"I don't know. My fiance won't be too happy about doing that sort of thing, going to those places. He feels he's outgrown it, calls them meat markets, sex pits..."
"We were thinking of you going more in the guise of a single woman," Will Dennis said.
For a moment all the sounds in the cafeteria, the other conversations, the cling and clatter of dishes and glasses disappeared.
She took a deep breath and like someone emerging from under water, released it.
"You mean, be bait, try to attract him?"
"There's probably no other young, very attractive woman within a thousand miles who is also capable of recognizing medical problems or health threats and indeed knowing how to treat them, as well as recognizing the individual who might be responsible for all this," he replied in a single breath. "That's it, all my cards on the table."
"All?"
"Well, there is one more small thing," he said.
"Give me the whole dosage, Will," she told him.
He smiled.
"If you agree to do this, help us, even for a night or two," he said, "you'll have to keep it to yourself for obvious reasons. You'll have to keep everything to yourself. In other words, don't trust anyone, even someone else who might come to you and identify himself as a law enforcement officer of some kind, especially that sort of person. Don't accept any proof and don't talk to him. Just call me," he emphasized.
"You make it sound like there's more than one of them out there."
"At this point, who knows?" he said.
She stared and then shook her head.
"I'd have to tell my fiance about this idea of my going to local clubs," she said.
"I wouldn't. What if he decides it's too dangerous and comes after you, assuming you still wanted to go forward?"
She thought a moment.
"I don't know," she said. She glanced at her watch. "I have to get moving. My rounds."
"Okay."
"Let me think about it," she said.
"Of course."
"Maybe he's gone."
"Maybe," Will Dennis said. "It will be someone else's problem then, but until then, please remember my admonitions, Doc. Don't talk to anyone but me." She stood looking at him. He smiled and turned back to his food.
"I think I'll finish this," he said nodding at his plate. "It was better than I expected."
She smiled.
"I'll call you," she said.
"Here," he said quickly reaching into his pocket and producing a card. "It has my personal numbers on it. Call anytime."
"Okay."
She left him, but it wasn't until she was actually at the first patient's bedside, that she stopped thinking about all he had told her and all he wanted her to do.
ELEVEN
Even though he was prepared to deal with it, it was encouraging to him that the phone did not ring all day. Aside from the undertaker, no one apparently had any interest in the old lady's well-being. Where were her contemporaries, her friends? Weren't there any relatives who by now would have found out Kristin was dead and would call to offer their condolences and their assistance? What about Kristin's friends? Didn't she have any? He couldn't remember anything he had said to her or she had said to him, so he didn't recall any mention of a girlfriend. If there were any, maybe they didn't like the old lady and didn't want to call her now, especially now. Death, he realized, quarantined the survivors. People ignored or procrastinated as long as they could so they could avoid the sorrow, but more than that, he thought, so they could ignore their own mortality. Every death was a severe reminder that yours was waiting, patiently or impatiently, and no one wanted to be reminded of that, least of all, himself. There was a ruthless determination to keep his body alive and well, perhaps more so than the others, as he had come to call them, for there was he, unique, a wonder, and there were they, the prey, the food source. He thought of the old lady upstairs, no longer involved in the daily struggle to exist. He went up to the bedroom and looked in on the corpse, still to him lying contentedly, comfortably in the bed.
"I guess you really have been a loner, Grandma," he said. "No gossips coming over for tea and cookies? No cousins, no sisters-in-law, no one?" Families intrigued him, however. Was it simply because he could recall no one in his own? Vaguely, he thought there were people related to him, but his memory problem had become severe lately. All of the images he had been able to draw up from the well of his past experiences came to him like underexposed film full of shadows, silhouettes, faces with no distinct characteristics, voices garbled like something recorded and played at speeds far too slowly. Even his dreams had become colorless streams of obscure, wispy shapes. All he had, he concluded, was the present, and of course, the future. Just like the body's nutritional wealth that he was unable to store, so were the events that made up his own history. It sort of made sense to him. Things passed through him. Nothing stayed. He felt loose, primed, and ready for anything, almost virginal.
Maybe not almost, he thought. I am virginal today. I can remember no lovemaking, and just like that, the momentary sense of emptiness, being lost and alone, floating in space, left him. It was replaced instantly with this youthful excitement, the wonder of something new that was about to happen. He was going to go out on his first hot date. Everything about sex and women was back to being mysterious and fresh.
On the other hand, the old lady looked stale. Her memories were squeezed and shoved into every available closet in that yellow brain now rotting away. No wonder she had been so bitter. If people had no memory, they would never feel they had lived too long, nothing would be tired and nothing would be anticipated, no result expected. Every day would be a birthday. Who needs a past? The hell with trying to remember, he told himself.
"I don't want to look at your family albums, read any of your correspondence, or even see your heirlooms. If I could, I'd put it all in the grave with you. It belongs with death," he told her.
