Diagnosis Murder 7 - The Double LIfe (25 page)

Just like Emily did with Susan in his dream.

The baby girl survived and was taken by child services. Mark had no idea what had become of her.

Now that he thought about it, he recalled what the medical student was studying at the time of her accident.

Pediatrics.

Emily Noble's area of expertise.

It was obvious to him that his dreams were all about that incident twenty-five years ago. Mark couldn't remember the patient's name, but it wasn't Emily Noble, that much he knew.

So what was the significance of that case?

What was his subconscious trying to tell him?

How did it relate to the murders that Guyot and Duren were committing today?

Or was that memory also symbolic, a clue meant to lead him to yet another conclusion?

The answers weren't yet in his grasp. Even if they had been, by the time he asked himself those questions he was already drifting into sleep.

Jesse couldn't believe what he'd seen on his laptop. When it was over, he wanted to rush straight to the hospital. Instead, he unplugged his cell phone from the laptop and called 911 to get paramedics to the scene. And then he called Tanis Archer at home.

When she got done swearing at him for waking her up, he filled her in on what had happened. She told him to stay put until she arrived.

Within thirty minutes Tanis and half a dozen police officers took over the surveillance of Paul Guyot, freeing Jesse to break several traffic laws speeding back to Community General Hospital, where both Wendy Duren and Alan Vernon were being treated.

When Jesse arrived in the ER, he saw Steve in the middle of a heated discussion with ADA Karen Cross and decided to steer clear of them. He went straight to Susan, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and asked for a full update on the status of Alan Vernon and Wendy Duren.

Steve held his ground with Karen Cross, who was livid.

"You're telling me you bugged the homes of four individuals without a warrant?"

"There was no need for warrants. We got their permission and complete cooperation in writing," Steve said. "They were aware that they were under constant audio and video observation by the police."

"Did they know
why
they were under observation?" she asked pointedly.

"They were informed that we were conducting an investigation involving their nursing care."

"Did they know they could get killed?"

Steve was getting tired of dancing with Karen Cross on this issue. "Would you really have wanted us to tell them we suspected that Paul Guyot and Wendy Duren were murderers? What if we'd been wrong? What lecture would you have given me after Guyot and Duren found out what we'd been telling people? How many lawsuits would that have exposed us to?"

"That's your excuse?" Karen said, putting her hands on her hips.

"You pushed me into this."

"I didn't tell you to set up civilians to be killed."

"If I'd listened to you and done nothing, they'd be dead anyway," Steve said. "You didn't believe anyone was in danger."

"I didn't say that," Karen said. "I said you had no proof." 

"This was the only way to get it."

"The
only
way?" she repeated, shaking her head. "Alan Vernon had a heart attack. He may die, and if he does, it will be your fault, Detective."

"Excuse me," Jesse said as he walked over, now wearing his lab coat and stethoscope. "It wasn't a heart attack." 

"What was it then?" Steve asked.

"A panic attack," Jesse said. "Similar to the one I experienced watching the whole thing go down."

"He was watching it?" Karen said, looking at Steve and motioning to Jesse with a tip of her head. "Why didn't you just sell the feed as a pay-per-view program?"

"Mr. Vernon is going to be fine," Jesse said.

"And very wealthy after he sues the LAPD and wins," Karen said.

"He thinks Steve is a hero," Jesse said.

"Until his lawyer talks some sense into him," Karen said.

"I don't give a damn. If that happens, dealing with it will be your job, not mine," Steve said. "I'm done arguing with you, Counselor. I only want to know one thing. Do we have enough to charge Wendy Duren with murder and make it stick?"

Karen glared angrily at Steve, her checks red, her lips practically in a snarl. But she nodded.

"Then you can stand here stammering about my actions all you want. I have a murderer to interrogate."

And with that Steve marched off, leaving Karen Cross behind. He knew she had the power to get him suspended, knocked down a pay grade, or even thrown off the force, but right now all that mattered to him was closing this case and taking those two nurses down.

There were worse ways to end a career.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX

Steve flashed his ID to the two uniformed officers posted outside the door of Wendy Duren's room and went in to see her.

Her right shoulder was wrapped in bandages. An IV line ran into her left arm, which was handcuffed to the rail of her bed. She stared at Steve with hatred. Steve smiled back at her, knowing it would infuriate her even more.

"Here's the situation, Wendy. We had a camera in Alan Vernon's living room," Steve said. "It should make quite a show for the jury. We might even sell it on the Internet and make a few dollars."

"If you've got such a good case," she sneered, "why are you in here talking to me?"

"Because you have one opportunity to save yourself from getting a lethal injection of your own," Steve said. "You can give us Paul Guyot."

"I've never heard of him."

Steve shook his head, pulled a chair over, and sat down with a weary sigh. "You spent the night with him. You walked out his front door, drove to Starbucks, and then went straight to Alan Vernon's house. I know. I was following you."

"Were you looking in the bedroom window, too?" Duren asked. "Did you get off watching us make love? Did you wish you were him? That I was doing all those incredible things to you? I bet you want me right now, don't you?" She blew him a kiss and laughed.

"I didn't see it, but I'm sure you two couldn't keep your hands off each other. Paul had just killed Vivian Hemphill and that's what makes you both hot. Killing people is your idea of foreplay," Steve said. "I wonder what he'll do for foreplay with his new lover, the one he'll be with while you're in prison."

Wendy's smug smile immediately faded, her face hardening with anger.

"Oh, come on." Steve looked at her with mock bewilderment. "You thought he'd take a vow of celibacy because you're on death row? He'll find someone else to play games with."

"Good," she said. "I want him to be happy."

"He'll be happy, all right. Delirious with joy. Because you'll be on death row for his mistake while he's setting the sheets on fire with some other lucky lady."

