Bonnie

by Iris Johansen

  “Shut up.” Eve pulled to the side of the road. “Get out and get moving.”

  Temple scrambled out of the car. “I’m going. Keep him away from me.” He took off at a trot. “Think about it. No one has to know about that past history. Name your price.” He saw Gallo get out of the car. “Anything you want,” he said panicked as he started to run. “Money is what it’s all about. Everyone knows that.”

  Eve saw that Gallo’s muscles were tensed, and his gaze was fixed on the fleeing Temple. He was very close to having that tension explode into action.

  “Don’t go after him,” she said quietly. “Get in the car, John.”

  “He’s a weasel,” Gallo said tightly. “But sometimes weasels can be dangerous when they’re in the right position. How careful do you think he was when he was a resident at that hospital? Those guys were helpless, and they deserved someone to tend to them who would at least give them adequate care. Hell, they should have let those patients keep their guns before they turned doctors like Temple loose on them.”

  “He’s not in that position any longer. I’m sure there are good doctors at that hospital, too.” Distract him quickly. “We have to find out who treated your uncle and see if we can get a lead. Is there anyone else you can think of who might know anything about him? You once mentioned to me he was engaged at one time.”

  “She married someone else when he was overseas, and he never saw her again.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He shook his head. “I would have said yes if you’d asked me that a few days ago. I’m not sure of anything about him any longer.”

  “Did he have any close friends?”

  “No, he was pretty much of a loner. Occasionally, one of his Army buddies would come to town, and he’d go out for a drink.”

  “One of them might still know something. Get in the car and make a list of the ones who you remember.”

  His glance shifted back to Temple, who was still running and was almost out of sight. “You’re trying to throw a red herring in front of me.”

  “Yes, but it’s a necessary red herring.”

  He glanced back at her. “Catherine would have let me take him down.”

  “Would she? I don’t believe you know her well enough to assume that.” But Catherine might have understood that black-and-white philosophy where evil was instantly punished. She had lived in the same deadly world as Gallo. “At any rate, Catherine and I are different in that respect. Get in the car, John.”

  He gave one last glance at Temple and turned away. “We didn’t find out as much as I hoped from him.” He got into the car. “Other than it was Jacobs who was the payoff man. Jacobs often did the dirty work when he and Queen needed a job done. But how the hell did Uncle Ted become involved with Jacobs?”

  Eve shrugged. “I have no idea. And we may not know until we catch up with Ted Danner. So why don’t you start making a list of possible people your uncle might have contacted?”

  “I don’t think it will do much good.” He took her computer, opened a document, and started to type. “But I’ll try to remember.”

  She reached for her phone. “And I’ll try to get in touch with Catherine and see if she’s managed to tap into the hospital records.”

  * * *

  “I’M AT THE RECORDS OFFICE now,” Catherine said when she picked up Eve’s call. “Joe and I just got here. Venable was having trouble accessing records because the confidential aspect is sometimes doubled at a VA hospital. Some of these guys were special ops, and it’s best that no one gives al Qaeda a chance to ID who they are. They always have bull’s-eyes painted on them.”

  “But you think you’ll be able to get them?”

  “I’ll get them. Give me another twenty minutes. The records clerk isn’t a bad guy, he’s just careful. What do you want to know?”

  “Temple was a bust. The only information he could give us was that Jacobs was the one who paid him for falsifying the records. He doesn’t know why. He also has no idea where Danner is now. We’re looking for any contacts we can find who will give us a lead. Nurses, doctors, therapists.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Catherine paused. “What did Gallo say when you told him that Danner was definitely alive and raising general hell?”

  “What would you say if the only person you’d loved from the time you were a kid was turning out like this? Denial. Bewilderment. Even guilt toward you because he couldn’t force himself to kill Danner when he threw that knife.”

  “Idiot. He stopped him, didn’t he? That’s all that’s important. I’ll call you when I get through these records.” Catherine hung up and turned to Joe. “Temple told them that Jacobs was the payoff man for the bogus death certificate. No other information. They want to see if we can find a possible contact with someone in the hospital who could tell us where Danner is now.”

