Shellee walked past his office, then stopped fast and returned. She stared at him then barked a laugh.
“What?” he asked.
“This is too weird, you eating at your desk.”
Hadn’t he ever done that? he wondered. He asked her.
“No. Not once. Ever…And here you are going to crime scenes, cluttering up your desk…Listen, boss, on your way home?”
“Yes?”
“Watch out for flying pigs. The sky’s gotta be full of ’em today.”
“Hi,” Tal said to the receptionist.
Offering her a big smile. Why not? She had sultry, doe eyes, a heart-shaped face and the slim, athletic figure of a Riverdance performer.
Margaret Ludlum — according to the name plate — glanced up and cocked a pale, red eyebrow. “Yes?”
“It’s Maggie, right?”
“Can I help you?” she asked in a polite but detached tone. Tal offered a second assault of a smile then displayed his badge and ID, which resulted in a cautious frown on her freckled face.
“I’m here to see Dr. Sheldon.” This was Sam Whitley’s cardiologist, whose card he’d found in the couple’s bedroom last night.
“It’s…” She squinted at the ID card.
“Detective Simms.”
“Sure. Just hold on. Do you have—”
“No. An appointment? No. But I need to talk to him. It’s important. About a patient. A former patient. Sam Whitley.”
She nodded knowingly and gave a slight wince. Word of the suicides would have spread fast, he assumed.
“Hold on, please.”
She made a call and a few minutes later a balding man in his fifties stepped out into the waiting room and greeted him. Dr. Anthony Sheldon led Tal back into a large office, whose walls were decorated with dozens of diplomas and citations. The office was opulent, as one would expect for a man who probably made $30,000 an hour.
Gesturing for Tal to sit in a chair across the desk, Sheldon dropped into his own high-backed chair and said, “I was troubled to hear the news.”
“We’re looking into their deaths,” Tal said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions if I could.”
“Yeah, sure. Anything I can do. It was…I mean, we heard it was a suicide, is that right?”
“It appeared to be. We just have a few unanswered questions. How long had you treated them?”
“Well, first, not them. Only Sam Whitley. He’d been referred to me by his personal GP.”
“That’s Ronald Weinstein,” Tal said. Another nugget from the boxes of evidence that’d kept him up until 3 a.m. “I just spoke to him.”
Tal had learned a few facts from the doctor, though nothing particularly helpful, except that Weinstein had not prescribed Luminux to either of the Whitleys, nor had he ever met the Bensons. Tal continued to Sheldon, “How serious was Sam’s cardiac condition?”
“Fairly serious. Hold on — let me make sure I don’t misstate anything.”
Sheldon pressed a buzzer on his phone.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“Margaret, bring me the Whitley file, please.”
So, not Maggie.
“Right away.”
A moment later the woman walked briskly into the room, coolly ignoring Tal.
He decided that he liked the Celtic dancer part. He liked “Margaret” better than “Maggie.”
The tough-as-nails part gave him some pause.
“Thanks.”
Sheldon looked over the file. “His heart was only working at about fifty percent efficiency. He should’ve had a transplant but wasn’t a good candidate for one. We were going to replace valves and several major vessels.”
“Would he have survived?”
“You mean the procedures? Or afterward?”
“Both.”
“The odds weren’t good for either. The surgeries themselves were the riskiest. Sam wasn’t a young man and he had severe deterioration in his blood vessels. If he’d survived that, he’d have a fifty-fifty chance for six months. After that, the odds would’ve improved somewhat.”
“So it wasn’t hopeless.”
“Not necessarily. But, like I told him, there was also a very good chance that even if he survived he’d be bedridden for the rest of his life.”
Tal said, “So you weren’t surprised to hear that he’d killed himself?”
“Well, I’m a doctor. Suicide doesn’t make sense to most of us. But he was facing a very risky procedure and a difficult, painful recovery with an uncertain outcome. When I heard that he’d died, naturally I was troubled, and guilty, too — thinking maybe I didn’t explain things properly to him. But I have to say that I wasn’t utterly shocked.”
“Did you know his wife?”
“She came to most of his appointments.”
“But she was in good health?”
“I don’t know. But she seemed healthy.”
“They were close?”
“Oh, very devoted to each other.”
Tal looked up. “Doctor, what’s Luminux?”
“Luminux? A combination antidepressant, painkiller and antianxiety medication. I’m not too familiar with it.”
“Then you didn’t prescribe it to Sam or his wife?”
“No — and I’d never prescribe anything to a spouse of a patient unless she was a patient, too. Why?”
“They both had unusually high levels of the drug in their bloodstream when they died.”
“Both of them?”
“Right.”
Dr. Sheldon shook his head. “That’s odd…Was that the cause of death?”
“No, it was carbon monoxide.”
“Oh. Their car?”
“In the garage, right.”
The doctor shook his head. “Better way to go than some, I suppose. But still…”
Another look at the notes. “At their house I found an insurance form for the Cardiac Support Center here at the hospital. What’s that?”
“I suggested he and Liz see someone there. They work with terminal and high-risk patients, transplant candidates. Counseling and therapy mostly.”
“Could they have prescribed the drug?”
“Maybe. They have MDs on staff.”
“I’d like to talk to them. Who should I see?”
“Dr. Peter Dehoeven is the director. They’re in Building J. Go back to the main lobby, take the elevator to three, turn left and keep going.”
Tal thanked the doctor and stepped back into the lobby. Cell phones weren’t allowed in the hospital so he asked Margaret if he could use one of the phones on her desk. She gestured toward it distractedly and turned back to her computer. It was three forty-five and Tal had to meet Greg LaTour in fifteen minutes.
One of the Homicide Division secretaries came on the line and he told her to tell LaTour that he’d be a little late.
But she said, “Oh, he’s gone for the day.”
“Gone? We had a meeting.”
“Didn’t say anything about it.”
He hung up, angry. Had LaTour just been humoring him, agreeing to help with the case to get Tal out of his hair?
He made another call — to the Cardiac Support Center. Dr. Dehoeven was out but Tal made an appointment to see him at eight thirty in the morning. He hung up and nearly asked Margaret to clarify the way to the Cardiac Support Center. But Sheldon’s directions were solidly implanted in his memory and he’d only bring up the subject to give it one more shot with sweet Molly Malone. But why bother? He knew to a statistical certainty that he and this red-haired lass would never be step dancing the night away then lying in bed till dawn discussing the finer points of perfect numbers.