by Peg Brantley
“Already done. The good news is we got him at home so there’s no warning to whoever else might be involved at the ER. The other good news is he made quite a scene. If we don’t find something on him to tie him to this case, we could probably hold him for obstruction of justice and just being a genuine ass.”
“Is he here?”
“They just got our visitor settled in the interview room about five minutes ago.”
“Good. We’ll let him sit a bit. Have you seen Terri?”
“I’ve been babysitting, remember? But she must’ve hustled some kind of butt to get a warrant for this computer and have it here as fast as she did. Plus she got me the IT connection I needed.”
Chase took out his cell and saw the text message from the other detective. That was six hours ago. “What time did the computer come in?”
Daniel checked the paperwork. “It was seized at four thirty.”
Chase retrieved another package of Twizzlers from his drawer.
“Good work, Daniel.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you going to see Elizabeth Benavides when this is over?” Chase made two points by asking this question. One, he understood the attraction between the two people. Two, Daniel’s best move for his career did not involve taking Elizabeth with him on any more tails.
The other detective shrugged his shoulders but the rust color in his face couldn’t be dismissed.
Chase laughed. “Okay, then. Why don’t I go talk to the charming Dr. Fyfe?”
Chase and Daniel walked to the small space adjoining the interview room and checked the video equipment. Two screens showed separate views of an anxious Armand Fyfe. An audio check confirmed good sound. Fyfe inhaled and exhaled so hard Chase thought he might hyperventilate.
He took a few more minutes to watch his subject. Smallish with a thin build, dark curly hair slashed with gray, he looked more like a lab rat than the doctor in charge. Chase figured the man had taken a few hits as a kid because of his last name. He’d grown up in a time when people knew about Barney Fyfe, the bumbling sheriff’s deputy on television. And with Armand as a first name? Chase guessed the guy had a pair to make it through high school, let alone college and medical school.
A moment later he knocked politely on the door and entered the interview room. He knew exactly how to play this.
“Dr. Fyfe, I’m Detective Waters. You are here because of some cases we’re investigating, and I have a few questions we need you to answer.”
Chase watched anxiety flee from the man’s demeanor, replaced by arrogance.
“You have no fucking right to do this to me.”
“Actually we do.” Chase pulled a chair out from the end of the table and sat it on the same side as Fyfe at an angle. He sat down and crossed his legs.
Armand Fyfe pushed his chair further away and pressed deeper into it. “I am a respected doctor at Aspen Memorial Hospital. I pay my goddamned taxes and don’t break the law. I’ve done nothing illegal. You are risking a hell of a lawsuit that will ruin your shitty career and fuck up your life for the rest of the time you might have left. But then, maybe you already have a fucked-up life and wouldn’t notice much of a difference.” Fyfe took a breath. “You and your assholes have pissed up the wrong rope.”
“You are making my day, Dr. Fyfe.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. With every delightful word you utter, my day keeps getting better.”
“Fuck you.”
“Perhaps I should explain.” Better and better. Chase loved interrogating suspects, and Armand Fyfe already ranked as one of his favorites. He couldn’t wait to bring this guy down. But first he wanted to toy with him a little.
“I’m waiting, and with each minute I piss away here on my day off my lawsuit against your little shit-ass department ticks up by one mil.”
The little man reminded Chase of the wolf in the children’s story about the three pigs. Fyfe huffed and puffed, threatening to blow the AFPD house down. This called for a little more rope.
“My apologies for inconveniencing you, Dr. Fyfe.”
“You said you would explain this abominable behavior.”
“Yes, I did,” Chase said. “We’re investigating some particularly brutal murders.”
“Hell-lo? I’m a doctor. I’m no fucking murderer. I don’t even know anyone who’s been murdered.”
“Oh, but you do.”
“Who?”
“How many patients do you see in a typical week, Doctor?”
“I don’t see wha—”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. One hundred? Two hundred?”
“And how many of those patients require blood tests?”
“That all depends. I never order unnecessary tests, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“According to the computer data we have, you order more blood tests than all of the other doctors at Memorial put together. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a fair number of the patients for whom you’ve ordered tests are later murdered. Do you?” Chase watched the color leach from Armand Fyfe’s face.
Twenty minutes later, Chase left Dr. Armand Fyfe alone to contemplate where his actions—and his greed—had led. More importantly, Chase left with the name of the ER employee who had arranged to lease the good doctor’s computer access code. Fyfe hadn’t ordered the blood tests himself. He’d just leased out his access code. Idiot.
Chase made sure Daniel had been able to commit everything to video, then went to the front desk to complete some paperwork. Knowing that what’s written isn’t always read, he told the officer on duty to release the man in Interview Room Two at ten o’clock. Releasing Fyfe temporarily was a risk he was willing to take.
Chase had what he needed.
Chapter Seventy-Six
The Preston Clinic
Tuesday, September 25
The serrated words of the administrative doctor ripped Edward Sloan’s soul into a ragged, bloody mass. “She’s weaker tonight.”
