The captain’s phone beeped and he picked up the receiver, still watching the drama unfold on his screen, as Cassandra Bouchard went toe-to-toe with his officers, then the news feed went black and the coverage reverted to the two anchors.
“Captain,” the front desk officer said immediately, “Christian Price called in and said to get a message to Detective Hardwick. The doctor needs Puff Adder anti-venom.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
The captain clicked the remote and shut off the television. He immediately picked up his cell and dialed Hardwick directly. It rang five times and went to voice mail. He hit redial, tapping his fingers on his desk while he waited. After three redial attempts, Hardwick finally answered.
“What?”
“Hardwick, this is the captain. If you made it to the hospital, tell the doctors that she needs—”
“We’re at the morgue.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, I’ve been saying that a lot since we crawled into the ambulance. So, what were you going to tell me?”
“Price called. He said to relay a message to you that the girl needs—needed—Puff Adder anti-venom to save her life.”
“Son-of-a-bitch!”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“Yeah, I could’ve. If I had taken Price’s call. Dispatch tried to put him through to me but I didn’t…Oh, God! If I had taken the call, I could’ve alerted the ambulance to have the anti-venom; I could’ve…Oh God. I killed her.”
“Breathe, Hardwick. I think you’re losing perspective here. The ambulance wouldn’t have had it if you’d known because they were already en route. If you look at this rationally, which you aren’t at present, Price killed her the minute he injected her, and, if I have to keep perspective too, two of my officers probably leant a hand in her death by overlooking that closet—something I have to deal with rather shortly. Anyway, by the time you got to her…I saw her body lying on the concrete, bloated and blackened as it was. She was already dead. Come back to the precinct. Let the coroners do their job. I need you here to do yours.”
“You know he’s going to do this again.” Hardwick’s tone was flat and he sounded beaten. The captain drew in a sharp breath as he imagined his best detective defeated by a madman, and for a moment he wanted to join in the detective’s pity party. After all, if his best detectives couldn’t stop this insane nut job then he couldn’t imagine anyone who could.
“Yeah, he’s going to do it again, and I need you here so that when that call comes in, we can—”
“What can we do different, Captain? We did everything right this time…”
“No, we didn’t. Come in. We’ll discuss what happened and discuss what to do about the two officers who royally screwed this investigation. Do you need a lift?”
“No, Johnson and Peters followed the ambulance in my car. Shit! I’m gonna need a new car. Double shit! Captain, you need to have one of the units on scene stay there.”
“Why, what gives?”
“The missing maintenance worker. Something tells me that a search of the surrounding area is going to turn up another dead body.”
“You think Price killed the maintenance worker and then parked his vehicle in front of the closet, just to throw us off the scent?”
“No, I think it’s more likely that the maintenance worker arrived for work at an inconvenient time, parked there, interrupted Price’s work, and lost his life.”
“Damn. Nothing worse than wrong place, wrong time. Okay, I’ll have a black and white remain on site and do a search for this missing worker. You come on in.”