Ricochet

by Paula Gosling

  ‘Said it was a man.’ Mike shrugged, releasing some less desirable fragrances from his clothing. ‘But maybe it was a woman with short hair. I wouldn’t say this guy’s eyes are real good.’

  ‘But he saw the white coats.’

  ‘Yeah. He did.’

  ‘And he heard their voices. Men’s voices.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Men’s voices, yeah.’ Mike scratched himself. ‘I gotta go home and get clean,’ he said plaintively. ‘I can’t stand this.’

  ‘OK. You done good.’ Pinsky started to pat Mike’s arm, then thought better of it. ‘You want anything else to eat?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. I wish I could have got more for you.’ Mike seemed ashamed of his failure. ‘I don’t know what it is, I can’t talk to these guys now; I see them differently than I did before. I don’t know what’s happened to me.’

  ‘You’re older, wiser and richer,’ Pinsky said with a shrug. ‘It happens. It’s a young man’s game, undercover. You aren’t a kid any more.’

  ‘I feel like I let you down. And those guys on French Street, I let them down, too. Nobody will talk for them now.’

  ‘Teach somebody,’ Pinsky said abruptly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look around, find a good strong candidate on the force, teach him all you know. Pass it on, Mike. That’s what you can do. Pass on what you learned down there. Social workers too, if you can pin one down to listen.’

  Mike had brightened a little. ‘You think?’

  ‘Why not? Then nothing is wasted.’

  Mike looked at him for a long time. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Pinsky said with a tiny, formal bow. ‘Now go home and take a bath. You are putting me off my coffee.’

  Mike laughed and something came back into his eyes: relief and a kind of pride. ‘I wasn’t so bad, was I?’

  ‘You were fine,’ Pinsky assured him. ‘You were the best.’

  ‘You’re not a detective, dammit, you’re a doctor,’ David Waxman said as he helped his injured and groaning brother to his car. ‘And you’re coming home to stay with us. Abbi is a good nurse.’

  ‘I only need rest,’ Dan said.

  ‘And watching. Watching for at least twenty-four hours,’ David reminded him as he unlocked the door and removed a parking ticket from under the windshield wiper. ‘You were out for a long time, your Dr Mickleman was pretty concerned.’

  ‘Mickleman is a worrywart,’ Dan muttered.

  ‘I would have thought that was a good quality in a neurologist.’ David opened the car door and eased Dan into the passenger seat.

  ‘Yeah. Just what everybody needs – a neurotic neurologist,’ Dan mumbled. He really did want to go to sleep very badly.

  David opened his door and got in behind the wheel. ‘Maybe you should have stayed in like they wanted you to. I don’t know about this discharging yourself. That nurse of yours was very worried.’

  ‘David, I know what to look for.’

  ‘In your normal state of mind, you do,’ David said, starting the engine. He knew Dan was a very good doctor, but a good doctor with a massive lump on the head is not quite the same thing. He said so.

  Dan managed a grin. ‘It is pretty impressive, isn’t it?’

  ‘You sound proud of it.’

  ‘Well, now that the worst is over I am. Kind of like battle wounds. I was there, I survived. Ouch.’ He had tried to adjust his position as the car lurched forward and succeeded only in banging the hand he was using to give a mock salute into his bruised forehead.

  ‘And your cop friend thinks it was because you were snooping around? Not just a random mugging or a disgruntled ex-patient?’

  I wasn’t snooping, exactly. I was familiarizing myself with the functioning of the hospital as a whole. Preparatory to my going into hospital administration.’

  ‘Was that your cover?’ David asked in amazement. ‘Did anyone believe you?’

  ‘Not the ones who know how much I hate paperwork,’ Dan confessed. ‘But most of them accepted it. It was perfectly reasonable.’

  ‘But you said you spent most of your time in pathology,’ David prompted, negotiating a difficult intersection. ‘How come?’

  ‘Well, first of all, that’s where the bodies are. I don’t know. Something or somebody up there felt odd. They’re very intense in that department. Barney was kind of edgy, too. He said I was getting underfoot.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Enough to worry someone?’

