A killing fire, p.19
A Killing Fire, page 19
“Doesn’t he have to answer yes when you remote connect?” Raven asked, remembering a time when Cameron had to take over her computer when helping with a printer problem.
He grinned. “I can get around the remote connect.”
He had switched to another display, his fingers flying over the keys.
“But when I was over there a minute ago, his computer wasn’t on,” Raven was saying.
“Oh, yeah, it was on. Probably just in sleep mode,” he said, eyes flashing between the keyboard and screen. And then, “I’m in.”
She scooted closer to him until they were shoulder to shoulder. “What you need?” he asked.
“Search history, first,” she said.
A few more clicks and they were looking at Holloway’s recent internet searches.
“Can you go back further?” she asked.
Cameron scrolled up and down a few times before saying absently, “I should be able to, but….”
“But what?”
“Wait, let me check something out.”
He typed in a few more things and then opened an application on another display. After a few commands he said, “Yeah, thought so.”
“Thought what?” Raven said. “Why can’t we go back further?”
“Because,” Cameron said, “your friend Holloway’s computer got reimaged – erased and built back up again.”
“What, when?” Raven asked. “And why? Was something the matter with it?”
“Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head, and pointing to an application he had brought up on another screen. “See this work order on the screen? Looks like it was assigned to Danny on the night shift to reimage his computer. It was a user request. Holloway told him to do it.”
“Why would he do that?” she asked.
Cameron shrugged. “Some people like to do a reimage every couple of years just to clean up memory and the system’s registry. I erase my computer and start over every once in a while.”
“Was Holloway’s computer due?” she asked.
“That’s what’s so freakin’ weird,” he said. “No, his computer ain’t even three months old. It’s practically brand new.”
She sat back and thought about what reason Holloway would have for reimaging his computer. And the answer came rather quickly. He reimaged his computer to cover something up – most likely his research on how to kill someone without leaving overt signs of violence.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Raven called Memorial Hospital while sitting at one of the stone picnic tables in the garden between the back door of the BLPD and the morgue. She had taken her jacket off and folded it next to her on the bench, hoping that fewer clothes would provide some relief from air that had grown more humid with the progress of the morning. The cloying scent from the honeysuckle growing close against the cinderblock fence, together with the heat, made Raven feel claustrophobic.
Add to that the black fear rising in her that whoever was trying to bring her down would succeed before she could find out who killed Hazel. And with every passing moment, she believed that the person behind her impending demise was Presley Holloway. Why else would he erase his computer after Hazel’s death? To hide any incriminating evidence. She would get him one way or the other, but first she had to find out how Jabo Kersey was involved in Hazel’s killing.
She had indeed found a copy of a wedding license for Kersey in Las Vegas. Jabo Kersey – no, Emmanuel Jacob Kersey – married Hazel Westcott in Las Vegas in October of last year. When Raven learned Kersey’s full name, she thought about what Billy Ray had said yesterday – Memorial kept repeating like a mantra that no Jabo Kersey had ever worked there. She tapped a pen against a copy of a marriage license, willing someone to answer the ringing phone so she could retreat to the cool of the conference room now that the air-conditioner was working again.
When a crisp female voice finally answered the phone, Raven insisted on speaking to the chief of staff. It only took the mention of the name Kersey to get him on the phone. Hot and impatient, Raven had barely let the drawling voice introduce himself before peppering him with questions. What about anyone with the last name of Kersey? What about contract employees? Temps? They hired temps, didn’t they? Did they check all of their files? The next thing she knew, the drawl on the other end of the phone was inviting her to a sit-down at Memorial Hospital so they could discuss the matter while looking each other in the face, like, he told her, decent people.
When she pressed the end button on her Android, she turned to reach for her jacket and stopped short. Billy Ray was standing there, his pork pie hat pushed back on his head, and his arms folded across his broad chest. He had an expression on his face like he had never seen her before. And he said very quietly, “I guess you found something, partner. Where to?”
She told him as she shrugged into her jacket and they headed off to Memorial.
* * *
When Raven was a little girl living in Byrd’s Landing, the official name of Memorial had been the Confederate Hospital. Ever since the name had been changed to comply with the country’s political sensitivities, it had come to be known by the good citizens of Byrd’s Landing as the old Confederate Hospital. Only newcomers called it Memorial. The building was wide, but just seven stories high with an exterior the color of vomit and an interior filled with long hallways tiled in white and high walls painted a soft green.
Four people were waiting for them in a conference room at a large table, the top a deep glassy brown. Three of them stood when Raven and Billy Ray walked into the room. They lined up stair-step style, reminding Raven of Russian nesting dolls – two males in almost identical gray suits, one several heads taller than the other, and a small woman in a sleeveless top with a wide white skirt and black flowers stitched along the hem in a style reminiscent of the TV show Mad Men. Her bright blond hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and a dry red shade of lipstick defined her large lips, making them appear chiseled in her white face. She seemed young to Raven, trying everything she could to look like an accomplished adult.
