by Harlan Coben
"Got him," Stone said softly.
Carlson said nothing. He watched the technician bag the weapon. Then, thinking it all through, he began to frown.
Chapter 23
The emergency call on my beeper involved TJ. He scraped his arm on a doorjamb. For most kids, that meant a stinging spray of Bactine; for TJ, it meant a night in the hospital. By the time I got there, they had already hooked him up to an IV. You treat hemophilia by administering blood products such as cryoprecipitate or frozen plasma. I had a nurse start him up right away.
As I mentioned earlier, I first met Tyrese six years ago when he was in handcuffs and screaming obscenities. An hour earlier, he had rushed his then nine-month-old son, TJ, into the emergency room. I was there, but I wasn't working the acute side. The attending physician handled TJ.
TJ was unresponsive and lethargic. His breathing was shallow. Tyrese, who behaved, according to the chart, "erratically" (how, I wondered, was a father who rushes an infant to an emergency room supposed to act?), told the attending physician that the boy had been getting worse all day. The attending physician gave his nurse a knowing glance. The nurse nodded and went to make the call. Just in case.
A fundoscopic examination revealed that the infant had multiple retinal hemorrhages bilaterally ' that is, the blood vessels in the back of both eyes had exploded. When the physician put the pieces together ' retinal bleeding, heavy lethargy, and, well, the father-he made a diagnosis: Shaken baby syndrome.
Armed security guards arrived in force. They handcuffed Tyrese, and that was when I heard the screamed obscenities. I rounded the corner to see what was up. Two uniformed members of the NYPD arrived. So did a weary woman from ACS ' aka the Administration for Children Services. Tyrese tried to plead his case. Everybody shook their heads in that what's-this-world-coming-to way.
I'd witnessed scenes like this a dozen times at the hospital. In fact, I'd seen a lot worse. I'd treated three-year-old girls with venereal diseases. I once ran a rape kit on a four-year-old boy with internal bleeding. In both cases ' and in all similar abuse cases I'd been involved with ' the perpetrator was either a family member or the mother's most recent boyfriend.
The Bad Man isn't lurking in playgrounds, kiddies. He lives in your house.
I also knew ' and this statistic never failed to stagger me ' that more than ninety-five percent of serious intracranial injuries in infants were due to child abuse. That made it pretty damn good-or bad, depending on your vantage point ' odds that Tyrese had abused his son.
In this emergency room, we've heard all the excuses. The baby fell off the couch. The oven door landed on the baby's head. His older brother dropped a toy on him. You work here long enough, you grow more cynical than the most weathered city cop. The truth is, healthy children tolerate those sorts of accidental blows well. It is very rare that, say, a fall off a couch alone causes retinal hemorrhaging.
I had no problem with the child abuse diagnosis. Not at first blush anyway.
But something about the way Tyrese pleaded his case struck me odd. It was not that I thought he was innocent. I'm not above making quick judgments based on appearance ' or, to use a more politically current term, racial profiling. We all do it. If you cross the street to avoid a gang of black teens, you're racial profiling; if you don't cross because you're afraid you'll look like a racist, you're racial profiling; if you see the gang and think nothing whatsoever, you're from some planet I've never visited.
What made me pause here was the pure dichotomy. I had seen a frighteningly similar case during my recent rotation out in the wealthy suburb of Short Hills, New Jersey. A white mother and father, both impeccably dressed and driving a well-equipped Range Rover, rushed their six-month-old daughter into the emergency room. The daughter, their third child, presented the same as TJ.
Nobody shackled the father.
So I moved toward Tyrese. He gave me the ghetto glare. On the street, it fazed me; in here, it was like the big bad wolf blowing at the brick house. "Was your son born at this hospital?" I asked.
Tyrese didn't reply.
"Was your son born here, yes or no?"
He calmed down enough to say "Yeah."
"Is he circumcised?"
Tyrese relit the glare. "You some kind of faggot?"
"You mean there's more than one kind?" I countered. "Was he circumcised here, yes or no?"
Grudgingly, Tyrese said, "Yeah."
