ER - A Murder Too Personal (20 page)

No one I stopped to ask for directions had
ever heard of the house. Its purpose was too far a stretch from the
ordered pace of their daily lives. It was incongruous to see such a
run-down wreck on such an expensive piece of real estate. The town
was rich, judging by the prices of the stores on Main Street, and
there were so many SUVs on the road the place looked like a staging
area for a military convoy.

I pulled into the rutted driveway and parked
next to the rusted-out hulk of a long-deceased car. There didn’t
seem to be any sign of life in the house. I walked up some rickety
steps and stood on the porch, my back to the front door, looking
across the traffic on the Post Road. On the other side of the
street was a Japanese restaurant named Sakura and next to that an
upscale clothing store.

Such was life in the suburbs. Neat, safe,
comfortable, with none of the lurking random menace of the city.
Only here, the danger lay behind expensively-carved front doors
where you were likely to be whacked with a sterling silver
candlestick by your enraged wife because your bonus wasn’t large
enough to buy the vacation home in Palm Beach that she had her
little heart set on.

The screen door rested precariously on rusted
hinges. I knocked but there was no answer. The door shrieked like a
banshee when I swung it open and stepped inside. A feeling of gloom
hung in the air like faded hopes and dashed dreams. It was dark.
The only light was a dim bare bulb that lit the hallway. The dirty
wooden floor squeaked with each step I took. No one could ever
sneak unannounced into this place. It had its own alarm system, and
it didn’t need a central station monitor or monthly fees.

It smelled like a locker room, and that was
being kind. The place probably hadn’t been washed down or
disinfected since Elvis was young and innocent and thin.

At the end of the hallway was a living room.
I could see the flickering light from the TV, but there was no
sound. I looked around the corner. There were two men on a couch,
watching a baseball game on a black and white TV. They sat without
moving or talking, frozen like a photo from the Fifties.

I walked into the room. One of the men
glanced up at me and then turned his attention back to the
game.

“I’m looking for Wheelock,” I said.

The man who looked up kept his eyes on the
television. “You came to the right place,” he said.

I waited. He didn’t say anything else. I
couldn’t be sure, but I thought he was grinning. Both of the men
looked defeated, drained of any energy, and badly in need of a
shave. They had the appearance of guys who’d been dried-out for a
long time but had never lost the desire for a tall one.

“Yeah, and…?” I said.

Still no reply.

“So, where is he?”

“You came to the right place.”

“You said that already.”

The guy was grinning. “He ain’t going no
place.”

“That a fact?” I said.

The other man moved for the first time. “I
can’t enjoy this game if you keep talking.”

“I’ll stop talking as soon as you tell me
where Wheelock is.”

He jerked his head in the direction of a
doorway on the other side of the room. “Take a look in there. He’s
not going nowhere. That is, if he didn’t crap in his pants
already.”

I walked across their line of sight and stood
in the doorway. It was a kitchen. The only light in the room came
from outside through a couple of unwashed windows. Dishes were
stacked up on the table in the middle of the room and in the sink.
The counters were covered with opened cereal boxes and cans of
vegetables, both opened and unopened. Newspapers were scattered
around on the floor.

A man sat hunched over at the table staring
straight ahead. He was motionless, except for a slight tremor that
gave the only sign he was alive. There was something familiar about
his appearance. A hint of a presence I had once known. But it
didn’t seem possible. There was nothing of the vigor, nothing of
the tension. The creature sitting in front of me was no one I
knew.

“Wheelock,” I said.

He turned his head slowly. At first, there
was no sign of recognition. Then, by degrees, his expression
changed. His eyes flickered. His lips twisted into an approximation
of a smile. He started to speak. It was painful to watch.

“Hell.., hell.., hello, Rogan.” He had
difficulty getting the words out. He seemed to be pulling the words
out, one by one, from a reluctant set of lungs. His voice was
soft.

I moved closer. He must have had some kind of
wasting disease. Maybe it was insensitive of me, but I said, “What
the hell happened to you?”

