Darkness peering (36 page)

"Time sure ain't on our side," Cavanaugh murmured.

"Think!" McKissack commanded, and the room fell silent. "What's his
plan? What comes next?"

"Clearly," Tapper picked up the ball, "he's gonna do something heinous
to Nicole Castillo."

"Only he won't kill her," McKissack said.

"And he won't rape her. He's probably feeding her macaroni and-cheese
as we speak. Keeping her warm. He'll release her alive, but then
something else will finish her off."

"Or someone else," Rachel jumped in. "First Claire's father, then a
random truck driver, and now--"

"Who's the lucky person gonna be?" McKissack looked around the room as
if he were accusing each of them. "Who's gonna end up killing Nicole
Castillo?"

"She has no medical condition that we know of," Tapper said, "like
asthma or diabetes."

"She smokes," McKissack said.

It hit Rachel like a slap. "She's pregnant."

The room fell silent.

"Dear God." McKissack rubbed his face hard, as if he were trying to
rub through to the bone.

"An abortion?" Tapper said.

"This is going nowhere fast," McKissack said nervously. "Let's back
up, people."

Rachel thought for a beat. Did the V in Claire's Day-Timer stand for
baby? "McKissack," she said, "that would bring us back to the
hospital."

"What?"

"Somebody in the medical profession, you said."

"Right."

"We should go over the interviews, we should ..." Rachel's shoulders
slumped. They'd recently combed through hundreds of interviews looking
for any possible leads, but nothing had panned out. Dead ends, all of
them. "The nurse," she suddenly said.

"What nurse?" McKissack grew alert.

"The nurse at the hospital who told me it wasn't asthma, remember? Her
name's Casey something ... she said Dr. Castillo misdiagnosed Claire's
asthma attack."

"So who've you gonna believe?" Tapper asked with a fixed sneer. "Some
nurse, or the doctor on duty who happens to be the girl's father? And
what the hell does it matter anyway?"

"If she wasn't having an asthma attack," Rachel conjectured, "then they
shouldn't have administered the epinephrine."

"Because," McKissack said, "combined with Thorazine, that's exactly
what killed her."

"You mean," Cavanaugh said, "the good doctor made a mistake?"

Rachel nodded. "A fatal mistake."

McKJssack pointed at her. "Go find that nurse. Talk to her. See what
else you can dig up."

She pushed back her chair.

THE LAST PLACE YOU'D WANT TO EAT, RACHEL THOUGHT, WAS A

hospital cafeteria. Patients hacked at rickety nearby tables, doctors
and nurses rummaged through the utensil tub for knives and forks. For
a moment, she imagined a host of germs permeating the humid,
food-smelling air. She and Casey Angstrom were having coffee with
little containers of nondairy creamer, and Rachel's stomach turned
sourly.

"What prompted you to tell me about Dr. Castillo's misdiagnosis?" she
asked.

Casey shrugged inside the fuzzy blue of an oversized sweater, flyaway
hairs trembling ever so slightly with each beat of her heart. "I just
thought you should know."

"Why?"

Her voice grew unexpectedly small. "I shouldn't be telling you this.
I could lose my job."

"Casey. You could save a life here."

Her eyes widened with concern, and she took a deep breath. "He's done
it before."

"Done what before?"

"Come to the wrong conclusion before."

Rachel gave a shiver. "You mean he's been threatened with a
malpractice lawsuit?"

"Child endangerment. Gross negligence. Failure to recognize a lethal
condition ..."

"And this has happened more than once?"

Pause. "Yes."

"How many times?"

Casey's eyes darted frantically over the grid work along the
cafeteria's ceiling. "I don't know."

"More than a couple?"

She nodded. "It goes way back."

"Over a dozen?"

Another pause. "Yes."

The cafeteria smelled of meat loaf and chicken noodle soup and all the
prefabricated foods served in public institutions from time immemorial.
"Do you think Dr. Castillo would let me see those files?" Rachel
asked.

Casey shook her head, a serious look on her face. "He's such a proud
man. I don't think he'd want anybody to know."

"So how did you find out?"

