Last Surgeon (26 page)

Jillian suggested they use the time before Nick’s EMDR therapy session to grab a drink and something to eat and plan their next steps. They settled on Kilkenny’s Irish Pub in the Adams Morgan section of D.C., arriving there just after noon. The cozy tavern, paneled in dark barn siding, was crowded with businesspeople enjoying a Guinness with their lunch, along with those Nick pegged as regulars, some of whom sat at the bar watching an international soccer match on TV, while others were engaged in an animated game of darts. The jukebox was off and traditional Irish music, piped through an impressive sound system, provided a pleasant background.

Relaxed.

Simple.

Life.

They sat down beside each other at the end of the bar, where two of the dozen worn and scratched wooden stools were empty. Passing on the lunch menu offered by the bartender, Nick ordered a Glenlivet neat and Jillian an Amstel Light in the bottle. Their lives at that moment were as far removed from those of the folks in the homey pub as the Earth was from Mars.

Nick took a sip of the single malt scotch whisky from a reasonably clean tumbler, letting it linger in his mouth until the taste demanded that he swallow. Then he stared numbly ahead at the liquor bottles, housed inside cubbies built into the wall behind the bar. Jillian touched his hand and he turned slowly to meet her gaze.

“A bar snack for your thoughts,” she said, smiling as she nudged over a black plastic dish filled with pretzels.

Nick took one, but offered only a thin smile in return.

“What do you think these people would say if they knew the depravity of what we’re confronting?” he asked finally.

“If they believed us, and that’s a big if, they’d probably say something like, ‘As long as it doesn’t affect me directly, and I can go on tossing my darts and drinking my stout, do whatever it is you need to do.’ ”

“We’ve come so far from when we first met, Jill, and yet I feel so incredibly helpless. You know, Pendleton thought we were crazy.”

“I know. He seems like a good guy, though.”

“Yup. Maybe we’ll hear from Reese before something happens to him.”

“Do you want to try the Mole again? Maybe he’s come up with something on the resident or medical student.”

“Nah, he said he was going to stick around with Noreen at her place and keep looking. He’ll call if he comes up with anything.”

“I know what you mean about feeling helpless. What did Junie say when you told her?”

“She was stunned, naturally. I don’t think it’s hit her yet that Umberto is dead and that somebody killed him in such a horrid, self-serving way.”

“Has it hit
you
?”

The question pulled Nick’s head down until his eyes met the gritty floor. He looked up long enough to take a hard swallow of his drink, which he downed in a single gulp. Then he closed his eyes tightly, clenching his fists against the burn of the alcohol spilling down his throat, and against the evil.

“None of this is your fault,” Jillian said softly.

“Believe it or not, I’ve come to grips with that. What I’m angry at now is my own rage. I was put together to care for people, regardless of who they were or what they might have done in their lives. Now I want to kill someone. Maybe anyone. I really do.”

“Which would you take at this moment, your rage or the total lack of feeling you’ve had for so long? It’s all changing for you, Nick.”

“Maybe. Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m going to tell you something that scares the bejesus out of me.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I think you may be the most amazing man I’ve ever met. Somebody I’m really capable of falling for. Someone I think I would have fallen for in a heartbeat before… before what happened to you in Afghanistan. But I want the next time I fall in love with a man to be the last. I don’t need you to have arrived at the person-at the doctor-you’re capable of being. I just need to know you’re committed to making the journey. You can’t go on hiding your emptiness behind your charm. A doctor loses a patient. Do they quit being a doctor?”

“I’m going with no.”

“Damn straight. Even if they believe it was their fault. Sick patients force doctors-and nurses-into having to make decisions. If we had more time, less pressure on us to act, the choices we made might have been Different. Continuing to help others with our talent and skill is actually honoring the memory of the patient who died. I don’t blame myself for Belle’s death. I blame the person who killed her. Same way as losing Sarah and Umberto isn’t on you, Nick. It’s on the people who killed them. We can’t bring them back, but we can still do more for them.”

