Sean had opened a cabinet, revealing a television, and was watching CNN. “They sure like you.”
“Yeah, pretty soon I’ll have my own series.”
“Well,” Sean said, opening another beer. “From the newspaper and now this, I have a pretty good idea of their side. What’s yours?” He put his feet on the coffee table.
For the second time that day, Pittman explained.
Sean listened intently, on occasion asked a question, and tapped his fingers together when Pittman finished. “Congratulations.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been a thief since I was twelve. I’ve spent half my life in prison. I’ve had to go underground three times because of a misunderstanding with the mob. I’ve been married to four women, two of them simultaneously. But I have never ever had the distinction of being in as much trouble as you are. And all this happened since two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“Worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“At least you’re amused. I can see I made a mistake coming to you.”
“Not so fast. Who sent the gunman to your apartment?”
“I have no idea.”
“Why would someone want to make it seem that you killed Millgate?”
“I have no—”
“Damn it, don’t you think you’d better start having some ideas? As near as I can tell, from the moment you killed that man in your apartment—”
“Accidentally.”
“I’m sure that makes a difference to him.… Ever since then, you’ve been running.”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
“You wasted time going to this computer expert. Why was it a waste of time? Because your only purpose was to find a way to get in touch with me. Why? Because you want advice on how to keep running. Sorry.”
“What?”
“In the first place, you don’t need that kind of advice. You’ve been doing damned well on your own. In the second place, if all you do is keep running, the only thing you’ll accomplish is to get tired. Then you’ll make a mistake, and they’ll grab you.”
“But there’s no alternative.”
“Isn’t there? Reverse direction. Hunt instead of being hunted. God knows, you’ve got plenty of targets.”
“Hunt? That’s easy enough for you to say.”
“Well, I didn’t expect you to leap for joy at my advice. From what you’ve told me, it seems to me that you’ve been running away since your son died. Running from everything.”
The suggestion that Pittman was a coward made his face became hot with anger. He wanted to get his hands on Sean and punch the shit out of him.
“Touched a nerve, did I?”
Pittman inhaled, straining to calm himself.
“I guess you don’t like the advice I’m giving you,” Sean said. “But it’s the only advice I’ve got. I’m an expert. I’ve been running from things all my life. Do what I say, not what I do.”
Pittman stared, then parted his lips in a bitter smile.
“What’s funny?” Sean asked.
“All this talk about running. For twenty years, I ran every day. All that time. Where was I going?”
“To the finish line, pal. And if you’re still thinking about killing yourself, if I were you I’d want to go out a winner, not a loser. You can destroy yourself—that’s your business. But don’t let the bastards do it for you.”
Pittman felt his face get hot again. But this time it wasn’t because he was angry at Sean. Instead, his fury was directed elsewhere. “Bastards. Yes.”
For a moment, he didn’t move or speak, didn’t breathe. His powerful emotion held him in stasis. Then he squinted at Sean. “When my son died…” he began to say, then hesitated.
Sean studied him, obviously curious about what Pittman intended to say.
“When my son died, I can’t describe how angry I was—at the hospital, at his doctors. Jeremy’s death wasn’t their fault. It’s just that I desperately needed somebody to be angry at. If somebody had made a mistake, then in a bizarre way Jeremy’s death would have made sense. Medical carelessness. The alternative is to accept that Jeremy died because of a cosmic crapshoot, that he was unlucky, that he just happened to get a type of rare, untreatable cancer. That kind of thinking—there’s no pattern or point; the universe is arbitrary—can drive a person crazy. When I finally accepted that Jeremy’s doctors weren’t to blame, I still needed someone to be angry at. So I chose God. I screamed at God. I hated Him. But eventually I realized that wasn’t doing any good, either. Because God wouldn’t scream back. How could I possibly hurt Him? What good is it to be angry if you can’t punish what you’re angry at? My anger was useless. It wasn’t going to bring Jeremy back. That’s when I decided to kill myself.”
The reference caused Sean’s gaze to narrow, his expression somber.
“Anger.” Pittman’s jaw muscles hardened. “When I was with Millgate, he said something to me. A name. At least it sounded like a name. ‘Duncan.’ Millgate said that several times. Then something about snow. Then a while later, he said, ‘Grollier.’ I didn’t know what he meant, and I was too damned busy to ask him. All I wanted was to put Millgate’s oxygen prongs back into his nostrils and get out of there. But the gunman who was waiting for me at my apartment sure thought it was important to find out if I’d repeated to anyone what Millgate had said to me. Anger.” Pittman stood. “Stop running away? Hunt them? Yes. When Jeremy died, my anger was useless. But this time, it won’t be. This time, I’ve got a purpose. This time, I intend to find someone to blame.”
