Manner of Death

by Stephen White

  Get bread? I was beginning to go nuts inside. Two ex-FBI agents thought somebody was trying to kill me—

  yet everybody around me, with the exception of our waitress, seemed to be taking the news in stride.

  Two more steps and I said. "Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?"

  Milt looked deferentially at Dr. Simes. I couldn't tell whether his deference was the result of respect, or fear, she raised her chin to indicate it was all right with her that he proceed.

  "Dr. Dresser had apparently been concerned for a while that something.., odd.., has been going on with the group of people he trained with during his residency in ‘982. Specifically, he was worried about the group of interns, residents, and supervisors who were working on the.., what? The Orange Team? Is that right? On that unit called Eight East in the hospital at the medical school, that includes you, Dr. Gregory. You did some training on the Orange Team on Eight East in the fall of ‘982, didn't you? With Dr. Dresser?"

  We were standing in front of a frame building that a hopelessly faded sign said had once been a livery, the structure looked as though it would fall over if I sneezed. I said, "Yes. I was one of the psychology interns on that unit then, that's when I met Amie, he was one of the second-year psychiatric residents."

  "Well, to get back to my story. Dr. Dresser was close to his mother. His father died quite a few years back and he and his mom have been real close ever since, he was kind of a compulsive letter writer and E-mailer and over the years he'd begun to express some continuing concern to her that the group of people he trained with on the Orange Team seemed jinxed in some way."

  I asked. "Jinxed how?"

  Lauren tugged on my hand. "I know it's hard, sweets. Be patient. Let him tell his story." My stomach growled. Lauren's tolerance for skipping meals was much lower than mine. If I was hungry, I guessed she must be famished.

  Two young men in cowboy boots. Lee jeans, and worn Stetsons paused next to us for a moment. I was feeling so paranoid that I checked their hips for holstered Colt .45 s. No one spoke until they passed.

  I broke the silence. "Okay, go on. I'm sorry."

  "It's fine. I understand. This has to be totally strange for you. Us hijacking you like this. I'm just trying to present it to you in a way that doesn't sound more off-the-wall than it is."

  Milt's manner wasn't coplike. I knew a lot of cops— was good friends with one— and Milt's manner reminded me more of bad news being delivered by a kind uncle than bad news being delivered by a cop. Still. I was impatient for him to get to the end of his story.

  "Let's go back to the early eighties. You remember a supervising psychiatrist on the Orange Team named Susan

  Oliphant?"

  "Yes, she was the ward chief." Next I expected to learn that she had become a full-time proprietor of the past tense.

  "Do you know she died in ‘989?"

  "No." I said slowly; drawing out the long vowel, assuming what I was going to hear about the details of her death was not going to be good news. Had Amie told me about Susan's death? I didn't think so, maybe it was in one of the cards I never bothered to finish reading.

  "She was a private pilot. Did you know that about her? She died in a plane crash, a little Cessna, a ‘72, the crash killed both her and her twelve-year-old niece, the plane crashed into a mountainside in the Adirondacks. Clear weather. Radio contacts with air traffic control just before the impact were particularly heartbreaking, made it clear to anybody who listens to them that the plane suffered some catastrophic mechanical problem."

  "I'm so sorry." And I was. I had been fond of Susan. Some of the psychiatrists on the Orange Team treated the psychology interns as though we were younger siblings who had been tethered to them by parents who didn't have a clue how much of an annoyance we really were. Susan Oliphant hadn't been like that. I hadn't heard much of her over the years, only knew she wasn't in town. Once more. I tried to recall whether Amie's Christmas cards had notified me of her death. I couldn't remember. Was I that callous? I hoped not.

  Milt continued. "After a routine investigation, the NTSB ruled the plane crash to be an accident, caused by control-linkage failure, the impact was severe, though, and destroyed most of the evidence."

  "She couldn't steer the plane?"

  "Basically."

  I touched Lauren's arm while I asked. "Manner of death?"

  From the corner of my eye. I saw a tiny smile grace Simes's face, she was pleased at my question, with my words, she had realized with visible relief that she and Milt weren't going to have to connect the dots for me.

