The following morning, Wednesday, David glanced at the tower clock as he rounded the entrance to the doctors' parking lot. It was eight forty-five.
He chanced that Virginia Baldwin, the Surgical Nursing Supervisor, was in her office. David had a thing against calling ahead, anywhere, unless it involved traveling great distances. When reminded by whomever-family, friends, colleagues, teachers-of the virtue of courtesy or, at least, of good time management, he would respond, "Courtesy's in my family's genes. So, big deal, a generation was skipped." It had some bizarre connection with nature. Unannounced keeps everything natural. No pretense. No makeup. Nothing staged. Of course, they don't have to receive me. It's their choice, not mine. But then they're the discourteous ones, right?
It might not have been entirely germane, but, somehow, he used house calls as an illustration. That's why I like to make them. The patient and the family are in their natural setting. I get to see how they live. That might help in my counsel even though I'm nobody's primary care physician.
Nurse Baldwin was in. She sat at a desk besieged by papers, folders and schedules. She looked less massive without surgical cap and gown. Glasses were perched low on a thin nose, unsuited for a puffy face, as if she had forgotten to take a diuretic pill.
"I'll tell you, David, I never want to see another day like that again. Never."
"Amen. You were up close. Can you remember how tall he was?"
"Well … not your size, that's for sure. Average, I'd say, maybe five-ten or so."
"That certainly narrows the field."
She thinned her lips.
"Sorry Ginny, just thinking out loud. Was there anything distinguishing about him?"
"Only that he was so quiet. I remember thinking how different that was. Usually, the big shots who come through here can't stop talking, you know."
"You make up the daily schedules, right?"
"Right."
"There were no other cases at three-thirty?"
"Not starting then. The G.I.s and neurosurgicals started early but were over by then. We had a couple hips but they were over, too. E.N.T., some vein stuff-they were on at two-thirty and were still going."
"So, most likely no one else was in the locker room just before three-thirty?"
"Most likely."
"Ginny, thanks-see you."
"Wait. Are there any suspects?"
"Not yet, but I think I've ruled out a couple."
"Oh, who?"
"You and me. By the way, have the police talked to you yet?"
"Last night-not today. They cut it short, though. I was too upset."
David sauntered through the administrative offices of the O.R. wing, speaking briefly with nurses, unit clerks and orderlies. He wrote their names on a pad. Next to each he added a zero.
He had more to do at the hospital but decided to make a quick run to the Hollings Police Department. He wanted to deliver the taped rock to Sparky for analysis and perhaps have the results by noon.
Ten minutes later, David pulled into the department's parking lot and climbed the steps of a new prefabricated entranceway, harsh against walls of blanched brick and pitted mortar. He tucked Friday under his arm like the guardian of a kryptonite sample. He greeted friends at the dispatch window and was buzzed into a maze of hallways and interconnecting rooms. Steam radiators banged, and the floor creaked beneath half partitions and shiny modular furniture as employees traipsed about their filing cabinets and worked their computers. David proceeded directly to the Lilliputian crime lab, past benches of microscopes, chemical bottles, latent fingerprint equipment and the brothy smell of petri dishes. He entered the criminalist's corner office without knocking.
Sparky sat at a king-size desk inspecting a piece of cloth. He wore plastic gloves. Various wire baskets, magnifying tools and paper stacks seemed arranged for a neatness contest. A lamp dangled on a cord from the ceiling above the dead center of the desk. The lamp's green metal shade matched Sparky's visor.
The criminalist was a forty-some-odd throwback to a Western Union clerk in a 1940's B movie: slicked down black hair parted in the middle, wire-framed glasses, gartered shirt sleeves.
David snapped Sparky's suspenders and said, "Morning, my friend, I have a little something for you."
"Hey, David. I thought you'd be phoning me." Sparky popped up briefly to shake hands.
"Hope you're not too busy." David took off his scarf and gloves and placed them over the back of a chair. "It's no problem. I'm always too busy."
David opened Friday, draped a handkerchief over the taped rock and deposited it on the desk.
"This was tossed toward my window last night. Lousy shot. Can you run it through the usual checks? I can call this afternoon if that gives you enough time."
"Late afternoon should be fine." Sparky read the message and shook his head. "Did you see the guy?"