I found TJ's social security number and plugged it into the computer. His records came up. I checked under the circumcision. Normal. Damn. But then I saw another entry. This was not TJ's first visit to the hospital. At the age of two weeks, his father brought him in because of a bleeding umbilicus ' bleeding from the umbilical cord.
Curious.
We ran some blood tests then, though the police insisted on keeping Tyrese in custody. Tyrese didn't argue. He just wanted the tests done. I tried to have them rushed, but I have no power in this bureaucracy. Few do. Still the lab was able to ascertain through the blood samples that the partial thromboplastin time was prolonged, yet both the prothrombin time and platelet count were normal. Yeah, yeah, but bear with me.
The best ' and worst ' was confirmed. The boy had not been abused by his ghetto-garbed father. Hemophilia caused the retinal hemorrhages. They had also left the boy blind.
The security guards sighed and uncuffed Tyrese and walked away without a word. Tyrese rubbed his wrists. Nobody apologized or offered a word of sympathy to this man who had been falsely accused of abusing his now-blind son.
Imagine that in the wealthy 'burbs.
TJ has been my patient ever since.
Now, in his hospital room, I stroked TJ's head and looked into his unseeing eyes. Kids usually look at me with undiluted awe, a heady cross between fear and worship. My colleagues believe that children have a deeper understanding than adults of what is happening to them. I think the answer is probably simpler. Children view their parents as both intrepid and omnipotent ' yet here their parents are, gazing up at me, the doctor, with a fear-filled longing normally reserved for religious rapture.
What could be more terrifying to a small child?
A few minutes later, TJ's eyes closed. He drifted off to sleep.
"He just bumped into the side of the door," Tyrese said. "That was all. He's blind. Gonna happen, right?"
"We'll need to keep him overnight," I said. "But he'll be fine."
"How?" Tyrese looked at me. "How will he ever be all right when he can't stop bleeding?"
I had no answer.
"I gotta get him out of here."
He didn't mean the hospital.
Tyrese reached into his pocket and started peeling off bills. I wasn't in the mood. I held up a hand and said, "I'll check back later."
"Thanks for coming, Doc. I appreciate it."
I was about to remind him that I had come for his son, not him, but I opted for silence.
Careful, Carlson thought, while his pulse raced. Be oh so careful.
The four of them ' Carlson, Stone, Krinsky, and Dimonte ' sat at a conference table with Assistant District Attorney Lance Fein. Fein, an ambitious weasel with constantly undulating eyebrows and a face so waxy that it looked ready to melt in extreme heat, strapped on his game face.
Dimonte said, "Let's bust his sorry ass."
"One more time," Lance Fein said. "Put it together for me so that even Alan Dershowitz would want him locked up."
Dimonte nodded at his partner. "Go ahead, Krinsky. Make me wet."
Krinsky took out his pad and started reading:
"Rebecca Schayes was shot twice in the head at very close range with a nine-millimeter automatic pistol. Under a federally issued warrant, a nine-millimeter was located in Dr. David Beck's garage."
"Fingerprints on the gun?" Fein asked.
"None. But a ballistic test confirmed that the nine-millimeter found in Dr. Beck's garage is the murder weapon."
Dimonte smiled and raised his eyebrows. "Anybody else gettin
g hard nipples?"
Fein's eyebrows knitted and dropped. "Please continue," he said.
"Under the same federally issued warrant, a pair of latex gloves was retrieved from a trash canister at Dr. David Beck's residence. Gunpowder residue was found on the right glove. Dr. Beck is right handed."
Dimonte put up his snakeskin boots and moved the toothpick across his mouth. "Oh, yeah, baby, harder, harder. I like it like that."
Fein frowned. Krinsky, his eyes never leaving the pad, licked a finger and turned the page.
"On the same right-hand latex glove, the lab discovered a hair that has been positively color matched to Rebecca Schayes."
"Oh God! Oh God!" Dimonte started screaming in fake orgasm. Or maybe it was real.
