The Program

by Stephen White

  I knew that it was possible that I could get away with giving both Landon and myself new fake names and then paying for her treatment with cash, but what if they asked for ID? I didn’t know what I’d do, so I didn’t want to risk it if I had other options.

  I thought I had one. I called Dr. Gregory.

  HE HADN’T YET left for his office when he responded to my page.

  “I need a favor,” I said.

  “What would you like me to do?” he asked with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

  “Landon has strep. She woke up at five with all the symptoms. I’m bothering you because I’d like your help with two things. One, would you please tell Jonas’s mom that her son has probably been exposed?”

  “I can give you her number if you’d like.”

  “I’m happy to tell her myself, but the second favor is something I need from you. Would you please ask her if she’ll prescribe some erythromycin for Landon?”

  “Adrienne—that’s Jonas’s mom—is a urologist, not a pediatrician.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She can still prescribe. And I know the dose. Landon gets strep two or three times a year.”

  “Adrienne doesn’t even treat Jonas herself, Peyton. She takes him to a pediatrician for stuff like this.”

  “My … position is delicate, Dr. Gregory. I can’t exactly take Landon to a pediatric clinic, can I?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Let me make a call, try to find her. How can I reach you?”

  “I’ll call you back in ten minutes. How’s that?”

  “Make it five, but Peyton?”

  “Yes?”

  “What I’ve just agreed to do? This is outside the boundaries of the therapeutic relationship. I’m not comfortable with it. You and I are going to have to talk about what’s reasonable for you to expect from me.”

  “The circumstances are unique,” I argued. “I don’t have anyone else to turn to … who knows my position.”

  He started to say something else and then said, “I’m going to have to tell Adrienne something to get her to agree to do this. That has to be okay with you.”

  “Is she discreet?”

  “Better. She’s a closet anarchist.”

  “Go ahead.”

  I CALLED HIM back in five minutes.

  “Adrienne’s already at the hospital. She won’t be coming home until a few minutes after six tonight. That’s early for her. She agreed to bring home two rapid strep tests with her—one is for Jonas—and she’ll bring some erythromycin samples. She asked if Landon could take pills or if she needed liquid.”

  “Pills are fine.”

  “She wants to know Landon’s actual birth date and her weight.”

  I told him.

  “She wants to see Landon herself. You can be at her house at six then?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  Was he offering? “No, thank you. I’ll call my friend.”

  I thought I heard him sigh.

  IT WASN’T EASY but I waited until the middle of the day before I called the district attorney’s office and asked to speak to Lauren Crowder. When I called I was put right through.

  Immediately she said, “Peyton, I don’t have anything.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m being impatient. It’s just—”

  She cut me off. “It’s not that. I know that time is tight. I made some initial calls, but I didn’t get anywhere. That retired cop who was helping your friends? I tried him first.”

  “Jack Tarpin.”

  “Yes. His wife says he’s gone for a couple of days.”

  “He runs fishing charters.”

  “That’s what you said before. I put a call into that guy at Northwestern, too. You know him? That journalism professor whose students have gotten so many men off death row in Illinois? He hasn’t called me back yet. I’m hoping for some advice from him on how to proceed. I also have some calls into the Southern Capital Punishment Project to see if they are in a position to help us with Khalid. But based on what you’ve told me so far, mostly things depend on the cooperation of the ex-cop, on Jack Tarpin.”

  I asked, “What about Pat Lieber? The man who made the phone call to Mickey Redondo?”

  “I’m checking on that, too. I have a law student doing some research about him from public records. This all takes time. I can’t just pick up the phone and call him out of the blue and ask him if he recalled bribing a detective on a murder case, can I?”

  “No,” I said, “you can’t do that.”

  I ARRANGED TO have Carl pick Landon and me up at Delilah’s Pretty Good Grocery at a quarter to six. While we were waiting for Carl to arrive, Landon managed to make her throat sound as rough and raspy as a cat’s tongue in order to con me into a ginger ale. I hated myself when her histrionics worked. As she contentedly sipped her drink through a straw, I bought every newspaper I could find, looking for news about Khalid, or about us. I scoured USA Today for anything about Andrea’s disappearance or Dave Curtiss’s death.

  I found nothing.

  But the Boulder Daily Camera had two prominent follow-up stories and a sidebar about the recent murder at the Foot of the Mountain Motel. The gist of the articles was that the police were stymied by the crime. Motive was particularly elusive. The sidebar was a soft piece about the dead teacher’s former elementary-school colleagues in Texas. Although they hadn’t worked with the victim in over three years, they were—each and every one of them—totally shocked and dismayed at her violent death.

  Aren’t they always?

  Carl pulled his car to the curb in front of Delilah’s right on time. I wondered whether punctuality was a universal trait among members of La Cosa Nostra. Somehow I doubted it, although I could see how it could be of logistical benefit to hit men.

  I smiled when I saw that Anvil was accompanying Carl. The dog was so happy to see Landon that I was afraid his little heart was going to burst with joy.

  I was almost that happy to see Carl. When I climbed onto the front seat next to him, I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It confused me, I think, almost as much as it confused him.

