Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (26 page)

As Depp opened the canisters, he gave a play-by-play in his booming baritone over the intercom to Steve, who was watching through the window in the next room. It sounded to Steve like he was listening to Darth Vader.

"The rusted or bulging metal cans indicate deterioration of the film inside. Eight millimeter film is on triacetate," Depp explained, sorting through the box and separating the plastic canisters from the metal ones and placing them on different trays. "Over time, as moisture interacts with the acetate base in the film, it creates acetic acid, giving it that vinegar smell as it deteriorates. It can also be covered with mold. Even if it hasn't deteriorated to that degree, the film might have shrunk, warped, or turned brittle."

"How much of the film is salvageable?" Steve asked.

"Probably most of it," Depp said, carefully opening each canister and inspecting the stock inside. "But it's a laborious and costly process. What you should be asking me is how much of it is viewable now."

"Okay, I'm asking," Steve said.

"Looks to me like the majority of it is in pretty good shape, considering the fluctuating heat and humidity and the proximity to the other deteriorating stock," Depp said. "It's the plastic canisters that saved most of it."

Depp carried the tray of plastic canisters out to Steve as if they were a selection of party hors d'oeuvres.

"You can start with these," Depp said. "I'll set you up on a viewer."

Dan Marlowe had lived in the same house in Sherman Oaks for forty years. His children were born there. His wife had died there. And more than likely, Dan would die there, too.

The house didn't belong in the San Fernando Valley. It was a quaint seaside cottage that should have been on Nantucket. Or in Maine someplace. Not sandwiched between a Sante Fe ranch on one side and a Spanish Revival bungalow on the other.

Mark had visited Dan's home many times over the years. For dinner parties and birthdays, to watch football games and play poker. Those visits became less and less frequent as their kids grew up, their wives died, and they themselves pursued other interests.

It wasn't as though they never saw each other. They worked in the same hospital together every day. Hardly a day went by when they didn't say hello to each other, perhaps discuss the latest gossip, a recent movie they'd seen, the progress of a shared patient, or whatever happened to be in the news.

Now Mark tried to remember the last time he'd come to Dan's house. It was for a poker game, he knew that much, with some of the other doctors from the hospital. He'd lost. He always did. Their long years of friendship gave Dan an unfair advantage against him at the card table. Dan could see right through his bluffs.

That was one reason Mark hadn't even tried to soften the news when he told Dan about his cancer. And it was why he wouldn't soften the news now.

Mark knocked on Dan's door. He heard the TV shut off and the heavy footsteps approaching the door. Dan opened the door wearing a pair of surgical scrubs. The last time Mark had seen Dan he'd been dressed the same way. He wondered if Dan was feeling so ill that he'd gone home yesterday and fallen into bed without even bothering to change.

"Mark. I didn't know you made house calls," Dan said, opening the door wide.

"Only for special patients." Mark stepped inside. Although it may have been months since he'd last been in the house, he felt immediately at home. Everything was familiar. The antique coat-tree chair by the front door, the family pictures on the walls, the his-and-hers matching recliners in TV room.

"How are you feeling?" Mark asked, hanging his jacket on the coat-tree chair.

"Like I've got cancer," Dan said. "I know the body is made up of two hundred and six bones. Today is the first time I've felt each and every one of them."

"You're experiencing bone pain?"

"Isn't that what I just said?" Dan said, walking into the TV room. "I knew Martha would overreact when I called in sick."

"It wasn't your nurse's fault," Mark said. "I didn't come here to check up on you."

"Then why are you here?" Dan sat down in his re diner. His wife's recliner was as she'd left it, her hand-sewn afghan draped over the back. She'd died sitting there, of heart arrhythmia, a decade ago.

"The hospital has suspended your medical privileges pending review by the Physician Well-Being Committee and the Medical Staff Executive Committee next week."

"Why?" Dan asked evenly.

"Because you were performing surgery while heavily medicated," Mark said. "What did you expect would happen?"

