Alpha Kill - 03 (11 page)

“Joe. Come on in.”

Venn had met Soper just once before, at an office party Beth had brought him along to. The two men had spent a lot of time talking, and despite the older man’s air of gravitas, he’d been surprisingly down to earth. They’d discussed sports, politics, the state of both health care and the NYPD. He was a smallish guy, in his sixties, with a neatly trimmed mustache the same gray as his thinning hair, and a slight stoop. Beth told Venn that senior doctors got that a lot, from listening to patients every day for decades.

The office was medium-sized, homely, and cluttered with shelves crammed with textbooks and journals. Soper waved at a chair across the desk from his own.

“Take a seat. Coffee?”

“No thanks,” said Venn.

“You should have called. You’re lucky you caught me in.”

Venn had in fact called the hospital, just to establish that Dr Soper was at work that day. He hadn’t wanted to make an appointment. The operator he’d spoken to informed him that Dr Soper was expected in at around eleven o’clock, which was why Venn had waited before heading for the hospital.

“Luck of the draw,” said Venn, settling himself into the chair. He sat slightly lower than Soper, he noticed, and suspected this was intentional, not for him but for any visitor to the head of department’s office.

“So. What can I do for you?” Soper placed his hands on the desktop.

“It’s about Beth,” said Venn.

Soper watched him, his untamed older-man’s eyebrows knitting together.

“Is she okay?” he said. “I haven’t seen her today, but that doesn’t mean much. Been in my office since this morning.”

“Yeah, she’s at work, I assume,” said Venn. “I didn’t mean that anything sudden has happened to her. It’s just... well you know she and I broke up.”

Soper’s brow furrowed. He nodded. “Yes, I was aware of that. I’m sorry.”

“We still keep in contact, though,” Venn went on. “We’re kind of friends. But she’s taken things hard. All of that stuff that happened back in the summer, getting kidnapped by those drug gangbangers... it had an impact on her.”

“Again, I’m aware of that,” said Soper gravely.

Venn sighed. “Dr Soper -”

“Bill. Please.”

“Bill. Look, this is a little awkward. It’s not for me to be asking you about your staff, and their performance. I’m just a cop. But I wonder if you could tell me, as someone who’s concerned about Beth. Has her ability to do her job been compromised at all? Has she been slipping up?”

Now Soper leaned back in his chair, his hands folded. “Why do you ask?”

“Because she’s been more unsettled than usual lately, when I’ve met her. She won’t say why. Says it’s nothing. I’m wondering if she’s getting paranoid. She worries about being followed. She’s always jumping at sudden noises, looking around her, asking me if the guy in the corner keeps staring across at her. That kind of thing.”

Soper continued to gaze at Venn, frowning, his hands together and the tips of the index fingers tapping against one another.

Then he leaned forward once more.

“Joe,” he said. “What I’m going to tell you might not be considered in some quarters as entirely ethical. But I believe you deserve to know.”

Venn waited.

“Beth is currently seeing a psychiatrist.”

Venn’s surprise was genuine, and he allowed it to show. This was something she hadn’t mentioned to him. Then again, why would she, necessarily?

Soper said, “I don’t know anything about the details, about what she discusses with him. Nor should I. That’s privileged information, and I have no wish to pry. I’m confident that if her psychiatrist forms the opinion that Beth’s not fit to practice medicine, he’ll tell her. And tell me, if necessary. He hasn’t done so. And I’m satisfied with that.”

The phone on Soper’s desk rang, jarringly. He picked it up and said, “A couple more minutes, Barbara.”

To Venn he said, “In answer to your earlier question... no, I have no concerns whatsoever about Dr Beth Colby’s work performance. She remains the dedicated, highly expert attending she’s been ever since we appointed her. And I’ll admit, I’ve been watching her more closely than usual, precisely because of the experiences she’s been through. She’s got problems, yes. But are they affecting her job? I would say, absolutely not.”

Venn watched the doctor for a few seconds. Then he stood up. Extended his hand.

“Thanks, Bill. That’s what I was hoping to hear. And I’m glad she’s sought out professional help. I didn’t know, but I’m pleased.”

Soper opened the door for him. “As I said, I was sorry to hear the two of you had separated, Joe. You seemed like a good couple.”

