Although I didn't agree with all of his prescriptions. I always learned something from his opinions.
During the course of one of the patient consultations he had done for me, Sheldon had offered me his home phone number after a frustrating week of phone tag. I jotted that number onto a scrap of paper, hoping he hadn't changed it, and called him from a pay phone at Delilah's Pretty Good Grocery on the corner of College and Ninth. I cursed my own paranoia the whole time I was walking the few blocks from our temporary house to the store.
What was I worried about? I was worried that our telephone at home was tapped. I was worried that I would be followed if I drove to Denver to meet with Sheldon. I was worried that if the killer had not already considered killing Sheldon Salgado, by getting in touch with him I would give my homicidal adversary a damn good reason to remember who it was who admitted him from the psych ER to the psychiatric inpatient unit.
Sheldon answered the phone himself. I was greatly relieved that he was alive, weird.
"Sheldon;" I said., "it's Alan Gregory."
"Hi, hello," he replied in a way that made it perfectly clear he didn't remember who I was and was pretty certain he didn't want to be talking with me.
"WeVe talked before about some patients I've sent your way. I'm a psychologist in Boulder? And believe me. I'm terribly sorry to bother you at home. Especially on a weekend."
"It's all right. This is where I try to be on the weekends. What can I do for you?" His tone was contained, he was being polite, but not gracious. People always wanted things from him, he was not always thrilled about it.
I had given some thought to what might be the most productive way to engage Sheldon's interest in my dilemma. I said. "I’ve recently been contacted by two ex-FBI agents who are concerned that Arnie Dresser's recent death might actually have been murder. You heard about Arnie's death?"
"Yes. Tragic."
Terse.
"Well, these two ex-agents believe that there is some reason to be concerned that a patient Arnie was seeing during his residency may somehow be responsible for his death. I'm hoping that you might have some memories of that patient, and that you might remember something, some details, that would assist us in making some sense of all this."
" 'Us'?" He paused. "Why are you calling me about this, alan? What's your connection to Arnie Dresser?"
I was hoping he would ask that question. I used it as an entree to walk him through the entire progression of this dark absurdity, beginning with Dr. Susan Oliphant's plane crash in ‘989 and ending with Lorna Pope's recent disappearance in New Zealand.
Lorna's death seemed to have a special meaning for him, he interrupted my story and asked. "Lorna is dead?"
"Missing. Some bodies have been found. One of the FBI agents is in Auckland, now, trying to see— what? I don't know.., to see if the body is Lorna's. To try to determine if she was murdered too."
"Loma and I stayed in touch for a while after my training, she and my wife used to play tennis. I don't think I’ve talked with her in a couple of years, though, she's real sweet." The phone line crackled in my ear. Neither of us spoke for fifteen, twenty seconds. Finally, he said. "This sounds quite far-fetched, you know. This story. If what you're suggesting is true, this would be a highly atypical series of crimes for a psychiatric patient."
"Yes. I know."
"How is Sawyer? What became of her?"
His question was small talk. I didn't recall Sawyer ever mentioning a relationship or friendship with Sheldon. I guessed he was buying some time while he tried to make sense of the jigsaw I'd thrown at him. "I saw her yesterday, actually, she seems fine, she consults in the prison system in California. Competency and sanity and death-penalty issues mostly."
"Really? And she shares your concern about.., all this?"
"Yes."
I heard a string instrument. I thought a cello, playing in the background, the same few bars, over and over. Workmanlike, and monotonous, he said. "You're calling me for more than information, aren't you?"
"I guess so. Quite simply: I'm concerned— I'm actually more than concerned— that you might be on this man's list, too, sheldon. You, or someone else from the psych ER. If it turns out that this story has merit and it's an ex-patient from Eight East, you know as well as I do that the admission may well have come through the psych ER. I'm even frightened of leading this guy to you by making this call. I mean, if he hasn't thought of it on his own already. To be extra safe. I'm making this call from a pay phone."