He tried to rise. His body gave him trouble
as he got to his feet with an unsteady motion. He held onto his
chair for support. Then he began to walk toward me. It was more of
a shuffle than a walk. His steps were short, halting, feeble. It
took an eternity for him to cross a short distance. Finally he
stood in front of me. He was a couple of inches shorter than I
remembered him. He stared straight at me. His eyes were dead.

His words didn’t want to come out. He gave me
a sad smile. “I…I…I’m not…well.” His hand reached out and stayed in
mid-air, trembling like a dying bird, then fell to his side.

Schadenfreude is not a nice emotion.
Happiness at someone else’s misfortune. The krauts nailed it
perfectly with that one word. I tried not to feel satisfaction. I
tried really hard.

“I…I…I’m glad…you came…to see me,” he
said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t mention it.” As if he
could. I took a deep breath.

I had to read Emerson’s essay on compensation
again. Maybe you were rewarded or punished for your actions in the
long run. Maybe there was an unseen symmetry to the world, after
all.

I turned and started to leave.

“I…I’m…so sorry, Rogan,” was the last thing I
heard as I walked away.

Mrs. Chisolm was just getting off the
Nautilus when I caught up with her. She was wearing tight purple
shorts and a pink tank top that showed to the world at large
everything she had and was proud of. Her face was buried deep in
the fluffy white folds of a large towel. She was still, leaning
against the machine. Her body was taut, small-breasted and supple.
Small beads of sweat covered her upper lip where it showed below
the towel.

There was no one else in the health club yet.
It would start to fill up in another half-hour.

I stood there waiting for her to lower the
towel. When she saw me, she raised her neatly-plucked eyebrows and
said, “You’re up early, lover boy.”

“I have to get up early to beat you.”

Her reaction was markedly different from the
last time we spoke. Maybe she’d had time to reconsider or maybe the
workout had gotten her juices flowing. Her face was flushed and she
was breathing deeply. She pursed her lips. “Would you beat me?” she
teased. “Promise?”

I shrugged. “Depends on what kind of answers
you give me.”

“I have any kind of answers you want and some
you don’t.” Her eyes ran over me the way you look over a piece of
horseflesh. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know if you’ll get
out of that suit and into a jock strap and some skimpy gym shorts.”
Her smile was as old as Eve.

“I don’t have time right now.”

“Make some time. You won’t be sorry. I’ll
give you some answers you’ll never forget.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. It was warm
and sticky. I gave her what I hoped was an engaging smile. “Thanks,
but I’ll pass on your pass, honeybun.”

“Don’t touch me unless you intend to finish
it,” she said with a pout.

“I’ll finish it, but not now.” I pointed to
the juice bar. “Can I interest you in a broccoli and kelp
cocktail?”

She laughed. “I’ll take some pure natural
Polish water fresh from the faucets of Warsaw.”

“Deal,” I said.

I took her arm and guided her across the
newly-washed floor, threading our way between the exercise
machines. We sat on the juice bar stools and she started revolving
slowly, pushing herself around and around, like a little child.

“Why do you have to do this kind of work?”
she asked. “It’s so demeaning, so tawdry.” She wrinkled up her nose
like she’d just smelled something foul.

“Why does a fish swim? Why does a bird
fly?”

She must have decided it wasn’t worth
pursuing this line of reasoning. She fell silent, stopped spinning
and started rubbing her foot against mine.

“Did you know Alicia’s sister was killed?” I
said.

She pulled her foot back abruptly. “No,” she
said with a shake of her head.

“She was killed with the same gun that shot
Alicia.” I studied her face. “Do you have a gun?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t like guns.
They make loud noises. They frighten me.”

“Does your husband have a gun?”

“No,” she said in the same voice.

“Did you know your husband banged Alicia’s
sister too?”

Her jaw tightened. “My husband and I have an
arrangement.”

“Indeed?”

“He can see whoever he likes and I can see
whoever I like.” There was a flame deep inside her eyes. It might
have been lust or it might have been anger. “Sometimes we even see
each other.”

I leaned back on my stool. “Well, that sounds
eminently reasonable to me. Who could ask for a fairer
arrangement?”