Welts raised on his heart. Edward Sloan sucked in a lungful of air and reached for one of the chairs at the long polished table. He was beginning to hate this room at the clinic. The grayness of the day had seeped into the air of this space. Now it crawled inside him. The snow may have stopped, but the chill it represented had stuck.
When he’d come back after a short break for dinner, Nancy Collins had met him in the flower-filled lobby. Told him Dr. Frederickson wanted to speak with him in the conference room before he saw Diana. She didn’t bother to show him the way again.
“We’re doing everything we can to keep her strong enough to withstand surgery, Mr. Sloan. But if we don’t find a suitable donor in the next few hours, I’m afraid the patient won’t be able to handle the trauma associated with a long operation.”
Edward didn’t bother reminding Nathan Frederickson of his wife’s name. It hadn’t worked before. Frederickson was a computer, not a healer. Edward closed his eyes. Healers with empathy and compassion hadn’t worked no matter how much money he spent. Now his money was buying impersonal automatons he would never invite into his home.
So be it.
The doctor was seated at the far end of the table, a clipboard in front of him. A china tea service on a silver tray sat nearby. Only one cup, Edward noticed.
With a pen, he checked something off then looked directly at Edward for the first time. “It isn’t that we aren’t fully prepared to do our part, should the opportunity present itself. It’s simply that we are trying to do the kind thing here and make certain you are prepared for all plausible eventualities.”
Edward nodded, but the kind medical professional had turned his attention back to the checklist. Which, Edward Sloan guessed, contained the task of this very conversation. One less thing for the dear doctor to deal with this evening.
He turned and left the room, shoulders sagging with unshed tears and unlived dreams.
Martin Jackson had left him a message this afterno
on, and Edward hadn’t yet returned his call. Their old family doctor had probably phoned to discuss the same thing. The delivery would have been different but the message essentially the same.
Edward Sloan wanted to pray for good news. For a heart that was as good a match as the previous organs were. And for it to come through legitimate channels. But he knew if he began praying he would pray for a heart from any source, including the other sources he’d put in play. Sources that had required him to harden his own heart in order to use them. Praying meant he’d have to talk to God, and he didn’t like the idea of talking with God right now.
Like changing clothes, Edward threw off the hopeless desperation Frederickson seemed adept at providing. A cloak of doom tailored by lawyers and statisticians designed to protect the investors and the heartless administrative professionals who ran this best-in-the-world level of care private clinic. In place of gloom, he powered up a current of optimism before entering Diana’s room. He couldn’t let his wife see how close he was to giving up.
Edward stopped short of Diana’s door, gave himself a shake and pumped up his posture. Got an image in his mind of taking Diana away on a lavish holiday once this was behind them and her health restored. She loved the ocean. He’d find a private beach with crystal water and white sand. Edward could hear her infectious laughter and watch as the sparkle in her eyes rivaled the sun glinting off the water.
He opened the door.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
The Sloan Residence
Wednesday, September 26
Edward Sloan pushed the off-button and laid the phone on his desk. It was almost two thirty in the morning. Light pooled and spotlighted the mechanical instrument, the sleek modern lines somehow mocking the tradition of inlaid mahogany and leather on the surface of his desk. Shadows pressed in from the rest of his study. Shadows pressed in on his mind. He took a sip from his drink.
There had been no good news from any of his sources. He had people in China, India, prisons around the world—all looking for something that could make them rich. But a heart from a donor with the same rare blood type and other matching issues as Diana’s remained elusive—while time collapsed around them at an alarming speed.
Edward Sloan did the only thing he had left to do.
He made one more phone call, then fell to his knees.
* * *
He’d been dreaming about Diana. Just before she got sick the first time. The dream felt so real he looked over to the space next to his in their bed. His head fell back on the cool pillow and he closed his eyes. So real…
Edward had critically wounded his wife. They both knew it but neither talked about it. He’d almost killed their marriage—nothing would ever be the same. They both knew that too. The purity of their commitment to one another was gone forever. They were devoted to each other, but the sanctity of their marriage was spoiled.
Because of him.
Somehow he’d justified the affair. He was a man. He needed more than his wife was willing to give him (no matter that she’d given him all she could, including the very heart failing her now). He was wealthy and successful and he’d been honest enough to suggest to Diana what he was going to do. It made no difference that she didn’t believe he’d do it. Now all these years later, he couldn’t for the life of him come up with one reason to validate what he’d done. Edward had risked losing the best thing in his life. He couldn’t live without Diana.
He often wondered if after his infidelity, his wife had felt okay to pursue her own relationship outside of their marriage. He had no proof one way or the other, but he never felt she had. And there was always the possibility, small though it might be, that his actions—his choices—had contributed in some way to Diana’s illness. He’d read studies that indicated unusual or prolonged stress could lead to catastrophic illness.
If he could take it back—every bit of it—he would. He’d been so foolish.
Edward fell back into a troubled sleep.
The ringing of his telephone caused him to lurch up in bed. He glanced at the bedside clock. Oh God, no. Please, no.
“Sloan.”
