Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories - 3
Page 45
A pause. The man said, "Okay. Got a pencil?"
Tal found one. "Go ahead."
The mathematician started to write the name. Then paused. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Positive, Detective. The receipt's right here in front of me."
The phone sagged in Tal's hand. He finished jotting the name, showed it to LaTour. "What do we do now?" he asked.
LaTour lifted a surprised eyebrow. "Search warrant," he said. "That's what we do."
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THE WARRANT WAS PRETTY EASY, especially since LaTour was on good terms with nearly every judge and magistrate in Westbrook County personally, and a short time later they were halfway through their search of the modest bungalow located in even more modest Harrison Village. Tal and LaTour were in the bedroom; three uniformed county troopers were downstairs.
Drawers, closets, beneath the bed...
Tal wasn't exactly sure what they were looking for. He followed LaTour's lead. The big cop had considerable experience sniffing out hiding places, it seemed, but it was Tal who found the jacket, which was shedding the off-white fibers that appeared to match the one they'd found at the Whitleys'.
This was some connection, though a tenuous one.
"Sir, I found something outside!" the voice called up the stairs.
They went out to the garage, where the officer was standing over a suitcase, hidden under stacks of boxes. Inside were two large bottles of Luminux, with only a few pills remaining in each. There were no prescription labels attached but they seemed to be the containers that were sold directly to hospitals. This one had been sold to the Cardiac Support Center. Also in the suitcase were articles cut from magazines and newspapers--one was from several years ago. It was about a nurse who'd killed elderly patients in a nursing home in Ohio with lethal drugs. The woman was quoted as saying, "I did a good thing, helping those people die with dignity. I never got a penny from their deaths. I only wanted them to be at peace. My worst crime is I'm an Angel of Mercy." There were a half-dozen others, too, the theme being the kindness of euthanasia. Some actually gave practical advice on "transitioning" people from life.
Tal stepped back, arms crossed, staring numbly at the find.
Another officer walked outside. "Found these hidden behind the desk downstairs."
In his latex-gloved hands Tal took the documents. They were the Bensons' files from the CSC. He opened them and read through the first page.
LaTour said something but the statistician didn't hear. He'd hoped up until now that the facts were wrong, that this was all a huge misunderstanding. But true mathematicians will always accept where the truth leads, even if it shatters their most heartfelt theorem.
There was no doubt that Mac McCaffrey was the killer.
She'd been the person who'd just bought the suicide book. And it was here, in her house, that they'd found the jacket, the Luminux bottles and the euthanasia articles. As for the Bensons' file, her name was prominently given as the couple's nurse/counselor. She'd lied about working with them.
The homicide cop spoke again.
"What'd you say?" Tal muttered.
"Where is she, you think?"
"At the hospital, I'd guess. The Cardiac Support Center."
"So you ready?" LaTour asked.
"For what?"
"To make your first collar."
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THE BLUE CHEESE, in fact, turned out to be a bust.
But Nurse Mac--the only way Robert Covey could think of her now--seemed to enjoy the other food he'd laid out.
"Nobody's ever made appetizers for me," she said, touched.
"They don't make gentlemen like me anymore."
And bless her, here was a woman who didn't whine about her weight. She smeared a big slab of pate on a cracker and ate it right down then went for the shrimp.
Covey sat back in the couch in the den, a bit perplexed. He recalled her feistiness from their first meeting and was anticipating--and looking forward to--a fight about diet and exercise. But she made only one exercise comment. She'd opened the back door.
"Beautiful yard."
"Thanks. Ver was the landscaper."
"That's a nice pool. You like to swim?"
He told her he loved to, though since he'd been diagnosed with the heart problem he didn't swim alone, worried he'd faint or have a heart attack and drown.
Nurse Mac had nodded. But there was something else on her mind. She finally turned away from the pool. "You're probably wondering what's on the agenda for this session?"
"Yes'm, I am."
"Well, I'll be right up front. I'm here to talk you into doing something you might not want to do."
"Ah, negotiating, are we? This involve the fourth glass of port?"
She smiled. "It's a little more important than that. But now that you've brought it up..." She rose and walked to the bar. "You don't mind, do you?" She picked up an old Taylor Fladgate, lifted an eyebrow.
"I'll mind if you pour it down the drain. I don't mind if we drink some."
"Why don't you refill the food," she said. "I'll play bartender."
When Covey returned from the kitchen Nurse Mac had poured him a large glass of port. She handed it to him then poured one for herself. She lifted hers. He did, too, and the crystal rang.
They both sipped.
"So what's this all about, you acting so mysterious?"
"What's it about?" she mused. "It's about eliminating pain, finding peace. And sometimes you just can't do that alone. Sometimes you need somebody to help you."
"Can't argue with the sentiment. What've you got in mind? Specific, I mean."
Mac leaned forward, tapped her glass to his. "Drink up." They downed the ruby-colored liquor.
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"GO, GO, GO!"
"You wanna drive?" LaTour shouted over the roar of the engine. They skidded sharply around the parkway, over the curb and onto the grass, nearly scraping the side of the unmarked car against a jutting rock.
