Tail Spin ft-12

by Catherine Coulter

Jack was walking toward them, and Rachael realized he was struggling to put his own grief away. She admired him greatly in that instant as she watched him get it together and the cop in him took over. He nodded to Rachael. Then he gently touched Molly’s shoulder. “Molly? It’s Jack. I’m so very sorry.” When Rachael’s arms dropped, Molly turned to collapse against him. She wrapped her arms around his back, held on hard, and wept against his neck. He held her, murmuring meaningless words, really, hoped it was comfort, but he doubted it. Nothing could make this mortal wound magically better. He said against her hair, “Molly, let’s go to the waiting room.”

  The waiting room was empty, as he knew it would be. All the excitement was down the hall. It was relatively quiet in there. He closed the door, motioned Rachael to sit as he led Molly to a small sofa. He eased down beside her, continued to hold her, rubbing her back, and spoke quietly to her.

  When she hiccupped, Jack gave her another squeeze and a Kleenex from a box on a side table. Rachael handed her a cup of water from the cooler in the corner. They waited in silence while she collected herself.

  Molly raised her face, looked straight at Jack. “I know you’ve got to know what happened.” She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and another tear slid down her cheek. She opened her eyes, wiped a hand over her cheeks again. She drew in a big breath, held it. “All right. This afternoon, first thing when I walked into his room, Tim asked me to bring him his gun. He’s kept it for years in the bedside table; thankfully he’s never had to use it. I stared at him, terrified of what he was going to say, but when I asked him why, he looked at me like I was nuts. He said some guy had just tried to murder him and if it hadn’t been for Nurse Louise, what was left of him would be sitting in a lovely silver urn. He said he wanted to be able to protect himself, and if I really cared about him, I would bring him the gun. When I continued to resist, he shrugged, looked away from me, and said maybe it would be better if the guy came back and gave it a second try. After all, he was going to end up a vegetable, why not spare himself the indignity and welcome the guy back, maybe point to a good spot on his head where he should shoot him. It didn’t matter, nothing was going to change for him.

  “I smacked him on the arm, called him an idiot. You never knew, I told him, simply never knew when medical science would come up with a new drug to help him. He listened to me, at least I thought he was listening.

  “Then he looked up at me and said, ‘Bring me a gun, Molly, let me take care of myself. I don’t want to feel helpless.’

  “I finally agreed. I went home and came back about an hour ago. I watched him check out his gun, then he slid it under his pillow and smiled at me. ‘Thank you, kiddo, I feel better now,’ he said. He was quiet for a while. Then he spoke of our family, his parents, our kids, and his patients—many other things, as well, bad things, painful things, but when I left I thought he seemed more centered, more like the old Tim, bright and funny.”

  She viciously wiped away the tears. “Oh, Jack, no one managed to get to him, no one murdered him. He did it himself, and I brought him the gun so he could do it.”

  Her words hung heavily in the room.

  Finally, Jack said, “Molly, we’ll get back to that. You told me he was himself again, the old Tim. Can you think of anything specific that could have been the catalyst for his killing himself?”

  She raised her white face, tears scoring her cheeks. “Yes, I realize now that it was me. I pushed him to it, Jack,” she said. Her eyes blurred and she choked. “I pushed him to do it.”

  Jack said, “Tell me.”

  Jack was aware that Savich and Sherlock had come into the room. They didn’t say anything, stood back against a wall. Molly said, “Tim started talking about his patients, the same three he’d spoken about so freely to Arthur Dolan, his friend and tennis mate, you know, the poor man who was murdered by that maniac up in New Jersey?”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Tim said, ‘Molly, I didn’t even realize what I was saying was wrong. It all tripped happily out of my mouth, all of it, every confidential filthy detail, and I sang it all out, happy as a lark. I broke every ethical code I’ve lived by all my professional life. I accepted my patients’ trust and crushed them with it.

  “‘Look at what happened to Jean David—Pierre loved his son, Molly, both he and Estelle adored Jean David. He was their only child, they would have freely given their lives for him, and here I actually enjoyed telling Arthur—with that bartender listening in— what Jean David had done.

