Mirror Image

by Dennis Palumbo

  My new life, I thought. Cameras and subpoenas.

  I got on my cell and checked the messages. The first was from Johnny Manella, who’d called last night.

  “Hey, I just heard from Aunt Angie that now the cops are lookin’ at you for that shrink’s murder. Mother of God. Maybe now you’ll listen to your favorite cousin and get some legal. Try Ralph Puzzini, best criminal attorney in the biz. He got Manny Salerno off last year, remember? And not for nothin’, but you still owe me a dinner.”

  The next message was from Paul Atwood. After assuring me that my none of my patients were in crisis, he went on to the reason he’d called.

  “I just heard on the news about your patient’s real name. Damn, talk about deep pockets. But if Wingfield is going to sue, forget about those limp-dick APA lawyers. You need a cruise missile. I had a friend who hired some guy named Harvey Blalock. Specializes in clinical malpractice. My friend swears by him. Write down this number.”

  I did, and immediately dialed Blalock’s office. To my surprise, his secretary put me right through.

  “Dr. Rinaldi? Harvey Blalock.” His voice was rich, deep. Practiced in giving assurance.

  “Sounds like you were expecting me.”

  He chuckled. “Well, let’s just say I had a feeling. I saw the news like everybody else this morning.”

  “So how bad’s this going to be?”

  “My guess? As bad as it gets. You been home lately?”

  “Funny you should ask. I happen to be hiding in my car around the corner. I see reporters. I see process-servers.”

  “Okay, here’s the drill. Talk to no one. Check into a hotel. As soon as we hang up, I’ll contact Wingfield’s people and get the paperwork flowing in my direction. From now on, the only communication you have with Wingfield or his representatives will be through me. I’ll get all the necessary patient files, statute listings and opposition expert testimony from his lawyers. Any idea who they’re using to make you look like an incompetent piece of shit?”

  “Dr. Phillip Camden.”

  “Jesus H. We’re gonna have our work cut out for us. By the way, I assume you’re retaining me.”

  “Well, you come highly recommended. Plus, as we speak, I’m watching my front lawn turn into a media circus. Given the circumstances, Mr. Blalock, I think I’ll go with my gut and sign on with you.”

  “A wise decision. And call me Harvey. Now give me your cell number and let me go to work.”

  “Before we hang up, you ever hear of a defense lawyer named Ralph Puzzini?”

  Blalock gave another short laugh. “Man, you are having a helluva week. But, sure, if you need a criminal attorney, Puzzini’s at the top of the food chain. I also know a good forensics accountant, if you’re in trouble with the IRS.”

  “Not yet, but the day’s young. Thanks.”

  I hung up. Through the windshield, I saw one of the Mobil attendants pointing in my direction and talking excitedly to a guy wearing a press badge.

  I turned the key in the ignition as the reporter started running toward the car.

  “Hey! Dr. Rinaldi! Wait—!”

  I almost side-swiped the guy peeling out of there, jumping the curb, and heading back toward the Incline.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Sam Weiss pointed to the thick, sloppy sandwich in his other hand. “Now this is a cheesesteak. With fries, slaw, and tomatoes. In the damn sandwich.”

  We were crowded into a corner table at Primanti Brothers Deli, on the Strip. Packed as usual at lunchtime, the noise level was off the scale.

  Sam had put on a few pounds since I’d last seen him, but still owned that same crooked smile and tousled jet-black hair. Maybe the same jeans. Though my age and the father of two, Sam always looked like he just came from the dorm.

  He took a gulp of his Rolling Rock. “Funny I’m seeing you today. I’m doing a big new piece on Leland Sinclair.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “The Wingfield case is a DA’s dream. Unless he doesn’t nail it down.”

  “Yeah, but he’s a tough interview. Never shows the cracks, know what I mean? Doesn’t mix it up.”

  “He’s a WASP, Sam. All they want is Scotch and quiet.”

  Sam drained his beer and signaled for another, then reached under his chair for his briefcase. I watched him, nursing my Iron City, as he flipped through some folders.

