Broken Serenade (36 page)

    “I love you, Vee.”

    “I love you too, Tee. See you soon, honey.”

    Timothy hung up, but he remained watching the phone fixedly, unmoving and te
nsed.

    “Je
alous?” Clark chuckled. “Don’t worry, man, I won’t judge you. If I had a woman like Vee, I would be jealous even of the bird that sings at her window.”

    “It’s not that, Clark. I’m really concerned for her safety. I shouldn’t have left her alone at home. She’s going to this former doctor of her
late grandmother. It’s a person she knows absolutely nothing about. A couple of nights ago, she told me that Carol’s death seemed strange to her. After all you’ve told us about the old woman, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that she has been assassinated.”

    “What’s the name of
this doctor? You can Google him. If you’re lucky, you can even find a picture of him. For your peace of mind,” Clark chuckled again.

    “Clark, stop joking, man!
I have the funny feeling that she’s walking into a trap. And I couldn’t stop her.”

    “Paranoia, Tim. You’re in love with her
, and you’re afraid that you might lose her in some way. It’s common for people in your… special situation to experience this kind of feelings.”

   
The Google thing is an idea
, Timothy thought, nodding to approve tacitly Clark’s wise conclusion.

    “
I’m out for a couple of minutes,” he announced shortly. “In the mean time, maybe you’ll be able to locate the coffee. If not, use your irresistible charm and ask someone from a nearby office to help you.”  

    He slammed the door behind him and rushed to the parking lot. H
e knew where he could find that medical cabinet’s address and the full name of Vivien grandmother’s doctor. The old woman’s prescription was still in his Mercedes. It had fallen behind the front seats, and that morning, he had been bothered by its rattling noise all drive long.

    In minutes
, Timothy was back in the office. A vague smell of coffee scented the air in the most pleasant way.

    “Victory!” Clark boasted
, lifting the coffee bag from the counter and waving it in the air, triumphant.

    “Me too!” Timothy exclaimed
, showing the prescription.

    “Oh, yes. I’
ve seen it a couple of nights back, when I had the car, but I wasn’t in the mood to bend down and pick it up,” Clark admitted with not a trace of embarrassment. “I told myself that you’d find it if you needed it. So, who’s sick?”

    “Nobody. It’s Carol Hopkins’ last prescription refill. The pharmacist gave it to Vivien by mistake. I have everything I need here.”

    Timothy put the medication on his desk, then went around and sat comfortably on his chair in front of his computer.

    Clark abandoned the coffee. Curiosity pushed him toward his brother’s desk. He pic
ked up the prescription bag. On a few seconds interval, his face gradually turned red.

    “Just tell me
this isn’t true,” he whispered, troubled.

    “What? Do you know him?” Timothy asked anxiously.

    “This guy is a dentist. He’s the brother of father’s psychologist.” Intentionally, he omitted to add “long dead” by the “psychologist”. Tim’s agitation was already quite intense.

    “No, he’s a family doctor,” Timothy corrected him. “He treated Carol for
depression, among other age related ailments.”

    “Let me make a phone call. In the mean time, you can calm down. He’s old a
nd totally uninteresting for a
femme fatale
like Vivien,” Clark told him with a forced smile, trying to moderate the tension risen out of the blue in that room.

    He dialed a number on his cellular phone, and when his call was answered, he only spoke the doctor’s nam
e. For an entire minute, he uttered monosyllabic words, pronounced harshly, with his English accent, and accompanied by frowning and deep sighs. Then he hung up and dialed another number immediately.

    “I need everything you can give me about Andrew Sean Evans, MD, Menlo Park, California.
And I need it now!”

    Two minutes later,
he urged Timothy:

    “To the car! Hurry! Call her! Tell her not to go anywhere!”

    Timothy grabbed his cellular phone and the keys of his Mercedes. He called his beloved fiancée. She didn’t answer.

    “Talk to me, Clark! Tell me what
in God’s name you know, man!” he yelled, descending the stairs as fast as he could and heading to the parking place.

    “Sean Evans immigrated to USA immediately after the death of his brother, Andrew Evans, Lili and father’s psychologist.
He was a dentist, but he never practiced dentistry here. He went back to school and specialized himself in psychology and general medicine. After becoming American citizen, he changed his name in Andrew Sean Evans. Same Sean Evans became a member of our organization about a year ago. He introduced himself as the brother of the late psychologist Andrew Evans, and he made a very consistent donation to our organization that speeded his approval. Sean stated that he was a dentist, residing and practicing in the outskirts of London. I just checked him up, and his cabinet ceased to exist about twenty years ago. In the most favorable situation for us, the guy is suspicious, he’s hiding something.

    “I had this funny f
eeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew something wasn’t right the moment she mentioned the message on her answering machine,” Timothy told him, stepping hard on the accelerator.  

CHAPTER 31

  
 
V
ivien localized the medical cabinet of Doctor Evans in a building that seemed partly vacant. She couldn’t help but ask herself why her grandmother had chosen to frequent a questionable place like this, when she had Stanford Hospital – one of the best equipped hospitals in the world - so close to her apartment. The thought lingered inside her mind and made her a bit uneasy. Most assuredly, money was not an issue. Carol Hopkins had befriended Doctor Evans. Vivien knew that such a situation usually worked in the detriment of the patient. Any possible mistake in treatment is overlooked, erased by the total trust. A trust that, too many times, is unjustified.  

