Those words brought his head up.
'We lose patients on my floor, we lose them all the time - and I hate it! I hate being there when life goes away. I hate watching the family cry and knowing that we couldn't stop it from happening. We all do our best. Professor Rosen is a wonderful surgeon, but we don't always win, and I hate it when we lose. And with Doris - we won that one, John, and somebody took her away anyway. And that wasn't disease or some damned auto accident. Somebody meant to do it. She was one of mine, and somebody killed her and her father. So I do understand, okay? I really do.'
Jesus, she really does... better than me.
'Everybody connected with Pam and Doris, you're all in danger now.'
Sandy nodded. 'You're probably right. She told us things about Henry. I know what kind of person he is. I'll tell you everything she told us.'
'You do understand what I'm going to do with that information?'
'Yes, John, I do. Please be careful.' She paused and told him why he had to be. 'I want you back.'
CHAPTER 32
Home is the Prey
The one bit of usable information to come out of Pittsburgh was a name. Sandy. Sandy had driven Doris Brown back home to her father. Just one word, not even a proper name, but cases routinely broke on less than that. It was like pulling on a string. Sometimes all you got was a broken piece of thread, sometimes you got something that just didn't stop until everything unraveled into a tangled mess in your hands. Somebody named Sandy, a female voice, young. She'd hung up before saying anything, though it hardly seemed likely that she'd had anything at all to do with the murders. One might return to the scene of the crime - it really did happen - but not via telephone.
How did it fit in? Ryan leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling while his trained mind examined everything he knew.
The most likely supposition was that Doris Brown, deceased, had been directly connected with the same criminal enterprise that had killed Pamela Madden and Helen Waters, and that had also included as active members Richard Farmer and William Grayson. John Terrence Kelly, former UDT sailor, and perhaps a former Navy SEAL, had somehow happened upon and rescued Pamela Madden. He'd called Frank Allen about it several weeks later, telling him not very much. Something had gone badly wrong - short version, he'd been an ass - and Pamela Madden had died as a result. The photos of the body were something Ryan would never fully put from his mind. Kelly had been badly shot. A former commando whose girlfriend had been brutally murdered, Ryan reminded himself. Five pushers eliminated as though James Bond had appeared on the streets of Baltimore. One extraneous killing in which the murderer had intervened in a street robbery for reasons unknown. Richard Farmer - 'Rick'? - eliminated with a knife, the second possible show of rage (and the first one didn't count, Ryan reminded himself). William Grayson, probably kidnapped and killed. Doris Brown, probably rescued at the same time, cleaned up over a period of weeks and returned to her home. That meant some sort of medical care, didn't it? Probably. Maybe, he corrected himself. The Invisible Man... could he have done that himself? Doris was the girl who'd brushed out Pamela Madden's hair. There was a connection.
Back up.
??ll? had rescued the Madden girl, but he'd had help getting her straightened out. Professor Sam Rosen and his wife, another physician. So Kelly finds Doris Brown - whom would he take her to? That was a starting place! Ryan lifted his phone.
'Hello.'
'Doc, it's Lieutenant Ryan.'
'I didn't know I gave you my direct line,' Farber said. 'What's up?'
'Do you know Sam Rosen?'
'Professor Rosen? Sure. He runs a department, hell of a good cutter, world-class. I don't see him very often, but if you ever need a head worked on, he's the man.'
'And his wife?' Ryan could hear the man sucking on his pipe.
'I know her quite well. Sarah. She's a pharmacologist, research fellow across the street, also works with our drug-abuse unit. I help out with that group, too, and we -'
'Thank you.' Ryan cut him off. 'One more name. Sandy.'
'Sandy who?'
'That's all I have,' Lieutenant Ryan admitted. He could imagine Farber now, leaning away from his desk in the high-backed leather chair with his contemplative look.
'Let me make sure I understand things, okay? Are you asking me to check up on two colleagues as part of a criminal investigation?'
Ryan weighed the merits of lying. This guy was a psychiatrist. His job was looking around in people's minds. He was good at it.
'Yes, doctor, I am,' the detective admitted after a pause long enough for the psychiatrist to make an accurate guess as to its cause.
'You're going to have to explain yourself,' Farber announced evenly. 'Sam and I aren't exactly close, but he is not a person who would ever hurt another human being. And Sarah is a damned angel with these messed-up kids we see in here. She's setting aside some important research work to do that, stuff she could make a big reputation with.' Then Farber realized that she'd been away an awful lot in the past couple of weeks.
'Doctor, I'm just trying to develop some information, okay? I have no reason whatever to believe that either one of them is implicated in any illegal act.' His words were too formal, and he knew it. Perhaps another tack. It was even honest, maybe. 'If my speculation is correct, there may be some danger to them that they don't know about.'
'Give me a few minutes.' Farber broke the connection.
'Not bad, Em,' Douglas said.
It was bottom-fishing, Ryan thought, but, hell, he'd tried just about everything else. It seemed an awfully long five minutes before the phone rang again.
'Ryan.'
'Farber. No docs on neuro by that name. One nurse, though, Sandra O'Toole. She's a team leader on the service. I don't know her myself. Sam thinks highly of her, or so I just found out from his secretary. She was working something special for him, recently. He had to fiddle the pay records.' Farber had already made his own connection. Sarah had been absent from her clinical work at the same time. He'd let the police develop that themselves. He'd gone far enough - too far. These were colleagues, after all, and this wasn't a game.
'When was that?' Ryan asked casually. '
'Two or three weeks ago, lasted ten working days.'
'Thank you, doctor. I'll be back to you.'
'Connection,' Douglas observed after the circuit was broken. 'How much you want to bet that she knows Kelly, too?'
The question was more hopeful than substantive, of course. Sandra was a common-enough name. Still, they'd been on this case, this endless series of deaths, for more than six months, and after all that time spent with no evidence and no connections at all, it looked like the morning star. The problem was that it was evening now, and time to go home for dinner with his wife and children. Jack would be returning to Boston College in another week or so, Ryan thought, and he missed time with his son.
There was no easy way to get things organized. Sandy had to drive him to Quantico. It was her first time on a Marine base, but only briefly, as Kelly guided her to the marina. Already, he thought. You get home for once with your body in tune with the local day/night cycle, and already he had to break it. Sandy was not yet back on 1-95 when he pulled away from the dock, heading out for the middle of the river, advancing his throttles to max-cruise as soon as he could.
The lady had brains to go with her guts, Kelly told himself, sipping his first beer in a very long time. He supposed it was normal that a clinical nurse would have a good memory. Henry, it seemed, had been a talker at
