F Paul Wilson - Secret History 02 (50 page)

           
He's
going for my gun!

           
Rob shoved Gates violently away but
felt the revolver pull free, saw Gates click off the safety. Rob grappled for
it. Gates was in his face. He looked demented. He was breathing like a set of
leaky air brakes. Flecks of saliva salted his lips as he wheezed in a faint,
frantic, high-pitched voice, saying the same thing over and over.

           
"Nen
tibet! Nen tibet!"

           
Gates had wormed one of his fingers
through the trigger guard but Rob had jammed his thumb behind the trigger.
Gates twisted the pistol viciously, pointing the barrel straight up, but Rob
held on. He knew he was a dead man if the gun got away from him.

           
Suddenly Gates stiffened and
shuddered. His eyes widened and he suddenly tried to pull his hands free of the
revolver. The move took Rob by surprise. His thumb slipped from behind the
trigger, leaving it free to move.

           
The retort was deafening. Rob winced
away from the muzzle flash, felt the burn and sting of the ignited powder. Out
of the corner of his eye he saw Gates jerk upward, saw the top of his head
explode in a fountain of red. And then the revolver was all his again and Gates
was staggering backward with outflung arms. He managed two steps, during which
his eyes were wide, shocked, losing their light. For an instant, his mouth
twitched. He said something that sounded like "
Kissinum
," then he toppled flat onto his back like a fallen
tree.

           
Rob stared at him, feeling numb,
feeling sick. All around him voices were saying how crazy the guy was, first
running out in front of a car and then attacking a cop and trying to steal his
gun. Rob barely heard them. He was staring at Gates' supine form. From this
angle he could see the small round hole under Gates' chin where the bullet had
entered. It wasn't even bleeding. He stared at that hole until the first blue and
white unit arrived.

 
 

           
"HOW YOU HOLDING UP, ROB?"

           
It was a measure of Lieutenant
Mooney's sincere concern that he called him by his first name. Rob was
surprised that he knew it. Mooney perched on the edge of his green desk in his
gray office; Rob sat in the chair before it.

           
"I'm doing all right."

           
"You did a full shift
yesterday. You could have taken today off."

           
"I don't need an extra day
off."

           
Why was everybody treating him like
he was going to fall apart?

           
"I remember the first time I
shot somebody—"

           
"That's just it, lieu. I didn't
pull the trigger. It was
his
finger
in there. Not mine. And if he didn't take the bullet, it might just as easily
have been me. Or someone on the curb."

           
Rob realized he had raised his voice
and was getting steamed. He leaned back in the chair and shut up.

           
"Hey," Mooney said.
"Easy. Just asking."

           
"Sorry, lieu. It's just that
the whole thing never should have happened."

           
That was the part that bothered Rob
the most. He was furious with himself for letting someone like Gates get his
hands on his revolver. It was the kind of thing that should only happen to a
rookie. Not to a guy with his experience. If Rob had been more on the ball he
wouldn't have to see blood and bone and brains erupting from the top of Gates'
head like a mini Mount St. Helens every time he closed his eyes.

           
"But it did happen. He fooled
you. You thought he was hurt, you let down your guard, and he pulled a fast one
on you. Don't let it get you down"

           
"It's not. But it means I'll
probably never know the connection between Gates and Bannion and the Wade
women. Three of them are dead and the fourth only came to town a couple of
weeks ago, so she knows nothing."

           
"I'm glad you brought that up.
I've been going over these files and here's my scenario: Gates either
hypnotized Kelly Wade or got her hooked on schnozz, then pimped her out to do
tricks with some wealthy contacts or friends. Bannion got too rough with her
and threw her out the window. Gates got pissed at losing such a valuable asset
and killed Bannion. Gates tries to elude police surveillance, attacks an
officer in front of witnesses, and is fatally shot during the struggle. Three
cases closed—bim, bam, boom." He handed the folders to Rob with a satisfied
grin. "I like the way you work, Harris."