"I suppose you told them that," Dan said.

"You didn't give me much choice," Mark said.

"You always have a choice, Mark. But you always choose the option that will make you feel good about yourself. And nothing makes you feel better than judging others."

"This isn't about me," Mark said. "It's about what's in the best interests of you and your patients."

"Ask Rufus King how he's feeling today," Dan said. "He's glad to be alive."

"You're missing the point."

Mark remembered his shock when he saw Dan emerge from the operating room.

And then he remembered some other things.

The anxious family, waiting for Dan to tell them how the operation went...

The woman whose wig nearly fell off when she flew into the doctor's arms to give him a grateful hug...

"It doesn't matter anyway," Dan said. "I'm in no shape to go back to the hospital."

"Speaking of which, I'd better get back." Mark rose from his seat, suddenly eager to leave and trying hard not to show it. "I have a lot of patients to see."

"I appreciate that you came out to see me, Mark. A lesser man would have called or left the task to someone else."

Dan started to get up, but Mark waved him away, glancing again at Irene's empty chair beside him. For an instant, he could see her ghostly image sitting there, knitting.

It was Dan who found her.

"Don't trouble yourself. I can find my way to the door. Call me if you need anything."

"I will," Dan said.

Mark went to the entry hall. His heart was pounding as he reached for his jacket and examined the other garments on the coat-tree.

There was a raincoat hanging from one of the hooks. It was a Stanton.

And one of the buttons was missing.

Suddenly all the clues snapped into place.

When the woman in the waiting room hugged Dan, she transferred processed hair from her wig and cat dander from her pet to his scrubs. And Dan transferred them to Joanna Lenhoff…

…
when he killed her
.

Dan murdered those nurses in 1962. And Mark knew why he'd waited until now to kill again.

Because Dan had just discovered he was dying.

Mark had started towards the door when he felt a sharp sting in his back. Instantly his breath caught and his entire body froze.

Dan caught him as he fell, grabbing Mark under his armpits.

"I knew you'd figured out it was me when you looked at Irene's chair," Dan said. "We've played poker together too many times. You never could bluff me. I could always read your cards on your face."

Mark couldn't swallow. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't even blink. All he could feel anymore was terror. It was as if he was entombed in concrete.

He knew he'd been paralyzed by an injection of succinylcholine. Within a minute or two he would die. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"It's a good thing you came today. I don't know if I would have had the strength to do this tomorrow," Dan said, dragging Mark into the kitchen and hefting him up onto the counter.

His lungs screamed for oxygen. His soul screamed for life. They were screams only Mark heard as the final darkness began to spread across his consciousness, Dan's voice fading into a haunting whisper.

"I hope you aren't squeamish about having a man's mouth on yours, but we're old friends, right? And you do want to live for a few more minutes. Well, maybe you won't once you know what those minutes are going to be like."

Dan gave Mark mouth-to-mouth for a few breaths, then stopped, walking back into the entry hall for his medical bag, letting the seconds tick by as Mark slipped into hypoxia and to the edge of death once again.

"You've witnessed autopsies, even performed a few, but this will be a chance to experience one yourself from the other side of the knife. Quite an educational experience—not one Joanna could appreciate, I'm afraid. I did, though."

Dan gave Mark mouth-to-mouth again, then took a scalpel from his bag and slit Mark's shirt open. The ripping sound, and the point of the knife so close to his flesh, sent waves of fear through him.

It took a full second to expand the lungs and two to three seconds for them to deflate with each breath. Three or four breaths would take about fifteen seconds for Dan to give. Mark knew that gave Dan a full thirty to forty seconds to do something else, something horrible, before having to repeat the mouth-to-mouth.

Depending on what
else
Dan was doing to him, the or deal could go on for some time. For Mark, it could be an eternity of excruciating pain. Dan smiled, as if reading Mark's thoughts.

"That look in your eye right now, that's what makes this experience so incredible for me," Dan said. "That's what I missed all those years when I wasn't able to kill."

