only ones who are going to give them the benefit of any doubt. The only ones who know and can vouch for the extent to which they are recovering from their illness.”
Filstrup had had enough. “John Meacham did not receive proper treatment,” he said, “and that’s exactly what I told the PWO board.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you move this definitively on a case, Walter,” he said.
“Now that’s the wise-ass Welcome I know. It’s elementary, my dear Watson. You didn’t follow my recommendation. You went out on your own, like you always do with anybody who has a drug and alcohol problem. And now you are up to your glutes in casualties and disgruntled board members.”
Anger tightened around Lou’s chest. He forcefully reminded himself that there was nothing to gain from going off at the man verbally, or throttling him by the throat. Filstrup was like someone who knew nothing about weapons being presented a.45 and a full box of ammo.
“Listen, Walter, I think you should just get to the point.”
“The point is,” Filstrup said, slowing his speech to intentionally drag the announcement out, “that after considering all the facts in this case, the board has unanimously approved your suspension from the PWO pending any appeals, effective immediately and without pay.”
Lou showed no surprise because there was no surprise to show. Surprise would have been crunching Filstrup’s peanut nose with a sharp left cross.
“I was right to recommend Meacham for a return to practice,” Lou said finally. “I like this job and I’m good at it. Somewhere out there are answers as to why this happened-answers that don’t have anything to do with his need for psychotherapy. And when I find out what those answers are, I’ll be back to petition the board to reinstate me. The work we do here is too important to be victimized by your narrow views.”
“The only answer you’re going to come up with, Welcome, is that I was right.”
Lou was on the street a block from the PWO headquarters with no recollection of leaving the office or the building. The early afternoon was starting to get seriously warm. His mouth became dry, and he realized he was only a short walk from the dark, cozy, air-conditioned comfort of the Tam o’ shanter, for years his favorite bar.
He walked without thinking of anything but how upset he was with Walter Filstrup. The man was wrong. As usual, he didn’t have any understanding of alcoholism or addiction. The science was there-irrefutable identical twin studies and other excellent pieces of research. Alcoholism was a disease.
Lou stepped beneath the rough-hewn carving of the hat and the words THE TAM swinging over the heavy wooden doorway. The Scottish poet Robert Burns had written the epic poem in 1790, and more than once during his years of drug and alcohol excess, Lou had regaled the patrons of the place by reading the tale of a man who drinks too much and must race a hallucinated Devil for his life.
How in the hell could Filstrup blame him in any way for what happened in Kings Ridge? Suspending him this way was like shooting the bearer of bad news.
The sounds and smells of the Tam started tapes whirring in Lou’s head. His mouth became even drier. He licked his lips and began thinking how easy it would be to get even with Filstrup by just getting smashed. Furious now, he took a step toward the already-crowded bar. Then he took another.
At that moment, other tapes began playing-snatches of nine years of meetings and long walks and talks.
Lou wasn’t even aware he had taken out his cell phone.
“Cap, it’s me,” he heard himself saying. “I’m inside the Tam.… No, I haven’t.… Okay, I’ll get out now.… Ten minutes. I’ll be out there.”
Sunshine replaced the comforting gloom. The music and the tapes stopped. Robert Burns’s poem faded.
Lou walked across the street and leaned against a building to wait for his sponsor. Nine years and he still wasn’t safe.
Without constant vigilance, he realized, he never would be.
CHAPTER 14
Unable to clear John Meacham out of his thoughts, Lou headed back to the town of Kings Ridge.
The decision to share some of what he knew with Gilbert Stone had essentially been made for him by Cap Duncan and Walter Filstrup-the one, who was certain that there was a pattern of extremely odd thinking and actions at work in the community, and the other, who had decreed that Lou was to have an unexpected bolus of free, unstructured time on his hands.
Stone strode into the police station waiting area from behind an imposing steel door. He was dressed as on the night he and Lou first met-tan uniform, black tie, metal star. His engaging smile showcased what Lou guessed were top-of-the-line caps.
The night just past had been a frantic one for him, with calls from a dozen or so of his PWO clients, who had been informed by Filstrup of his suspension. The best Lou could offer them was his assurance that he would fight to restore his status and continue to be available to them in an unofficial capacity. In the meantime, he promised each of them that he would do everything within the limits of his new situation to continue to help them.
Lou had come away from his roadside encounter with Stone toting a wariness of the man’s oblique manner of asking questions, and an uneasy respect for the degree to which he had his finger on the pulse of his town. Kings Ridge may have looked and felt like Mayberry R.F.D., but this man was no bumpkin.
“Dr. Welcome,” Stone said, shaking Lou’s hand like a human garlic press, “good to see you again, son. That knot and cut there on your head look to have settled down pretty good.”
“It’s fine. Please, call me Lou.”
“Lou it is,” Stone replied, his expression as inscrutable as it had been at the scene of the accident. “I almost said, ‘Welcome, Dr. Welcome.’ I suppose you get that a lot.”
“From time to time,” Lou understated.
In fact, except to tell him and his brother that their name came from “someplace in England,” their father had no knowledge of or interest in its origin. Over the years, Lou had developed a number of different responses to inquiries about it, ranging from that it was modified from the Finnish word velkommen, which was a soft, incredibly cuddly arctic hare, to that his great-great-grandfather had it officially changed to Welcome from the Welsh, Getthehellawayfromhere.
“Thanks for seeing me,” he said this time.
“No problem at all. When a person calls with something to talk about pertinent to a multiple-homicide investigation, well, naturally that person becomes an immediate priority. Now, let’s go chat in my office.”
The sprawling redbrick, one-story station was, according to its cornerstone, just four years old. Stone’s office occupied the entire end of one wing. Two long opposing walls of glass were shielded by drawn blinds, the wall facing his massive oak desk was a bookcase filled with law tomes and other professional volumes. In addition, there were a number of contemporary thrillers, including what appeared to be close to the entire Colors collection of John D. MacDonald, one of Lou’s favorites. The wall behind the desk featured laminated testimonials and a variety of photos of Stone, posing with a who’s who of state and national dignitaries.
On the trip back to Kings Ridge, Lou had wrestled with a serious moral dilemma: how to discuss his relationship with John and Carolyn Meacham without violating the legally protected confidentiality of the PWO. It certainly seemed from news broadcasts as if Walter Filstrup had already released details of the murderer’s relationship with the organization. It was safe to assume that wily Gilbert Stone knew at least some of Meacham’s history, information probably unearthed beginning the day the physician first moved to the area.
