The Oath

by John Lescroart

  "No, I would not expect that. No more than you would get it from me if they charged you with killing Mr. Markham or the others."

  This time the pause lasted several seconds. "What are you saying?"

  "I think you know what I am saying. We would not be talking still if you did not know. I saw you."

  "You saw me what? I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Please, Doctor, please," Rajan said. He could feel his throat catching, and reached for the water. "We don't need to waste time in denials. We don't have time. Instead, I have a proposal for you."

  "You do? How amusing. You've obviously got an agile mind, Mr. Bhutan. So I'd be curious to hear what it was, although your premise is fatally flawed."

  "If it is, we shall see. My idea is only this—you may remember the day after Christmas, four months ago, when you did a drop-in at the ICU? Is that still familiar to you? I was on that shift and there was a patient named Shirley Watrous."

  "And the police think you killed her? Is that it?"

  Rajan ignored the question. "But you were there with me. I keep a daily diary, but also I remember. You and I had a pleasant discussion about working during the holiday season. People don't like it, but it is in many ways preferable to the family obligations and raised expectations. You may remember."

  "Maybe I do, but what's your point? Was that the day after Christmas? I don't remember that."

  "But you must, you see."

  "I'm hanging up now," Ross said.

  But he did not, and Rajan went on. "I didn't even realize what you were doing, of course. And then the police told me the names of some of the others. And I realized you'd been there for all of them, and what you'd done.

  "I feel like a fool, really. Perhaps I always knew, but how could one in my place ever even suggest that you were doing what you were doing? I, not even a doctor.

  "And who was to say it was the wrong thing, to put these people beyond pain, even if I had been sure? No one even questioned the deaths before, so how could I accuse you when everyone else seemed to take these things for granted?"

  Rajan's clipped tones were speeding up and he forced himself to slow down. "Then when I saw you with Mr. Markham's IV, I thought again I must have been wrong. I did not want to know. I was too afraid to say anything. Then I was afraid because I had not said anything sooner. But now I am most afraid of all, because I know if I accuse you, you will accuse me. But I was not at the hospital for all these killings, and I know you had to be, because you did them."

  He was at the end. He closed his eyes for the strength to finish. "So please, Doctor. Please. You must tell the police I was with you when these people died. You will be my alibi. And, of course, I shall be yours."

  "You can't be serious?" Ross's tone was harsh, filled with disbelief and even outrage.

  But he was still on the line. Rajan had seen similar bluster among the vanquished during bridge tournaments, and even chess games, when in fact they had known all was lost.

  "Your nerve amazes me, Mr. Bhutan. Are you sure that's all you want?"

  "No, not quite. I'm afraid I will have to be leaving the country soon. So I will also need to have fifty thousand dollars, please. Tonight. In cash."

  * * *

  Panic was the devil.

  Ross had a core belief that it was a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate acts. His great talent, he sometimes thought, was in recognizing the desperation of others.

  Emergency at the office, he told Nancy. Something to do with an audit. Yeah, even Friday night. These people worked all the time. He had to go in, but he'd make it up to her. Tell the Sullivans he was sorry—to make up for the last-minute cancellation of their dinner date, maybe they'd fly them all up to Tahoe next weekend.

  In his office, behind the locked door, he was pulling the tenth pitiable little stack of bills out of his safe. This man Bhutan he shook his head, almost smiling at the man's naivete. Fifty thousand dollars for what he knew? That was yet another problem with most people—very few had a clue about value. If it were Ross, it would have been ten times that, and a bargain at the price. But perhaps Bhutan really was being shrewd. If he accused Ross, Ross would indeed accuse him, but that would lead to awkward questions about why he had not spoken up sooner.

  Just for a moment, he stood stock-still, trying to remember. He had been alone in the room. He was certain. Bhutan had not come in until he was done. Could he really have seen him from the hall? Seen him without being seen?

  Not that it was going to matter. He couldn't take the chance that Bhutan would panic and talk to the police despite being paid. Or not panic and decide he needed more money. Or just do something stupid and give them both away.

  And if Bhutan was bluffing, if he really hadn't clearly seen Ross at the IV, so much the worse for him. He actually presented an excellent opportunity to resolve this increasingly sticky problem.

  The bills would be back in here by tomorrow morning, although he would miss owning what he called his Bond gun. There was a certain charm in the Walther PPK that his father had chanced upon in a downtown gutter one evening, and had eventually given to him. He loved the secret sense of sin it gave him, the thrill of private power.

  * * *

  Carla had brought it all upon herself. "I know what you've been doing," she told him in the hospital that morning. He was almost certain that she was referring to his second source of income, the kickbacks. But it might have been the other, the patients. He'd had a sense that Tim was closing in on that somehow. Checking his drop-in dates at the hospital. Asking questions he must have thought were subtle.

