Tail Spin ft-12

by Catherine Coulter

  The neurologist had told them the disease was unpredictable and everyone was different. Savich prayed Dr. MacLean would remember enough of their conversation the day before so they wouldn’t have to begin all over.

  MacLean said thoughtfully, “I always told his daddy I never liked the shortened version of his name, so he’ll stay Jackson to me. Fact is, I threw footballs with him, taught him how to pitch a curveball, gave him pointers on how to psychoanalyze his sister’s lemonade customers. He set up a stand right next to hers. Unlike Charlie Brown’s Lucy, Jackson charged ten cents for a three-minute reading and, ah, dispensing advice. He was ten years old, I believe.”

  “How did he treat his customers?” Sherlock asked.

  “I believe he looked at the men’s palms, and for the women, he swished the remains of the lemonade in the bottom of their paper cups and studied the arrangement of the pulp.

  “That was the first time I realized how intuitive he was. His mother closed him down after he counseled a neighbor to stop sleeping with Mrs. Hinkley, who lived two blocks over. He and his sister Jennifer made a bundle that summer.

  “Listen, I can tell something’s going on with him and that young lady—Rachael—but he claimed everything was fine, all the bandages were for dippy stuff, all the result of our plane crash. I told him my injuries hadn’t made me stupid, but evidently his had. Rachael laughed. Jackson said she was an interior designer. She told me since I’m not going to be in this room for much longer, she wouldn’t bother coming up with a new color scheme. She managed to distract me, and then they left, so I’m asking you: What’s going on with Jackson? Don’t try telling me it’s only about me and my problems.”

  Savich nodded. “You’re right, he is involved in some pretty hinky things. But you know he’s good. He’ll be fine. Try not to worry. The staff told us your wife stayed with you all last evening. You must have been very pleased to have her back from Lexington. Are you expecting her this morning?”

  Sherlock realized, watching Dr. MacLean’s face, that his wife was the ultimate distraction.

  MacLean said in a huff, “I told Molly not to come back today, that I’m not going anywhere and she doesn’t have to worry—she’d just piss me off with all her nagging, her never-ending litany about finding us a little beach house in Bermuda. At least the rest of the family is still in Lexington. That crew would bring down the hospital. I threatened them on pain of death not to come here and drive me nuts.” He grinned real big. “Hey, I guess I already am nuts.”

  Time to get to it. Sherlock dove right in. “Dr. MacLean, do you remember what we spoke about yesterday?”

  “My brain might be executing a big-time tailspin into never-never land, but I do remember our conversation from yesterday. It’s true, sometimes I don’t. But yesterday, yeah, I remember everything. I told you about two of my patients, something I shouldn’t have done. But you’re FBI, so I suppose I have no choice since some jerk-face is trying to murder me. I’d sing it to you in an aria if I had to.

  “Actually, telling you about those particular people was amusing. And you can call me Timothy.” They nodded, and he continued. “By the way, the FBI agent guarding my door, Tomlin, he’s come in a couple of times, told me I’m not to worry because he never snoozes on the job and he’s one tough bud, raised by a mom, a police lieutenant, who, according to him, shut down a gang in Detroit.” He grinned as he looked from Savich to Sherlock. “He also told me you guys were in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, playing with psychic mediums. Talk about weird yahoos.”

  “Agent Tomlin is a crackerjack,” Sherlock said. “I didn’t know his mom was such a hotshot.”

  Timothy laughed. “I’ll tell him that next time he comes in to see me.”

  Sherlock asked, “How are you feeling this morning, sir?”

  “I still feel like I’m busted up all over, but I took a hit of pain meds maybe five minutes ago, so soon that will translate into feeling mighty fine, thank you.” He frowned, then said with all the innocence of a child, “I remember it clearly. I was telling you about Congresswoman Dolores McManus.”

  “Yes,” Savich said. “And how she murdered her first husband.”

  Timothy sighed, then smiled beatifically “Fact is, she popped out with it under hypnosis—you know, surprised the crap out of me. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. At first I thought she was pulling my leg, but no, that wasn’t possible, she was indeed well under.