Nick looked up at the dark rafters. “Here’s the thing with PTSD,” he said. “Some people think it’s in your head and that you can just snap your fingers or crank up your willpower and come out of it, or like MacCandliss keeps insisting, that it’s all manufactured for some secondary gain. But that’s not the case at all. It’s a chemical change where the thinking takes place, like an internal depression, or a cancer eating away at you. Much as you want to just shake the symptoms off, sometimes they won’t let go. So you end up walking around in circles, holding yourself hostage to the places and people where you feel most comfortable and safe, because the alternative means facing an unknown. I used to love the unknown. I was a pure adrenaline junkie. Rock climbing, skiing, you name it. But after watching Sarah get hacked apart by that truck moments before Umberto saved my life under that refrigerator, lying there, covered with broken bags of blood, that rush lost its appeal. I retreated into what was safest for me.”

“I know you’re hurting, Nick…”

Nick held up a hand, cutting her short. The scotch was settling in, doing what he wanted it to.

“No, let me finish,” he said. “Since losing Sarah, I know I’ve been a walking shell. But then you came along. And now, each day your strength is becoming my strength. You just have to be patient with me, Jill, and believe that I really do want to become the man-the doc-I once was. This struggle is a war, not a battle, but I feel the tide turning, and more important, I feel I want to work at it.”

“And I’ll help you as best as I can. I swear I will.”

Nick swung his legs around to face her.

“It makes all the difference,” he said, no longer able to keep his lips from hers.

As they were kissing, the bar erupted in a huge cheer. They quickly pulled away from one another, thinking for an embarrassed moment that the applause and shouts were for them.

“Back to your smoochin’,” the totally amused bartender said, pointing up at the TV. “Chelsea just scored the tying goal against Manchester United.”

“Maybe I’ll skip therapy,” Nick whispered in her ear.

“Maybe you won’t. We have time, baby. Step by step, we have time.”

“Let’s plan on meeting up with Saul, either at the hospital or at Noreen’s place, after my session. If I haven’t heard from Reese by then, we might have to find somebody else. I’m sure Junie knows who we can contact. She’s connected with everyone.”

“But you said yourself, we don’t know who we can trust or how deep this whole thing goes.”

“That’ll be a chance we have to take.”

Just then, Jillian’s cell phone rang. Nick perked up, thinking it might be Reese, but she let him know she did not recognize the caller ID. Her expression brightened, though, as soon as she answered. Over the din of the pub, Nick picked up only fragments of her brief conversation.

“Hi there, I’m so glad to hear from you… You do? Oh, my God, that’s fascinating. As I told you, I’ve been suspicious of the timing from the get-go… No, it’s not a problem. This is a good time… Sure, I can… Where?… Yeah, I know the place. I’ll meet you in an hour… Okay. See you there.” She set the phone down and turned to Nick. “Talk about things coming together.”

“What was that all about?”

“That was my condo’s insurance company. Now they’re thinking the fire was arson. Apparently, they actually have information about who might have set it. He wants to meet with me in an hour and go over their findings.”

“Is this the same fire inspector you told me about?”

“Exactly,” Jillian said. “His name’s Regis, Paul Regis.”

Nick’s ninety-minute eye movement therapy session was especially intense, but he was ready for it. Dr. Coletta Deems, his therapist, a tall, formal scarecrow of a woman, was impressed, and said so.

“You seem exceptionally focused today, Dr. Garrity.”

Well, uncovering a conspiracy of serial murder has that effect on me
, he thought about saying,
especially when combined with finding out that the woman of anyone’s dreams might be in love with me.

“I’m visualizing better,” he said instead. “Maybe today’s like the fifty-foot putt that keeps you coming back to the golf course.”

“Pardon?”

“Not worth repeating. I have a lot on my mind today, which makes my ability to control my thinking that much more surprising and satisfying.”

“So, where would you put your SUD score at this moment?”

Nick looked up at the Subjective Units of Distress chart on the wall of the tranquil therapy room. Ten was defined as “unbearably bad.” Zero was “absolute peace and serenity.”

Four, he decided, and said so.

Four: Somewhat upset to the point that you cannot easily ignore an unpleasant thought. You can handle it okay, but don’t feel good.

“Yes, I believe I’m under five.”

Deems was as delighted as she seemed capable of being.

“Progress is what we’re after, Dr. Garrity,” she said, adjusting her wire-rims. “No more or less than progress.”

“Progress,” Nick echoed, excited to share the news of his SUD triumph with Jillian.

“Oh, by the way, Doctor, you asked not to have our session interrupted for any call other than one from Don Reese.”

“Yes?”