  The accident had thrown Carla into a panic. And under that panic was an insane, inflexible resolve. There was no mistaking the hysterical edge to her control as he'd come up to her in the corridor outside the ICU. Seeing her husband smashed up, intubated, unconscious, had undone her. Ross walked up to her, ready with a comforting hug and some platitudes about bearing up and supporting each other. But her eyes had been wild and desperate as she whirled on him. "Don't you dare insult me with your phony sympathy."

  "Carla? What?"

  "Whatever happens here, you're finished with us, Mal, with all of this. You think this will free you, don't you? You think this will be the end of it."

  He tried again, a comforting hand on her arm.

  "Don't touch me! You're not our friend. You're not kidding me anymore. You're not Tim's friend and you never have been. Do you think he hasn't told me what you've been doing? Well, now I know, and I will not forget. Whatever happens to him—whatever happens!—I promise you, I will take you down. That's what he wanted, that's what he was going to do to save the company from all you've done to destroy it, and if it's the last thing I do, I will see that it happens."

  "Carla, please. You're upset. You don't know what you're saying."

  But she'd kept on, sealing her own death sentence. "Even if Tim doesn't pull through, I'll owe it to his memory to take it to the board. Even to the police."

  After the explicit threat, did she think he wouldn't act? Could she imagine he wouldn't? Unless he acted swiftly, boldly, without mercy, he was done.

  Knowing this and what he had to do, Ross first had to disarm her. He took her hands forcefully in both of his. They were eye to eye. "Carla. First let's get through this. Let's get Tim through it. I have made mistakes and I'm sorry for them. But so have we all. I promise you we'll work it out. If I have to leave, so be it. But never say it has anything to do with our friendship. Nothing can touch that. That's forever."

  * * *

  The plan presented itself full-blown. Potassium would leave no trace, and the hospital's PMs were hopelessly shoddy. If the medical examiner hadn't autopsied Tim—and Ross had never envisioned that—the whole plan would have worked. He realized that if he could make it appear that Carla was distraught enough to kill herself and her family, the police would never even look for a murderer. He would use the gun Tim kept in his home office.

  * * *

&
nbsp; When he got to the house, the upstairs lights were out. He wanted the kids to be asleep so he would not have to see them. He would do that part in the dark. They would feel nothing, suspect nothing. Sleep.

  But Carla stood inside the door and at first would not open it to him. "There's nothing to talk about, Mal. We're all exhausted and at the end. We can meet tomorrow."

  But he'd worn her down. "Please, Carla. I know Tim must have told you some things, but we were working them out, just like we always have. I loved the man. I need to explain. I need you to understand."

  "There's nothing to understand."

  "Then I need you, at least, to forgive me."

  And she'd paused a last time, then unlocked the chain. As he entered, he took the Walther from his pocket and told her they needed to walk quietly to the back of the house.

  * * *

  Now he would do it again. He had experience now. It had to look like suicide. It had to look as though Bhutan, knowing the police were onto him for all the murders at Portola, including Markham's, chose to take the coward's way out. That would close all the investigations.

  He also had to make sure no one heard the shot, which he supposed would be louder with the Walther than Tim's .22 had been.

  First he would have to distract Bhutan, then use chloroform to put him out. Except it would stay in the system long enough to be detected. Maybe ether? He had ether in his medical bag right here. That would do, as well. And of course he could simply shoot him as though it had been a robbery attempt or something. But a suicide was far preferable. He'd have to consider his options on the drive over, then play the thing by ear.

  Bhutan obviously thought the police were coming to get him at any moment. So he wanted fifty thousand dollars tonight. He was desperate and, being desperate, he was doomed to commit foolish acts, to make dangerous decisions.

  Just like Tim, for example. He couldn't get over Tim. When they'd both been humping to get the business up and running and there'd been so many opportunities to make hay under the table—much smaller potatoes than now, of course, and much of it in soft currencies and perks—the weekends in Napa or Mexico, the fine wines, the occasional corporate escorts for the convention parties when the wives couldn't make it. Tim had willingly enough succumbed to those temptations, right along with him. But the first hard money payoff had scared him off. This, he thought, was wrong, where to Ross it was no different than what they'd been doing. In fact, it was better.

  But Tim always wanted to believe that somewhere inside he was essentially an honest and good person, the fool. Hence all the agony he'd put himself through over wanting to schtup the admittedly sexy Ann Kensing. Ross couldn't believe that the guy had nearly ruined his life over what should have been at most a playful dalliance. But, no, he'd been "in love," whatever that meant. Stupid, stupid. But not as stupid as letting himself believe that just because Tim had decided not to take anybody's dirty money, Ross was going to do the same thing. Oh sure, Tim had had his little crisis of conscience all those years ago and had come to Ross saying they had to stop—not just because it threatened the health of patients and the company, but because it was wrong. And Ross had pretended to go along. And why not? Why burden the self-righteous idiot? Why split the money with someone who didn't want it? Ross knew the truth was that he wasn't really harming any patients by taking the odious drug money. If Tim was happier living with the fiction that Ross had found the Lord with him, he'd let him enjoy his fantasy.

