The Conspiracy Club (30 page)

Ted was in for the night. Saving his energies?

Jeremy voided the quarts of liquid he’d ingested in the lounge’s minty-fresh men’s room and drove home. Tomorrow night, Angela would be off-call, and he’d have to find an excuse not to see her. Was feigning illness the tactful choice? No, that would boomerang, she’d want to be with him, dote on him. He’d think of something.

As he crawled into bed, he thought: Martinis; Arthur’s drink.

Where was the old man?

What had happened to his family?

Eight o’clock, he was back at his desk, logging on to the
Clarion
archive. He’d tried once before, plugging in “Chess homicide” but finding nothing. Wondering if he should dig deeper.

Now he was better educated; he set his parameters.

The Pathology Department secretary knew Arthur only as a confirmed bachelor, and she’d worked at Central for years. No one Jeremy had spoken to had ever talked of a marriage in the old man’s life.

So Arthur had been single for a long time; the tragedy that had shredded his life had taken place decades ago.

Someone besides the CCC people knew the truth — Arthur’s neighbor, Ramona Purveyance. She’d known him as a handsome young physician who’d delivered her children.

Before . . .

An open woman, prone to chatter, but when she’d talked about Arthur leaving his home in Queen’s Arms, she’d grown evasive.

Knowing the
ordeal
that had transformed Arthur from a liberator of squalling newborns to a surveyor of the dead.

Leading Arthur to a position at the Coroner’s. The remainder of his life nurtured by the cessation of life. Still, the old man had hung on to the bricks and the mortar and the baseboards of his memories.

Two children. The doting wife Jeremy had conjured.

That flip assessment seemed so cruel, now.

Arthur, living with ghosts.

And yet, he smiled and drank and enjoyed late-night suppers. Traveled and learned.

And taught.

Suddenly, Jeremy was suffused with admiration for Arthur; but at the same time, the thought of ending up like Arthur scared him out of his wits.

He wrenched himself away from all that, escaped to the cold comfort of calculation: Ramona Purveyance was at least in her midsixties, so her babies would most likely have been born anywhere between thirty and forty-five years ago.

Arthur was what — seventy? Med school and Army service would’ve made him close to thirty by the time he came to Central to deliver babies.

Jeremy chose forty years ago and plugged in “Chess homicides.”

Using the plural because that’s what had happened. The computer wasn’t smart enough to show discretion; perhaps that’s why it had spat back his first search.

Nothing.

How about “Chess family homicides”?

Good call.

Thirty-seven years ago. A strangely dry July.

Three Bodies Found in Wreckage
of Summer Cabin

An early-morning arson fire in a cabin near Lake Oswagumi, in the Highland Park resort area, turned into a murder scene after three bodies were discovered in the charred ruins.
The remains have been identified as those of Mrs. Sally Chess, a young matron, and her two children, Susan, 9, and Arthur Chess, Jr., 7. Arthur Chess, Sr., 41, a physician at City Central Hospital, was not present at the rental cabin when the blaze overtook the three-room structure. Dr. Chess had been called to the hospital to perform an emergency Caesarean section and claims to have stopped at a local tavern for a beer before driving the sixty miles back to Highland Park.
Sheriff’s investigators have reason to believe that Mrs. Chess had been murdered and that the fire was set deliberately to conceal that crime. Both children likely perished in their sleep. The investigators further state that while Dr. Chess is being questioned, he is not considered a suspect at this time.

The last sentence reminded Jeremy of something else he’d read recently. The account of Robert Balleron’s murder. The judge had been questioned, but police had insisted she’d not been considered a suspect.

Did that mean just the opposite? Tina and Arthur knowing what it felt like to have your grief poisoned by suspicion?

Poor Tina. Poor Arthur.

The old man had reached out for him, and Jeremy had played hard-to-get.

No more. He
belonged
.

Still paying for archive time, he looked up “Kurau Village.” That produced only a single, wire-service snippet, dated fifty-one years ago.

Cannibals Rampant!

