Critical Judgment (1996)

by Michael Palmer

  As she rounded a bend in the spiraling stairs, she spotted light, spreading out from under a door. Six more steps and she was there. Suddenly she sensed movement behind her. She started to whirl, but a man's powerful hand clamped roughly over her mouth and pulled her tightly against his broad body. There was a sensation of cold metal pressing against her neck, followed almost immediately by a soft pop and a sharp sting at the spot. In seconds the world began to dissolve into a swirling haze. Her panic exploded, then vanished, as her vision blurred. Inexorably, her eyes closed. The single word she heard before unconsciousness swept over her was growled by a voice she knew well.

  "Stupid," was all it said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Yellow rings. Josh had examined his face in the bathroom mirror a dozen times over the last day alone. Granted, he looked like hell. But if there was anything wrong with his eyes, he'd damn well have seen it.

  His fury growing with every step, he stalked out of the Ghost Ranch Saloon and across the busy road without checking for cars. Horns blasted at him, but he didn't notice.

  The sparkling lights had begun again.

  Josh raced back to the motel. There was still time, he was thinking. Time to do what God had been telling him to do. Time to end the pain once and for all. The shimmering diamonds of multicolored light snapped against the inside of his eyes like hailstones. He fumbled with the lock, then threw the door open and snatched the rucksack out from beneath the bed.

  "Not this time," he said out loud.

  This time there would be no headaches. There would be no begging God to take him. This time there would be only vengeance.

  "Bricker ... Golden ... Gentry ... Forrester ..."

  He recited the names in a litany as he once again checked the two weapons.

  Ever so slightly the flickering lights began to dim. It was a sign. The path he had chosen was the right one. He grabbed the rucksack and ran from the room. It was three or four blocks to the main entrance of the company. Five minutes, if that.

  Josh started out the front door of the Fremont Motel, then stopped short as a police cruiser glided slowly past. He moved back into the entryway and waited. Minutes later a second cruiser drove by in the other direction, just as slowly and deliberately as the first. They were trying to look routine, but he knew they were searching for someone--almost certainly for him. How could they know? The only possible answer was Abby. She had been worried about him all along. Now she had broken into the house on Orchard, scanned through his computer, and found the letter he had written to her but never sent. Why hadn't he just erased the damn thing? Now Bricker and the rest would be on alert, and the police must have the description and plate number of his Wrangler.

  He pressed himself deeper into the shadows. Abby had been wrong to try to stop him. As always, she probably meant well. But once again they were pushing against one another. He wondered how in the hell they had gotten so messed up. When did he make her the villain in his life? When did she stop giving him the unconditional love that she had always claimed meant everything to her?

  He found himself wondering, too, about her relationship with Dr. Lew Alvarez. Frightened of the consequences of his nearly striking her, he had followed her to Alvarez's farm one night. Then he parked by the road, walked up the long, unpaved driveway, and spied on the two of them, sitting with two other people in Alvarez's den. After a time he had returned to his car and waited until Abby drove out and headed home. Alvarez was movie-star handsome and had impressed her with his work in the ER. Were they lovers? He felt his jaws clench. Was that why she was trying to get him caught here in Fremont?

  Once Bricker and his cronies were taken care of, he would have to confront her and demand some answers to those questions. She wouldn't lie. Lying just wasn't in her. Her fidelity would be rewarded with the life they had always dreamed about. Desertion? ...

  He glanced down at the rucksack and feared that he would be spotted if he tried to lug it to Seradyne. One semiautomatic under his windbreaker--that's all he would be able to get away with. But, then again, that was all he would need. Reentering the motel, he exited through the rear to the lot where the Jeep was parked. The early evening was quite dark, and a fine rain had begun falling. He tossed the rucksack onto the floor and took a screwdriver from the tool kit. In seconds he had changed license plates with a van from Colorado. His headache was steady, but much less severe than he would have expected at this point.

