by Lee Goldberg
"Have you got any other investigative pointers for me?" Harry sneered. "Because if you don't, I have advice to give you on your next surgical procedure."
I ignored the dig and the impulse to make a cutting rejoinder. There was no point making him any angrier than he already was, especially when I still needed more information from him.
"Did you match the tire treads on Dr Whittington's car to the casts you made at the scene of Tess Vigland's murder?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, practically spitting at me. "And the neighbor has identified the Imperial as the car she saw outside the house where Tess Vigland was babysitting. Not that it matters now."
"What happened to all of Whittington's money? How did he lose it?"
"You don't ruin yourself losing money you have," Harry said. "You ruin yourself by losing money that isn't yours. He borrowed against everything he had to invest a hundred thousand dollars in a bomb shelter development company."
"Safe Haven, Incorporated," I said.
"You knew about that, too?"
"He tried to sell me one."
"Shows you just how desperate he really was," Harry said.
"The bullet in his brain told me that," I replied.
Harry explained that Whittington was one of several investors, mostly professionals in other fields, who thought the bomb shelter business was going to boom. It didn't. The enterprise was going bankrupt and taking the investors down with it.
"Have you found any of Sally Pruitt's jewelry in Dr. Whittington's house?" I asked.
Harry shook his head. "He probably ditched it. Wouldn't you if you'd drowned some kid in your bathtub?"
"You think he killed her there?"
"Where else?" Harry said. "What the hell does it matter now anyway? They're dead, he's dead, it's done. Case closed. All that's left is for you to make a statement. You think you can do that now?"
I nodded. I started to rise from my seat, but he pushed me back down.
"I don't ever want to see you again," he said.
"I didn't do this to hurt you," I said.
"But you keep doing it anyway," Harry said. "Investigate that."
I lied in my statement.
I didn't change any of the facts, but as I told my story to the officer, I made it seem as if I was consulting with Harry from the beginning, as if we were working hand in hand from the morning he visited my apartment.
It wouldn't be to my advantage to take credit for solving the murders. For one thing, I didn't feel as if I had. I never suspected Dr. Whittington until I was standing on his doorstep, bringing him the admissions files of those three dead women.
Besides, it wouldn't have done me any good. I was a doctor. I had no aspirations to be a homicide detective. And seeking recognition for what little I'd done would have deeply hurt the reputations and careers of Dr. Barbette and Harry Tremble. I cared too much about them both to do that.
And something Harry said to me had struck a nerve.
I'd taken the woman he loved. I wasn't going to take his career away from him, too.
I'd hurt him enough already.
This deserved to be Harry Tremble's victory. The problem was, Harry Tremble would always know that it wasn't.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I got home that rainy February evening, there was a message waiting for me from the hospital administrators. They'd told Katherine I was on paid leave until the controversy settled down. There was no need for me to come in to work until further notice. They were careful to say that this wasn't a disciplinary action, but rather something they felt was in my best interests, as well as the hospital's.
Needless to say, this message confused Katherine, who had no idea what they were talking about. So, as I ate my dinner, I went over everything once again, ending with my statement to the police.
When I was done, Katherine seemed dazed.
"He kissed my hand," she said. "Dr. Whittington killed all those women, and he kissed my hand."
I didn't know what to say to that. I took her hand and gave it a squeeze.
"At least it's all over," I said. "I can go back to being a doctor now. My days as a detective are finished."
"You can't go back to being a doctor just yet," she said. "You're on leave. Remember?"
I glanced at Steve in his playpen, gumming a plastic donut, his shirt drenched in drool.
"Then I'll put all my effort into being a dad," I said.
"What about putting some effort into being a husband?" she said.
"What did you have in mind?"
She gave me a smile. "I'm sure I can think of something."
The front page of the Los Angeles Times the next morning was dominated by the news of Dr. Whittington's suicide and his involvement in the murders of two young women. No mention was made of the other three possible victims. Something else wasn't mentioned—me. And I was glad for that.
The newspaper also reprinted most of Dr. Whittington's suicide note, omitting any mention of forcing would-be nursing students into selling their sexual favors and cutting him in on a percentage. I suspected those details had been withheld by the police to protect the reputations of the young women and their families.
I read the suicide note over many times, and each time I did, the tingle along my neck and between my shoulder blades got worse. Something wasn't right. Whatever it was, I was seeing it, and I wasn't seeing it, at the same time.
It was too frustrating. I gave up and read through the rest of the paper. A lot of column inches were given to storm coverage.
In one short but deadly downpour, half an inch of water fell on the city in a matter of minutes, causing flash floods throughout Los Angeles, turning canyon roads into impassable rivers. Cars were seen floating down Laurel Canyon Boulevard and onto Hollywood Boulevard. In Sierra Madre, hillsides scorched by summer wildfires disintegrated, burying five homes and trapping several people. In Pasadena, a car careened off the freeway and plunged into the Arroyo Seco storm drain, where it was carried two miles to the raging Los Angeles River. Somehow, the occupants of the car survived. LA mayor Sam Yorty declared a state of emergency in the city and ordered the Office of Civil Defense to coordinate operations.