THREE
1
Pittman stood across from the Emergency entrance to the hospital. It was shortly after midnight, and the same as two nights earlier, a drizzle created a misty halo around streetlights. His mind continued to reel from the trauma that so much had happened to him in the brief time since he had last been here. Chilled by the rain, he shoved his hands into the pockets of a wool-lined navy Burberry overcoat that Sean had pulled from a crate. In his right pocket, he touched the .45. It was the only thing that he had taken from the gym bag, which he’d left with Sean at the loft. He peered up toward the pale light in the tenth-floor window of what had once been Jeremy’s room. Determination overcame his weariness. Necessity insisted. There were so many things he needed to learn, and one of them was why Millgate’s people had taken the old man from the hospital that night. That was when everything had started. After waiting for a gap in traffic, Pittman crossed toward the hospital.
At this late hour, the front lobby was almost deserted. The few people who were slumped in the imitation leather chairs in the lobby seemed to pay no attention as he headed toward the elevators. Nonetheless, he felt exposed.
His nerves troubled him for another reason, for he knew the memories he would have to fight when he got off the elevator near the intensive-care ward on the sixth floor. He tried not to falter when he glanced toward the large area on his left, the intensive-care waiting room. A group of haunted-looking men and women sat on uncomfortable metal chairs, their faces haggard, their eyes puffy, struggling to remain awake, waiting for news about their loved ones.
Grimly recalling when he had been one of them, Pittman forced himself to concentrate on his purpose. Past the entrance to the children’s intensive-care ward, he turned to the right and went down a short corridor to the door for adult intensive care. He had never been in that area, but he assumed that it wouldn’t be much different from the children’s area.
Indeed, it was virtually identical. After pulling the door open, he faced a pungent-smelling, brightly lit ten-foot-long hallway, at the end of which was a counter on the left and glass cabinets behind it. The counter was covered with reports, the cabinets filled with equipment and medicines. Amid the hiss, wheeze, beep, and thump of life-support systems, doctors and nurses moved purposefully in and out of rooms on the right and beyond the counter, fifteen rooms all told, in each of which a patient lay in urgent need.
> Pittman knew the required procedures. Automatically he turned toward a sink on the left of the door, put his hands under a dispenser of disinfectant, and waited while an electronic eye triggered the release of an acrid-smelling red fluid. He swabbed his hands thoroughly, then put them beneath the tap, where another electronic eye triggered the release of water. A third electronic eye activated the hot-air dispenser that dried his hands. He reached for a white gown from a stack near the sink when a woman’s grating voice stopped him. “May I help you? What are you doing here?”
Pittman looked. A heavy set woman was marching down the hallway toward him. She was in her middle forties, had short gray hair that emphasized her strong Scandinavian features, and wore white shoes, white pants, and a white hospital top.
Pittman couldn’t tell if she was a doctor or a nurse. But he understood hospital mentality. If this woman was a nurse, she wouldn’t mind being called a doctor. She would correct him, of course, but she wouldn’t mind the error. On the other hand, if she was a doctor, she’d be furious to be called a nurse.
“Yes, Doctor, I’m with the team investigating Jonathan Millgate’s death.” Pittman opened a flip-down wallet and flashed fake police ID that Sean O’Reilly had given him.
The woman barely looked at the ID. “Again? You people were here last night, asking questions, interrupting our schedule.”
Pittman noticed that the woman hadn’t corrected him when he addressed her as doctor. “I apologize, Doctor. But we have some important new information we have to check. I need to speak with the nurse who was in charge of Mr. Millgate’s care at the time he was taken from the hospital.”
Pittman tried not to show his tension. Pressured by time, he couldn’t be sure that Millgate’s nurse would be working this weekend. What he was counting on was that in a hospital, conventional weekends didn’t apply. If each nurse took off Saturday and Sunday, no one would be available to watch the patients. So schedules were staggered, some of the staff taking off Monday and Tuesday, others Wednesday and Thursday, et cetera. Conversely, nurses tended to have the same shift for several weeks in a row: seven to three, three to eleven, eleven to seven. That was why Pittman had waited until after midnight—because he needed to speak with the nurse who had been present when, at this time two nights ago, Millgate had been whisked away.
“That would be Jill,” the doctor said.
“Is she on duty tonight?”
“Yes.”
Pittman didn’t show his relief.
“But she’s too busy to talk to you right now.”
“I understand, Doctor. The patients come first. But I wouldn’t be troubling you if this wasn’t important. When she takes a break, do you think you could—?”
“Please, wait outside, Mr.…”
“Detective Logan.”
“When she has a moment, I’ll ask Jill to speak with you.”
2
It took forty minutes. Leaning against the wall in the corridor outside the intensive-care ward, Pittman identified with the forlorn people in the waiting room. His memory of the stress of that kind of waiting increased his own stress. His brow was clammy by the time the door to intensive care was opened. An attractive woman in her late twenties came out, glanced around, then approached him.
She was about five feet five, and her loose white hospital uniform couldn’t hide her athletic figure. She had long, straight blond hair, a beguiling oval face, and cheeks that were so aglow with health that she didn’t need makeup.
