ARKEN

Loose Ends

Providence Portland was a nice place to be if one was going to need the services of a hospital. All the rooms were nice and spacious, the staff were pleasant and kind, the food was even pretty good. Wortham Vance knew this because he had been there once many years ago, when he was only a boy. He'd fallen from a great oak in the backyard and broken his arm in two places. It had not been a pleasant experience in any way.

Today, Wortham Vance was not here because of an emergency injury or illness, he was here to visit someone else. He removed the key from his Audi Q7 and exited the vehicle. He passed a woman walking out with her son and an old man in a wheel chair sitting just far enough away from the building to be able to smoke.

The front doors slid open in advance of his entry and Wortham Vance felt the change from the crisp, cool night air of Portland in mid-March to the inoffensive seventy-four-point-six-degree regulated temperature of the medical center.

He carefully avoided the proximity of the many ill-looking patients. In recent weeks, Portland—as well as surrounding areas in northwestern Oregon—had been suffering the worst outbreak of the flu in years.

As he walked past the receiving area, he couldn't help but notice a speck of debris in his field of view. Carefully and methodically, almost as if he were mechanical in nature, Wortham Vance took off his wire-rimmed circular glasses and reached into the right breast pocket of his overcoat to retrieve a microfilm cloth. He gently dabbed at the speck and wiped with his thumb and index finger in a small clockwise pattern. He put his glasses back on his face after he was satisfied with their cleanliness and continued to the front desk.

"Hello, I am here to see Carl Stacey."

"What's your relation to the patient?"

"Brother," he replied coolly. Anticipating a questioning glance, "Adopted brother, of course." Whether that was necessary or not, she didn't pay it any mind. She checked her computer, "Room 234, second floor, it's going to be on your left."

He nodded and headed past the desk to the elevator. Wortham Vance always made smooth entrances. He entered the elevator and rode it up to the second floor. He exited into the hall and turned to his left, strolling casually past the sequential room numbers to room 234. He checked both ways before going inside.

Wortham Vance walked into the room. Carl Stacey was asleep in his bed. The window adjacent to the bed was blocked with curtains, a pair of chairs were placed against the wall just below it overlooking the bed. On the opposite side of the bed was a bathroom.

Wortham Vance approached the bed and looked down on Carl Stacey. The man was badly bruised and cut up from his beating, a beating that was performed by amateurs scared off the premises before confirming his death, hence, Wortham Vance's reason for visiting this night.

He checked the door one more time and walked around the bed over to the window and looked out, confirming no one could be watching through the window.

He quietly moved back around to the side of the bed closer to the door. He reached his right hand into the left breast pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a Kahr CT380, a small pistol with a decent punch, easy to hide. He attached the sound suppressor and pointed the gun at Carl Stacey's head.

He muttered a little turn of phrase to himself and pulled the trigger. The round penetrated Carl Stacey through the forehead just above the left eye. The machines all started redlining at once, Wortham Vance stepped back into the bathroom.

A moment later, a doctor and a nurse came into the room. Once they realized what happened, he stepped out. He shot the doctor twice in the back as she turned to run, cutting off the nurse's escape. She cowered into the corner with her hands over her head whimpering. He aimed for her temple and fired one shot. Wortham Vance put the CT380 back into his pocket and quietly left the hospital room.

Detectives Blackburne and Gable arrived on the scene. They received directions from a uniform and headed up in the elevator to the second floor. They found Officers Carla Ko and Harvey Cordray waiting outside the door. "Detectives."

"How is it in there?" Gable asked. Officer Ko shook her head, "Not good. Three dead, all shot at close range with extreme prejudice." They followed Ko inside while Cordray waited at the door.

Only a few feet inside, a doctor lying face down on the floor, two bullets in the back. In the far corner was a dead nurse with a bullet to the head, and in the bed was a dead patient with a bullet to the head. "Christ, it's a bloodbath in here," Gable exclaimed, carefully stepping over the body of the doctor to get a better view of the room.

"That's Doctor Joann Armstrong. She'd been working here for the past eight years. The nurse is Antoinette Bowers, she just came here from Seattle a few months ago. She was a single mom of three." Ko explained it all in a glum fashion, which was fitting for the situation.

"So," Gable turned to Ko, "what do you think happened here?"

Ko looked all around the room, "I think someone came in here and shot the patient. Then I think, these two came in to investigate the machines going off, maybe they caught the killer and he had to deal with them so they couldn't tell anyone."

"What do you think, Blackburne?"

Blackburne looked up from the body of the doctor, "I think that makes sense if we figure out who this guy is, and why someone wanted to kill him."

"The receptionist at the front desk reported that ten minutes before the bodies were found, a man came in to see this patient," Ko stated.

"Did she describe him?" Blackburne questioned, Ko looked at her notepad, "Black, forty something, bald, wore wire-rimmed glasses and a black overcoat with a suit and tie underneath. He said he was the patient's brother."

"Who is the patient?"

"Carl Stacey."

Blackburne paused, "Wait, Stacey?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

Blackburne glanced at Gable, "The last name of our girl last night."

"I thought it was something else."

"Yeah, but Shane told me three guys came looking for her, said they were her friends. They asked for Alyssa Stacey."

Ko shrugged, "Could it just be a coincidence?"

Blackburne shook her head, "We can't discount it. We need to see if there's a connection here."

"Okay," Gable said, "Assuming this is connected, why would someone come in here and kill him?"

Blackburne attempted to solve the puzzle in her head. Maybe the men Shane Krouse had encountered weren't friends, maybe they were the ones Alyssa was worried about. "That's what we need to find out. There's something more to all this. Maybe we need to revisit the Reginald Byrd angle."

"What about? I thought that seemed pretty open and shut," Gable replied.

"It might not be, C'mon." Blackburne was out of the room in an instant and Gable hurried after her.