A suicide note had been found at the scene, the detectives reminded him. A handwriting expert had confirmed that Bruce Grey had written it. This case was open and shut.
Open and shut.
The second picture frame on the credenza held a photograph of Jennifer, his former wife of twenty-six years, who had just walked out on him forever. The third photograph was that of his younger brother, Sidney, whose death from AIDS three years ago had changed Harvey’s life forever. In the picture Sidney looked healthy, tan, and a touch on the chubby side. When he died two years later, his skin was pasty white where it was not covered with purple lesions, and he weighed less than eighty pounds.
Harvey shook his head. All gone.
He leaned forward and picked up the photograph of his ex-wife. He knew he had been as much to blame (more) for the failed marriage as she was. Twenty-six years. Twenty-six years of marriage, of shared and shattered dreams, rushed through his mind. For what? What had happened? When had Harvey let his personal life crumble into dust? His fingertips gently passed over her image. Could he really blame Jennifer for getting fed up with the clinic, for not wanting to sacrifice herself to a cause?
In truth, he did.
But he couldn’t. He recognized that his dedication had gone off the deep end, yet his life seemed so minor when he considered what the clinic was trying to achieve. So Jennifer left. She packed and moved to Los Angeles where she was living with her sister, Susan, Bruce Grey’s ex-wife. Yes, Harvey and Bruce had been brothers-in-law as well as partners and close friends. He almost smiled, picturing the two sisters living together in California. Talk about fun conversations. He could just hear Jennifer and Susan arguing over which one had the lousier husband. Bruce would probably have gotten the nod, but now that he was dead the girls would raise him to sainthood.
The truth of the matter was that Harvey’s entire world, for better or for worse, was right here. The clinic and AIDS. The Black Plague of the eighties and nineties. After watching his brother ravaged and stripped to brittle bone by AIDS, Harvey had dedicated his life to destroying the dreaded virus, to wiping it off the face of the earth. As Jennifer would tell anyone who would listen, Harvey’s goal had become an all-consuming obsession, an obsession that frightened even Harvey at times. But he had come far in his quest. He and Bruce had finally seen real progress, real breakthroughs when…
There was a knock on his door.
Harvey swiveled his chair back around. “Come in, Eric.”
Dr. Eric Blake turned the knob. “How did you know it was me?”
“You’re the only one who ever knocks. Come on in. I was just talking to your old school chum.”
“Michael?”
Harvey nodded. Eric Blake had become a member of Harvey and Bruce’s team two years ago when they realized that two doctors could no longer carry the patient load by themselves. Eric was a nice kid, Harvey thought, though he took life way too seriously. It was okay to be serious, especially when you dealt with AIDS patients all day, but a person had to be just a little loose, just a little quirky, just a touch loony to survive the daily ordeal of death and suffering.
Eric even looked tightly wound. His most distinctive feature was his neat, scouring-pad, red hair. When you looked at him, the term
Harvey, on the other hand, had his tie loosened to somewhere around his knees, believed in shaving only when the growth began to itch, and would need a handgun to shoot his hair into place.
Eric Blake had grown up on the same block as Michael in a New Jersey suburb. When Michael first became Harvey’s hospital patient, little redheaded Eric Blake visited him every day, staying as long as the hospital would allow. Back in those days Harvey was an overworked intern, but he liked to spend any free moments he could muster in the hospital with Michael. Even Jennifer, a hospital volunteer then, found herself drawn to the child. Very quickly Harvey and Jennifer formed a special rapport with this irresistible young boy caught up in a world of constant abuse.
Over the years Harvey and Jennifer watched Michael grow from childhood through adolescence and into manhood. They went to his basketball games and music recitals and award dinners, applauding his achievements like proud parents. They were there to comfort him after his beatings, after his mother’s suicide, after his abandonment by his stepfather. Looking back on it now, Harvey wondered if their close relationship with Michael magnified their own major marital problem: no children.
Maybe so. They tried, but Jennifer could never carry to full term. Perhaps if she had, things might have been different.
Doubtful. Very, very doubtful.
Harvey wondered if Jennifer still kept in touch with Michael. He suspected she did.
“Did you tell Michael—” Eric started to ask.
Harvey interrupted him with a shake of his head. “Not yet. I just wanted to make sure Sara was going to be at the party tonight.”
“Is she?”
“Yes.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
Harvey shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Why when we’re so close—”
“We’re not that close.”
“Not that close?” Eric repeated. “Harvey, look out there. People are alive because of you.”
“Because of this clinic,” Harvey corrected.
“Whatever. When we let the results go public, we’re going to go down in medical history next to Jonas Salk.”
“I’m more worried about the present.”
“But we need the publicity so that we can raise enough money to continue—”
“Enough,” Harvey broke in, glancing at his watch. “Let’s make a quick check of the charts and head over to the lounge.” He smiled tiredly. “I want to watch Sara’s report on Reverend Sanders.”
“No friend of the cause, that one.”
“No,” Harvey agreed. “No friend.”
Eric picked up a photograph from the credenza. “Poor Bruce.”
Harvey nodded but said nothing.
“I hope his death means something,” Eric said. “I hope Bruce didn’t die for nothing.”
Harvey moved toward the door, his head lowered. “So do I, Eric.”
George Camron removed his gray, pin-striped Armani suit, carefully folded the pants at the creases, and placed it on a wooden hanger. He had been forced to burn another Armani two weeks ago, and that upset him very much. Such a waste. He would have to be more careful with his wardrobe. Bloodstained silk suits raised overhead and increased expenses.
George, a very large man, enjoyed the finer things in life. He wore only custom-made suits. He stayed in only the most luxurious hotels. He frequented only the finest gourmet restaurants. His slicked-back hair was styled (not cut, styled) by the world’s most expensive hair designers (not beauticians, designers). He enjoyed manicures and pedicures.
He walked over to the hotel phone, picked up the receiver, and pressed seven.
“Room service,” a voice said. “Is there something we can get you, Mr. Thompson?”
The Ritz always referred to its guests by their names when they called. The personal touch of a very fine hotel. George liked it. Thompson was, of course, his current alias. “Caviar, please. Iranian, not Russian.”
“Yes, Mr. Thompson.”
“And a bottle of Bollinger, 1979. Very cold.”
