I hightailed it to Pine Street Hospital with my eyes glued to the rearview, looking for cops or anyone else following me, a feeling like I was getting deeper and deeper into the woods.
I parked on the street out front and looked at the satchel on the seat next to me. I dragged it over and opened it, finally feeling like I had a few seconds’ breathing space to do so. I shook the contents out, a stack of photographs spilling over into the footwell. I reached down to pick them up first and found myself looking at pictures of a face I knew: Ella Borland. They were candid shots, Borland apparently not aware she was being photographed. One showed her going into Duke’s, another her walking along the street – looked like Bathhouse Row. In another she was talking to a man outside the Southern Club. Different outfits suggested different times and places – dolled up like a dime store starlet in one, wearing a sober green dress in another. I looked through them again, realised they were all summer numbers she wore – must have been taken earlier in the year. I studied the last image and recognised the newsboy cap on the man she was talking to – William Tindall. I gazed at it a moment, remembering the two being in the Southern Club at the same time when I saw her dancing there. I closed my eyes, mulling the thought, trying to get a fix on what Robinson would have seen in these shots. Then I set them aside and started picking through the rest of the pile.
The papers were a mix – some typewritten, some in cursive. There were drafts of pieces Robinson was writing, office memos, meeting notes – no names or details that leapt off the page at me at first glance. One discrepancy I did notice: these notes included full names, not initials, and identifiable headings – Jennings Robbery, Beating on 4th. I started to get the feeling this was everyday business he’d left behind when he took off for Hot Springs.
Which made the Borland photographs even more incongruous. I found more as I picked through, a similar style to the others, her not looking at the camera in any of them. A variety of outfits and locations. He’d been following her for weeks, capturing her movements on film. The only reason I could think for why he’d do that was that he was suspicious of her.
At the bottom of the pile, a different set of pictures – older, showing creases and frayed corners. There were ten or so, most blurry, a hand partially blocking the lens in some. Scenes of commotion. The images I could make out showed a crowd of men, some of them identifiable by their uniforms as police officers, a building in the background. I leafed through, my thoughts still on the Borland shots. I was about to put them back in the bag when recognition came to me. Not a building – a house. Winfield Callaway’s. Photographs from the scene of his murder. Proof that Robinson did go there that morning. A question lingering as to how much he saw and what he did with it.
I stuffed the papers and photographs away and got out, the bag slung over my shoulder. I crossed the grounds in front of the hospital, the whitewashed walls a dull grey under the heavy sky.
Past the entrance, I followed a corridor until I came to a ward off to the right – a long room with six beds on either side, five of them occupied. There was a nurse stationed behind a desk at the far end; I went up to her, taking the picture of the unidentified woman from my pocket. ‘Ma’am, my name’s Yates. I’m looking for information on this lady. I’m led to believe she worked here. Do you happen to know her at all?’
The nurse looked at the picture, then at me, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I only started here a couple weeks ago.’
I thanked her and moved on, went back out into the corridor looking for another nurse. I repeated the same rigmarole three more times before I found someone who recognised her.
‘That’s Ginny.’ The nurse set her pen down and looked up at me. ‘Are you with the police?’
‘No, I’m a reporter. I’m—’
Her eyes darted back to the papers she was working on. ‘We’re not supposed to talk to reporters.’
‘On who’s say-so, miss?’
‘It’s hospital policy.’
‘Please, if you have any information at all about her, I’d sure appreciate it. What was her surname?’
‘Sir, Ginny died some time ago, I really don’t think—’
‘How did she die?’
She looked up at me again now, frowning. ‘She took her own life. That’s as much as I know about it.’ I went to press her, but she cut me off. ‘Please, you should take this up with hospital management.’
‘If you could just tell me her surname, I’ll be out of your hair.’
A second nurse appeared at the side of the desk. She was older, had a bearing about her that said she was in charge. ‘Nurse Henley, is everything all right here?’
The nurse in front of me reddened. I turned to the newcomer. ‘I was just asking about the woman in this picture.’ I held it up. ‘Did you happen to know Ginny, ma’am?’
The younger nurse looked up again, about to protest, but the boss nurse held a hand out to silence her. ‘What is this about?’
‘I’m a reporter. A friend of mine was investigating your colleague’s death—’
‘Reporters are asked to direct their enquiries to the manager’s office. The Chronicle men all know that, I’m surprised you don’t.’
‘Time is against me, ma’am.’
‘That may be the case, sir, but it doesn’t change procedure, so please see yourself out. Otherwise I’ll have someone escort you.’
