F Paul Wilson - Novel 02 (37 page)

 
          
The
long-delayed reports finally got forwarded to the State Board of Medical
Examiners. The "coding irregularities" did not result in any net gain
on
Duncan
's part, actually he lost money, but still
he was issued a warning to be more careful in the future. Since there was no
evidence of fraud or negligence, or of performing even a single unnecessary
procedure, the board exonerated him.

 
          
But
where was that publicized?

 
          
In
a small paragraph buried deep in the Banner. But the Washington Post, which had
broken the original story that started this nightmare, never mentioned it.

 
          
The
public flogging was over, but it had dragged on too long. Referral patterns had
changed. Generalists who used to feed his practice had found new surgeons.

 
          
His
practice was ruined. He'd been held up to national scorn and then cleared. But
his reputation remained tainted.

 
          
He
could have shrugged it off, all of it, if Lisa still were alive and Diana still
behind him.

 
          
But
Lisa was gone. Dear, dear Lisa, who left without a goodbye, blaming him for all
her pain.

 
          
Diana,
too, blamed him. And soon their marriage went the way of his practice.

 
          
But
he wasn't to blame. He'd done nothing wrong. Couldn't she see that? It was the
committee . . . that damned Guidelines committee.

 
          
McCready
and his claque of pharisaical louts had plundered his life and then casually
moved on.

 
          
Duncan
had actually entertained thoughts of buying
an assault rifle and blowing them all away. But then McCready had died, and the
Guidelines committee disbanded, leaving
Duncan
with no target for the monstrous,
smoldering mass of rage, coiled and writhing within him.

 
          
But
he got over it, got past it, to use the current phrase. After all, he still had
his son, Brad had stuck by him from beginning to end.

 
          
And
Oliver, of course. Steadfast, sedulous Oliver. Without them . . .

 
          
Well,
he just might have shoved a gun barrel in his mouth. So he started anew, new
state, new specialty, new persona.

 
          
And
everything seemed fine until the president revived the Guidelines committee. It
was then that
Duncan
realized that the rage had never gone away. Like a cancer, it had
metastasized throughout his system until it now lived in every tissue.

 
          
And
still he might have controlled it if so many committee members hadn't begun
looking around for someone to enhance their appearance for the heavy TV
exposure they expected . . . and come to him, because he had the implants . . .

 
          
The
irony should have been delicious.

 
          
Make
me look good for the cameras . . .

 
          
He
stopped himself from hurling his glass across the room. No sense in wasting
good scotch. So now five of the original seven were gone. McCready from natural
causes, four
Duncan
's doing, and two left . . . the two youngest who were unlikely to seek
out cosmetic surgery.

 
          
Almost
time to call it quits. The new committee was in complete disarray, The
Guidelines act moribund. One more strike, the biggest of all, and it would be
dead.

 
          
Just
like Lisa.

 
          
And
he wouldn't have to worry about Gin interfering with the last target. She'd be
too off balance after today. Wouldn't even know about that patient. She'd be
home, enjoying a day off.

 
          
And
then he'd quit. Flush the TPD and wait for his moment to dissolve the last
implant.

 
          
Which
reminded him, he had to move the TPD. He'd left it in his top drawer in case
Gin went for another look. Now that the games were over, he'd have to find a
new hiding place.

 
          
He
lifted his glass.

 
          
Par,
Regina
.

 
          
Mind
your own business and we'll all live happily ever after.

 
          
If
not . . .

 
          
Gin
lay in her bed in the dark, listening to the tick of the old mantle clock from
the other room. An awful night alone, grappling with her doubt, her confusion.
But she'd passed through that fire, emerging with a new perspective.

 
          
She
hadn't imagined this. For a while there she'd been dazed and unsure, rocked
back on her heels by the way everything had gone so wrong today. But she was on
her feet again.

 
          
It's
not over,
Duncan
, she told the darkness. You're smart . . .
no, you're brilliant. Somehow you got way ahead of me on this. You probably
think you've won. But I know what I saw, and I know what I know.

 
          
This
is not over.

THE WEEK OF OCTOBER

           
SUNDAY GINA WAS GOING TO FIND OUT
EVERYTHING ABOUT
Duncan
.

 
          
She
started her engine as
Duncan
's black Mercedes pulled to a stop at the end of his street. She
couldn't park outside his house, or even on his block.
Duncan
lived in an ultra-exclusive
Chevy Chase
neighborhood of large, stately,
Federal-style homes on half-acre lots in which her little red Sunbird would
stick out like a garbage scow at the Potomac Yacht Club. But one of the
hallmarks of the neighborhood's exclusivity was limited access. The
brick-pillared entrance opened onto a secondary road near a small, upscale
strip mall. Gin had camped in the mall's parking lot most of yesterday and all
of this morning and no one had bothered her.

 
          
Yesterday
had yielded nothing of interest.
Duncan
had gone out only once, stopping at a
liquor store, a gourmet coffee shop, a gas station, and an electronics specialty
shop. "Caliguire Electronics," read the sign over the front door.
"Audio, Video, Surround Sound, Satellite Dishes, Custom Electronics."
Gin remembered
Duncan
talking about his satellite dish on occasion. This was probably where
he'd got it. .

 
          
"Boy
toys," she'd muttered.

