Diagnosis Murder 7 - The Double LIfe (20 page)

"What about your meds?"

"You can pick them up for me at the pharmacy or I can have them delivered," Mark said. "I'll drink lots of fluids and we've got plenty of food. My leftover seashell casserole has proven medicinal powers. I'm sure Jesse, Susan, and Amanda will stop in to check on me, too."

"What about the case?" Steve said. "You're going to let that go?"

"Why not?" Mark smiled. "You said you've got it solved."

"I do." Steve motioned to the boards. "It's all right there." 

Mark nodded. "I felt this sense of deja vu the moment I saw those boards. It was like a moment from my dream, only the boards are up here instead of downstairs and the information on them is very different."

"I'll walk you through it—" Steve began.

'You don't have to," Mark interrupted. "I've had a few moments to look it over."

"It's pretty complicated," Steve said.

"'Game Over,"' Mark said.

Steve stared at him.

"What did you say?"

"'Game Over,"' Mark repeated. "That's what Guyot and Duren are doing. They are competing to see who can spell those two words first using the names of their victims. Guyot is using the first letter of first names, Duren is using the first letter of last names."

"It took me days to figure that out and you spotted it in minutes?"

"The pattern is pretty obvious when it's laid out side by side in columns like that," Mark said, pointing to the board. "The two nurses are tied, with five names each. Guyot has Gary, Andrew, Melinda, Emilia, and Oliver, to spell ‘Game O.' Duren has Grayson, Aidman, Myack, Eames, Ohanian, to spell ‘Game O.' Your next step is finding people who fit the profile of the other victims and who have either a first name or a last name that begins with
V."

"How did you know that?" Steve couldn't hide his astonishment and, with it, his irritation. As much as he loved and admired his father, Mark's feats of deductive reasoning often made Steve feel useless and stupid. This was one of those times.

"Mostly it was just seeing the lists. But it's also similar to a well-known case of medical murder committed about twenty-five years ago by two nurses at a nursing home," Mark said. "The two women were lovers and, as foreplay, they took turns smothering their patients, whose initials, it turned out, spelled ‘murder.' They thought it was cute."

"Do you think Guyot and Duren are committing copycat crimes?"

"No, I think they just enjoy killing," Mark said. "So tell me what you've got."

Steve laid out his case the same way he had for ADA Karen Cross, only this time he didn't have to dance around how he got his hands on confidential medical records, since Mark was the one who had started Amanda and Jesse on that research.

He told Mark all about how he found Wendy Duren and her employment at Appleby Nursing Services and her suspected involvement in a string of unexplained deaths in the Beckman critical-care unit. Steve explained how that led to the discovery that several patients who'd recently overcome critical afflictions were using Appleby Nursing Services at the time of their deaths. All of which led to another Beckman nurse, Paul Guyot, who worked at John Muir, where Mark had visited Dr. Barnes and Dr. Dalton.

"Your theory is that Guyot saw me there, assumed I was onto him, and then tried to run me over," Mark said.

"Pretty much," Steve said. "The locations where the Camaro was stolen and where it was later abandoned were both close to his home and workplace."

Mark motioned to the two lists on the board. "Were any of their victims missing personal items?"

"I don't know. I haven't checked. I suppose I could, but it's really not necessary at this point."

"Yes, it is. If Wendy Duren or Paul Guyot have any of those items it will connect them to the murders of Grover Dawson, Hammond McNutchin, Sandy Sechrest, and Joyce Kling for starters," Mark said. "What about Kemper-Carlson Pharmaceuticals? Did these ten victims have that in common, too?"

"Again, I don't know. We could check." Steve tried to hide his frustration, but he didn't do a very good job of it, see it seeped out in the tone of his voice. "But that's not the connection."

"How do you know?" Mark said. "Posing as someone delivering prescriptions could be how Guyot got into the homes of the patients he killed."

Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "The nurses are lovers. They were killing at Beckman and they are killing now. He's picking victims that came through John Muir. She's targeting Appleby clients. It's a game."