Another article interviewed weather bureau forecasters, who predicted that a mass of unstable, moist air would pummel Los Angeles with "unusually heavy showers" and "extraordinarily high winds" for at least another day. Two water spouts, tornado-like spirals of wind-whipped sea, were reported off Malibu, prompting a warning to boaters and homeowners along the coastline. If the spouts touched land, they would become twisters and could cause enormous destruction.
Southern California wasn't the only place getting hammered by the weather. Rough seas in the Atlantic Ocean recovery area were forcing another delay in astronaut John Glenn's much-anticipated space flight.
And Hedda Hopper reported that actor Vince Edwards, who played Dr. Ben Casey on TV, visited St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix and managed to wake a girl from a coma just by saying "hello" to her.
It made me wonder if I should have taken acting classes instead of going to medical school. I would not only be able to cure the sick and help the injured, but I'd probably have my own situation comedy, too.
I was thinking about that when Katherine set Steve down in my lap and went looking for the stroller. She told me we were going to the laundromat and that I was going to be in charge of the baby.
That sounded just fine to me. I was looking forward to a day of domestic tranquility, far removed from the ugliness of murder and the chaos of the ER.
I felt like an intruder.
The laundromat was filled with housewives, and they'd turned the place into a women's luncheon. They'd brought thermos bottles of coffee and milk and picnic baskets of sandwiches and cookies for themselves and their kids, who were playing in the playpen the mothers had setup. I was assigned to keep watch on the kids while the women, who included Mary Spicer, Gladys Arnold, and Irene Marlowe, gossiped and smoked and ate and folded their lau
ndry.
I didn't mind. I stole a sandwich and some cookies and sat in a plastic chair beside the playpen, tickling the kids and eavesdropping on the conversation the women were having.
The big topic was, of course, Dr. Whittington's suicide and the revelation that he'd murdered two teenage girls.
"He's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Irene Marlowe said. "They were both British, you know."
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?" Mary Spicer asked jokingly.
"Dr. Whittington and Dr. Jekyll," Irene said. "Though I don't think any secret potion drove Whittington to kill those girls."
"I feel sorry for his wife," Katherine said. "Think what she must be going through right now."
"She must have had an inkling something was wrong," Gladys Arnold said. "She left him, didn't she?"
"That was only because the money ran out," Irene said. "Not because he was a sex-crazed killer."
"Where does it say anything about him being sex-crazed?" Mary asked.
"He wasn't playing backgammon with those girls," Katherine said.
"I ran into Constance Whittington at the supermarket once," Gladys said.
"You did?" Mary said. "You never told us that."
"She was lecturing the grocer on the proper care and presentation of vegetables in that very English accent of hers," Gladys said. "Her attitude seemed to be that everything was better in England than it is here and it was her job to educate all of us savages."
"They didn't make any effort at all to fit in," Mary said, nodding in agreement.
They kept talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. Mary's comment sparked a static burst in my mind. The letters and words that made up Dr. Whittington's suicide notes careened across my psyche.
I scurried around the Laundromat, looking for a copy of the morning paper. I finally found one, stuffed into a garbage can. I plucked it out and brought it back to my chair.
I borrowed a fat crayon from Gladys Arnold's three-year-old son and sat down in my seat, laying the newspaper open on my lap. I reread the suicide note and saw everything I'd missed before, marking up the newspaper in crayon as I went along. It was as if I'd read it the first time with blurred vision and now I was wearing glasses. Everything was clear.
Dr Whittington didn't write the suicide note. It was written by whoever murdered him.
The same person who killed those five women was trying to trick us again by framing an innocent man.
There was a pay phone mounted on the wall not far from me. I hurried over to it, reached into my pocket for some spare change, and dialed Harry Trumble's number at the station house.
He answered on the first ring. "Trumble."
"Harry, it's Mark Sloan," I said. "Please don't hang up on me."
"Give me one good reason not to," he said.
"Dr. Whittington was murdered," I said. "The evidence is the suicide note."
"What are you talking about?"
"You didn't know him, but he was very British. You saw how he was dressed, didn't you? Who wears a cravat alone at home? He conducted himself as if it was his sole responsibility to uphold the British way of life among the savages," I said. "That's what's wrong with his suicide note. It's full of errors."
"I didn't see any typos or spelling errors," Harry said irritably.
"Because you're an American," I said. "That's why I didn't see them at first either. But take a good look at the note, Harry. We spell some words differently than the British do."
I walked Harry through the suicide note, line by line, word by word. Dr. Whittington supposedly wrote "In desperation, I turned to less honorable methods of acquiring funds." I pointed out that the writer used the American spelling of "honorable," not the British, which is "honourable." Likewise, he'd used the American spellings of "favours," "endeavours," "defence," and "programme." When I finished with my examples, Harry let out a frustrated sigh.
"That's it?" Harry said. "Did it ever occur to you that Whittington may have used the American spellings deliberately because he knew his note would be read by Americans?"
"He wouldn't have," I said. "But even if we assume for the sake of argument that he did, that doesn't explain the other errors.
