“You build up a shell,” I said. “Do your job, let in just enough emotion so you can be useful to your patients. It’s like that old toothpaste commercial. The invisible shield.”
“Maybe that’s what’s really bothering you, coming back after all these years, and your shield’s gone.”
“You’re probably right.” I sounded glum.
“Some shrink I am,” she said.
“No, no. It’s good talking about it.”
She snuggled up against me. “You’re sweet to say so, whether it’s true or not. And I’m glad you told me what’s on your mind. You never used to talk much about your work. The few times I tried, you changed the subject, so I could tell you weren’t comfortable with it and I never pushed. I know part of it was confidentiality, but I really wasn’t after gory details, Alex. I just wanted to know what you were going through so I could support you. I guess you were protecting me.”
“Maybe I was,” I said. “But to tell the truth, I never really knew you wanted to hear any of it.”
“Why’s that?”
“You always seemed more interested in—how can I say this—angles and planes.”
She gave a small laugh. “Yeah, you’re right. I never was much for touchy-feely. In fact, when we first met, the one thing that I wasn’t sure I liked about you was that you were a psychologist. Not that it stopped me from chasing you shamelessly, but it did surprise me—being attracted to a shrink. I didn’t know a thing about psychology, never even took a course in college. Probably because of Dad. He was always making comments about crazy psychiatrists, crooked doctors. Going on about how anyone who didn’t work with his hands couldn’t be trusted. But as I got to know you and saw how serious you were about what you did, I loosened up. Tried to learn—I even read some of your psych books. Did you know that?”
I shook my head.
She smiled. “At night, in the library. I used to sneak in when you were sleeping and I couldn’t. Schedules of Reinforcement. Cognitive Theory. Pretty strange stuff for a woodchopper like me.”
“I never knew,” I said, amazed.
She shrugged. “I was … embarrassed. I don’t really know why. Not that I was trying to be an expert or anything. Just wanted to be closer to you. I’m sure I didn’t send out a clear message … not sympathetic enough. I guess what I’m saying is, I hope we can continue this way. Letting each other in a little more.”
“Sure we can,” I said. “I never found you unsympathetic, just—”
“Preoccupied? Self-obsessed?”
She looked up at me with another chest-tightening smile. Big white upper incisors. The ones I liked to lick.
“Strongly focused,” I said. “You’re one a them artsy-fartsy creative types. Need intense concentration.”
“Strongly focused, huh?”
“Definitely.”
She laughed. “We’ve definitely got a thing for each other, Dr. Delaware. Probably chemical—pheromones or whatever.”
“That we do, that we do.”
She put her head on my chest. I stroked her hair and thought of her going into the library, reading my books.
“Can we try again?” I said. “Will you come back?”
She tensed hard as bone.
“Yes,” she said. “God, yes.”
She sat up, took my face in her hands and kissed it. Scrambled on me, straddling me, her arms down over my shoulders, gripping.
I ran my hands over her back, held her hips, raised myself to her. We fused once more, rocked and rolled together, silent and intent.
Afterward she lay back, panting. I was breathing hard, too, and it took a long time to wind down.
I rolled on my side and wrapped my arms around her. She pressed her belly up against mine, glued herself to me.
We stayed together for a long while. When she started to get restless, the way she always did, and began to pull away, I didn’t let her go.
16
She stayed the night and, as usual, was up early.
What wasn’t usual was her sticking around for another hour to drink coffee and read the paper. She sat next to me at the table, one hand on my knee, finishing the arts section as I skimmed the sports scores. Afterward, we went down to the pond and threw pellets to the fish. The heat had come on early for spring, overpowering the ocean currents, and the air smelled like summer vacation.
Saturday, but I felt like working.
She remained at my side. We touched a lot but the signs of her restlessness were beginning: flexing muscles, random glances, minuscule lags in the conversation that only a lover or a paranoiac would have noticed.
I said, “Got a busy one planned?”
“Just a few things to catch up on. How about you?”
“The same. I’m planning to hit the hospital sometime today.”
She nodded, put both arms around my waist, and we walked back up to the house, entwined. After she got her purse we descended to the carport.
A new truck was parked next to the Seville. Royal-blue Chevy pickup with a white racing stripe along the side. New car registration sticker on the windshield.
“Nice,” I said. “When’d you get it?”
“Yesterday. The Toyota developed serious engine problems and the estimates I got ranged from one to two thousand, so I thought I’d treat myself.”
I walked her to the truck.
She said, “Dad would’ve liked it. He was always a Chevy man—didn’t have much use for anything else. When I drove the other one I sometimes felt he was looking over my shoulder, scowling and telling me Iwo Jima stories.”
She got in, put her bag on the passenger seat, and stuck her face out the window for a kiss.
“Yum,” she said. “Let’s do it again soon, cutie. What was your name again? Felix? Ajax?”
“Mr. Clean.”
“How true,” she said, laughing as she sped away.
I paged Stephanie, and the operator came back on the line saying Dr. Eves would call back. I hung up, pulled out my Thomas Guide, and pinpointed Dawn Herbert’s address on Lindblade Street. I’d just located it when the phone rang.
“Steph?”
