He licked his lips. “It’s possible. The data he collected are still being analyzed.”
“By whom?”
“People.”
“What about Dawn Herbert? Was she in on it?”
“I don’t know what her game was,” he said. “Don’t know if she had one.”
His frustration seemed real.
I said, “Then why’d you chase down her computer disks?”
“Because Ashmore was interested in them. After we started to decode his files, her name came up.”
“In what context?”
“He’d made a coded notation to take her seriously. Called her a ‘negative integer’—his term for someone suspicious. But she was already dead.”
“What else did he say about her?”
“That’s all we’ve gotten so far. He put everything in code—complex codes. It’s taking time to unravel them.”
“He was your boy,” I said. “Didn’t he leave you the keys?”
“Only some of them.” Anger narrowed the round eyes.
“So you stole her disks.”
“Not stole, appropriated. They were mine. She compiled them while working for Ashmore, and Ashmore worked for me, so legally they’re my property.”
He blurted the last two words. The possessiveness of a kid with a new toy.
I said, “This isn’t just a job with you, is it?”
His gaze flicked across the room and back to me. “That’s exactly what it is. I just happen to love my work.”
“So you have no idea why Herbert was murdered.”
He shrugged. “The police say it was a sex killing.”
“Do you think it was?”
“I’m not a policeman.”
“No?” I said, and the look in his eyes made me go on. “I’ll bet you were some kind of cop before you went back to school. Before you learned to talk like a business school professor.”
He gave another eye-flick, quick and sharp as a switchblade. “What’s this, free psychoanalysis?”
“Business administration,” I said. “Or maybe economics.”
“I’m a humble civil servant, Doctor. Your taxes pay my salary.”
“Humble civil servant with a false identity and over a million dollars of phony grant money,” I said. “You’re Zimberg, aren’t you? But that’s probably not your real name, either. What does the ‘B’ on Stephanie’s note pad stand for?”
He stared at me, stood, walked around the room. Touched a picture frame. The hair on his crown was thinning.
“Four and a half years,” I said. “You’ve given up a lot to catch him.”
He didn’t answer but his neck tightened.
“What’s Stephanie’s involvement in all this?” I said. “Besides true love.”
He turned and faced me, flushed again. Not anger this time—embarrassment. A teenager caught necking.
“Why don’t you ask her?” he said softly.
She was in a car parked at the mouth of my driveway, dark Buick Regal, just behind the hedges, out of sight from the terrace. A dot of light darted around the interior like a trapped firefly.
Penlight. Stephanie sat in the front passenger seat, using it to read. Her window was open. She wore a gold choker that caught starlight, and had put on perfume.
“Evening,” I said.
She looked up, closed the book, and pushed the door open. As the penlight clicked off, the dome-light switched on, highlighting her as if she were a soloist onstage. Her dress was shorter than usual. I thought: heavy date. Her beeper sat on the dashboard.
She scooted over into the driver’s seat. I sat where she’d just been. The vinyl was warm.
When the car was dark again, she said, “Sorry for not telling you, but he needs secrecy.”
“What do you call him, Pres or Wally?”
She bit her lip. “Bill.”
“As in Walter William.”
She frowned. “It’s his nickname—his friends call him that.”
“He didn’t tell me. Guess I’m not his friend.”
She looked out the windshield and took hold of the wheel. “Look, I know I misled you a bit, but it’s personal. What I do with my private life is really none of your concern, okay?”
“Misled me a bit? Mr. Spooky’s your main squeeze. What else haven’t you told me about?”
“Nothing—nothing to do with the case.”
“That so? He says he can help Cassie. So why didn’t you get him to pitch in sooner?”
She put her hands on the steering wheel. “Shit.”
A moment later: “It’s complicated.”
“I’ll bet it is.”
“Look,” she said, nearly shouting, “I told you he was spooky because that’s the image he wants to project, okay? It’s important that he be seen as a bad guy to get the job done. What he’s doing is important, Alex. As important as medicine. He’s been working on it for a long time.”
