Doc in the Box (22 page)

Cal definitely sounded like a killer candidate.

“You’re right, I must be thinking of some other guy,” I said. “Don’t bother Cal. He’s got enough to worry about.”

I got out of there before Ron had time to think about these goofy questions. I now had three men who sounded like good Doc in the Box material: all desperate, distraught, or bitter. All had guns, plenty of motive and nobody really knew where they were. Maybe if I talked with Katie again we could narrow them down to one or two likely suspects.

I found a pay phone at a gas station in a safer neighborhood and stood in the rain, dropping change in the phone and swearing I was going to get a cell phone. I did that a lot on rainy days. But I hated the idea that the
Gazette
could reach me in my car.

I called the office first to see if Bill and Irene’s pictures had arrived. Scarlette the department secretary actually answered the phone for a change. “You better get in here, Francesca,” she said, delighted to be the bearer of bad news. “Wendy’s looking for you. You’re in big trouble. That kid you wrote about today is a gang member!”

“What!
You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. I got the call first. Some lady saw the picture and said he was in a gang.”

“How does she know?”

“I’m not sure. But she was positive. She demanded to talk to the editor, so I transferred her to Wendy. Now the whole place is in an uproar. You better get right in here.”

Gang member? Jamal? I couldn’t believe it. I called Marlene at Uncle Bob’s.

“That can’t be,” she said. “They have the wrong person. Jamal’s been working here since his sophomore year. He’s a good kid.”

“This woman called the paper and insisted.”

“She’s wrong. When is Jamal going to have time for a gang, between school, his job, and baseball? Gang members don’t work in a hot kitchen for minimum wage. The kid’s an A student. I’m positive he never had anything to do with gangs.”

I hung up the phone and headed for my car. This was trouble. Wendy was terrified of any controversy, and would sell me out in a minute. Worse, she’d destroy Jamal while she was at it. A little bit of the wrong kind of publicity, and a promising kid could wind up washing dishes for the rest of his life. I stepped on the gas, dodged two more accidents, took
side streets and back alleys, and got to the
Gazette
in record time.

All the spots were taken at the closest
Gazette
lot, so I parked the car in the far lot and trudged two blocks to the office. I stood on the street corner in the pouring rain, waiting for the light to change, worried sick and soaked to the skin. A truck went around the corner, rolled through a dirty puddle the size of a small pond, and splashed me with oily water. My misery was complete.

At least until I got inside. I stopped in the john and tried to scrub some of the oil and mud off my legs. My hair was frizzed, my suit was soaked. So much for dress for success. My shoes squished water when I walked. I squished to the Family department. Wendy was waiting for me. She looked worse than I did, but drier. Her suit today appeared to be cut from old T-shirt material, bunched and wadded at her thick waist. She had a run in her pantyhose and a chip on her shoulder.

“Francesca,” she whined, “you’ve caused nothing but trouble again. Charlie wants to see you in his office immediately.”

She waddled importantly through the newsroom. I trailed behind her, leaving wet footprints.

Charlie looked like a weasel in a striped suit. His eyes were redder than usual, giving him a feral expression. He said nothing for two full minutes, hoping to get me to talk first. When I didn’t, he handed me a copy of today’s feature section and said, “We’ve had complaints about your story, Francesca. You haven’t done your homework. You’ve written a piece glorifying a gang member.”

“Jamal is not a gang member,” I said.

“He is. Mrs. Glorietta Altec called this morning and told us. She also told all her friends and neighbors. The phone has been ringing all morning with readers complaining about that photo. How many calls have you received, Wendy?”

“Thirty-two,” she said, with satisfaction. She knew each one was a nail in my coffin. For good measure, she added, “They were very upset.”

“Does Mrs. Altec know Jamal?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Charlie said, sounding shocked. “She’s an account executive who lives in Webster Groves.”

I groaned. The only gangs Mrs. Altec was likely to encounter were
Brady Bunch
reruns.

