Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

  “Lieutenant, tell me something,” he said. “If you know all this about me, and you’re so certain I murdered my wife, why haven’t you come here with a warrant for my arrest?”

  “Pardon?”

  “A warrant. Some judge or magistrate or whatever has refused to issue a warrant for you to arrest me for murder unless you find I’ve got a secret stash of Aramine. Isn’t that true?”

  Dickinson’s expression—the tightness around his mouth—said that he had been nicked.

  “What if it is?” he said. “In two weeks the grand jury sits. And I guarantee you that with the evidence I have to present them, they won’t have any problem handing down an indictment. Graham, let’s get started.”

  “Wait a minute, Officer.” On the offensive at last, Harry had no intention of letting up. “Lieutenant, there’s more, isn’t there? Is it Maura Hughes? Your magistrate believed her claim about someone else being in the room after me. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “You killed that woman, Corbett.”

  “They believed her, didn’t they?”

  “Not her,” Dickinson said, barely able to temper his frustration and anger. “Her goddamn Yalie brother. That asshole went over my head. Filed a report. Cooked his own friggin’ goose is what he did. Believe me, Charles Manson will get that goddamn detective slot before he does. And don’t think for a moment they bought his story, neither. He just made them decide to wait until a few things could be checked out, that’s all. And as for your drunken sot witness, her brother won’t be able to take the stand in her place. And as soon as anyone gets a look at her and hears what she’s like, there’s not a soul who’ll believe she saw anything except spiders and flies. Now, are you going to let us do our work?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No, Corbett. You don’t have a fucking choice. You’re a smug bastard. I hate smug bastards. And you killed your wife. I hate people who do that, too. It’s just begun between us, Doc. Mark my words. I’m going to put the screws to you like you were a dime-store Erector set. And sooner or later you’re going to fuck up. Count on it. Come on, Graham. Let’s get started.”

  It took two hours for Dickinson and Graham to finish their room-by-room search of the office. Harry waited a few minutes until he was certain the detective wasn’t going to return. Then he took a cup of tepid coffee and a bagel back to his office, fished out the slip of paper from his wallet, and called Maura Hughes. She answered on the sixth ring.

  “Miss Hughes, it’s Harry Corbett, Evie’s husband. Remember?”

  “I remember,”

  Though her words weren’t slurred, her voice was husky, and her speech seemed a bit thick. Harry wasn’t sure whether she was drinking again.

  “How are you feeling?” he tried.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But I’ve been worse.”

  He waited for more unsolicited conversation, but quickly realized there would be none. “Have the police been to see you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, they just left my office, and I think they might be contacting you soon. They found a drug in Evie’s blood. She was murdered.” There was silence on the other end. “That Lieutenant Dickinson is certain I did it. I think it must have been the doctor you saw.” Still silence, “Miss Hughes, are you still there?”

  “It’s Maura. I’m still here.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “You mean am I drinking?”

  Harry pictured the woman in her robe at the kitchen table of a small, dingy apartment, staring at a half-filled glass and a half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort. The image brought a heavy sadness to his throat.

  “Yes, guess I did mean that,” he said. “Sorry. It’s none of my business. Listen, I want to get together with you. It’s very important to me.”

  “Why?”

  “That cop, Dickinson, is on a mission to nail me for Evie’s murder. He just left here after searching my office for hours while all my patients watched. In fact, there were moments when the only thing that kept me from hitting him over the head with a chair was remembering what you called him. Pinhead.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, the only reason they haven’t arrested me so far is that someone—a judge or DA, or maybe one of Dickinson’s superiors—is worried that the man your brother reported you saw was actually there.”

  “He was.”

  “I know. That’s why I need to see you. Somehow, I’ve got to find out who he is and you’re the only one who’s seen him.”

  There was a prolonged silence.

  “When did you want to see me?” she said finally.

  “I don’t know. Tonight?”

  “Can’t.”

  “Tomorrow, then.” He considered adding that it would be his birthday—his fiftieth birthday—but decided against it. “Maura, listen,” he said, “if you’re embarrassed about drinking, please don’t be.”

  “Seven-thirty,” she replied. “You have my number, so I assume you know where I live.”

  “I do. Thanks, Maura.”

  “And Dr. Corbett?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t remember the last time I cared enough about what I did to be embarrassed about it. But since you keep asking, the truth is that if it sounds like I’ve been drinking it’s because I just got up from a nap. I haven’t had a drink since the day I was operated on.”

  “Hey, that’s great.”

  “But I was about to.”

  “Please—don’t!” Harry did not have to force desperation into the words. Again there was prolonged silence.

  “I suppose I can keep it together at least until tomorrow night. I think maybe I really don’t want to drink. Maybe I’m just bored.”

  “Your brother said you were a painter. Have you been able to paint any since you’ve been home?”

  “Not really. I haven’t done much of anything except hang around here, take naps, feel sorry for myself, and think about drinking.”

  “Well, listen, maybe tomorrow night we could go out for dinner. You’re the main reason I’m still a free man. I could pick your brain, and you could get away from your place for a while.”

