Guilt

No sooner had he opened the door when Thieu enthused: 'Dr Peter Harris. I realized going over to his place that I couldn't ask – he wouldn't know -about any missing surgical gloves, they're not any kind of a controlled item. But the blood, he's sure of. He even thinks he knows precisely whose blood it was, though we'll never be able to prove it.'

'And why is that, Paul?'

'Because the man is dead and cremated. He's gone.'

It had been Glitsky's idea to question Dooher's physician to see whether any vials of blood had gone missing in the past month or so. He reasoned that Dooher had to have gotten it somewhere, and his own doctor's office seemed the most likely spot. So he'd told Thieu that the place to start would be Sheila's female doctor, whom they already knew. It might not be much of a stretch to suppose that the family physician – Mark's doctor – would be somewhere on Sheila's documentation or records.

'Did you have to mention Dooher?' The police were keeping the EDTA angle out of the news for the time being, so it would be better if no names were used.

Thieu's face, already animated, lit up ever further. 'No. He didn't even ask. I showed him my ID and told him we were talking to a lot of doctors, doing a kind of informal survey on how often blood got lost from their offices or labs.'

'You made this up?'

'Yeah. I told him that with our new DNA tracking and all, we were seeing more and more criminals contaminating crime scenes with – we thought -stolen blood, to throw us off. So we were trying to track the sources of it.'

'And he bought this?'

Thieu broke a grin. 'I have an honest face. Anyway, he said it almost never happens, especially since AIDS. Blood is a high-security item. But it turns out his lab did lose this one vial last month. The doc was really upset because the patient was an old guy with bad veins who pitched a fit over having his blood taken at all, and then they had to do it again.'

'And he is Mark's doctor, Harris?'

'I couldn't help but notice Dooher's name in the Rolodex on his receptionist's desk. So unless it's a coincidence…'

Glitsky still hadn't closed the door or invited Thieu in, but neither of them seemed to notice. 'Okay, let's get a subpoena tomorrow for Harris's records and find out the last time Dooher saw him.'

'Do we need to do that? If we're letting the cat out of the bag about the EDTA, why don't I just call him back and ask him? If you want to invite me in?'

In ten minutes they knew. Dooher had gone for his yearly physical a couple of weeks ago. Dr Harris would doublecheck on the exact date in the morning, and also when the blood was reported missing. But he thought the two dates were in the same general time span.

Wes Farrell delivered Dooher's in-box and his friend asked if he'd like to come in and talk about things. Now, in the turreted library, Wes crossed one leg over the other, sinking back into the soft leather. 'I've got to ask you, Mark. I've been wrestling with it all day. Sam and I broke up over it, and I'd kind of like that to have not been for nothing.'

'You two broke up over whether or not I slept with somebody in college?'

'Not slept with, Mark. Raped.'

'I don't believe this.' He began pacing, fingers to his temples. 'What's next? Where are they digging this up? What did Sam say the woman's name was?'

'Price, I think.'

He stopped pacing and took a breath. 'I have never heard of anybody named Price. I never dated anybody named Price. I swear on Sheila's grave. And PS, old buddy, I've never raped anybody either. It's not my style. Jesus Christ. Sam believes I did this? Where did this Price woman come from?'

'I don't know. She walked into the Center and said you'd raped her.'

'When, exactly, did I rape her?'

'In college sometime. You were out drinking and she brought you back to her room -I don't know.'

Suddenly Dooher snapped his fingers. 'Diane? Lord, Diane Taylor. Of course, of course.'

'You do know her?'

'No, I'm not sure.' An ottoman was handy and Dooher sat heavily on it. 'I don't know any Diane Price, Wes, but I did go out a couple of times with a Diane Taylor. If it's Diane Taylor… let's hope it's not Diane Taylor.'

'Why not?'

'Because Diane Taylor is an unbalanced person, Wes. She's done every drug in America twenty times over. She slept with every single other guy I knew at Stanford.'

'Including you?'

'Including me, before I even met Sheila. And with her full consent, I assure you.' He moved the ottoman forward, lowered his voice. 'Wes, you know more than anybody. The couple of times I screwed up on Sheila, didn't I come crying to you? But this wasn't a screw up. This – if it was Diane Taylor – was getting laid a couple of times before I developed any taste in women. Jesus, she's now saying I raped her!

'Evidently. And ruined her life in the bargain.'

Dooher hung his head and shook it. Raising his eyes, he met his friend's gaze. 'It's just a black lie, Wes. I don't know what I can tell you. I didn't do anything like that. I wouldn't.'

'I know,' Farrell said. 'I didn't think so, but I had to ask, all right?'

A long, frustrated sigh. 'Okay. But this gets old, especially at this particular juncture in my life, you know what I'm saying? I'm not having my best week.'

'No. I'd imagine not. Me, neither, actually.'

Dooher's voice softened. 'I'm sorry about your girlfriend. I feel if it hadn't been for me…'

'No, it's not you, Mark. It was her. It was me.'

'So go back and tell her you're sorry. Leave me out of it. I can get another lawyer whose life I won't ruin.'

'You're not ruining my life, and I am your lawyer.'

'Just so you're sure.'

'I'm sure. I'm sure you didn't do any of this.'

'That's good to hear, because I didn't.'

'Well, then, here's to the old-fashioned idea of friends standing by each other. And to hell with the rest of 'em.'

'Amen to that,' Dooher said, 'and thank you.'

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

The conference room at McCabe & Roth had seen more somber moments, but not since the downsizing layoffs. And this may have been worse than any of those.

It was five o'clock on this Monday evening, one day shy of two weeks from the day of Sheila's death. Mark Dooher waited until the room was full before having Janey page him and tell him it was time.

Dooher lingered one last moment outside the room, aware of the muted tones within These people were worried. He had returned to work the previous Wednesday, enduring the sympathy of his partners and staff, taking individual meetings with key people for the rest of the week, reassuring one and all that life would go on, he was fine, the firm's client base was solid.

And then Sunday's Chronicle broke the story with the front-page headline – Local Lawyer Suspected in Wife's Murder.

'Sources at the Hall of Justice have confirmed that the Grand Jury is considering an indictment on a prominent San Francisco attorney, Mark Dooher, for the murder of his wife, Sheila.' The long article went on to include all the other details that the unnamed 'sources' provided – the other allegations, from the rape of Diane Price to the murders of Victor Trang ten weeks earlier and Andre Nguyen in Vietnam.

Dooher and Farrell had spent all of the morning denying everything. They had held a press conference in Wes's office. Yes, they were planning on suing the Chronicle and the police department. No, he had never raped anybody. He'd never killed anyone in Vietnam or anywhere else. This was a carefully orchestrated character assassination… political overtones… despondent, desperate Police Inspector… blah blah blah.