"Nope. And there were no tracks in the snow just acceleration gauges. Sure as hell sounded like … " David caught himself. Don't want to mention the garage incident, right? Almost blew it, pal. He launched into his next sentence without missing a beat. Sparky seemed preoccupied with the rock, anyway.
"Look, Spark, if I ask you for another favor and you can't do it, would you have to mention to anyone that I asked you for it?"
The criminalist removed his visor and, leaning back, said, "I never breach confidences. How can I help?" "Don't tell Kathy or Nick about the rock, okay?" "I suppose, but why not?"
"My first murders, my first ultimatum-you know-I don't want them tightening the reins."
"I won't say a word, but don't be silly. If you want the truth, we're so damned busy around here, they think you're a godsend. Really. I've heard them say it."
"Thanks, that's what I needed to hear." He sat on the edge of the desk. "Now, about Bugles and Cortez …" Sparky didn't let him finish.
"David, I dusted and sprayed and dipped and fumed. I couldn't bring out any prints other than their own except probably the locker room attendent's. His-I assume his-are all over most of the lockers. I'm checking it out. But nothing on the dagger. Or on Cortez's skin, so far. I had to act fast on trying to lift there. I used x-rays and I've got a call in to the Tokyo Police Department to see where we go from here. They've perfected the technique. The blood-I'll have all that by the time you call about the rock. I've got to warn you, though, David, prints rarely come through from rock or stone. Brick, for that matter. And incidentally, I found a couple blood smudges on the shelf in the locker." He looked at the clock on the wall. "I'll know whose by noon."
"Good. And the dagger?" David moved away, hands on hips.
"I've never seen one like it. The blade's ten inches. Steel. I'm still checking on the handle and, sorry, I can't release it to you but here are some photocopies plus a few stills from both scenes." He pulled out a batch of photographs from a drawer and handed them to David who put them in Friday without examination.
"What about the trajectory of the stab wound? From above, right?"
"The chest wound-correct. The abdominal one-you saw that?"
"Yes."
"It was shoved in most likely underhanded, just to stun the guy."
"I figured." David put on his scarf and gloves and expressed his thanks. "I'll call you later today, then," he said.
"I should have it all put together."
"Great. And one last thing, Spark. If a guy puts a piece of tape on a rock from, say two o'clock to eight o'clock, and then crosses it with another piece from ten to four, what would you conclude if the second piece was the top piece?"
The criminalist frowned. "Sorry, David, I don't quite follow. What are you getting at?"
"Just this. It seems to me that's what would happen if someone right-handed put the tape on.-But for a left-hander, that top strip-the one from ten to four-would be on the bottom. See, look here." David picked up the rock and pointed to the top strip. "See, ten to four. This bastard could be left-handed, wouldn't you say?"
The criminalist put his visor back on as if it imparted greater lucidity. He examined the rock, twisting it around with one hand while making crosses in the air with his other. Finally, he said, "By golly, I think you're right. I've never had evidence like this before, but I think you're onto something. Of course we've had things tossed through windows-mostly bricks-but never with messages on adhesive tape. Usually on paper secured with rubber bands. Sometimes twine. Come to think of it, maybe the way rubber bands are put on could tell us the same thing."
"It could. Just work backwards … I guess." David added the last two words to soften any perception of up-staging. For good measure, he called on humor: "I won't charge you for any of this, you know."
"Wait'll you get my bill" They both smiled.
"But seriously," David said, "even though what I said about the tape strips could be possible, wouldn't you agree this right-handed-left-handed stuff isn't foolproof?"
"No."
"No, it's foolproof or, no, it isn't foolproof?" "Sorry. Yes, it's not foolproof."
David left the crime lab and thought of visiting with Kathy and Nick several suites away but was anxious to question Ted Tanarkle in Pathology and the hospital's administrator, Alton Foster. Buoyed by Sparky's assurance that he was considered a member of the investigating team-if not, the team, he thought-he swaggered from the building more aware of his surroundings. Looking around and recalling the crime lab, he imagined Methuselah trying to catch up to Bill Gates.
As he approached the pathologist's office back at the hospital, David spotted a familiar figure down the hall. The director of the Emergency Medical System was struggling with a bulky carton at the door aside the old dispatch window.
"Vic," he hollered, "hold on, I'll give you a hand." He quickened his step and helped unwedge the carton from the door, guiding it to the floor." He felt his knee complain.
"Thanks, David. Haven't seen you in a long time. What are you up to these days?"