  Dan gestured towards his head and face. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘So now you can back off, let this Pinsky get on with it, yeah?’

  ‘Well . . . until I go back to work,’ Dan said. ‘I’m really kind of pissed off about this beating. I never had a single chance to hit back.’

  ‘To hit back and bust a hand?’ David pointed out. As a musician he was very aware of his hands and the importance of protecting them.

  ‘You don’t think about that at the time.’ Dan sighed. ‘This was a very instructive experience for me. It will make me a better doctor, a better person.’ He was drifting off again.

  ‘Oh, great,’ David said in exasperation. ‘What are you going to try next, childbirth?’

  NINETEEN

  ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ Neilson said, staring at the phone records they had obtained from the phone company. They stated clearly that two phone calls were made from Professor Mayhew’s telephone on the night in question. ‘The first one, at seven o nine, was made to a Professor Albert Torrance. The second was to a number that turns out to be the Suicide Hotline. At eleven thirty-seven, that one was.’

  The detectives stared at one another.

  ‘It couldn’t have been suicide,’ Stryker said after a minute. ‘There were no prints on the gun – you can’t shoot yourself in the head and then wipe the gun, for God’s sake!’

  Neilson shrugged. ‘There it is, in black and white.’ He held out the sheet of paper. ‘She called the Suicide Hotline. Or somebody did.’

  ‘We’ll have to go down to the university and have a word with this Professor Torrance,’ Tos suggested.

  ‘You want Muller and me to go to the Suicide Hotline?’ Neilson asked.

  ‘They won’t tell you anything,’ Tos said. ‘Their work is confidential.’

  ‘They might make an exception – if they know anything. People who call up don’t usually give more than their first names. If that. They aren’t interested in names. Just helping people.’

  ‘It won’t cost anything to ask,’ Muller said. As he listened to them he kept rubbing his short hair back from his brow, smoothing it, like velvet.

  Stryker shrugged. ‘Go ahead. Good luck, but don’t hold your breath waiting for a revelation.’

  Stryker and Tos drove back yet again to the university and eventually found Professor Torrance in one of the biology labs. The place was empty of students, but there was a drip of liquid from somewhere, as steady as a clock, and a gentle gurgling like a slowly emptying cistern. Their footsteps echoed on the tiled walls and floor. Tos was groaning quietly to himself – there were ‘things’ in glass bottles and the smell . . . his stomach gave a lurch and he swallowed hard.

  ‘Again?’ the professor asked, looking up from where he was preparing a specimen of what looked like a peeled frog . . . or something.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Stryker, putting away his warrant card and badge holder.

  ‘Well, first the other policeman, now you,’ Torrance complained. ‘I have work to do, you know. I can’t keep stopping.’

  ‘Other policeman?’ asked Tos.

  ‘Yes. Pilgrim or Spasky or something.’

  Stryker and Tos exchanged glances. Pinsky?

  ‘What did he want to know?’ Tos asked impulsively, trying not to look at what the man was doing.r />
  ‘About one of my students. A boy who was killed.’ Torrance grimaced. ‘A great loss.’

  ‘We’re here on another matter this time, Professor,’ Stryker said. He, too, found the man’s fiddling with scalpel and pins unnerving, for Torrance continued to work as he spoke, staring down at the unfortunate specimen spread out on a board before him. ‘Did you know a Professor Mayhew?’

  Torrance looked up briefly. ‘Yes, of course I did. Terrible thing, her being killed.’ He gave a brief cackle. ‘Seems to be an epidemic.’

  ‘She telephoned you earlier that night – Sunday.’

  ‘Did she?’ He seemed bemused. ‘Oh yes . . . she did. I remember now.’

  ‘What was it about?’

  ‘Nothing important. We serve together on the interdepartmental ethics committee. Served, I should say. And she had a question about something . . . what was it, now?’ He tilted his head and closed his eyes. ‘Oh yes . . . something to do with an entertainment, I think. Some gathering or other. Wanted to know if I was attending or not. I was not. And that was it – very brief.’

