Do No Harm (52 page)

Yale took a turn a little too fast. "Pucker up."

When they pulled up to the station, David waited patiently to be let out. The LA Times dispenser showed a color photo of Don's fallen body in the ER waiting room, David looming unpleasantly in the background. Front page. It was too bad that no media had staked out David's house through the night; they might have seen Clyde breaking in.

They headed directly upstairs; David was relieved not to have to deal with the contentious desk clerk. Yale's and Dalton's desks were pushed together so they faced each other as they worked. A stained coffee mug at the edge of Dalton's desk proclaimed world's greatest mom. Next to it were the film reels of the fear study.

David gestured to the reels. "Did you take a look at those yet?"

Dalton sat back down heavily. Yale pushed his fingertips together and pressed them over the bridge of his nose. "Late last night," Yale said softly.

Dalton's thumb fidgeted on his cheek. "The shit they did to those poor little bastards . . . " he said. "No kid should have to go through something like that." A series of crayon streaks stained Dalton's shirt near the pocket, and David thought again of Dalton's picnic at the Academy. He found something poignant in the crayon streaks, as he did in Dalton's rumpled shirt, though he wasn't sure what or why.

"Are you done speaking with the other subjects?" David asked.

"A few we're still running down. Nothing's rang the cherries."

"He's so withdrawn," David said. "I'd say it's a long shot that he's had real contact with anybody."

"Aside from you," Yale said. He flipped through his ever-present notepad. "He used surgical scalpels on the bird. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Any special kind?"

David shook his head. "He had plenty of medical supplies at his apartment. Maybe he took them before he fled. The needle he wielded at Diane--I saw a similar one in his car. For all we know, he's got a Dr. Mengele funhouse in his trunk."

"You were right about the urine sample," Yale said. "Our guy at County Med said his kidneys were clearing a lot of the stuff. He estimated something like a 2.3 blood level. That mean anything to you?"

David nodded. "That's bad. Really bad. But if we're correct in our assumption that he's no longer taking lithium, it'll be lower by now. It must be, for him to have driven over and broken in." He paused and moistened his dry lips. "Some pretty dexterous maneuvering."

"Why didn't he attack you? He's bigger and certainly a more capable fighter."

David suspected the latter remark was intended as a dig, though he found it merely accurate. "I think he's more interested in scaring me. First the torture tape, then the attack on Diane, then this. The phonetic graffiti on my car is probably intended to humiliate me. Diminish me further."

"Fits your theory," Dalton said. "Lucky for you, huh?"

"Actually, I'd be thrilled to figure out a way to make him come after me more violently. Better likelihood of catching him."

Dalton stood up and ran a hand through his already tousled hair, his cheap button-up shirt pulling untucked at the side. He chuckled to himself. "You've got balls, Doc," he said. "I'll give you that."

"The key is to instigate him consciously and intelligently," David said.

"I'd have to say you've been doing that from the get-go."

"But if I could provoke him in a way we could channel . . . "

"Then what?"

Before David could answer, Yale did. "We could designate his next victim. The question is: How do we place a fitting stimulus to prompt him to make a move?"

Dalton sat back down, the effort pushing a grunt out of him. "Female cops going UC as nurses?"

"But where? We haven't turned up shit over in his neck of the woods, and as you said, he's gotta know we'll nail him if he steps on Med Center grounds again."

"A nurse might be a step back for him," David said. "He's already attacked people further up the hierarchy of influence at the hospital."

"Maybe he'll go after that bitchy chief of staff. Who's on her?"

"Bicks and Perelli," Dalton said. "They'll have it covered. Perelli's the Police Olympics freehand shooting champ."

"Clyde's not going to attack someone with visible police protection," David said. "He may be getting bolder, but he's still essentially a coward. And besides, I still think I'm a more appealing target. We could wait for him to contact me or come after me again."

"Waiting," Dalton said, "sucks."

"For the next few nights, I'm putting a unit on you," Yale said. "If Clyde calls again, make sure you record it. I assume it's okay with you if we start taking steps to trace your incoming calls?"

"Yes. Fine. Can you do it immediately? I imagine he's gonna call to soak up my reaction to Stanley." At their blank looks, David added, "The bird."

"You named your bird Stanley?" Dalton said.

"My wife did. Clearly she had lapses in taste if she married me."

Yale cracked a grin--the first David had seen. "Unfortunately, even with your approval, we have to jump hoops," Yale said. "Every major post-O. J. Simpson investigation's gotta squeak. With the political pressure on this one, we can't sneeze without the DA checking in. We'll have to subpoena the phone company, get a search warrant for subscriber information. A couple of days minimum."

"Why didn't you start this already?"

"We did."

It was David's turn to smile. Dalton took a sip of coffee, his face showing he'd forgotten to refill the cup since yesterday. David emitted a monstrous yawn.

"When the last time you slept?" Yale asked.

"I'm fine."

"I'm not asking if you're fine. I'm asking the last time you've strung together more than a few hours of sleep."

"I don't know. Five, six days. I can handle it. During internship, I was on call every other day and every other weekend."

"You were a young buck then. I'd guess you didn't look this shitty."

"No," David said. "Probably not."

"I'm gonna take you home to get a few z's. You're no good to us blurry."

Dalton drew his hand down the front of his face wearily, distorting his features. "We have our own world of shit to get back to. Combing evidence from Clyde's apartment. Car tips. Ex-foster home kids. Drugstores. Trying to press something useful from Forensics."

David's pager went off, beeping loudly. It was Sandy. His watch read 9:23. He'd missed his appearance before the board. "I have to return this," he said. "Sorry."