  “I only wish I’d instructed her to forget everything she’d told me when I brought her out of it, but I was so flustered by what she’d said, I didn’t.”

  Sherlock said, “Why don’t you tell us exactly what she said so we can follow up on it.”

  For several moments MacLean looked uncertain. Even after saying he’d tell them everything, they could see him battling with himself. Then the disease must have blunted his concerns, or his sense of self-preservation exerted itself, because he said, his voice smooth, like a man carrying on a superficial social conversation, “Like I told you already, Dolores was married young, to a trucker, had two kids, and managed to get herself a communications degree before she was twenty-five. Life happened, as it always does, but with her it took an interesting twist. She had a big mouth, you see, and she wasn’t afraid ofanything. She started getting a reputation for taking on the big dogs, sometimes even bringing them down. This made her adjust her thinking about what she wanted and how she was going to get it.

  “Her trucker husband, however, didn’t want to get with the program. He wanted his wife waiting for him at home, a beer for him in her hand. He threatened to hurt her, to take the kids, whatever.

  “She believed, she told me, that he would beat her. But the kids? The last one was out of the house in another six months so that wasn’t a problem. But he was—a great big honking problem.

  “So Dolores got to thinking. Who would vote for a congress-woman with a macho trucker lor a husband? She knew this guy wouldn’t rocket her to the stars, which she felt she deserved. For her that was winning a political office, one that paid her. He would only underscore her lack of any working credentials and what had been, to date, a worthless education.

  “Then, all of a sudden, this middle-aged woman proceeded to tell me that her husband was eighteen-wheeling on one of his regular runs through Alabama. When he pulled into his favorite truck stop to eat at the small diner, someone stepped out of the shadows and shot him dead.

  “Then Dolores said, ‘Watch this,’ and she manufactured instant tears, told me this was how she acted when the cops came to her house—you know, ‘Oh, how horrible, it must be a mistake, not my Lukey, oh God, what am I going to do, what about my poor fatherless children,’ that sort of thing. Then she told me she swooned—the shock, you know. Then suddenly, she started laughing. She nearly hyperventilated she laughed so hard. She told me between hiccups how she’d hired this thug from Savannah to shoot Lukey, paid him five hundred bucks, told him where to do it. She was very pleased with herself, with her ultimate solution to getting elected to Congress. I was so shocked I brought her out of it. She remembered exactly what she’d said, of course, and so there it all was, the eight-hundred-pound moose in the middle of my office. I told her she was my patient and I would never break confidentiality. Still, I could tell she was spooked. I never expected to see her again, and I didn’t. You think Dolores is the one out to kill me?”

  “She sounds like a better possibility than Lomas Clapman,” Savich said. “What she came to see you about professionally, any motive there if revealed?”

  “Probably not, her stepfather sexually abused her, and she was having nightmares about it on and off during the past year. It was driving her nuts, and so she came to see me. What brought it on? She didn’t know but that was the reason for the hypnosis—to take her back, to relive it, I guess you could say, in a controlled environment. But this is what popped out.”

  Savich nodded. “Okay, there was another patient the bartender heard you talking about,
right? Pierre Barbeau.”

  “Ah, yes, Pierre. I nearly forgot. Pierre is very smart, knows his way in and out of the intelligence community. I’ve known him and his wife, Estelle, and his son, Jean David, for years. Molly and I played golf with them, socialized a bit with them. We weren’t best friends, but we had a pleasant acquaintanceship, I guess you could call it.

  “Anyway, Pierre’s a high-up liaison between the French National Police and our CIA. He’s arrogant and rather vain, but you’d expect that because he’s French, and over the years I just laughed at him when he’d go on and on about the superiority of the French. Blah blah blah, I tell him.

  “Then, out of the blue, he called me, said he was in turmoil—that was his word—and he needed my help.

  “Turns out it was about his son, Jean David, who, interestingly enough, was an American citizen, born unexpectedly three weeks early on vacation in Cape May, New Jersey, twenty-six years old, a Harvard graduate, very analytical, very bright, a nice guy, maybe even smarter than his old man, a strategic information analyst for the CIA, with a focus on the Middle East.

