‘So Bill, what have you come up with?’
‘Absolutely nothing…Joe, you know this won’t be an isolated killing. We need to speak to Dr. Delmonico.’
##
‘Good afternoon, Joe, Bill. What can I do for you today?’
‘Well, Dr. Delmonico, someone killed a nurse early this morning while she was on her lunch break and dragged her body to the morgue and left it there.’
‘Interesting. Sounds like a lot of rage in this person but he or she was creative as to where the body was left. I mean the person could have left it where it was killed, or put it in an empty patient bed with a sheet over it. The morgue, huh,…it could indicate she believed this person was dead inside and this was where she belonged…with other dead bodies.
‘We think it was a former patient.’
‘Why?’
‘Just a feeling we have.
So do you have a lead as to who’s done it?
The person the guard saw was dressed up in a nurse’s uniform and when he asked where she was going, she said out for a smoke. She never returned.’
‘So tell me about the victim.’
‘She was a nurse.’
‘You said. Was she competent, nice, rotten, mean, good-hearted, helpful, caustic? All this has a bearing. If she was nasty, there’s the motive for someone offing her. Poor patient care. I’m not excusing the behavior but you are looking for a person who was normal until their hospital stay and was so totally mistreated, she’s acting out the only way she knew how which was to kill the person who inflicted embarrassment or pain on her. If she was border line mentally ill before this hospitalization, watch out. She probably has more people son her hit list.’
‘Thanks Doc.’
##
How to kill that witch? Think, Think…I got it. If I can get into to medicine cabinet, I’ll OD her on morphine. Yes, that’s it. Morphine.
##
Nancy put on a clean uniform with her badge and went to a different floor than where she killed Jeannette. Gladys was working one floor below. Nancy got the keys to the medicine cabinet by distracting the nurse with them with a fake emergency in a room at the other end of the floor and removed three bottles of morphine along with some syringes. She waited outside the nurse’s lounge and hid behind the lockers until Gladys showed up. She came into to eat lunch and Nancy stabbed her three times in the neck with three high dose shots of morphine and then stuffed a pillow over her face and suffocated her until she was dead. Once dead, Nancy put her in a wheelchair, covered her in a blanket, and wheeled her to the freight elevator which led to the basement where the morgue was, but Nancy decided to leave the dead body in the elevator. She took the stairs to the first floor and dumped her gloves in the trash.
As she walked out, another guard said good night to her and she responded by waving as she left.
When Gladys did not return from her break, an all out man hunt went through the hospital. She was found a half-hour after Nancy left. Joe and Bill were called again to the hospital this time at 3 in the morning.
Joe picked up Bill and Bill said, ‘I could really use some coffee. Why does this killer have to get us up in the middle of the night?’
‘Fewer people on the night shift,’ said Joe. Let’s stop for coffee and get to the hospital. ‘I haven’t been up at night like this since my son had colic.’
‘Me too,’ said Bill.
##
‘So what can you say about the dead nurse,’ Bill asked the supervisor.
‘C.N.A.’
‘C.N.A?’
‘Nursing assistant, not a nurse.’
‘Connection with the dead nurse last night?’
‘They worked together on occasion.’
‘Shit…now it makes sense. They were on the same shift when someone they cared for…’
‘Or didn’t care for …’
‘Yes, now I see that this someone got pissed off and she is taking her anger out on the nursing staff here. We have to figure out who’s next.’
##
I got them…the ones that treated me like I was nothing…a non-person. I feel so relieved. Now I can go on with my life as if this never happened. I couldn’t believe these health professionals told me to do my business in the bed and wouldn’t take me to the bathroom. They’ll never do that again to another person. May they both rot in hell!
##
‘Joe, this person posing as a nurse must have been a patient recently for their anger to be this white hot.’
‘Yeah but how do we know she doesn’t have anyone else on the hit list?’
‘We don’t. We have to find her and find her fast.’
Joe and Bill went back to the station with two boxes of patients’ files fitting the description of women staying at the hospital at least one or more nights. Nineteen women fit the general description. They waited until after breakfast to pound on doors to see if they could figure out who the murderer was.
