The Proteus Cure (35 page)

This might work. “Just doesn’t have that spark, you know?”

Before Bill could respond, a man with a gaunt face and gray hair approached her. He wore a trenchcoat over a faded suit, and had an apologetic look in his eyes. Something was wrong.

“Dr. Sheila Taykayama?”

“It’s Takamura,” Bill said. “Doctor Takamura. Can I help you?”

“Detective Winters. Marblehead police.”

Sheila froze, remembering the last time police had come looking for her at work …

Oh God, not Paul. Don’t let Paul be dead.

Her heart slammed in her chest.

Winters stared at her. “
Are
you Dr. Takamura?”

Sheila nodded.

“I have some questions for you about a Paul Rosko. The hospital records indicate he’s a volunteer here.”

“What of it?” Bill said. “I’m CEO and COO of Tethys Medical Center. Any questions about Rosko can be directed to me.”

The detective gave Bill a cold look. “I’d like to speak with Doctor Takamura, if you don’t mind.” He turned to Sheila. “Ma’am do you know Paul Rosko?”

“Is he hurt?”

“Not that I know of. I’m looking for him to ask some questions. So, you do know him?”

“Of course. Everyone here knows him. Why?”

“He’s wanted in connection with the murder of Doctor Gerald Kaplan.”

Paul’s words rushed back:
I’m being framed for Kaplan’s murder and the police are buying it …

“Murder?” She shook her head. “Not Paul.”

“How well do you know him, Ma’am?”

“How well do we know anyone, officer?” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Her mind seemed frozen.

“We pulled his phone records and see a lot of calls back and forth from him to you.”

“We’ve become friends, I guess.” She tried to steady the quaver in her voice. “But I don’t know him all that well.” She had to pretend disinterest to fool Bill and to keep from being implicated. “I know him from here. His son has had problems and we’ve been doing some research together.”

“What
can
you tell us?”

She watched Bill stiffen. There’s so much she could tell them, and how much she’d like to watch Bill squirm as she rattled down all her suspicions.

“That’s about it. He’s a good person. Ask anyone. He volunteers here all the time. Reads to patients … he couldn’t possibly have done anything to Kaplan.”

“You know Kaplan too?” Winters said.

Her first instinct was to deny, but that had gotten Paul into hot water.

“I’ve met him twice. But Paul couldn’t be involved. He’s a kind man.”

She was eager to offer Paul an alibi for that night, but had to wait until they asked.

“Ma’am, Doctor Kaplan was bludgeoned with a baseball bat. A bat with Kaplan’s blood was found in Mister Rosko’s garage. His prints were on that bat. His prints were also on an overturned chair ion Doctor Kaplan’s house.” He paused and locked eyes with her. “
Now
can you think of anything to tell me?”

Mother of God, the evidence against him …

How well did she know him really? No matter how devious, someone couldn’t plant fingerprints could they?

“You must be mistaken.” God, she
hoped
he was mistaken.

“A few nights ago, Mister Rosko was seen carrying a baseball bat in his yard, allegedly looking for a prowler. He implied to the officer on the scene that he planned to use it if he found the prowler.”

“Well,” Sheila said, “if he was in his yard looking for someone, that’s just self defense. He can’t be your man. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Sheila recognized her robotic denial of the facts—the same,
No, no, no!
she’d screamed out when they told her Dek was dead.

“Ma’am, here’s something you may not know about him. A background check revealed that Mister Rosko has a history of violence.”

Was he baiting her? Hoping she’d divulge something he’d told her? No such luck. She didn’t know a damn think about Paul Rosko’s past.

“He’s been in jail, Doctor Takayama.”

Sheila’s breath caught in her throat as the words took hold. “Wait.
Jail
?” She pulled away from Bill and the detective. “What do you mean, jail?”

All eyes in the caf turned her way. She didn’t care.

Bill reached for her but she stepped back farther.

“What’s this about jail?” Bill asked Winters.

Winters cleared his throat again. That familiar
ahem
. Like her folks, his lungs were probably caked with nicotine. She could smell it on him.

“He killed a man about fifteen years ago. Second-degree manslaughter. Beat the guy to death. No bat that time, just his fists. He confessed and served a year in prison.”

