He shakes his head. “I know I should have been but I didn’t want to give up operating yet. I’ve always been very, very careful. I double glove and I’ve never had any nicks or punctures during a procedure so I’m certain I haven’t exposed any patients.”
“But you didn’t tell them, either, did you? The patients you worked on have a right to know, Sid.”
“I didn’t tell them because I wasn’t sure there was anything to tell. That’s why I didn’t want to get tested, plausible deniability in case everything came out somewhere down the road. Maybe it was wrong but I thought I could….” His voice breaks and it takes him a moment to collect himself.
“Anyway,” he continues after clearing his throat, “once David confronted us at the Grizzly, I told Mike we might have to move, to start over somewhere else. But Mike knew how much I loved my work and didn’t believe me when I told him I could walk away from it. He broke it off, said he never wanted to see me again.”
He buries his face in his hands. “Oh, God,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way, Mattie. I loved Mike. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
He turns his back to me. “Please, Mattie. I need some time alone. I need to think.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. A surge of compassion makes me get up and walk over to him. “I’m sorry, Sid,” I whisper, settling my hand on his shoulder. My apology is an all-encompassing one that covers the way I feel about what he has done as well as what I will now have to do.
“So am I,” he says. “God, so am I.” He looks up at me, his expression pleading, his eyes bright with the sheen of tears. “Tell me you believe me, Mattie. Tell me you believe that I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“I believe you, Sid,” I say through a sheen of my own tears. My heart feels as if it is being minced into tiny pieces.
“I never thought it would come to this,” Sid whispers. Then he holds his hand up as if he is warding off an evil spirit and turns away from me. “Please leave, Mattie. Go. I need to be alone. Please just go.”
I don’t see as how I have any choice, but I can’t just leave. I realize, too late, that coming here alone was a mistake. I should have called Hurley and let him handle it. Feeling helpless, I look around the room, unsure of what to do next. Will Sid try to run? Have I blown the whole case because of my own stupid naivete and some misguided notion about my friendship with Sid—a man I thought I’d known but who has proven to be as unpredictable and secretive as David? Maybe more so?
Then I remember my cell phone. I can step out of the house and call Hurley from my car, then drive out to the end of Sid’s drive and wait there until Hurley arrives. That way, if Sid tries to run, he won’t get far. Concern for my own safety never enters my mind. Despite what Sid has done, I can’t make myself believe he would ever hurt me.
I step out into the hallway, quietly closing the door to the den. The aromas of garlic and basil waft toward me and I remember that Gina is in the kitchen. I briefly debate going to her to talk about all that has happened but I’m not sure how much she knows, and if she is unaware of Sid’s alternate lifestyle, I sure as hell don’t want to be the one to tell her. Watching Sid start to self-destruct has been torture enough for one day. I can only imagine how Gina is going to react. And given her popularity, I know that if the media gets wind of the story, they’ll have a heyday. Gina and Sid will both be publicly crucified.
I hear Gina moving about in the kitchen and duck toward the front door, suddenly afraid of having to face her. I ease the door open, step through, and am about to ease it closed again when I hear a loud
Gina appears at the other end of the hall, sees me, and cocks her head to one side, her face wearing a puzzled expression. I watch as her eyes flit toward the door to Sid’s den, then back to me. It seems like an eternity that we stand there just staring at one another, yet I know it is mere seconds, a meager breath of time wherein we both cling desperately to our doubts and denial, feeble as they are. For I know what that sound was. I don’t want to know, but I do.
And judging from the look on Gina’s face, she knows, too. As she stares at me, I think I see something else there as well: accusation and blame. Much as I would like to shrug it off, I can’t. She is right. I try to offer her an apology with my eyes but all I can feel coming through is the terrible weight of my guilt.
Gina shifts her gaze back to the den door and slowly walks toward it. She looks like a zombie operating off of some ancient instinct that is pulling her toward a fate she neither wants nor understands. I don’t want it either; I don’t want her to go there, to look in the den and make it all real. For a brief moment I seriously consider running down the hall and tackling her to the floor. Anything to stop her. But she keeps on going and I keep on watching. As she opens the door and looks inside, I hold my breath.
She rushes into the room and my hope surges. When nothing happens for several seconds, I slowly start moving back toward the den, still clinging to my denial even as an all-too-familiar scent reaches my nostrils. I hear a faint
Chapter 33
It is definitely too late. Sid’s body sits on that lovely butter-soft couch, his head hanging forward, a growing pool of blood gathering in his lap. The back of the couch and part of the wall behind it is painted in red gore. Sid’s right hand lays open, palm up. Beside it is a revolver.
Gina is sitting in the chair where Sid was moments before, staring at her husband, her face curiously blank. I move closer to Sid and see that while the wound in his head isn’t nearly as severe as Mike Halverson’s was, his situation is no less grave. I can see bits of gray matter clinging to both his skull and the wall behind him.
I stare at Sid’s chest and see he isn’t breathing. I don’t bother to check for a pulse because I know that surviving a head wound such as this is nigh onto impossible.
I turn back to Gina and find her staring at me, her eyes searching mine with begging appeal. I shake my head and feel my heart clench as the light of hope in her eyes extinguishes itself.
“I’m sorry, Gina. So sorry.”
She says nothing, does nothing. Her lifeless expression frightens me.
“We need to call the police,” I say gently.
She nods then, mechanically.
I look over at the phone on Sid’s desk and start to reach for it. But then I remember what I’ve learned about crime scene preservation and how I managed to mess up the two I’ve been to so far.
“Come on, Gina,” I say, urging her gently. “Let’s wait somewhere else.”
I take her elbow and she rises from her chair like a robot. As she shuffles forward, one foot catches itself along the edge of the rug and she nearly falls. I hold her arm tight as she disentangles her foot and lets the rug fall back down against the chair legs. Then I steer her gently out into the hall and we enter the living room, where she sinks into a chair.
I move back out into the hallway, pull my cell phone out of my jacket pocket, flip it open, and punch in 9-1-1. Gina does nothing. She just sits there, not crying, not moving, staring empty-eyed off into space. I fear she is in shock and worry that she might try to do something desperate herself.
My anxiety isn’t relieved any when my call goes through and I recognize the voice on the other end. It is Jeannie, the same woman who answered when I called about Mike Halverson.
“9-1-1 operator. Do you have an emergency?”
“Jeannie?”
“Yes, this is Jeannie. Do you have an emergency?”
“Kind of,” I say, realizing that this sort of call is getting uncomfortably close to becoming a habit. I move away from Gina and lower my voice. “I have a death here. A suicide. He shot himself in the head.”
There is the briefest of pauses, then, “Mattie? Is that you?”
“It is.”
“And you really have another dead man?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do you know who this one is?”