  “Yeah, I can see you’re getting the picture here. About six months ago lean David got involved with a young woman who said she was a graduate student and worked part-time for a charitable group funding education in the Middle East. Of course, the group was only a cover, and she was actually gathering money here in the U.S. for terrorist groups, and recruiting. She found the gold at the end of the rainbow in Jean David.

  “It wouldn’t have been all that big a deal if Jean David had, for example, been a Maytag repairman, but since he was an analyst in the CIA, we’re talking a major problem for him.

  “About a month and a half ago Jean David let her see some sensitive material pinpointing the whereabouts of some of our operatives in Pakistan—showing off, I guess, to impress her.

  “The CIA realized they had a big-ass problem almost immediately what with the murder of two operatives, and went on full alert. Jean David realized he was in deep trouble, so he told his father about the woman he’d met and fallen for.”

  “Do you recall the name of this woman, Timothy?” Sherlock asked.

  “It was something really sweet, like Mary—no, it was Anna. I don’t know her last name. Pierre didn’t know what to do. He came to me as a friend and in confidence to ask about the possibility of my defending his son legally from a psychiatric standpoint, maybe argue the boy was delusional or brainwashed and not legally responsible, and because he was worried about his son’s mental health. I told him that no psychiatric diagnosis would keep Jean David out of prison in a case like this. I agreed to see him, of course, but only if Jean David confessed his crime to the authorities. Many operatives might still be in danger, and the authorities needed to know about the security breach. In fact, I told Pierre it was ethically impossible for me to keep it a secret under these circumstances and that I would tell the authorities if Jean David did not.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  MacLean paused, closed his eyes, and Sherlock asked, “What happened, Timothy?”

  “Now I’ve got to speak about Jean David in the past tense. I can’t tell you how I hate that. You already know about his death, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Tell us what happened.”

  “All right. A week after I spoke to Pierre, Jean David drowned in a boating accident on the Potomac. Bad weather hit—a squall, I guess you’d call it, vicious winds whipping up the water. The bad weather was expected but still Jean David and his father went out fishing for striped bass. Pierre always believed you caught more fish in the middle of a high storm. They were heading back because the fog was coming in real thick when the rocking and rolling got to him, and he got real sick and vomited over the side of the boat. Then it gets sketchy. A speedboat evidently didn’t see them in the rain and fog and rammed right into them. Pierre was tossed overboard. Jean David jumped in to save his father. So did one of the guys from the other boat. They managed to save Pierre, but Jean David drowned. Theysearched and searched, but they couldn’t find his body.

  “Pierre was distraught, and as sick as he was, he kept diving and searching, but it was no use. Jean David was ruled dead, and his death was ruled accidental two weeks ago. Was it really an accident? I know what you’re thinking—Pierre and Jean David set it up between them to get him out of Washington. But, you see, there was the speedboat, and the people on board witnessed everything. They’d never heard of Pierre Barbeau. I believe that. I spoke to Pierre before he called me a murderer and hung up on me. He was grief-stricken. His son was dead and he blamed me for it. I strongly doubt Pierre could feign grief like that, at least not to me. I spoke to some mutual friends, and they agreed that both Pierre and Estelle were wrecks. He was their only child, and now he’s dead at twenty-six. Because of me.”

  Sherlock said pleasantly, “You know that’s ridiculous, Dr. MacLean. As a psychiatrist, you also know that when people are grieving, particularly when they’ve lost a loved one in a stupid accident, they try to apportion blame. You know it’s natural, you’ve doubtless seen it countless times in your practice.

  “Now, if you say something like that again, I will tell Molly and she’ll deal with you.”

  He was frowning at her words, but at the threat about his wife, his mouth split into a grin. “Oh, all right, I guess I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Damn, I sure wish Pierre had never asked to see me. I’ve waded in quagmires before, but I’ve never been sucked down quite so deep.”