  “Thanks again for doing this,” I said.

  His glance up at me was sober. “Hey,” he said. Then he moved our plates aside and laid out some papers.

  “Some of this I got from McMahon in Business. Some from an SEC guy who owes me. Plus a couple sources I can’t tell you about. How much do you want?”

  “For now, just the highlights.”

  He glanced up to acknowledge our young waitress as she put another beer down in front of him. He watched her saunter away for a long moment, then looked back at me.

  “Well, first of all, what do you know about a guy named Terry Mavis?”

  “Name sounds familiar. Some kind of scientist?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Won the Nobel-fucking-Prize, Danny. He was, like, ahead of everybody in gene mapping, or whatever. Real Brainiac, but with no head for business.”

  “That’s important?”

  “Hell, yeah. Let’s say you’re a genius when it comes to cutting-edge genetic technology. Your ideas about creating new, life-saving drugs will revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry. But you’re not interested in all that. You just wanna have fun. Do drugs and party on yachts and get laid till Mr. Happy falls off.”

  He offered me a press photo of Mavis accepting his Nobel award. He was beefy, with a broad face framed by long, darkish blond hair. He looked a lot like Meat Loaf.

  “Damn shame, too,” Sam went on. “’Cause Mavis was in the same league with Salk. Watson and Crick. Those guys.”

  “Was?”

  Sam smiled. “I’m getting to that.”

  I waited impatiently while he glanced through some color-coded folders. Apparently, he had a system.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “Here’s where we jump ahead in our story. Now this is in the public record. What everybody knows. Miles Wingfield lives in Banford, Pennsylvania, a widower with two kids. Pillar of the community. Vice-president of the Sunshine Savings and Loan. Then, according to his official bio, a business opportunity enables him to quit his job and move to Palo Alto, California.”

  I held up my hand.

  “Wait a minute. That’s a pretty big gap there. Any ‘official’ reference to what happened to his kids?”

  “Nope. Not that I could find.”

  I sipped my beer. There had to be Social Services or family court documents detailing the incest allegations, since they led to mandated separation of Kevin and his sister. However, given the ages of the children, the records had probably been sealed. I did wonder if there were documents regarding their placement in separate foster homes following Wingfield’s sudden departure from town.

  Sam was studying me intently. “’Course, since Wingfield’s son ended up as your patient years later, I guess you know more about what happened back there than I do.”

  “Nice try. Nothing I can talk about.”

  “But something weird happened in Banford, right? All my research keeps turning up rumors that Wingfield had to leave. That whatever this ‘business opportunity’ was, he leaped at the chance to skip town.”

  I shrugged. He shook his head.

  “Anyway, speaking of gaps, when Wingfield did show up in Palo Alto, he had over two million million bucks in his pocket. And nobody knows how he got it. His official line is that it came from investments. But my Wall Street buddy says the rumor is, he’d embezzled it from Sunshine Savings and Loan. Nothing was ever proven, but…”

  “Wait. Back up a minute. What exactly happened to his wife? I mean, how did she die?”

  Sam shuffled some papers, pulled out a Xerox of a faded newspaper article from the Banford Messenger.

  “I
had one of their people fax me the story this morning. Goes back fifteen, sixteen years.”

  He pointed to the photo accompanying the article. It was a posed shot of a slim, pale woman in a print dress standing next to a younger, sober-faced Miles Wingfield. “That was his wife. The former Dorothy Louise Carlyle.”

  It looked like they’d been photographed at some sort of Christmas party, perhaps for the bank. Other couples in conservative suits and dresses were arrayed behind them.

  But, as I would have guessed, Wingfield stood out. Not only because his suit looked new and tailored. It was the way his eyes looked almost challengingly at the camera. Chin stiff, he’d refused to smile. To be “caught” among these people. Everything about him seemed to proclaim “I don’t belong here…”

  “Miles and Dorothy were married for nearly eighteen years,” Sam went on. “Then, about six months after this photo was taken, Wingfield takes the kids to the movies. When they get home, they find Mom lying dead in the bathtub. She’s swallowed a bottle of pills.”