  “And now Jean David has drowned, and Pierre is wild with pain and grief and hatred for me. If Pierre is the one who’s been trying to kill me, then I hope he succeeds. I pushed him to it.

  “‘I am responsible for this tragedy, Molly, no one else.’

  “He stopped talking, just stared off at nothing in particular, like he was alone, like he no longer cared about anything.”

  Molly looked down at her twisting hands and clasped them tightly together. Jack laid his hand over hers. She continued after a moment. “I told Tim he was not the one who chose to betray his country. He only shook his head, and his voice was so ... accepting. He said to me, Yes, Molly, that’s true, but not to the point. This disease—it’s only going to get worse, you know that as well as I do, but I’ll probably escape the worst of it myself because I’ll be oblivious to what is real, to what it feels like to be real, to be connected. I won’t know my kids, I won’t know you and that you’re my wife of forever, and all my love, all my experiences, the pains, the joys—even the meaning of it will be gone for me.

  “‘I can’t bear knowing I’ll go through that, Molly, now that I can still see clearly. I can’t bear knowing I won’t have any balance in my mind, that I won’t even recognize that what spills out of my mouth might destroy someone.’

  “I recognized the look on his face. He said, ‘Do you know, I told one of the doctors here about your affair with Arthur all those years ago? I didn’t remember saying anything about that, but the doctor told me what I’d said.

  “‘I thank God that He’s left me some moments of lucidity so I can remember all the hurt I’ve already caused, and decide what I want to do about it.’”

  Molly choked on a laugh, said to Jack, “Fact is, I did sleep with Arthur a couple of times, years ago. I didn’t even think Tim knew about it. I never told him. Funny thing was, both Arthur and I realized it was dumb, realized the truth of it was that all three of us were friends, very good friends, and had been for more than twenty years.

  “But Tim saw his speaking of it as the final betrayal, spilling out secrets about our own personal life to strangers.

  “All I could do was think about that gun under his pillow. I asked him what he wanted to do and I was terrified of his answer. But he gave me one of his old Tim smiles, said he was going to think, really think about where all this was leading and the consequences of it. He was going to think until the ability escaped him, probably in the next thirty minutes, he said, who knew but God?

  “Before I left him a few minutes ago, one of the nurses brought him a pint of pistachio ice cream, his favorite. He grinned at me as he spooned it down. He looked calm. He told me he loved me, then smiled and offered me a bite of ice cream. I took a very small bite, but he teased me and told me I could even have one more small bite. We laughed, and I squeezed his arm and told him we were going to be together for a long time, it didn’t matter what came down the road and he’d best accept that. And he said, yes, he liked the sound of that.”

  Molly raised her face to Jack. “He kissed me, Jack, the sweetest kiss you can imagine. I can still taste the pistachio ice cream on his lips.” She fell silent for a moment, looking down at her twisting hands.

  Then she nodded toward Savich and Sherlock, smiled at Rachael, and said, “I got all the way downstairs when I remembered I’d forgotten to tell him it was Kelly’s birthday tomorrow. I wanted to tell him what we were giving her. Perhaps he’d remember when she came to visit him.

  “
I heard the shouts when I stepped off the elevator.” She stopped, stared at a Monet water lily print on the wall. “I knew, Jack, I knew instantly what he’d done, what I’d enabled him to do.” She lowered her face into her hands and wept. The room was quiet, the only sound Molly’s ugly, raw tears. She raised her face. “Do you know I signed the birthday card from both of us, as always? It’s a funny card—it says she needs a new bedmate, her teddy bear is all used up.”

  Jack touched his fingers to her face. He wanted to tell her maybe it was better this way, but his heart couldn’t accept that.

  She said, “Whoever was trying to kill Timothy—he doesn’t have to bother now.”

  Jack said, “If he killed Arthur, he has to pay for it, Molly. He tried to kill Tim—what is it now?—four times? He’s got to pay for that, too.”

