Blind Rage (27 page)

“He needs to give to me. When a patient dies—”

“It’s tragic, but it happens.” He drained his glass. “People with mental illness are at great risk for—”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I already heard the company line.”

“It’s not a line,” he shot back. He ran his eyes around the restaurant. Catching the waiter’s attention, he pointed to the empty bottle.

She took a sip of water and checked her watch. She regretted ordering dinner. The conversation was moving in circles, and he was getting drunk. “Why am I here?”

“You’re here because you’re hoping I’ll say something inflammatory that you can use against my brother. Get him to turn over those patient files.”

Staring at him, she wondered if he was one of those rare individuals who actually got smarter as they got drunker. “Fair enough. Why are
you
here?”

He grinned. “I wanted to have dinner with a beautiful, interesting woman.”

“Spare me.”

His smile flattened. “I wanted to see why you were focusing on my brother. He doesn’t make a very good first impression, and I wanted to…”

“Do a little PR work for him?”

He shifted in his seat. “Don’t you have any siblings, Bernadette? Someone you feel protective of?”

She noticed a catch in his voice. Had he somehow found out that she’d lost a sister years ago? Rather than answer his question, she said evenly, “Your brother is a smart man. He doesn’t need your help.” She took a sip of wine. “He went to Harvard, I noticed. Saw the degree on his office wall. Did you go there, too?”

Matthew barked a laugh.

“I’ll take that as a no,” she said with a small smile.

“It’s a difficult school to get into,” said Matthew, trying to recover a little dignity. “I don’t know any other people in our circle who went there.”

“I just met a professor at the U. Wakefielder. He went to Harvard. He’s about Luke’s age.”

“Don’t know him,” said Matthew. “Is he at the medical school?”

“Literature professor,” she said.

“The liberal arts,” he said somberly. “Good stuff.”

“You’re sure you don’t know him? Luke wouldn’t know him?”

“Sorry.” He perked up as he saw Clive approach. The waiter showed Matthew the label, uncorked the bottle, and poured a small amount. Matthew tasted it and nodded. “Very good.”

“Matt, I’m only good for the one glass,” she interjected.

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m good for more than one.”

A lot more,
thought Bernadette. Watching Clive refill Matthew’s wineglass, she hoped she wouldn’t have to give her dining companion a ride home. As far as she was concerned, she’d wasted enough time with this man. “Will our food be much longer?” she asked as the waiter set down the bottle.

“I’ll check,” said Clive.

Matthew took a drink of wine. “What’s the rush? It’s a Saturday night.”

“Believe it or not, I still have work to do,” she said.

“Now you sound like my brother.”

“He’s a taskmaster?”

“Taskmaster. Perfectionist. Always on the job.”

“What do his patients think of him?”

“They like him.” He took another drink. “No. Wait.
Like
isn’t the correct word. They respect him. I doubt any of them actually like him. For all his good works, he’s not a likable man. I don’t think his own wife
likes
him. She loves him, I’m sure. But she doesn’t
like
him.”

If not enlightening, the conversation was at least getting interesting. She wondered what a third bottle would do for him. “Why is Luke unlikable? Does he have a temper?”

He retrieved his goblet and used it to motion toward her. “You’re trying to get me to say something incriminating about Luke, and I refuse to do it. As I said, he’s a saint.”

“An
unlikable
saint.”

“Like our father,” he said, and downed his glass of wine. “Strict. Disciplined. Very moral. Very Catholic.”

“Hence Matthew and Luke,” she said.

“Exactly. My parents were very fond of biblical names.” He tipped his empty wineglass toward her. “Not that Bernadette is a slouch name when it comes to holiness.”

“What do your parents do for a living?”

“Mother was a homemaker. That’s the politically correct term, isn’t it? Father was a psychiatrist.”

“
Was.
He’s retired?”

He shook his head. “Deceased. Both my parents are deceased. And you?”

“My parents are dead, too,” she said. “Heart stuff.”

“That’s what did my mother in,” he said sympathetically. “Bad ticker.”

“Your father?”

“He had a lot of health problems. He was older. They were both older parents. At least they never had to be in a nursing home.” He sighed and asked wearily, “So…no husband? No Mr. Saint Clare?”

This conversation was depressing her. She held up her barren left hand. “What about you?”

“Unattached,” he said, sighing again.

Mercifully, the waiter materialized with their dinners, setting a steaming plate down in front of each of them. Clive noticed Matthew’s wineglass was nearly empty and refilled it. “Is there anything else I can get for the two of you?”

“I’m good,” said Bernadette, her hands folded in her lap.

“I’ll check back in a few minutes,” said Clive, moving on to the next table.

“This looks divine,” Matthew said, picking up his fork.

She waited for him to resume the melancholy Q and A, but he’d put his head down and was poking at his fish. She tried to keep her voice light. “How large of a family did you come from, Matt?”

Rather than answer he took a drink of water. “Would you please pass the bread?”