Venn shrugged in a
what can you do
gesture.

He thanked Ms Chen, and headed for the elevator.

His visit with Dr Soper, brief though it was, had been a success on two counts.

First, he believed he’d guaranteed Beth a degree of protection. By intimating that he thought she was paranoid, he’d given the impression that she didn’t come across as credible in the eyes of a cop like him. That might make her appear less of a threat to whoever didn’t want her to pry further into this whole business.

The other reason his visit was a success was that he’d noted carefully Soper’s reaction, when he’d mentioned Beth’s apparent nerviness of late. There’d been something in the man’s eyes, a slight tightening in his face, which signaled that the guy was bracing himself for something more. That he was expecting Venn, the cop, to come out with an accusation of some kind.

Venn was convinced now that Beth was absolutely right.

Dr Bill Soper was hiding something.

––––––––

F
il Vidal called as Venn was pulling up the ramp out of the hospital’s parking lot.

“Got something that might interest you, boss.”

“Shoot.”

“I haven’t finished tracking down where all the patients were transferred to, but there’s something that keeps coming up. So far, seven out of the twelve I’ve checked were transferred to the Bonnesante Clinic, upstate near Glens Falls. You heard of it?”

“No,” said Venn. “You?”

“I haven’t, but I’ve done some research on it.” Fil shuffled paper. He liked to print stuff off, Venn had discovered. “Yeah... it’s a private facility, catering mostly to paying customers, but some of the health plans will fund treatment there. For a while, anyhow.”

Venn put his phone into the dashboard holder and stuck the bud in his ear, so he could concentrate on the road. “What kind of a clinic is it? Does it specialize in any particular diseases?”

“No. It’s a smallish place, with ninety inpatient beds. An operating theater. They take surgical, medical and OBGYN patients. No particular sub-specialisms, according to the website.”

“Huh,” said Venn. He suddenly wished Beth was with him, so he could ask her if she’d heard of the place. “Does the website say -”

“- Who works there?” Fil cut in. “Sorry. I knew you’d ask. I already checked. And the curious thing is, there’s no mention on the site of the names of any of the doctors. Normally, this kind of place features its attending physicians prominently. They’re the drawcards. But aside from the director of the clinic, a man named Douglas Driscoll - there’s a photo of him, and a bio - it doesn’t say anything about any of the staff. I gotta say, it’s a clean, slick website, with a minimalist feel. No clutter. So the absence of too much data might be deliberate.”

“Still...” said Venn.

“Yeah. It’s still a little odd.”

Venn braked, seeing a serious gridlock problem developing ahead. Not for the first time, he reminded himself that he really needed to start leaving his car behind and using New York’s public transport system more. He wasn’t in Chicago any longer, still less in the hayseed southern Illinois town he’d grown up in. But damn, if he didn’t have driving in his blood. Dumping his wheels in order to join the trudging, grumbling queues for the subway felt like some kind of betrayal of himself.

“Okay,” he said. “Good work, Fil. This Driscoll guy...”

“I’m on him,” said Fil. “He’s a former MD who gave up practicing twelve years ago and went into business. He founded the Bonnesante Clinic in 2005. Still takes an active role, meeting with physicians who’re interested in joining, lobbying for funding.”

“Since you’re ahead of all my questions,” said Venn, “I won’t ask if you’ve checked out any connection between the clinic and Dr Olivia Collins. Or her husband.”

“I’ve checked,” said Fil, without a trace of smugness. “But there’s nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Nothing so far. Harmony’s the one looking into Bruce Collins, so she might find a link there. But Collins isn’t on the list of donors to the clinic over the years. And his wife isn’t on its staff, that we know of. But then, like I said, we don’t know anything about its staff.”

Venn watched the line of cars ahead of him grind to a standstill. In his rearview mirror, he saw the traffic behind him do the same.

With a sigh, he sagged back against his seat.

On the dash, his phone beeped, signaling an incoming call.

Venn said, “Fil, I’m on my way back to the office. But I could be a while. See if you can find out who has attending privileges at the clinic.”

“Will do,” said Fil.

Venn picked up the handset and keyed the new call through.

“Joe?”

Venn recognized the voice of Dennis Yancy, the FBI guy in Rockford. “Yeah, Yance.”