A man in one of the beds behind me cried out in pain, and the younger woman took the opportunity to escape. The boss nurse had her hands on her hips and was glaring at me; I was about to move on when she checked over my shoulder, then mouthed, ‘Outside, two minutes,’ her expression never changing. I inclined my head, her movement so quick I wasn’t certain I’d lip-read it right, but she raised her eyebrows just enough to underscore the point. I whipped around and made for the exit.
Coming out into the daylight, I looked back inside for the nurse, but there was no sign of her. I wondered if she’d played a neat trick to get rid of me. I turned and looked out across the grounds, jumpy, giving her a minute more to show, trying to untangle the implications of the woman in the photograph taking her own life. Not murdered. As I stood there, my eyes laid upon my car and I flinched: a police cruiser was idling behind it.
I slid back into the shadow of the entranceway and watched as the officer stepped out, double-checked the registration plate, and walked around to the driver’s side. He carried on, circling the car, then looked up and over towards the hospital and where I stood.
I froze. He was fifty yards or more away, and still it felt like he was looking right at me. He looked away again and pulled out his notebook, scribbled something down.
My heart kicked in again and I started to move my feet, my legs like stilts. Then I felt a hand on my arm. I pulled away on reflex, about to run.
‘Who are you?’
A woman’s voice. I whirled around and saw the boss nurse, standing close. I glanced from her to the cop and back again, stepping to the side so I was completely out of sight from the street. ‘I’m a reporter.’ I was about to say my name but I stopped myself, trying to remember if I’d given it to the younger nurse before, picturing the cop sauntering inside looking for me. ‘I’m here about your colleague Ginny, I want to know what happened to her.’ The words came fast, running into one another.
‘You look unwell. Is something the matter?’
‘I’m fine, ma’am. Ginny – did you know her at all?’
‘I won’t have you troubling those girls in there. Not after what happened.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Your friend that was investigating her death – he have mousey blonde hair, head like a cinder block? That the one?’
Jimmy Robinson. ‘Yes.’
She grimaced and looked away, shaking her head. ‘Why is he interested in her death?’
‘I don’t know, ma’am. How did you come to know him?’
‘I don’t know him, but I remember him bugging Ginny plenty. He showed up here all the time, even after all the other reporters stopped coming, never let her alone. He’s hard to miss.’
Lightning went through me, ‘other reporters’ jolting the connection into view. ‘When was this?’
‘Earlier in the year. You know about the killings we had here?’
Her face went out of focus and her voice seemed to fall away, the connection whole and complete now, my breath running short. I said the words: ‘Did Ginny nurse Alice Anderson?’
She nodded once, her face a question mark. ‘I think you ought to tell me just what your interest is here.’
The conversation with Jimmy was seared into my memory. A telephone call with him shortly after Alice had disappeared. Him telling me one of the nurses at the hospital had seen a man she swore was a cop hanging around Alice’s room that day. A man I figured was sent to snatch her. Ginny had to be Robinson’s source – and now she was dead. ‘Why did Ginny kill herself?’
‘How would I know? I’ll tell you this much, though, I always thought it had something to do with that man hounding her. Smelled of liquor, all the time, and—’
‘He’s dead.’
She stopped with her mouth half-open. I glanced over to the cop again; he’d climbed back into his cruiser and was moving it around the corner. Smart – wait me out instead of come hunting. I turned back to the nurse. ‘You won’t ever see me again, I promise. Just tell me her surname.’
She looked at me a long moment. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He died in a fire.’
‘An accident?’
‘No.’
Her eyes darted to one side, and she blinked in rapid succession. ‘Does that strike you as a coincidence?’
‘No, ma’am, it doesn’t.’
She brought her hand to her mouth and touched her lip. ‘Kolkhorst. Ginny Kolkhorst. She hated having a Kraut name.’ She looked at me again now, all her surety gone. ‘I always thought there was something strange about her passing like that. That’s why I didn’t want anyone to see me talking to you back there.’
‘Why do you say strange?’
‘It’s not something normal folk do, is it? Throw themselves off of a bridge and . . .’ She reached for the wall, steadying herself.
‘Do you have reason to doubt she took her own life?’
‘Only the common sense the Lord blessed me with. What does this mean?’
‘I don’t know, but that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Did Miss Kolkhorst have any family?’
She hesitated, her expression making me realise she was suddenly afraid of me. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t know.’
‘Ma’am, my only interest is the truth. I promise.’
She looked at me a long moment, then said, ‘I think she lived with her folks. I don’t know the address.’ She took hold of my shoulder. ‘Mister, are we in danger?’ She inclined her head to the hospital building.
‘Not if you go back inside, and go about your business like this conversation never happened. Tell the other nurse to do the same.’
‘Why? Who would come asking?’
‘The men who killed my friend.’ The words I left unspoken: and who may have killed yours.