  His eyes softened as he asked, “So how you feeling, baby?”

  My breath caught in my chest. I didn’t know if he was addressing my daughter or me. Landon spared me humiliation when she rasped, “Okay. The ginger ale really, really helps. Thanks for bringing Anvil, Uncle Carl.”

  He touched me on my knee. His fingertips felt hot. “And what about you? You holding up?”

  I nodded and put my hand on top of his.

  AS WE DROVE the last hundred yards to Dr. Gregory’s house I could see that he and Lauren were just getting home from work. The garage was open and each of them was carrying a briefcase as they walked to their front door. Her briefcase was at least twice as thick as his. They stopped when they noticed Carl’s car approaching.

  Lauren waved. My God, she looked pregnant. She was fighting that third-trimester waddle I remembered too well.

  Dr. Gregory didn’t wave. I knew that he was no longer comfortable with his role in the drama that had become my life. The truth was that I lacked sympathy for his position. My thought was, welcome to the club.

  I think Carl was sensing the same reluctance from Dr. Gregory that I was. He said to me, “You know what? I think I’ll stay in the car with the kid till we know the game plan.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll go find out what’s happening, where I should take Landon for her test.” I opened the door and got out of the car.

  Dr. Gregory said, “Hello, Peyton. Adrienne’s not home, yet. She’s going to be late. Just got a call.”

  Lauren raised her cell phone. “Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal. She’s always late. This time she got called to the hospital to remove a pickup stick from an eleven-year-old boy’s penis.” She held up a hand as though she were about to be sworn in as a witness. “I kid you not. How’s your daughter feeling?”

  I could hear Landon all the way
from the backseat of the car as she said, “Oh, that’s gross.”

  I couldn’t help wincing at the pickup-stick story myself. I answered Lauren. “Landon’s uncomfortable, but she’ll feel better as soon as she gets some antibiotics. I’m sure that she’s feeling better than the little boy with the pickup stick in his … penis. Thanks for asking.”

  Lauren said, “Why don’t you all come inside, get something cool to drink? It’s a warm evening.”

  “You know,” I said, “I think I’d be more comfortable out here.”

  Lauren flicked a look at her husband. It was a “that’s your fault, honey” look. “How about Landon coming in, then? It’s way too hot for her in the car. Let her come inside to the air-conditioning and lie down while we wait for Adrienne. She said thirty minutes. But with Adrienne the first number you get usually doesn’t mean too much. It’s kind of like the sticker price when you’re buying a car.”

  Before I had a chance to answer, Landon popped out of the backseat with Anvil tight in her arms. “Sounds good to me,” she said. “Hello, Ms. Crowder. Good evening, Dr. Gregory.”

  God help me, she’d remembered their names and remembered her manners. I actually thought she was about to go southern on me and tip into a curtsy.

  I said, “You really shouldn’t be around her, Lauren. With the strep, you know?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “You’re right. Tell you what,” Lauren finally said to me. “Give me a few minutes to change my clothes, and then you and I can go for a walk with the dogs, Peyton. We have some things to talk about. Landon can come inside with Alan. If she feels up to it, she can play some pool. That way I won’t be exposed. Hi, Mr. Luppo.” She waved at Carl.

  I watched as he waved back unenthusiastically.

  Lauren flicked another glance at her husband—this one was a warning glance—before she faced Carl again and said, “You’re welcome inside, too, of course, Mr. Luppo.”

  “Call me Carl, please. I’ll think about it,” he said with the thickest accent I’d yet heard come out of his mouth.

  Landon took Dr. Gregory’s hand and together they walked in the front door a few seconds after Lauren. Carl climbed out of the car and stood next to me.

  He said, “Weird, this whole psychotherapy thing, huh?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t know how to act around him.”

  “You supposed to act?” he asked.

  I allowed his words to reverberate, listening for an echo of sarcasm. I couldn’t detect any. “Don’t think so, not literally,” I said. “But I’ve never been in this situation before.”

  “Me neither. It’s like he can’t get over the fact we’re friends. You and me, I mean.”

  “Something tells me it’s not that simple.”

  Carl acted surprised by my statement. “What? Us being friends? You think it’s more complicated?”

  “I meant more complicated for him. To have two patients who are friends. I suppose it raises issues.”

  “Issues? You don’t think?” he said, his voice tailing away.

  “What?”

  He hooked his thick thumb at me and then curled it back toward himself. “That he’s thinking that, you know, there’s anything else between … you know … us. I’m talking … you know. That he means that kind of complicated?”

  I blushed.

  “Us? I, um. Of course … Well.”

  “Yeah. Me, too,” Carl said. “Me, too.”

  3

  Krist had arrived back in Spanish Hills shortly after four o’clock in the afternoon. He’d followed the dirt lane toward Dr. Gregory’s house but instead of continuing all the way to the end of the road, he turned west at the final intersection, pulling his big vehicle down another scraggly country road until the four by four was invisible to anyone heading toward Gregory’s house. Then he drove a little farther.

  The lane he was on ran in a mostly southerly direction on the Rocky Mountain side of Dr. Gregory’s house, but the road curled to the west before it reached the point where it was opposite the house. The field between the road and the house, which was perched on a gentle slope, was carpeted with waist-high grasses and was devoid of structures. Dr. Gregory’s closest neighbor to the west was well over two hundred yards away.