The flame flared brighter. “Don’t patronize
me. You live your damn life the way you want to and I’ll live mine
the way I want to.”

“Why would you want to kill both women?” I
asked.

She stared hard at this meat-eating sedentary
stranger who’d just wandered into her oasis of fitness. “I never
killed anybody. I never had any reason to kill anybody—especially
now…” She stopped speaking.

I took a stab. “Your finances are bad right
now.”

Her eyes flickered. “Not for long.”

“You had lots of filthy lucre when Chisolm
married you. He blew most of it. Bad investments. High living.
Broads. Now the glory days are over.”

Her cheeks were flushed even more. “You’re
wrong, lover boy.”

I moved closer to her. “Your husband wanted
to shut up both of those girls…”

She shook her head. “My husband wouldn’t take
any chances now.”

“Why now?”

“We’re too close to the payoff.”

“What payoff?”

She wanted to prove me wrong. You could tell
she was weighing whether to tell me whatever it was and shut me the
hell up. “We’ve finished the phase III trial and we’re about to get
FDA approval on the human blood factor drug.” She allowed herself a
triumphant smile. “And once we have the approval, Bingo. Jackpot.
We’ll have our IPO. You know what an IPO is, don’t you? I won’t
have to come to a public health club with the unwashed masses. I’ll
have my own private gym and my own full-time personal trainer and
you won’t be allowed within a mile of it.”

She slid off her stool and put both feet flat
on the ground.

“Well then if I can’t exercise with you, I’ll
have to retire my jock strap, permanently,” I said. Maybe it was
the ambiance, but I’d lost my thirst for a broccoli and kelp
cocktail. I was more in the mood for a chocolate milkshake with
whipped cream.

A door opened behind us and a man and a woman
in exercise clothes came into the gym. They glanced briefly at us
and walked on. Something she said made me want to know more. I got
off the stool and slung my jacket over my shoulder.

“So long, doll,” I said. “Keep those gorgeous
buns tight.”

“Well, the semester’s over and I have
abbreviated office hours, but I could see you this afternoon at
three,” Edelstein said over the phone.

“Fine,” I said. “Where will I meet you?”

“Come to my office. I’ll take you to the most
popular student hangout.”

“Outstanding,” I said. Then I asked him, “Do
you remember me?”

“Sure I do, Rogan,” he guffawed. “You were
the one voted most likely to end up under a beer truck.”

“Yeah, that would be me. Makes me feel good
to know my reputation preceded me.”

The drive down to Princeton was a breeze and
the BMW didn’t overheat. It was a little after three when I got to
the campus. Edelstein was waiting for me in his office. He hadn’t
changed much from the way he looked as an undergraduate, except
that his sandy hair was thinner and less curly. Or maybe it was
just because he cut it shorter and combed it straight back. He used
to be as big as a house. Now he was as big as a small condo
complex. He had the same awkward grin and the same soft, sibilant
voice. His glasses were different. In the old days, he wore gold
wire-rimmed aviator glasses. Now his lenses were large and square
and rimless. His face was as unlined as a teenager’s, which you
could probably attribute to the fact that he had so much money he
could tell the dean to take a trip to Kosovo whenever he felt like
it.

When he saw me, he chuckled loudly, came over
and punched me in the arm. It was my bad arm. He saw me wince.

“What’s the matter? You getting flabby?” he
said.

“Yeah, it’s the aging process, you know.”

He nudged me again. “Never heard of it.
Anabolism. Catabolism. It’s all a state of mind.”

“Maybe for a biologist like you,” I said.
“You can repeal the laws of the double helix but the rest of us
have to live with it.”

He nodded. “Still the same old Rogan. You
haven’t changed at all. Better looking than ever, in fact. You
could have played a senator from central casting.”

“Except I feel like the great old white
leviathan, with all these scars on my carcass.”

He grinned. “I’ll engineer a new skin for you
that will regenerate your tissue and repair all your scars.”

“Can you do that?”

He shrugged. “In a few years, maybe. It’s not
my top priority.”