She tried a new search, this time deleting the words memory and recovered. Maybe if she just found out what had been going on at Longboat Key from October 7 to the 12th, she could take it from there. Connect the dots.
Her new search yielded ninety-eight stories. She looked through the KWIK cites, which listed the headline, the name of the newspaper it appeared in, the date, and the byline. Most of the pieces were useless—announcements of Wine Fests, gallery openings, tennis tourneys and golf matches. But there was one story that was different from all the others, and it almost stopped her heart when she saw the headlines:
Now she knew why her sister had taken the train. You can pack a rifle on the train… She pulled down the text of a story published October 11 in the Tampa paper.
Longtime resident Calvin F. Crane was shot to death yesterday evening as he sat in his wheelchair on the boardwalk at La Resort, watching the sunset.
According to police, Crane, 82, was killed by a high-powered—and apparently silenced—rifle. The shot, which severed the elderly man’s spine, is believed to have been fired from one of the high-rises overlooking the beach.
Crane was pronounced dead on arrival at Sisters of Mercy Memorial Hospital.
Sources close to the police called the crime a baffling one. “The man was dying of cancer,” the sources said. “Doctors gave him a year to live at the outside.”
Crane’s Jamaican nurse, Leviticus Benn, was questioned by the police, and released.
Adrienne read on, scanning the stories, galvanized by the words “sniper” and “high-powered rifle.” According to the newspapers, the Jamaican caretaker had not realized that his charge had been shot—until someone screamed, and he saw the blood. “I didn’t hear a thing,” he told police, “or see anyone with a gun.” Neither, it seemed, had anyone else, which led the police to suspect that the killer had used a “suppressor.” Adrienne remembered the fat black tube in the lime-green case under her sister’s bed.
Complicating the investigation was the fact that the caretaker had wheeled Crane from the beach to the pool area before he realized that his charge had been shot. The fact that the victim had been moved made establishing his location at the time of the shooting difficult, which in turn made it impossible to reconstruct with any accuracy the trajectory of the bullet. Because of this, determining the position from which the sniper fired was “nothing but a guessing game,” according to police.
Adrienne read the stories about the shooting, and searched for follow-up articles, hoping against hope that the case had been solved. But, of course, it hadn’t. Two weeks after the murder, the police had no motive, no suspects, no useful witnesses, and no weapon. They were mystified.
As was Adrienne. It seemed obvious that her sister was involved, maybe even responsible—but why?
Sitting back in the plastic chair that she’d been given, she looked up at the fluorescent lights, and stretched. She wasn’t a cop. She didn’t know how to run a murder investigation. But she knew that most investigations were as much about the victim as the perpetrator. Moreover, in this particular case, she had a distinct advantage over the police: that is, she had a good idea who the killer was.
But who was the victim? Who was he really? All she knew for certain was that her sister had traveled a thousand miles to kill him—and that he was, by all accounts, a dying old man with a fondness for sunsets. How had the headline described him? As “a prominent longtime resident.”
Or… no. That wasn’t it. Not quite.
She went back to the first story, and saw at a glance that the headline had a comma in it. “Sniper Victim Was Prominent, Longtime Resident.” Which is to say, he was prominent, and a longtime resident. Not just some old guy that everyone knew.
Okay, she thought, turning back to the computer. How prominent? Why prominent?
Chapter 30
Shaw and Duran sat across from one another in the staff cafeteria at Columbia Presbyterian, ignoring the clatter of trays and silverware, the to-and-fro of nurses and physicians all around them. Cutouts of cardboard turkeys decorated the walls. It was Thanksgiving.
Shaw wore a puzzled expression as he looked at Duran over a bowl of Pritikin noodle soup. Finally, the doctor crossed his arms in front of his chest, and confessed, “I’m not sure how to proceed.” He paused. “What I’m getting is an increased, rather than a decreased, tendency toward dissociation.”
“Really?” Duran asked. In the wake of the operation, he felt peculiarly alert—as if he’d been seeing the world through beige-tinted eyeglasses, and living under sedation.
Now, that feeling was gone. And while the thrill of well-being had begun to fade, his clarity of mind had not. Everything seemed bigger and brighter, the colors more intense, the sounds louder and more precise.
Shaw pressed his fingers together, as if in prayer. Then he leaned forward, and confided, “I’d like to try sodium pentathol.”
Duran looked surprised. “Truth serum?”
Shaw shrugged. “A small dose. I don’t know what else to do, though I suppose we could always just… wait. As it is, I’m not getting anywhere. You’re blocking.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t get in. You’re like a black box. Every time I try to explore your past, I come up against a wall. And I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why.”
“And you think sodium pentathol—”
“Will help? Yes, I do.”
Duran thought about it. “How can you be sure that what you’re seeing is ‘resistance,’ rather than organic damage?”
“Because we’ve done our homework,” Shaw told him. “There’s no evidence of brain damage—none at all. What we’re dealing with is a pathological aversion.”
“To… ?”
“Your identity.”
Duran sipped his soup, and thought it over. Then he leaned forward, and said, “So what you’re saying is, I’ve got the psychiatric equivalent of an autoimmune disease.”
Shaw blinked. Laughed. “Exactly. But that’s not the only thing that’s bothering me.” He paused. “You’re becoming depressed.” Before Duran could deny the diagnosis, the psychiatrist hurried on. “Now, depression isn’t all that unusual after surgery, but in your case, it’s a little deeper than I’d expect.”
Duran shook his head. “I don’t see it. On the contrary, I feel so alive.”
“I know. I can see it in your face. But then it goes, and… “ He hesitated. “You lose affect. I’ll be honest with you,” Shaw went on. “I’m worried that you may be manifesting a rapid-cycle, bipolar state.”
Duran frowned. “And if I am?”
Shaw ran his hand back through his hair. “Well, we can back off, and wait for the lab report, but… I’m concerned about your treatment in the long run.”
“Why?” Duran asked.
“Well, we haven’t really talked about your living situation, but you can’t go back to being a therapist—you’re not qualified.”
“As far as we know.”
The psychiatrist smiled. “Touché! ‘As far as we know.’ But what, then? Are you independently wealthy?”
Duran thought about it. “My parents died suddenly. There was some insurance.”
“These parents—you mean Mr. and Mrs. Duran?”
“I guess.”
“Huh.” Shaw frowned. “But you do have some money. You weren’t relying on your two clients to keep body and soul together. Because if you were, your rates must have been even higher than mine.”
Duran responded with a weak smile. “I don’t remember worrying about money. I suppose I could call my bank…”
Shaw nodded, and cleared his throat. “And, uhh… what about Adrienne?”