Milo smiled. He’d been living with an E.R. doctor for fifteen years. I’d heard Rick praise the freedom that resulted from no long-term entanglements.
“Poisoning the boss,” Milo said. “The article said he’d been suspended for bad medicine. Meaning?”
“He had a habit of not showing up at the E.R. when he was supposed to. Plus poor doctor-patient relations. The boss—Dr. Rabinowitz—said sometimes Burke could be terrific with patients. Charming, empathetic, taking extra time with kids. But other times he’d turn—lose his temper, accuse someone of overdramatizing or faking, get really nasty. He actually tried to kick a few patients out of the E.R., told them to stop taking up bed space that belonged to sick people. Toward the end, that was happening more and more. Burke was warned repeatedly, but he simply denied any of it had ever happened.”
“Sounds like he was losing it,” said Milo. He looked at me.
“Maybe heightened tension,” I said. “The pressure of working a tough job when his qualifications were marginal. Being scrutinized by people who were smarter. Or some kind of emotional trauma. Has he ever had an outwardly normal relationship with a woman?”
“No long-term girlfriend, and he’s a nice-looking guy.” Fusco’s eyes drooped lower. His hands balled. “That brings me to another pattern. A more recent one, as far as I can tell. He developed a friendship with one of his patients up in Seattle. Former cheerleader with bone cancer. Burke was circulating through as an intern, ended up spending a lot of time with her.”
“Thought you couldn’t get hospital records,” said Milo.
“I couldn’t. But I did find some nurses who remembered Michael. Nothing dramatic, they just thought he’d spent too much time with the cheerleader. It ended when the girl died. A couple of weeks later, the first of the four unsolved cutting vies was found. Next year, in Rochester, Burke got close to another sick woman. Divorcee in her early fifties, onetime beauty queen with brain cancer. She came into the E.R. in some sort of crisis, Burke revived her, visited her during the four months she spent as an in-patient, saw her at home after she was discharged. He was at her side when she died. Pronounced her dead.”
“Died of what?” said Milo.
“Respiratory failure,” said Fusco. “Not inconsistent with the spread of her disease.”
“Any mutilation clusters after that?”
“Not in Rochester, per se, but five girls within a two-hundred-mile radius have gone missing during Burke’s two years at Unitas Hospital. Three of them after Burke’s lady friend died. I agree with Dr. Delaware’s point about loss and tension.”
“Two hundred miles,” said Milo.
Fusco said, “As I’ve pointed out, Burke has the means to travel. And plenty of privacy. In Rochester, he lived in a rented house in a semirural area. His neighbors said he kept to himself, tended to disappear for days at a time. Sometimes he took along skis or camping equipment— both the van and the Lexus had roof racks. He’s in good shape, likes the outdoors.”
“These five cases are missing only, no bodies?”
“So far,” said Fusco. “Detective, you know that two hundred miles is no big deal if you’ve got decent wheels. Burke kept his vehicles in beautiful shape, clean as a whistle. Same for his house. He’s a lad of impeccable habits. The house reeked of disinfectant, and his bed was made tight enough to bounce a hubcap.”
“How’d he get tagged for poisoning Rabinowitz?”
“Circumstantial. Burke kept screwing up, and Rabinowitz finally put him on suspension. Rabinowitz said the look in Burke’s eyes gave him the creeps. A week later, Rabinowitz got sick. It turned out to be cyanide. Burke was the last person to be seen in the vicinity of Ra-binowitz’s coffee cup other than Rabinowitz’s secretary, and she passed the polygraph. When the locals tried to question Burke and put him on the machine, he was gone. Later, they found needles and a penicillin ampule in a locker in the physicians’ lounge, traces of cyanide in the ampule. Rabinowitz is lucky he took a small sip. Even with that, he was hospitalized for a month.”
“Burke left cyanide in his locker?”
“In another doctor’s locker. A colleague Burke had had words with. Fortunately for him, he was alibied. Home sick with the stomach flu, never left his house, lots of witnesses. There was some suspicion he’d been poisoned, too, but it turned out to just be the flu.”