The woman introduced herself as Mavis Butterman, the hospital’s risk manager, and Raven caught a whiff of breath laced with stale cigarettes. Butterman smoothed her skirt over her bottom like a schoolgirl before sitting down in an enormous black leather chair. The taller man, whose suit was hopelessly rumpled, pointed to the man standing next to him. “This is Dr. Ewing,” he said, as if the man had no tongue in his head to introduce himself. Before Dr. Ewing could speak, he continued, “All you need to know about me is that I’m his lawyer. He’s my sole interest in this matter. I represent Dr. Ewing.” He shoved a meaty hand toward Raven and Billy Ray. His palm was cool, but slightly wet with sweat.
The man sitting at the other end of the table appeared to be even taller than Dr. Ewing’s lawyer. He occupied his big leather chair in what appeared to be a painful formation of crossed legs and arms. Raven thought that he could have easily passed for a spider, had that spider been close to seven feet tall and white as chalk. He unfurled when he saw her looking at him. He introduced himself as Dr. Fabian Long before sitting back down.
“We spoke on the phone,” he said, his Byrd’s Landing accent slow but careful. “You and I did, Detective Burns,” he added as if she might have forgotten. He waved his fingers at her. “I’m the hospital’s chief of staff. I never liked phones. They make me feel like I’m throwing my words away, down to some dark place where they get all mixed up before finally reaching the person on the other end. I like face-to-face. I like looking people in the eye.”
He leaned back in the chair and picked up a glass of water. He swirled the glass around a couple of times before looking away from her.
Raven watched him for several long seconds as he took a drink, then she said, “And I see you also like stalling.”
“My, my,” Billy Ray said before Long could answer. “If I’d known all of you would be here, I would have baked a cake.”
Raven sent a quick glance her partner’s way. This would not be a good meeting for him, she could tell. He was already in a foul mood because on the drive over she had deftly avoided or deflected his questions about why she had come in so early and what she was hiding.
But that was not the only reason his temper would be short with Dr. Fabian Long and his merry trio of lawyers and doctors. Billy Ray didn’t care for authority. A dislike of authority was the reason he took the shotgun house he now lived in for a rental. He did it so he could deny the city councilman who was so adamant about tearing them down. Billy Ray was letting the councilman know wealth or power didn’t mean a person automatically got their way – not all the time.
“All of this for one contract employee, Dr. Long?” Raven said.
“I’m sorry if this appears to be overkill, Detective,” Long answered, as a smile that was no smile flickered over his face. “This is a sensitive situation for the hospital.”
Raven leaned back and returned the now-retreated smile with a broad grin of her own.
“Someone merely mentions the name of Emmanuel Jacob Kersey to you and it becomes a sensitive situation? How’s that?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question,” Long said, with his hands now laced in front of him.
“The question is,” Billy Ray followed up, “how did he screw you?”
“Don’t answer that,” Butterman said, her white teeth flashing beneath her dry red lips. “Raven, how may we assist you and your partner? Billy Ray, is it?” She didn’t wait for Billy Ray to answer. “We’d like to be specific so we don’t waste your time, and as the hospital’s risk manager, I’m here to make sure we don’t violate our patients’ privacy.”
“And so that we leave here with our mouths shut and your rep still good enough to keep you in the running for hospital of the year award, isn’t that right, Mavis?” Billy Ray said.
“You may,” Butterman said, her face turning scarlet, “call me Counselor.”
Long cleared his throat. “Kersey betrayed this hospital and put patients and our doctors in danger. We ended his contract to ensure our patients’ safety, as we should have. That’s nothing to be ashamed about, Mavis,” he finished in a drawl, waving his fingers at his risk manager in a dismissive gesture.
He stopped, leaned back and sighed. He shoved his hands into his thick black hair and hung onto it before letting go. His hand fell back on the table. “But even though he isn’t here anymore, that doesn’t mean the danger has passed. We have to protect ourselves from certain liabilities, Detective Burns. Of course, you understand. That’s why I asked Mavis to join us.”
“It’s about the fentanyl, isn’t it?” Dr. Ewing said, his voice shaking and high. “I thought it was all settled, Dr. Long. I don’t understand why the police have been brought here.”
Dr. Ewing’s lawyer placed a puffy hand on his client’s shoulder. He probably wished he could have placed it over his mouth. “Please, Doc,” he said. “You need to hush.”
Raven reached for one of the heavy crystal glasses on the table. She turned it right side up and poured water into it from one of the two glass pitchers. No one said anything. They simply watched her while water and ice gurgled in a twirling crystal stream into the open glass. She leaned back and noticed how all of their images shimmered up from the table’s polished surface, an upside-down world where nothing was clear or sure. The hospital thought they were here about fentanyl. They were here about the Sux. Dr. Ewing, for some reason, thought they were after him. They were after Jacob Kersey.
“What does Kersey have to do with you, Dr. Ewing?” Billy Ray asked, with a New Orleans drawl that was both slow and dangerous. “You make some kind of deal about the drugs? He steals fentanyl for you and you steal Sux for him?”
Dr. Ewing looked at him, confusion driving the fear out of his face. He said, “What? Succinylcholine? What has that got to do with anything?”