  Molly said clearly, “And what about me, Jack? I wanted to believe him, you see, he knew I wanted to believe the gun was for his protection. He gave me a way out.” She paused, and Jack could feel her grief and her awful guilt. She placed her palm over her chest. “But in my heart, I knew he was going to kill himself. I knew it. I am the one responsible for his death, not this maniac.”

  Savich walked to her and sat down beside her. He took her hands in his. “Molly, listen to me. What you know in your heart, it must stay in your heart. It would do no good to burden your family with this.”

  Savich rose. “You couldn’t have known, not for sure. What Timothy did, it was his own decision. You made it easier for him, that’s all.

  “When I walk out this door, Molly, the investigation into Dr. Timothy MacLean’s death is closed.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Tuesday afternoon

  Rachael walked into Jimmy’s study and stood in the middle of the room. The rich brown draperies were partially drawn, framing only a bit of afternoon sunlight. She smelled him still, the aroma of his rich Turkish cigarettes. She sank down onto the burgundy leather sofa, leaned her head back, and stared at the bookshelf behind his desk. She could see the dust beginning to gather on the bindings. Books could be dusted, she thought, but you had to live at close quarters with them to keep them fresh, keep their pages alive.

  She looked down at her watch. Nearly four o’clock. Jack would be back by six, he’d said, and she knew he hated leaving her alone, even in the middle of the hot, sunlit afternoon.

  She looked again at Jimmy’s desk, the few papers on top in neat piles, the computer screen dark and silent. She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to sit in the wonderfully comfortable high-backed burgundy leather desk chair. She straightened in the well of the desk.

  She had time. It was something that had to be done. She opened the top drawer and began sorting through papers. She made piles that had to be handled when his will went through probate, invoices to be paid, a few catalogs he’d evidently marked for order.

  She’d sorted through the papers in most of the desk when she opened the bottom drawer and found a beautiful hand-carved bubinga wood pen box. She lifted it out carefully. Sure enough, there were a good dozen pens inside, some of them gifts from foreign countries, from ambassadors he’d visited in his travels. There was a slip of paper at the bottom of the box with three pairs of numbers written on it. A safe combination.

  Rachael hadn’t even thought about a safe. She looked around but didn’t see one. If she owned a safe, she’d keep it in the room where she spent most of her time. She searched the bookshelves, looked under the carpet, and when she lifted a Durbin Monk Irish countryside painting, there it was, built into the wall. She dialed in the numbers and it opened easily.

  Inside she found an accordion file that was filled with insurance documents and a journal from the year before showing all his appointments for twelve months. Behind the last page of the journal, she found an envelope labeled “Will & Testament of John James Abbott.”

  His will. She hadn’t thought about whether he had a copy. Jimmy had told her she would inherit a third of his estate, her two sisters the other two-thirds, and this included his shares in the family business. He’d said once, she remembered now, that when he was sworn into the Senate, he turned his proxy for the voting shares over to Laurel, to distance himself from his financial interests while he was in office. She began to read.

  It couldn’t be right.

  She read it again, and yet a third time.

  She found Brady Cullifer’s number in Jimmy’s Rolodex and dialed. He’d just returned to his office from court and came on the line.

  “Brady, I just read Jimmy’s will. There’s something very wrong here.”

  An hour later, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Not Jack— not yet. It was Brady, walking swiftly up the flagstone path to the house.

  She met him at the front door.

  “Rachael, I couldn’t believe it when you called me. There must be some mistake here, there must be. I’ve brought the original will. We’ll compare them, all right? Jack isn’t back?”

  “He’ll be back soon. He’s still at that meeting at the FBI.”

  Rachael spread the will she’d found on Jimmy’s desktop. Brady lay his beside it. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, and the two of them bent down.

  “Rachael? Where are you?”

  Rachael straightened, a smile on her face. “In here, Sherlock. Come in.” She walked over to the door to the study. “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “Jack asked me to come. What’s going on? Oh, hello, Mr. Cullifer.”

  “It’s Agent Sherlock, isn’t it?”

  Sherlock smiled at him, nodded.

  Rachael grabbed Sherlock’s arm. “I found Jimmy’s will, only it doesn’t say what it’s supposed to say. I called Brady and he brought over the original so we could compare them.”