"At least I know how to drive," Tal called. Then: "Step on it!"
"Shut the fuck up. Let me concentrate."
As the wheel grated against another curb Tal decided this was a wise idea and fell silent.
Another squad car was behind them.
"There, that's the turnoff." Tal pointed.
LaTour controlled the skid and somehow he managed to keep them out of the oncoming traffic lane.
Another three hundred yards. Tal directed the homicide cop down the winding road then up a long driveway. At the end of which was a small, dark blue sedan. The same car the witnesses had seen outside the Bensons' house, the same car that had left the tread marks at the Whitleys' the day they died.
Killing the siren, LaTour skidded to a stop in front of the car. The squad car parked close behind, blocking the sedan in.
All four officers leapt out. As they ran past the vehicle Tal glanced in the backseat and saw the tan baseball cap that the driver of the car had worn outside the Bensons' house.
In a movement quite smooth for such a big man LaTour unlatched the door and shoved inside, not even breaking stride. He pulled his gun from his holster.
They and the uniformed officers behind them charged into the living room and then the den.
They stopped, looking at the two astonished people on the couch.
One was Robert Covey, who was unharmed.
The other, the woman who'd been about to kill him, Mac McCaffrey, was standing over him, eyes wide. She was just offering him one of the tools of her murderous trade: a glass undoubtedly laced with enough Luminux to render him half-conscious and suggestible to suicide. He noticed that the back door was open, revealing a large swimming pool. So, not a gun or carbon monoxide. Death by drowning this time.
"Tal!" she gasped.
But he said nothing. He let LaTour step forward to cuff her and arrest her. The homicide cop was, of course, much better versed in such matters of protocol.
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&nb
sp; THE HOMICIDE DETECTIVE looked through her purse and found the suicide book inside.
Robert Covey was in the ambulance outside, being checked out by the medics. He'd seemed okay but they were taking their time, just to make sure. He wouldn't have had time to ingest too much of the drug.
After they found the evidence at Mac's house, they'd gone to the hospital. She was out but Dr. Dehoeven at the CRC had pulled her client list and they'd gone through her calendar, learning that she was meeting with Covey at that moment.
LaTour would've been content to ship Mac off to Central Booking but Tal was a bit out of control; he couldn't help confronting her. "You did know Don and Patsy Benson. Don was your client. You lied to me."
Mac started to speak then looked down, her tearful eyes on the floor.
"We found Benson's files in your house. And the computer logs at CSC showed you erased his records. You were at their house the day they died. It was you the witness saw in the hat and sunglasses. And the Whitleys? You killed them, too."
"I didn't kill anybody!"
"Okay, fine--you helped them kill themselves. You drugged them and talked them into it. And then cleaned up after." He turned to the uniformed deputy. "Take her to Booking."
And she was led away, calling, "I didn't do anything wrong!"
"Bullshit," LaTour muttered.
Though, staring after her as the car eased down the long drive, Tal reflected that in a way--some abstract, moral sense--she truly did believe she hadn't done anything wrong.
But to the people of the state of New York, the evidence was irrefutable. Nurse Claire "Mac" McCaffrey had murdered four people and undoubtedly intended to murder scores of others. She'd gotten the Bensons doped up on Friday and helped them kill themselves. Then on Sunday she'd called the Whitleys from a pay phone, made sure they were home then went over there and arranged for their suicides, too. She'd cleaned up the place, taken the Luminux and hadn't left until after they died. Tal had learned that the opera show she listened to wasn't on until 7 p.m. Not 4 p.m., as she'd told him. That was why he hadn't been able to find it when he'd surfed the frequencies in LaTour's car.
She'd gone into this business to ease the suffering of patients--because her own mother had had such a difficult time dying. But what she'd meant by "easing suffering" was putting them down like dogs.
Robert Covey returned to his den. He was badly shaken but physically fine. He had some Luminux in his system but not a dangerously high dosage. "She seemed so nice, so normal," he whispered.
Oh, you bet, Tal thought bitterly. A goddamn perfect member of the Four Percent Club.
He and LaTour did some paperwork--Tal so upset that he didn't even think about his own questionnaire--and they walked back to LaTour's car. Tal sat heavily in the front seat, staring straight ahead. The homicide cop didn't start the engine. He said, "Sometimes closing a case is harder than not closing it. That's something they don't teach you at the academy. But you did what you had to. People'll be alive now because of what you did."
"I guess," he said sullenly. He was picturing Mac's office. Her crooked smile when she'd looked over the park. Her laugh.
"Let's file the papers. Then we'll go get a beer. Hey, you do drink beer, don'tcha?"
"Yeah, I drink beer," Tal said.
"We'll make a cop outta you yet, Einstein."
Tal clipped his seat belt on, deciding that being a Real cop was the last thing in the world he wanted.
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A BEEP ON THE INTERCOM. "Mr. Covey's here, sir."
"I'll be right there." Dr. William Farley rose from his desk, a glass-sheet-covered Victorian piece his business partner had bought for him in New England on one of the man's buying sprees. Farley would have been content to have a metal desk or even a card table.