  Savich said, “So you told Pierre Barbeau that Jean David had to go to the authorities and confess or you were constrained morally and ethically to report him to the police?”

  “Yes. It’s like being a priest in the confessional. If the person making the confession is planning to do imminent harm, the priest has no choice but to go to the authorities. Would I have gone to the police? Actually I forgot all about it once I was in Lexington. I would hope they know exactly what Jean David did by now, but tomorrow, maybe I’ll check in with the CIA, make sure nobody else is at risk.”

  Sherlock said, “You don’t actually know if the CIA has tracked the information leak back to Jean David?”

  “No. I haven’t spoken to the Barbeaus, either, since that afternoon when I called to express my condolences and Pierre screamed at me.

  “But whatever the CIA has found, trust me, it won’t make the evening news. The CIA’ll keep it under wraps, particularly now that Jean David is dead. They’ll simply bury it.”

  They would, of course, Savich knew, but perhaps he could find out what they knew and what they didn’t know, make sure for himselfthat all the other vulnerable operatives were safe. He said, “This is a tragedy that devastates, Timothy; it can make people act out of character, make them insane. I didn’t feel a motive with Lomas Clapman or Congresswoman McManus, but here, it’s bright and shiny, this beacon of grief. Do you think Pierre Barbeau could come after you, revenge for what he believes is your fault?”

  MacLean squeezed his eyes closed and whispered, “This utter consumption of self by inconsolable grief—I’ve seen it before. But Pierre? I don’t know; I doubt it, though. I’ll tell you, any murder attempts from that quarter would come from Estelle. She’s the one who’d want me dead, not Pierre. Estelle would bust the balls off a coconut.

  “I read people very well, agents, and I’ll tell you, what Pierre knows, Estelle knows. She’s the driver on that marriage bus. I’ll bet you Pierre didn’t tell her he was coming to ask me for help. But if he told her afterward, Estelle would see me as a danger to both her and her husband. Even with Jean David dead, she’d be afraid that I’d stir up talk. And of course there’s her family in France. I met them a couple of years ago. I’lltell you, I wouldn’t want to be on their bad side.

  “I have other patients with what you might call embarrassing incidents in their pasts, but not with any more juice than these three.”

  Savich said, “If you recall, Timothy, you blocked us from getting a list of all your patients.
I hope you’ve since changed your mind. I really don’t want anyone to kill you on my watch.”

  MacLean nodded. “You’ll have the list as soon as I can get my receptionist to go into the office and make you a disk.” They listened to him make the phone call. When he hung up, he said, “In a couple of hours she’ll bring it here. I’m seeing the specialist from Duke again this afternoon. I don’t know why he’s making the trip since there’s not a thing he can do but nod and try to look both wise and sorrowful about my condition. He’s going to tell me what to expect in the future. Isn’t that nice of him, the insensitive clod? As if I don’t already know what my life is going to be like before I croak—which might be soon, if the person out to kill me succeeds. Maybe that would be a good thing. Then this mess—namely me— would be history.”

  Sherlock said, looking him straight in the eye, “Here’s what I think: none of us knows what medical science will come up with next. Whatever weird diseases we contract could be helped or even cured next week or maybe next year. We simply don’t know.

  “I have a friend hanging on by his fingernails hoping for better antirejection drugs so he can have a pancreas transplant. And the thing is, it could happen. I know he wants to live. He has hope, boundless hope. As a doctor, sir, you should have hope, too.”

  She paused, her voice a quiet promise. “We will do our very best to keep you safe. If someone knocks you off after we’ve worked our butts off to keep you alive, I’ll be extraordinarily pissed, Timothy. Forever.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then grinned hugely, showing silver on his back teeth, before pressing his head into the hard hospital pillow.

  When they left, Agent Tomlin’s sexy smile wasn’t returned. It fellright off his face when he realized Agent Sherlock was upset.

  Sherlock looked straight ahead as she and Dillon walked to the elevator. “Given this horrible disease, given there’s no cure, and finally, given what will happen, without fail—I think I might kill myself if I were him. All the rest is hooey.”