"A conclusive DNA test will take more time," Krinsky went on. "Moreover, fingerprints belonging to Dr. David Beck were found at the murder scene, though not in the darkroom where her body was found."
Krinsky closed up his notebook. All eyes turned to Lance Fein.
Fein stood and rubbed his chin. Dimonte's behavior notwithstanding, they were all suppressing a bit of giddiness. The room crackled with pre-arrest sparks, that heady, addictive high that came with the really infamous cases. There would be press conferences and calls from politicians and pictures in the paper.
Only Nick Carlson remained the tiniest bit apprehensive. He sat twisting and untwisting and retwisting a paper clip. He couldn't stop. Something had crawled into his periphery, hanging on the edges, still out of sight, but there, and irksome as all hell. For one thing, there were the listening devices in Dr. Beck's home. Someone had been bugging him. Tapping his phone too. Nobody seemed to know or care why.
"Lance?" It was Dimonte.
Lance Fein cleared his throat. "Do you know where Dr. Beck is right now?" he asked.
"At his clinic," Dimonte said. "I got two uniforms keeping an eye on him."
Fein nodded.
"Come on, Lance," Dimonte said. "Give it to me, big boy."
"Let's call Ms. Crimstein first," Fein said. "As a courtesy."
Shauna told Linda most of it. She left out the part about Beck's "seeing" Elizabeth on the computer. Not because she gave the story any credence. She'd pretty much proven that it was a digital hoax. But Beck had been adamant. Tell no one. She didn't like having secrets from Linda, but that was preferable to betraying Beck's confidence.
Linda watched Shauna's eyes the whole time. She didn't nod or speak or even move. When Shauna finished, Linda asked, "Did you see the pictures?"
"No."
"Where did the police get them?"
"I don't know."
Linda stood. "David would never hurt Elizabeth."
"I know that."
Linda wrapped her arms around herself. She started sucking in deep breaths. Her face drained of color.
"You okay?" Shauna said.
"What aren't you telling me?"
"What makes you think I'm not telling you something?"
Linda just looked at her.
"Ask your brother," Shauna said.
"Why?"
"It's not my place to tell."
The door buzzed again. Shauna took it this time.
"Yeah?"
Through the speaker: "It's Hester Crimstein."
Shauna hit the release button and left their door open. Two minutes later, Hester hurried into the room.
"Do you two know a photographer named Rebecca Schayes?"
"Sure," Shauna said. "I mean, I haven't seen her in a long time. Linda?"
"It's been years," Linda agreed. "She and Elizabeth shared an apartment downtown. Why?"
"She was murdered last night," Hester said. "They think Beck killed her."
Both women froze as though someone had just slapped them. Shauna recovered first.
"But I was with Beck last night," she said. "At his house."
"Till what time?"
"Till what time do you need?"
Hester frowned. "Don't play games with me, Shauna. What time did you leave the house?"
"Ten, ten-thirty. What time was she killed?"
"I don't know yet. But I have a source inside. He said they have a very solid case against him."
"That's nuts."
A cell phone sounded. Hester Crimstein snatched hers up and pressed it against her ear. "What?"
The person on the other end spoke for what seemed a long time. Hester listened in silence. Her features started softening in something like defeat. A minute or two later, without saying goodbye, she closed the phone with a vicious snap.
"A courtesy call," she mumbled.
"What?"
"They're arresting your brother. We have an hour to surrender him to authorities."
Chapter 24
All I could think about was Washington Square Park. True, I wasn't supposed to be there for another four hours. But emergencies notwithstanding, today was my day off. Free as a bird, as Lynyrd Skynyrd would sing ' and this bird wanted to flock down to Washington Square Park.
I was on my way out of the clinic when my beeper once again sang its miserable song. I sighed and checked the number. It was Hester Crimstein's cell phone. And it was coded for an emergency.
This couldn't be good news.
For a moment or two, I debated not calling back ' just continuing to flock ' but what would be the point in that? I backpedaled to my examining room. The door was closed, and the red lever was slid into place. That meant another doctor was using the room.