“Four and a half years,” I said. “I’ve heard all about the noble quest. Is getting you in as division head part of the master plan?”
She turned and faced me. “I don’t have to answer that. I deserve that promotion. Rita’s a dinosaur, for God’s sake. She’s been coasting on her reputation for years. Let me tell you a story: A couple of months ago we were doing rounds up on Five East. Someone had eaten a McDonald’s hamburger at the nursing station and left the box up on the counter—one of those Styrofoam boxes for takeout? With the arches embossed right on it? Rita picks it up and asks what it is. Everyone thought she was kidding. Then we realized she wasn’t. McDonald’s, Alex. That’s how out of touch she is. How can she relate to our patient mix?”
“What does that have to do with Cassie?”
Stephanie held her book next to her, like body armor. My night-accustomed eyes made out the title. Pediatric Emergencies.
“Light reading?” I said. “Or career advancement?”
“Damn you!” She grabbed the door handle. Let go. Sank back. “Sure it’d be good for him if I was head—the more friends he can get close to them, the better chance he has of picking up more information to nail them with. So what’s wrong with that? If he doesn’t get them, there’ll be no hospital at all, soon.”
“Friends?” I said. “You sure he knows what that means? Laurence Ashmore worked for him, too, and he doesn’t speak very fondly of him.”
“Ashmore was a jerk—an obnoxious little schmuck.”
“Thought you didn’t know him very well.”
“I didn’t—didn’t have to. I told you how he treated me—how blasé he was when I needed help.”
“Whose idea was it to have him review Chad’s chart in the first place? Yours? Or Bill’s? Trying to dish up some additional dirt on the Joneses?”
“What’s the difference?”
“Be nice to know if we’re doing medicine or politics here.”
“What’s the difference, Alex? What’s the damned difference! The important thing is results. Yes, he’s my friend. Yes, he’s helped me a lot, so if I want to help him back, that’s okay! What’s wrong with that! Our goals are consistent!”
“Then why not help Cassie?” Shouting myself. “I’m sure the two of you have discussed her! Why put her through one more second of misery if Mr. Helpful can put an end to it?”
She cowered. Her back was up against the driver’s door. “What the hell do you want from me? Perfection? Well, sorry, I can’t fill that bill. I tried that—it’s a short road to misery. So just lay off, okay? Okay?”
She began to cry.
I said, “Forget it. Let’s just concentrate on Cassie.”
“I am,” she said in a small voice. “Believe me, Alex, I am concentrating on her—always have been. We couldn’t do anything, because we didn’t know—had to be sure. That’s why I called you in. Bill didn’t want me to, but I insisted on that. I put my foot down—I really did.”
I kept silent.
“I needed your help to find out,” she said. “To know for sure
that Cindy was really doing it to her. Then Bill could help. At that point, we could confront them.”
“Then?” I said. “Or were you just waiting until Bill gave the signal? Until his plan was in place and he was ready to take down the whole family?”
“No! He … We just wanted to do it in a way that would … be effective. Just jumping in and accusing them wouldn’t be …”
“Strategic?”
“Effective! Or ethical—it wouldn’t be the right thing. What if she wasn’t guilty?”
“Something organic? Something metabolic?”
“Why not! I’m a doctor, dammit, not God. How the hell could I know? Just because Chuck’s a piece of slime didn’t mean Cindy was! I wasn’t sure, dammit! Getting to the bottom of it is your job—that’s why I called you in.”
“Thanks for the referral.”
“Alex,” she said plaintively, “why are you making this so painful for me? You know the kind of doctor I am.
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes.
I said, “Since you called me in, I feel I’ve been running a maze.”
“Me too. You think it’s easy having meetings with those sleazeballs and pretending to be their little stooge? Plumb thinks his hand was created in order to rest on my knee.”