“Then how does this woman in Webster Groves know that a city kid is a gang member?”

“She looked at his hands,” Charlie said.

“His hands?” Was there a ring or a tattoo or something? What was I missing? I looked at the photo, but only saw a bunch of teenage boys horsing around for the camera. It was a cute picture.

“He’s making secret gang signals with his hands,” Wendy said.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “He’s a kid goofing off with his friends.”

“He is not,” she said. “He’s signaling the other gang members. He’s using the
Gazette
to conduct gang business.”

“How the hell would a woman in Webster Groves know about secret gang signals?” I said.

“She recognized them from the police department booklet, ‘Sixteen Signs of Gang Activity,’ ” Charlie said. “Also her husband Brandon volunteers for a program that teaches life skills to inner city youth.”

“And that makes him a gang expert?” I said.

“He is knowledgeable about those things,” Charlie said seriously. “It is imperative that we apologize to our readers as soon as possible. We should also do a follow-up article on how to spot gang signals.”

I could feel the fury rising in me. “And brand an innocent kid a gang member. Jamal is an A student. He has a steady job. If he could make five hundred dollars a week selling crack, why is he working for minimum wage washing dishes in a hot kitchen?”

“He’s fooled you,” Wendy said. “He’s a gangbanger in disguise.”

“The kid must be a master of disguise,” I said. “I’d never guess he was in a gang. His cover is perfect. Jamal is the only gang member in town with dishpan hands.”

“He doesn’t even have a Christian name,” Wendy burst out.

I began to have some idea what was wrong. “Let me see that picture again,” I said. I studied it for a moment.

“I know what’s wrong,” I said. “Jamal and all his friends are black. If those were a bunch of white kids horsing around in a photo, no one would look twice at their hands. But because they are black kids, they must be gang members. Instead of telling Mrs. Altec that Jamal is a model student, you agreed with her, and now you’re prepared to ruin that young man’s reputation. I hope you do print a story saying that Jamal is a gang member. Then the kid can sue you for damaging his good name. I can just imagine how a city jury will see this photo.”

The jury was likely to be mostly black, and they’d had a lifetime of Mrs. Altecs. They’d award him heavy
damages at the
Gazette
’s expense. Jamal would never wash another dish.

Charlie looked like a trapped weasel now. His little red eyes shifted back and forth between me and Wendy. I checked the Bald-O-Meter on top of his head. It was hot pink. He was angry, but this time he couldn’t take it out on me, and he knew it.

“Go back to your desk, Francesca,” Charlie said, trying to recover his dignity. “Wendy and I would like to discuss this further.”

I knew the subject would be quickly dropped. I’d said the magic word: lawsuit. The
Gazette
was terrified of a jury of its peers. It would be composed of readers the staff had ignored, insulted, and transferred into phone hell.

As I left, I noticed I’d left a little puddle where my skirt dripped on Charlie’s carpet. My shoes still squished out wet footprints. I’d dry out eventually. Charlie and Wendy would always be all wet.

Eleven forty-three.

I wondered if another doctor was dead.

Seventeen more minutes and I’d know for sure.

The Doc in the Box killer liked to murder at noontime. Tachman was the earliest. He died around eleven-fifty. Brentmoor was the latest. He was shot at twelve-fifteen. That meant today’s doctor had maybe half an hour at most. Then he would die.

Eleven forty-seven.

Maybe more than one doctor would die. The killer wiped out the whole radiation oncology department.

Eleven forty-nine.

He’d killed three people the first time. The whole staff was there but the waiting room was empty. Almost empty. For some reason, he overlooked Georgia. Maybe my theory was right—he was killing out of revenge. He had no quarrel with her, and she never saw him, so he let her live. Now he only killed doctors, one at a time. Time.

Eleven fifty-two.

I watched the red second hand make another
sweep around the newsroom clock. The black minute hand moved forward one more notch.