Raven drank. The water was cold and tasted bitter.
“We are investigating a murder,” Raven said, wanting to slow Billy Ray down. “Hazel Westcott. Perhaps you heard about it?”
Long frowned and stood up. He opened his blazer and stuck two fingers in the pocket of a white vest. “I’m afraid I’m not following,” he said. “What does Jabo Kersey’s working at this hospital have to do with Hazel Westcott? Did the woman overdose?”
“How well do you know Jabo Kersey, Dr. Ewing?” Raven asked, ignoring Long’s question.
He shrugged. “Well enough, I suppose. For a while I thought we were friends.”
“Not just drug buddies?” Billy Ray said. “Friends? You went to basketball games, hung with the fam? Go to church together? Help each other move? That type of friend?”
“Okay, Detective, settle down. I know what you’re getting at. They weren’t really close friends, they just happened to have something in common, that’s all,” Long said. “But Kersey used him. Plain and simple.”
“Can you be more specific?” Raven asked. The question was directed at Dr. Ewing, but Long answered with a question to Butterman. “Can we be more specific, Mavis?” he asked. “I know your job as risk manager makes you a little overprotective of the hospital, but can we just put this matter to rest by answering these folks’ questions?”
Butterman thought for a minute, and then nodded. Long waved his fingers at Dr. Ewing. “Go on ahead then, son,” he said. “Tell it.”
“Okay, you’re right,” Dr. Ewing explained. “We weren’t friends. Could never be, perhaps. But I fooled myself into thinking that we were. I was an addict. Kersey knew. He caught me pocketing some fentanyl and….”
“And what?” Raven prompted.
“He didn’t report me,” Dr. Ewing answered. “He said that he understood, and even started helping me with acquiring—”
“You mean stealing,” Billy Ray said.
“Okay, yes, stealing the fentanyl. He was an addict too. Or pretended to be. And we talked all the time about getting clean. We swore every time we…” he gulped, “…injected, it would be the last time.”
“So let me get this straight,” Billy Ray said. “Kersey gets caught and gets the boot. Dr. Ewing gets caught and what, he gets promoted? A blue ribbon for the best pig at the fair?”
“Dr. Ewing,” his lawyer said, “is one of the most renowned anesthesiologists in the state. He has an addiction and he’s in treatment with this hospital’s full support. Am I right, Mavis?”
Butterman sent a nod Billy Ray’s way before smoothing the slick side of her head with a hand that shook. She said. “Our full support.”
“Oh, excuse me, Counselor Mavis,” Billy Ray said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I forgot that there are a whole bunch of people out there who would pay good money to have the most renowned anesthesiologist in the state putting them under. Never mind that he’s as high as Pluto. Stupid me.”
“Detective,” Long said. “Of course Dr. Ewing is not in the operating room while he’s going through his treatment.”
“Then why not give Kersey the same consideration?” Raven asked.
Long looked at Mavis. She nodded, her dark red lips pursed into a grimace.
Dr. Long began to pace. “Mr. Kersey is a different matter,” he said. “He isn’t an addict. I mean not really. He did the drugs, but I don’t think the man was addicted. He’s just a liar and a thief. We have the ability to treat addicts but I don’t know of any cure for lying and thievery.”
“I don’t follow,” Raven said.
Dr. Ewing ran his hands over his anguished face and answered Raven before Long could continue. “I know you don’t believe me when I tell you that I thought we were friends, if not good friends,” he said. “I thought we were going through what we were going through together. He even came over to my house a couple of times.”
“To shoot up,” Billy Ray said, his tone somewhat mocking.
Dr. Ewing nodded. “That too,” he said. “But we hung out as friends, shared things about ourselves. It was only later on I realized that it was me doing most of the talking.”
“How did it end?” Raven asked.
“Things stopped adding up,” Butterman put in. “Luckily the hospital has processes in place to make sure controlled substances are properly stored and handled.”
“You sure it was luck? Maybe it’s because those processes are mandated by the state,” Billy Ray countered.
“So they are,” Mavis said, her eyes sparking. “But sometimes the processes work, and sometimes they don’t. Ours did. I take my job very seriously, Billy Ray.”
Billy Ray picked his hat up off the table and tipped it toward her.
“So,” Dr. Ewing continued. “I told Jabo about it. I told him, I said, ‘Jabo, they know.’ And do you know what he said?” he asked, looking around the room.
“No, what?” Raven said.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, I got you,’ just like that,” Dr. Ewing said in a voice that suggested he still found the statement incredulous. “‘Don’t worry, I got you.’ Can you believe it?”
“I don’t understand,” Raven said. “He was going to back you up?”
But Dr. Ewing was shaking his head. “No, that’s not at all what he meant. That’s the way he tried to say it. But there was something in his eyes, something laughing at me. When I asked him what in the hell that was supposed to mean, he tried to clean it up. He said he had all kinds of connections, saw all kinds of people come through the emergency room, people from the police department.”
Raven looked at Long, who was staring out of a window, clearly done with them and the conversation. He explained with a small lift of his hand, “Kersey sometimes filled in for shortages in the emergency room.”
