Another sigh: “Think about it. You die because of a little mark on a paper that may or may not be there. A damn decimal point. It was ten years ago. I’ve moved on.”
Moth thanked the widow, apologizing for disturbing her, and thinking that nothing in the tone of her voice supported the contention I’ve moved on. But as he spoke, he thought, A medical student would know about dosages and ICU errors. He would know about a decimal point. He wondered about the word erased that the widow had used.
Another ex-student. A phone call to a state trooper in charge of auto accident reconstruction:
How did she die?
Eighteen years after graduation:
Gruff, no-nonsense voice: “The doc liked to walk her dog in the evening, right around dusk, on a little two-lane, real narrow country road. No sidewalks. No shoulder. Not smart. And she was walking on the wrong side. Should be facing oncoming traffic, but she wasn’t. She and her husband had split up and he had the kids for the weekend, so there was no one around to call the police when she didn’t return home. When we measured skid marks, checked weather and light conditions, it appeared she was hit from behind on a blind curve just a little after dark, dragged about ten feet before being knocked into a drainage ditch, where she was out of sight from any subsequent motorists passing by. Suspect vehicle was traveling at least fifty miles per hour on impact. Couldn’t find any brake marks until yards past the point of collision. It was morning before someone spotted her down there-and that was some schoolkids walking to a bus stop who didn’t know what to do, so it was even longer before we were on scene.”
The trooper paused.
“A lousy death. Impact didn’t completely kill her. It was the combination of blood loss, shock, and hypothermia. Got damn cold that night, like upper twenties. Maybe took a couple minutes, maybe a couple hours. Couldn’t tell for certain. Son of a bitch hit-and-run driver killed the dog, too. A golden retriever. Sweetheart of a dog. From time to time, she used to take the dog into a psych ward where she worked. People said the dog was better for the patients than any therapy.”
“And your investigation?”
“Went kind of nowhere,” the trooper said. “Very frustrating.” Moth could hear the shrug over the phone line.
“We put out a BOLO-a Be on the Lookout-for the car, once we’d identified it from a paint chip that stuck to the dog’s leash. We notified body shops in a three-county area-you know, look out for anyone with left front end damage. Pulled all sorts of rental records, auto sales, registrations-the works-looking for the car. But it didn’t show up for six months, and then…”
The trooper’s voice trailed off a bit, before coming back on strong. “Burned out. Torched. Way back in the woods. Forensics pulled the VIN number off it, but all it did was match up with a vehicle stolen from a mall parking lot in the next state over four days before the accident.”
Again the trooper hesitated. “There was one detail that really stuck with me. Seen it before, seen it again, but it’s still pretty damn nasty.”
“What’s that?” Moth asked. He sounded like a reporter collecting facts; the more terrible, the more flat and sturdy he sounded.
“There were some signs in the leaves and other debris around the doc’s body that the hit-and-run driver stopped, got out, went and stood next to the doc-you know, checked out what he’d done-before taking off.”
“In other words…”
“In other words, made absolutely certain she was dying and then left her.”
“And?”
“And that was that. Dead end. Some lucky bastard got away with a vehicular homicide, unless you can tell me something I don’t know.”
Moth considered this request. There was a lot he could say. “No,” he said, “I was just trying to get in touch with the doctor to inform her about my uncle’s suicide. They had been classmates together, and there’s a memorial fund. When I found out she was dead, I just got curious. Sorry if I’ve wasted your time.”
“No problem,” said the trooper. Moth could hear suspicions in the man’s voice. He didn’t blame him.
But at the same time, he wanted to pound the table. What is there in a hit-and-run that speaks about the study of psychiatry?
Nothing he could readily see-except that telling statement: made absolutely certain…
Another ex-student. Two calls.
How did he die?
Fourteen years after graduation:
First: a college-age son.
“Dad was alone at the summer house up on the lake. He liked to go up there early in the season, before anyone else showed up-get the place open, putter around, be by himself… You know, it’s really hard for me to talk about it. I’m sorry.”
Second: Taylor-Fredericks Funeral Home in Lewiston, Maine.
“I’ll have to check my records,” the manager said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Thank you,” Moth replied. He waited patiently.
The man came back on the line. He had a whiny, nasal voice, almost a caricature of a funeral home director’s.
“Now I remember…”
“Boating accident?” Moth asked.
“Yes. The doctor had a small sailboat that he typically took out every day in the summer. But this was early April-you know, ice melt was just about finished, house-opening season. No one was around. He must have put the boat in the water, decided to take a little spin. The weather wasn’t that mild and he shouldn’t have been out on the lake. People don’t want to hear it, but in April there’s still a lot of leftover winter in these parts. He shouldn’t have done that.”
“But what exactly killed him?”
“Sudden gust, probably. At least, that’s what the county coroner sort of figured. Boom must have caught him on the side of the head. Knocked him into the lake, probably unconscious already. Water temperature was maybe forty-five degrees. No, probably lower. Can’t last long in that. Ten minutes, they tell me; that’s it. Anyway, it was forty-eight hours before divers found his body, and that was only because some other home owner spotted the overturned boat out in the lake and called the cops. Coroner noted some damage to the back of his head-but the body had been in the water, so hard to say exactly what happened. And the boat flipped after he went out-at least that was what folks guessed-so anything left behind was gone. Sad story. Family had him cremated and his ashes spread on the lake. I gather it was a special place for him.”
Very special, Moth thought. The place he was murdered.
But the leap from murdered to how? eluded Moth. And there was nothing in what seemed like a random accident that spoke of medical school thirty years earlier.
“God damn it,” Moth whispered, hanging up his phone.
Suicide. Hunting accident. Hit-and-run. Hospital mistake. Boating accident. Each death either spread out over years or jammed together a few weeks apart. None of it seemed to occupy any realm of probability; but it might start to make sense if seen from the perspective that Moth alone occupied.
He looked over at Andy Candy. Maybe not completely alone, he hoped.
“ ‘My fault,’ ” Moth said.
Andy lifted her head. “That’s what Doctor Hogan said. Same as your uncle. Sort of.”
“Five people are dead. There was a reason. Let’s find out what they shared.”