Victor Spritz. Smooth-faced, fashioned hair, shorter than David by a hand, and older by a decade. Roots unknown. Etched smile. Coppery hair. Angles at the wrists. Elbows exaggerated laterally. A twenty-year veteran at Hollings and a loner, he headed up the city's Emergency Medical System which was administered from the hospital. Despite Spritz's medical care orientation, David believed he had the personality of a hornet in a Mason jar.
"Oh, not much. Still making house calls and sleuthing on the side, but I'm thinking of reversing that."
"Because of the murders?"
"Because of the murders."
Spritz shook his head. "How God-awful."
David peeked behind Spritz into the EMS office. He saw chairs stacked on tables, books piled on the floor, papers strewn about. The room beyond an archway appeared undisturbed, a space he'd heard Spritz call his "Ambulance Without Wheels" with its spare stretchers and benches of masks, aspirators, oxygen tanks, splints and canisters. "What's going on?" he asked.
"I'm moving out." It was uncharacteristic of Spritz to wear a blue denim shirt and tattered jeans while in the hospital. Rarely was he in coat and tie, but usually, as a hands-on director, he sported the customary uniform of the EMS paramedics in Hollings: dark blue trousers, white shirt-open at the collar-with insignia on the sleeve and name pin over the left breast.
"Moving out? Why?"
"Haven't you heard? I lost the contract. As of the first of the month, I'm terminated. Out of here."
David understood the awarding of the EMS contract had been a yearly problem not only for both city hospitals but also for rival companies. He, himself, had once lobbied for Spritz among the joint oversite committee members of both hospitals.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He put his arm around Spritz's shoulders which stiffened. David was momentarily lost for words. He managed, "So what happens to your fleet?" The ambulances were maintained in a bank of garages two streets away. EMS crews occupied quarters upstairs at the same site.
Spritz unetched his smile. "It's not mine. The fuckin' hospital owns it. Except for the defibrillator van-that stays with me. Shit, who do you think started the cardiac defib program around here? I probably shocked more hearts into normal rhythm than anyone in the city's history."
"Who's on the committee these days?"
"Foster-that chairman wimp; Coughlin, across town; the prick next door … " He motioned toward Tanarkle's office. "And Bugles-at least he was." Spritz's eyes had turned to pinpoints of fire.
David deliberated. Our administrator, their Chief of Staff. Sounds logical. But why our pathologist? What's he doing on the committee?
"Well, no sense crying over you-know-what," Spritz said. He checked his watch. On his right wrist, David noticed. "I've got to get going. Sure hope you make your catch." He returned to his outer office and began packing another carton.
David watched for a moment and wondered whether most southpaws wore their watches on their right wrist. "See you around, Vic," he said.
In Dr. Ted Tanarkle's reception room, he stared at the secretary's wrists without saying a word.
"David, you're back."
He tried to finish his thoughts without delaying a response. Everyone wearing watches on right wrists? What difference does it make anyway-wasn't the imposter a male? Christ, what are you supposed to do-go through life checking people's wrists?
"David?"
"Marsh, I'm coming right out and asking you a direct question."
"Sure, but …"
"Are you right-handed or left?"
"Right. Why?"
"Curious, that's all." He stood at her desk and looked vacantly at the diplomas, citations and group pictures on the wall behind her. "Then why wear your watch on your right wrist?"
Marsha looked puzzled but spread out her left hand. "See, just to balance these."
"Nice rings," he said. There were four of them. He ground his teeth.
"David, are you all right?"
"What? Yeah, I'm all right. Just mulling over some things. Is Ted in?"
"Yes, but he's on the phone with Dr. Coughlin. He called him on some slides. I'll go put a note on his desk." She opened Tanarkle's office door. "Oh, you're off. Dr. Brook's here to see you."
"I'll see him." David heard the words run together, closer then usual-and feebler. Dr. Theodore J. Tanarkle had been Holling's chief pathologist for over three decades. Best known visually for an engaging gap between his two upper front teeth and professionally for his clinical acumen without ever seeing the patient, staff doctors would feed him signs and symptoms which invariably initiated, "Have you thought of'? He had married late, to a woman a generation younger. Soft-spoken, his sentences were, nonetheless, blurted not spoken, as if he had to get rid of them.
David thanked Marsha and walked in. It was one of those offices that swallowed you up, that made its nine-by-twelve Oriental carpet look puny, its ceiling-to-floor bookstacks of no great account.
