“No. I’m pretty messed up,” she said.
“Ah, jeez,” he said. After a moment of silence, he said, “I need to brace Dr. Rosenquist. Would that cause you an endless amount of trouble?”
“No. He’s not my doctor,” she said. “I don’t even know him very well. What’d you find?”
“It’s what I didn’t find. Your husband seems to have prepared for his disappearance. He destroyed his personal e-mail, he wiped the history off the computer. All of his tax records and bank records are intact, though, and very neatly filed, as though he was getting ready for an audit—or an estate examination. The question is, Why did he remove the medical records, and why did the doctor deny seeing him? That’s one mystery we need to clear up.”
“Go ahead. Do it, Jake. But please, please, be careful.”
“Yes. I’ll figure out a way to keep you out of it. There’s one other thing. We found another hideaway in the apartment and there were some items related to your husband’s sexual life. Leather stuff, chains. I’m wondering, my consultant says they may have some value, maybe even substantial, but given their nature . . .”
“Get rid of them,” she said.
“There were three photos in the same drawer. They’re flat and warped, like they were in a wallet. There’s a picture of like a hippie couple back in the sixties or seventies, probably, the guy’s wearing plaid pants . . .”
“Oh, no,” she said. “There’s one of a young girl, and a young boy.”
“Yeah. Are they important?”
After a long silence, she said, “He’d never take those out of his wallet. Those are . . . If he left them behind, they’re a suicide note.”
“A suicide note?”
“Yes. He would have known that I would know. He was sending me a message. They’re pictures of his parents, his sister, and himself. They were personal icons. He never would have left them behind, anywhere. They’re a suicide note.”
“A suicide note only works if somebody finds it,” Jake said.
“There’ll be something in his papers, somewhere, that’ll tell me where to look. Or maybe his mother knows, she’s still alive. But Jake: he knew he was going to die. Either he was being stalked, or he’d do it himself. But he knew.”
He opened his mouth to tell her about the three-by-five card, and then stopped. He’d rather see her face-to- face for that. If
They talked for another two minutes, and Jake said, “I’m going to see Rosenquist.”
“Call me tonight. Tell me what he says.”
When he got off the line, he said to Patzo: “Your lucky day. I’d like to see your buddy’s face when you ask him to get rid of a diamond-studded dog collar.”
Patzo’s face broke into a beauteous smile. “Jesus, man. I mean, this is my
“You think you can get back to Baltimore on your own?” Jake asked.
“Sure. Lemme make a few calls, maybe take a train back. Could you gimme a couple hundred bucks? I don’t like those fuckin’ airplanes,” Patzo said. “What are you going to do?”
Patzo made his calls, gave the antique table a long, lingering look, patted it good-bye, and left Jake alone in the apartment.
When he was gone, Jake found the most comfortable chair, pulled it over to a window, where he had a clear view down Park Avenue, and thought it all over. All of it, from the circumstances of Bowe’s disappearance, to Schmidt and the poorly hidden gun, to Barber, to the mystery call that led him to Patterson, to the missing medical files.
To that morning’s kiss.
Everything that had happened ended in a mystery. He had almost no resources to solve any of them . . . with one exception.
He sat until it was dark, working it out. And when it was dark, the red taillights streaming up Park Avenue, electronic salmon on the way to spawn, he pushed himself out of the chair, turned on a single light, went into the master bedroom, and got the gun and holster from the back of the headboard.
He pulled the gun out, checked it, ejected the five .38 shells from the cylinder.
When they’d gone through the apartment, they’d found a toolbox in a kitchen drawer. Jake used a pair of pliers to pull the slug out of one of the .38s, dumped the powder down the sink, washed it away.
He loaded the empty case back in the pistol, turned it until it was under the hammer, found a knee-high woman’s boot in the closet of the second bedroom—part of Madison’s New York clothing cache—shoved his hand in the boot, holding the gun and the boot between two pillows, and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled crack, and the smell of burning primer.
