Blind Rage (26 page)

“What about the surveillance?” she asked.

He swallowed and wiped his mouth. “Now he knows we’re watching him, so it won’t do any good. Plus with that Selwyn on his side and living right next door—”

“We’d better think of another way to get at Wakefielder.”

“What did you think of Wakefielder’s reaction, or lack thereof, to the news his ex was dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “If he did do it, you’d think he’d be smart enough to act grief-stricken.”

“Could be he’s not good with the dramatics and decided he couldn’t pull them off,” Garcia suggested. “Pretending he didn’t believe us was more in his range.”

They heard ringing coming from the coats piled next to her on the restaurant bench. She set down her spoon, went into her jacket pocket, and produced her cell. Opened it.

“Agent Saint Clare? This is Matthew VonHader.”

She frowned for a moment, and then her eyes widened as she remembered Dr. Luke VonHader’s younger brother. “What can I do for you, Mr. VonHader?”

Garcia set down his glass and leaned across the table.

“What can
I
do for you?” Matthew responded.

She had only been on the phone for a few seconds with this operator, and she was already losing patience. “Look, if you’re calling to—”

Matthew: “I have some…information I’d like to share.”

“What sort of information?” she asked while smiling at Garcia.

Matthew said, “Over dinner.”

“What sort of information?” she repeated.

“Dinner tonight. Seven o’clock,” said Matthew.

“Dinner? I’d like to know what this is about first.” She watched Garcia. He looked ready to jump out of the booth.

Matthew said, “Dinner, or I’m hanging up.”

He sounded like a brat threatening to hold his breath. She rolled her eyes and asked, “Where?”

“Downtown St. Paul,” he said, and gave her the name and address of the restaurant.

The trendy eatery was in walking distance from her office. She’d passed it a hundred times but had never set foot inside. “I know the place.”

“Seven o’clock,” Matthew repeated.

“Right.” Shaking her head with wonder, she closed the phone.

“The shrink?” Garcia asked.

“His younger brother, Matt. I met him at the doc’s office. He wants me to meet him for dinner downtown. Seven tonight. He has ‘information.’”

The waitress came by with the check, and Garcia picked it up. Dug out his wallet and opened it. “Want me to go with you?”

“You might scare him off.”

He set some bills on the table. “I could sit at the bar and keep an eye on you.”

Now Garcia was sounding weird. “What is he going to do, attack me with the pepper mill?”

“I really think I should—”

“Let me deal with this,” she said, sliding from the bench with their outerwear in her arms. Garcia got out, and she handed him his coat.

“What good is the little brother?”

“Could be he knows about Luke’s relationship with Wakefielder, or maybe he can tell me something about Klein and Cameron. He’s real talkative. The receptionist whisked him away before his mouth really got going yesterday.”

“This Matt isn’t hitting on you, is he? That wouldn’t be too smart.”

“I don’t think he’s a Harvard man. He strikes me as a
mimbo
.”

Garcia’s brows knitted with confusion.

“That’s a male bimbo.”

“Nice. Well, call me when you’re done with him.”

“I’ll call you,” she said, and they both headed for the door.

Chapter 25

WAITERS AND BUSBOYS AND CUSTOMERS DRESSED IN BLACK.
An effusive menu that read like a romance novel. A wine list as thick as an issue of
National Geographic
. Tables set with crystal, candles, and white linen. Floor-to-ceiling windows draped in sheer white curtains.

Matthew VonHader looked as trendy as the restaurant he’d selected. He’d eschewed the unofficial dress uniform for Minnesota men—khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt—and had shown up in a sophisticated black turtleneck, black blazer, and black slacks. Bernadette felt like a slouch for wearing one of her work suits.

She’d spent part of the afternoon on her home laptop, trying to research the accomplishments of the younger VonHader. There weren’t many. The older sibling was the overachiever. She’d found scant background, good or bad, on Matthew. Unless hanging out at his brother’s office qualified as a career, he seemed to have no job. He was unmarried and had an appetite for expensive cars and a thirst for expensive booze. She got a glimpse of the Cabernet Sauvignon he’d pointed out to the waiter, and the wine list priced it at two hundred dollars a bottle.

Their twenty-something server—a skinny kid with spiked hair who’d earlier introduced himself as Clive—came up to their table with pad and pen in hand. “Have we decided yet, or would we like a few more minutes?”

Bernadette flipped the pages of the menu. She’d initially intended to stick with a quick salad but decided to stretch out the meeting to increase her chances of getting dirt on the doc. “I’m debating between the pineapple teriyaki salmon and the Moroccan chicken with chickpeas,” she said, glancing up at Clive for guidance.

“Are you in a stew mood?” he asked.

“Not particularly,” she said.

“The Moroccan dish is a tagine of sorts, a stew,” said Clive. “So if you’re not in a stew mood, I’d suggest the salmon.”

She closed her menu and handed it to him. “The salmon it is.”

Clive turned to Matthew. “For the gentleman?”

“I’m not in a stew mood either, but Moroccan sounds good.” Matthew pointed to his menu. “The Moroccan swordfish with yogurt sauce.”

“Excellent choice,” said the waiter, scribbling. He nodded toward the half-empty wine bottle. “If you would like something with your fish, I could recommend—”

“The Cab is fine,” interrupted Matthew.

