Do No Harm (46 page)

Five heads snapped to attention. Then, the Scientific Investigation Division went back to work, dusting and marking. One held a jar of urine to the light; another flipped the pages of the DSM-IV with gloved hands.

Dalton shuffled over from his position at the window, stepping between Yale and Jenkins, resting his hand lightly on Jenkins's stomach and walking him a few steps back.

"You listen," Yale said. "I'm keeping you in the loop on this as a favor. Calm the hell down or you're gonna blow leads. Is that what you want?" He took a step forward, glaring at Jenkins over Dalton's shoulder. "Is that what you want?"

"No," Jenkins said.

"All right. Me neither. But save your bull-in-a-china-shop routine for speeders and jaywalkers. This is my case. And I'm gonna bust the POS, for your sake and your sister's, but don't you fuck it up by being such a hard-on, or I'll make a few calls and you'll be shoveling out stables for the mounted unit."

Jenkins's eyes narrowed. "Sorry," he managed.

"We missed him. Dr. Spier tracked him here and called in the address. We came over with SWAT to serve the warrant, but by the time we got here . . . " He gestured to the broken door. "No sign of Clyde C. Slade. We have units out around the area, but nothing yet."

One of the cops popped the locks on the footlocker and raised the lid, revealing a container of DrainEze nestled among syringes, Pyrex beakers, and other medical paraphernalia. When Jenkins caught sight of the alkali, his lips pressed together until the pink left them.

"Place is a fucking monkey house," Dalton grumbled. "Jars of scabs and shit. That reek we're all relishing--it's from a rotting cat in the kitchen."

A technician snapped a photo, and Jenkins tensed up at the flash.

"Don't worry," Yale said. "By the time we're through with this place, we'll know at what grocery store he buys his TV dinners."

A technician sifting through the contents of a vacuum-cleaner bag paused to sneeze. Yale grimaced at him. "Great. That's just great."

"So what's the call?" Jenkins said. "What now?"

Dalton flipped open his notepad. "DMV came back with expired registration to an old address. A '92 Crown Vic, bought at a sheriff's auction."

"Irony," Yale said. "Rich." Hands on his hips, he turned and gazed at the half-open window. A shard of glass had been carefully balanced on the sill.

"He had citations and parking violations up the yin-yang, but the car was never impounded. I assume he still has it, but we've found no sign of car keys." Dalton surveyed the wreck of the apartment. One of the technicians, on his hands and knees picking through dirty clothes, stopped to fan himself. "Though you could lose a refrigerator in this joint. But I think he bolted, took his car. We already called it in."

"The good doctor sticking his nose in again," Jenkins said. "Fucking things up."

"His ass is covered, though," Dalton said. He sighed, irritated. "It's within his rights to walk around, ask questions."

"Unless he broke in here," Jenkins said.

"He knows better," Dalton said.

Yale walked over and lifted the shard of glass from the windowsill. He slid the pane down, revealing the hole the displaced shard had left, just above the latch. "Does he?" he asked.

PETER was sitting at the edge of Diane's bed, his legs straight-braced out in front of him, when David entered the room. An ortho cane leaned against the base of the bed, but David knew better than to ask about vacillations in Peter's condition. Peter moved to rise. "Please," David said. "Sit."

"Nonsense," Peter said. He turned around, gripping the bar at the foot of the bed and backing himself slowly onto his feet, then he pivoted, faced David, and shook his hand gravely. "Good God, what happened to you?"

Diane craned to see around Peter. "Your lip, David. Did he attack you?"

David walked over to Diane, hesitated for a moment, then pushed back her bangs and kissed her on the forehead. She looked surprised by this show of tenderness. Peter did not.

"Don't get affectionate on me," Diane said. "I might not recognize you."

David turned to Peter. "I'm so glad you were in the ER when I called."

"Motorcycle versus streetlight," Peter said. "Crotch rockets indeed."

"What took you so long?" Diane asked.

"I've spent the last hour buttoning down the ER and dealing with security."

"Why?" Diane asked.

"I've just come from Clyde's apartment. I tracked him there and we had a confrontation. I escaped and gave Yale his address, but he probably fled before the cops got there. I thought he might come here."

"You went alone?" Peter sank slowly back onto the bed. "Are you mad?"

The question hung heavily in the silence. A loud rapping startled them, and David tensed as the door swung open. Yale, Dalton, and Jenkins entered the room, looking extremely displeased. Jenkins closed the door behind him firmly.

"What are you doing barging in here?" Peter said. "This is a patient's room." He struggled to stand, and Jenkins took note of his efforts with a calm disdain.

"We'd like to talk to you alone," Yale said to David. David noted genuine anger in his voice--it seemed more than a front for Jenkins's and Dalton's benefit.

David crossed his arms. "You can talk to me here. I don't mind if they're here."

"We do."

"Then you can talk to me in the presence of my attorney."

"Listen to me, you motherfucker," Jenkins growled. "How about we jack your ass on the burg you committed at Clyde's pad, stick you in the general population at County, and have a big bad jig try you on as a condom. How about that?"

Yale turned neatly on his soft leather shoes, facing Jenkins. "Out," he said softly. Jenkins did not move, and Yale walked over and opened the door. "Out," he said again.

With a glare at David, Jenkins straightened his shoulders and walked from the room. Yale closed the door and nodded at Diane. "I apologize for that."

"I should hope so," Diane said. "That's the first time I've ever been exposed to that kind of fucking language."

"I take it you didn't find him," David said.

"You stepped in it proper this time, Spier," Dalton said.

David studied Yale; he seemed to be struggling between the competing needs to vent his anger or arrive at a more constructive state of affairs. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you fucked up," Dalton said. "Our best bet for catching him would've been you finding the address, getting the fuck out of Dodge, and calling the police so we could sitting-duck his alkali-throwing ass."