I headed down the corridor, turned left, and found an empty room in the ob-gyn section of the clinic. I felt like a spy in enemy camp. The room gleamed with too much metal. Surrounded by stirrups and other devices that looked frighteningly medieval, I dialed the number.
Hester Crimstein did not bother with hello: "Beck, we got a big problem. Where are you?"
"I'm at the clinic. What's going on?"
"Answer a question for me," Hester Crimstein said. "When was the last time you saw Rebecca Schayes?"
My heart started doing a deep, slow thud. "Yesterday. Why?"
"And before that?"
"Eight years ago."
Crimstein let loose a low curse.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Rebecca Schayes was murdered last night in her studio. Somebody shot her twice in the head."
A plunging feeling, the one you get moments before you fall asleep. My legs wobbled. I landed with a thump on a stool. "Oh Christ..."
"Beck, listen to me. Listen closely."
I remembered how Rebecca looked yesterday.
"Where were you last night?"
I pulled the phone away and sucked in some air. Dead. Rebecca was dead. Oddly I kept flashing to the sheen in her beautiful hair. I thought about her husband. I thought about what the nights would bring, lying in that bed, thinking about how that hair used to fan across the pillow.
"Beck?"
"Home," I said. "I was home with Shauna."
"And after that?"
"I took a walk."
"Where?"
"Around."
"Where around?"
I did not reply.
"Listen to me, Beck, okay? They found the murder weapon at your house."
I heard the words, but their meaning was having trouble reaching the cerebrum. The room suddenly felt cramped. There were no windows. It was hard to breathe.
"Do you hear me?"
"Yes," I said. Then, sort of understanding, I said, "That's not possible."
"Look, we don't have time for that now. You're about to be arrested. I spoke to the D.A. in charge. He's a prick and a half, but he agreed to let you surrender."
"Arrested?"
"Stay with me here, Beck."
"I didn't do anything."
"That's irrelevant right now. They're going to arrest you. They're going to arraign you. Then we're going to get you bail. I'm on my way over to the clinic now. To pick you up. Sit tight. Don't say anything to anyone, you hear me? Not to the cops, not to the feds,
not to your new buddy in lockup. You understand?"
My gaze got snagged on the clock above the examining table. It was a few minutes after two. Washington Square. I thought about Washington Square. "I can't be arrested, Hester."
"It'll be all right."
"How long?" I said.
"How long what?"
"Until I get bail."
"Can't say for sure. I don't think bail per se will be a problem. You have no record. You're an upstanding member of the community with roots and ties. You'll probably have to surrender your passport'"
"But how long?"
"How long until what, Beck? I don't understand."
"Until I get out."
"Look, I'll try to push them, okay? But even if they rush it ' and I'm not saying they will ' they still have to send your fingerprints to Albany. That's the rule. If we're lucky ' I mean very lucky ' we can get you arraigned by midnight."
Midnight?
Fear wrapped itself around my chest like steel bands. Jail meant missing the meet at Washington Square Park. My connection with Elizabeth was so damn fragile, like strands of Venetian glass. If I'm not at Washington Square at five o'clock...
"No good," I said.
"What?"
"You have to stall them, Hester. Have them arrest me tomorrow."
"You're kidding, right? Look, they're probably there already, watching you."
I leaned my head out the door and looked down the corridor. I could see only part of the reception desk from my angle, the corner near the right, but it was enough.
There were two cops, maybe more.
"Oh Christ," I said, falling back into the room.
"Beck?"
"I can't go to jail," I said again. "Not today."
"Don't freak out on me here, Beck, okay? Just stay there. Don't move, don't talk, don't do anything. Sit in your office and wait. I'm on my way."
She hung up.
Rebecca was dead. They thought I killed her. Ridiculous, of course, but there had to be a connection. I visited her yesterday for the first time in eight years. That very night she ended up dead.
What the hell was going on here?
I opened the door and peeked my head out. The cops weren't looking my way. I slid out and started down the corridor. There was a back emergency exit. I could sneak out that way. I could make my way down to Washington Square Park.