"But Leila Pevney and Chadwick Saxelid were both patients at John Muir. They don't fit the ‘Game Over' pattern, since the first letters of their names can't be used to spell the phrase."

"Because they weren't murdered," Steve said in exasperation.

"Of course they were."

"Dad, you said it yourself. ‘Game Over.' That's the pattern, not drug deliveries or trophies."

Mark waved his hand dismissively at the boards. "None of this matches my dream."

Steve got to his feet and looked down at his father. "Because it was a
dream.
This is real. This is happening now." 

"The dream made sense," Mark said.

"You were married in the dream. Does that mean your wife is going to walk through the front door? Or that Susan is pregnant?"

"Maybe Dawson, McNutchin, Sechrest, and the others were killed first and
then
the nurses began the game."

Steve shook his head. "The dates don't work. Grover Dawson, for instance, died while the game was going on and Guyot had already scored his G."

Mark was silent for a long moment, then drew his bathrobe tight around himself, as if he was feeling a chill.

"I suppose you're right," he said.

But it was a lie. Mark wasn't going to let go, and they both knew it. And that truth infuriated Steve. He wanted to lash out at his father. There were a lot of things Steve could have said, things that had gone
unsaid
for too long, and perhaps he would have if Mark hadn't been ill. But Steve realized this wasn't the time.

Dad's got a hole in his skull, for God's sake.

Instead, Steve choked back everything he wanted to say and decided the best thing he could do for both of them was to leave.

You mean run away, don't you, Stevie?

"I've got to go to work," Steve said. "Are you sure you're going to be all right here?"

"Positive," Mark said.

"I'll make sure someone stops in to check on you," Steve said. "And I'll give you a call, too."

"I don't need a babysitter," Mark said.

"You're right," Steve said. "What you need is a nurse."

"Maybe we should call Appleby Nursing Services and have them send someone over," Mark said with a mischievous grin.

Steve glared at him. "Don't even think about it."

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

For Dr. Mark Sloan, being left alone with the files, the reports, and the data on the boards was bliss. It was intriguing, challenging, and occupied his mind far more than being in a hospital bed watching TV or reading magazines.

While coming home had its risks, infection being chief among them, the dangers were outweighed by his belief that being in a comfortable environment and engaging his mind and spirit with research would have genuine recuperative value.

Of course, if one of his patients had tried to use those rationalizations on him as a reason to check out early from the sospital, he would have vehemently argued against it. He hoped his hypocrisy never got back to his patients.

The truth was, Mark simply wanted out, which was why he'd slipped away at dawn before Jesse, Amanda, or anyone else could block his escape.

He knew that Steve was frustrated and upset with him. But Mark was frustrated, too. There were still important pieces of the puzzle missing, and the answers were in this dream.

Why couldn't Steve see that?

Mark was convinced that there was an overarching motivation or pattern to these killings beyond merely a sick game. His approach to the problem would be to examine each victim's profile, cataloging the commonalities and differences between them. He would use the ten victims Steve had identified as well as the ones who emerged from his dream.

As silly as it sounded, even to Mark, he didn't think of his dream as a dream. It was simply another form of concentration. The drama in his dream wasn't real, but the facts were. And yet the dramatic elements had investigative value, too. He was sure that the events, characters, and interactions held symbolic significance. All he had to do was interpret them and find the hidden meaning.

Yep, he thought. That was all he had to do.

Who was he kidding?

He barely had the energy to keep his eyes open, much less analyze the many possible meanings behind why he was married to a pediatric surgeon named Emily Noble or why Susan was pregnant and left brain-dead.

It was as if his own mind was taunting him.

Why couldn't his subconscious have just told him the important stuff flat-out without going to all the effort of symbolizing it?

To answer that, Mark would have to discover why people dream at all.

He decided to begin his toil by familiarizing himself with Guyot's victims. After barely an hour or so, he had to stop, unable to fight his growing fatigue, made worse by the soothing, rhythmic sound of the surf outside, which acted like a natural sedative.