  He tucked the MAK-90 beneath his arm, zipped his windbreaker up, and headed away from the main drag. There were back streets and an alley he could take to get to the Seradyne building. Security there was always fairly tight--probably more so now. But he had no intention of entering the building. The parking garage made much more sense. He might get only Bricker, but that would be a hell of a start.

  A cruiser passed by on the street ahead. He sensed they might have noticed him. He cut down a narrow alley. When he hit the street again, he was just a block from the garage. The Seradyne executives all had assigned parking slots there. One more year, maybe less, and he would have had one himself. His attitude and performance had gotten consistently superior ratings. But in the end superior ratings didn't matter. What mattered was that Nancy Golden was sleeping with Pete Gentry. Some corporate restructuring.

  Bricker's Infiniti would be in his designated spot. A sexmobile, he had once called the car. With Bricker everything came down to sex. It would be relatively easy to make it up the back stairs and wait behind a nearby car. If the Infiniti was gone, he would search out Pete Gentry's Land Rover.

  The lights were still flickering inside Josh's eyes as he approached the Seradyne garage from the rear. He dashed along a concrete wall and flattened himself behind a row of seven-foot-high shrubs. He stayed there for a time, breathless from the short sprint. Not too long ago he had run a half marathon with ease. It appeared his body was rotting as rapidly as his soul.

  Please be patient with me, Abby, he thought. Please understand that I have to do this.

  But there was no way she would understand, not until she saw him finally free of the headaches and the confusion. Not until she saw him as a whole man again. He waited until his breathing was normal and the street was deserted, then rolled over the concrete wall and dropped onto the first level. Bricker's parking space was on the second. Staying low, he worked his way between cars and the three-foot wall until he reached the second level. At the sight of Bricker's white Infiniti, his jackhammering pulse increased even more. Mortar shells burst behind his eyes.

  He chose a spot just in front of the Grand Cherokee parked next to Bricker and was just about to sprint across to it when a sports car screeched around the corner and sped past him to the next level. Had he taken one more step, he would have been as dead as Steve Bricker was about to be.

  Careful to listen for oncoming traffic this time, he hunched very low and sprinted across to the spot between the grill of the Grand Cherokee and the wall. Again, he was gasping for breath. It felt as if his heart was just going to stop.

  He checked to be sure he was concealed from the stairway door and the elevator, although he expected that Bricker would use the stairs. Then he brought the MAK-90 out and set it on his lap. He had practiced firing the gun in several different dumps. He wouldn't win any marksmanship prizes, but he wouldn't need to. All he had to do was aim at the right height, pull the trigger, and spray.

  It was almost five. He would give Bricker until five-twenty, and then go looking for Pete Gentry's car, just in case. His headache was continuing unabated, though it was still manageable. If he had a major explosion like the two he had endured already today, he was cooked. Bricker would be able to walk right up and step on him, and he would be powerless to do a damn thing. But so far, so good.

  Then, with no awareness that he had even opened his wallet, he realized that he was holding the laminated photo of Abby he kept there. God, he had loved her. She had given him everything--given up a life she was totally content with so th
at they could be together. What had he given her in return? Pain and confusion. Anger and anguish. What in the hell had happened to him? Was this insanity? Was this what it was like to be crazy? ...

  Footsteps echoed through the concrete cavern. His hand tensed on the semiautomatic. A couple, chatting and laughing, emerged from the stairwell and headed toward him. Kate Alston from the reception desk and a guy from the design office. Did they know, too? He glanced down at the MAK-90. If they saw him like this, what difference did it make whether they knew why he was there or not? If they spotted him, he would do what he had to do. He tightened his finger on the trigger and pressed himself against the bumper of the Grand Cherokee. They were about thirty feet away. Now twenty. If either of them owned this car or the one next to it, it was all over for them.

  Josh held his breath. What in the hell was he going to do if they saw him? Just gun them down? Bricker was his target, not these people. Kate Alston, probably only twenty-three or-four, had always been great to him.