His matter-of-fact eyes didn’t flinch.

What to think, what to do? In the short time she’d known Paul she’d seen the temper flares. The man who’d run down Coogan had felt his wrath, and the way he had shouted at Kaplan, the rage in his eyes … God, how had she missed the red flags?

No. Screw the flags. Her instincts were not wrong. Couldn’t be. Getting angry was one thing. Beating someone to death with a bat? No way.

But logic gnawed at her. Detective Winters said Paul had confessed to killing someone. Had gone away for it.

“I don’t need to hear this.” She glared at all of them. “I don’t need to hear any of this.”

She turned and hurried from the caf, down the hall, and outside. No one stopped her.

•

Sheila wandered through the rain not knowing where she was going or what to do. Couldn’t think.

She walked to the big tree by the swollen river and leaned against it. The ground was sodden beneath her. Her shoes sank in the mud. Her silk blouse was no doubt see-through. She had no gloves or coat and she watched the wet goosebumps on her forearms rise. Her keys and purse were inside the hospital, so driving home, or anywhere, wasn’t an option.

She glanced at the wet, gray world around her, the rain river-dancing on the puddle that had overtaken the parking lot, and knew she was sliding into that surreal place her mind led her when too much happened at once.

She picked up a clump of wet leaves with fingers that didn’t seem to belong to her. Couldn’t feel it. Disassociation, someone had once said. She slipped into that mode sometimes to get herself through. A way to cope, one psych book said. A form of depression, said another. Whatever, she was there now.

Leaning against the tree, silky blouse sticking to the wet bark, tears freezing to her face. All she could do was stare at the Tethys hospital and repeat what she needed to be the truth.

They’re wrong! I know what I felt. I have to trust Paul on this.

A few minutes later, or maybe many minutes—she couldn’t tell—Bill walked out and offered her his coat. She pushed it away.

“Come on, Sheila, it’s okay. You didn’t know. People like Paul—well, they take advantage. But it’s okay. I cleared it up with the police. You won’t be implicated in any of this.”

Bill … trying to take care of her. Had she been wrong about both of them? Could she ever trust her judgment again? Bill was out here, trying to comfort. Protect her from a man with a shady past, a background—

Sheila stopped short and dug her heels into the mud as her strength rushed back.

Wait. The background check. Bill had told her he’d run that years ago.

So he’d said.

“Why did you let him volunteer here if he had a record?”

He looked stunned. “I-I didn’t know. Just found out. Like you.”

Right. If he
had
known, he’d never have allowed an ex-con free access to the campus. No background check years ago as he claimed. He knew about Paul’s and Rose’s past some other way.

Like overhearing the conversation she’d had with Paul about Rose in her office.

She felt her vision blur as blood pounded through her head. A bug? Bill. Watching, listening. It explained how he knew so much. Had he heard every conversation she’d had with Paul? Did he know they’d gone to see Kaplan?

A sick feeling filled her. Had he heard her have sex with Paul? Did he know all about it right now and was just placating her? Giving her the false sense of trust
she
was supposed to be doling out?

Gently she pulled away from the tree. Her blouse snagged but then released.

“Bill, I’d like to go home. Absorb all this. Thank you so much for talking to the cops. I’m just glad I’m done with that Rosko. I had no idea.”

“Yeah, good thing.”

Did he believe her? She had no way of telling. But she had to get away from Bill.

“I need the rest of the day off. My keys and coat are inside, I’ll just go—”

Bill put his hand up. “Do you have a set of spare house keys? I can drive you home. You may not want to go back in there now.”

She nodded and took his coat.

“You wait here while I go get my car.” She stood there, numb from the cold and the circumstances.

Paul didn’t kill Kaplan. She was sure of it. Well, pretty sure. She didn’t know who she could trust anymore but Bill wasn’t on the list. One wrong move and he might kill her.

As she waited for Bill’s car to roll up, she prayed to every Catholic saint she could remember that her instincts about Paul were right.

“Dad, what’s gonna happen if you get caught?”

More like
when
I get caught, Paul thought.