“Very well, sir.” Clive took their menus and disappeared into the kitchen.

Matthew looked across the table at Bernadette. “The wine police are going to slam me for pairing red with fish, but screw ’em. I’m sick of all whites, especially the Pinot Grigios everybody’s drinking. They’ve been so overproduced and rushed, they’re practically tasteless. The light beer of white wine.”

“What I know about wine you could fit on the back of a postage stamp,” she said, taking a sip of water.

“Are you sure you won’t have a glass with me?” he asked, refilling his own.

Bernadette didn’t want him getting plastered. So to keep him from guzzling it all, she pushed her glass toward him. “I’ll have one.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, filling hers to the top.

“That’s more than enough. Thank you.” She’d have to pick up her own tab and tried to calculate the cost of a single glass of two-hundred-dollar wine. Garcia was going to have a fit when he saw her expense account.

He took a sip of wine. “Were you surprised that I called you?”

“I was curious,” she said, fingering the stem of her wineglass. “How’d you get my number? Did you steal my card off your brother’s desk?”

“I rescued it from Chaz,” he said. “He was about to deposit it in the circular file.”

“Chaz?”

“Charles, my brother’s manservant.” He took a sip of wine.

“Chaz…yeah—he hustled you out of there before we could talk at the office,” said Bernadette. “Did Luke tell him to do that? What was your brother afraid of? What didn’t he want you to say to me?”

Matthew dodged her questions by rambling on and on about Charles. “Luke was going to hire a woman after Rosemary retired, but then Chaz called for a job. One of the old neighborhood gang. He’s more my brother’s friend than mine. I don’t like him. He’s so—I don’t know—smarmy. Don’t you think it’s odd to have a male receptionist? He makes shit coffee. A pretty young woman would be so much more—”

“What are you intending to tell me or give me?”

“My brother said you were interested in lithium.”

“I am,” she said.

“Lithium is one of the oldest and most frequently prescribed drugs for the treatment of bipolar disorder. There’s nothing criminal in the fact that a bottle of lithium was found in Kyra Klein’s home.”

“What if I told you Klein could have been murdered with the help of those meds? Would you classify that as criminal?”

He polished off his glass of wine. “You may not be privy to the fact that Miss Klein’s own mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and committed suicide when Kyra was a child.”

“How would I know that? Your brother is sitting on her file.”

“You should also be made aware that Miss Klein attempted to kill herself a couple of years ago.”

Big brother had no qualms about sharing with his younger sibling. So much for patient privacy, thought Bernadette. “Sounds like Luke was having trouble helping his patient manage her illness.”

Matthew emptied the remainder of the bottle into his glass. “Her suicide attempt was while she was under the care of another physician. She’d been improperly diagnosed as having depression and was on medication that made her bipolar disorder worse.”

“So your brother rescued her.”

“My brother made the correct diagnosis and got her going on the proper medication.”

“And she died anyway.”

He shrugged. “It happens.”

“Is that going to be your brother’s defense if Kyra Klein’s family drags him into court? Death happens?”

“I really doubt her family is going to sue,” he said.

“Your brother is worried about it,” she said. “That’s why he won’t talk to me.”

He took a long drink of wine. “He’s protective of his patients and their privacy, as he should be.”

“I’ll tell you what I told him: Kyra Klein is dead!”

Diners a table away stopped talking and looked over at them. “You’re scaring the children,” Matthew said with a smirk.

She leaned forward and said in a lower voice, “He needs to give me those files.”

“The police didn’t ask for them.”

“We’re approaching this case from different angles.”

“Can we please get off the subject of Miss Klein?”

“Fine.” She took a drink of water. “What can you tell me about Zoe Cameron?”

He sipped his wine. “Never heard of her.”

She didn’t believe him. “You seem to know a lot about your brother’s business. Have you got one of your own? What do you do for a living?”

“I’m in between jobs.” He eyed her untouched wineglass. “Is there something wrong with the Cab?”

She picked up her glass and took a small sip. “No. It’s fine.”

He grinned. “Oh, I get it. The wily FBI agent gets the dummy drunk so he spills his proverbial guts.”

“Now, Matt, if I did that, I couldn’t trust or use what you gave me.” She took another sip of wine to appease him. “Besides, I’m not the one who called this meeting. In fact, I’m a little mystified as to why you even bothered. This is your brother’s problem.”

“Problem? Is he in trouble for declining to answer your questions?”

His concern for his brother sounded genuine, and she played off it. “His lack of cooperation doesn’t look good. He seems more interested in covering his backside than in getting to the bottom of what happened.”

“He’s following federal patient privacy guidelines.”

“Baloney,” she said. “He’s got a lot of wiggle room when it comes to those regs. He could help us more.”

“Has he done anything illegal?”

“Maybe not illegal, but certainly unethical.”

“My brother is not only one of the top psychiatrists in the country but also an honorable and generous man. On his own time and at his own expense, he developed a school-based program that screens teens for mental illness. He’s worked hard to increase the public’s understanding of brain disorders through free educational seminars. He goes to bat for patients who are discriminated against on the job. He started a suicide help line that is still up and running and saving lives today.” He took a deep drink, nearly finishing his wine, and pointed a finger at her. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a more ethical and giving man than Luke.”