Free The Pain Nurse by Jon Talton

awful city crime. It’s none of your concern.”
    “It’s not that simple, Cindy. I’m the one who screwed up with Craig Factor, me and Dodds. We’ve got to put it right. He’ll kill again. He’s got a taste for it. The next woman was killed just a week after Theresa Chambers. All his victims looked like Theresa, and so did this doctor! Now he’s at work again. Don’t you see? He’s going to kill again.”
    “No, no. Will, you’re sick. You’ve been through a lot.”
    “I’m still a sworn officer. I have a duty…”
    “Now stop.” She shook her head adamantly. “Julius asked me to talk to you. Stop this nonsense. Will, you’re not the same. You’re going to be…handicapped.”
    The word fell on him heavily.
Handicapped.
That wasn’t him. That was the person in the wheelchair on the street corner, pitiful, avert the eyes… Will was still himself inside.
    “I know that.”
    “Do you?” she asked harshly. “That means you won’t be a policeman anymore.”
    “I can use my brain. They need me.”
    “Is that what your commander is saying?”
    Will didn’t answer, recalling the conversation with Scaly Mueller.
    “I didn’t think so. You’re in denial, about a lot of things. That’s understandable, but I am not going to enable it.”
    “And I’m not going to argue with your self-help books.”
    Her eyes flashed, but then she just shook her head. “Will, Will… I never understood your world. But it seemed to me that within the police department you had a good job as a homicide detective. I never understood why you left it to go to internal affairs. The officers hate internal affairs.”
    “The chief asked me to do it.”
    “You went to the chief.”
    “It was a little bit of both.” His back was starting to throb. “I did it to make a better police department.” He had explained himself so many times.
    “You did it,” she said vehemently, “because of what happened between you and Julius, over Bud Chambers.”
    “That was part of it.” She was twisting time, twisting what really happened. She seemed so strange to him now, but, in reality, he knew that had been true for years. He fought those feelings. How did two people grow to be at such odds?
    “This is what Julius was afraid of. Your going off half-cocked. He’s really agitated about it. He was a good friend to you.”
    “I was his friend.”
    “Was.” Cindy shook her head. “You don’t make friends, Will. You don’t know how. You didn’t like my friends. I tried to open doors for you. You didn’t have to work in the sewer every day, making no money. I introduced you to people, my friends. But you wouldn’t even try.”
    Her words stung him into silence.
    Her gaze roved past him. “Will, you need someone to talk to. Doesn’t the hospital have…?”
    “A shrink? Oh, there’s one exclusively for neuro-rehab. Lauren something. She’s been watching me, waiting for the big blowup. I don’t feel that way. I just want to get my life back. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been wheeled down that hallway that night, hadn’t seen it. But that woman’s dead. And who will speak for her? J. J. Dodds? He just wants to be chief.”
    “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
    “Who spoke for Theresa Chambers? Nobody. We messed up. Bud killed her. He got away with it because he was a cop.”
    “Theresa Chambers was killed by Craig Factor, Will. You know that.”
    “Bud Chambers had been separated from his wife. She had a restraining order against him. He had beaten her up once, and the patrol guys let it go. We fucked this one up, Cindy.”
    She winced from his profanity, or maybe because he called her Cindy. He couldn’t tell which.
    “I understand how strongly you feel.” She touched his knee again. “But just because a cop is separated from his wife doesn’t mean he should be a suspect. We’ve been separated for more than a year.”
    He realized she was making a joke. He forced himself to laugh even as his stomach dropped. It