Silent Treatment (45 page)

“I am sure you all know,” she said, “that Dr. Corbett has been under a great strain lately as the result of the tragic death of his wife. I have been told he has been under a physician’s care for his grief reaction, as well as for some post-traumatic stress issues related to his heroic service in Vietnam.…”

Post-traumatic stress!

“Hospital Barbie speaks with forked tongue,” Harry said aloud.

Clearly, MMC’s spin doctors had already met and decided on their strategy for dealing with the collective disasters brought down on their house by Dr. Harry Corbett—post-traumatic stress. Harry wondered what name they would come up with if anyone ever demanded to know who his shrink was.

“… We at the hospital are speculating that Dr. Corbett borrowed the name of Max Garabedian in order to hospitalize someone he cared about who was very ill but without health insurance,” Hinkle went on, “possibly a fellow Vietnam veteran. The plan backfired when his patient went haywire.”

“Nice,” Harry said. “Not bad.”

And not that far off, either
, he thought.

The rest of Hinkle’s press conference added nothing of substance except that nursing officials were looking into the identities and backgrounds of the special-duty nurses brought into the hospital by the gunman.

For forty minutes, nothing new was broadcast. Then, with just half an hour to go before Harry was to leave, one of the many mysteries connected with the case was reported solved. An electrician doing work on the heating system of the hospital had been found by a maintenance man, bound and gagged in the subbasement. He had been robbed at gunpoint by a man answering the fugitive’s description. His clothes and shoes were taken, along with twenty-five dollars from his wallet. The wallet was then returned to him. Police
were checking it for fingerprints, as well as the hospital room where the gunman was a patient for three days.

“He was nervous and scared, I think,” the electrician said. “But he was decent enough to me. He gave me back my wallet because he said he knows what a hassle it is getting a new driver’s license. He didn’t hurt me. But I think maybe he would have if I didn’t do as he asked.…”

Harry checked the time. Eight-ten. Outside the garage, dusk was gradually yielding to night. The lights of the city were on. He started the BMW and slowly, ever so slowly, rolled down the ramp to the exit. Finally, at exactly eight-fifteen, he shut off the radio and pulled out onto the street. The game was afoot.

Harry drove past one block, then another. He didn’t feel all that nervous, but his hands were white on the wheel. He glanced at his watch. It was twenty past.
Where was she? Where was the call?
He checked the time again.
Okay
, he decided,
maybe it’s only eight-eighteen
. Moments later, the phone buzzed. He snatched up the receiver.

“Yes,” he said.

“Harry, I’m in a tree,” Maura whispered with breathless excitement. “I’m up in a fucking tree in the woods next to a dump. Do you believe it? If I had known there was a man around like you who could get me to climb trees at garbage dumps at night in New Jersey with a gun in my fanny pack, I never would have bothered drinking.”

“Well, I’m no place that exotic,” Harry said, whispering although there was no need to. “Ninety-sixth, heading for the parkway. Is anyone there yet?”

“Not a soul. I found a great place to leave the car and a perfect place to hide.”

“And you’re sure no one saw you?”

“Positive. Are you being followed?”

“I can’t tell yet.”

“It doesn’t make any difference whether they do or not. Listen, Harry, I think I see a car coming up the road.
I’ll call you again at ten of nine unless he’s standing too close to this tree.”

“You’re doing great, Maura. Are you warm enough? I think it’s going to rain soon.”

“Hey, I’m fine. I told you. Tonight’s the night.”

With one eye on the road ahead and one on the rear-view mirror, Harry swung onto the Henry Hudson Parkway. Several cars behind, he caught sight of a dark sedan, which he felt fairly certain had been with him from the beginning. Maura was right, though. It really didn’t matter whether the caller had someone tailing him or not. He was going to follow instructions to the letter. Maura was their ace in the hole.

By the time he had crossed the George Washington Bridge, a misty rain had begun to fall. Harry found windshield wipers annoying and had always postponed turning them on until he absolutely had to. This time he switched them on at the first droplets. If things came unraveled tonight, it wasn’t going to be because he did something pigheaded or stupid.