  The phone call in question had been of two minutes’ duration.

  ‘And she mentioned nothing else?’

  Torrance made a sudden slash with the scalpel, laying open an extremity of his dead specimen. Tos flinched, Stryker looked away. ‘Nothing else that I can recall,’ Torrance said, shoving in some pins to hold the specimen open.

  ‘How did Professor Mayhew sound?’ Tos asked.

  Torrance looked up at that. ‘Sound? Sound? What do you mean, sound?’

  ‘Did she seem happy, sad, worried, angry, afraid—’

  ‘Good Lord, no. Just . . . businesslike. As usual. She was a very businesslike person, you know. Very efficient.’ He straightened up and reached for a towel to wipe his hands, which he did, thoroughly. Then he took off the glasses he was wearing and exchanged them for a pair he extracted from the pocket of his white lab coat. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, gentlemen, but really – I hardly know what to say about it. She rang, we spoke briefly and that was it. Nothing more was said about it.’

  ‘About what?’

  Torrance coughed. ‘About attending the entertainment. What else would it have been?’ He stared at one, then the other, still turning the discarded pair of spectacles in his knobbly hands.

  ‘Well, sorry to have bothered you, Professor Torrance,’

  Stryker said. ‘I guess it was just a coincidence that she happened to phone you on the night she died.’

  ‘My goodness . . . put like that it sounds very sinister, doesn’t it?’ Torrance managed a short cackle of nervous laughter. He began to crack his knuckles absent-mindedly. ‘Does it mean I was the last person to speak to her?’

  ‘Not unless you killed her,’ Stryker said mildly.

  Torrance reared back. ‘Killed her? Me? Good Lord, no. Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Why does anyone kill anyone?’ Tos asked innocently. He very much wanted to talk to Stryker outside.

  But Stryker spoke first. ‘Can you tell me where you were on the night she rang – after she rang, I mean?’

  ‘At home, of course. Alone. My wife died some years ago and I have only the dogs for company now. She bred poodles, you see. The last two are still with me. Alexander and Janus. Marvellous company, dogs. A little work, of course, but worth every effort.’

  ‘And on the following night?’

  ‘Monday night?’ Torrance seemed suspicious. ‘Why Monday night?’

  ‘Just answer the question,’ Tos said.

  ‘Well, for goodness sake – Monday night would have been the same. I lead a very quiet life outside the university, gentlemen. I’m afraid I can supply no alibi for you, if one is required.’

  ‘Do you keep house yourself?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘No, of course not. I have a woman who comes in three times a week, in the mornings when I am here at the university. We never see one another, communicate by notes. She is very satisfactory, but I never see her. I can’t even remember what she looks like, come to think of it. Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Tos said. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Agnes. Agnes . . . um . . . Johnson. Yes, that’s it, Agnes Johnson. Why on earth would you want to know that?’

  ‘We’re just nosy,’ Stryker informed him. ‘Always good to hear about a good, reliable cleaning lady.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Torrance seemed totally at sea now. ‘But what has this to do with Professor Mayhew?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Stryker admitted. ‘Thank you for talking to us, Professor. We may have to call on you again.’ They turned to leave.

  ‘But what for?’ came Torrance’s querulous voice after them. ‘Why are you harassing me like this?’

  They left without answering.

  ‘Hey,’ Tos said. ‘Pinsky was here. Do you think there’s some connection?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stryker said. Could it be? He stopped walking abruptly. ‘Let’s get some deep background on Professor Torrance. And a list of his phone calls for the past few months. Both home and university calls, if you can get them. I certainly don’t believe in this “entertainment” he said Mayhew called him about. Whoever heard of an ethics committee that gives dances?’