"I guess I should offer my gratitude." He didn't, a long silence told me he was trying to digest my paranoia and other aspects of my mental health. "But me particularly? Why?"
"Well, yes, you particularly. One of the patients whom Sawyer and I are concerned about is someone we're relatively certain that you saw in the psych ER. Sawyer followed him on the Orange Team. I did psychological testing on him, he was a bipolar guy; a chess player, had been picked up by the police out at Fairmount Cemetery digging up graves, and—"
He chuckled. "Yes, he was trying to release Jesus from a casket or something. I remember him. I did see him before he was admitted. I'll check my consultation logs, see if I have anything useful on him."
"You'll what?"
‘ keep a record of everyone I've ever seen. I've done it since medical school. Like a diagnostic diary. Just some brief notes about everybody. Mental status.
J J *
impressions, diagnosis, referrals."
"Do you keep names?"
"Just initials. You don't remember this patient's name?"
"Sawyer thinks she does. But I don't know it." Consultation logs? I'd never heard of such a thing. "You wouldn't by any chance have seen another patient we'ra concerned about? We don't have a name on this one, a male, late twenties, worked at Rocky Flats, he may have stuck in your memory because he offered to trade the identity of D. B. Cooper— you remember the hijacker?— in exchange for immediate discharge from the unit."
"I remember him, too, absolutely. I must have seen him myself or heard about him at rounds or something. Wait, no, I saw him, I saw him. In fact, he made me the same offer about divulging D. B. Cooper's identity when I saw him down in the ER. I have to admit I was tempted, the whole D. B. Cooper thing has always captured my attention."
"You were tempted?"
"Kidding. Let me check my logs. When were you on inpatient rotation? When were these two admitted?"
"Fall rotation. ‘982, the chess player was admitted just before Halloween, a day or two before, maybe. D.B, was Thanksgiving weekend."
He chuckled. "That's ironic, don't you think?"
"Why?" I failed to see the irony.
"That's when the original hijacking occurred. Thanksgiving weekend. Portland to Seattle on Northwest."
"I'd forgotten."
"I haven't. You remember a movie called Brian's Song? About Brian Piccolo, the football player with cancer? It was on TV the first time that same Thanksgivina weekend, the two things have always been linked together in my memory. D. B. Cooper and Brian's Song."
"I loved that movie."
"Me too. Give me an hour to dig out the right logs. I'll call you back. What's your number?"
"How about if I call you back, sheldon?"
"You're quite serious about all this, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid so."
I didn't want to go home, so I walked down College Avenue toward the little commercial district where the eastern boundary of the Hill butts hard against the rest of Boulder, the retail establishments on the Hill exist primarily to serve students from the adjacent university. Bars, coffeehouses, music stores, and bicycle shops are overrepresented. I didn't want a drink, so I stopped into Buchanan's Coffee Pub for something warm. I was the oldest person in the place and, from what I could see, one of the few whose sole source of extraneous metal in my body was my dental fillings.
The coffee was good, the music playing in the room was not too different from what I remembered from my own coll
ege days. I couldn't understand any of the lyrics, though. I rationalized that it wasn't because I was getting old, but rather because I was out of practice.
After coffee I window-shopped and browsed foa CDs. Time dragged. I people-watched from a bench on Thirteenth Street for a while, grew bored with that, and finally found another pay phone and dialed Sheldon's number again, he answered on the first ring.
"I have them both,” he said.
"Great. This is great."
"You have the dates correct, the man you call D.B, is in my records under the initials C.R. I have him down as agitated, oriented, with pressured speech, and some curious obsessive/compulsive features. You know, as I read my notes. I realize he's one of those patients who I wouldn't even consider for admission these days. Not given the current managed-care environment and the advances we've made with medicine, and it says clearly in my log that he would gladly trade D. B. Cooper's identity for a quick discharge."
