She dialed the ER. "Tell Dr. Ephraim I'm bringing Dr. Sanchez down. He might be having a heart attack."

  3

  Miki and Walden helped Dr. Sanchez into a patient gown and onto a stretcher in the ER. Miki thought it was good Walden was stronger than he appeared because Sanchez, who weighed more than two-hundred pounds, didn't help much. He became short of breath with the effort, and his legs collapsed under him.

  Miki attached monitor electrodes to Sanchez's chest, then stopped to study the tracing on the wall-hung cardiac monitor. "Whoa. He's in second degree A-V block. No wonder he's nauseous. Get Ephraim. I'll put the external pacing pads on."

  Two minutes later, Dr. Joanne Ephraim, a tiny, high-energy woman, scurried into Sanchez's cubicle. "What did he tell you?"

  "Thought he might have the flu. For you to decide, but it doesn't look like flu to me." Miki stepped aside and allowed Ephraim to get close to the patient.

  Walden said, "Now he's in third degree block. Want me to start the pacer?"

  Ephraim began her examination. "Give me a minute. What are his vitals?" As they told her, she touched Sanchez's pale face. "Peter, tell me what's happening?"

  "I don't know." He stopped for breath. "I've had pounding in my chest the last couple of days. I attributed it to being tired. Then tonight I feel sick, weak."

  "Do you have a history of heart block?"

  "No."

  "We're going to turn on the external pacer. It's going to be uncomfortable. We'll get cardiology to run a temporary pacer wire as soon as we can."

  Sanchez grimaced.

  "It'll be more comfortable than the external." She nodded to Miki. "Start."

  Sanchez's chest contracted with each impulse of the external pacer. Sixty times a minute. Sixty spasms a minute.

  Ephraim studied the monitor on the wall over the stretcher. "We have capture. Now, let's find out what's going on here."

  Arlene Porter, the night shift charge nurse, stepped in and handed Ephraim a clipboard.

  While Ephraim wrote orders, Miki brought Porter up-to-date. "John and I were upstairs when Sanchez got sick."

  "John, you working?" Porter said.

  "Tonight."

  "Might as well start now."

  Miki turned to Walden. "That okay with you? I'll fix your time in the computer."

  "Fine," Walden said.

  Ephraim said, "Get a STAT chest film, full chemistry profile, CBC, blood gasses. I'm going to get cardiology on call in here. Get an IV started. Now."

  Ephraim stepped into the hall. Porter called after her in clipped Jamaican accent, "Doctor, we've lost capture. The patient has a flat line."

  4

  Miki slipped on her lab coat and grabbed the copied chart. For the second time in as many hours, she jogged through the dim, musty temporary corridor connecting the gleaming new Foxworth patient care tower and the aging ER with the old facilities building, which housed the morgue. This time she needed to release Sanchez's body to the medical examiner.

  She passed the construction zone for the new Troicki Outpatient Building to the south on her left and the deteriorating original hospital to the north. Most people called it progress, but Miki wasn't sure. The massive reconstruction project needed to proceed, but she believed they should have completed the new facilities building and the new emergency room before starting on the outpatient building. Troicki, the new chairman of the board, was pushing an unstoppable agenda.

  At three o'clock in the morning, the trip past the deserted construction area and future demolition zone with the multitude of darkened hiding places gave her chills. She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the walkway door on the west end.

  Miki maintained a quick pace, passing the warehouse, storeroom, and central sterile on her right, and purchasing, laundry, and the morgue on the left of the gloomy hallway. The old loading dock jutted from the rear of the west wing. The doors gaped, ready to pitch forth the latest example of modern healthcare's failure. The ME's hearse waited with tailgate open, the dome light revealing a utilitarian interior rather than the rich upholstery of the high-end vehicles favored by the funeral homes.

  "Hey, Murphy. It's been awhile," the morgue transporter, Amos Tate, said. Tate, a wiry black man in his mid-fifties, had worked for the medical examiner most of his adult life.

  "I thought you were a morgue tech now. What gives?" Miki fumbled in her pocket for the key, then unlocked and pulled open the heavy morgue door.

  Tate followed Miki into the chilly room. "Yup, I'm the diener. Small staff. We pitch in. I'm filling in for the regular guy's vacation. He goes to the northern part of the state every August, likes to see his kids in Tallahassee. This is my third pick up since my shift started at eleven."

  "Seems like a lot for a hot July night, even Saturday. No holiday, not tourist season."

  "Dr. Youngquist's on call tonight. He's new, moved from the north somewhere. He's taking everything. Maybe trying to get a feel for the area. The last two were natural, for sure, if you ask me. Same as this one."

  "True, but it is unexpected." Miki bent to read the tags on the bottom row of drawers, searching for the name. She opened a door and pulled on the stainless steel tray, revealing a large, white vinyl shroud with a full-length zipper closure. "Here we go. Doctor Peter Sanchez." She held the tag for Amos to verify.

  "A doctor?"

  "Not just any doctor. This is our chief of staff and the hospital's biggest admitter."

  "What happened?"

  "He became sick during rounds. I happened to be on the unit, so I wheeled him to the ER at eight, maybe eight-fifteen. Looked like he was having a heart attack, but no chest pain. Hell, he was forty. Maybe a bit out of shape." Miki shook her head. "Two years younger than I am."

  "Did you tell the ME when you called in?"

  "Of course."

  Miki waited while Tate positioned his stretcher, then squatted next to the dead physician. "Murphy, I can manage it. A little woman like you doesn't have to lift this big man."

&nbs
p; "I don't mind helping. Let's just slide him over with the sheet." When Tate assumed a similar position, Miki said, "On the count of three. One. Two. Three."

  Together they pulled the man onto the gurney, raised it to table height, then loaded the hearse.

  She shuddered as the vehicle pulled away from the dock. Just a few hours ago, Sanchez made rounds to his patients, performed surgery, and did his job. Now, without explanation, he was dead. Miki said a silent prayer and wiped at a tear.

  5

  Miki completed the log in the morgue, checked staffing in the office, and made a quick set of rounds to the patient care floors and critical care units. As the nursing administrative supervisor, she was responsible for the operation of the department for the shift, but as the on-site administrator, she also had oversight of the hospital, though there was a vice president on call. And she had morgue duty. It came with the night shift territory.

  Right after Sanchez died, Miki had called tonight's VP, Leslie Anson, the chief nursing officer, to inform her of Sanchez's death. As usual, Anson was supportive, telling Miki what to expect and how to prepare. The hospital's upper crust would ask questions and expect answers—so would the media.

  Chaos greeted Miki when she returned to the ER. Two nurses worked in tandem in the major event room on a patient destined for the ICU—when there was a bed free. In the hallway, three stretchers held patients waiting for space. On one of the stretchers, a screaming child fought the nurse's efforts to administer an oral medication while the child's mother watched without attempting to help. A quick survey of the occupied cubicles confirmed that staff would continue to provide care without moving the patients into the rooms.

  Miki joined the fray by helping get the sticky syrup into the child. Then until the five a.m. lull, Miki filled in for an R.N. who became ill on duty and went home. She kept an ear open for cries for help from the rest of the patient care areas. When things settled, she grabbed Peter Sanchez's medical record from the completed stack and went to find Dr. Joanne Ephraim.