Bryce Lenihan, MD, it said. He was fat, bald with a little cherub Irish face. The shoulders of his dark suit coats were invariably snowy with dandruff and his teeth were invariably clogged with bits of his most recent meal. He had been medical examiner for twelve years, as long as Mayor O’Toole had been mayor. O’Toole was his uncle. You figure it out.
Favor decided now was the time to give Lenihan the Big Hint.
“You like my tie, Lenihan?”
“Your tie?”
“Yeah. This one.” He waggled the tie at him the way a big dog waggles his tongue at you.
“Yeah, I mean it’s nice and all.”
“Guy owed me fifty bucks for so long, I figured he’d forgotten about it. And when I open my mail box the other day, and there’s a nice new fifty in an envelope. Guy said he was just walking down the street and remembered it all of a sudden, after all these years. You ever do that, Lenihan, forget you owe somebody money I mean?”
“Not that I remember.”
As if on cue, so he wouldn’t have to pursue the subject any more, Lenihan’s phone rang and he got into this five-minute discussion about spots on a dead guy’s liver, and what the spots did or didn’t signify. Favor didn’t see how anybody could be a doctor.
After Lenihan hung up, he said, “I gotta go down to the morgue. That’s why I don’t think chicks should be doctors. Dizzy bitch can’t ever figure things out for herself, my assistant I mean. So what can I do for you, Favor, and make it fast.”
Favor knew he could forget all about his fifty bucks. Probably forever.
“I got three things I’m trying to put together here,” he said. “First I got a guy who had a heart attack with no history of heart attacks.”
“Which doesn’t mean diddly. Lots of guys with no history of heart trouble die from heart attacks.”
“Two, I’ve got a male nurse who may or may not be involved in this whole thing. And three—”
The phone rang again.
“Yeah?” Lenihan said, after snapping up the receiver. Then: “Then let him do his own fucking autopsy, he’s so goddamned smart. I say the guy suffocated and if he doesn’t like it, tell him to put it up his ass.”
Lenihan slammed the phone. “Lawyers.”
He glanced at his watch. Would Favor be able to finish his question?
“I gotta haul ass, Favor,” Lenihan said, standing up. He did what he usually did when he stood up, whisked dandruff off his shoulders with his fingers.
“Number three is, four days before this guy has a heart attack, the male nurse buys two large syringes with fine points—”
“—probably 60 ccs—”
“And some insulin—” That’s when the first knock came.
“And I’d like to find out,” Favor said, “if there’s a connection between these things.”
Lenihan looked as if he were about to say something to Favor when the second knock came. “Yeah?” Lenihan shouted.
The woman who came through the door literally cowered when she saw Dr. Lenihan. She looked as if he might turn on her and throw her into the wall or something.
“What the hell is it, Martha?”
A trembling hand held out a single piece of paper.
“The lab report you wanted on the Henderson case.”
He snatched it from her. “Tell them they can kiss my ass. I wanted this early this morning.”
The woman cowered again, and then quickly left.
Lenihan probably wasn’t going to win any Boss of the Year awards. He was scanning the lab report when Favor said, “So what do you think? Those three things I told you about fit together?”
When Lenihan looked up, his eyes were glassy. Whatever information the lab report held, it must be damned engrossing. “Huh?” he said.
“The male nurse and the syringe and the insulin.”
“God,” Dr. Bruce Lenihan, MD, said, shooting his cuff and glaring at his wristwatch. “I’m so fucking late I can’t believe it.” Then he said, “I figure a smarty-pants like you woulda been able to figure it out all by your lonesome, Favor.”
“Figure what out?”
“The insulin bit. Very old trick. Thing is, it still works eight out of ten times. Last convention I went to, that was one of the big topics on the docket. It’s still a problem. I mean, it doesn’t happen that often, but it’s still a bitch to spot.”
On the way down in the elevator, Lenihan gave the lowdown on how exactly you killed a guy the way the male nurse had. Lenihan’s last words, just as Favor was saying goodbye, “But a really good medical examiner would be able to spot it.” He smiled. “A good one like me.”
Lenihan had done the autopsy in question, of course, and he hadn’t spotted it at all.
Favor had kept some of the old burglary pics he’d taken from various thieves back during his city detective days. He got into Sam Evans’ condo with no problem. He went out into the kitchen and found some Jack Daniels black label and fixed himself a drink. Then he went into the living room and parked himself in the recliner. He used the channel zapper and found the Cubs game. During a long commercial break, Favor picked up the phone and called Princess Jane.
“I think I figured it out. What your husband was up to.”
“Oh, God, Favor, I’m almost afraid to hear.”
He told her and she started crying almost immediately.
All the time she cried, he thought, the cops’re going to nail David’s ass, and she’s going to be free. Maybe seventh-grade dreams really do come true You just have to wait a while. Say twenty or thirty years.
She kept on sobbing. “I’m sorry, Favor. I’d better go.”
“Don’t mention any of this to your husband. I’ve got a little plan in mind.”
He could imagine how she’d feel in his arms right now, the tender slender body against his, the warmth of the tears on her cheeks.
“Just remember,” Favor said, “you need anything, any time night or day, you’ve got my number.”
“Oh, Favor, I just feel so terrible right now.”
“You lie down and try to nap. That’s the best thing.”
He could feel the gratitude coming from the other end of the phone. It was almost tangible.
Four innings later — the Cubs losing another close one, 9–0 — Favor heard somebody in the hall. Evans.
Favor took out his .38 — he saw no reason to carry one of the monsters cops seemed to favor these days — and then just sat there with his drink in one hand and his .38 in the other.
When Evans came through the door, the .38 was pointing directly at his chest. He was all flashy sports clothes — yellow summer sweater, white ducks, $150 white Reeboks, and enough Raw Vanilla cologne to peel off wallpaper. Being bald and dumpy and squint-eyed kind of spoiled the effect, though.
“Hey,” he said, “what the hell’s going on?”
“Close the door and sit down and shut up.”
“That my booze you’re drinking?”
Guy’s holding a gun on him and all Evans worries about is his booze.
“You heard what I said.”
“You’re obviously not the cops.”
“No shit.”
Then Evans finally went over and sat down on the couch. What he didn’t do was shut up.
“You’re in deep shit, my friend,” he said.
“First of all,” Favor said. “You’re the one in deep shit. And second of all, I ain’t your friend.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I want you to get David Carson over here.”
“I don’t know any David Carson.”
“Yeah, right. Now pick up that phone and call him and tell him he needs to get over here right away, that somebody’s figured out what you two did.”
“You’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Pick up the phone.”