  Help me, Abby. For God's sake tell me what to do.

  Suddenly the footsteps stopped. A car door opened, then closed. Josh risked a look. Both of them had gotten into a white coupe--a Camaro or Firebird. The engine rumbled to life, and the car eased out of the spot two spaces down and across from Bricker's.

  Abby, I didn't want to kill them. I just wanted things to be like they were for us. Bricker and the others did this to us. They've got to pay. Isn't that right? ... Isn't it?

  He slipped Abby's picture into the pocket of his windbreaker. The headache seemed to be getting worse again, and he was beginning to feel queasy.

  Come on, dammit.... Come on....

  The stairway door opened again. Again there were voices--two men. He recognized one of them immediately. Bricker! He worked himself into a low crouch and tightened his grip on the MAK-90. Then he peered cautiously through the windows of Bricker's Infiniti. The other man was Pete Gentry! It was more than he could have hoped for--a true sign.

  Almost over, Abby, he thought. The end for them. A new beginning for us.

  He ducked down and tried to gauge their distance from him by the sound of their shoes on the pavement. Twenty feet. Maybe fifteen. And ... now!

  He stood up, took three quick steps to the rear of the Infiniti, and confronted the two startled men from a distance of no more than fifteen feet. Point blank.

  "Josh, no!" Bricker cried out.

  Pete Gentry dropped to his knees, head down, but Bricker was fumbling inside his coat. A gun!

  "Abby, forgive me!" Josh bellowed.

  He brought the MAK-90 to his shoulder and fired.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The call came in at six, just as Abby was leaving for the hospital to see Lew.

  "Dr. Dolan, please."

  Even though it had been years since she had attended Graham DeShield's presentation at St. John's, she recognized the society psychiatrist's voice--affected and nasal--immediately.

  "This is Dr. Abby Dolan."

  "DeShield here. Dr. Graham DeShield."

  She remembered the therapist as tall and slim with wire-rimmed glasses and a receding hairline. Now she pictured him sitting in the paneled study of an opulent hillside home somewhere in Marin County.

  "Thank you for calling me back so promptly, Dr. DeShield."

  "My service said it was an emergency regarding Ethan Black, although how someone who's deceased could constitute an emergency is beyond me."

  "Believe me, it is an emergency. Dr. DeShield, you have no reason to remember me, but I was on the staff at St. John's for a number of years before I moved here to Patience a few months ago. We met briefly some years back, after you gave very impressive grand rounds at our hospital."

  "Yes, yes, I remember that particular lecture well. 'Narcissism and the Stars,' I called it. I very much enjoy teaching."

  "It was an excellent presentation. One of the best on the subject I've ever heard."

  "Are you a psychiatrist?"

  "Ah, no, actually. I'm an emergency specialist."

  "I see."

  It was clear to Abby that he didn't, but she doubted Graham DeShield ever admitted to not understanding anything.

  "Dr. DeShield, earlier today I had a meeting with Ezra Black."

  "Ah, yes, my good friend Ezra."

  "He told me how angry he is with you about his son's suicide. He's desperate to blame someone for it--anyone except himself."

  "My feeling exactly. He's already begun to spread rumors about me."

  "I would bet your reputation can withstand most of the dirt he could dish out."

  "It's very kind of you to say so. What hospital were you at?"

  Abby smiled. DeShield's hearing was clearly limited to facts that involved him.

  "St. John's. I was there for ten years. I met with Mr. Black today to try to convince him that Colstar International, the company his son was working at, one of the companies he owns, was actually responsible for Ethan's death."

  Abby could sense the heightened interest at the other end of the line.

  "Continue," DeShield said.

