'His assistant, Jack Ryan. He's at home. You want his number?'
'No, never mind. Thanks.'
David leaned against the wall and stroked his decision scar. He phoned Sparky who said he'd be available after lunch, then hurried through the laboratory rooms where the pungent stench of chemicals bit his nostrils harder than usual.
Ted Tanarkle's secretary, Marsha, was not at her desk. David paced a minute or two, rapped on the inner door and entered. He found the pathologist dictating the results of an autopsy into a tape recorder: 'There was evidence of widespread effusion in the right pleural space along with petechiae and a major infarct in the adjacent parenchyma. David! Have a seat.'
'Coughlin had an infarct?' David asked, pointing to the recorder.
'No, this was another one I did over the weekend. I already dictated his but before we get to that, I have something to say.' Tanarkle threw his pen across his desk. 'David, I did not kill Everett Coughlin or anyone else, I swear to you! Why would I? I know I'm a suspect because of those stupid bloodstains, but you know me. How could I?'
David, taken aback by the starkness of his former mentor's comments, remembered Kathy's advice: 'Don't let it get subjective.'
'I don't really think you could, but I've got to ask the questions.' His last phrase was uttered advisedly because he wanted to imply he was going by the book.
'That's okay, as long as you have some trust in me. We go back a long way.'
'That we do.' David cleared his throat. 'I only have a couple things to ask about. First, Coughlin's post findings.'
'Yes, yes, the post.' Tanarkle swiveled his chair around and selected a folder from a cabinet behind him. He perused its contents for a few seconds. 'There was nothing out of the ordinary except for the gunshot wound to the head. Straightforward entry site, left temple, above and between the eye and ear. No exit wound. The bullet danced around in there and did considerable damage. I found it lodged in the cribriform plate. Sparky's already been by. The rest of Coughlin's body was commensurate with his age.'
David was writing rapidly when Tanarkle added, 'You don't have to take notes. I'll make you a copy of the report before you leave.'
'Good-thanks. Next, the lecture Coughlin never gave. You didn't attend?'
'No. For as long as I can remember, he never attended mine and I never attended his.'
'Two pathologists within two miles of each other. Too bad.'
'I agree, but unfortunately that's the way it worked out.'
'But you always exchanged slides and otherwise consulted with each other? At least you did when I was here.'
'Yes, we did. Sort of a necessary evil for both of us, I guess. It helped in the litigious climate we live in these days, and it was convenient. You see, it wasn't that we didn't respect each other's professional skills.'
'Jumping to another topic, Ted. Where were you at the time of the shooting, a little before nine, Saturday morning?' See, that wasn't so hard after all.
'Home.'
'Mind if I call Betty to verify that? I have to do this, Ted.'
'Yes, I understand. You can call, but Betty wasn't there. She and some friends left for the mall in Center City at eight-thirty.'
David kicked himself for not asking first whether Betty was home around nine. 'No, I won't bother, then.'
Silent, Tanarkle took his autopsy report to a copier in an adjacent alcove as if to signify his hope that the interrogation was over.
'That's it for now,' David said, folding back his pad and inserting the pathology report within its pages. He shook the pathologist's hand firmly and said, 'Hang in there, my friend.'
'I'm trying. Got a lot on my plate right now, but I'm trying.'
David saw the opening but chose not to broach a new subject-like the infidelity of Ted's wife-and left with a vague sense of pity.
At an unoccupied desk in a corner of the Microbiology Lab, he sat and, after bringing his notes up-to-date, reflected on what had just transpired. Christ. Forget the pity. Who knows if Ted was really at home when Coughlin was zapped? And, David, my man, you didn't learn any more in there than you knew ten minutes ago, except that the bullet ended up in a goddamned cribriform plate!
He felt his phone buzz at his waist. 'It's me,' Kathy said. 'Apparently Mr. Bernie Bugles is a slippery guy.'
'You heard from the, ah, hard man?'
'Yes. There was a flight from JFK to Tokyo at three-fifty Friday afternoon, but Bernie wasn't on it. So he either missed it or he was lying. And if he was, why would he be so elaborate-knowing the time and all?'
'Unless he'd taken it before and didn't have to research it,' David said.
'Well that jibes with his background info.'
'Which is?'
'After college, he spent five years working in Japan in and around Tokyo. Let's see, I have it all written down here. He's forty-five, divorced, has the one sibling, Robert, and apparently didn't get along well with Charlie who's really his stepfather. Mother died ten years ago.'
'What's he do for a living?'
'Archie's still trying to find out what he's doing now. Apparently, not much. He got a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, then went right to Japan to work for a company specializing in prosthetic medical devices. He spent most of his time with their artificial heart valve division-had a hand in spearheading major improvements. They must have thought highly of him because he became their main representative in the field-demonstrating the devices at the leading medical centers in the Far East. Even scrubbed on open heart procedures to assist in inserting them.'
David jotted down a few key points. 'Where's he live?'
'New York City-West Side. I've got his address.' 'Maybe I'd better pay him a visit.'
'Good, I'll go with you,' Kathy said. 'We can combine business with pleasure. Haven't been to the Big Apple in years. Maybe we could take in a show? An opera-there you go-an opera. Right up your alley.'
'Aren't you being a bit cavalier at a time like this?'
The silence at the other end prompted David to remove the receiver from his ear and look at it. Finally, Kathy said sternly, 'No, I don't think so. David, look, you're winding everything into a tight ball, including yourself. Stretch it out. Pace yourself. Work your tail off, but live a life, too. You'll work better.'
'You don't understand.'
'Yes, I do understand. You're trying to do too much at once-and that's based only on what I
'All this because you want to see a New York show?'
He heard Kathy groan into, 'Oh, for heaven's sake!'
David forced a laugh. 'Maybe you've got a point.' He became conscious of his fluttering eyelids. 'But I just can't get away from thinking I'm in a race.'
'Against who?'
'Time.'
They agreed to spend part of an afternoon at Lincoln Center, at a time David would select to grill Bernie Bugles. But that would be later on, for what had started out as an emergency undertaking, now slipped in his list of priorities, undoubtedly because his mindset didn't include musical diversions. He left the desk, mulling over what Kathy had said about the tight ball, and over what the top priorities should be.
There is, for example, the matter of tracking down the other Japanese dagger, if another exists at all, although Mr. Razbit says it does. And what about locating the Japanese rifle used to kill Coughlin? Suddenly, we have two murders with an Asian connection, and if Bernie's our killer and his Tokyo experience twenty years ago qualifies, we have three. Then again, maybe his experience is more current than that. And, where the hell is Victor Spritz?
