The Bannerman Solution (The Bannerman Series) (16 page)

Gelman heard the sounds she was making. He'd for
gotten about her. That was a woman's voice he'd heard
first. She'd said “Uncle Billy” to the guy holding his head. Who is she? A patient? That
is
what this is all
about, isn't it? One of those bitches had gone whining to
Russo.

“Who's back there?” he demanded. “If that's one of
my patients . . . ?”

“Oh, no,” Russo smiled. “That's Carla Benedict. She
works at the Westport Library. Reference section.”

“Hi, Doctor Gelman,” she called pleasantly. She was
at the washsta
n
d drawing a solution into a disposable
5cc syringe. She raised the needle to the light and
squeezed off a short stream. Next she brought it around
to Stanley Gelman's left side.

“Hi,” she repeated. She turned his left arm so the
palm was up and she sat on it, pinning it to the Jacuzzi's
edge. Gary Russo took the syringe from her and found a
vein in the crook of Gelman's arm.

”Wha . . . what are you doing?” Gelman asked.

Russo withdrew the syringe and patted Gelman's cheek. “I just killed you, you little prick.”

The doctor used his penlight for a final check of
Stanley Gelman's pupils. He'd already checked twice
for pulse. Gelman's eyes were staring sightlessly at the
churning hot water of the Jacuzzi. His expression re
sembled an embarrassed grin. No look of fear, no sug
gestion of panic. It was just about right.

Russo lifted Gelman's chin and peered closely for
any sign of discoloration. No contusions. Only a slight
rosiness under the health-club tan where Billy had
g
ripped him. Billy had already washed the neck with damp tissues to remove any fibers his black sweater might have left. Everything looked fine. The syringe,
with Gelman's prints tamped onto it, still dangled from
his arm. Cardiac arrest had come within a minute. Much better, much cleaner than the bathtub fall and
fractured skull Billy probably had in mind. Tubs are
dangerous. Billy wasn't a young man anymore. In the
struggle, he might have slipped as easily as Gelman.

Russo made a final check of the bathroom. Carla had
broken down his pistol and returned it to its place. He'd
felt sure it would not be needed, but there was always
the s
li
m possibility that Gelman could have bested Billy,
or that Russo might have needed it to get Billy's atten
tion so that this could all be done properly. The Valium
vial, also with Gelman's prints on it, was left on the
washbasin along with the paper wrapping from a PlastiPak disposable syringe. It had been a small detail, es
tablishing that Gelman had Valium on hand and that the
amount was sufficient for him to commit suicide. But it's
the small details that could land you in prison.

Carla Benedict was resting on the
toilet
seat. She'd
been on her hands and knees, obscuring any heel marks
between the garage window and Gelman's tub. Billy
McHugh was waiting for them by the garage window.
He'd gone there to resplice the alarm wire, cover the splice with putty, replace the screws in the window
clasp with the aid of plastic wood, sweep up the shav
ings from his electric drill and patch the drill hole with
the redwood plug he'd saved.

“Are you ready?” the doctor asked Carla.

She took a deep breath and let her shoulders sag. “Billy wants to know if we're sore at him.”

“Let's talk in the car.”

“He says he's sorry. He wants us to come back to
Mario's for a bacon cheeseburger.”

”A cheeseburger.” Russo shook his head. “He's sorry
I just had to kill a man for him so he's going to treat us to
a cheeseburger?”

They hadn't seen Billy McHugh leave. One moment
he was a silent shadow moving a stack of firewood to
cover any footprints outside the garage window—the
rain would do the rest—and the next he was gone. Russo
took Carla's arm and led her across Bayberry Road and
down the facing street to the parked Subaru. Just an
other suburban couple leaving a late dinner party. As
they approached the station wagon, Carla took a hand
kerchief from her pocket and began dabbing the rain
from her eyes. Russo escorted her to the passenger door
and moved to open it.

“Carla?” the low, gravelly voice came from a shadow
on a stone wall bordering somebody's yard. “Carla, are
you okay?”

Russo paused at the door, not wanting to turn on the inside light by opening it. He saw Carla's handkerchief.
Billy must have thought she was wiping tears. He should
live so long.

“Go on, Billy,” he said softly. “Get away from here.”

“He hurt one of my friends, Doc.” It was not quite an
explanation. More a statement of the obvious.

“Billy, this isn't the place to talk.”

“I'll make it up to both of you.”

I know, Russo thought. A bacon cheeseburger. But
he
said
nothing.

“Is Carla crying?”

“She's just tired, Billy.” At least he thought that's all
it was. On the other hand, why the hell should he be
reassuring Billy? “And she's sad. She wonders, like I do,
whether we'll ever have any peace around here. And whether you care more about some woman in a bar
than you do about her.”

“Hey, that's crazy. You tell her, will you? That's just
not so.”

“Forget it, Billy.
Go
home.”

“We have peace here. Especially, we have friends
here. I bet in our whole lives we never had friends like
since we came to Westport.”

“She knows that, Billy. And she understands that we
want to take care of our friends. I think she's worried that sometimes we don't take such good care of each
other.”

“Well, that's not right.” His tone was gently scolding.
“That's not right at all. There's nothing in the world I
wouldn't do for my friends.”

“We know that, Billy.” How well we know that.

A long pause. “Are you going to tell Paul?”

“I don't know. We haven't thought about that.”

“Because it wasn't like you think. I wasn't going
to. . . .”

“Billy,” he hissed sharply. “Can we get away from
here please?”

“Hey,” the voice brightened. “What about that cheeseburger. You like it charred on the outside and bloody in the middle, right? Ill fix it myself.”

“Okay, Billy. Sure.”

“Carla?”

What the hell, she thought. So it's not a total loss.
“Sure.
But hold the bun
.”

“That settles it.” the shadow rolled soundlessly over
the wall. “I'll see you back there, okay? Hungry is one
thing I know how to fix.”

Carla sat silently through the first few stoplights dur
ing the ten-minute ride back to Mario's. A police cruiser approached from the opposite direction, shushing by on
the black wet road. She glanced at it without interest. It
would be tomorrow afternoon at the earliest before
anyone became sufficiently concerned about Gelman's
absence to consider forcing his front door. She had
deeper concerns about tomorrow.

“Are we going to tell Paul?” she asked finally.

“I'd hate to have him find out from someone else.”

“Molly won't say anything if we don't.”

“That's if he doesn't ask her. Molly won't lie to Paul
and I don't think I want to, either.”

She shook her head. “All we promised was we'd
keep Billy out of trouble. We did that, sort of.”

Gary Russo drummed his fingers against the steering
wheel. “What about next time, Carla?”

“We'll need him someday, Gary. Meanwhile, we just
keep working with him.”

“Wonderful.”

“This time was different. Seeing that woman come
on to him and then get hysterical was
more than
he
could handle.”

“They were all different,” he answered, yawning. “How long do you think it will be before some other
woman walks into Mario's who's just been slapped
round by her husband? Or some guy who's being
fucked over by his w
ife
's lawyer, or some old lady who's
had her life savings churned down to nothing by a stock
broker? These people are all Billy's friends and he's
their Uncle Billy. Sooner or later someone else is going to hurt one of Uncle Billy's new friends and that some
one is going to die.”

“He's getting better,” she repeated stubbornly.
“This is the first time since last August.”