“No.”
“Somebody did.”
“Maybe it was a security guard.”
“This was different. Somebody tried the door several times.”
Dodds murmured something and shook his head. “Well, I guess our shit-stained boy didn’t kill her. That may not work out for your Florence Nightingale.”
“Cheryl Beth?”
“Cheryl Beth Wilson, RN.” He drew out each syllable. “I consider her a person of interest.”
“Come on…”
“She found her, you know.”
Now Will remembered that night, when he had been groggy on drugs, terrified of the late-night trip to the MRI. He had seen her there, outside the office, her white lab coat stained with blood.
Dodds went on. “It gets better. She was banging Lustig’s husband. I call that motive.”
Will was starting to hurt again, but he had to hang on. He had gotten this far. He said, “Yeah, you should have seen how effectively she fought against this guy in the hall. No way. Why aren’t you looking at the husband?”
“Fuck you.”
“Because you know it’s the Slasher. It takes you awhile to come around sometimes, if you didn’t think of something in the first place. But you know, Dodds. You know who did this.”
Will moved his wheelchair closer. “You know why I was in that old atrium today, on my ass, on the floor, when the homeless guy attacked me?”
Dodds opened his hands as if a bird would appear and fly away.
“Bud Chambers dumped me there on the floor. It’s probably a miracle he didn’t do worse.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Will told him about the confrontation. “Thanks for spreading the word about me,” he added.
“It wasn’t me, but believe what you want,” Dodds said. “Look, I get where you’re coming from with Chambers. I didn’t just like him for Theresa, I loved him. But we couldn’t make the case. Remember how much time we spent on him and that skank girlfriend, what the hell was her name?”
“Darlene.”
“We couldn’t build a case. Hunches aren’t evidence. And command didn’t want another scandal. So they eased him out. Okay, they eased him out after you pushed for it. But we never could find a connection between Chambers and the other killings. Then we got Factor. A jury agreed. How the hell do you explain the DNA?”
“That was only on Theresa.”
“So?”
“So, Factor was technically only convicted on that crime. It was just assumed he did the other two. Anyway, you’re the one who always says young detectives depend too much on DNA, that they’ve lost the ability to do old-fashioned police work. We screwed up. He’s killing again. This one,” he indicated the doctor’s office, “has all the marks of the Slasher, right down to the hidden knife. Nobody knew about the hidden knife except us and the killer. He just loves to mind-fuck us.”