  If she was as depressed as she sounded, he knew there was no possibility she would agree. He could feel her choosing the way to tell him so.

  “Do I have to get dressed up?” she asked suddenly.

  “Not unless you want to. When I’m not at work, jeans is as dressy as I ever get.”

  “In that case, sure,” Maura said. “I’d like that.”

  CHAPTER 16

  At midnight, when he officially turned fifty, Harry celebrated with a glass of champagne and a bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. He hadn’t gotten cancer or been run over by a bus during the past three hundred and sixty-five days, but all things considered, his fiftieth year had been a pretty lousy one. And his fifty-first was not beginning with a great deal of promise. He indulged his self-pity for a time by flipping through his and Evie’s wedding album, and then read himself to sleep with half a page of his most dependable soporific, Moby-Dick. Ahab wasn’t having such a great year either.

  At 5:45, when his clock radio kicked in, he had already been awake for nearly an hour and was finishing the set of Marine Corps calisthenics he did on the days when he didn’t run. He had always been an athlete of sorts—Little League baseball, cross-country, and some organized basketball in college. He lacked the natural ability to be a star in any sport, but his competitive fire had made him a fairly consistent winner. For the past decade, though, what intensity he still possessed was focused on holding his ground against the passing years. Now, as he grunted past sixty bent-knee sit-ups on the way to seventy-five, he found he was drawing strength from his consuming dislike for Albert Dickinson.

  The previous evening, Harry had arrived at home to find the detective there, along with a new uniformed policeman. He was questioning Armand Rojas, the day-shift doorman, but stopped as soon as Ha
rry appeared at the door, and produced a warrant to search the apartment. Following the Chinese-food deliveryman fiasco with Rocky, Harry had tipped both doormen handsomely and implored them to be on their toes. Still, he wondered, as the two policemen followed him into the apartment to begin their search, if the mystery physician had somehow gotten in there again to plant a few vials of Aramine. His other concern was that Dickinson himself might find a way to do it.

  To Harry’s profound relief, the one-and-a-half-hour inspection unearthed nothing. But with each fruitless minute, Dickinson became more annoyed—and more determined. By the time he and the other cop had left, he had reiterated in a variety of colorful and profane ways his threat to put the screws to Harry.

  There was a small, enclosed terrace off the master bedroom. It had a view of the midsection of another apartment building, and might have been considered a solarium if it ever received anything more than token sunlight. Evie had had many plans for the room when they first moved into the apartment, but soon lost interest in them. There were similar terraces all the way up the building. Those on the upper floors had expansive views and hours of direct sunlight. Over time, the room came to symbolize those things she felt were second-rate in their life, and she absolutely never went out there.

  Eventually, Harry had replaced the table, chairs, and small sofa with his exercise mat, stationary bicycle, weights, and a twelve-inch TV. Now, he turned on the early morning news and began a sequence of lifts with ten-pound barbells, aimed at maintaining strength in the muscles in his back—muscles that had been surgically repaired after being shredded at Nha-trang. The lead story this morning was about the cascading rumors of sexual impropriety that continued to plague the president and undermine his effectiveness. The second story dealt with the Republican filibuster that had all but damned the strict caps on health-insurance premiums demanded by the administration’s health-care package. The third story was about Evie’s murder.

  “Evelyn DellaRosa, consumer editor at Manhattan Woman magazine and wife of prominent Manhattan physician Dr. Harry Corbett, died of a brain hemorrhage last week at the Manhattan Medical Center.” Evie’s stock photo appeared behind the anchorwoman with the word MURDERED scrolled across it in crimson. “Now, according to reliable police sources, the death of the former beauty queen and television reporter is being treated as a homicide.…”

  Harry set the weights aside and sank to one knee as the details of the medical examiner’s findings were presented in TV shorthand. Behind the reporter flashed first a photo of MMC, then a close-up of a vial labeled Aramine with a syringe protruding from the top, and finally, one of Harry himself—a twenty-year-old shot of him in dress uniform that someone had resurrected from the photo morgue at the Times.

  “According to police sources, the only suspect currently under investigation in DellaRosa’s murder is her husband, a general practitioner on the staff of the hospital in which she was slain. Reportedly, Dr. Corbett, who was awarded the silver star for bravery in Vietnam, was his wife’s last visitor before her fatal hemorrhage. Police claim the couple was having marital difficulties. No other details are available at this time.…”

  Harry buried his face in his hands. Weariness and perspiration burned in his eyes. As promised, Dickinson was off and running. And aside from remaining as composed as possible before the eruption that was about to occur, there wasn’t a goddamn thing Harry could do about it. At that moment, the phone began ringing. It was Rocky Martino, the night doorman. A film crew from Channel 11 had just shown up in the lobby, and the reporter was demanding to see Harry about the murder of his wife.

  Tell them to go fuck themselves, Harry thought.

  “Tell them there will be no interviews,” he said, and don’t say anything to them yourself. Nothing at all. Can I get out of the building through that metal door in the furnace room?… Great. Rocky, believe me, I didn’t do anything to hurt Evie.… Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Now remember, no matter how much you want to help me, don’t say anything at all to anyone.”