           
"Hey, lieu, that doesn't fit
the facts at all. Gates was loaded. He didn't need to rent out his
patients."

           
"He did it for kicks, then. He
was kinky. The motive doesn't matter now that there's not going to be a trial.
He did it. And he won't be doing it no more. Case closed. All
three
cases closed. Understand?"
Mooney's face was getting red and his neck was beginning to bulge out over his
collar. "We've got other deaths that need investigating. Get to them. Have
a nice day, Harris."

           
Rob sighed. He knew from years of
experience that when Mooney got like this there was no talking to him. He got
up and headed for the squad room.

           
"You, too, lieu."

           
Rob tossed the files on his desk.
These cases weren't closed by a long shot. But they weren't solvable, either.
And if they were left open he'd have to file semiannual DD5 Supplementary
Complaint Reports on each one. And Mooney would have to review each one.

           
Why not close them up? Officially,
at least. That would get Kara off the hook—she couldn't be a suspect in a
closed case.

           
But in his head Rob planned to keep
them open. And if something new popped up, he could always reopen them
officially.

           
And that day would come. He didn't
know when, but he had a gut feeling this wasn't the last he'd seen of these
three cases. In fact, he had an urge to combine the three into a single file:
the Wade/Bannion/Gates case.

           
Especially after touring the back rooms
of Gates' office yesterday.

           
He had shown up at the office at
nine and told the receptionist as gently as he could that her employer was
dead. The woman had shown no emotion other than disappointment at being out of
a job. While she was emptying her desk, he had strolled through into the back
rooms for a peek.

           
The file room had been tempting. He
would have loved to get into those locked cabinets, but he had no warrant for a
search and no probable cause to obtain one.

           
The other room had been the real
shocker. A padded cell. With electronic combination locks inside and out, no
less. He'd asked the receptionist how often Dr.

           
Gates had had occasion to use it and
she told him she hadn't even known it was there.

           
No. There was too much here that was
unexplained. Rob knew he hadn't heard the last of Lazlo Gati/ Lawrence Gates,
M.D.

           
Manetti stopped by Rob's desk.

           
"That background on Kara Wade
is ready. The Pennsy folks don't have much on her, but they're sending it down
the wire. Should hit the printer any second., Still want it?"

           
Rob shrugged. "I'll stick it in
the Bannion file. The case is closed. They're
all
closed."

           
Manetti laughed. "Move-'em-Out
Mooney strikes again."

           
Rob went to the corner room where
the printer and FAX machine sat. The printer was an old high-speed dot matrix
that printed each line with a scream like Sam Kinison with hemorrhoids. He
ripped off the fact sheet and speed-read through it. He grabbed Manetti as he
passed.

           
"Hey, Augie. Who did
this?"

           
"Lancaster County Sheriff's
office. Why?"

           
"It's garbage. They don't have
the date of her wedding, and they've got her kid's birthdate screwed up."

           
Manetti gave him an elaborate
Brooklyn shrug.

           
"So call 'em, Rob."

           
Rob went back to the sheet, Kara's date
of birth, her school records, her college degree and major, her job at the
hospital, and even her performance record were all there. So was the kind of
car she drove (a five-year old Buick), her credit record (excellent), her voter
registration (Independent), and so on. But Jill's birthdate was off by a year.
They had her as nine and a half and she was really only eight and a half. And
there was no record of a marriage. No mention of Kara's late husband's
employment and credit record. No mention of her being a widow. Nothing at all
about her late husband. It was an extremely consistent deficiency, almost as if
the guy had never—

           
"Jesus H. Christ!" he said
aloud.

           
But if she'd never married, then who
was Jill's—?

           
Suddenly Rob felt weak all over. Jill…
the first time he had met her… in Gates' waiting room… she'd said she was nine
and a half…

           
Nine
and a half
! That jibed with the background sheet. Jill had been born six
months after Kara left New York!

           
Six
months!

           
That meant—!

           
Rob's hand shook as he reached for
the phone.