Another squad car was behind them.
“There, that’s the turnoff.” Tal pointed.
LaTour controlled the skid and somehow he managed to keep them out of the oncoming traffic lane.
Another three hundred yards. Tal directed the homicide cop down the winding road then up a long driveway. At the end of which was a small, dark blue sedan. The same car the witnesses had seen outside the Bensons’ house, the same car that had left the tread marks at the Whitleys’ the day they died.
Killing the siren, LaTour skidded to a stop in front of the car. The squad car parked close behind, blocking the sedan in.
All four officers leapt out. As they ran past the vehicle Tal glanced in the backseat and saw the tan baseball cap that the driver of the car had worn outside the Bensons’ house.
In a movement quite smooth for such a big man LaTour unlatched the door and shoved inside, not even breaking stride. He pulled his gun from his holster.
They and the uniformed officers behind them charged into the living room and then the den.
They stopped, looking at the two astonished people on the couch.
One was Robert Covey, who was unharmed.
The other, the woman who’d been about to kill him, Mac McCaffrey, was standing over him, eyes wide. She was just offering him one of the tools of her murderous trade: a glass undoubtedly laced with enough Luminux to render him half-conscious and suggestible to suicide. He noticed that the back door was open, revealing a large swimming pool. So, not a gun or carbon monoxide. Death by drowning this time.
“Tal!” she gasped.
But he said nothing. He let LaTour step forward to cuff her and arrest her. The homicide cop was, of course, much better versed in such matters of protocol.
The homicide detective looked through her purse and found the suicide book inside.
Robert Covey was in the ambulance outside, being checked out by the medics. He’d seemed okay but they were taking their time, just to make sure. He wouldn’t have had time to ingest too much of the drug.
After they found the evidence at Mac’s house, they’d gone to the hospital. She was out but Dr. Dehoeven at the CRC had pulled her client list and they’d gone through her calendar, learning that she was meeting with Covey at that moment.
LaTour would’ve been content to ship Mac off to Central Booking but Tal was a bit out of control; he couldn’t help confronting her. “You did know Don and Patsy Benson. Don was your client. You lied to me.”
Mac started to speak then looked down, her tearful eyes on the floor.
“We found Benson’s files in your house. And the computer logs at CSC showed you erased his records. You were at their house the day they died. It was you the witness saw in the hat and sunglasses. And the Whitleys? You killed them, too.”
“I didn’t kill anybody!”
“Okay, fine — you helped them kill themselves. You drugged them and talked them into it. And then cleaned up after.” He turned to the uniformed deputy. “Take her to Booking.”
And she was led away, calling, “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“Bullshit,” LaTour muttered.
Though, staring after her as the car eased down the long drive, Tal reflected that in a way — some abstract, moral sense — she truly did believe she hadn’t done anything wrong.
But to the people of the state of New York, the evidence was irrefutable. Nurse Claire “Mac” McCaffrey had murdered four people and undoubtedly intended to murder scores of others. She’d gotten the Bensons doped up on Friday and helped them kill themselves. Then on Sunday she’d called the Whitleys from a pay phone, made sure they were home then went over there and arranged for their suicides, too. She’d cleaned up the place, taken the Luminux and hadn’t left until after they died. Tal had learned that the opera show she listened to wasn’t on until 7 p.m. Not 4 p.m., as she’d told him. That was why he hadn’t been able to find it when he’d surfed the frequencies in LaTour’s car.
She’d gone into this business to ease the suffering of patients — because her own mother had had such a difficult time dying. But what she’d meant by “easing suffering” was putting them down like dogs.
Robert Covey returned to his den. He was badly shaken but physically fine. He had some Luminux in his system but not a dangerously high dosage. “She seemed so nice, so normal,” he whispered.
Oh, you bet, Tal thought bitterly. A goddamn perfect member of the Four Percent Club.
He and LaTour did some paperwork — Tal so upset that he didn’t even think about his own questionnaire — and they walked back to LaTour’s car. Tal sat heavily in the front seat, staring straight ahead. The homicide cop didn’t start the engine. He said, “Sometimes closing a case is harder than not closing it. That’s something they don’t teach you at the academy. But you did what you had to. People’ll be alive now because of what you did.”
“I guess,” he said sullenly. He was picturing Mac’s office. Her crooked smile when she’d looked over the park. Her laugh.
“Let’s file the papers. Then we’ll go get a beer. Hey, you do drink beer, don’tcha?”
“Yeah, I drink beer,” Tal said.
“We’ll make a cop outta you yet, Einstein.”
Tal clipped his seat belt on, deciding that being a Real cop was the last thing in the world he wanted.
A beep on the intercom. “Mr. Covey’s here, sir.”
“I’ll be right there.” Dr. William Farley rose from his desk, a glass-sheet-covered Victorian piece his business partner had bought for him in New England on one of the man’s buying sprees. Farley would have been content to have a metal desk or even a card table.
But in the business of medicine, not the practice, appearances count. The offices of the Lotus Foundation, near the mall containing Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, were filled with many antiques in this rococo style. Farley had been amused when they’d moved here three years ago to see the fancy furniture, paintings, objets d’art. Now, they were virtually invisible to him. What he greatly preferred was the huge medical facility itself behind the offices. As a doctor and researcher, that was the only place he felt truly at home.
Forty-eight, slim to the point of being scrawny, hair with a mind of its own, Farley had nonetheless worked hard to rid himself of his backroom medical researcher’s image. He now pulled on his thousand-dollar suit jacket and applied a comb. He paused at the door, took a deep breath, exhaled and stepped into a lengthy corridor to the Foundation’s main lobby. It was deserted except for the receptionist and one elderly man, sitting in a deep plush couch.
“Mr. Covey?” the doctor asked, extending his hand.
The man set down the coffee cup he’d been given by the receptionist and they shook hands.
“Dr. Farley?”
A nod.
“Come on into my office.”
They chatted about the weather as Farley led him down the narrow corridor to his office. Sometimes the patients here talked about sports, about their families, about the paintings on the walls.
Sometimes they were so nervous they said nothing at all.
Entering the office, Farley gestured toward a chair and then sat behind the massive desk. Covey glanced at it, unimpressed. Farley looked him over. He didn’t appear particularly wealthy — an off-the-rack suit, a tie with stripes that went one way while those on his shirt went another. Still, the director of the Lotus Foundation had learned enough about rich people to know that the wealthiest were those who drove hybrid Toyota gas savers and wore raincoats until they were threadbare.
Farley poured more coffee and offered Covey a cup.