  Seconds after he had hung up, the phone was ringing again. This time it was his brother. Before Evie’s funeral, Harry had shared with Phil a good deal of what had transpired at the hospital with Sidonis and Dickinson. Phil had offered then to put him in touch with a top-notch attorney, but Harry had decided to wait.

  “You been watching TV?” Phil asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?”

  “Would you be?”

  “When did you know for sure about that drug being in Evie?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. They came and searched the office for it. Then last night they searched my apartment.”

  “I take it they didn’t find anything. Harry, you should have called me when the cops showed up at your office. You have rights. You should have let me call my friend Mel. He’s an animal. Most obnoxious son of a bitch I’ve ever known. I mean that as a compliment, of course. You want me to call him now?”

  “How do you know him, Phil?”

  “How do you think? He’s bought a new Mercedes from me every year since I went into the business. This year it’s a 600 SEL—the big one. Black. That’s the first thing you gotta check when you get a lawyer. Not his law school or his bar exam score. The car he drives. Course, he’d cost you. You’re probably looking at a twenty- or twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

  Harry was shocked. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “Don’t take too long. Oh, and Harry—”

  “Yes?”

  “Happy birthday.”

  Mary Tobin was the next to call. Harry had made the front page of two papers. He assured her he’d be in for a full day at the office and told her not to argue with anyone who wanted to cancel an appointment or even change doctors. Rocky, then Phil, now Mary—and it was just half past six. He said a silent thanks to Evie for insisting their number be unlisted.

  He stripped out of his sweats and was waiting for the shower water to heat up when the phone again began ringing. This time, he decided, the machine could answer it. He hovered close enough to hear the caller.

  “Hello, you have reached the phone of Evie and Harry.…”

  The voice was Evie’s. It was both bittersweet and somewhat ghoulish to hear her speaking this way. Before he left for work, he told himself, he had to remember to record a new greeting.

  “Dr. Corbett, Samuel Rennick speaking. I’m chief counsel for the hospital. If you’re .screening calls, could you please pick up …”

  Harry leaned against the bathroom door frame. Steam from the shower had begun to fill the small room. Goddamn Dickinson, he was thinking.

  “… Okay, then. I guess I’ll leave a message and then try to reach you at the hospital.…” The lawyer paused again. It was as if he knew Harry was listening. “… Dr. Erdman would like to meet with you about the developments this morning. His office, ten o’clock. If there’s a problem with that time, please call his secretary. Dr. Erdman has asked that I be there, as well as Dr. Lord from the medical staff, Dr. Josephson, who is acting chief of your department, and Mr. Atwater from Manhattan Health. I’ll be at Dr, Erdman’s office beginning at eight. You can reach me there if need be. Thank you.”

  Owen Erdman, a highly political, Harvard-educated and-trained endocrinologist, had been president of MMC for nearly a decade, during which time he had overseen the physical transformation of a shabby institution and a turnaround of its shaky reputation. The jewel in the crown of his reformation had been the affiliation with Manhattan Health. But Harry knew that with the new federal health policies, alliances between caregivers were as fragile as spring ice, and an allegiance meant something only so long as it was profitable. Any piece of negative publicity for MMC had to be worrisome to the CEO.

  Harry had heard via the hospital grapevine that his minor victory against the edicts of the Sidonis committee did not sit well with Erdman. Now he was responsible for more soot falling on the man’s house. Harry showered quickly and then called his
brother.

  “Phil, I’ve decided to take you up on your offer about that lawyer,” he said.

  “Smart move, bro.”

  “If so, it will be the first one I’ve made in a while.”

  Attorney Mel Wetstone’s retainer, “marked down twenty-five percent because Phil’s such a good friend,” was indeed $20,000 against an hourly rate of $350. And here the President was, Harry thought, knocking himself out and pitting brother against brother across the country to effect health care reform. Perhaps a bit of attention was due the legal system as well.

  Harry decided to borrow the $20,000 against his pension plan, rather than wipe out a large portion of his savings. He met with his new lawyer in the family medicine conference room on the seventh floor of the Alexander Building at MMC. Wetstone was a prosperous fortyish, a dozen or so pounds overweight, with thinning dark hair that looked as if it had been surgically augmented. There was a slight wheeze to his breathing. Hard-pressed at times to forget that the meter was running at $350 an hour, Harry reviewed his complete story in detail for the first time, including the encounter in the Village with his apparent nemesis. Wetstone was a sympathetic listener and only rarely interrupted the narrative with a question.

  “So,” Wetstone said after Harry had finished, “what it boils down to is that you didn’t do anything wrong, and people think you did. In my business that’s the norm. My job will be to keep anyone from hurting you. Now, what do you think this meeting at ten is all about?”

  “I don’t know for certain. I’ve taken some stands on issues lately that haven’t been too popular with the administration. Now I’m publicly giving them a black eye. I don’t think they’d just boot me off the staff at this point, although I guess they could. More likely they’ll want to ask me to take a voluntary leave from the hospital until the situation is ironed out.”

  “You want to do that?”