But in the business of medicine, not the practice, appearances count. The offices of the Lotus Foundation, near the mall containing Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, were filled with many antiques in this rococo style. Farley had been amused when they'd moved here three years ago to see the fancy furniture, paintings, objets d'art. Now, they were virtually invisible to him. What he greatly preferred was the huge medical facility itself behind the offices. As a doctor and researcher, that was the only place he felt truly at home.
Forty-eight, slim to the point of being scrawny, hair with a mind of its own, Farley had nonetheless worked hard to rid himself of his backroom medical researcher's image. He now pulled on his thousand-dollar suit jacket and applied a comb. He paused at the door, took a deep breath, exhaled and stepped into a lengthy corridor to the Foundation's main lobby. It was deserted except for the receptionist and one elderly man, sitting in a deep plush couch.
"Mr. Covey?" the doctor asked, extending his hand.
The man set down the coffee cup he'd been given by the receptionist and they shook hands.
"Dr. Farley?"
A nod.
"Come on into my office."
They chatted about the weather as Farley led him down the narrow corridor to his office. Sometimes the patients here talked about sports, about their families, about the paintings on the walls.
Sometimes they were so nervous they said nothing at all.
Entering the office, Farley gestured toward a chair and then sat behind the massive desk. Covey glanced at it, unimpressed. Farley looked him over. He didn't appear particularly wealthy--an off-the-rack suit, a tie with stripes that went one way while those on his shirt went another. Still, the director of the Lotus Foundation had learned enough about rich people to know that the wealthiest were those who drove hybrid Toyota gas savers and wore raincoats until they were threadbare.
Farley poured more coffee and offered Covey a cup.
"Like I said on the phone yesterday, I know a little about your condition...Your cardiologist is Jennifer Lansdowne, right?"
"That's right."
"And you're seeing someone from the Cardiac Support Center at the hospital."
Covey frowned. "I was."
"You're not any longer?"
"A problem with the nurse they sent me. I haven't decided if I'm going back. But that's a whole 'nother story."
"Well, we think you might be a good candidate for our services here, Mr. Covey. We offer a special program to patients in certain cases."
"What kind of cases?"
"Serious cases."
"The Lotus Foundation for Alternative Treatment," Covey recited. "Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think ginseng and acupuncture work for serious cases."
"That's not what we're about." Farley looked him over carefully. "You a businessman, sir?"
"Was. For half a century."
"What line?"
"Manufacturing. Then venture capital."
"Then I imagine you generally like to get straight to the point."
"You got that right."
"Well, then let me ask you this, Mr. Covey. How would you like to live forever?"
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"HOW'S THAT?"
In the same way that he'd learned to polish his shoes and speak in words of less than four syllables, Farley had learned how to play potential patients like trout. He knew how to pace the pitch. "I'd like to tell you about the Foundation. But first would you mind signing this?" He opened the drawer of his desk and passed a document to Covey.
He read it. "A nondisclosure agreement."
"It's pretty standard."
"I know it is," the old man said. "I've written 'em. Why do you want me to sign it?"
"Because what I'm going to tell you can't be made public."
He was intrigued now, the doctor could tell, though trying not to show it.
"If you don't want to, I understand. But then I'm afraid we won't be able to pursue our conversation further."
Covey read the sheet again. "Got a pen?"
Farley handed him a Mont Blanc; Covey took the heavy barrel with a laugh suggesting he didn't like ostentation very much. He signed and pushed the document back.
"You got an interesting approach to medical services, Doctor. You cheer up all your patients this way?"
Dr. Farley smiled. "We hear a lot about aging nowadays."
"Can't turn on the TV without it."
"And about people trying to stay young forever."
"Second time you used that word. Keep going."
"Mr. Covey, you ever hear about the Hayflick limit?"
"Nope. Never have."
"Named after the man who discovered that human cells can reproduce themselves a limited number of times. At first, they make perfect reproductions of themselves. But after a while they can't keep up that level of quality control, you could say; they become more and more inefficient."
"Why?"
Covey, he reflected, was a sharp one. Most people he pitched sat there and nodded with stupid smiles on their faces. He continued. "There's an important strand of DNA that gets shorter and shorter each time the cells reproduce. When it gets too short, the cells go haywire and they don't duplicate properly. Sometimes they stop altogether."
"I'm following you in general. But go light on the biology bullshit. Wasn't my strong suit."
"Fair enough, Mr. Covey. Now, there're some ways to cheat the Hayflick limit. In the future it may be possible to extend life span significantly, dozens, maybe hundreds of years."
"That ain't forever."
"No, it's not."
"So cut to the chase."
"We'll never be able to construct a human body that will last more than a few hundred years at the outside. The laws of physics and nature just don't allow it. And even if we could we'd still have disease and illness and accidents that shorten life spans."
"This's getting cheerier and cheerier."
"Now, Dr. Lansdowne'll do what she can medically and the Cardiac Support Center will give you plenty of help."
"Depending on the nurse," Covey muttered. "Go on."
"And you might have another five, ten, fifteen years...Or you can consider our program." Farley handed Covey a business card and tapped the logo of the Lotus Foundation, a golden flower. "You know what the lotus signifies in mythology?"