 
          
And
then it struck her, custom electronics.
Duncan
needed some sort of miniature ultrasound
transducer to dissolve his implants. Something small enough to hide on his
person and aim at his victim when he got within range. Something pocket-sized,
Ohmigod! His pager. His old-fashioned oversized beeper. She remembered how he'd
had it in his hand when she saw him with Allard, and how it had gone off as
they were standing with Senator Vincent on the hearing room floor before
Senator Marsden gaveled everyone to their places. A few minutes later Senator
Vincent was convulsing behind the dais.

 
          
What
if it was oversized for a reason other than
Duncan
's stubborn unwillingness to part with a
less than state-of-the-art piece of equipment? What if his pager was a
mini-transducer?

 
          
Could
Duncan
have used this place or someplace like it
to fashion one for him?

 
          
The
question nagged Gin the entire time he was inside, which stretched out almost
to an hour. Finally, he came out and returned home.

 
          
Gin
had seriously considered the idea of returning to the electronics shop to
question the owner about transducers disguised as beepers, but then Gerry's
words came back to her.

 
          
No
more Nancy Drew stuff.

 
          
Gerry
. . . she missed him. She wished he'd call.

 
          
But
it was good advice. Not only was she too old to be Nancy Drew, she didn't want
to be a detective, being an internist was quite enough.

 
          
And
besides, questioning the folks at Caliguire might prompt a call to
Duncan
.

 
          
Better
just stick to following him around.

 
          
Nice
way to spend a weekend.

 
          
So
now it was Sunday evening, the light fading, and this was the first Gin had
seen of
Duncan
all day. She'd worried that he might have
another way out of his neighborhood, but a drive by his house an hour ago had
revealed the Mercedes parked at the top of the semicircular drive before the
front door of his brick colonial.

 
          
Then
the radio gave her the most likely reason why he'd - chosen now to be on the
move. The Redskins game was over.

 
          
They'd
lost. Again.

 
          
She
put her car in gear and waited to see which direction he turned.

 
          
Whichever
way, she'd be close behind. She wasn't crazy, not psychotic, not even neurotic,
and she wasn't going to let anyone make her think so.

 
          
Duncan
had secrets. He lied about where he went on
his afternoons.

 
          
She
was going to find out where he really went. He wasn't going to be able to
sneeze without her saying Gezhunteit.

 
          
She
was not going to drop this.

 
          
Gin
watched him turn south, she let a car get between them before she pulled out
and followed. When he turned onto
East-West Highway
, she had a pretty good idea where he might
be headed.

 
          
Sure
enough, he pulled into the surgicenter.

 
          
Now
what? She couldn't exactly pull in behind him and follow him into his office.

 
          
His
office . . . he had that rock garden with the pool and all those thick bushes
outside his office window. Maybe she could get a peek.

 
          
She
found a parking spot half a block down and trotted back. Homing in on the glow
from
Duncan
's windows, she crept along a grassy buffer
between the surgicenter and the neighboring office building and lowered into a
crouch as she neared the rear wall of the rock garden.
Duncan
's office windows were just past that If she
could get a look . . .

 
          
Look
at me, she thought. Creeping across lawns, spying on people . . .

 
          
This
wasn't her. And hadn't she sworn she wasn't going to do the Nancy Drew thing?
Was this the behavior of a stable personality?

 
          
Maybe
I do need help.

 
          
The
thought chilled her, but she shook off the doubts. She had to see this through.

 
          
She
parted the branches of a small evergreen, from its ginlike odor she guessed it
was some sort of juniper, and peered through the plate glass into
Duncan
's office.

 
          
He
was seated at his desk. Gin settled onto her knees and watched, hoping he'd do
more than just straighten papers. It was getting cold out here in the wind.

 
          
She
caught her breath as he leaned to his right and unlocked the top desk drawer.
She leaned forward, all but thrusting her face through the prickly juniper as
she watched him remove the TPD from the drawer, heft it in his hand, then rise
and wander about. He opened cabinets and poked inside, lifted bottles, pulled
out books and journals, peered into the space they left, then shoved them back.

 
          
What's
he doing?

 
          
He
seemed to be looking for something.

 
          
Or
somewhere.

 
          
Finally
he pulled a volume the size of the Merrk Manxal off a top shelf, placed the
bottle of TPD in the rear of the gap, then slid the book back in.

 
          
He
was hiding the TPD.

 
          
Gin
was dumbfounded.

 
          
Why
would he hide the bottle when he had a locked drawer for it?

 
          
Maybe
he had no further use for it. Or maybe he'd never used it. But then why was he
hiding it now?

 
          
Damn!
Why didn't any of this make sense?

 
          
Suddenly
the office went dark.
Duncan
had turned out the lights. Gin spun and scampered back to her car. It
was good to get the heater going again. She watched
Duncan
's car turn back the way it had come on
East-West. She gave him a good lead, then swung around and followed.

 
          
When
she saw him turn into his neighborhood, she turned east and headed for
Connecticut Avenue
. For Adams Morgan. For home.

 
          
She'd
had enough Nancy Drew for one night. In two days of trailing him she'd learned
two things, one, he liked to hang out at Caliguire Electronics, two, he'd
changed the hiding place of his bottle of TPD.

 
          
No
answers. Just two facts which did nothing but engender a whole slew of new
questions. She didn't need more questions. She had questions coming out her
ears. She needed answers, dammit!

 
          
Maybe
tomorrow. When
Duncan
left early to go to his golf club, Gin would be right behind him. She'd
find out where he really went. Maybe a mistress. Or maybe something to do with
that little bottle of TPD.

 
          
Hopefully
she'd be able to cross one question off her lengthening list.