Of course, she didn't move, didn't acknowledge anything.
He stepped back and closed the door, and then he went to his room and he changed into a pair of jeans, a black silk short-sleeve shirt that fit him snugly and clearly revealed his buff body, and scooped up his blue sports jacket. He checked his hair, the smoothness of his face and patted it down with some aftershave lotion.
Like some teenager who had been given permission to take the family car for the first night ever, he bounced gleefully down the stairs and hurried out and around to his vehicle. He got in, started the engine, taking pleasure in the sound of its power when he pressed down on the accelerator. Then he turned on the radio, found a station that played upbeat music and, again like some teenager, revved up the volume. The music poured out the open windows and trailed behind him as he shot down the driveway just a little too fast for the turn at the end. The tires squealed their complaint and he laughed.
I'm alive, he thought.
And I'm on the prowl.
Terri nearly turned to run back to the hospital entrance when the car door of the vehicle beside hers opened and a man stood up. The car had been parked beside hers a while. She had seen it as she had left the hospital after completing her rounds. None of the car lights were on. She had not expected to see anyone still in it. He was obviously sitting and waiting for someone or something and here she was.
He moved into the rim of illumination spread by the parking lot lights and her heart did stop and start with a pounding that made her feel her very bones vibrate. It was the blond-haired man, the man who had come to the office impersonating a BCI investigator.
"Dr. Barnard," he said.
She backed up a few steps and looked toward the hospital entrance. There was no one in sight. She could run for it, but there was too much parking lot to cross. He should be able to catch up to her and out here, alone, she would be relatively defenseless. A shout might bring some help, but too late.
He continued around the rear of her vehicle, walking toward her. He was dressed the way he had been the day she
had seen him. He smiled.
"Remember me?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "What do you want?"
"I have just a few more questions," he said.
The question in her mind was should she confront him with what she knew or should she pretend not to know he wasn't a BCI investigator? If she did the latter, would he come at her? Would he come at her anyway?
Sometimes, being a doctor, especially a family physician who confronted not only the patient, but the parents of the patient or the children of the patient, required her to utilize psychological skills as much as medical. It was important to relieve anxiety, calm people down -- in short, have a good bedside manner. That was still a raging debate in medical school: How important was it to treat the patient as a person, treat the whole person, and not just the ailment? Mental turmoil could prevent healing or complicate it. Doing this required her to be a little bit of a liar at times or at minimum having a convincingly confident demeanor without crossing the line into what Hyman called medical arrogance.
"Oh," she said struggling to give off a sense of relaxation. "Detective Clark Kent. I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you in the poor lighting." He stared at her without softening his lips into a friendly smile.
"Yes, well, I'm sorry about that. I called your office and was told you were at the hospital. I didn't mean to startle you. I just thought it was more convenient if I met you out here and left you to your duties and responsibilities in there. I'm sure you had enough to capture your full attention and concentration with your patients' problems."
"No question about that," she said, holding her smile and moving slowly toward her car. "So? What brings you to see me so urgently? I really don't have any more information about Paige Thorndyke than anyone else, especially the police."
"I'm not here to talk about Paige. I wanted to ask you about Kristin Martin."
"Oh?"
She stood at her driver's side door. Her left hand was in her bag, fumbling for the key. When she found it, she held it.
"What a remarkable and yet unfortunate coincidence that you had to confront another, shall we say, unusual fatality involving a young woman," he said smiling now.
"Please, don't remind me. Even doctors get nightmares," she said and inserted the car key into the door.
He stepped closer, close enough to prevent her from opening the door and getting into the car. It was a very subtle threatening gesture.
"What I really wanted to know is, did the young woman say anything to you?" he asked. "Was she able to describe what happened to her, give you any information at all?" he added, his normally calm sounding, friendly voice turning impatient.
She started to shake her head.
"A name of a man, anything?"
"No, you don't understand," she said. "By the time I had arrived, she was too far gone. She was barely conscious."
"So she was conscious," he said leaping on her words.
"Yes, but..."
He moved closer.
"It's important you tell me everything, very important. I might be the only one who can prevent this from happening to anyone else," he said, his voice now full of desperation.
"Oh?" She battled the panic that was trying to take hold inside her. "Well, why is that, Detective? You weren't even sure any crime had been committed in relation to Paige Thorndyke."
He stared coldly at her.
"Another death complicates the matter," he said.
"Surely there are more investigators on this then."
"I'm the most familiar with the M.O.," he said. "Who else have you spoken to about it?"
He's going to find out I know he's not who he says he is, she thought.
"Actually," she said now opening her car door and forcing him to step back, "I was surprised that no one has contacted me. I couldn't do much for the poor woman and I gave as much medical information as I had to the paramedics, but she was gone by the time they arrived. My first concern was I hadn't correctly diagnosed a serious reaction to bee stings. Many people are highly allergic to that, you know."
He studied her.