He withdrew his cell phone from the pocket of his white coat, and walked a few paces off so he could have a semiprivate conversation.

Sandy picked up the phone after a half ring. "Where the hell are you?"

Two cops led a heavily drugged prostitute into a nearby interrogation room. She twisted in their grips and tried to bite them. "Things are . . . complicated right now."

"Well, you've succeeded in making them more complicated. The board is rightly pissed off that you're not here. The meeting is progressing, whether you're here to defend yourself or not. And you're being depicted in even less flattering fashion than you deserve. And this morning's Times photo isn't exactly salve on our PR wounds." An angry pause. "You're doing an excellent job sabotaging what was shaping up to be a great career."

"I appreciate your keeping me in the loop," he heard himself say. His voice was cold, clinical, detached. Sandy hung up without saying good-bye.

He nodded to Yale and followed him down the stairs. The irritable black desk officer looked at David, then elbowed her counterpart--an obese man with a Wilford Brimley mustache--in the ribs.

"Ask him," she said. When the man shook his head, it set his jowls jiggling.

David and Yale passed the counter.

The woman elbowed her partner again. "Ask him," she repeated.

Wilford Brimley looked up with what David imagined was uncharacteristic shyness. "I got this heart murmur . . . " he said.

David slid his stethoscope into place and leaned over the counter.

David sat quietly in the passenger seat of Yale's car as they headed back to his house. Dalton had stayed at the station, running down leads on the phone. The sky was gray-brown, the clouds overhead indistinguishable from the haze of pollution. David tried to imagine his life if the Board voted for him to step down as division chief. He'd always lived with a presumption of irreproachability, probably a flaw he'd inherited from his mother. Events of the past week had knocked him from his armor, and dressed him in the trappings of visible failure. Maybe this was a good place from which to start over. To pick up the fragments and build something new from them.

Not surprisingly, he next felt a mentor's pull to get Carson put back together.

Yale said something, pulling David from his reverie.

"Excuse me?" David asked.

"I said, don't worry. We are gonna nail him. We have the whole department on the lookout for him and his vehicle. Ninety-eight hundred officers. He must have the vehicle hidden away, but every time he takes a drive or steps out in public, he's playing Russian roulette with five bullets."

David's mind slowly caught up to Yale's words, taking a moment to awaken. "You're more confident than Dalton."

"Dalton is accustomed to fate, chance, and the world conspiring to fuck him. I'm not. Clyde is no longer an unknown suspect. He's now an identified, wanted, violent felon, and he's starting to unravel. He's taking bigger and bigger risks, like going to your house. He's playing an endgame now. There's no question we'll nail him, and in my mind, there's no question we'll nail him soon." His hands fisted the wheel, then loosened. "There's really only one major uncertainty."

David rested his head against the glass. "What's that?"

"How bloody it gets before it's over."

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Brentwood. As they turned onto Marlboro, David recognized Ed's red Pathfinder across the street. The police cars had all left. "Want me to come in?" Yale asked. "Check for alkali throwers under the bed?"

David glanced at Ed's Pathfinder warily. "Thank you, I'll be fine."

"Do you have a weapon?"

"No," David said, opening his door. "No."

Yale leaned over so he could see David's face. "Keep your doors and windows locked. See about an alarm system. Call me with any sign of anything out of the ordinary. I'll check in with you every few hours. We'll have a car on you by nightfall."

"Thank you," David said.

A new lock greeted David at his front door, which stood slightly ajar. When he entered his house, Ed was on all fours behind the ficus wearing a woman's halter top--nicely filled out--and a leather miniskirt. A pair of patent leather pumps sat at the edge of the carpet. Next to two Nextel phones on the counter lay a Kate Spade purse.

Ed turned toward David, revealing a faceful of makeup and a luxuriant blond wig. "Not a word, not a fucking word," he said. He spliced two wires together and attached them to a keypad.

"Darling," David said. "Your mascara is running."

Adjusting his wig, Ed stood and approached David. He moved differently--high on his toes, shoulders drawn slightly back, chin raised. Feminine. When he went undercover, he really went all out. "I was on a job. I came straight over."

"What, on Santa Monica Boulevard?"

"Bomb threat at a drag rave. I know, it sounds like a Roger Corman movie."

David laughed. "Everything under control?"

Ed shrugged. "Nothing happened. That's what I get for taking a job from worked-up queens."

"At least you got to get dressed up."

Ed's face registered that he found little humorous about the situation.

David pointed to his wig. "I think it's safe to say you can remove that now."

"Oh. Oh yeah." Ed pulled off the wig and flung it on the carpet. "I came over as soon as the cops left, so put the brakes on your commentary. Now listen, here's what we did. I switched your Schlage locks to Medeco--double-cylinder, one-inch hardened dead bolts with six-pin tumblers and brass revolving collars. I set up a triangular-patterned, infrared, dual-beam break around the perimeter of your property line. It'll give off a beep to let you know when someone's on your property."

He paused to glare at David. "Keep your eyes off my tits and pay attention. Next, we have a Radionics security system setup, run off this keypad. It employs passive infrared through the interior and at the windows, which are also outfitted with glass-shatter sensors. Delayed entry and exit is not to exceed forty seconds. If the system is breached, it'll call out on POTS--plain old telephone system--with a backup cellular dial in case someone takes out your hard line. Your code is your birthday, including the four-digit year, plus the number seven. Got it?"

David nodded.

"Your little shrub collection out front provides excellent concealment for intruders. I'd rather you went with a cleaner look."

"You do landscape design?"

Ed pulled a compact out of the purse and began vigorously removing his eye shadow. "Honey, I do it all."