Do No Harm (50 page)

Across the ward, a woman cried out in pain, and Jenkins flinched, the skin around his eyes drawing up in a squint. He did not look up.

"I shouldn't be there," David said. "But you should."

David reached out his hand, an offering to be taken or slapped away. A moment passed, then another. Jenkins's shoulders vibrated once, an intimation of a sob. He reached up with a trembling hand and grasped David's. Then he leaned forward, his weight pulling on David's arm, his face downturned, both hands gripping David's so tightly the skin of his knuckles turned white.

Motionless, he hung from David's hand, clinging to sanity, a man receiving an unexpected blessing. After a moment, he stood.

David left quietly as Jenkins headed to his sister's bed.

DASH pulled off his sweatshirt and draped it over David's couch, where it sprawled like a gray blanket. He put his feet up on the table, and David worried momentarily it would give under the weight of his legs. Dash flipped through the bad photocopy of Connolly's abstract--Yale had taken the original--and let a grumble escape his chest.

Someone had leaked the story of the torture-tape call, causing a fresh influx of reporters to sweep through the Med Center grounds. David had all but waded through reporters on his way to his car after work. News of David and Don's dispute in the ER had not helped to abate the media frenzy. David had returned home to find a photographer camped out across the street and six messages on his answering machine from trashy TV "news" producers and more legitimate reporters. David's problem-resolution instincts had been firing inside him, phantom synapses--to call Sandy, to protect the hospital, to spin control. When he'd closed and bolted his front door, an intense burst of stress-lined relief had hit him; at least for the duration of his time off, he was no longer a part of the medical establishment. For the first time in his life.

Dash set down the abstract on top of the stack of other materials he and David had spent the late afternoon reviewing, and gripped his shoulder, working it with a thumb--an athlete's habit. "Have the detectives finished running down the other subjects?"

"Most of them. Three suicides, five are in prison, and three have been completely lost track of. Probably homeless. Or dead."

"Connolly certainly raised the bar on sadistic separation studies." Dash leaned back and laced his hands behind his head. "Those kids were never given a fair chance. Love, respect, care--these are not negotiable luxuries for children. They're fundamental needs."

"I know, but how can we use all this? To get to Clyde."

"I think you have several pieces of the puzzle," Dash said. "One: He wants revenge for this study. Two: He's learned that to inflict fear is to hold power." He let out a ticking exhale. "You see the problem."

"No."

"Well, the people directly responsible for the study are dead. He's probably not a sufficiently abstract thinker to go after grant committee members and the bureaucrats who enabled the study. So what does that leave him?"

"The hospital."

"Precisely. But how can you elicit fear from an institution? You can't. So he attacks some nurses and doctors, tries to run a current of fear through the hospital, but that's not personal or sufficiently satisfying. That's why he's evolving. He wants to exact more. But he doesn't know how."

And evolved he had. He'd varied his attacks, and switched their location. From a cowardly, unseen hurler of alkali to a rapist attempting to dominate a woman directly.

David recalled Sandy's words in the elevator that had struck something in him: As a physician--and particularly as a chief--you are a representative of this hospital everywhere you go. "Me," David said. "He can frighten me." He stood. "Of course--I'd been mostly viewing his obsession with me and his attacks on Diane as warnings. As his attempts to get me to back off, since I've been pursuing him. But that's entirely wrong. He's only switched his focus."

"What do you mean?"

"If he's interested in revenge on the hospital, I'm the perfect object of his vengeance. I'm the highest-level employee of the hospital he's had contact with. My last name is all over the Med Center. And he perceives me as threatening him in my attempts to locate him--something that surely must recall the persecution he felt as a child in Connolly's study. Why else would he call me in the middle of the night and play a recording of a woman being tortured? Why else would he attack Diane? To scare me. But he doesn't want me to back off. He wants to involve me more. He wants me to be diminished."

"I suppose it makes sense. A movement from the general to the specific." Dash crossed his legs, letting a size-seventeen foot dangle over his knee. "What are the ways to instill fear in you? To threaten or injure you directly, or to threaten those you love."

"I'll have to call Yale and see if we can get some protection on people close to me."

"Okay. Who?"

"Diane . . . Sandy . . . " David was embarrassed that he couldn't think of anyone else.

"I assume there's already protection on Connolly's wife."

"I believe so, but I'll double-check."

"How about men?"

"No way. He doesn't have the balls."

"He attacked you."

"On his turf. In his comfort zone. He had to lure me near that house. Plus, I walked into that attack--he didn't plan it."

"He attacked the security guard who was with Diane."

"Yale said the kid looked barely older than an adolescent." David shook his head. "I have to say, despite Clyde's emergence from timidity, I still doubt he's acquired the courage to attack a full-grown man." David rubbed his temples, straining to think of other names. "The only other person I'm close to who he knows about is you." David looked at Dash's barrel chest, the ridges of muscle capping his shoulders. "And he'd be an idiot to try that."

"Let's keep in mind that you and those around you are not necessarily his only targets. While you're certainly appealing to him, there's nothing to say he's not still planning other attacks on nurses and docs."

David moistened his lips, which had grown dry. "If there was some way to provide an opportunity for him to inflict fear, maybe we could lure him."

"Well, what are the ways you could draw someone like Clyde? The appearance of vulnerability. Who appears vulnerable? Old ladies. Kids. Women."

"We wouldn't risk anyone in those categories, except female cops, maybe. Besides, how do you make someone look susceptible to being scared?" David shook his head dismissively. "Maybe there's a play to be made at locations that are meaningful to him. He's been driven off his own turf. The only other area we know is of interest to him is the hospital. Maybe we could tempt him there."

