A Caduceus is for Killing Read Free Page A

three years. Slowly, he'd worked his way up from jail guard to rookie patrolman and, ultimately, homicide investigator where he was content to stay for eternity. No one would call him ambitious, but they'd all agree he was fiercely loyal to his profession and honest to a fault.
    He did everything in moderation. His ego couldn't tolerate embarrassment. He was an enigma, a truly honest cop. He had a fierce temper and Herculean libido, although the AIDS scare kept him relatively celibate.
    Forty, he'd married only once, but his perfectionist ways had finally taken their toll and his wife, Ramona, had left him. Not only did he have to deal with a backlog of investigations, but Ramona took all the credit cards, including some he hadn't even known about, and had charged them to the limit. Now, he had a shitload of debt to unravel. If only he hadn't been so preoccupied with work. Hell, at this point, all he could do was see it never happened again. Staying away from relationships was the only way, and that's exactly what he planned to do.
    "Come on, darlin'. They can't wait forever." The day-Sergeant's jibe broke his thoughts. "The body might decompose by the time you haul your carcass over there."
    "Okay, okay, on my way." Krastowitcz shook his head to clear it and hurried to the garage. What kind of mess waited at Dorlynd? He fondled his Smith & Wesson semiautomatic, snugly nestled in his shoulder holster. These constant interruptions only got him more behind in his already burdensome paperwork. Being one of only two homicide investigators didn't help. The city just didn't have enough cops, and this crap always happened to him. The Police Department was too small to sustain more detectives on a regular basis. So, two of them took care of assaults, threats, robberies, and anything else unsolved. Homicide in this territory wasn't exactly high volume, but when murder did happen, the pressure was on, like now, from the higher-ups to "clean `em up fast."
    Driving into the white-hot glare of the morning sunlight, Krastowitcz watched the Omaha humidity slam against the windshield in small droplets of condensation. He flipped the air conditioner to high, creating a foggy haze he scraped from the glass by hand. Using Dodge Street, the main roadway, his drive from Central to Dorlynd Medical Center took only four minutes.
    Nestled on the banks of the Missouri River, the hospital was an impressive, cream-colored concrete structure dominating the hill on the west-end of the Dorlynd University campus. Large picture-windows studded the building front. Toward dusk, when the sun hit the windows just right, Dorlynd looked transparent, as if totally made of glass. Everyone in Omaha called it DMC. He turned onto the street that cut in front of the hospital. The closer he got, the larger it seemed with its twelve stories overshadowing the smaller Dorlynd buildings. On the prairie, a twelve-story building was a high-rise.
    Krastowitcz stopped his `84 Charger in front of the Faculty Clinic Building. He smiled at two guards hurrying forward, waving their arms in an attempt to move his vehicle ahead. Rent-a-dummies , Krastowitcz sneered silently. Basic butt-wipes of the trade.
    Recognizing him as a superior, they stopped abruptly, their raised arms conspicuously frozen in mid-air. This better not take too long. Hopefully, some rich doctor really had gone ten-seven. Permanent-like.
    That would be unusual at the Medical Center. Mostly the Dorlynd dentists did themselves in. The suicide rate for dentists was particularly high--even in Omaha. Of course, that was understandable. He chuckled to himself. Who really liked dentists, anyway? Even hard-core cops couldn't handle that type of constant rejection.
    "Sorry Officer Krasto--" the young guard stammered. "Didn't recognize your unmarked.
    "No problem, Tom." Krastowitcz smiled.
    He walked into the Faculty Building, noticing the