“Detective Logan?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Jill Warren.” The nurse shook hands with him. “Dr. Baker said you wanted to ask me some questions.”
“That’s right. I wonder, could we go somewhere that isn’t crowded? There’s a coffee machine on the floor below us, near the elevator. Perhaps I can buy you a…”
“The floor below us? You sound as if you know this hospital fairly well.”
“I used to come here a lot. When my son was in intensive care.” Pittman gestured toward the door to the children’s unit.
“I hope he’s all right now.”
“No.… He died.”
“Oh.” Jill’s voice dropped. “What did—?”
“Bone cancer. Ewing’s sarcoma.”
“Oh.” Her voice dropped lower. “I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry for…”
“You couldn’t have known. I’m not offended.”
“Do you still want to buy me that cup of coffee?”
“Definitely.”
Pittman walked with her to the elevator. His tension lessened as they got in and the doors closed. The worst risk he’d taken in coming here was that the doctor who had seen him when Millgate was removed from the hospital would be on duty, recognize him, and call the police.
Now Pittman’s brow felt less clammy as he reached the lower floor, which was deserted except for a janitor at the far end of the corridor. Using the last of his change, he put coins in the machine. “How do you like your coffee? With cream? Sugar? Decaffeinated?”
“Actually, I’d like tea.” Jill reached past him, pressing a button.
Pittman couldn’t help noticing the elegant shape of her hand.
The machine made a whirring sound.
Jill turned to him. “What do you need to ask me?”
Steaming liquid poured into a cardboard cup.
“I have to verify some information. Was Mr. Millgate alert before his associates showed up and took him from the hospital?”
“Associates is too kind a word. Thugs would be more like it. Even the doctor who insisted on removing him.”
“Did Millgate object?”
“I guess I’m not making your job easy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I got off the track right away. I didn’t answer your first question. Yes, he was alert. Otherwise—to answer your second question—he wouldn’t have been able to object.” She sipped from the cardboard cup.
“How’s the tea?”
“Scented hot water. These hospital machines. I’m used to it.” Her smile was engaging.
“Why did Millgate object? He didn’t want to be moved?”
“Yes and no. There’s something about that night I still don’t understand.”
“Oh?”
“The men who came to get him insisted that he had to leave because there’d been a story about him on the late news. They told Millgate they had to get him away before reporters showed up.”
“Yes, the story was about a confidential Justice Department report that somehow became public. Millgate was being investigated for being involved in a covert scheme to buy nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union.”
“Nuclear weapons? But that isn’t what they said in the newspapers.” Jill’s eyes were such a pale blue they seemed almost translucent.
“What who said?”
“The men who came to get Millgate that night. In the newspapers, they said they took him away because they were afraid this obituary reporter—what’s his name?”
“Pittman. Matthew Pittman.”
“Yes, in the newspapers they said they were afraid Pittman would kill Millgate if Millgate stayed in the hospital, where Pittman could get at him. But that night, they never said a word about Pittman. All they seemed to care about was the news report that Millgate was being investigated.”
Pittman felt tense again.
“It’s like they changed their story,” Jill said.
“And Millgate didn’t think the news report about his being investigated was a good-enough reason to take him from the hospital?”
“Not exactly.” Pensive, Jill sipped her tea. Her solemn expression enhanced her features. “He was willing to go. Or to put it another way, he was passive. Melancholy. He didn’t seem to care about leaving. ‘Do whatever you want,’ he kept saying. ‘It doesn’t matter. None of it does. But don’t take me yet.’ That’s what he was upset about. ‘Not yet,’ he kept saying. ‘Wait.’”
“For what?”
>
“A priest.”
Pittman’s pulse sped as he remembered that at the Scarsdale estate he had overheard two of the grand counselors talking with concern while he crouched on the roof of the garage.
“… priest,” an elderly man’s brittle voice had said.
“Don’t worry,” a second elderly voice had said. “I told you the priest never arrived. Jonathan never spoke to him.”
“Even so.”
“It’s been taken care of,” the second voice had emphasized, reminding Pittman of the rattle of dead leaves. “It’s safe now. Secure.”
“Tell me about him,” Pittman said quickly. “The priest. Do you know his name?”
“Millgate mentioned one priest a lot. His name was Father…” Jill thought a moment. “Dandridge. Father Dandridge. When Millgate was brought to intensive care, he was certain he was going to die. He didn’t have much strength, but the few words he got out were always about this Father Dandridge. Millgate told business associates who were allowed to visit that they had to send for him. Later he accused them of not obeying. In fact, he accused his son of lying to him about sending for the priest. There’s a priest on duty at the hospital, of course. He came around to speak to Millgate. But it seems any priest wasn’t good enough. It had to be Father Dandridge. I was on duty early Thursday morning when Millgate begged the hospital priest to phone Father Dandridge at his parish in Boston. I guess the hospital priest did.”
“What makes you think so?”
Desperate Measures Page 13