Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (16 page)

I was thinking about that when Katherine set Steve down in my lap and went looking for the stroller. She told me we were going to the laundromat and that I was going to be in charge of the baby.

That sounded just fine to me. I was looking forward to a day of domestic tranquility, far removed from the ugliness of murder and the chaos of the ER.

I felt like an intruder.

The laundromat was filled with housewives, and they'd turned the place into a women's luncheon. They'd brought thermos bottles of coffee and milk and picnic baskets of sandwiches and cookies for themselves and their kids, who were playing in the playpen the mothers had setup. I was assigned to keep watch on the kids while the women, who included Mary Spicer, Gladys Arnold, and Irene Marlowe, gossiped and smoked and ate and folded their laundry.

I didn't mind. I stole a sandwich and some cookies and sat in a plastic chair beside the playpen, tickling the kids and eavesdropping on the conversation the women were having.

The big topic was, of course, Dr. Whittington's suicide and the revelation that he'd murdered two teenage girls.

"He's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Irene Marlowe said. "They were both British, you know."

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?" Mary Spicer asked jokingly.

"Dr. Whittington and Dr. Jekyll," Irene said. "Though I don't think any secret potion drove Whittington to kill those girls."

"I feel sorry for his wife," Katherine said. "Think what she must be going through right now."

"She must have had an inkling something was wrong," Gladys Arnold said. "She left him, didn't she?"

"That was only because the money ran out," Irene said. "Not because he was a sex-crazed killer."

"Where does it say anything about him being sex-crazed?" Mary asked.

"He wasn't playing backgammon with those girls," Katherine said.

"I ran into Constance Whittington at the supermarket once," Gladys said.

"You did?" Mary said. "You never told us that."

"She was lecturing the grocer on the proper care and presentation of vegetables in that very English accent of hers," Gladys said. "Her attitude seemed to be that everything was better in England than it is here and it was her job to educate all of us savages."

"They didn't make any effort at all to fit in," Mary said, nodding in agreement.

They kept talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. Mary's comment sparked a static burst in my mind. The letters and words that made up Dr. Whittington's suicide notes careened across my psyche.

I scurried around the Laundromat, looking for a copy of the morning paper. I finally found one, stuffed into a garbage can. I plucked it out and brought it back to my chair.

I borrowed a fat crayon from Gladys Arnold's three-year-old son and sat down in my seat, laying the newspaper open on my lap. I reread the suicide note and saw everything I'd missed before, marking up the newspaper in crayon as I went along. It was as if I'd read it the first time with blurred vision and now I was wearing glasses. Everything was clear.

Dr Whittington didn't write the suicide note. It was written by whoever murdered him.

The same person who killed those five women was trying to trick us again by framing an innocent man.

There was a pay phone mounted on the wall not far from me. I hurried over to it, reached into my pocket for some spare change, and dialed Harry Trumble's number at the station house.

He answered on the first ring. "Trumble."

"Harry, it's Mark Sloan," I said. "Please don't hang up on me."

"Give me one good reason not to," he said.

"Dr. Whittington was murdered," I said. "The evidence is the suicide note."

"What are you talking about?"

"You didn't know him, but he was very British. You saw how he was dressed, didn't you? Who wears a cravat alone at home? He conducted himself as if it was his sole responsibility to uphold the British way of life among the savages," I said. "That's what's wrong with his suicide note. It's full of errors."

"I didn't see any typos or spelling errors," Harry said irritably.

"Because you're an American," I said. "That's why I didn't see them at first either. But take a good look at the note, Harry. We spell some words differently than the British do."

I walked Harry through the suicide note, line by line, word by word. Dr. Whittington supposedly wrote "
In desperation, I turned to less honorable methods of acquiring funds
." I pointed out that the writer used the American spelling of "honorable," not the British, which is "honourable." Likewise, he'd used the American spellings of "favours," "endeavours," "defence," and "programme." When I finished with my examples, Harry let out a frustrated sigh.