  "Accident."

  I don't know why., but I faced Simes. "But you don't necessarily concur with the coroner's findings on manner, do you?"

  Milt answered as though he didn't even notice the slight. "We'll get to all that in a minute. May I continue?"

  "Sure. Go on."

  "Dr. Matthew Trimble?"

  "Yes. I remember him. Matt was a psychiatric resident, he did medical backup for me on a few cases on the unit, he's dead as well?" I was playing stupid now. I knew about Mart's death. News of his senseless shootina had spilled through the mental health community in Colorado like a flash flood through a floodplain. It had touched us all, some more deeply than others. Matt was the only professional I knew who had actually gone ahead and arranged his career so that he could try to do as much good for people as the idealistic plans of his youth said he was going to do. I wasn't his friend, but I respected him immensely.

  "Yes, he died in ‘99’, he was the victim of a drive-by in southeast Los Angeles as he was leaving a people's-clinic-type place where he was doing pro bono work with their drug program, he—"

  "That's where he was from. Compton, that's where he grew up, he went back there to work."

  "Right. No arrest was ever made in the case. It's still open. Local cops said it looked random to them, a Crip who was walking with him got hit, too, L.A, had a ton of drive-bys in those days, the Summer of Blood and all that." He paused. "Manner on that one was, of course, homicide. It's the only one I'm going to tell you about where the manner of death was homicide."

  "How many more?" I said. I could barely form the words.

  He didn't answer, he said. "Next one was ‘994, a trickier one."

  My heart crashed to my toes. No, not Sawyer.

  "Dr. wendy Asimoto."

  I'd been holding my breath. I exhaled. I didn't know about Wendy's death. Though I hadn't thought about her in years, I had no trouble remembering her. I said. "Wendy was a psychiatric resident, too, second-year like the others, she was older than the rest of us, closer to thirty, she had already completed an internal medicine residency prior to coming to the medical center for psych training. I remember her as having a healthy dose of skepticism about psychiatry."

  "Very good memory. Dr. Gregory." The compliment, and a surprised tone, came from Dr. Simes.

  I had an impulse to tell them both to call me Alan, but I wasn't sure I wanted that level of intimacy yet. I said. "Is she the last one?" I wanted Wendy Asimoto to be the last dead shrink.

  Milt looked up at the leaves and paused to let the cut of the steam whistle slice through the valley, he wasn't willing to give me a count, yet.

  "Anyway, Dr. Asimoto dropped out of the psychiatric residency program after her second year. Decided she preferred internal medicine after all. By the time ‘993 rolled around, she was working as a ship's doctor for the Cunard Line. Turns out she disappeared at sea off St. Petersburg in the Baltic on the fourth day of a twelve-day cruise in June of ‘993. No one saw her go overboard. No body was ever recovered, she has since been declared dead. Manner of death on this one is still undetermined, but I think it's presumed accidental, we're not done looking into it, but there were rumors that she had begun to drink excessively."

  "She was a cruise ship doc?"

  "For a few years, yeah."

  "And she was an alcoholic?"

  "Perhaps. It happens."

  "But you don't
believe it? The accident part."

  "May I continue?

  "I'd rather that you be done."

  Custer stared at me as though my impatience was concerning him. "No. I'm afraid I'm not done."

  I was starting to get really nervous and I didn't want Lauren to know why. I said. "I think maybe we should go someplace and sit down."

  Lauren examined my eyes, bit her bottom lip, slid her arm around my waist, and said. "In town, honey, the KP is about it, isn't it."

  Simes looked weary, she said, "How about your car? It's big enough for all of us."

  We started walking to the Land Cruiser. I desperately wanted a diversion. I didn't know what to do next. I didn't want to be with Simes or Custer when I heard that Sawyer Sackett was dead.

  But the most troubling thing was that I didn't want to be with Lauren, either.

  FOUR

  Milt Custer said. "This next one is the weirdest of them all, and it's the most recent. It happened in February, this year."