"If you think he's that stupid. Security's been cranked up another notch after his attack on Diane. He's got to know he's playing increasingly bad odds there."

They sat quietly for a few moments, digesting their respective thoughts. The phone rang, and David heard the machine pick up in the bedroom. "Hi, Tom McNeil from the LA Weekly. I've received word that you're actually in contact with the Westwood . . . "

"I could try to manipulate him if he calls back," David said. "Actively draw his interest. If he threatens me, how can I respond to make him more likely to contact me again? If I can agitate him, maybe he'll give up more information. Should I act really scared or not scared at all?"

"I'd imagine your being immune to his attempts to scare you would be more galling. If you taunted him, even, that might draw him in. But don't overdo it. He's not beyond being scared off himself." Dash paused. "There are risks."

"Aside from the obvious?"

"Yes. Every intervention so far has driven him to a higher level of violence. When he's foiled, he comes back with something more bold. The more bold he gets, the more fear he's able to generate. Think of it as an intensifying addiction."

"What can I do about that?"

Dash shrugged, a massive, shifting movement. "Probably nothing. I'm just making something clear. You're the one who's been raising the stakes."

OUTSIDE Sandy's office, Don shot his cuffs and readjusted a gold cuff link with a practiced flick of his thumb. A female resident walked by, full in the ass and tight in the waist, and he watched her until she disappeared around the corner.

"Come in," Sandy called out, before he could knock. The door was solid, windowless.

Seated at her conference table, she continued to sort through mounds of paperwork, not looking up. "What can I help you with, Dr. Lambert?" she asked.

"I wanted to let you know that I'm going to actively pursue assault charges against Dr. Spier unless this matter is handled expeditiously in-house."

"Don't split your infinitives, Dr. Lambert," Sandy said. She removed her wire-rim glasses, set them on a folder, and rubbed her eyes. "It spoils the illusion of eloquence you seek to cultivate." The smell of his aftershave permeated the room. Sandy finally looked at him. She whistled. "Where you going all dolled up?"

Don adjusted his tie nervously. "I'm on my way home from the opera. My date is waiting in the car."

"Well, I hope you left a window cracked."

Neither smiled.

"So you've been worrying this all night like a canker sore, have you?" Sandy put her glasses on and studied him. Her icy blue eyes matched the starched collar of her shirt. "What do you propose we do?"

"I think he should step down as chief of the division."

"That would be convenient for you, wouldn't it? But inconvenient for the board. We'd be unable to find a qualified replacement--how did you put it in your corporate way--in-house."

Don's voice rose in pitch. "This isn't about career advancement, it's about misconduct and a complete disregard for professionalism. He assaulted me in front of patients and staff. Assaulted me. Over something I didn't do. He's coming unwound. He's barely ever in the ER anymore, and I heard he left early today."

"He left early?" Sandy whistled, feigning astonishment. "Maybe we should report him to the Medical Board."

Don stared her down.

She sighed heavily, then her face resumed its usual businesslike cast. "The board is airing the issue tomorrow," she said dourly. "Rest assured, we are viewing this incident seriously."

"Well, I hope action will be taken before this gets . . . loud."

Sandy searched for a pen behind her ear and found it. She tapped it against her lips, which had drawn together in something of a scowl. "For seventeen years at this institution, Dr. Spier has been a physician beyond reproach. Do you know what that means? To be beyond reproach?"

"Of course."

She regarded him dubiously. "Your concern in this matter has been duly noted." She glanced back down at the papers in front of her. "Good night, Dr. Lambert. You don't want to keep your date waiting."

AFTER calling Yale, David crawled into bed. Yale had spent the day shaking leads with Dalton and had turned up little of consequence. Happy Horizon's records had not been well kept, and the detectives were having some difficulty tracking down the children Clyde had overlapped with during his time there. From information collected at Clyde's apartment, they'd compiled a list of the places Clyde had stopped at regularly--Ralph's Groceries, 7-Eleven, Healton's--and they were keeping an eye on them.

After David filled Yale in on his conversation with Dash, Yale told David a unit had been sitting on Mrs. Connolly's house, and said he'd see about getting another car freed up to cover Sandy. Hospital security had been watching Diane's room.

Though David could barely keep his eyes open, he called Diane.

"Hey, Rocky," she said.

"You heard."

"Don puts out a loud whine."

"How are you doing?"

"I've had better weeks."

"Do you want me to come in and see you?"

"Sorry," she joked. "Visiting hours are over."

"I'm not a visitor."

"Are you something more permanent?" she asked.

After he hung up, he lay back and let his muscles go lax. A revving sports car up on Sunset reminded him of the earplugs he'd accidentally stolen from Healton's Drugstore. He retrieved them from his pants in the laundry, returned to bed, and put them in. They were surprisingly effective. He closed his eyes, pulling the sheets up to his chin, and drifted on the blissful silence. He was asleep in seconds.

Through his sleeping stupor, he became vaguely aware of a distant ringing. It repeated itself at intervals, then he was awake and momentarily lost before the familiar glow of the alarm clock reminded him he was home. The ringing returned. The doorbell. Muted through his earplugs. And some kind of rasping.

Why was someone ringing his bell at 3:30 in the morning? Grabbing the cordless from its cradle, he padded to the front door, leaving his earplugs on a hall table.

He peered through the peephole at Jenkins and Bronner. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Please open the door, Dr. Spier."

David cracked the door and peered through the gap. "What does this concern?"