"That's it?" Harry said. "Did it ever occur to you that Whittington may have used the American spellings deliberately because he knew his note would be read by Americans?"

"He wouldn't have," I said. "But even if we assume for the sake of argument that he did, that doesn't explain the other errors.

"This isn't a goddamn spelling test, it's a suicide note," Harry said.

"He wouldn't say his books were 'due Thursday,' he'd say 'due back on Thursday.' And he signed the note 'Dr. Alistair Whittington."

"Now you're saying he wasn't a doctor?"

"What I'm saying is that he was an Oxford man, he wore a school tie, he was very class-conscious," I said.

"These were supposedly his last words. He would have signed a genuine suicide note as 'Alistair Whittington FRCS,' indicating that he was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and gone to his grave carrying his class distinction with him. By not doing so, Whittington was sending us a message, revealing in a subtle way that whatever he was signing was a fraud. And then there's the date. He would have started with the day first, not the month, and—"

"I'm hanging up now," Harry interrupted.

"You're making a mistake," I said, but it was too late. All I was hearing was a dial tone.

I hung up the phone and slumped back to my seat, tossing my marked-up newspaper onto the empty chair beside me in frustration.

The women were still talking and sorting laundry.

The kids were still playing and giggling.

Nobody noticed or cared what I was doing. Nobody saw my distress.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. One person did. I felt someone looking at me. I glanced at Steve. He was sitting in the middle of the playpen, oblivious to his friends, staring at me with big, moist eyes. He could tell something wasn't right with Daddy. Steve held up his chubby arms, signaling that he wanted me to pick him up.

I reached into the playpen, pulled him out, and set him down on my lap. He started to bounce, which was his way of telling me he wanted me to bounce him on my knees.

So I did.

I hummed the theme to
Bonanza
and, still holding him under his arms, bounced him to and fro to the beat of the song. He giggled with joy, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a big grin.

After a moment or two, he seemed satisfied that I was fine and reached his arms out towards the playpen. I got the hint and put him back down among his playmates.

I decided that it didn't matter whether Harry believed me or not. I knew I was right. The killer was still out there and had added another victim to his growing list.

I knew he existed. I knew what he had done. Somehow, I had to stop him.

But where to begin?

Obviously, the killer had forced Dr. Whittington to sign a blank piece of paper and then, after he shot the doctor, he typed the suicide note above the signature.

But why did he have Dr. Whittington open the safe first? Was it to make it seem like the doctor was putting his affairs in order? Or was the killer looking for some thing? If so, what?

And more important, why did the killer pick Dr. Whittington to frame for his crimes? Was it simply because the doctor had a connection to each of the victims? Did Dr. Whittington know his killer, or were they strangers?

I didn't know any of the answers. I didn't even have any decent guesses.

I had nothing.

I gave up for the moment and began eavesdropping again on the conversation among the women.

"You won't believe what Bart got in the mail yester day," Mary said. "A letter from Chrysler."

"So?" Irene said.

"They're offering us an Imperial Crown Southampton to drive for three days," Mary said. "Absolutely free."

"What's the catch?" Gladys asked.

"There isn't one," Katherine replied, folding socks. "They're sending those letters to thousands of doctors."

"They are?" Mary said, sounding disappointed.

"Mark?" Katherine held up the pair of socks she'd just folded, the top ankle portion of one pulled down over the other, the toe ends hanging out like floppy dog ears. "I don't recognize these socks. Where did they come from?"

"What makes you think I didn't buy myself some new socks?" I asked.

"Because you haven't bought a new pair of socks since we got married," she said. "You'd wear your socks until all your toes poked through, and your heel, too, if I didn't buy you new ones myself."

I gestured towards Gladys. "I borrowed them from Chet."

"Why would you borrow socks from Chet?" Katherine asked.

"It's a long story," I said. "And not very interesting."