She grimaced and pulled her dress lower. “You think it’s easy being with a bunch of docs, passing Bill in the hall and hearing what they say about him? Look, I know he’s not your idea of a nice guy, but you. don’t really know him. He’s good. He helped me.”
She looked out the driver’s window. “I had a problem.… You don’t need to know the details. Oh, hell, why not? I had a drinking problem, okay?”
“Okay.”
She turned around quickly. “You’re not surprised? Did I show it—did I act pathologic?”
“No, but it happens to nice people too.”
“I never showed it at all?”
“You’re not exactly a drooling drunk.”
“No.” She laughed. “More like a comatose drunk, just like my mom—good old genetics.”
She laughed again. Squeezed the steering wheel.
“Now my dad,” she said, “there was your angry drunk. And my brother, Tom, he was a genteel drunk. Witty, charming—very Noel Cowardish. Everyone loved it when he’d had a few too many. He was an industrial designer, much smarter than me. Artistic, creative. He died two years ago of cirrhosis. He was thirty-eight.”
She shrugged. “I postponed becoming an alcoholic for a while—always the contrary kid. Then, during my internship, I finally decided to join the family tradition. Binges on the day off. I was really good at it, Alex. I knew how to clean up just in time to look clever-and-together on rounds. But then I started to slip. Got my timing mixed up. Timing’s always a tricky thing when you’re a closet lush.… A few years ago I got busted for drunk driving. Caused an accident. Isn’t that a pretty picture? Imagine if I’d killed someone, Alex. Killed a kid. Pediatrician turns toddler into road pizza—what a headline.”
She cried again. Dried her eyes so hard it looked as if she were hitting herself.
“Shit, enough with the self-pity—my AA buddies always used to get on me for that. I did AA for a year. Then I broke away from it—no spare time and I was doing fine, right? Then last year, with all the stress—some personal things that didn’t work out—I started again. Those teeny little bottles you get on airplanes? I picked some up on a flight, coming home from an AMA convention. Just a nip before bed. Then a few more … then I started taking the little buggers to the office. For that mellow moment at the end of the day. But I was cool, always careful to put the empties back in my purse, leave no evidence. See, I’m good at subterfuge. You didn’t know that about me till now, did you? But I got you, too, didn’t I? Oh, shit!”
She hit the wheel, then rested her head on it.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Forget it.”
“Sure, it is. It’s okay, it’s great, it’s terrific, it’s wonderful.… One night—a really shitty one, sick kids up the wazoo—I polished off a bunch of little bottles and passed out at my desk. Bill was making a security check and found me at three in the morning. I’d vomited all over my charts. When I saw him standing over me I thought I was going to die. But he held me and cleaned me up and took me home—took care of me, Alex. No one ever did that for me. I was always taking care of my mother because she was always …”
She rolled her brow on the steering wheel.
“It’s because of him that I’m pulling it together. Did you notice all the weight I’ve lost? My hair?”
“You look great.”
“I learned how to dress, Alex. Because it finally mattered. Bill bought me my coffee machine. He understood, because his family was also … His dad was a real nasty drunk. Weekend lush, but he held down a job in the same factory for twenty-five years. Then the company got taken over and dissolved, and his dad lost his job, and they found out the pension fund had been looted. Completely stripped. His dad couldn’t find another job and drank himself to death. Bled out, right in his bed. Bill was in high school. He came home from football practice and found him. Do you see why he understands? Why he needs to do what he’s doing?”
“Sure,” I said, wondering how much of the story was true. Thinking of the Identikit face of the man seen walking into the darkness with Dawn Herbert.
“He raised his mom, too,” she said. “He’s a natural problem solver. That’s why he became a cop, why he took the time to go back to school and learn about finance. He has a Ph.D., Alex. It took him ten years because he was working.” She lifted her head and her profile was transformed by a smile. “But don’t try calling him Doctor.”