He saw Tanarkle standing, arms locked on his desk, his head a tomato covered with dew. When he straightened, David measured his height by noting he could see directly over the head of the pathologist.
Dr. Tanarkle sat clumsily and, running his hands through the last vestiges of hair at his temples, said, "The son-of-a-bitch threatened me!"
"Coughlin? What did he say?"
"That the patient on the table yesterday should have been me, but that he'd settle one way or another."
David knew the background: fiery Dr. Everett Coughlin, the mover and shaker pathologist at Bowie Hospital; Ted Tanarkle, his counterpart at Hollings; the bitter battles over which hospital should be granted state certification for the city's first organ transplantation program; the late Charles Bugles and his dollar-splendored petitions at the state capitol.
"Keep it cool, Ted, you know Coughlin."
"Yes, that's the problem. He still can't accept the transplant decision." Tanarkle shook open a neatly folded handkerchief and wiped his brow and the back of his neck with his right hand. "And another thing, David-stranger than hell. He wanted to know if you're still on the case."
"Did he say it like that? Still on the case or just case?"
Tanarlde stroked his forehead. "You know, I can't remember. He meant the murders. Is it important how he said it?"
"It could be. What was your answer?"
"I simply said, `As far as I know.' Jesus, my head is hot. Do I look like a beet?"
"No, a tomato. A tomato in a gray lab coat." Tanarlde seemed to loosen up.
"Ted, I realize you're miffed and probably in hypertensive crisis, but do you mind if I ask you a question or two?"
"Ahh … no, that's fine."
"I could come back later."
"No, go ahead, it's okay."
From a table submerged in medical journals, manuscipts, trays of specimen slides and boxes of projection slides, David pulled out and sat on the only chair not itself submerged. He opened his notepad.
"For starters, do you know of anyone who might want to knock off Bugles?"
"Charlie? Plenty of guys. He got things done over twenty years, I guess, but you've got to admit, he was a detestable sort. Even when you were here with me, you must have seen how he barged in and threw his weight around."
"You willing to name some names?"
"Sure. Coughlin hated his guts probably more than mine. Marsha out there couldn't stand him. Foster upstairs-even some of his associate administrators. By the way, you know that Charlie put Foster into that job, don't you?"
"No, but I'm not surprised."
"Sure. And he manipulated every one of his strings. Foster resented it. Probably would have been long gone except for his wife. Nora likes it around here for some reason.
"How about you?"
"Me what? Killing Charlie Bugles? Depends on what you mean. Did I want to kill him sometimes? Absolutely. Could I or did I? No."
"Are you or the medical examiner doing the post?" "I am, at one o'clock. He asked me if I would and I agreed."
"Cortez, too?"
"After Bugles."
"Mind if I drop by?"
"No, be my guest."
"Hold on a sec." David backtracked on what he had written thus far and made a few notations in the margins. "Okay, now, about the blood. There were stains on the floor leading from Cortez's body to the lab here. At least to the alley door entrance. Matter of fact, there was one at the bottom of that door. Any idea why?"
Tanarkle sat mute, his face a mannequin's.
"Please understand, Ted, I'm not implying anything. But the blood did trail here, and I think you'd agree you'd ask the same question if our roles were reversed."
"Yes, yes, of course. I know of the trail, but I guess it was just shocking to have it mentioned in the form of a question like that." He sighed. "And, no, I have no idea why."
"Good enough. Well, not good, but … well … let's let it go at that."
"I wish I could be more helpful, David."
"You're doing fine. And finally-you and I go back a long way and you don't have to answer this if you don't want to …"
"No, no, go ahead."
"Why weren't you in yesterday?"
"I was the guest speaker at Grand Rounds at Boston Childrens'. I'm often away like that. Medical expert. You know: anyone from out-of-state."
David drilled the last period into his notepad and got up. "Many thanks, Ted."
"See you after lunch. And, David.. " He extended a hand. "Good luck."
David shook the hand. "Thanks, my friend. Hang in there." Rounding the table, he glanced at a slide box labeled, "Grand Rounds: N.Y.C. 12-17-97." Next to it was a box labeled: "Grand Rounds: Boston." There was no date.
At the doorway, David paused, about to turn back to ask about the label. But he figured he'd be checking on the alibi later in the morning.