  “Any suspicion of foul play?”

  “None. She did leave a note, though. It just said, ‘I can’t take it anymore.’ Whatever the hell that meant.”

  Maybe Wingfield’s wife knew what was going on between her two children and couldn’t cope with it. Blamed herself in some way. Or maybe it was something else. Some private torment having nothing to do with any of this.

  Sam put the article and some other papers in a manila envelope. “Anyway, here’s all the Banford stuff I have. As much local color as I could scare up.”

  “This is more than I expected, Sam. Thanks. But getting back to Wingfield…”

  Sam took a long pull of his beer. “Like I was saying, he shows up in California with serious money and starts looking around for something to do with it. Besides buying clothes and cars. I mean, really giving his life a total up-grade. Which is when he hooks up with Terry Mavis.”

  He grinned. “Maybe they met on one of those yachts I mentioned, ’cause Wingfield turns out to be a real party animal once he hits the West Coast. Anyway, Wingfield starts bank-rolling Terry’s genetic research in exchange for the lion’s share of the patent ownership.”

  “Smart move,” I said. “Wingfield gets in on the gravy train just as it’s leaving the station.”

  “Classic Horatio Alger story, except with a nice twist.” Sam’s smile was more crooked than usual. “Just as they’re about to go public, Terry Mavis conveniently OD’s. Cocaine cocktail. The company’s thrown into turmoil, legal battles ensue. But when the smoke clears, Miles Wingfield is sole owner of the patents and launches his new venture, Wingfield BioTech. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

  Sam spread out some additional folders.

  “Check this out. Last couple years, the company diversified like crazy. Hit the Triple Crown of corporate greed—research, production, and distribution.”

  I began flipping through the folders. “With all that diversification,” I said, “I’m betting that includes health-related franchises. Insurance groups, hospitals.”

  Then I found it. UniHealth.

  Sam tipped the folder toward him, reading upside-down. “Yeah. Wingfield BioTech is the principal shareholder in UniHealth. They’ve been buying up high-end mental health facilities and nursing homes. Nowadays, babyboomers with big portfolios need somewhere to stash their crazy kids and elderly parents. UniHealth saw a vacuum in the market and started filling it.”

  I nodded. “They just bought out Ten Oaks.”

  Sam whistled. “Where that shrink turned up murdered?”

  “Yeah. Brooks Riley.”

  “Think there might be a connection?”

  I gave him a look. “I’m listening.”

  “Just spit-balling here, but what if this Riley guy objected to Ten Oaks selling out?”

  I shook my head. “I know the clinical director, Bert Garman, well enough that if Brooks was putting up a stink about it he would’ve told me. Besides, even if Brooks did object, he had no power to stop it. Garman not only runs the place, he heads up the Board of Directors. And from what I’ve heard, the Board couldn’t wait to sell the place to UniHealth. Pretty big pay-day for all concerned.”

  Sam frowned. “Still…I mean, the guy did get shot. You think it has anything to do with Miles Wingfield, too?”

  I leaned back in my seat, stretched. “Hell, Sam. I don’t know. At this point, I’m just trying to—”

  Suddenly, my cell phone rang. It was Casey.

  “You need to take that?” Sam asked.

  I nodded, and answered the phone. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “Danny. You’re not gonna believe this.” Her voice was breathless. “I just talked to Biegler. Remember I told you he sent Polk up to Cloverbrook to talk to Stickey?”

  “Yeah. What did Stickey have to say?”

  “Not much. They found him this morning in the prison laundry. With a shiv stuck in his throat.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  An hour later, I was checked into a room at the mid-town Hyatt. On Sam’s insistence, I’d borrowed one of his credit cards and registered under his name. He said any seasoned reporter would routinely canvas all the hotels in the area, promising a healthy finder’s fee to the desk employee who coughed up my room number.

  “You just have to lay low for the next couple news cycles,” Sam had said. “They’ll lose interest in you as soon as there’s a break in the case.”