  Krist pulled his vehicle behind a berm of soil that had been cut into place by a piece of heavy equipment. He thought that an unskilled road grader operator had probably created the berm. Krist climbed out of the car, grateful for the man’s incompetence.

  The late afternoon sun radiated fiercely as Krist tugged a bright orange highway vest over his head. In case anyone grew curious about his presence on the road, he set up a surveyor’s tripod on the western shoulder for cover. He alternated his attention between the surveying scope and some compact binoculars as he methodically plotted the architectural details of Gregory’s house and the topographical details of the surrounding land. Twice over a period of about twenty minutes he moved the tripod and pretended to take new readings.

  Once his surveillance was accomplished, Krist packed up his tripod, climbed back into the truck, and followed the lane as it wound farther to the west. It looped around for almost half a mile before it spun back to the north and connected to a paved road that led to an intersection with South Boulder Road.

  He now had identified two avenues of exit, his personal minimum for any contact that had the potential to get violent. The planned interview with Dr. Gregory certainly had the potential to get violent. Krist hadn’t been able to imagine a single scenario that would leave Dr. Gregory alive once the doctor had been enticed to give up Kirsten Lord’s current location.

  Krist’s logic was simple. Alive, Gregory could warn her about what was coming. Dead, he couldn’t.

  Although Krist hadn’t had the luxury to invest sufficient time to determine Dr. Gregory’s work schedule, he was proceeding under the assumption that the doctor worked something approximating a regular day and didn’t expect Gregory to arrive home for an hour or two. With that cushion of time to kill, Krist circled back around behind Gregory’s house, again pulled his big car back to the shelter of the earthen berm, dumped his orange vest, yanked a gray-and-green day-pack onto one shoulder, and began hiking across the field below Gregory’s house. He took long strides, acted purposeful, marching directly to the lower level of the house. Most of the way he followed a narrow trail cut through the grasses by small animals. Once at the house, he peered through the windows on the garden level and then hoisted himself to one of the two decks that protruded from the upper level.

  Had it not been for the likely presence of a burglar-alarm system, Krist would have just broken into the house and waited inside in comfort. But the shadows below the deck would be a pleasant enough place to kill some time while he waited for Dr. Gregory to get home from work and disarm the alarm.

  DR. GREGORY’S DOG, Emily, had been sleeping in the master bedroom when she heard, or felt—or both—the arrival of an intruder on the deck off the living room.

  Emily was a Bouvier des Flandres—a Belgian sheepdog. Although her size and shaggy profile might evoke comparisons to an Old English sheepdog, in demeanor Bouviers have much more in common with another herding dog of European ancestry, the German shepherd. Like the German shepherd, Bouviers possessed an edginess, a wariness, a willingness to mix it up. Some police jurisdictions used Bouviers for police work.

  If she didn’t know you, Emily could be mean.

  As Krist was climbing onto the deck, he hadn’t heard the dog approach the sliding glass doors behind him, but when Emily started barking ferociously twelve inches from his ear, Krist left his feet as though his shoes had been equipped with ejection devices.

  When he spun to see the source of the commotion, Krist’s hand was already molded firmly around the grip of his handgun. Looking down at the animal on the other side of the glass, he thought for a moment that Dr. Gregory had a pet bear. The dog that had lowered itself onto its rear legs and was yelping and baring its teeth was a compact, powerf
ul animal with perfectly upright ears, no tail, and a long beard. Krist guessed the dog’s weight at close to one hundred pounds.

  Each bark shook Krist like a sonic boom. The explosions came at him like machine-gun fire.

  “Damn,” he said out loud. “What the hell are you?”

  Krist assumed the dog wouldn’t quiet until he climbed off the deck. He lifted his leg back over the rail and lowered himself to a position in front of the basement level of the house, which was exposed on the western slope below the twin decks.

  As the dog’s barking began to slow, Krist began to consider plan B. Plan B would definitely include something for the dog.

  Krist leaned against the side of the house and listened for the sound of approaching cars.

  4

  Krist heard the popping of gravel on the lane before he detected the noise of a car engine. Initially, he thought that two cars were arriving at the Gregorys’ house. But a third soon followed.

  He wasn’t pleased. He hadn’t been counting on a crowd to be around while he and Gregory chatted.

  By the time he’d managed to edge around the side of the house far enough to try to see who had arrived along with Dr. Gregory, Krist heard the buzzer on the home’s alarm system blare. Within seconds, it was quieted. To Krist that meant that Gregory or his wife, or both, had entered the house and hit the code to still the alarm.

  Just about then, two sharp barks like thunderclaps echoed from the dog. But only two. Krist quickly decided that someone was with the Gregorys, and that whoever was with them wasn’t a total stranger to the dog.

  Krist backtracked toward the deck. Plan B had accounted for Gregory’s wife, and for his dog, but not for any unexpected visitors.

  The plan was malleable, though. Krist knew that the primary variable was going to be the amount of carnage he left behind after his conversation with Dr. Gregory.