“Who’s Presley Huenengarth?”
She hesitated.
“Another state secret?” I said.
“It … Okay, I’ll tell you because I want you to trust me. And it’s no big deal. Presley was a friend of his when he was a kid. A little boy who died of a brain tumor when he was eight years old. Bill used his identity because it was safe—there was nothing on file but a birth certificate, and the two of them were the same age, so it was perfect.”
She sounded breathless—excited—and I knew “Bill” and his world had offered her more than just succor.
“Please, Alex,” she said, “can we just forget all this and work together? I know about the insulin injectors—your friend told Bill. You see, he trusts him. Let’s put our heads together and get her. Bill will help us.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, but he will. You’ll see.”
She hooked her beeper over her belt and the two of us went back up to the house. Milo was still on the couch. Huenengarth/Zimberg/Bill was standing across the room, in a corner, leafing through a magazine.
Stephanie said, “Hi, guys,” in a too-chirpy voice.
Huenengarth closed the magazine, took her by the elbow, and seated her in a chair. Pulling another one close to her, he sat down. She didn’t take her eyes off him. He moved his arm as if to touch her, but unbuttoned his jacket instead.
“Where are Dawn Herbert’s disks?” I said. “And don’t tell me it’s not relevant, because I’ll bet you it is. Herbert may or may not have latched on to what Ashmore was doing for you, but I’m pretty sure she had suspicions about the Jones kids. Speaking of which, have you found Chad’s chart?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the disks?”
“I just sent them over to be analyzed.”
“Do the people analyzing even know what they’re looking at? The random number table?”
He nodded. “It’s probably a substitution code—shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
“You haven’t unscrambled all of Ashmore’s numbers yet. What makes you think you’ll do better with Herbert’s?”
He looked at Stephanie and gave another half-smile. “I like this guy.”
Her return smile was nervous.
“Man raises a good point,” said Milo.
“Ashmore was a special case,” said Huenengarth. “Real puzzle-freak, high IQ.”
“Herbert wasn’t?”
“Not from what I’ve learned about her.”
“Which is?”
“Just what you know,” he said. “Some smarts in math, but basically she was a klepto and a lowlife—doper and a loser.”
As he spat out each noun, Stephanie flinched. He noticed it, turned and touched her hand briefly, let go.
“If something comes up on the disk that concerns you,” he said, “rest assured I’ll let you know.”
“We need to know now. Herbert’s information could give us some direction.” I turned to Milo. “Did you tell him about our friend the bartender?”
Milo nodded.
“Everything?”
“Don’t bother being subtle,” said Huenengarth. “I saw the masterpiece your junkie bartender produced and no, it’s not me. I don’t hack up women.”
“What are you talking about?” said Stephanie.
“Stupidity,” he told her. “They’ve got a description of a murder suspect—someone who may or may not have murdered this Herbert character—and they thought it bore a resemblance to yours truly.”
She put her hand to her mouth.
He laughed. “Not even close, Steph. Last time I was that thin was back in high school.” To me: “Can we get to work now?”
“I’ve never stopped,” I said. “Do you have any information on Vicki Bottomley?”
Huenengarth waved a hand at Milo. “Tell him.”
“We’ve done phone traces from her home to the Jones house and Chip’s office.”
“We?” said Huenengarth.
“Him,” said Milo. “Federal warrant. Next week he sprouts a fucking pair of wings.”
“Find anything?” I said.
Milo shook his head. “No calls. And none of Bottomley’s neighbors have seen Cindy or Chip around, so if there is a link, it’s pretty damn hidden. My intuition is she’s got nothing to do with it. She’s certainly not the main poisoner. Once the chips fall, we’ll see if she fits in, anywhere.”
“So where do we go now?”
Milo looked at Huenengarth. Huenengarth looked at me and held his hand out toward the couch.
Four Classic Alex Delaware Thrillers 4-Book Bundle Page 85