Reluctantly, Mark cleared the files from the couch, stretched out, and took a nap.

Steve stopped by Krispy Kreme in Van Nuys, picked up a dozen glazed donuts and two cups of coffee, and headed east to Studio City, where Tanis Archer was parked outside of a condo complex off of Coldwater Canyon Boulevard, just north of the Ventura Freeway.

He got out of his truck and climbed into the front passenger seat of her car, setting the box of donuts between them and handing her a cup of coffee.

Tanis looked like she'd been sleeping in her clothes, though he knew she hadn't slept at all. Her eyes were red and ringed with dark circles. There were junk food containers piled on the backseat.

"Duren is inside the building, caring for a senile old lady," Tanis said, taking a donut and practically jamming the whole thing into her mouth.

"Does her first or last name start with V?"

"Clara Corn," she said, her mouth full. Steve thought he might have misunderstood her.

"Corn?"

"That's the name," Tanis said, while possibly setting a world record for the fastest consumption of a single original glazed donut. "Corn."

"Okay," Steve said. "I'll take over the surveillance from here."

"What about Guyot?" She reached for another donut, devouring half of it in one bite.

"He's at the hospital most of the day and she's on the move. So I picked her to keep an eye on, since we don't have the manpower to cover them both."

"Sure we do," Tanis said. "I'll stick with her while you cover Guyot."

"But who is going to relieve us? It's not going to look very good if Guyot and Duren kill someone and it turns out that one of us was sleeping outside while it happened."

"If I eat a couple more donuts, I'll have a sugar high that will carry me into next month," she said, reaching for a third donut. "I'll be wide awake."

"How can you eat donuts like that and stay so thin?" 

"Tantric sex."

Steve gave her a look. She gave it right back to him. "You're imagining me naked now, aren't you?" she said.

"No," Steve said. "I'm wondering if you're really going to eat that donut."

"How about calling in some favors with other cops, get them to help us in their free time?" She stuffed the donut into her mouth, meeting Steve's gaze as she did it.

"I have," Steve said.

"When are they starting?"

"You're it."

"How about recruiting some retired cops? They would probably jump at the chance to leave their mobile homes and security guard shacks." Tanis licked her sugary fingers, then reached for her cup of coffee.

"We've got enough civilians on this investigation as it is." 

"Two of those civilians are going to find the next victim," Tanis said. "And your dad just might solve this case."

"It's solved," Steve snapped sharply.

Tanis made a show of recoiling. "Whoa. Have a donut. Raise your blood sugar before you shoot someone."

"Sorry," Steve said and remembered that he hadn't eaten breakfast yet. His blood sugar probably was low, especially after his run. He reached for a donut. "It's just that my dad can't accept that I solved this case before he could. He has more faith in a dream than he does in me."

Steve took a bite of his donut. It was incredibly sweet. He felt an immediate rush, as if the sugar was entering his bloodstream before he'd even swallowed his bite.

Tanis sipped her coffee like it was a fine wine. "He believes in you. But he's got a compulsive disorder. He's obsessed with puzzles and can't let go until
he
solves them. What you, me, or anybody else does won't change that. He's got to do it himself."

"Even if the puzzle is already finished?" Steve licked the frosting off his lips and took another bite.

Tanis nodded. "That's my cheap psychological insight of the day."

"Maybe you're right," Steve said. "Or maybe it terrifies him that I might be pretty good at this on my own."

Tanis set her coffee in a cup holder on the floor. "Of course it does, you moron. Mark's father abandoned him when he was a kid. His wife is dead. And he's made his home so cushy that you're in your forties and still haven't left the nest. Did it ever occur to you that he's afraid of being alone. That he solves crimes so you two have one more reason to stick together? If you don't need him anymore, you might abandon him."

Steve dropped the half-eaten donut back into the box. "More cheap insights?"

She shook her head. "Painfully obvious facts."

Steve's cell phone trilled. He reached into his jacket for ins phone and Tanis reached for his half-eaten donut. "Sloan," he answered.