“No, Mile. Am I interrupting something?”
“Just waiting for a callback from the hospital.”
“And of course you don’t have call-waiting.”
“Of course.”
Milo gave a long, equine snort that the phone amplified into something thunderous. “Have you had your gas lamps converted to Dr. Edison’s miracle wires yet?”
“If God had wanted man to be electric, he would have given him batteries.”
He snort-laughed. “I’m at the Center. Phone me as soon as you’re finished with Steph.”
He hung up. I waited another ten minutes before Stephanie’s call came in.
“Morning, Alex,” she said. “What’s up?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“Nothing much. I saw her about an hour ago,” she said. “She’s feeling better—awake, alert, and screaming at the sight of me.”
“What’s the latest on the hypoglycemia?”
“The metabolic people say there are no metabolic problems, her pancreas has been examined from every possible angle—clean as a whistle—and my Swedish friend and everyone else is back on Munchausen. So I guess I’m back to square one, too.”
“How long are you planning to keep her in?”
“Two or three days, then back home if nothing else comes up. I know it’s dangerous letting her out, but what can I do, turn the hospital into her foster home? Unless you’ve got some suggestions.”
“None yet.”
“You know,” she said, “I really let myself go with that sugar thing. Thinking it was real.”
“Don’t bludgeon yourself. It’s a crazy case. How did Cindy and Chip react to the continuing uncertainty?”
“I only saw Cindy. The usual quiet resignation.”
Remembering Al Macauley’s comment, I said, “Any smiles?”
> “Smiles? No. Oh, you mean those spacey ones she sometimes gives? No. Not this morning. Alex, I’m worried sick over this. By discharging Cassie, what am I sentencing her to?”
Having no balm, I offered a Band-Aid. “At least discharging her will give me the chance to make a home visit.”
“While you’re there, why don’t you sneak around and look for hot clues?”
“Such as?”
“Needles in bureau drawers, insulin spansules in the fridge. I’m kidding—no, actually I’m only half-kidding. I’m this close to confronting Cindy, let the chips fall. The next time that little girl gets sick, I just may do it, and if they get mad and go elsewhere, at least I’ll know I did everything I could—Oops, that’s me on page—Neonatology, one of my preemies. Gotta go, Alex. Call me if you learn anything, okay?”
I phoned Milo back. “Working weekends?”
“Did a trade with Charlie. Saturdays on in exchange for some flexibility in my moonlighting. How’s old Steph?”
“Off organic disease, back on Munchausen. No one can find an organic reason for the hypoglycemia.”
“Too bad,” he said. “Meantime, I’ve got the low-down on Reggie Bottomley, the nurse’s bad seed. Guy’s been dead for a couple of years. For some reason his name never got off the files. Suicide.”
“How?”
“He went into the bathroom, got naked, sat on the toilet, smoked crack, jacked off, then turned his head into bad fruit with a shotgun. Very messy. The Tujunga detective—a gal, actually, named Dunn—said Vicki was home when it happened, watching TV in the next room.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. The two of them had just had some kind of spat over Reggie’s dissolute life-style and Reggie stomped off, got his works out of his dresser drawer and the gun, locked himself in the can, and kaboom. Mom heard the shot, couldn’t get the door open, tried to use a hatchet and still couldn’t do it. The paramedics found her sitting on the floor, crying and screaming for him to please come out, talk it over. They broke the door down and when they saw what he looked like, tried to hold her back. But she got a look at some of it. So that could explain her sour disposition.”
“Oh, man,” I said. “What a thing to go through. Anything on the family history that led up to the suicide?”
“Dunn said there was no history of child abuse—she saw it as basically a nice mom with a rotten kid. And she busted Reggie lots of times, knew him well.”
“What about dad?”
“Died when Reggie was little. Heavy drinker, like you said. Reggie was in trouble right out of the chute, smoking dope and moving on up the pharmaceutical ladder. Dunn describes him as a little skinny jerk, learning disabilities, not too bright, couldn’t hold a job. Incompetent criminal, too—got caught all the time, but he was so pitiful-looking, judges usually went easy on him. He didn’t get violent until near the end—the assault rap. And even that was relatively dinky—bar fight, he used a pool cue on some other scrote’s head. Dunn said he was getting feistier because of the crack, it was just a matter of time before he ended up prematurely muerto. According to her, mom was the long-suffering type, tried her best. End of story. It tell you anything about mom as a suspect?”
“Not really. Thanks anyway.”
“What’s your next step?”
“Lacking anything else, I guess a visit with Dawn Herbert. I spoke to Ashmore’s wife yesterday, and she said he hired grad students from the university. So maybe Herbert has enough technical knowledge to know what Ashmore was looking for in Chad’s chart.”
“Ashmore’s wife? What’d you do, pay a grief call?”
“Yes. Nice lady. Ashmore was quite an interesting fellow.” I told him about the couple’s time in the Sudan, Ashmore’s gambling systems and investments.
“Blackjack, huh? Must have been good.”
“She said he was a math genius—computer wizard. Brown belt in several martial arts, too. Not exactly easy prey for a mugger.”