  The blood seemed to vaporize from my limbs and I felt dizzy. February? This year? That's after Arnie's last Christmas card, maybe Sawyer is dead and I don't even know it.

  I was sitting on the driver's seat of my car and had enough of my wits still about me to recognize the irony of being in that position. Lauren had climbed into the backseat to allow one of the ex-agents to join me up front. For now, this was Milt Custer's show, and he claimed the shotgun position. Simes sat right behind me; I could see her impassive face in the mirror. Suddenly I wasn't sure whether her lock of white hair was an intense shade of blond or a prematurely advanced shade of gray.

  The sun was heading down for the day, spending its last minutes perched along the peaks that framed the southern horizon, and the rays were beating down on the car. I turned on the power so we could lower the windows for some ventilation. Everyone but Simes did. When a breeze rushed through the car, she touched her hair twice with an open palm, side and back.

  Lauren asked. "What do you mean? All the deaths seem strange to me."

  Custer scooted sideways on his seat to face her. "You're right. But there's a lag here, timewise, I mean, we're talking over two years from the previous death. This one took our guy some time and careful planning. Method is creepier, too. This victim died in a home tanning bed."

  I couldn't talk. Lauren said "What? How?"

  "She had a skin condition— what's that called, a. J.?" I noted that suddenly Custer sounded like a cop. I wondered whether it was an intentional change on his part or whether he was just returning to form.

  Simes frowned and said. "I don't remember, maybe it will come to me."

  "Yeah, whatever, anyway, she had to use a tanning bed for ultraviolet skin treatment. Did it at home, the treatment, a regular type of thing. Had this big fancy, bed— you know what I mean, you seen 'em? Like in those salons? One of those clamshell-type things where the top closes over you and you get zapped by lights top and bottom at the same time. Have to wear those little goggles to keep the fluid in your eyeballs from boiling.

  I'm a little claustrophobic myself. No way I climb into one of those things, let me tell you that."

  Please. Was it Sawyer? Please.

  "Anyway, she sets the timer, climbs in, pulls down the lid, puts on the goggles, and flips the switch. Immediately, two things go wrong. One, the timer malfunctions, never ticks down, so the lights just keep on cooking. Two, one of the hinges breaks so the bed won't open back up. When those two things go wrong at the same time in a home tanning bed, you have a recipe for roasting a human being to death."

  Lauren asked, "Why didn't she just pull the plug?"

  "Bad design. Cord comes out at the foot of the bed. No way to twist around to get down there with the top pressing down on you."

  "And the hinge couldn't be forced back open?"

  Custer shook his head and said. "It was badly jammed. No."

  "No way to squirm out?"

  "Not in this design."

  "So she died?"

  "Yeah, eventually, a relative found her after almost two days. But she didn't actually die for another thirty-six hours."

  Lauren was appraising me with some mixture of pity and concern. Fortunately, she recognized my apoplexy.

  She asked Custer. "And, given the tenor of this discussion so far, you both suspect that the bed was tampered with?"

  Custer said. "Timers fail sometimes, right? We're gonna take a look at that— the bed's still in evidence. But the hinge? Even the local cops thought that was odd, they tried to find the technician who last serviced the bed, which just happened to be the day before all this crap happened, and he was nowhere to be found. Had worked for the company for only six weeks. Disappeared right after that service call. Never picked up a paycheck. Never said good-bye."

  "Did he service the hinges or the timer?"

  "Wasn't supposed to, he was there to change the bulbs, that's all, the police looked hard at him. Had his photo taken for company ID, so there's that. Left a trail of paperwork, which looks to us like it's probably all false, he never lived at the address he gave to his employer, and after this lady gets toasted, he vanishes like a fart in a firestorm."

  I thought Custer looked a little embarrassed about his choice of analogies. I knew Lauren was far from offended; her tongue was under her upper lip and I could tell she was busy piecing something together. Custer continued. "In case you're curious, manner on this one is undetermined, no surprise. Local cops don't like to hear about it from people like us, but the truth is that theia experts can't be certain about any tampering, one way or another. Dr. Simes and I are encouraging them to pack up the whole damn bed and ship it to the FBI lab. My fear is that the guys who looked at it locally have managed to screw it up forever from a forensic point of view. For now, though, they don't have any hard evidence of foul play and they don't have the resources to track this guy down and question him."