##
Nancy lived alone with her cat and two goldfish and was ecstatic she got away with murder…or so she thought. At lunchtime, there was a knock at the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Detective Joe Miller and Detective Bill Kelby, L.A.P.D.’
‘Just a minute. Nancy panicked. She threw the nurses uniform in the bottom of the hamper and covered it up with towels, flushed the toilet, and went to open the door.’
Bill turned to Joe and said, ‘I hope she washed her hands.’
Joe made a yucky face as the door opened. He flashed his badge and asked, ‘Are you Nancy Johnson?’
‘Yes,’ said Nancy.
‘We need to ask you a few questions,’ said Miller.
‘Yes, what can I do for you?’ Nancy started to shake.
‘Do you have a neurological problem?’ asked Kelby.
‘Yes, and when I get nervous I shake more.’
‘Do we make you nervous?’ said Miller.
‘When cops show up at your door and you don’t know why, yes.’
‘Just want to ask you a couple of questions about your hospitalization,’ asked Kelby.
‘Isn’t that private?’
‘Yes, the medical part is but we were wondering if you had either of these caregivers while you were there.’ Joe shows her the pictures.
‘Yes.’
‘And how did they treat you?’ inquired Miller
‘Okay. Not great, not bad,’ responded Nancy.
‘Alright, that’s all we wanted to know.’
Joe and Bill left and Joe turns to Bill before getting in the car and said, ‘She’s lying.’
‘I know. All the other patients said both of them were horrible people. Even their coworkers didn’t like them.’
‘Well, how do we trap her?’
‘Let’s pull around the corner and see if she leaves,’ said Bill.
‘Like where?’
‘How would I know? Maybe she needs to dump evidence from this morning’s killing,’ responded Kelby,
Sure enough, ten minutes later, she emerged from her house with a black garbage bag, got in her car, and drove to a dumpster near her home with a pick-up time scheduled for later today.
Joe and Bill apprehended her with Joe doing a dumpster dive and pulling out the black bag she just put in.
‘NO, NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!’ Nancy screamed.
Bill said, ‘You have the right to remain silent…’
‘They tortured me in the hospital. They both were no damn good and deserved to die,’ screamed Nancy.
‘Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…’ continued Bill.
‘I’m glad their dead. They can’t hurt anyone else. You hear me.’
‘You have the right to an attorney and to have one present before questioning…’ said Bill.
‘Those bitches can go straight to hell. I’m not sorry they’re dead.’
‘If you can not afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you without out charge before questioning. Do you understand these rights as I have said them?’
‘No, I don’t understand my rights because I’m crazy.…You hear? I’m sick. You’ll see and I’ll get off because they pushed me over the edge. They caused me to do what I did. They withheld my psychotic medicine and I’ve been hearing voices and seeing people that aren’t there. They wouldn’t answer my call bells. Would you like to be treated that way?’
Ignoring the question, Joe Miller said, ‘You had a choice.’
‘No I didn’t. You weren’t there. You don’t know the full story. Nobody should treat another human being the way I was treated, to have power over sick people, to tell you they won’t take you to the bathroom when you need to go, to tell you to go potty in the bed. NO ONE. They did that to me. They pushed me over the edge. HAHAHAHAHA. Let them find me crazy. I don’t care. The bitches are gone and they can’t hurt anyone else. Ever. AHAHAHAHAHA.’
Joe put Nancy in a patrol car while she muttered and laughed to herself.
‘Joe?’ said Bill.
‘Yes.’
‘She’s right you know. They probably drove an average person to the edge but a person with mental illness, they drove over it.’
‘I know. I hope she has a good defense lawyer,’ replied Joe.
‘I’m going to recommend Thomas Connelly take the case,’ stated Bill.
‘Why?’
‘I can’t see her going away for life for the trauma she suffered at the hands of another in the hospital while trying to get better from a sickness. Through no fault of her own, she’s in this position. For the first time in my life, I truly understand what the victim went through.’
About the author
Since becoming disabled in 2015, Maxine took up her passion for writing. She has been published several times in the Los Angeles Daily News, The Epoch Times, Nail Polish Stories, DarkWinterLit, BrightFlashLiteraryReview, OtherwiseEngagedLit, CafeLit, Maudlin House and TheMetaworker.com.
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