She nodded about the coffee being novel. I could tell she also knew I was right about what would happen with the custody eval. The question was merely one of following form. For Diane, that meant protesting.
“Why are you so sure? And what do you mean I don’t like being out of the loop?”
“Being right isn’t good enough for you, you know that. You always want to be sure that you can influence the universe whenever and however you see fit. You should find a red cape to wear to work.”
“I have a red cape. It’s cute.”
“There you go, then.”
She adopted a civilized tone and asked, “How’s your patient?”
“Same, thanks for asking. You know anything you can tell me about Edward Robilio? Other than the basics, I mean. I’m still trying to figure out how this whole crazy situation came down the way it did.”
“What happened to ‘Dead Ed’? Raoul thought it was a hilarious nickname, by the way. Said it fit dear Dr. Robilio in real life, too.”
“What did he mean by that?”
“Raoul met him a few times on the hundred-dollar-a-plate muckety-muck circuit. Says he was a total boor. Tedious, always talking about his money, or his toys, or both. Big toys. He had an airplane, some big ski boat, and condos here and there and a-”
“Big freaking RV.”
She laughed. “Yeah, that too. How did you know about the RV?”
“Mitchell Crest lives in the low-rent end of the same neighborhood where Dead Ed lived. Mitch said the RV is like the size of a nuclear submarine or something. Caused a neighborhood uproar when Ed tried to park it semipermanently in the driveway. Apparently it’s bad form in Boulder’s new suburbs.”
“Raoul said that Dead Ed loved the thing, had pictures of it in his wallet. Had a name for it, too, oh, oh, I can’t remember. You have any idea what it cost?”
“No. No clue.”
She paused for effect. “After he gilded it, three-ninety. That’s what he told Raoul over cocktails. Raoul says Ed lowered his voice reverentially when he said the number.”
“No way. Three hundred and ninety thousand dollars? For a Winnebago? That’s more than my house. That’s more than two of my houses.”
“You don’t have two houses; the other one belongs to Lauren. And your one house is not exactly a yardstick by which wealth is measured.”
“True, but-”
“Apparently the thing has a marble bathroom and cherry cabinetry and leather everywhere and a surround-sound home theatre and gold-plated this and that. If you can believe it, it even has a satellite dish on the roof that automatically rotates to find its signal.”
I thought about an RV like that and wondered aloud, “What do you do with one, Diane? I mean, sure, you can drive it around to pretty places, but at the end of the day, you have to plug it in somewhere, right? For water and power and sewer, correct? Which means, half a million or no half a million, you end up spending the night in a trailer park. Am I right?”
“Raoul would probably tell you that spending the night in a trailer park would make Dead Ed feel right at home. And that it’s right where he belonged.”
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“No. He wasn’t popular, even among his peers. He apparently wasn’t much of a physician when he was practicing-I think he was a dermatologist-and he didn’t do much to endear himself to others in the health care industry after he founded MedExcel. Pissed off a lot of other doctors and the other insurers. He sounds ruthless, in a business sense.”
“You have him diagnosed?” I knew she had. For Diane it was a hobby, like presumptive astrological forecasting for a hairdresser. The fact that she had never met Dr. Robilio wouldn’t impede her musings for even a moment.
“Narcissistic personality with borderline features.”
Tough assessment. You don’t go through life with those diagnostic characteristics without pissing people off. Plenty. “So he had enemies?”
“Going fishing for alternative suspects, Alan? Well, not to worry, the pond is probably well stocked. Half the doctors in Colorado wanted him dead. The trouble is that none of the other fish swimming around have Dead Ed’s bloody clothes stashed under their bed.”
She had Merritt’s dilemma a little wrong, but still I was impressed. “How do you know about the clothes? It hasn’t been in the news.”
“I have my ways.” She pointed at the little light on my wall indicating my next patient had arrived. “Time to get back to work, Doctor.”
I surfaced again at eleven-thirty. I was hungry, was concerned about Madison, and was continuing to feel some nagging curiosity as to why the DA’s office was procrastinating about arresting Merritt.
Madison’s mother wasn’t at home and I had been stupid in not getting her work number, or even asking at which of Boulder’s many libraries she worked, so I couldn’t reach her. I paged Sam and waited ten minutes for him to call back. He didn’t, which I found interesting. Finally I called the adolescent psychiatric unit at The Children’s Hospital to get an update on Merritt’s condition.
The mental health aide said Merritt was the same. And he said “Cool” when I told him I’d be in to see her close to six o’clock, depending on traffic.
I walked over to the Mall to grab some lunch.
My pager went off as I was walking back in my office door after a clear-my-head stroll to the east end of the Mall. Sam Purdy had left a voice mail message.
“Brad, the boy you told me about, didn’t return to his frat last night. By the way, he’s a Phi Delta Theta. That’s what those little symbols stand for. Hasn’t been to class this morning; his roommate doesn’t have any idea where he is. Lucy ran him for me. He has a juvenile prior for car theft. Just one. I’m checking on reports of missing vehicles from last night to see if I can link anything up to these two. My guess is that they’re joy-riding someplace, or that they ran. I’ll keep you posted.”
I arrived at McNichols Arena for the hockey game before Sam did. The evening was mild. While I waited for Sam to arrive, I stood at the top of the east stairs and turned down five offers to sell my ticket.
Sam was running late because he had stopped for dinner, which he was carrying in a brown McDonald’s bag that he knew the ushers would absolutely not permit him to carry into the arena. While he ate, we stood at the railing at the top of the stairs, enjoying the lights of the Denver skyline.
His meal was one of those super-size things that come with a drink large enough to convert the emptied cup into a children’s wading pool. He pulled out two fish sandwiches and then he rummaged around in the bottom of the bag as though he were trying to find the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. He said, “Yep, there it is.”
“There what is, Sam?” I was looking around; I didn’t see anything worthy of my attention.
“A french fry. When you get fast food there’s always a french fry in the bottom of the bag. You ever noticed that? It’s reassuring to me; it’s kind of the way I look at hard times.”
I smiled and glanced at him. “That’s like what, your philosophy of life? That’s how you keep going when things look this bleak? A french fry?”
Sam raised one eyebrow and held it there. I could only see the one eye, but I had to admit it looked pretty philosophical. “Given current events, it’s an optimistic point of view for me to have, don’t you think?”
I had to consider it. I said, “Yeah, I guess.” I was trying to find some common ground between Ronald McDonald and Heidegger.
“Anyway, that’s how I keep going some days. After everything seems to be settled, after you think you’re all done, that you’ve done all you can do, there’s always something more. There’s always that one last fry. You eat fast food, ever? Or do you still count fat grams?”
“I eat more fast food than I should, probably.”
“Good, I’m glad to hear it. It’s human of you. Then you know about the renegade fry phenomenon. The one in the bottom of the bag? The damn thing is almost always cold, and sometimes it’s ugly-you know, kinda pointy and brown and dry, like this one.” He held up the current suspect for my examination. “But after I finish my burgers and my pie and everything, I always look in the bottom of the bag. There’s always a french fry there, and-I don’t know about you-I’m always kind of glad there’s a french fry there. This time, too. It was right down there where it’s supposed to be.”