Kurau, an obscure island in the multithousand Indonesian chain, occupied by the Japanese before the Allied liberation, and now contested territory claimed by several native tribes, fell under the sway of yellow-primitivism as marauding gangs representing various factions rampaged through opposing villages with machetes and confiscated Japanese army sabers, dismembering and disemboweling and parading through the jungle with human heads impaled on stakes. Reports of bonfires suggest that cannibalism, once a fixture in this part of the world, has made an ugly comeback. A smattering of American military and diplomatic personnel remains on the island in an attempt to administer the transition from occupation to local rule. The State Department has issued a travel advisory for all Americans to avoid the region until calm is restored.

The phone rang.

Bill Ramirez said, “Have any time to talk about Doug Vilardi?”

“Sure. How’s he doing?”

“How about we talk in person? Pretend I’m a patient or something.”

Ramirez was at his office door five minutes later, and out of breath. “Hard to find you — what, your fellow therapists exiled you?”

“Space problem. I volunteered.”

“Kind of gloomy,” said Ramirez. “Then again, you have your privacy . . . space problem — oh, yeah, the cutters got your suite, didn’t they?”

“Expediency trumps virtue.”

“Pardon?”

“Have a seat. How’s Doug?”

Ramirez pulled up a chair. “Not so great. If his spleen doesn’t get smaller, we’ll be taking it out. Could happen anytime, we’re watching it. The idiopathic reaction to chemo’s resolving — whatever it was.” The oncologist slid low in the seat and stretched his legs. His shirt was wrinkled. Sweat stains circled his armpits. “That’s the thing about cases like this. Keep you humble.”

“Always.”

“Usually,” Ramirez went on, “I’m able to tell myself I’m a hero. Cases like Doug — secondary disease, you start thinking of yourself as the villain.”

“If you hadn’t treated his Ewing’s, he’d be dead. No wife, no baby on the way.”

“Spoken like a true therapist . . . yeah, you’re right. I appreciate your saying so. Still, it would be nice to not fuck anyone up.”

“Become a poet.”

Ramirez smiled. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. Pathology’s still struggling to come up with a fix on the leukemia. Now, they’re telling me it could be a mix of lymphatic and myelocytic, or maybe neither — something weird and undifferentiated. Could be acute and chronic at the same time — the kid’s bone marrow’s a mess. I’ve got the slides going out to L.A. and Boston because they see more than we do of these weird ones. The key is to see what protocol he fits into, but if he doesn’t and we just wing it, we’re lowering our chance of initial remission.”

He took a deep breath. “Mind if I have some of that coffee?”

“At your own risk,” said Jeremy.

“In that case, forget it. Basically, what I came to tell you is that there’s a good chance our Mr. Vilardi’s going to end up facing a bone marrow transplant. We typed the whole family, the mother was a little antsy but I just figured that for generalized anxiety. Turns out she and one of the brothers are excellent donors.”

He frowned.

Jeremy said, “Another good-news, bad-news situation?”

“You
are
a mind reader.” Ramirez took a breath. “The bad news is, Doug’s not his father’s biological son.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy.

“You’re not surprised.”

“I am, but not wildly. People are people.”

“Gee,” said Ramirez. “I wish you were
my
dad. Adolescence would’ve been a helluva lot easier. Okay, so that’s the big secret. The question is, what do we do about it?”

“Nothing,” said Jeremy.

“Plain and simple.”

“Plain and simple.”

“You’re right,” said Ramirez. “I just wanted to hear it from you. Get some backup.” He got to his feet. “Okay, good, thanks. Onward.”

“Anything else, Bill?”

“That’s not enough for one day?”

Jeremy smiled.

Ramirez said, “I’m glad you confirmed my initial instincts. Doug’s an adult, has a right to his medical records; but I’m going to destroy that part of the report. Just in case someone peeks.”

He looked at Jeremy.

Jeremy said, “I back you up on that, too.”

“It’s the best thing,” said Ramirez. “I already did enough damage to the kid.”

In the afternoon, after Jeremy had seen all his other patients, he sat by Doug’s bedside. No family members were around. Their usual arrival time was two hours later, and Jeremy had timed his visit carefully. He didn’t want to look into Mrs. Vilardi’s eyes.