“No? I know you used to do all that good stuff, and I never wanted to disillusion you, but I’ve seen plenty of martial artists with tags on their toes. It’s one thing in a dojo, bowing and jumping around and screaming like there’s a hatpin in your colon. Whole different story out on the streets. Incidentally, I checked with Hollywood Division on Ashmore’s murder and they’re giving a low solve probability. Hope the widow isn’t pinning her hopes on law enforcement.”
“The widow is still too dazed to hope.”
“Yeah …”
“What?”
“Well,” he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about your case—the psychology of this whole Munchausen thing—and it seems to me we’ve missed a potential suspect.”
“Who?”
“Your buddy Steph.”
“Stephanie? Why?”
“Female, medical background, likes to test authority, wants to be in the center of things.”
“I never thought of her as attention-seeking.”
“Didn’t you tell me she was some big radical in the old days, Chairman of the interns’ union?”
“Sure, but she seemed sincere. Idealistic.”
“Maybe. But look at it this way: Treating Cassie puts her smack at the center of things, and the sicker the kid is, the more Stephanie gets the spotlight. Playing rescuer, big hero, rushing over to the Emergency Room and taking charge. The fact that Cassie’s a big shot’s kid makes it even tastier, from that standpoint. And these sudden shifts she’s making—Munchausen one day, pancreatic disease the next, then back to Munchausen. Doesn’t that have a hysterical feeling to it? Your goddam waltz?”
I digested all that.
“Maybe there’s a reason the kid goes nuts when she sees her, Alex.”
“But the same logic that applies to Vicki applies to her,” I said. “Until this last seizure, all of Cassie’s problems began at home. How could Stephanie have been involved?”
“Has she ever been out to the home?”
“Just early on—once or twice, setting up the sleep monitor.”
“Okay, what about this? The first problems the kid had were real—the croup, or whatever. Steph treated them and found out being doctor to the chairman of the board’s grandchild was a kick. Power trip—you yourself said she plans on being head of the department.”
“If that was her goal, curing Cassie would have made her look a lot better.”
“The parents haven’t dropped her yet, have they?”
“No. They think she’s great.”
“There you go. She gets them to depend on her, and tinkers with Cassie—best of both worlds. And you yourself told me Cassie gets sick soon after appointments. What if that’s because Stephanie’s doing something to her—dosing her up during a checkup and sending her home like a medical time bomb?”
“What could she have done with Cindy right there in the exam room?”
“How do you know she was there?”
“Because she never leaves Cassie’s side. And some of those medical visits were with other doctors—specialists, not Stephanie.”
“Do you know for a fact that Stephanie didn’t also see the kid the same day the specialists did?”
“No. I guess I could look at the outpatient chart and find out.”
“If she even charted it. It could have been something subtle—checking the kid’s throat and the tongue depressor’s coated with something. Whatever, it’s something to consider, right?”
“Doctor sends baby home with more than a lollipop? That’s pretty obscene.”
“Any worse than a mother poisoning her own child? The other thing you might want to think of, in terms of her motivation, is revenge: She hates Grandpa because of what he’s doing to the hospital, so she gets to him through Cassie.”
“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Evil mind, Alex. They used to pay me for it. Actually, what got me going was talking to Rick. He’d heard of Munchausen—the adult type. Said he’d seen nurses and doctors with those
tendencies. Mistakes in dosage that aren’t accidental, heroes rushing in and saving the day—like pyromaniac firemen.”
“Chip talked about that,” I said. “Medical errors, dosage miscalculations. Maybe he senses something about Stephanie without realizing it.… So why’s she calling me in? To play with me? We never worked that closely together. I can’t mean that much to her, psychologically.”
“Calling you in proves she’s doing a thorough job. And you’ve got a rep as a smart guy—real challenge for her if she’s a Munchie. Plus, all the other shrinks are gone.”
“True, but I don’t know … Stephanie?”
“There’s no reason to get an ulcer over it—it’s all theory. I can peel ’em off, right and left.”
“It makes my stomach turn, but I’ll start looking at her more closely. Guess I’d better watch what I say to her, stop thinking in terms of teamwork.”
“Ain’t it always that way? One guy, walking the road alone.”
“Yeah … Meantime, as long as we’re peeling off theories, how about this one? We’re not making headway because we’re concentrating on one bad guy. What if there’s some kind of collusion going on?”
“Who?”
“Cindy and Chip are the obvious choice. The typical Munchausen husband is described as passive and weak-willed. Which doesn’t fit Chip at all. He’s a savvy guy, smart, opinionated. So if his wife’s abusing Cassie, why isn’t he aware of it? But it could also be Cindy and Vicki—”
“What? Some romantic thing?”
“Or just some twisted mother-daughter thing. Cindy rediscovering her dead aunt in Vicki—another tough R.N. And Vicki, with her own child rearing a failure, ripe for a surrogate daughter. It’s possible their pathology’s meshed in some bizarre way. Hell, maybe Cindy and Stephanie have a thing going. And maybe it is romantic. I don’t know anything about Stephanie’s private life. Back in the old days she hardly seemed to have one.”
Four Classic Alex Delaware Thrillers 4-Book Bundle Page 67