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As round route to the psychiatric hospital, the little voice in , are you our killer? Please, God Give us a sign

CHAPTER 77

I HAD BEEN feeling that ere playing beat the clock with the Stealth Killer, that thisup for another random hit Was it possible that he was close by, that he worked at the Hyde Street Psychiatric Center?

Conklin and I found Dr Terry Hoover in the common room of the Center’s North Ward He was tall and bespectacled, wore his tie loosely knotted and his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows He waved us into his glass-walled office, which had a 360-degree view of the busy corridor that ran past Ward Six and the nurses’ station He kept his eyes on all 360 degrees as we spoke with him

I downplayed our reason for this sudden visit by the SFPD, telling Dr Hoover that Conklin and I were investigating illegal use of succinylcholine, that an empty vial of sux found near a murder scene had led us to Saint Vartan’s

I explained that the vial had come from an expired lot that had been marked for destruction in the hospital furnace

“While ere at Saint Vartan’s ere told that one of your nurse’s aides had been seen poking around their drug incinerator”

“One of our aides? I don’t understand Wait, this isn’t about those murders I read about?

“We just have to check it out,” I said to the doctor “What can you tell us about a nurse’s aide, first name Doreen?”

“Doreen Collins She’s been with us for about four years A very kind woine why she would be anywhere near the furnace,” said Hoover “Does she need a lawyer?”

“No, no,” said Conklin “We just want to ask her a few questions”

“Let me talk to her,” said Hoover

Conklin and I ith the doctor down the long hallway to a busy here Doreen Collins wasa patient’s hands She looked to be about thirty, wide through the hips, not more than five tith short, choppy blond hair

Hoover said to the patient, “I’m sorry, Mr Fritz I need a feords with Doreen”

The nurse’s aide came over to us and she looked terrified Why? Hoover asked, “Doreen, these are police officers, looking intoabout that?”