  Lauren asked. "He disappeared without a trace?"

  "That's right." Milt replied. "That's not surprising, though. Our guy is good."

  "But you have a photograph?"

  "Yeah, but it's pretty worthless. Long hair and a big goatee. Tinted eyeglasses big enough for a clown to wear for an audition at Ringling's."

  Lauren said. "So was she the last one? Before Dr. Dresser. I mean. Was it the last death?"

  "Last one we know about, we found your husband easily enough, ma'am, we've identified one other staff member from the Orange Team who we feel might be at risk, as well, she's not been.., available, so far. Out of town. One or both of us will go see her as soon as we leave Colorado."

  "Who's that?" I asked, as nonchalantly as I could.

  He tapped himself on the side of the head. "I'm sorry, I'm having a charley horse in my brain here, a.J.,

  what's her name?"

  "Sawyer Faire," she said without hesitation. "You remember Dr. Faire. Dr. Gregory?"

  Sawyer is still alive.

  I stammered. "Of course, she was, urn. Sawyer Sackett then, another psychiatry resident, there were two interns and three residents on the team. My memory is that she quit. Left the program at Christmastime, maybe this all has to do with something that happened after she left. If so, she wouldn't be in any danger at all."

  With the news that Sawyer was alive, I felt like my lungs could process oxygen for the first time in ten minutes. I didn't want to talk anymore about Sawyer, so I asked Custer, "You didn't mention a name. Who was it who, uh, who died in the tanning bed?"

  Simes answered from the backseat. I thought her tone was unnecessarily provocative when she said. "That was your clinical supervisor, Dr. Gregory. Dr. amy Masters."

  "Oh God." Amy Masters had been in her early fifties when she had been my clinical supervisor on the adult psychiatric inpatient service, she would have been nearly seventy when she was roasted alive in that tanning bed. "She was small, frail, she couldn't have ..."

  Milt finished my thought. "No, she didn't have a prayer of forcing those hinges open."
/>
  I stared out the windshield at this old western mining town, watching the shadows lengthening in the dust before they melded into the darkness. This late-day choreography of light hadn't changed in Silver Plume in a hundred years.

  The inside of the car was quiet until I said. "I would like to go home."

  Lauren objected. "Wait a second, sweets." She spoke again, directing her question to the two agents. "First, do either of you think Alan is in immediate jeopardy? Is this danger imminent?"

  Simes answered after contemplating something long enough to aggravate my discomfort even more. "No, we don't. None of these deaths, if indeed they were murders, as we suspect, were impulsive. Quite the opposite, as you know. Dr. Dresser has been dead barely a week, as far as we can tell, no two deaths have taken place closer than eight months apart. If our suspicions are accurate, we feel that the man responsible is just now beginning to plan the death of his next victim, that could be Dr. Gregory, that could be Dr. Faire."

  Lauren said, "Okay, then, are you planning on telling us what you think we should do? Or are you just planning on terrifying us with innuendo?"

  Before Simes could answer, I said, again, "You know, I really, really would like to go home."

  Lauren ignored me again. "Are there any law-enforcement agencies that share your concern about this series of deaths?"

  I was surprised to hear defensiveness in Custer's voice. "Remember, we've only been on this five davs. It's preliminary, weVe done good work, we have a lot more work to do. I'll grant you that. It's just us and some chits we called in, we don't have the resources of the Bureau here."

  Simes's response was more to the point, she said. "The only formal investigation that's still at all active is the tanning-bed death, that would be Dr. Masters, there were no reasons to link the others together before Dr. Dresser's mother informed us of his suspicions about his colleagues' deaths. If you follow the trail as we've done, you will discover that we're discussing different jurisdictions in widely different geographic areas, hugely different MOs, and a long, long period of time."