The Pain Nurse - [25]

“You’re the only police officer I’d call pig,” Bud Chambers said. “Or should I just say rat?”

Will said nothing. He had never felt more vulnerable. He vainly glanced at his lap for any weapon, seeing only the small fanny pack that held a few dollars, Kleenex, and his wallet.

“I’ve seen you look better, Borders,” the man continued, pacing around him in a small arc. “Like when you got my badge.”

“You did that to yourself,” Will said. “You lied on your logs.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Right.” He folded his arms and looked down at Will. “So I hear you’ve been looking for me, so I thought I’d come looking for you.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Will controlled his voice, used his calm peace officer voice.

“Oh, you know, the old cop grapevine. You know how that goes.”

“Sure.”

“Like I know your wife left you. Who couldn’t a seen that coming from ten miles away? You know, I fucked her once…”

The atrium and two converging hallways were utterly empty save for the two men and the display boards with their historic photographs and newspaper clippings. Even the normal noise of the hospital didn’t make it this far away. Will studied Chambers’ hands, thick and pale, balled into heavy fists.

“Well,” Will said, “at least you didn’t murder her.”

Chambers smirked with his thin, small mouth.

“Where were you on the night of December 6th?”

“What, aren’t you going to Mirandize me? Oh, I forgot, you’re not a cop anymore. You’re just another jerkoff in the hospital.” Chambers started to walk away but suddenly turned and came toward Will, moving his heavy body with quick strides. He grabbed the sides of the wheelchair and bent forward. His breath was foul.

“I didn’t kill her! Got that? I didn’t kill her or any of those girls. Craig Factor was convicted! The DNA was his!”

Will met the furious gaze, pushed all his fear down into his useless legs. At least they could be good for something. He said calmly, “DNA evidence can be tampered with.”

Chambers pushed off the chair and stamped back. Will used his hands to brake the wheels, stopping himself from rolling backward.

“You couldn’t prove a thing,” Chambers said. “You wrecked your own career, trying to frame me. You left homicide to go to the rat squad.”

“I want bad cops off the street.”

“Fuck you. You know what that makes you in the eyes of every Cincinnati cop? The only thing you could do was run me out on some chickenshit thing. So fucking what? The brass still let me retire, take my pension.” He stabbed his chest with his hand. “I’m doin’ fine. Doin’ private work now, corporate security. Consulting. It’s easy money. I don’t have to deal with the niggers and the bullshit and the rat-fuck cops like you, Borders. I’m doin’ fine. Better than you.”

It occurred to Will that the meds must help tamp down anger. They must even dampen thoughts and reactions, even ones that had taken millions of years to be stamped into the species: “danger” and “flee.” It softened the fact that no other person was in the lobby or surrounding hallways. For the first time since his surgery he felt free of his body, projected instead into the charged space that separated him from Chambers. Will said, “You beat her, Marion, we know that.”

His face reddened on hearing his given name. “I could beat you! God, I wish you could stand and fight like a man.”

“She was afraid you would kill her.”

Chambers’ head dropped slightly as if a supporting cord in his neck had snapped. He looked at Will strangely. His tongue flicked out like a lizard’s.

“Where’d you hear that?” Will said nothing. Chambers stuffed his hands into his coat pockets. “She had a lot of ideas.” He stared past Will. “She was paranoid, fucking nuts. I put up with that for years. I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“You did hurt her. You beat her. The cops responded to a domestic at your house. They let you off. Then she got a restraining order against you.”

“That was just being married, give me a break. Now all these bitches are counselors and lawyers and they tell gals to ‘get a restraining order,’ and the husband’s always guilty. How many domestics did we respond to as uniforms that turned out to be nothing.”

“How many where the husband came back and killed the woman.”

Chambers leaned against the wall, pulled out a cigarette, and stuck it in his lips. He wanted to light up, but seeing a smoke detector overhead thought better of it. He stuck it back in the pack.

“We used to be friends, I thought,” he said. “You were a righteous cop on the streets, Borders, back in the day, when we worked District One together. We’d all get together. We were all family. I was nothing but happy for you when you aced the sergeant’s exam and then went to homicide. What’d I ever do to you?”

Will ignored him and wheeled six feet away and to the side, making Chambers turn to see him. Then he turned the chair toward him again and advanced. “I always wondered why you did it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Not why you killed Theresa, because we knew about your temper.” Chambers’ left eyelid flickered when Will said the woman’s name. “And motive. You had a girlfriend you wanted to be with. And Theresa had $500,000 in life insurance, still payable to you. I didn’t even wonder about the knife. The more I learned about you, Chambers, the more it made sense. No quick gunshot for Bud Chambers. That would take away the fun, the fear. I just wondered why you killed those other women.”