  “A forgery, Mr. Cullifer?”

  “I don’t know, Agent Sherlock. We’ve just begun to study them.”

  All three of them leaned over the desk to compare the two wills.

  Sherlock read the first page and looked at them. “They’re different, Mr. Cullifer. We’ve got a forgery here.” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t you know it? This was all about money. Why does it always have to be about money?”

  She should have detected something in Cullifer’s steady, monotonous voice, but she didn’t until she tensed at a dark voice close to her ear. “Some days I think the angels aren’t on our side. You’re very unexpected, Agent,” and at the moment the last word sank into her brain, he struck her hard with the butt of his gun.

  She heard Rachael yell as she fell to the floor.

  “Stefanos! What—”

  He struck Rachael, and watched dispassionately as her eyes went wide with shock, then blurred with pain, and closed, and she fell beside Sherlock. A trickle of blood snaked down her cheek.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Hoover Building

  Savich frowned, lightly tapped his fingertips on his cell phone. “What’s wrong?” Jack asked in a low voice, leaning close, momentarily blocking out the mellifluous voice of federal prosecutor Dickie Franks.

  “Sherlock isn’t answering. We have a deal. Anytime one of us calls the other, we always pick up, doesn’t matter if we’re in the shower or out running. Her phone’s on, so she should answer. This is the second time I’ve called.”

  He was ready to seize up when Faith Hill sang out “The Way You Love Me.” “Sherlock? It’s about time, where—Dr. Bentley?”

  Every eye at the conference table swiveled to look at Savich. When he punched off his cell, Savich said, “That was Dr. Bentley. Greg Nichols was poisoned by a massive dose of superwarfarin, a rat poison. Dr. Bentley said there was still a lot of it in his bowels, so he may have ingested it with a recent meal, maybe the cioppino they talked about. Jack and I need to head out, find out who served him his lunch yesterday.”

  The three federal prosecutors began debating alternatives again. Dickie was saying, “I was thinking it’s time we simply hauled the Abbotts’ butts down here. We can handle th
eir lawyers.”

  Janice Arden, the veteran of the three, said, “Or we could wait to see if Savich finds proof of who poisoned Nichols.”

  Savich wasn’t listening. He was too worried. “Jack, try Rachael’s cell phone.”

  “I did. She’s not picking up.”

  “Try her landline.”

  There was no answer. Savich didn’t say a word, simply dialed his own landline.

  Again, no answer. “Sherlock said she might go over to see how Rachael was doing when I told her you and I would probably be late. I wanted coverage even though it’s daylight. I was hoping maybe she brought Rachael back to our house.” He drummed his fingers against the conference table. “Evidently not.”

  FIFTY-NINE

  Sherlock didn’t want to open her eyes. She knew if she did, she’d want to vomit, or pass out again from the god-awful pain, or both. Well done, kiddo, you let the nice lawyer pull you right in with that will business. A civilian, no, less than a civilian—a lawyer. But who had struck her? Stefanos, she thought—or Quincy—but there was Stefanos Kostas’s face in her mind. She knew somehow it had been him, she could hear the echo of his voice. She’d been hit on the head before, a long time ago, really, but the pain was familiar, like an old enemy. She recognized it instantly, and hated it. Don’t open your eyes, let it stay dark a moment longer. Don’t open your eyes.

  “Sherlock?”

  Rachael’s voice, far away—blurred, vague. She was alive, thank God. Sherlock wanted to forget she heard her, but her quiet voice came again. This time, she heard fear in it. “Sherlock. Please, wake up. Talk to me.”

  One eye opened, and Sherlock shuddered with the pain of it.

  “I’m sorry, but you’ve been unconscious too long. Wake up, please wake up.”

  “Well, all right,” Sherlock whispered, and opened both eyes. Flashing pain sliced through her head, and rising bile clogged her throat. She swallowed, still wanted to vomit, and swallowed again.

  Rachael said, “I was nauseous, too, but it’s almost gone now. At least I can control it. You will, too.”

  “Rachael?” Was that her voice? That thin little thread of sound?