"This isn't a goddamn spelling test, it's a suicide note," Harry said.
"He wouldn't say his books were 'due Thursday,' he'd say 'due back on Thursday.' And he signed the note 'Dr. Alistair Whittington."
"Now you're saying he wasn't a doctor?"
"What I'm saying is that he was an Oxford man, he wore a school tie, he was very class-conscious," I said.
"These were supposedly his last words. He would have signed a genuine suicide note as 'Alistair Whittington FRCS,' indicating that he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and gone to his grave carrying his class distinction with him. By not doing so, Whittington was sending us a message, revealing in a subtle way that whatever he was signing was a fraud. And then there's the date. He would have started with the day first, not the month, and—"
"I'm hanging up now," Harry interrupted.
"You're making a mistake," I said, but it was too late. All I was hearing was a dial tone.
I hung up the phone and slumped back to my seat, tossing my marked-up newspaper onto the empty chair beside me in frustration.
The women were still talking and sorting laundry.
The kids were still playing and giggling.
Nobody noticed or cared what I was doing. Nobody saw my distress.
Well, that wasn't entirely true. One person did. I felt someone looking at me. I glanced at Steve. He was sitting in the middle of the playpen, oblivious to his friends, staring at me with big, moist eyes. He could tell something wasn't right with Daddy. Steve held up his chubby arms, signaling that he wanted me to pick him up.
I reached into the playpen, pulled him out, and set him down on my lap. He started to bounce, which was his way of telling me he wanted me to bounce him on my knees.
So I did.
I hummed the theme to Bonanza and, still holding him under his arms, bounced him to and fro to the beat of the song. He giggled with joy, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a big grin.
After a moment or two, he seemed satisfied that I was fine and reached his arms out towards the playpen. I got the hint and put him back down among his playmates.
I decided that it didn't matter whether Harry believed me or not. I knew I was right. The killer was still out there and had added another victim to his growing list.
I knew he existed. I knew what he had done. Somehow, I had to stop him.
But where to begin?
Obviously, the killer had forced Dr. Whittington to sign a blank piece of paper and then, after he shot the doctor, he typed the suicide note above the signature.
But why did he have Dr. Whittington open the safe first? Was it to make it seem like the doctor was putting his affairs in order? Or was the killer looking for some thing? If so, what?
And more important, why did the killer pick Dr. Whittington to frame for his crimes? Was it simply because the doctor had a connection to each of the victims? Did Dr. Whittington know his killer, or were they strangers?
I didn't know any of the answers. I didn't even have any decent guesses.
I had nothing.
I gave up for the moment and began eavesdropping again on the conversation among the women.
"You won't believe what Bart got in the mail yester day," Mary said. "A letter from Chrysler."
"So?" Irene said.
"They're offering us an Imperial Crown Southampton to drive for three days," Mary said. "Absolutely free."
"What's the catch?" Gladys asked.
"There isn't one," Katherine replied, folding socks. "They're sending those letters to thousands of doctors."
"They are?" Mary said, sounding disappointed.
"Mark?" Katherine held up the pair of socks she'd just folded, the top ankle portion of one pulled down over the other, the toe ends hanging out like floppy dog ears. "I don't recognize these
socks. Where did they come from?"
"What makes you think I didn't buy myself some new socks?" I asked.
"Because you haven't bought a new pair of socks since we got married," she said. "You'd wear your socks until all your toes poked through, and your heel, too, if I didn't buy you new ones myself."
I gestured towards Gladys. "I borrowed them from Chet."
"Why would you borrow socks from Chet?" Katherine asked.
"It's a long story," I said. "And not very interesting."
Katherine handed the pair of socks to Gladys, who promptly unfolded them. As I watched, she laid the two socks down on the table on top of each other, rolled them from up from the toes, then pulled the opening of one sock down over the whole roll. It took a few seconds and she did it while still talking about something.
I don't know what she was talking about because all I was hearing was the burst of static in my head. It was happening again. That physical tingle, coupled with a blur of images, facts, and thoughts in my mind, every thing I'd seen and heard since Sally Pruitt was brought into the ER. And suddenly the bits and pieces all made sense.
I stood up, walked over beside Irene Marlowe and looked at her pile of socks. She stuffed one sock into the other, creating tiny balls.
I moved over to Mary Spicer and watched her as she placed one sock on the other, folded them in half, then turned them inside out, wrapping them around her hand like a glove. When she pulled her hand out, the folded sock resembled a sandwich.
"Haven't you ever seen someone fold socks before?" Mary asked me.
"Laundry is a mystery most men don't understand," Gladys said. "They just think their clothes magically show up washed, folded, and ironed in their drawers. Chet has never done a load of laundry in his life."
"I think that's why men get married," Irene quipped.
When I looked up again, I saw Katherine looking at me, bewildered. "Mark, are you okay?"
I nodded, forcing a smile to reassure her. It was amazing what you could learn at a laundromat.
"I'm just fine, but I need to go," I said. "I need to take the car. Do you mind getting a ride home with one of these remarkable women?"