Eleven fifty-three.

It reminded me of the lecture we got in second grade from Sister Mary Delphina. She had our class watch the minute hand make a full sixty-second sweep, then said, “You are now one minute closer to your death.” She touched off an epidemic of nightmares and bed-wetting with that one sentence. I never looked at a clock face the same way again.

Eleven fifty-nine.

Did the murdered doctors know why they died? Did they recognize their killer? In the last moment of their lives, did they know their carelessness and greed had condemned someone to a slow, painful death? Did they feel a twinge of remorse in their final terror? Or did they die knowing they were innocent—and their killer was wrong?

I wondered which fate was worse.

Twelve-oh-four.

The doctor would be dead by now. Maybe. In a few more minutes, we’d hear the activity on the newsroom scanner, the urgent calls for ambulances, the coded phrases that said this was a major emergency.

Twelve-thirteen.

Two more minutes. That was the outer limit of his killing time. Killing time. That’s what I was doing. I was killing time. He was killing doctors.

Twelve-fifteen. It was over. I’d know soon if another doctor was dead. Were other doctors in the city looking at their clocks like I was? Avoiding their offices until after the noon hour? I doubted it. There were the usual outcries about the killings, demands for more police protection and security, talk about
gun control. But so far as I could tell hanging around the hospital, the doctors seemed to think these shootings happened to other people. No one would kill them. They were safe in their invincible arrogance.

At twelve-thirty I began to relax. At one o’clock, I felt much better. I was fairly sure no doctors had died today. By one-thirty in the afternoon, I knew the city’s doctors were safe for another day. I would have heard about any murder by now at the
Gazette
. There were no reports of shootings. I checked with the newsroom clerk monitoring the scanners once more to make sure. Nothing. I had at least twenty-four hours before the Doc in the Box killer murdered again. I had a chance to save the next victim. Under that noble monument of a phrase crawled the greedy worm of ambition. Save the victim—who was I kidding? I was doing this for myself. I wanted to win a major prize. I wanted better assignments, and if I bought them at the risk of a human life, so be it.

Katie thought the killer would go after surgeons next. Bill the bus mechanic and Cal’s dying wife both had the same surgeon, Dr. Boltz. Harry’s son had been operated on by a different surgeon, Dr. Harpar. Three patients, two doctors.

I figured the best thing for me to do was hang around the most likely doctor’s waiting room and try to spot the killer. If I saw him, there would be plenty of security in the doctors’ building. Many doctors’ offices, especially if the physicians had privileges at Moorton, had beefed up their security. I’d simply inform an armed guard, who’d have the guy quietly removed. I’d let the pros with the guns handle the tough
stuff. I wasn’t about to tackle a gun-toting killer when all I had was pepper spray.

But I couldn’t be in both places at once tomorrow. Which doctor would he kill? I felt like I was playing a bizarre game of Russian roulette. Maybe Cutup Katie could help me choose the best one. I called her at the morgue.

“Had lunch yet?” I said.

“Haven’t had a chance to get away. I’ve got work piled everywhere.” I hoped she was talking about paperwork. “We’ll have to make it quick, though. I have to get back. Unless you want to eat here.” I could almost hear her grin. Katie knew I dreaded the morgue, and did everything to avoid it.

“How about if I take you to lunch on my magnificent
Gazette
expense account?” I said.

“A lunch those cheapskates will pay for? Where are we going? McDonald’s?”

“I was thinking of some place right on the Mississippi River. Unpretentious, but with a spectacular view.”

“Sounds good to me,” Katie said.

“Fine. I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

She was waiting outside the building, a thin, wiry figure in a tailored navy suit. The rain had stopped, but the saunalike atmosphere and roiling gray clouds promised more later. Even the normally chipper Katie looked a little frizzed and soggy from the recent downpours. She climbed quickly into my car and said, “Where are you taking me?”