  “Then let’s get going,” Joe said as he gestured to the clerk sitting at his desk across the room. “Work some magic, Catherine.”

  “No magic needed,” Catherine said. “Sincerity is the key word here. You could do it as well as I could.”

  “I beg to differ,” Joe said dryly. “He might give in and give me what we want eventually, but not in twenty minutes as you promised Eve. Unless I got rough with him. But persuasion is always better, and you garnish persuasion with a certain glamour that makes it more palatable.”

  She suddenly whirled on him. “‘Glamour’?” she repeated. “Bullshit. I hate it when you or anyone else assumes that I try to use seduction as the answer to every problem. I’m not a whore. I use my brains, not my body, to do my job.”

  “Whew, I didn’t mean to cause an explosion.” Joe’s smile faded. “I know you’re not a whore, Catherine. I never meant to suggest anything like that. But I also know that you’re not too stupid to know what your effect is on the male population. It’s all one package. I’ve known that from the beginning. Eve thinks that it would offend your independence to ever use the fact that you’re a gorgeous woman to shift the balance in a fight. I told her I didn’t agree. It’s just another weapon that you have in your arsenal. You prefer not to use it, but you wouldn’t discount it if it came to life or death. You’re a survivor, like me. And you’re a very practical woman.”

  She shouldn’t have lost her temper. That outburst had come out of nowhere. It had been a rough few weeks, and she was feeling ragged and frustrated. “Yes, I am.” She met his gaze. “I have to live. I have a son, Luke, to support and try to give a decent life. Would I do anything in the world to keep him safe? You bet I would. I’d steal or whore or kill. But you have to choose what’s important enough to you to blow all the barriers. So far I’ve only found one, Luke.” She smiled faintly. “And you’ve found Eve. Yeah, I’m like you, Joe.” She moved toward the clerk. “And you’re right, if necessary I’ll use the fact that men can be persuaded to give me what I want just on the chance they might get a chance to jump me. So let’s get that information and call Eve back.”

  Providence, Georgia

  THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN over the great canyon in a burst of glory. Light and beauty were all around Danner, but he could see only blackness.

  Despair was washing over him in a great wave. He had come rushing back from seeing Father Barnabas to assure himself that he could still be saved; but even in this place, there was no solace. The darkness was creeping toward him, over hills, through the trees, blocking out the light.

  “You’re wrong, Ted. The light is still here. You’re just not seeing it.”

  He stiffened and whirled toward the hillside.

  The little girl in the Bugs Bunny T-shirt, her red hair blazing in the failing light, stood there staring at him.

  “No!” He whirled and ran away from her, stumbling, falling, picking himself up, and running again. His heart was beating so hard it was hurting him. He had to get away from her.

  Why had she come? To torment him? To tell him that there were more demons for him to fight?

  “Ted.”<
br />
  She was following him.

  He wouldn’t look at her. “Go away.” His voice cracked as he tried to control it. “I’ll do what you want. Give you anything. Just go away.”

  He knew she was speaking, but he closed her out as he ran through the hills.

  Get away from her. Get away from the darkness.

  Go back to the world and do her bidding.

  Go back to the priest and force him to find out what he needed to know.

  Go back and kill the demons.

  CHAPTER

  8

  “HERE IT IS, JOE.” CATHERINE pulled up the file on the hospital computer. “Theodore Danner.” She checked the date of entry and date of last treatment. “He was a patient here for a number of years. First, for his spinal injury, then follow-up rehabilitation. Eve said he was almost crippled when she met him. His surgery must have been very successful.”

  “Apparently,” Joe said. “He was moving like a young man when we saw him at the bayou. Who was his surgeon?”

  Catherine back-clicked. “Dr. Kevin Donnelly.” Then she frowned. “No, that’s not right.” She clicked back another page. “Dr. Michael Worzak did the spinal surgery. It was a brilliant success, total recovery. But it was the last mention of Worzak. All of these other pages are appointments with Kevin Donnelly.”