Once on the New Jersey side of the river, he consulted the directions. After two miles he swung off the main road into a densely built, working-class neighborhood. The streets were tree-lined, and the small yards of the clapboard houses were strewn with balls, Big Wheels, and the other trappings of new families. The sedan followed several blocks behind, its lights off. Harry felt certain he could see two people silhouetted inside. He easily located the corner where he had been instructed to stop and wait for one minute. He was pulling away when the phone buzzed. Maura was several minutes early. And Harry knew as he was reaching for the receiver that there was trouble.

“Yes?”

“Harry, stop right now!” she said in a panic-driven whisper. “This place is crawling with police. A dozen of them. Maybe more. Their cruisers are out of sight, and you wouldn’t know a thing was wrong. But they’re here.”

His blood suddenly ice, Harry glanced in the mirror. The sedan was still there, about two or three blocks back.
He shifted into gear and began slowly rolling down the street.

“Go on,” he said.

“Harry, your friend Dickinson’s here. At one point he was about ten feet from this tree. Now he’s strolling around checking that everyone’s in place.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. He’s working with some lieutenant who seems to be from the local police. He’s very excited about being here to nail you. From what I could hear, someone called and tipped off the police that you had demanded a meeting at this place, that you have a body with you, and will pay twenty-five thousand dollars for this guy to get it a thousand miles from here and bury it where it will never be dug up. The man said you were crazy. That you killed people for fun. He wanted nothing to do with you, except to have you in jail where you couldn’t hurt him. You’ve got to get out of here, Harry.”

His mind whirling, Harry began slowly to accelerate.

“Just stay out of sight until it’s safe to go home,” he said. “Then go to my apartment. I’ll be in touch.”

He heard her telling him to be careful as he set the receiver down. Then he glanced at the directions he had written down. In one more block, he would go left or straight instead of turning right as instructed. It would take the men in the sedan several seconds to realize he was diverging from the plan. Three or four seconds at the most. That was all he had. His best bet was to try and get back to the highway. He sped up to around forty.

Bury a body?
How could Perchek ever expect such an outlandish story to get Harry into trouble?… Unless …

In the same instant Harry understood what was happening, he cut his lights, swung a sharp left, and hit the gas. He made a sliding right, then another left. The siren was on behind him now, and he could see the blue strobe through the trees. The streets, baked to bone-dry for almost two weeks, were slick with rain and oil. He skidded into another turn, onto a street that was a long straightaway to, the main
road. The speedometer was nearing eighty. He had always been a laid-back driver and rarely drove this fast even on a turnpike. A couple backing out of their drive to go to the store, a kid on her bicycle—there were any number of possibilities for disaster now. Undoubtedly, the men in the unmarked cruiser had called for backup as well.

He tried desperately to think things through. The best he could do was to acknowledge that the situation was absolutely horrible. He was racing around rain-soaked streets in a neighborhood that was completely foreign to him, at night, in a seven-year-old-car, almost certainly with a body in the trunk.
One minute
. That was about all he had left. One minute before they caught up with him or the backups cut him off.

He was closing fast on a main road. Assuming it was the one he had taken in, it was a four-laner with no divider. The sedan was on the straightaway now, no more than three blocks behind and gaining. Harry was about to brake so that he could turn into the northbound lane. But at the last moment, he saw a small gap in the traffic each way. He slammed down the accelerator and barreled across all four lanes. A tractor trailer was coming from each direction. In a cacophony of air brakes, screeching tires, and horns, they both swerved, skidding in a ponderous, grotesque pas de deux. The cruiser had no choice but to stop and back away from the potentially deadly dance. There was a street directly across from the one Harry had come up. He shot down it. Slowing a bit he glanced behind him just as one of the trailers, in excruciating slow motion, toppled onto its side.