He knows I'm fudging it, she thought.
"I see. What did you learn about the cause of death?"
"I didn't learn everything. As I said, I merely happened onto the scene and..."
"You're a very intelligent woman, a scientist. You know this is far from an ordinary medical situation. I'm a specialist in these matters, too. If you confide in me
"I told you. I don't know anything more."
"This is a mistake. It's not being handled correctly. You're going to regret it," he said. "Let's begin with..."
A car came into the parking lot, its headlights washing over them. To her surprise and delight, she recognized it to be Curt. He pulled up right behind her.
"Oh, my fiance," she declared, seeing the concerned, truly angry look in the man's face. "I'm afraid he's having a hard time adjusting to a doctor's schedule," she added to lighten the moment.
Curt got out of his car.
"Terri?"
"Yes, I'm here," she said.
"I'll catch you another time," the so-called Detective Clark Kent said. "Think about what I said to you and how important all this could be," he added and moved quickly to his own vehicle as Curt came around the front of his car and approached Terri. He watched the man get in and start his engine.
"Who's that?"
Everything Will Dennis had told her earlier came rushing back in like a dam that had collapsed. As a doctor she was used to making decisions on the instant, of course, and it didn't escape her that this one could be just as life or death.
"A state police detective," she decided to say. Something told her to keep Curt as away from all this as she could.
Clark Kent, as it were, backed out and pulled away quickly, his tires squealing.
"He's in a hurry. What did you tell him?"
"Actually nothing he probably didn't already know," she replied, the possible irony of that answer not lost on her. "What are you doing here?" she asked Curt. He smirked and leaned against her car.
"I thought we might go somewhere and have a drink," he said.
"Oh. Well, why didn't you just call or page me?"
"I was nearby," he said, "and took a chance I might catch you coming out of the hospital. I knew you were coming out about now. See, I do pay attention to your horrific work schedule," he added.
She smiled.
"Okay."
"First, I have something to ask."
"Oh?"
"When you and I spoke this morning and you told me about Kristin Martin, you already knew she had died of some bizarre vitamin deficiency, just like Paige Thorndyke, didn't you? You knew it wasn't just a heart attack," he followed with a cross-examiner's speed and intensity.
"I don't understand, Curt. What if I did? Why are you so upset?"
"Why am I so upset? The whole world knows something weird is going on and my fiancee, who is right in the middle of it, doesn't tell me. I have to learn it from that schmuck Bill Kleckner. I told you how he's been looking over my shoulder, gloating over every one of his successes or any one of my failures."
"That's what this is about?" she said, astonished. "Competition with your partner?"
"No, that's not what it's about, Terri. It's about trust, about confiding in each other."
"First," she said, "I wasn't sure about this diagnosis, Curt. There are other tests that have to be run. Even as of now, I don't know the full extent of the woman's illness. I knew she had died of heart failure. That was certain, but there are a number of possible causes for it. Besides, I have to have some concern about patient confidentiality. You do for your clients, don't you?"
"Some confidentiality. Bill Kleckner gets to know it all before I do." He sounded like a little boy whining, and after what she had just experienced and the things she had seen in the hospital during her rounds, she had little patience for it.
"I don't believe this, Curt. I don't believe you're complaining abou
t this. Look, I'm really very tired. I had a day and a half. I think I'll just go home, take a hot bath, and go to bed."
"I think we should talk more," he insisted.
"Get over it," she snapped and got into her car. He stepped back in surprise as she started the engine and began to back out of her spot.
"Hey!" he yelled.
She hit the brake and had the window roll down.
"What?"
"That's it? I'm dismissed?"
"I'm tired, Curt. You're overreacting to everything. You need a good night's rest too."
"Is that the doctor talking or my fiancee?" he asked disdainfully.
"Your psychiatrist," she replied, rolled up the window, and drove away. She didn't look into the rearview mirror. She was afraid of what she would see. But the moment she was off the hospital grounds, she reached for her phone and fumbled for the card Will Dennis had given her. She read his number and called as she drove. She could see Curt's headlights closing behind her.
"Will Dennis," she heard.
"Mr. Dennis," she began, but it was his way of starting his answering machine.
"I'm not available at the moment, but please leave a message and it will get to me immediately."
"It's Terri Barnard," she said. "He was there in the parking lot waiting for me, the infamous Detective Clark Kent. I didn't let on what I knew about him, and my fiance appeared. Our detective left quickly, but I have the feeling, not for good," she said. "I'm on my way home."
She hung up and continued driving. Watching Curt's headlights in her mirror now, she expected he was going to follow her home. A part of her wanted him, too. She didn't like parting the way they had. Everyone was on edge these days. When she came to a traffic light and it turned red, she stopped and thought she would step out and say something soft to him, perhaps even invite him to her house for the night.
She glanced into the side mirror as she put her hand on the door handle and then she stopped cold.
It wasn't Curt.
It was Clark Kent.
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