  "There have been a number of cases here--four, not counting Ethan Black--of Colstar employees who have exhibited psychotic, violent behavior. A small group of us here in Patience is dedicated to getting at the truth about them. We believe that all four cases were toxic from a massive cadmium exposure, and that a large number of patients with lesser illnesses had proportionately less exposure. All four have been involved in violent incidents or have shown violent tendencies. One has now been charged with murder. He is the only one whose blood we have been able to test so far, but it showed an extremely high level of cadmium. We've sent off a level on one of the others, but it's not back. We wanted Ezra Black to close his plant down until he and the people there could determine what happened and assure everyone that the problem has been corrected."

  "And?"

  "At first Mr. Black seemed receptive to listening to me. Then he did a sudden about-face and as much as threw me out of his place."

  "Sounds like Ezra."

  "It's been very frustrating. No matter what evidence we produce, Colstar and the people Colstar controls have a response."

  "The positive blood tests, too?"

  "I'm sure they're going to demand that an independent lab run the bloods again. Something like that. By the time their data and ours are evaluated and reevaluated, more people will have come to harm. We need Ezra Black on our side, or we don't have much chance of convincing anybody who matters that this is a dire emergency."

  "Why call me? In case you didn't get it today, I'm the last person Black would listen to."

  "That's his mistake." Abby wondered whether she was laying it on too thick, even for DeShield. "As to how you can help--I think the one thing I said that initially interested Black was about the four other employees becoming violent. Then, when it was clear I knew almost nothing about Ethan other than what I read in the papers, he suddenly became totally uninterested in me, cold as block ice. I left Feather Ridge with the feeling that if I had known that Ethan had been violent--if I had known precisely what he did under the influence of cadmium poisoning--Ezra Black would at least have heard me out. I was even going to suggest that he have his son's body exhumed and tested, but I never got that far."

  "In other words, you want me to violate patient-physician confidentiality involving the son of one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world."

  "I know from the sort of man, the sort of physician, you are, that speaking to someone about a patient would not be at all easy for you. It wouldn't be easy for me either if I were in your position. But we believe lives are very much at stake. And the truth is, we really have no one else to turn to."

  "If Black learned that I did such a thing, his lawyers would hound me until ... until I jumped out of my office window myself."

  That the therapist didn't flatly say no was all that mattered. He was holding out to hear what Graham DeShield had to gain. And
Abby had that argument ready and waiting.

  "You have my word that I would never tell Mr. Black we spoke. And, in addition, it would seem that if we can prove it was the cadmium in Ethan's brain that caused him to kill himself, that would certainly absolve you of the responsibility Ezra Black is trying to stick you with."

  During the extended silence that followed, Abby picked up a pen and readied it over a notepad.

  Come on, Graham. Come on....

  "We haven't met since that conference, Abby, but somehow I feel I can trust you."

  "You can, Dr. DeShield," she said, adding in a voice that was as close as she could get to seductive, "and, perhaps soon, we could meet again in person."

  "It's Graham. And I think I should like that very much. The truth is, Abby, Ethan Black almost bludgeoned a man to death with a baseball bat. A farmer. It was in a parking lot after a fight in a bar. Ezra saw to it that every witness said the farmer started it. Then he made certain the victim got cared for at the Stoneleigh Head Injury Center. You know that place?"

  "Of course. The best."

  "I believe the man will be there indefinitely. His injuries were that severe."

  "What about Ethan's headaches?"

  Black Ezra had said nothing about headaches, but Abby no longer doubted his son had them.

  "They started following his accident," DeShield said. "Horrible, debilitating headaches that I felt were post-concussive. Were they caused by the cadmium, too?"

  "I believe so. Tell me, were there any preceding sensory warnings? Strange tastes? Lights?"

  "Funny you should mention that. Actually, he did complain of a smell. He said it was like ... like rotten eggs."

  Bingo!

  "Dr. DeShield--Graham--did Ethan harm anyone else besides the farmer?"

  "A number of people, actually, although the farmer got it the worst of all. Ethan seemed to have a smoldering anger against almost everyone, and periodically he would just blow. He beat up a prostitute last month. Broke her arm."