"Last year, he was sued for willful injury to a child for misjudging
her condition. He thought this little girl had an ear infection, when
it was actually a virus, a serious intestinal infection. The child
went into shock before she was finally given fluids intravenously. The
case was thrown out by the tribunal."

"Meaning?"

"It never went to court. I had some concerns, so I spoke to the
admitting nurse, and she told me about the other cases."

"Has anyone ever died under his care?"

Casey seemed to shrink from Rachel's scrutiny. "Listen, Detective, I'm
not trying to impugn anyone's reputation here."

"If a patient died under his care, I need to know."

Casey shrugged. "All doctors lose patients."

"Yes, and it could provide a surviving family member with a motive."
For some reason, Rachel thought of Fred Lake, Claire's landlord. She
remembered his limp, his comment about Claire's father being a rich
doctor. What if he'd sued once for malpractice? What if he'd lost a
loved one?

"I'd like to help you, but I don't really know anything more." Casey
glanced at her watch. "I've gotta run."

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"I hope you find her before it's too late," she said, hurrying off.

DR. CAST ILLO WAS IN DIRE NEED OF A SHAVE, AND THE VIOLET

circles under his eyes gave him a feral look. Rachel found him in
Trauma Room 3 with an elderly patient--a white-haired, starry eyed
skeleton whose legs were covered with bedsores and swollen with
infection. She moaned repeatedly while Yale drew blood from her arm.
"Please please please ..."

"Dr. Castillo," Rachel said, "we need to talk."

"Please please please ..."

He barely glanced up. "I'm rather preoccupied right now."

"When you get a moment."

"There is no such thing as 'a moment' in ERIt's related to your
daughter's case."

"Oh, all right," he said, tension building in the muscles of his neck.
"Give me a minute,"

He quickly dressed the woman's bedsores while her complaints escalated:
"Please please please please please!"

"That's enough, Mrs. Steussie, you're hurting my ears."

A pause. Then whimpering, "Please please please ..."

A few minutes later, he led Rachel into his office, where they stood
just inside the door. He kept his hand on the doorknob, impatience
jerking at his limbs.

"Yes, what is it?" he snapped.

"Have you ever been charged with malpractice?"

His eyes narrowed to little bandwidths of light. "What's that got to
do with anything?"

"It could have a lot to do with it," she said. "If a patient suffered
under your care, it might provide motive."

He gave an abrupt shake of his head. "I doubt very much that one of my
former patients would be involved in such a thing."

"Doctor, has anyone sued you for malpractice because a family member
died?"

He seemed outraged by the suggestion. "Detective, let me tell you
something. I am a dedicated doctor who chose to practice on the front
lines of medicine because I wanted to save lives. Should a doctor be
punished for attempting to help his patients?" His stern face was
flushed. "Medicine isn't an exact science. We're only human. We make
mistakes. We are not God."

She waited a sufficient beat before saying, "Dr. Castillo, somebody
has targeted your family and I'm trying to figure out why."

They held each other's eye, then his shoulders sagged, and he exhaled
sharply. "Do you need them all?"

"That would be very helpful."

A knock came on the door. "Doctor?"

"Be right there!" He turned to Rachel. "Some of them go way back.
I'll have to dig them out of storage. My secretary will deliver them
to you later today."

"The sooner the better," she said.

He nodded. "I understand. Now if you'll please excuse me, I have
patients to attend to."

She took a shot. "Do you remember Fred Lake?"

"Who?"

"Fred Lake?"

He shook his head, confused. "Not that I recall."

"Perhaps a relative of his?"

"I don't remember any Lakes, but I've seen so many patients."

"Doctor!"

"My secretary will get the files to you by the end of the day.
Good-bye, Detective."

He left her standing in the corridor, where an accident victim,

strapped to a backboard with a neck collar in place, gazed up at her
with plaintive eyes. Rachel smiled back encouragingly when her cell
phone rang. It was McKissack. "Rachel, we need to talk."

SHIVERING, RACHEL WAITED IN THE PURLIC PARKING LOT FOR

McKissack to show up. He pulled up in his Buick LeSabre and opened the
door. "Hop in."