“Thought you might care to know. Drake may be headed for New York.”

––––––––

R
icky Thompson watched the woman get out of the car and felt his heart do a little tumble.

She was a vision from heaven, and as he thought it, he knew how clichéd, how unoriginal, it sounded. But out here in Western Pennsylvania there weren’t a whole lot of heavenly signs, and Ricky figured this counted as one.

He straightened up behind the counter of the shop, tucking in his shirt and buffing his sneakers one after the other on the opposite pants leg. He found himself wishing he’d scrubbed more of the grease off his hands, and hoped none of it had found its way to his face.

The woman walked slowly toward the shop, cool, elegant, putting a lot of swing into the hips in a way that suggested she wasn’t doing it just for show, that it was the way she naturally walked. She was slim and curvy and looked exactly like a movie star. Her sunglasses put Ricky in mind of a beach on the French Riviera, a place he’d seen mostly in black-and-white in the DVDs he ferreted away at home, away from the prying eyes of his friends, who’d laugh at him if they knew.

Ricky watched the woman approach, and saw Greta Garbo. Lauren Bacall. Gina Lollobrigida. Even a trace of Audrey Hepburn, though the woman walking toward him was sensuous rather than elfin.

He drew himself up to his full five-feet-eleven, thinking -
hoping
- that maybe he was an inch or two taller than her, though it was hard to tell at this distance.

And he thought to himself:
who are you trying to kid?

The woman heading toward the shop was stunningly beautiful, utterly poised, impeccably classy.

Ricky Thompson, on the other hand, was awkward, shy, geeky. He was nineteen years old, the child of a single mom, with an upbringing in a dirt-poor suburb of Pittsburgh and a minimum-wage job here at Artie’s Tires and Parts, in the back of beyond off the I-76.

He was
going
places, there was no question about that. While his friends hung around the backstreets and the malls, drinking beer and squabbling and bitching about life, Ricky was as often as not back home in the rented house he shared with his Ma and his two sisters, watching the films he’d bought at rummage sales and from the bonanzas on offer as the video stores in the area had shut down, one by one.

Ricky’s mother grumbled at him, calling him a dreamer. His sisters, aged eight and eleven, laughed at him. But he studied the images and the narratives on the screen until he’d absorbed them under his skin.

He was going to go back to school. Get his diploma this time. And then he was going on to film school.

Ricky wasn’t a movie star in the making. He wasn’t even an actor. Rather, he was a director. He spent long hours at night, stalking about his room or lying on his back in bed, composing shots in his head. Framing scenes. Pacing everything until it was just perfect.

Now, as he looked after the shop while Artie, the owner, disappeared for a couple of hours, to go whoring or drinking or maybe just slobbing out on the couch in front of the TV, Ricky found himself staring at a genuine leading lady, fast approaching the door.

And he felt utterly out of his league.

The door opened and she stepped inside. Her smile pinned Ricky to the spot.

“Good morning,” she said, her voice soft, with the faintest trace of huskiness. “

“Ma’am,” Ricky mumbled, his own voice catching. He cleared his throat, tried again. “May I help you?”

She moved over the counter, seeming not so much to walk as to glide. “I hope you can. I believe there’s something wrong with my car’s brakes.”

Ricky glanced away, out the window. The woman had come walking up the driveway from the main road. There was no car in sight, apart from the ones sitting out there which Artie hadn’t gotten around to working on yet.

“Where’s your car, ma’am?” said Ricky.

The woman tipped her head. “Back there on the road. It started to list to one side whenever I braked. I decided it would be safest to stop right there, especially when I saw the sign for your auto shop up ahead.”

“It sounds like the pads,” said Ricky, relieved that the problem was something he’d probably be able to deal with himself, rather than waiting for Artie to return. Ricky mostly did gofer stuff at the shop, but he’d picked up a certain amount of know-how about car repairs while he’d been working there, and Artie had allowed him to start taking on some of the jobs.

He came out from behind the counter, conscious of his smeared overalls. The woman’s eyes didn’t drop down him and back up again, the way classy people sometimes did when they encountered guys like him. Instead, they stayed focused on his face. At least, he thought they did. It was difficult to tell, behind the sunglasses. Ricky wished she’d take them off. He thought her eyes would be as pretty as the rest of her.