  “Rehab?”

  “No, there are notations of appointments with Donnelly even before the spinal surgery. They sent him to Donnelly on the recommendation of his doctor at the VA hospital in Milwaukee.” She frowned in puzzlement. “Maybe Donnelly wasn’t a surgeon and only did the preliminary. I’ll try to go back to the letter of recommendation and see why Donnelly was assigned as Danner’s physician. Danner must have been in tremendous pain. There’s a list of medications here administered to Danner that would choke a horse.” Her gaze traveled down the list. She stiffened. “Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “Thorazine. I remember that drug. Hu Chang used it occasionally as a base for some of his potions.”

  “Your resident Hong Kong witch doctor?”

  “That’s not funny. Hu Chang is brilliant.”

  “And lethal.”

  “Sometimes.” More often than not. She and Hu Chang had worked together when she was a teenager in Hong Kong on less-than-legal endeavors. He was amazingly creative when a poison or drug was needed. “But he’s my friend, so keep quiet, Joe. Thorazine, dammit.” She was checking the other medications. She recognized a few, and they were all leading in one direction. She flipped back to the beginning of Danner’s file. It was the letter of recommendation from a Dr. Herbert Nils from the VA hospital in Milwaukee. She started to read.

  She inhaled sharply. “My God…”

  * * *

  “I WANT TO TALK TO GALLO,” Catherine said when she called Eve ten minutes later. “You listen, too, Eve. Put me on speaker.”

  “You found out something?”

  “Yeah, something I should have suspected. Are you there, Gallo?”

  “He’s here.” Eve turned to Gallo and handed him her phone. “Talk to her.”

  “Yes, talk to me, Gallo,” Catherine said. “I’m a bit pissed about your trying to avoid me. I didn’t deserve it, and you’re an ass for doing it. Though I don’t know why I should care.”

  “Neither do I, Catherine.” He paused. “What do you want to say to me?”

  “I don’t want to say anything to you. I want to ask you a question. What do you know about a Dr. Herbert Nils?”

  “Nothing.” He frowned. “What should I know?”

  “He was your uncle’s doctor at the VA hospital in Milwaukee. You were with him when he was undergoing treatment up there, right? You and your uncle shared an apartment?”

  “That’s right. But for the last year before we moved down here, I was traveling the country with a couple buddies. When I came back, he told me that his doctor had recommended he go to a specialist in Atlanta.”

  “Dr. Nils suggested it?”

  Gallo frowned. “I think that was the name.”

  “And did you ever meet him? Did he ask you to come in to discuss your uncle’s condition?”

  “No. My uncle was always intensely private. Particularly when he came back after his discharge. He’d always been so strong, and I think it embarrassed him that he wasn’t the man he once was.”

  “And did you meet his doctor in Atlanta?”

  “I was only in Atlanta about six weeks before I went to basic training.”

  “And you were obviously suffering a pretty intense distraction when you got down there.”

  Gallo glanced at Eve. “You could say that.”

  “Why are you asking these questions, Catherine?” Eve asked impatiently. “What difference does it make whether Gallo knew his doctor?”

  “It makes a difference to me,” Catherine said. “I had to know if Gallo knew about Danner. Gallo’s not stupid. I couldn’t see why he would be so damned shocked, and I didn’t want to think he was a liar and pretending.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Gallo asked roughly. “I don’t lie, Catherine.”

  “I couldn’t be sure. You’ve been behaving pretty weird since your uncle showed up on the scene.”

  “Why would I lie about knowing Nils?”

  “Thorazine.”

  “What?”

  “It’s one of the meds your uncle was taking. You told me once that he was once addicted to prescription drugs. It doesn’t surprise me. The amount of drugs he was given at the hospital in Atlanta was staggering. I imagine they kept him pretty well out of it in that VA hospital in Milwaukee, too.”

  “He was in pain.”

  “Maybe. But that wasn’t the main reason he was given drugs.”

