A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(79)

“Did the other girl go home?”

“You mean the nurse?” the new one said.

“Yes. I guess I shouldn’t have said ‘girl.’ I’m not a jerk. I’m just kind of lazy headed right now. Drugs and all that.”

The new nurse said, “It’s okay. Everybody knows you’re the good guy, Ike. I guess her shift ended. But you’ll probably see her again tomorrow.”

“Did you come to give me another shot?”

“No. I came to talk to you a little. But I’ll leave soon, and when I do we can ring for the next one.”

He said, “Are you afraid of getting me sick?”

“You mean the mask? No, it’s not to protect you from my germs. It’s to protect me.”

“Oh,” he said. “You called me Ike. Who are you?”

“You don’t recognize my voice? I’m the woman who borrowed your shotgun last night.”

“What?”

“I shot the man who was coming around the RV to get you in a crossfire. I hit him in the chest. I think I hit one of the others too, but not very seriously. I didn’t go after him or his friend because it seemed more important to call for help to get you taken to a hospital.”

He rolled and lunged for the call button, but it was out of his reach.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”

“What do you want?”

“Information. I watched the local news this evening, and they told the story of what happened, sort of. A couple of things were missing.”

“What were they?”

“One was me.”

“You want publicity?”

“No. If keeping me out of the story was your idea, thank you. The other thing that was missing was the man I shot.”

“You must know that the local news isn’t going to know everything, or get everything they hear straight.”

“No, Ike. Too much time has passed for them not to have noticed a dead or wounded man. The police have had control of the scene for almost twenty-four hours.”

“Have I been here that long?”

“Approximately. But so far the news people haven’t mentioned a man or a body. That struck me as odd.”

“Maybe he got away.”

“I hit him in the center of his chest from closer than forty feet. When I last saw him he was lying on his back with his arms splayed out. Your ammo is number four buckshot, right?”

“Why do you care? If he’s alive he can’t find you.”

“I want to know who he is and what those men were doing at Slawicky’s.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know why he’s missing,” said Lloyd. “I saw him go down, and I’m pretty sure I saw blood after he was lying there. But from that moment on, I was only worrying about the other two, and I think shock was setting in. If you hadn’t reminded me to use my belt, I might have bled out.”

“You’re welcome. I have some things to tell you too.”

He sighed. “You must know that I’m not on the case anymore.”

“You’re the only one that I can tell. Nick Bauermeister was a thief—a burglar, to be precise. I found his break-in kit, mask, and a loaded gun in a toolbox under the workbench in his basement. He was storing bags of salt for winter, and the ones in the center of the pile all have jewelry in them. His girlfriend, Chelsea Schnell, is having an affair with his boss, Daniel Crane. And Walter Slawicky never sold a rifle to Jimmy Sanders. He lied to the police about that. I think somebody paid him.”

Lloyd said, “I saw the new Porsche in his garage, and of course it was hard to miss the motor home. He doesn’t seem to have a job.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “I’ve got to go now. Sorry I had to move your phone and call button.”

“What has this got to do with you? Who are you?”

“Why do you care? Do you want to send me a thank-you note?”

“I’m officially ordering you to tell me your name.”

“Thanks, Ike. Get well. When I’m gone, if you want the nurse, just pull the blood pressure clip off your finger. It sets off an alarm at the desk, and they’ll come to reset it.” She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

The beep-beep tone went off at the nurse’s station and when the nurse got up and hurried toward Ike Lloyd’s room, she didn’t see the woman in scrubs who strode past her station behind her and kept going to the elevator.

Jane descended to the ground floor and walked outside through the door where the garbage was taken from the cafeteria kitchen to the dumpsters. She went past the enclosure where the big air-conditioning condensers and heating plant were. She didn’t remove her mask and cap until she was far from the hospital’s security cameras and enveloped in darkness once again.





20



Jane changed her clothes in her car. It was still dark when she drove to Avon and along Telephone Road. As she passed the long driveway to Chelsea Schnell’s, she took time to study the house. There were no signs that anything had changed. Sometime soon, she hoped, Ike Lloyd would repeat what she’d told him to the police officers who had taken over Jimmy’s case. They would obtain a search warrant for the little house, and find the gun, tools, and stolen jewelry. He could be calling them now. How long would it take to obtain a warrant?