  But then, even while Tim was sleeping around on his wife, he discovered Ross's brilliantly conceived fraudulent billings and could not believe that his longtime partner and medical director still cheated. And took kickbacks. His whining self-righteousness made Ross puke.

  What a hypocrite Tim was, coming to Ross in hand-wringing desperation—what should he do? What should he do? It had come to his attention, and so on and so forth. Didn't Ross understand? Tim had asked him. He'd crossed the line where now Tim had to do something, now had to act. And the conflict was ripping him up—Ross had been his friend for so long. Their families, blah blah blah.

  But even in the face of this direct threat, Ross remained calm and told Tim that of he felt compelled to accuse him publicly of criminal behavior, that Ross would have no choice but to point the finger back at him. They would both, then, be ruined, and who would that serve?

  Stalemate.

  But he knew that Tim was a time bomb. Eventually he would force the issue again, and again Ross would parry—it was the same with Ann and Carla and Ann again and Carla again. But Ross would not panic. He would calmly wait while Tim vacillated and if something did not change, as it often did, then Ross would eventually have to find a permanent way out, a permanent solution.

  And then Tim was suddenly delivered to him, on the edge of death, needing only a push that no one should ever see to send him over.

  * * *

  He kissed Nancy at the door, told the kids to be good. In the circular driveway, he spontaneously decided to take the old Toyota. Bhutan's address was in the Haight and he didn't want to drive one of the good cars, which would only be magnets for the vandals. The old green heap would get him there and attract no attention, and that's what the situation demanded.

  Throwing the briefcase onto the seat beside him, he pulled out into the traffic and adjusted the visor against the rays of the sun as it cleared the thin cloud layer above the horizon and sprayed the street in a golden glow.

  36

  As Ross drove by, the door threw him off at first.

  What kind of place did this guy live in? If it was just the door and the window down almost at the sidewalk level, the apartment didn't look to be much bigger than a closet. No space to swallow the sound of the shot. Fortunately, there was no lobby. He could simply knock and walk in, take care of his business, then walk out with relative impunity. Nevertheless, his heart was pounding much like when he'd gone to see Carla. This was a necessary business, but he couldn't deny the adrenaline rush.

  He finally parked a block and a half down and across the street now in the last minutes of daylight. He tried to envision Rajan Bhutan. He must have met him dozens of times in the hospital, of course, but he hadn't paid too much, if any, attention. If he had any impression of him at all, it was of a quiet man of very slight stature. If so, Ross could subdue him easily if he could maintain an element of surprise.

  But what was he going to do about the ether? Rajan the nurse would be intimately familiar with the smell, might pick it up as soon as he opened the door if Ross had already opened the bottle, poured it into the gauze, stuffed it into his jacket pocket. And how would he get behind the man? That seemed crucial.

  There was no hurry, he told himself. He'd gotten the call no more than an hour before, then had made noises about fifty thousand dollars being difficult to get ahold of in such a short time. But Bhutan hadn't bought that. Told him to figure some way to get it and then be at his address by nine or he would call the police.

  Ross looked at his watch again. It was ten to eight. He had all the time in the world. He held his hands out in front of him and looked at them for a long time. No trace of the shaking that had plagued him afterward with Tim, and then with Carla.

  He was actually looking forward to the moment. This last-minute planning even had a little bit of the quality of a game. It was amazing how easily the man had delivered himself up to him. A phone call, then one decisive act, and his problems would be over.

  And suddenly as he was sitting there, as he knew it would, as it always did when he really needed it, the solution came to him. He had been trying to be too clever by half. There would be no need for ether, no surprise. As soon as he was inside, he would simply brandish the gun and control events from there. Sit down, Mr. Bhutan. Spread your palm against your temple. A little more distance between the fingers please, so that I can put the end of the barrel right up against the hairline where it ought to be. Thank you. Good-bye.

  Smiling to himself, he took the bottle of ether out
of his pocket and put it and the gauze back in his medical bag. The gun was in his right pocket, small and concealed. He reached for the briefcase, opened the door, stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  The dusk was advancing rapidly now. A light shone inside the low window, but there was no light over the door, which was to the good. He stopped and stood still for a few seconds, then proceeded uphill to Frederick, where his street dead-ended. He crossed to Bhutan's side. Now, on the uphill corner, he could see beyond his car down the hill and in both directions on Frederick, the cross street. A few cars were parked up and down both sides of the street, but there wasn't a pedestrian in sight.

  He walked past the window once, leaning over to glance inside. It was covered with a cheap cloth he could see through when he got close. And there, waiting alone inside at a table, he saw Bhutan. He remembered him now, a nonentity. He stood another instant at the door, savoring the power.