  “What is this Thorazine? And why would that have made you think I was lying to you?”

  “Thorazine is a very powerful drug, and it was prescribed by both Nils and your uncle’s doctor in Atlanta. I recognized it because Hu Chang used it as one of the ingredients when he concocted a knockout potion that could also cause severe disorientation.”

  “I imagine most pain medication can be used to do that.”

  “Yes, but Thorazine was better than the majority of drugs.” She paused. “Because it was used in psychiatric treatments for schizophrenia. It was also useful in cases of split or multipersonality when combined with other drugs.”

  “What?”

  “Dr. Nils was a psychiatrist. The honorable discharge Ted Danner received from the Army was on the condition that he seek help and have regular therapy from an accredited psychiatrist.”

  “No, he had a back injury.”

  “Yes, but that was minor. He would have been able to return to active duty after his operation except for his mental problems.”

  “It’s not true,” Gallo said harshly. “He was as sane as you are. And he wouldn’t have lied to me.”

  “He did lie to you. It was all in that letter from Dr. Nils.” She paused. “Something happened on that last tour of duty in the Middle East. According to Nils’s letter, Danner’s superiors said that he was behaving irrationally and had fits of violence. They had noticed it before, but it became more pronounced, and they couldn’t overlook it. Then there was an incident.”

  “What kind of an incident?”

  “Nils didn’t know. Perhaps the military didn’t want to crucify Danner after his years of valiant and loyal service to the Army. Or maybe they just didn’t want to cause a situation that might be awkward for them. Anyway, the doctor who recommended the discharge merely said that Danner had done something that made it impossible to keep him with his unit, and they discharged him. Nils tried to treat your uncle, but he wasn’t having any luck. Danner wouldn’t talk to him, so he referred him to a specialist in Atlanta who was supposed to be the best psychiatrist in the Veterans Administration. Dr. Kevin Donnelly.”

  “He would have told me. He wouldn’t have lied.”

  “He loved you. You had a case of king-size her
o worship. Do you think that wasn’t important to him? Mental problems carry a certain stigma in our society.”

  “I wouldn’t have cared. I would have helped him.”

  “But he’d always been your savior. He couldn’t stand to have the situation reversed.”

  Gallo was silent, and Eve could see the conflicting emotions struggling in his expression. He finally said, “And you think he was so sick in the head that he could have killed Bonnie?”

  “I’m not saying that. It’s a possibility. But maybe he only knew about her death and the people who killed her. Why would he kill Jacobs? All I’m saying is that the ugliness we saw in Danner in that bayou may have been growing in him for years. We have to find out the rest.”

  “How, dammit? You said he wasn’t talking to Nils, and Temple hadn’t even seen him before he signed that death certificate.”

  “The psychiatrist who treated him in Atlanta may be the key. Dr. Donnelly’s records show that he was treating him at least twice a week for years. There were a couple periods when he saw him every day for weeks. I’d judge by that that Danner was cooperating with Donnelly. He must have thought he was making progress, or he would have recommended alternate treatment.”

  “You mean put him in an asylum. He’s not crazy. No one can tell me he is.”

  “She’s not trying to tell you he’s crazy, John,” Eve said quietly. “Start thinking with your head instead of your emotions. He had a problem, and it might have caused him to do something that he wouldn’t have done if he’d been well. We have to find out if that happened.”

  “So that you can kill him?” Gallo’s eyes were glittering in his taut face. “That’s where this is leading, isn’t it? You told me once that you’d kill the monster who murdered Bonnie without a second thought.”

  “And I would.” She met his gaze. “I won’t lie to you. If I find out that Ted Danner killed my little girl, I’m not going to care about his mental problems. I’m only going to care that he robbed Bonnie of her life. You may be torn, and I can understand it. But there’s no way I could pity him. It’s not possible for me. You see him as wounded, and I see him as a monster.” She paused. “And I will kill him if he’s guilty. I won’t wait for a court to declare him incompetent and let him free or put him in some plush booby hatch.”