“Well, he didn’t call, but a”-she checked a small slip of paper- “Mr. Mollender called about twenty minutes ago. He asked you to call him in the office. I have the number here.”

As soon as he could, Nick called Noreen Siliski’s office. The Mole answered on the first ring.

“Saul! Sorry I wasn’t able to take your call. You got anything?”

“I do. But I think we need to meet in person to discuss it. I’m still at Noreen’s office.”

“I… know. That’s the number I dialed. Did you find them?”

“The med student and the resident?” Mollender said vaguely. “Yes, yes, I think so. But I’d rather show you. Can you make it down here?”

Mollender sounded tense and exhausted, hardly like a man with any good news to share. Nick looked across at the SUD chart and decided he had drifted up to a five:
Unpleasant feelings still manageable with some effort.

“It’s getting on rush hour,” he said, “but I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

“And Nick, do you still have the DVDs of Andy’s death?”

“Andy? You mean Umberto. I have one and I left the other one with Roger Pendleton, the perfusionist. I’m pretty sure I already told you that.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Mollender said.

The line went dead.

____________________

ON THE stop-and-go drive to Sutton, Nick tried unsuccessfully to reach Jillian and Junie. He did manage to catch Reggie at home, who told him that both his foster mother and the RV were gone, although he hadn’t seen her leave. Strange, Nick thought. Junie almost certainly was in the RV headed for D.C. to pick up the Professor, as they referred to this particular covering doc. There should be no reason why she wouldn’t answer her phone.

Maybe she had already arrived at the Professor’s and stopped in for coffee… Maybe.

Jillian, he figured, was bogged down in dealing with what had now become an arson investigation. But she had a caller ID. Why hadn’t
she
answered his call?

His SUD score had spent a nanosecond in the fours and may now, he realized, be approaching six:
Feeling poorly or anxious to the point that you begin to think something ought to be done about the way you feel.

Nick pulled into the same space where he had parked earlier that day, to the left of the Dumpster and alongside a red Corolla, the only other vehicle in an otherwise deserted lot. He peered up along the ingenious two-story telescoping trash-barrel chute snaking down from Noreen’s window to the center of the half-filled Dumpster. There was no light coming from the window surrounding the upper end of the tube, and he assumed the canvas shade had been dropped down.

His uneasiness increased.

What had earlier been a bright afternoon, had, during his drive south, progressively given way to dense clouds. Now a light rain had begun to fall, plucking rhythmically against the leaves of the dense woods that bordered the parking lot.

As Mollender requested, Nick had dropped the DVD into his well-worn leather bag, alongside the research on Aleem Syed Mohammad that Reggie had compiled. Now, glancing about, he took the disc out of his bag and slid it onto a metal support beneath the Dumpster. He felt increasingly unsettled about the Mole’s nervousness and use of his dead brother’s name rather than Umberto’s. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but with all they had uncovered, he felt he had good reason to be.

He heightened his own tension by trying Junie, Jillian, Reese, and Mollender once more.

Nothing.

Moving through a burgeoning sense of unease, Nick entered the building and took the stairs up two floors. He tried the door, assuming it would be open. Locked. He knocked several times. No answer.

“Saul? Noreen?” His voice reverberated off of the stairwell walls. “You there?”

He tried the knob again, and was only slightly surprised when it turned. He pushed the door open and stepped inside Noreen’s partially renovated office.

The first thing he saw was blood.

There were pools of it on the floor, soaking several of the white sheets red, and mixing with sawdust to form nauseating clumps. The scent of freshly cut wood, so pleasant earlier that day, was overtaken by the hideous, bitterly metallic stench of blood and death.

Nick’s mouth went dry and he felt his stomach lurch. Then he saw Noreen. She lay spread-eagled on the floor, several feet to the right of her workbench in roughly the center of the room. Her throat had been widely sliced open, drenching her white work shirt with blood, now in the process of drying. She appeared to be staring right at him. Instinct made him check her carotid pulse, though he knew her gray eyes and milky, nearly colorless skin meant she was looking only into oblivion.

Nick turned his head to the right to look away. That was when he saw Mollender. The Mole was directly opposite Noreen on the other side of the room, nearer the windows. He, too, was spread-eagled, but facedown on the polished oak floor. Two feet away was a heavy, eight-inch kitchen knife, covered with gore. The right side of Mollender’s head had been blown apart-an exit wound. From his years of dealing with gunshot wounds, Nick knew there would be a bullet hole on the opposite temple. Blood continued seeping from the gaping hole and fragments of bone and brain tissue dotted the floor like tiny islands of death. Nick took a few cautious steps forward, his eyes now transfixed on the dull steel of a pistol resting next to Mollender’s outstretched, lifeless hand.