Doug was sleeping with the TV on. A sitcom blared — small-town life, corny jokes, Hollywood’s take on jovial half-wits playing to the laugh track. Jeremy kept the show on but lowered the volume, concentrated on Doug’s swollen, jaundiced face, his big, callused, workingman’s hands lying inert. The laugh track began to grate on him, and he switched off the set, listened to the ticking, gurgling, chirping that confirmed the young man’s viability.

Doug didn’t stir.

Push past this, my friend.

Give me something to be inspired by.

Do
it
.

J
eremy cleared his next three evenings by lying. Feeding Angela tales of looming deadlines for the book, grinding pressure from the Head of Oncology, topped by a severe case of writer’s block.

He’d need to pull two or three all-nighters, maybe even four.

She said, “Been there, done it — it’ll work out, honey.”

On the first day, he spirited her away for an early dinner at Sarno’s, concentrated on being attentive, kept the conversation easy and light and flowing. The ever-present horror track in his head washed by: filthy, violent images, a mental cesspool that drained miles from the lover’s face he showed Angela.

By dinner’s end, he figured he’d pulled it off. Angela had loosened up, was smiling, laughing, talking about patients and hospital bureaucracy. By the time he dropped her back at Endocrinology, it was five-thirty and she was energized.

The next day, she paged him to let him know that the chief resident had frowned on her cutting out early.

“How about I write you a note,” he said. “ ‘Angela’s tummy was empty, and she needed to eat.’ ”

“If only,” she said. “How’d it go on the book, last night?”

“Painfully.”

“Stick with it, I know you’ll do great.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t have time, anyway, Jer. The Endo attendings are mostly high-powered, private practice brutes. They work us like galley slaves so they can be home in time for din-din with the family. So if I get to see you at all, it’ll have to be lunch. And tomorrow, lunch is a lecture on growth hormone abuse.”

“The schedule.”

“I’ll let you know if things ease up. Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Ang. This too shall pass.”

And I’ve got my own schedule, now.

“I know,” she said. “But right now it seems interminable. Okay, gotta go. Miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

Two more nights of Dirgrove playing at family man. Or whatever he did, once he was esconced in his limestone aerie.

One floor down from the penthouse. Jeremy knew because he’d strolled by when the doorman had gone inside to take a package to a resident. Made his way into the marble-walled lobby and checked out the directory, all those nice, healthy potted palms.

When Dirgrove walked through the door how far did he take the charade? Was din-din with the family part of the routine? Or did he lock himself, straight off, in his study?

Did he pay token attention to Brandon and Sonja? Jeremy’s glimpse of the family at dinner said the bastard couldn’t care less.

Were he and Patty still sleeping together?

Poor woman, that determined face, the athletic carriage. All the trappings of a fine life, and it would be crashing down sooner or later.

Jeremy was going to do his best to make it sooner.

On the third day, Doug Vilardi was sent to the O.R. for a splenectomy. Jeremy comforted the family but knew the young man wouldn’t need him for at least twenty-four hours. None of his other patients were in crisis. Several had been discharged, and he was only called to one acute procedure, a fifteen-year-old burn patient, a girl who’d lost the skin on one thigh and was undergoing painful whirlpool baths to slosh loose dead dermis.

Jeremy found out she liked playing tennis and had her imagine herself playing the French Open.

The girl got through it. Her father, a tough-guy type, some sort of executive, said, “That was amazing.”

“Jennifer’s amazing.”

The guy shook his head. “Man — you’re good.”

Now, it was 6
P.M.
, and he was free. He desperately wanted to keep his head clear. To save mental space for Dirgrove, his psychopathology, his tools. The woman who was certain to be his next target.

Dirgrove worked later than usual, not showing up at his car until shortly after 8
P.M.
When he left the doctors’ lot, he turned south.

Away from his home base on Hale. A first.

Here we go.

A great night for watching. The mercury had dropped even farther, but the air had dried. Gotten thinner, too, as if some deity were sucking out all the unnecessary gases. Jeremy breathed heavily, headily, felt lighthearted. Sound seemed to be traveling faster, and his car windows couldn’t shut out the city din. Lights were brighter, people walked faster, every nocturnal detail stood out in relief.