"Do you have a precipitant?"
"Yes, apparently, he lost it at work. Was threatening someone, wouldn't calm down, they said he was talking crazy about a conspiracy."
"Work was at Rocky Flats?"
"Yes, that's correct. Security department."
"That's it?"
"Let's see, well-groomed twenty-nine-year-old white married male, one child, with no previous psychiatric history. Da da da da da. No family history.
Denied suicidal ideation. Denied hallucinations and delusions. Da da da, that's it."
"Diagnosis?"
"Rule out 30’.40. Rule out 3’2.34 and 297.90."
"I'm sorry, sheldon. I don't have the DSM codes memorized."
"Compulsive personality disorder. Rule out intermittent explosive disorder and atypical paranoid disorder. It says here that I made a call to Wendy Asimoto about him; she was up next, that's it— that's all I have on him, the other one—"
"Just a second. You sent him to Wendy? Sawyer and I recalled that Arnie Dresser treated him upstairs."
"Maybe. Happened all the time, according to my notes, wendy was next up for an admission, but if she had already picked up a new patient— one who hadn't come through the ER— then by the time D.B, made it upstairs he would belong to the next doc on the list. In this case, arnie."
"Oh."
"The other one? The chess player? His initials are V.G."
"How did he present?"
"Classic acute mania. Delusional, agitated. Irritable. Grandiose, he was demonstrating flight of ideas, pressured speech, lots of clever chess associations. Cops said he was more euphoric than irritable when they first picked him up, was certain that they were there to help him dig up the graves."
"History?"
"Didn't get any. His interview wasn't coherent from the point of view of collecting reliable facts. Lorna would have followed up with his family upstairs, wouldn't she?"
I reflected that it was probably what got her killed. I said simply, "Yes, she would have contacted his family."
"I hope this helps."
"It does, sheldon, a lot. Thank you. Listen. I don't know how to ask this next question without sounding totally paranoid. But would you like me to give your name to these two ex-FBI agents?"
"You really think I'm at risk?"
"I don't know. I don't have any way to know."
"Even if this vessel holds water, there's currently no evidence that the man you're looking for is seeking targets who never worked on the Orange Team, that's correct, isn't it?"
"For now, yes. But—"
"But it only takes one to destroy the pattern?"
"Yes, it only takes one."
"I'll be careful. For now. I think I'd prefer to stay out of it, please, and say hello to Sawyer for me, she was a special lady."
"I will. Thanks for your help. Please take care of yourself."
NINETEEN
Lauren met me at the door, one hand on her hip, the other against the wall for balance.
"Hi. I've been worried about you. You're going to need to do a better job of letting me know how long you'll be gone, okay? I was about to use your pager to check on you."
I was sensitive to the possibility that her concern might be bound tightly with criticism, but all I heard was the gentle caution of someone who cared about me, the remanding she sent my way felt sweet, and generous, like an unexpected back rub.
"I'm sorry. You're right. I'll do better about staying in touch. I walked down to the Hill for coffee, and I reached that ER doc, the one who may have admitted that patient, Chester, to the unit. To be on the safe side. I thought I should use a pay phone to call him."
She puffed her cheeks out a little and stared at the cordless phone on the hallway table as though she had just realized it could be a dangerous instrument. "I hadn't thought about that.., that he might have the ability to do that, you know, to tap our phone. I have to remind myself how sophisticated this guy is, he's not just a schoolyard bully, is he?" She shook her head. "So you think this other doctor you talked with, he could be at risk, too?" She answered her own question. "Of course he could."
I nodded. "If I'm being watched, there's no sense marking a trail that leads to him, the good news is that he was able to remember some things that may help Sawyer and me identify this guy."
"Anything you can tell me?"