A guttural, primal scream exploded from Nick’s throat as he crouched by the body. The odd little record room librarian had killed his one-time lover and then shot himself. That conclusion seemed obvious. But why? The two of them had held hands. They appeared to be doing wonderfully. He did not know Mollender well, but on the surface at least, the man hardly seemed capable of such violence.

It was then that Nick heard the click of the door closing behind him. Startled, he whirled around, rising to his feet. His leather bag, still slung over his shoulder, swung in an arc across the front of his body as he confronted a tall, well-built man, dressed head to toe in black. He was wearing latex surgical gloves. The heavy pistol held loosely in his right hand was pointed at the center of Nick’s chest.

Nick’s gaze traveled upward, until he met with the coldest pale blue eyes he had ever seen. Pure evil.

“What have you done?” Nick shrieked. “Why?”

“Pipe down, Doctor,” the killer said calmly. “What I’ve done is the non-kill that I do better than any other. Murder-suicide. I’m a master at it if I do say so myself. What do you think?”

He gestured to the grotesque pair of corpses.

This was the man. Nick knew immediately. This was the man who had sat by and watched Belle Coates die. He wasn’t the stocky killer in the OR, but he was probably responsible for some of the other deaths, if not all of them. Nick could barely keep from charging him. In fact, fueled by rage, he actually took a half step forward.

“Easy, Doc. This thing could get ugly for you quick. You brought the DVD?”

The man spoke with utter confidence, and his soulless eyes actually flickered with a hint of joy.

Suddenly, Nick was certain that he had Jillian.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“She?”

“Jillian Coates. Where is she? If anything happens to her, I swear I’ll kill you.”

“Relax, Doctor. Isn’t that what you tell your patients before you take your index finger and ream them? Just relax. From what I can see, you’re not really in a position to demand or threaten anything. Besides, as chance would have it, I stopped by Roger Pendleton’s place right after you left and retrieved one of the discs. It had this lovely woman’s business sticker on it. That’s what led me here. With a little prompting, she told me you probably had the second of the two discs she gave you. I had our friend Mollender over there summon you here. So, give me the DVD.”

“What DVD?”

“DON’T FUCK WITH ME!”

Nick recoiled from the ferocity of the killer’s outburst. As quickly as that explosion came, the emotion drained from the man’s face until he was once again a steely evil. In an unhurried voice he said, “You know what I’m talking about, Doc. That cute little nurse died rather than expose her sister to the pain I had in store for Jillian. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t do it to her now.”

Nick’s heart beat wildly. He could feel his blood pressure rising, releasing beads of sweat across his brow and down the back of his neck. Instead of reacting irrationally, though, he closed his eyes, willed his pulse to slow, and began taking charge of his emotions.

His only option, for himself and for Jillian, was to buy some time. To that end, he had two possible tools: the DVD, and the monster’s gigantic ego.

It might be too late for him, too late for Jillian, but he had to do what he could to take charge of the PTSD that had controlled his life for so long. He had to act intelligently, rationally, and with force.

“Why are you doing this?” he began, searching for an opening-any opening. “Who are you?”

“Hey, slow down. I have the big gun, so I get to ask the questions. Now where’s the disc? In your sack, there? In the glove compartment of your car? Don’t make me tie you up and torture you, my friend, because if I have to do that, after you’re bloody and dead, I’m going to settle up with that girl of yours. And I mean settle up in every sense of the words. Now, the disc.”

“Just tell me. Tell me how you managed to kill all those people from the OR without having anyone know.”

It looked as if the killer was about to answer him. But before he could, Nick heard the haunting first notes of AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” The man pulled a cell phone off of his belt clip, never for a second lowering his gun or averting his soulless eyes. For several seconds he held the phone to his ear and listened.

“No, he hasn’t given me the DVD,” he said. “I think I can convince him, but it may require more pain than he’s equipped to endure.”

He listened again, then took a step toward Nick, the pistol an accusatory finger now pointing steadily at Nick’s heart.

Then he grinned.

“It’s for you,” he said.