They sat on the office’s dusty floor, leaning against the inside wall. Wan light filtered through the blinds. He felt terrible. He’d tried but hadn’t been able to get much sleep on the floor. He ached in places he’d never ached before.

“I’ll be arrested and thrown in jail.”

“But just for a day, right? Everybody gets bailed out.”

“Yeah, usually.”

But not me. A capital crime by someone who’d already tried to avoid capture … uh-uh. No bail for that guy.

But again, no point in making Coog more afraid than he already was.

“So we just wait for the guy at IV to call back?”

Paul nodded. “In the meantime, make sure you keep away from the windows. And no lights. At night we can go in the bathroom to read or in that closet over there, but make sure you don’t put any lights on out here where there are windows. And we have to talk softly during work hours, until the other tenants leave for the day.”

“I know, Dad.” Coogan reached over and punched Paul on the shoulder. “I’m kind of glad this is happening.”

“I’m being framed for murder, we’re hiding out in an abandoned office with nowhere to sit or sleep, we can’t talk above a whisper, and you’re glad?”

“The last few weeks you’ve been acting funny. I know you said you weren’t, but you were. You were, like, weird. Now I feel like you’re my good ol’ Dad again.”

Paul smiled. “That I am, Coog. That I am.”

But for how long?

He slapped his thighs. “Let’s go out and grab something to eat. Has to be someplace with a drive-thru. We’ll bring it back here. We can leave through the back window if we stand on that chair. Just woods back there. No one will see.”

He wanted to spend the absolute minimum on the street.

He led Coog to the window, unlocked it as quietly as he could, and steadied him on the swivel chair.

He motioned to Coog. “All clear. Let’s—”

The phone started ringing. “Get off the chair for a sec.” He closed the window and ran to the machine.

After four rings and a beep, a man began speaking. Paul’s heart skipped a beat when he heard the first words.

“Mr. Swann? I never received a response to my last message but I’ll assume this is still a working number. This is Jason Fredericks again from legal at VecGen. We had a call from Paul Rosko—that’s the man I told you about who’d caused a stir. He left a message for you and I quote … ”

He read off Paul’s message, including his cell phone number.

“If you want us to address this matter, please let us know. I’m at extension two-two-three if you need to get back to me.”

Paul stood frozen. Here was the last link in the chain: the shadow man Lee T. Swann
was
part of Innovation Ventures. Not just a front as Kaplan suggested. Perhaps he
was
IV. This must have been his old office. He’d moved out but left an answering machine. That meant he called in for messages—and soon he’d be calling in for this one.

“We’ve got to get to Radio Shack.”

Coog looked baffled. “Why?”

“To get an ID reader. And then we just pray the phone service is equipped with caller ID. We’ll know who’s calling, or at least where from.”

“Why go to all that trouble? Just dial star-sixty-nine after the call.”

Paul stared at his son. So simple. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He threw an arm around Coog’s shoulders.

“You know, I’m really glad you insisted on coming along.”

Sheila waited by the window until Bill’s car left her driveway and wound its way back toward the Admin building. The rain was even heavier now, pelting the driveway. The water was halfway up her front step. She dreaded seeing her basement. Her sump pump had been running continually for days but it could do only so much with the ground water level so high. She was glad to be safe inside her house.

As if the word
safe
meant anything anymore. She checked her phones but the cordless models didn’t have anywhere she could see to place a bug. Good. Later, when she calmed down, she’d call the groundskeeper and ask for a ride to her rental car so she could get it home to use tomorrow.

Now she wanted a hot soak, to sink to her chin in the tub and forget about the chaos raging around her. But she realized she needed something else more.

She flipped on her computer. She recalled how nervous Paul had become that night when she’d joked about looking him up on the crime website.

She’d start the easy way and narrow it down. She typed in
Paul Rosko, charge, Massachusetts
on Yahoo.

The only hits were Amazon and eBay ads for “Books about Paul Rosko.” She typed in
Paul Rosko criminal,
sure it would yield similar useless stuff.

The first hit was for NetDetective. Yeah, I know, I can find out anything in the privacy of my own home for a small fee. She scanned down two or three irrelevant hits and then gasped.