    She took the keys out of the ignit
ion and was getting ready to climb out of the car, when she heard her cellular phone ringing. She grabbed her purse from the back seat and started rummaging through it. She found the phone and noticed that she had a message to check. Vivien postponed that. She assumed the message was from her mother. Mrs. Alison Hopkins had been in the middle of her yoga class when Vivien had called earlier to answer her last three messages, and she had promised her daughter that she would call her back.
Now she will have to wait until I get grandmother’s thing from the doctor’s office. After that, we will have more issues to discuss,
Vivien thought.
 

    Now, as she
recognized the caller’s number as officer Alberman’s, Vivien answered unenthusiastically. On the other side of the line though, the cop seemed in a particularly accentuated state of tension. His words completed intelligible sentences with a certain amount of difficulty and were accompanied by stressful sighing and panting.

    “Miss Hopkins, firstly…
I would like to apologize. I did something… not very honorable. It was rather terrible what I did. Last time I was in your house, I took a certain plastic bag from your kitchen counter without asking your permission. It had Detective Leonard’s card clipped on it. Inside the bag, there was a hair sample from your boyfriend, Mr. Leigh. I gave it to the lab for a DNA test.”

    “You did what?” Vivien
interrupted him in a revolting tone. “Are you out of your mind? How could you do that? Do you actually comprehend the gravity of what you’ve done? It could ruin my life, Mr. Alberman. If Tee learns about it, he might think that I gave it to you, that I didn’t trust him! Do you realize the monstrosity of your action? I can sue you and your entire department…”   

    “Miss Hopkins
,” the baritone voice of detective Leonard cut in. “You have no reason to become alarmed. Your boyfriend will never find out about that if you don’t want him to. Now, there is something more important than that - vital I should say! In the bag, there was another hair different from Timothy’s. The DNA test proved that the white little hair belonged to Arlene’s killer. Now, I want you to tell me where you got that plastic bag. And who touched it beside you or Timothy. It should be a person with whom you came in contact, a person who knows you. I don’t want to scare you, but you have to know that you are in danger. So, take a deep breath, calm down, and try to remember.”

    Vivien’s memory worked fast. She recalled the history of that plastic bag instantly.

    “I got that bag at Igor Schenk’s painting studio. His associate, Miss Clair, put some Avon samples in it for me.”

    “Thank you, Miss Hopkins,” detective Leonard said quickly. “Now, try to stay away from that place and people related to it. If I were you, I wouldn’t leave the house for a while. Is Timothy with you?”

    “No, but I’m heading to his office. I’ll be there in less than a half-hour.” 

    The detective hung up, and Vivien remained with an alarming feeling in her heart.
If, by any unfortunate chance, I have an accident or something happens to me, Tee will think that I gave them the bag with his hair in it
, she thought distressed. She wanted to call him and give him the whole story, but she changed her mind.
I have to look him in the eye and tell him that I didn’t do it.
She took her purse and got out of her vehicle. An invisible force seemed to pull her back inside the safety of her car. For a couple of seconds, she considered giving up the small task and going straight to Timothy’s firm.
Holly crickets! I’m right here, and I will not allow this stupid fear to rearrange my life
, she told herself.
Actually,
I will not spend more than a couple of minutes here
.  

   
Bouncy and full of energy, she walked briskly toward Doctor Evans’ medical office.

    The entrance doorbell rang joyfully as Vivien stepped inside the small waiting r
oom. It was empty at the moment. Magazines and newspapers lay negligently on the black and white tapestry chairs aligned by the walls. A young blonde woman in blue overalls materialized at the reception window.  

    “Miss Hopkins?” she asked with a broad smile.

    “Yes. Good morning.”

    “Doctor Evans is waiting for you in his office.”

    The assistant
nurse guided her on a narrow corridor with closed doors on both sides. At the last door on the left side, the woman knocked softly and invited her to enter. Vivien took a few small steps inside. The nurse vanished. A man between fifty-five and sixty years old stepped out from behind a dark blue fabric screen. He appeared rather short and had thick, white hair and bushy eyebrows that strangely, were very black.

    “I’
m so glad you came, Miss Hopkins,” he welcomed her with a gallant tone and reached out to shake her hand.

   
As his cold and damp hand touched her fingers, Vivien felt arctic gusts assailing her body. The minimal physical contact was enough for her mind to start rewinding with great speed their first encounter in Igor’s painting studio. She remembered him opening the brand new plastic bag and stuffing Clair’s Avon samples in it.

    Vivien’s
natural defensive mechanism kicked in instantly.

    “Would you excuse me for a minute? I forg
ot something in the car,” she said hastily and turned around to leave. She pushed the door handle, but discovered it was blocked. She tried to keep her cool.

    “The door,” she said. “It’s locked.”

    “I know,” the doctor answered calmly.
“You will not leave this room… so soon, Miss Hopkins. And certainly not so… vivacious,” he added, taking a few sips from his coffee cup using a white straw.

   
He unsuccessfully pretended to have had misinterpreted the young woman’s surprised look.  

    “
Why do I use the straw? It is an excellent artifice to avoid the staining of your teeth with coffee,” he rushed to explain his unusual habit, spinning the straw around his middle finger with incredible dexterity. 

    Vivien felt her knees goi
ng weak. Her heart was pumping fast inside her chest. She imagined that she might faint any moment, but she couldn’t afford that luxury if she valued her life. She struggled to summon up her spirits.
Clair will remember him. The police will get here shortly. I need to buy time.

    “Don’t you want to see what your grandmother forgot here?” he asked with a diabolical grin.

    The doctor bent slightly and extracted a yellow scarf from a drawer.

    “Soon you’ll be wearing it. You’ll look gorgeous in it, my dear.”