  “If there’s a break.” We shook hands. “Thanks again.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just don’t get killed. There might be another book in this when it’s all over, and I’ll need you as a source.”

  “I’ll try not to let you down.”

  My hotel room was on the top floor, with a view toward the Three Rivers. Cathedrals of clouds rose over the far hills, presaging another storm coming in from the west.

  I’d turned on the news as soon as I got in the room, but didn’t hear anything about the death of an inmate at Cloverbrook. No surprise. The cops were probably keeping it under wraps. Then I surfed the cable channels, but they were just rehashing the known facts about Kevin’s case.

  I shut off the TV and began sorting out on the bed all the info Sam had given me. I knew it’d be slow going. Maybe later tonight, after I’d taken care of some other things.

  I took fifteen minutes to shave and shower, and then I pulled up a chair at the small varnished desk. I looked at my watch. I had two hours.

  ***

  “Sylvia?”

  “Yes? Who—? Is this Dr. Rinaldi?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  I let a long silence hang in the air, watching the blinking light on the hotel phone console.

  Sylvia Lange’s voice changed during that silence, came across the line now flooded with feeling. “Oh, Doctor…”

  I could hear the tears. Her crying was hushed, choked, as though parceled out in careful patches of breath.

  “I was hoping you’d call,” she said finally. “I mean, with everything in the news…I was so worried—”

  “I know, Sylvia. And I appreciate it.” I also knew what she needed to hear. “But I’m fine. Really.”

  “That’s good. I’ve been praying for you, you know.”

  “Couldn’t hurt either. But I was wondering about you. With this latest appeal for Dowd, and now the movie…”

  “I don’t know which upsets me more, the thought of him getting away with it, or that damned movie.” She sniffed. “And I know it’s silly, but I don’t look anything like Susan Sarandon. Though God knows I wish I did.”

  “Dowd isn’t getting away with anything, Sylvia. His lawyer’s just trying to get around the death penalty. But the Handyman’s locked up tight. Forever. He won’t be able to hurt you or anyone else again.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I paused. “Are you still seeing the psychiatrist?”

  “Yes. Dr. Fukanaga. He’s upped my Zoloft. What a surprise. Plus I have a new therapist, who’s pretty
good, even though she’s half my age. And I’m in a local trauma survivor’s group. So I guess I’m covered, therapy-wise.”

  “I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.”

  “Yeah. But I miss you, Dr. Rinaldi. I wish I hadn’t moved so far away.”

  “You said yourself, you needed a change of scenery. Some anonymity. And I hear Bucks County’s beautiful.”

  “Sure. If you like clean air and mountains and lakes.”

  I smiled, visualizing her round, matronly face. That sturdy, wry humor. She probably owed her sanity to it.

  I spoke softly. “Listen, Sylvia. I’m still here. I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “I…Thanks for saying that. Just knowing you’re out there…thinking about me sometimes…it helps.”

  After we hung up, I stared out the hotel window, at the approaching darkness. In all the ways that matter, Sylvia was still my patient.

  It’s a lesson they don’t teach in school. About what really happens between a therapist and patient. That when the therapy works, something intangible, indelible, is exchanged, so that a felt trace of the other is imprinted, forever, on the soul.

  ***

  I figured I’d better check in on Noah, too, so I phoned the bar.

  “Noah’s Ark, Noah speaking.”

  “Me. Just wanted to make sure you got home all right.”

  “Where’d I go?”

  I laughed. “Last time we spoke, you were in a phone booth at the Penn Hotel.”

  “Oh, yeah. No worries, Charlene sent a cab for me. Made the guy’s day. I’m a big tipper, as you know.”

  “Well, try to stay put tonight, okay?”

  “Will do. Besides, my band’s playin’ tonight, and I was gonna invite you to come check it out.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “We got a guy sittin’ in on sax, some blues freak from Jersey. I think he’s bipolar. Anyway, wait’ll you hear us. Man, we put the funk in dysfunction.”

  Before I could answer, my cell phone rang. It was in the pocket of my jacket, which was thrown over a chair.