able to control the fallout and minimize the damage somehow.
“But when I told Karen what I intended to do, she went berserk. Then she told me about her pregnancy. I suspected it might be a last-ditch effort on her part to get me to side with her, to have enough sympathy for her plight that I wouldn’t expose her or Sid. But I wasn’t convinced she really was pregnant. Or if she was, that it was mine.”
He looks at me then, a pleading question in his eyes.
“I can’t tell you, David. The DNA results haven’t come back yet.”
He sighs, his face rigid.
“Did you go to Karen’s house that night? Hurley said he had a witness who saw you there.”
“That’s total bullshit. According to Lucien, this purported eyewitness was just some anonymous woman who called from a pay phone at the Quik-E-Mart. Lucien thinks it was a crank looking to get a cheap thrill. I never went to Karen’s house that night. In fact, I never saw her again after she left here. But I don’t have an alibi for the period of time in question. Actually, I do have one, but I haven’t been willing to share it yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“After Karen left that night, I put in a page to Sidney, found out he was over at the hospital trying to catch up on his back charts, and went over there hoping to talk to him when he was finished. I got there just as he was coming out of the hospital and we spoke in the parking lot. I confronted him with what I knew and he didn’t deny any of it.”
He shakes his head. “You should have seen him when he talked about this Halverson guy. He kept saying he was truly in love for the first time in his life and that, faced with a considerably shortened lifespan, he no longer felt the need to hide who he was, to be so circumspect about his sex life.
“I told him that was all fine and good, but that I couldn’t ethically allow him to continue to operate on patients if he was HIV positive.”
“What was his reaction?”
“He was obviously upset…. Devastated might be a better word. I don’t know. I think he was so caught up in the euphoria of his relationship with Halverson that he hadn’t really thought through all the consequences. Then he got pissed at me. He got in his car and left, refusing to hear me out.
“I didn’t know what to do at first. But I knew I couldn’t let things go on the way they were. So I headed out to his house hoping to talk to him some more. Except when I got there, no one was home. I knew from Karen that Mike frequented the Grizzly Motel and I guessed that was the most likely place to find Sid. So I headed out there, and when I saw his car, I bluffed my way into finding out what room he was in. Then I laid down the law to him and Mike.”
“And how did you leave it?”
“I told Sid I’d give him a week to make up his mind. Either he leaves voluntarily or I report him. And the week will be up the day after tomorrow. That’s why I didn’t tell that detective where I was the night Karen was killed. I knew Sid would just deny it all and then I’d only end up looking worse.”
“If Sid doesn’t withdraw from operating voluntarily, are you going to go ahead and report him?”
“Yes.” His sigh carries the weight of the world with it. “But I have to tell you, Mattie, I don’t like being in this position. Sid is not only a respected colleague of mine, he’s a friend. I’m trying to do what’s right, but for some reason it feels all wrong.”
He buries his head in his hands and again I am struck by an urge to reach out to him, to pull him to my breast and comfort him. I still hate him for what he did, for his betrayal of me, of us. But I loved him deeply once and I suppose that on some level, I still do. It’s not an emotion I can just turn on and off with a switch. And seeing how utterly dejected and tormented he is by all that has happened, I can’t help but feel some empathy for him, a softening of my anger.
“What about Gina?” I ask him. “Do you think she knows any of this?”
“I have no idea.”
Then I ask the question that hangs between us, the one neither of us wants to verbalize. “Do you think Sid killed Mike Halverson?”
“I don’t know,” David says. “God, I hope not.” He gets up and walks over to a window—the same one I peered into on that fateful night—and stares out at the world, his expression troubled. “Why would he kill the guy if he loved him?”
I’ve already asked myself this same question. “Maybe Sid has some other problems. Maybe his touch with reality isn’t too strong right now.”
David says nothing.
“Or maybe he discovered that Mike wasn’t as enamored of him as he was of Mike. Maybe Mike was only using him, the same way Karen tried to use everyone. Maybe Mike took over his sister’s blackmailing scheme and Sid finally killed him in a brokenhearted rage.”
David stays quiet, but the very lack of any denial from him tells me all I need to know.
“David, you know we can’t keep this to ourselves. I like Sid, too, and I certainly don’t want to think of him as a killer. But we can’t pretend all of this hasn’t happened.”
“I told him I’d give him a week,” David says.
“Look, it doesn’t have to come from you. I can call Steve Hurley, tell him what we know, and let him handle it from here. Sid doesn’t have to know that any of it came from you.”
David turns from the window and looks at me, his face stricken. “You’re going to just sic the police on him? Christ. Isn’t there an easier way? Can’t we give him a chance to turn himself in?”
“What if he doesn’t? What if he runs, David?”
“He’s not going to run, Mattie. Besides, he’s on call this weekend.”
“Can’t you just wait until tomorrow?” David pleads. “Sid won’t go anywhere. I’m sure of it. And in the meantime, maybe I can figure out a way to talk him into turning himself in.”
My mind churns, trying to think it all through. I nod absently, knowing it’s what David wants. But the more I think about it, the more I want to talk to Sid for myself. Some part of my mind realizes that confronting a possible killer alone might not be the wisest thing to do. But another part of me, the part that worked side by side with Sid for nearly seven years sharing tension, laughter, and surgical instruments, refuses to believe the man will harm me.
“Okay, I won’t talk to Hurley until tomorrow,” I tell David, wincing a bit on the inside. After all, it isn’t a lie exactly, it just isn’t the whole truth.
Chapter 32
When I return to the cottage I’m relieved to see that Dom isn’t back yet. He pulls in ten minutes later and I go out to help him unload the groceries. I need to waylay our planned visit to David but I don’t want Dom to know I’ve already been there, so I tell him I want to wait to give myself more time to think things through. He seems relieved by my apparent capitulation and I feel a tiny twinge of guilt for deceiving him. I know he has my best interests at heart, but I also know that no matter how well-intentioned his motives are, his idea never would have worked.
Once the groceries are unpacked, he invites me to stay and watch a video he’s rented, bribing me with promises of a lunch that includes Sara Lee cheesecake for dessert. The offer is tempting but the issue with Sid is far more pressing, so I thank him and decline, telling him I am going to spend the afternoon at my sister’s—lie number two. I’m going to hell for sure.
Since the hospital is closer, I drive there first, cruising through the parking lot in search of Sid’s car. I don’t see it, but as I turn the corner from one row of cars to the next, I glimpse the top of a van several rows over— burgundy-and-gray. I hit the gas and go after it, but by the time I get to where it was, it has disappeared. Annoyed, I leave and head out to Sid’s house, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror the entire time.
The Carrigan home is a stately but tasteful place that sits on a hill about five miles outside of town. It isn’t overly large, but clearly shows the wealth of its owners. It has been in Sid’s family for four generations, and as the