“Dad, I’m sorry about the time difference but I just got your message.”
Eddie. In Japan. Not the hospital. “Hi, son.”
“Is she that bad?”
Edward choked back a groan. “It doesn’t look good. Unless we find a compatible heart in the next few hours, maybe a day, we’re going to lose her. Get here as quickly as you can.”
“She’s always loved you, you know.”
Something about the way Eddie said it. Did his son know what he had done all those years ago?
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Aspen-Pitkin County Airport
Wednesday, September 26
Chase pulled up at the airport, and his father-in-law unlatched his seat belt. “Thank you for coming, Stuart. I know your visit meant a lot to Bond.” Hours of talking, touching and tears had begun the healing in his wife that should have happened decades ago.
“You love my daughter and for that I will always be grateful.”
The man had aged in just a couple of days. A shadow had fallen across his features—pulled them to a sad place. Chase understood. He’d seen it often in the faces of survivors. Hell, he’d seen it in the mirror.
Chase didn’t know if Stuart had spoken to Celeste since his arrival and didn’t feel comfortable asking. The relationship between Bond’s parents only affected him as it affected Bond. And for now his wife had received the time and attention she needed from her father. The rest could wait.
He retrieved Stuart’s overnighter from the trunk, then handed the wheeled luggage off to the older man and held his hand out for the customary clasp and shake. Instead Stuart pulled him into a tight and awkward hug. When they broke apart, Stuart’s eyes had pooled with tears. He blinked and when they spilled onto his cheeks he didn’t bother wiping them away.
Stuart Worthington walked toward his private plane, shoulders stooped, his overcoat dragging unnoticed on the ground.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Aspen Falls Police Department
Wednesday, September 26
“It’s ducks-in-a-row time, detectives. We need to make sure we’re all on the same page, have all of our bases covered, and… if I could think of one more crappy cliché, I’d puke it up now.” Chase hauled in extra donuts and muffins and three grandes—each geared toward the particular tastes of the recipient—from The Coffee Pod.
“I think we’re almost at the end of this thing.” He set the food and drink down, and hands appeared as if by magic. “Terri, when you’ve had a sip and a bite, would you take the board?”
“I’ve got it,” Daniel said. He pulled a fresh whiteboard on rollers from the storage closet and set it next to the others, prepared to write.
“We have a couple of different motives here,” Chase began.
“Money,” both Terri and Daniel said at once.
“And?” He paused. “Think about it. What would prompt someone to offer money—maybe a lot of money—for a body part?”
“Fear,” Terri said.
“Yeah, well… fear of loss maybe. Or death. But I submit one of the other motives is love,” Chase said. “Of course love doesn’t give us the same legal clout as money in this instance, but it bears thinking about.”
Daniel looked a little confused. “So it’s money, right?”
“Right.”
“Money for who?”
“Presley Adams. The Preston Clinic is named after his brother.” Chase got up to get another muffin, vaguely concerned he couldn’t remember having eaten the first one. “Adams has an extremely wealthy clientele around the world. Wealthy enough that they made him a millionaire in his own right a few hundred times over. And he would do anything to build up their loyalties, not to mention his bank accounts.”
“He fills a need,” Daniel offered.
“Exactly.”
“And in this case,” Daniel continue
d, “there is no way supply can ever exceed demand.”
“Bingo.”
Terri continued the familiar case wrap-up with the team while Daniel wrote madly on the whiteboard. “He needed a supply source who would be a match for a majority of his clients but who wouldn’t be in a position to seek help from the authorities if things went bad, or even if they didn’t.”
Daniel stopped for a moment and then in a soft voice—almost reverent—“Illegal immigrants. People who generally live well within all the laws of our country, except for one. But it’s a big enough one that they will stay underground at all costs.”
“I’m willing to bet that every mutilated corpse that has been found in our region in the last two years, especially if they’re Hispanic or Latino, is someone who lived under the radar. Whose family and loved ones could never come to us for help or answers. I’ve requested records from every jurisdiction contiguous to ours.” Chase checked his watch. They couldn’t even begin to apply for arrest warrants until they could convince a judge they had probable cause.
“And our tie-in to the Preston Clinic?” Terri asked.
“Aspen Falls Memorial Hospital,” Daniel said.
Terri shifted in her seat and pursed her lips.
Chase tipped his chair back and then let it pop back to the ground. He leaned forward. “Look Terri, Leslie James is not the head of the ER. More important, she not only doesn’t have anything to do with these murders, she helped us get a handle on them. She’ll survive whatever fallout occurs.”
Terri nodded but didn’t look any more comfortable.
Daniel kept writing. “We have evidence that a doctor, Armand Fyfe, accepted payments for his access code in order for blood tests to be requested. We know they were all ordered by Frank Dumont, a physician’s assistant who not only ordered the blood tests of uninsured Hispanics who came into the clinic, but also sent the test results directly to Presley Adams.”
Terri sat forward on her chair. “And Presley Adams then compared them to the current needs of his wealthy clients from all over the world. When he could make a match he moved ahead.”