The car was warm and smelled of popcorn. "I just found out Yale
Castillo has at least a dozen malpractice charges against him," she
said, "possibly more. That got me thinking about Fred Lake. Hey,
where are we going?"

"No place in particular." He looked exhausted, face slack, clothes
rumpled, as if he'd slept in them.

Aspen Loop Road climbed steeply through lush, deciduous woodlands that
offered diverse habitats for more than three hundred birds and forty
mammals, including deer, red fox, mink and otter. This road dated back
to 1842 when a carriage road was backed into the slopes, its first
three miles winding up through a forest of hardwoods, then switch
backing through mountain ash and paper birch. The ride was creamy
smooth; McKissack had recently become a big American-car fan.

"What's wrong, Jim?"

"I'm leaving my wife."

She felt as if she'd stepped onto a rocky boat. She couldn't catch her
breath.

"Listen to me, okay? He held her eye, and a deer darted in front of
them, and Rachel screamed.

McKissack slammed the brakes and the deer made a graceful

swan dive into the woods and disappeared. The car swerved, tires
shrieking, and they came to a dead stop in the middle of the road.

He was breathing heavily. "Holy Christ."

Rachel could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. "Jim," she said,
voice shaky. "This is crazy."

"No, let me talk." His grip tightened on the wheel. "I can't find the
chemical in my brain that says it's wrong."

"You're just going to leave her?"

"I don't have some big overall plan," he admitted, putting the car in
reverse and backing onto a soft shoulder. He jerked the emergency
brake, then turned to her. "All I know is ... you're so much a part of
my life, you're like my legs or something."

She was tempted. Sorely tempted. "You're making a big mistake."

"It's not like I haven't thought this through, Rachel. I was raised
under an iron code of discipline. There were some things you didn't
do, and divorce was a biggie."

She shook her head. Refused to meet his gaze. The car's heater
hummed, and she could see the forward edge of the hood and its integral
grille where the deer's hoof had tapped the surface.

"I love you, Rachel. I love you and I want to be with you."

"What about your kids?"

The question mark dropped away, revealing a simple truth. McKissack
gazed out the window at the woods. Neither of them spoke. The heated
air grew stuffy, and Rachel's thick woolen coat chafed her skin.

"Take me back, McKissack," she said.

"What is this, National Hero Day? We have to be so good? We have to
be so perfect? We've gotta fix everybody else's feelings and forget
about ourselves?"

Heart aching, she held his eye. "We have to try."

"Look, I've been over and over it..."

"You'll end up hating me."

"No," he said angrily. "You're the one who'll hate me. My kids will
forgive me before you do."

It was true. She wouldn't let him leave his family because that would
make her a murderer, in some sly way.

His eyes were bitter. "Nobody's interviewed Roger Tedesco yet," he
said, pulling back onto the road. "I want you to do the honors."

"What about Fred Lake?"

"I'll take care of it."

"McKissack," she said, "I know what you are."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"One of the good guys."

He glanced at her and cracked a smile. "Don't squeaky-clean me,
Rachel. I'm as selfish a prick as anybody else."

ROGER TEDESCO LIVED IN A DILAPIDATED SHACK IN A REMOTE

part of town just east of the Triangle. The living room lights blazed,
the windowpanes rattled from an ill wind, and Roger Tedesco, an obese
man with a gray goatee and a kind, open face, occupied most of the
couch, propped up by a multitude of pillows. He was alone in the
house, submerged in grief, a box of tissues clutched in one hand, a
picture of his son in the other.

"Siddown," he said with a congenial wave.

Rachel sat in the captain's chair with its spongy seat cushion. A
nearby space heater stood dangerously close to a pile of old
newspapers. Roger clamped a wad of tissues over his runny eyes, and
she gave him a moment to collect himself. His broad shoulders
convulsed several times before settling, then he blew his

nose and tucked the used tissues into a cardboard box full of
accumulated litter.

"Mr. Tedesco ..." She almost couldn't look into his eyes, two
pinpricks of grief.

"Call me Roger. Everybody does."

"Roger, I have to ask, it's procedural... where were you on the day of
your son's abduction?"