In the distance, he could hear sirens—many of them. He swung into a side street, and then halfway up the driveway of a darkened house. The sirens were getting louder. He stepped quietly out of the car, expecting at any moment to have all the lights in the house go on at once, or else to be attacked by a rottweiler. He glanced about. He had no idea at all where he was, except that the river was somewhere in the direction the house was facing. Just past the garage, he could see woods beyond the backyard, to the
west. With luck he could make it there. Then he would have to see. He snapped open the briefcase and stuffed what he thought was about seven thousand dollars into his pockets. He was wearing slacks and dress shoes—the perfect outfit for impressing the people at the bank, but not much good for running from the police. Unfortunately, at this moment, he would have to make do.

He took the key and inserted it in the trunk. Part of him wanted just to leave it closed and run. He dreaded confronting this part of the nightmare Perchek had conjured up for him. Later, wherever he was, he could find out from the news bulletins what was inside. A siren sounded from close by, and moments later a squad car raced down the street, its strobes flashing. Harry threw himself into the shadows. The net was closing. He had little time left. He turned the key, hesitated again, and then threw the trunk open.

Hot air, heavy with the stench of blood and death, immediately wafted up into his face. Below him, crammed into the smallish trunk, lay Caspar Sidonis. His perfect face was waxen, his hair matted with blood from entry and exit bullet holes just above his ears.

Bile washed up into Harry’s throat. He hesitated, actually trying to think of something he should be doing. Then, swallowing back the burning acid, he quietly lowered the trunk.

“Poor bastard,” he whispered.

A second cruiser, this one with no lights or siren, made its way past, checking every house and driveway on the other side of the street with a spotlight. Harry again ducked into the shadows. His side of the street would be next. With a final glance at the trunk, he moved quickly into the backyard and scaled a five-foot chain-link fence. As he leapt to the ground, he experienced a breath-catching pain in his chest, exploding from just beneath his sternum up into his jaws and ears. He stumbled, then fell to the rain-soaked, mossy ground. Instantly, he was drenched, both from the rain and from his own sudden perspiration.

The sirens seemed to be all around him now. He
crawled deeper into the woods and then pulled himself upright on the trunk of a tree. The pain was leveling off. He battled back a wave of nausea without getting sick. Then he closed his eyes and took several calming breaths. Giving up was a very real possibility. Surely someone would believe he had been set up. Mel Wetstone had worked near-miracles already. Perhaps he could pull this one off as well.

No. The thought of being taken prisoner, of jail, of Albert Dickinson, was more than he could stand.

From a hundred yards behind him, he could hear voices. They had found the car. The pain was much less now. Almost gone. With the jungle survival training he had had in Vietnam and several thousand dollars in cash, at least he had a slim chance of escaping. He stuffed the money deeper in his pockets and pushed off from the tree. Then, keeping low and moving as quietly as possible, he began an awkward jog through the dense woods.

High Hill, in elegant Short Hills, New Jersey, was an expansive fifteen-room colonial with a coach house and pool on three rolling acres. Built and christened by a liquor baron in 1920, it had kept its name through four subsequent masters. Phil Corbett, the latest in the line, had been living in the estate with his family for almost three years. He disliked the pretentiousness of house names and was constantly threatening to replace the
High Hill
placard on the fieldstone stele at the base of the driveway with one reading
High Upkeep
.

When the phone began ringing at ten-thirty on the night of August 30, Phil was eight hundred dollars up and studying a possible royal flush. The once-a-month, six-man game rotated from house to house, but the participants enjoyed playing at High Hill the most. Shortly after moving in, Phil had converted the music room into a soundproof, walnut-paneled, Wild West card room, complete with
honky-tonk background music, sawdust on the floor, an overhead fan, Cuban cheroots, and brass spittoons. Stakes in the game were high enough to make it interesting. But there wasn’t one of the players who couldn’t comfortably absorb a five-thousand-dollar ding.

Earlier in the evening, several of the men had mentioned the latest news blitz involving Phil’s older brother. Two of them, Matt McCann and Ziggy White, both millionaires who had never finished college, had grown up with Phil in Montclair, and had known Harry fairly well.

“Talk about your big-time comedown,” Matt said. “Remember how we all used to idolize Harry? He was the scholar who was going to go to college. We were the little shits who were going to go to jail.”