"I can tell you anything but names, hon, he just provided some information about the nature of this man's initial presentation that first night in the psych ER, sheldon's a great diagnostician, so I put a lot of weight on his impressions. But there's nothing earth-shattering in what he remembers, at this point, though, anything at all feels like a gift. I need to let Sawyer know about it as soon as I can. Did you get a sense of whether or not she'll be home tonight?"
"She faxed this to you." Lauren said, as she grabbed a sheet of paper that was beside the phone on the hallway table. Lauren's new plain-paper fax machine occupied the lower shelf of the same table. "It's her travel plans for the next few days." She read a few lines silently and shook her head side to side. "San Diego. San Quentin. Sacramento. This woman sure gets around."
"She has her own plane. Flies from one prison and court to the next, all over California."
Lauren furrowed her brow. "That's worrisome, that she flies her own plane. Considering what happened to that other pilot doctor, her plane was sabotaged, that's the theory, right?"
"Right. I think it's worrisome that Sawyer is a pilot, too. But Sawyer's pretty cavalier about it. Feels she's taking adequate precautions." I explained about the locked hangar and the trusted airplane mechanic.
Lauren touched me on the shoulder and said. "As far as precautions are concerned, that sounds to me, unfortunately; like the functional equivalent of the rhythm method. I think I need to have another talk with that girl."
"Speaking of that. One of us needs to clue Adrienne in on what's going on up at the Spanish Hills house, the vandalism, especially. I don't want her or Jonas walking into any booby traps."
Lauren said. "I spoke with her while you were gone. You know Ren. It didn't faze her at all, she feels pretty bulletproof in life, she'll keep her eye on things and she'll do her best to keep Jonas away from the construction equipment, which isn't too easy for a boy his age, she's pretty sure there's some link between testosterone and power tools."
"She say anything about Sam and his kidney stone?"
"Not a word, and I didn't ask."
I had to smile, adrienne was a good friend and a wonderful neighbor, but she didn't talk out of school about her patients. "Any other calls?"
"Yes, I spoke with Sam, he's really somber, Alan. I don't think I've ever heard him this ... I don't know, scared, maybe."
"Is he home?"
"No, the stone came out this morning, he hopes to go home later today, and he said to tell you that he likes your idea. Wonders if you'll come by around seven tomorrow morning. But he warned you the first few days, she told him he has to take it pretty easy." She paused. "It's nice of you to offer to exercise wit
h him, he could use someone to be with now, a friend."
"It's not all magnanimous, he can use an exercise partner. I can use a bodyguard, and I may take him out to breakfast, too. Show him what saturated fat actually looks like."
"I think," she said, "you're pushing your luck. Exercise is one thing, changing Sam's diet.., that's something else entirely." She walked up behind me and embraced me, forcing her pelvis against my butt in a pleasing rotation. "You don't have much of an ass, you know?"
"I make up for it by occasionally being an ass,
though."
She bit my upper arm near my shoulder seconds before I felt her lips on my neck. "You know, the kids are asleep—"
"We don't have any kids."
"Shhh, we're not expecting any visitors."
"Almost no one knows that we live here, and certainly none that we'd welcome, anyway."
She couldn't reach my ear with her tongue, but I could tell she was trying.
Sam met me at the door to his house the next morning, he and Sherry lived in a small ranch house in North Boulder, west of Broadway, not far from Community Hospital, as he stepped out onto the compact wooden porch. I thought he looked like an old boxer who was facing the prospect of roadwork after ten years away from the ring. I couldn't tell whether his sweatshirt was older than his sweatpants, but they were both older than his only child.
"You look all right. Sara, given what you've been through. What are you supposed to be doing this morning?"
"Walk twenty, twentv-five minutes. Easv, no hills."
"You're ready?"
"No. But if I say screw it and get in the car and go get a doughnut or two, sherry promises she'll divorce me." "I don't have a patient until nine. Let's get some
breakfast, too, afterward. I'll begin to teach you how to
eat."
"I know how to eat."
"Okay; I'll teach you how to eat healthy."
"God. I'm going to hate this."
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