"What mistake?"

He had Wendy Duren then and he knew it. She'd taken the bait. She had to know what had tripped her up.

"We would never have known what the two of you were doing if it wasn't for him," Steve said. "The truth is, we didn't even know there were any murders, or that you two even existed, until Paul tried to run my father down." Wendy looked confused.

"I know what you're thinking," Steve said, and it was true. It was all over her face. " 'But Paul saw Dr. Sloan at John Muir. He was on to us.' That's what Paul told you, isn't it? Well, Wendy, Paul was wrong. It was a coincidence that my dad was there. See, my dad had no evidence of murder. He wasn't even looking at the right patients."

"That isn't true," she said.

"We didn't believe my father. We weren't going to do a thing. You were completely in the clear and you would have stayed that way—if it wasn't for Paul's brilliant idea to kill my dad."

Steve studied her face. For a moment he felt the heat of her anger shift from him and radiate in another direction. It was an opening, and he moved in for the kill.

"It
was
Paul's idea, wasn't it, Wendy? You knew it was wrong from the start. You tried to talk him out of it, but he just wouldn't listen," Steve said. "Now you're going to die for his stupid mistake—and all you want is for him to be happy."

Steve got up and shook his head. "You know something? What you said about me before was right. I do wish I had a woman like you, someone willing to sacrifice everything for her man. But I guess the women I end up with are too damn selfish. See you at your execution."

He sighed, turned his back to Wendy Duren, and headed for the door.

"Wait," she said.

Mark was startled awake by the ringing of his phone. He reached for it, knocking over the files stacked on the coffee table and spraying papers all over the floor.

He cursed, something he didn't often do, and picked up the receiver.

"Yes?" he said irritably.

"It's me, Dad," Steve said. "You sound angry."

He was, but it was the fleeting kind of anger he got when his alarm woke him too early, or he burned himself cooking, or a car cut him off on the road. It wasn't what his son thought it was, that he was still bitter about their argument that morning.

"I'm not angry at you. It's just that I was sleeping and knocked a whole bunch of papers on the floor. It's going to take me forever putting the files back together."

"You can take your time," Steve said. "In fact, you can forget all about it. The case is closed."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm calling from Community General. We caught Wendy Duren attempting to murder a patient," Steve said. "She's just given up Paul Guyot in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table in her case."

"That's terrific," Mark said. "Congratulations."

"It feels good to get those two off the street," Steve said. 

"What are you doing at the hospital?"

"There was an altercation during her arrest," Steve said. "She got hurt."

"Did you?"

"My career might have taken a hit," he said, "but otherwise I'm unscathed."

"Did she confess to all the murders?"

"That was part of the deal," Steve said. "She has to admit to everything, going back to Beckman or wherever her killing spree actually started. There's no reason for her not to confess. She's going to prison anyway."

"Did she admit to Grover Dawson, Sandy Sechrest, and the others?"

"No," Steve said. "I don't think they were killed." 

"Maybe it was Guyot who did them," Mark said. 

"Maybe. I'll let you know," Steve said.

Mark knew he was being patronized, but he didn't say anything about it.

"We've still got to arrest Guyot and bring him in for interrogation," Steve continued. "Then I've got to write up all my reports. It's going to be a long night. Don't wait up for me. I'll fill you in on everything in the morning."

"I'll be eager to hear all about it," Mark said. "Good work, son."

"Thanks, Dad."

Steve hung up. Mark held the receiver for a long moment. Something still didn't feel right.

He set the receiver back in the cradle and regarded the mess on his floor. It was going to be hell reconstructing the files. The papers all looked the same, mostly pages and pages of Enable database printouts. They all looked alike. Figuring out which page belonged in which file would take forever.

He froze.

There were Enable printouts everywhere.

All the victims were listed in the Enable system.
That
was something they
all
had in common. How could he have missed that before?

Enable.

He said it aloud. "Enable."

There was something about that word that bothered him.

He repeated it aloud again.

"Enable," he said. "E-nable."

It sounded to him a lot like...

E. Noble.

Emily Noble.

His subconscious was telling him to remember the software!

He thought back to his coma dream. When and how did he use the Enable software?

That's when he recalled the coma dream moment when he'd sat in front of his office computer at Community General. He'd inadvertently clicked on the "About" tab and all the names of all the software designers scrolled by like movie credits.

Why was that in his dream?

Because he'd made the same fumble before, in real life, sometime in the days before his head injury.

Mark got to his feet and went to his laptop, which he'd set on the kitchen table. He booted up and remotely accessed the Enable medical records database at Community General. He clicked the "About" link on the "Help" menu and watched the names as they scrolled past.

And everything suddenly made sense. He knew why the deaths he was investigating didn't match the "Game Over" pattern.

But he had no evidence to prove it.

So he decided he would follow Steve's lead.

He would use the next target as bait.

Steve's cell phone rang only a moment or two after he ended his call with Mark. It was Tanis Archer, calling from John Muir Hospital. He figured she was simply notifying him that they had Paul Guyot in custody.

She wasn't.

"We've lost him," she said. "Paul Guyot is gone."

He tightened his grip on the phone as if it might try to escape before he got the rest of the bad news.

"How did his car get past you?"

"His car is still in the parking structure," Tanis said. "He left on foot."

"Or he stole another car," Steve said.

"Damn," Tanis hissed.

"Tell me what happened."

"He walked out of the cardiac-care ward a couple of minutes before we got there. At least that's what the nurses up here tell us," she said. "Was there any way Wendy Duren could have warned him we were coming?"

"No, but maybe she didn't have to. The fact that she hasn't talked to him or didn't show up where she was supposed to this afternoon may have tipped him off that something was wrong," Steve said. "He could still be in the building. Are you covering all the exits?"