She handed him the basket. His eyes were down as he fiddled with a pat of butter. He’d gone from a painfully personal discussion to a quiet fascination with hard-crust rolls. The wine must have loosened his tongue too much and now he was reining it back in. Maybe if she gave him an opening, he’d resume the proverbial gut-spillage. “I came from a small family, especially by farm standards.”

“Came?”

She pushed a cube of pineapple around with her fork. “I had a twin sister. She died when we were in high school.”

He looked up from his food. “I’m sorry. An illness or…an accident?”

“Drunk driver.”

He nodded. “It must have been hard. Did they get the fiend?”

“Slap on the wrist,” she said.

“Do you have any others in your family?”

“Cousins,” she said. “Otherwise—”

“You’re all alone.”

“Yes,” she said, although she didn’t like hearing someone say it out loud.

“How does that make you feel?” he asked somberly.

“I’m okay with it,” she said hesitantly.

“I suppose your work helps.”

She popped a wedge of fish into her mouth and waited for him to say something, but he returned to his meal in silence. She washed the salmon down with a drink of water. “Your turn to share.”

He glanced up. “My turn?”

“What about your family? Besides your parents, anyone else? Any other siblings?”

“There’s just the two of us.”

“You and Luke and that’s it?”

He nodded and looked away.

Something is wrong there,
she thought.

AS THEY STOOD
under a streetlamp outside the restaurant, the October wind buffeted their backs and sent crumpled McDonald’s bags flying past their ankles. Urban tumbleweeds. She waited patiently while the swaying man searched for his buttonholes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a man in St. Paul wearing fur. It wasn’t something moderately rustic, like a raccoon jacket or a beaver bomber. It was a full-length black mink coat with wide lapels.

“I wish you had let me pay,” he said, finally unearthing the holes and buttoning up. “Going Dutch with a woman is so junior high.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, pulling on her leather gloves. “Let me hail you a cab and you can pay for that.”

“I don’t need a ride,” he said, pulling on his gloves.

“You can leave your car in the ramp,” she said. “It’ll be fine.”

They both stepped to one side. A Wild hockey game had just let out, and a wave of green jerseys was rolling down the sidewalks. A couple of the female fans eyed the mink as they passed Matthew.

“I walked here and I can walk back,” he said.

“Where do you live?”

He thumbed over his shoulder, toward the Mississippi River. “Across the bridge. I’ll be home before your car warms up.”

“That’s convenient.”

He buried his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the gale. “Are you in the ramp? I can at least walk you to your car.”

She didn’t want him to know she lived downtown and had walked to the restaurant. “Don’t worry about it. I’m close. Parked on the street.”

“You sure? I don’t mind a little walk.”

“I’m good.” She held out her hand. “Thank you. It was interesting.”

“Interesting,”
he repeated as he shook her hand.

“No. Seriously. It was…nice.”

He stood staring at her for a moment, his weight shifting from one foot to the other. A teenage boy trying to put closure on a disastrous first date. “Well, good night,” he said with a tip of his head, and turned his back to leave.

“Matt?”

He pivoted around, a pained expression on his face. His escape had been delayed. “Yes?”

“Ask your brother to think about the files,” she said.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said dully.

As she watched him go down the sidewalk, she wondered if his unsteadiness was from the wind or the wine. The mink bumped shoulders with a hockey jersey going the opposite way on the sidewalk. It was the wine.

She waited until he was a block away before she started to follow him.

Chapter 26

DEFTLY WEAVING THROUGH THE PEOPLE CROWDING THE DOWNTOWN
sidewalks, Bernadette kept Matthew at a distance but within eyeshot. While she’d easily found a home address for Luke, she’d been stumped when trying to track down the younger brother’s residence. Did he live in his Jag?

When he stepped onto the west side of the Wabasha Bridge and continued south over the river, she slowed her pace. There were few pedestrians on the bridge, and she didn’t want to risk being spotted by her quarry. The walk was ten feet wide, and the side bordering the road was dotted with fat concrete pedestals topped by streetlights. She hugged that side of the walk, moving from pedestal to pedestal. Burying her hands in her coat pockets, she felt the comforting outline of her gun tucked under all the clothing.

About a third of the way across, Matthew stopped to look out over the river. Afraid he’d spot her, she stepped onto one of the overlooks that jutted out from the bridge like concrete balconies. The apron was surrounded by a cagelike structure that camouflaged her but still allowed her to keep him in her sights.

While the river side of the walk was bordered by railing as high as Matthew’s shoulders, Bernadette was still nervous at seeing him lean against the bars and stare into the water. Nighttime on the river was always the most dangerous. The downtown lights became a string of pearls cast against black velvet, making the Mississippi appear deceptively safe and beautiful. Alluring. More than one person had jumped off that bridge at night on a stupid dare. Some were saved. Others died in the black water.

She sidled next to one of the light poles that lined the overlook and continued to watch him. What was he doing there all by himself, half in the bag from four hundred dollars’ worth of wine? Was he frustrated he hadn’t charmed the FBI bitch into backing off? Were his thoughts even darker? Perhaps he was wondering what it would be like to drop into the river, sink to the bottom. She could almost understand that sort of fantasy.