CHAPTER THIRTY

Steve spent hours in the tiny cubicle, hunched over the hand-cranked tabletop viewer. As he turned the cranks on the spools, the tiny film strips were run over a lens that projected the grainy images onto a small rear-projection screen.

The colors had faded to red or magenta and sometimes were blurred due to buckled film, but Steve could make out what was going on and, for the most part, could clearly see the faces.

He recognized the women who'd been killed and even a few of their companions. Bart Spicer was a frequent customer and so was Steve's pediatrician, who'd only recently retired to Palm Springs. Most of the men, however, meant nothing to Steve and would have to be identified by his father later.

Watching the faded footage of the perfunctory, hurried couplings of men and women was depressing, dull, and soulless. It was like studying crudely produced scientific film on the random mating habits of a particular species of ape. Steve couldn't imagine what pleasure Whittington derived from watching the films, beyond academic interest. The picture was poor. There was no sound. There were no close-ups, angles, or editing. Except when people entered the room, the camera rarely captured their faces once the sex began.

Still, Steve was able to begin compiling an index of sorts. It was clear to him already that Bart Spicer was familiar with each of the victims. He had yet to see Whittington in any of the films, though there were plenty more rolls to watch.

His eyes were beginning to blur. All the bodies and couplings were beginning to look the same. He was getting ready to quit, to put off further viewing until later with his father, when an image grabbed his complete attention.

There were two women in the room. Muriel Thayer and Joanna Pate. And Steve couldn't believe who was with them. He grabbed his cell phone to call his father.

Dan gave Mark mouth-to-mouth. Mark hated how much he craved the air, how much his whole body silently pleaded with Dan to give him just one more breath.

"You're the reason I haven't been able to really indulge myself doing what I love most. I was always afraid you'd catch me, and that fear, and my frustration, only grew over the years as I watched you catch one murderer after another. But now I have nothing to lose, do I?"

Dan opened his medical bag and carefully selected a variety of surgical tools, making sure to show them to Mark before he laid them on a towel on the counter.

"I'm going to give you satisfaction, Mark, before I take my own. I'm going to answer all the questions you have. It would be cruel to let you die without knowing the truth. And I'm not cruel. Well, at least not in that way. I didn't kill those nursing students because they were prostitutes or in retaliation for blackmail. I only slept with Muriel and Joanna once, together. I'm a man of big appetites. Neither one of them blackmailed me. Nobody did."

Although Mark couldn't close his eyelids, darkness was closing over his vision anyway. He knew it was hypoxia, the lack of oxygen in his blood, and so did Dan.

The killer leaned over Mark and resuscitated him with more mouth-to-mouth before continuing. Each time Mark started to fade as Dan spoke, Dan revived him.

"I killed Muriel because I wanted to and because I knew I could get away with it. I wanted to see what it was like to look into a healthy person's eyes, someone untouched by illness or old age, at the instant they realized they were going to die and were powerless to stop it. It's unbelievably exciting. Better than sex. Better than anything.

"I didn't know someone else was killing nursing students until the same time you did, and once Whittington was blamed for all the deaths, I realized how lucky I was to escape detection. But I never stopped yearning to do it again. I'm sure you're wondering why I waited so long to kill Joanna. She was never a danger to me as long as she thought the killer was caught. But if you talked to her, and told her otherwise, she might remember the one customer she and Muriel had in common. I couldn't risk that. I had to rush over there and make sure she couldn't talk to you again."

Mark felt his consciousness drifting, a coldness seeping into his bones. Death was only a few seconds away. It was almost like sleep. It was almost welcome.

Dan glanced down at Mark's eyes, studying his face for a moment before reviving him again with more air.

"I think this kill is going to be the best ever because you understand what's happening to you in a way nobody else ever did." He picked up a scalpel and made a show of appreciating the blade. "Not the nursing students. Not my wife. Not your cat. Not anyone. The perfect end for us both, wouldn't you say?"