  The Suicide Hotline office was not very inspiring, considering the work they did. Small and crowded, with desks that contained only notebooks and a telephone, it looked an uncomfortable place to hear the world’s woes. The walls were a dingy tan, there were fingermarks all over the door jambs, and one window was cracked and sealed over with brown tape. It wasn’t going to be easy, Neilson thought. Muller was no Pinsky, but he was proving to be fairly reliable and eager for experience. Neilson was adjusting to him, slowly. And Muller was . . . coming along. Slowly.

  Looking around, Neilson spoke low. ‘You’d think, working in a place like this, they’d be calling each other after a while.’

  But there was a little kitchen that looked much used and a few comfortable chairs for relaxing away from the desks. There were two people there when they arrived, a man and a woman. The woman was talking quietly into a phone, the man was making coffee. Seeing them, he automatically added two mugs to the two already in front of him.

  ‘Can I help you?’ He was long-haired, bearded, sandalled, sweet-expressioned, like a Renaissance portrait of Christ. He wore two sweaters over a rather ragged shirt and corduroy trousers. Perfect, Neilson thought. Just perfect. I could have described him before I even got here.

  They showed their badges and before they could speak he shook his head. ‘It’s all confidential. You people know that.’ His voice was firm and strong. And a little impatient.

  ‘We can always hope,’ Neilson said. ‘And this is about a homicide, not a suicide.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man nodded as he poured hot water over the instant coffee powder he’d added to the mugs. ‘Sunday night?’

  Neilson and Muller stared at one another.

  ‘You know about it?’ Neilson finally asked.

  The man stopped pouring, put down the kettle and opened a small fridge to extract a carton of milk. He sniffed it cautiously, then added it to the mugs after gesturing to them with it to ask, silently, whether they took milk in their coffee. They both nodded and he poured. He pushed two mugs towards them, added sugar to the other two and picked them up. ‘Help yourselves to sugar,’ he said, and carried the mugs out into the other room, setting one down beside the woman who was still talking quietly into the phone and taking his own over to the comfortable chairs. He settled into one and waited for Neilson and Muller to join him. He seemed ready to talk. Neilson and Muller didn’t speak – afraid to interrupt what felt like manna from heaven.

  ‘So she called you, then,’ the man said. ‘My name is Chris, by the way. Chris Nunally.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘The girl
.’ He paused, his mug in mid-air. ‘She didn’t call you?’

  ‘Nobody called us,’ Neilson said. ‘We have a record of a phone call made to you on Sunday night from the telephone of a homicide victim. We hoped you might be able to help us.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Chris said. ‘I mean, confidentiality and all that, but in this instance I can’t because I don’t know anything. I took the call myself, Sunday night. It was a girl, hysterical, saying someone was dead, that it was all her fault . . . and so on. I got her calmed down a bit and told her she had to call the police. She said she would. She promised she would. But you say she didn’t?’

  ‘A neighbour called us,’ Neilson told him. ‘You say a girl?’

  ‘She didn’t give her name, and even if she had—’

  ‘A girl, not a woman? Saying she’d killed someone?’

  ‘No,’ Chris explained carefully. ‘She said “she” was dead and that it was all her fault.’ He sighed. ‘Look, we’re not supposed to discuss our calls, though in this situation, with a homicide and all, I guess it’s OK. But I don’t know any names or anything like that.’

  Neilson looked at his notebook. ‘The call lasted about ten minutes.’

  ‘They usually do.’ Chris nodded. ‘It takes time to get people’s confidence . . . a lot of the calls are long silences while they get up the nerve to say what’s wrong. We hear a lot of sighing and snuffling.’

  ‘And in this instance?’

  ‘It took time to calm her down.’

  ‘But she didn’t say her name?’

  ‘No. I asked, but she wouldn’t.’ He looked reflective. ‘I think she began regretting calling us, began to realize what she had said. The funny thing is, her voice sounded kind of familiar.’

  ‘Familiar?’ The coffee was terrible, over-strong and musty, but Neilson forced it down.

  ‘Yes. I thought at first she was one of our regulars, but usually regulars say their names right away. She didn’t. Maybe she just sounded like one of the regulars.’