"That's what I was planning to do," David said. "But I thought there was a woman trapped in there."

Yale looked puzzled. "Well, you thought wrong," he said. "And even if you were correct, you should have left her in there rather than risking your civilian rear end."

Dalton ticked off the counts on his fingers. "Obstruction of justice, interfering with a police officer, burglary, contaminating a crime scene."

"Contaminating a crime scene?" David said. "But how? I wore gloves."

"Gloves. Great." Dalton crossed his arms. "Did you breathe near anything? Pick your teeth? Lean against a wall? Scratch your head? Flush a toilet? Turn on a sink? You don't have the slightest idea of how to enter a crime scene. Gloves." He shook his head disdainfully. "You've been fucking up this investigation since day one."

"I've been trying to work with you from the beginning." David caught Yale's eye and Yale turned his head slightly left--barely a shake. David should make no reference to the fact that he and Yale had spoken off record in the past.

"That's not your fucking job, Doc," Dalton said. "And in fact, we might just clink your sorry ass to keep it out of our way."

"I think you have it wrong," David said. "I have more on this than you do."

Heads swiveling, Peter and Diane watched the exchange with surprised interest.

"Then you'd better fucking spill, because if one more woman gets--"

Yale held up his hands, arms spread. A humorously saintly pose. Everyone calmed and looked at him. "Listen," he said quietly to David. "If I arrest you, it'll be a big hassle and your lawyer will ride my ass for years. To be honest, I don't have the time right now--or the resources--to commit to that."

David resisted the urge to respond, sensing that Yale was working an angle of some sort.

Yale turned to Dalton. "He's involved whether we like it or not. We might as well use him. At least he's a resourceful pain in the ass."

Talking cop to cop as though David were not in the room.

"He'll talk," Dalton said. "He'll have to talk."

"But in the interest of time, I say we give the bastard an out on charges and get what he's giving immediately. If he wants to agree to it. If he doesn't, we'll go the arrest-lawyer route."

"I'll agree to it," David said, a bit too quickly. He hoped Dalton would perceive it as his being scared, rather than his implicitly picking up the line of Yale's agenda.

Dalton's soft, misshapen face seemed to shift as he assessed David.

"There's a lot I'd like to fill you in on," David said.

"Fine," Dalton finally said. "You're now our most overeducated informant. Spill."

"Let's talk about this privately," Yale said, indicating Diane and Peter.

"No," David said. "They can contribute."

Dalton pulled his notepad from his back pocket and flipped it open. "Let's take it from the top, Doc. And include that shit about the woman you thought you heard."

Yale held up a hand when David opened his mouth. "Details," he said.

David told Yale and Dalton the events of the past few days, fabricating only when necessary so he wouldn't have to mention Ed. David was grateful to them for not making light of the porn mix-up. For the most part, they listened attentively, Dalton shaking his head now and then. When he related his discovery of Connolly's study and his mother's cover-up, he noticed Peter's shocked expression. Diane blanched at his description of his confrontation with Clyde. When he finished, everyone appeared to be in a state of mild shock.

"What happened tonight when you got to his apartment?" David asked.

"He cleared out before we got there," Dalton said. "Took his car. Thanks to your intervention, he's now roving. We got a whole new world of variables."

"You wouldn't even know where he lived to begin with if it wasn't for me."

"SID lifted some vaginal secretion from his sheets, so we're questioning the female apartment residents and some hookers in the area to see if we can obtain more information about that," Yale said. He paused. "What's wrong?"

"I guess I'm just surprised he's had any sexual contact. He's a real loner."

Dalton studied David angrily. "You feel sorry for him, don't you?"

"I think he's pitiful."

Dalton gestured to Diane, keeping his eyes on David. "Pitiful. That's it, huh?"

Yale shot him a sideways look. Wrong approach. David wasn't the type to get worked up over having his manhood questioned, and he was impressed that Yale realized that. "I'm answering your question," David replied evenly, "not starting a playground fight."

"And this experiment shit. I bet you think that explains him."

"This man, as a child, was systematically exposed to snakes, darkness, and blinding lights, and denied attention, affection, and nurturing. That he lacks gentleness is not his most surprising quality. Nor that he's dysfunctional."

Dalton's cheeks colored with anger. "Dysfunctional," he repeated disdainfully. "Do you have any idea how elusive this man is? We see it all the time--a guy can't keep up his own hygiene, or interact with people, but when it comes to eluding capture or injuring others, he's a regular fucking Kaczynski. Never underestimate what obsession can accomplish. This guy's bent his entire life to one aim--harming women."

"More than one aim," David said. "He's also been trying to cure himself."

"This guy's a nutcase, and you're buying what he's selling. If you didn't have your Ivy League credentials, I'd say you weren't the sharpest stick on the heap."

David felt his anger flare, bright and sudden, fueled by exhaustion and stress. "This is not a thriller, or some movie of the week," he snapped. "We're not dealing with Hannibal Lecter, or Norman Bates. This is a man--a sick man, with predictable and definable psychopathology."

"Sick or not sick--it doesn't get him off the hook," Dalton said. "He knows what he's doing. We see fuckers like this all the time. Out of prison every time some dipshit liberal judge gets a tingle in her conscience, then another girl gets raped, another family killed. I don't give a shit if he had a tough childhood."

"Here's an idea," Diane said sharply. "Why don't you both stop beating your chests and do something productive?"

Peter rested a hand on Diane's shoulder, but she shook it off.

"Ms. Trace," Dalton said, with exaggerated patience.

"It's Doctor and don't condescend to me because my face is fucked up."