Katherine handed the pair of socks to Gladys, who promptly unfolded them. As I watched, she laid the two socks down on the table on top of each other, rolled them from up from the toes, then pulled the opening of one sock down over the whole roll. It took a few seconds and she did it while still talking about something.

I don't know what she was talking about because all I was hearing was the burst of static in my head. It was happening again. That physical tingle, coupled with a blur of images, facts, and thoughts in my mind, every thing I'd seen and heard since Sally Pruitt was brought into the ER. And suddenly the bits and pieces all made sense.

I stood up, walked over beside Irene Marlowe and looked at her pile of socks. She stuffed one sock into the other, creating tiny balls.

I moved over to Mary Spicer and watched her as she placed one sock on the other, folded them in half, then turned them inside out, wrapping them around her hand like a glove. When she pulled her hand out, the folded sock resembled a sandwich.

"Haven't you ever seen someone fold socks before?" Mary asked me.

"Laundry is a mystery most men don't understand," Gladys said. "They just think their clothes magically show up washed, folded, and ironed in their drawers. Chet has never done a load of laundry in his life."

"I think that's why men get married," Irene quipped.

When I looked up again, I saw Katherine looking at me, bewildered. "Mark, are you okay?"

I nodded, forcing a smile to reassure her. It was amazing what you could learn at a laundromat.

"I'm just fine, but I need to go," I said. "I need to take the car. Do you mind getting a ride home with one of these remarkable women?"

"Boy, do they lay it on thick when they want something," Irene said.

"Sure," Katherine said to me. "Where are you going?"

"There are some errands I need to run." I hurried out into the rain before she could see the lie on my face. I couldn't tell her the truth.

I couldn't tell her that I knew who the killer was and now I was going to prove it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

There was an enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling of the Chrysler dealership on Santa Monica Boulevard. The showroom looked like an elegant living room that happened to be furnished with three Imperial Crown Southamptons instead of couches and chairs.

The salesman was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and approached me as if I was a wet rat he'd just spotted running across his travertine floor.

I couldn't blame him. I was drenched, wearing an old raincoat, old slacks, old shirt, and old tennis shoes. I hadn't dressed to impress. I hadn't dressed for tracking a murderer either, but I didn't own a deerstalker hat, a cape, or a large magnifying glass.

"May I help you?" he asked, full of disdain.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the rain-soaked invitation Chrysler had sent me. "I'm Dr. Mark Sloan, and I'm accepting your offer to try out a 1962 Imperial Crown Southampton."

He carefully unfolded the wet paper as if expecting to find a crude forgery. His entire demeanor changed when he saw the letterhead and my name neatly typed at the top of the page.

"Welcome!" he said heartily. "You should have let us deliver the car directly to you, especially in this storm."

"I couldn't wait," I said.

"You're that eager to experience the Imperial?" he stroked the hood of the car like it was a woman's thigh.

"If I said yes, I wouldn't have much of a bargaining position, would I?" I smiled and so did he, offering me his hand. I shook it

"Thad Thorson," the salesman said, then swept his hand over the car, presenting it to me. "And this is undoubtedly America's finest fine car."

"Undoubtedly," I agreed.

"A steal at seventy-seven hundred," he said.

"Shamefully underpriced," I said.

I told him how much a friend of mine had enjoyed the Imperial, how he was the one who had urged me to hurry on down to take Chrysler up on the unbelievable invitation to drive the car for a few days.

When I gave Thad my friend's name, his face lit up. "Yes, I remember the gentleman well. In fact, you can drive the same car if you like. He returned it yesterday."

"It's black, isn't it?" I asked.

"With a sumptuous red leather interior and a chrome dash," he said.

"Perfect," I replied.

We went back to Thad's office and filled out all the necessary paperwork. He brought the car around to the covered carport, gave me a quick tutorial on the high-tech features, then handed me the keys.

I pressed DRIVE on the push-button transmission, gripped the rounded corners of the square steering wheel, and guided the land yacht out into the water. It was exactly the right car with which to brave the stormy sea that Santa Monica Boulevard had become.