Murphy swung the car into her driveway and parked. "Enough is enough for one day, Leary. Even I can take only so much of this at once. I figure you're about to implode."
She was picking at the stitching on her purse until the whole thing threatened to come apart. "I'm nothing of the sort, Murphy. I'm just keyed up and sore."
"You've spent four hours wallowing around in what's going to happen to your father. Go play with your kid. Play baseball if you have to. Remind yourself there's something else."
"Is this part of your recovery?" she demanded. "Counseling the huddled masses?"
"I'm not going to do any investigation when I get back to the paper," he informed her. "I'm going to check over the article I wrote about your father. It's coming out tomorrow."
Even her restless fingers stopped. "Great. A brand-new round of 'Innisfree' and 'Foggy Dew.' I may shoot myself."
"I'll save you a copy for later when you feel more like reading it."
The inside of that car was getting mighty close. "I'm a big girl, Murphy. You don't have to protect me from that old man."
Over on the side of Leary's yard an oak tree was losing its leaves. Murphy watched them drop, one by one, onto the unraked lawn.
"I was a great drunk, Leary," he said. "Entertaining as hell, everybody's friend. Won two Pulitzers and broke in some of the finest newsmen in the business when I was so fried I couldn't remember to unzip before I took a piss." He sucked in a breath to deliver the judgment it had taken him four treatment centers to make. "I also drove my first two wives to nervous breakdowns. Which means, I guess, that I'm familiar with the territory."
There was a tiny pause. And then a sore laugh. "All the gin joints in all the world." She sighed. "Leave it alone, Murphy. Leave me alone."
"And sex is..."
She sighed again. "I'll let you know." And got out of the car.
And Murphy, who hadn't had to recheck an article since he'd been twenty, went home for a while to hide.
Chapter 18
Conrad had been waiting on Timmie's answering machine when she got home. So had Cindy, the insurance company, and the lawyer, who had called to tell Timmie that Jason's latest salvo had been successfully blocked. After the day she'd had, Timmie decided that the only person she wanted to talk to was Conrad.
"Bella donna!" he crowed in her ear as she sat half sprawled on her couch with the phone cord stretched all the way from the dining room. "You found me at last."
"Quite a way of putting it," Timmie had to agree. Having tossed the good clothes she'd donned for the interviews the minute she'd hit the door, she now reclined in T-shirt and jeans. She ached like a sore tooth, her scalp itched, and she was tired and as crabby as hell after spending the day talking to those relatives. "Conrad, this is important. Where's the printout I gave you?"
"Right here, of course. I've been poring over it like the Dead Sea Scrolls, seeking truth and inspiration."
"Seek this. Somebody ran me off the road on the way home from our little visit to get hold of that list. Any ideas why?"
For the first time since Timmie had known him, Conrad was struck dumb with surprise. "Are you all right?" he asked in a hushed tone Timmie almost didn't recognize.
Timmie damn near teared up. "I'm fine. I'm mad as hell and out for revenge, though. Wanna come along?"
"More than I want to see Domingo sing at La Scala. Tell me what you need."
That made her sigh and rub her face. "I don't know. I thought they were after the original M and M list because they meant to change the one in the computer, but the computer version is still identical. Evidently we're the only ones who've figured out how suspicious those cardiac arrests are."
"Then what?"
"Take another look through it. Is there anything else that speaks to you?"
She closed her eyes to the sound of rustling paper and thought about taking a hot bath before Micklind got there. She thought of the visit she should make out to her father that afternoon and the inevitable arrival of Cindy to remind her of just why she hadn't visited her sisters since she'd been back. She thought of her daughter, who would be walking home from school with a bodyguard.
Well, that was so much fun that she went back to considering the interviews. The not-so-surprised reactions of the relatives. The unspoken pleas to just let it all go. The ambivalence that still lay on the back of her tongue like old ashes, and the fact that if she didn't come up with something soon, she was going to have to endure another shift at Restcrest.
"There's nothing," Conrad finally said. "Only this last thing you copied along with the list."
"What last thing?"
"The notice about policy changes."
Timmie's eyes flew open. Her heart thudded with surprise. "Oh, my God."
Landry.
The gag order he'd sent Angie about that questionable policy change nobody would like. In all the hoopla over the M and M list, Timmie had forgotten. Was it enough to inspire that bit of nonsense that had landed her in Farmer Johnson's pasture?
Who knew?
On the other hand, was Landry powerful enough to find out Timmie had gotten hold of that notice and then coerce a security officer at work into chasing her down for it?
Of course he was.
The question was, what was he so afraid of ? And who knew about the policy he was protecting?
"I take it this means something," Conrad said.
"Oh, I think it does," Timmie assured him. "How fast can I get that from you?"
"Let me keep it for now, cava. I think maybe it's safer here."
Timmie took a deep breath to slow the spin of her thoughts, which skipped from Mary Jane, who hadn't known about Timmie's accident, to Alex, who was at the mercy of an administrator who thought nothing of using covert ops for problem solving, to Mr. Cleveland, who had assumed that a man had offered to grant his most terrible wish.
"Okay," she finally said. "Send me a copy so I remember specifics. Did you find out anything else?"
"Yes and no. I checked through my friends at the FBI for a pattern of hospital deaths elsewhere in the country that might match yours, and found quite a few. Hospitals just aren't safe places to be, carissima, you know?"
"And we're not even talking managed care."
Conrad's laugh was dark. "Ah, yes, well. That would take years to unravel. This is, blessedly, easier. About a dozen different series of suspicious patient deaths under investigation, some with suspects at large, some with suspected suspects, some with no inkling about who could be involved. Most, though, involve intensive care settings."
"Superman syndrome," Timmie agreed.
Not a terribly new phenomenon. Timmie had known a practitioner, a young guy at USC who had been caught pushing tubocurarine into an indigent patient's line so he could be the first one to the rescue when the patient had the inevitable respiratory arrest. Kind of like a fireman setting his own fires. The difference here was that these weren't the kind of patients anybody rushed to save.
"The open cases are pretty much all over the country," Conrad continued, obviously reading from notes. "Hospitals from Joliet to St. Petersburg to Boulder. I'll send you a copy of the list along with that note. Guard it carefully, and don't show it around, bella. Because he is a good man and wants to help, my friend even included the suspects' names, which are not for public consumption. The real news, though, is that your doctor has never worked in a hospital at a time that corresponds with any of these cases."