Now or Never (42 page)

Waxman’s eyebrows rose. “Don’t tell me you think it’s one of us? Here at the hospital?” he asked.

“Let’s just say we’re looking at everyone she came in contact with. It’s just procedure, doc, nothing to be alarmed about.”

Waxman’s eyes clouded as he thought uneasily about it. “Jesus, Harry, you’ll have us all looking over our shoulders if you go around questioning everyone.”

“That’s why I’m asking you first. She worked with you. You knew her better than the other doctors here.”

“Yes, well, I suppose I did. Though Dr. Andrews knew her too—she did a stint in obstetrics. And Starewski, in neuro. In fact, Harry, most everybody must have known her. You’re asking me a damned difficult question. I’ll bet if you asked anyone here, they’d have the same problem. A hospital is a small world, you know, even one as big as this.”

Harry heaved a sigh; he knew Waxman was right. “Well, if you can think of anyone in particular, anybody you get a feeling about …”

Dr. Waxman nodded. “I’ll do that,” he said, already walking away.

There was no sassy chat from the nurses at the duty desk this morning. They were subdued, still caught up in the horror of Suzie’s murder, still worried about safety. He asked them the same questions he’d asked Dr. Waxman and got pretty much the same response.

“I hope whatever happened to your head has nothing to do with this,” the duty nurse said.

“Nope, just a personal problem,” Harry replied, uncomfortably aware that with a line of stitches bisecting his partially shaven head, he looked like something from Frankenstein’s laboratory.

“That must be some ‘personal problem,’” the nurse murmured.

He met Rossetti coming back down the hallway.

“Sometimes I think I live here,” Rossetti said gloomily. “But you surely look as though you belong, Prof.”

Dr. Blake came hurrying around the corner. “Morning, gentlemen,” he called, lifting his hand in acknowledgment as he hurried past. Then he stopped, turned around, adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, and stared hard at Harry. “What the hell happened to you, detective?” he asked mildly.

“Oh, just a run-in with the paparazzi. You can read all about it in the tabloids this morning.”

Blake came toward him, inspecting the wound. “I never read the tabloids,” he said. “I don’t know any of the people who appear in them. At least not until today I didn’t. Not a bad sewing job, though. Get that done here?”

“Upstate, doc, at the local hospital.”

“Couldn’t have done it better myself. You look as though you could use a vacation, though. If I were your doctor, with a wound like that, I’d recommend a few days off.”

“No chance. They’ve got me tied to the stake at the precinct until we solve this case. Taking the dog for a walk is about as far as I’ll get for the next few weeks.”

“Too bad,” Blake said, smiling as he hurried on his way.

“Prof,” Rossetti said, “did you notice that Blake was wearing Guccis?”

“Yes. So was Waxman, and more than likely a dozen of the other doctors. I guess that eliminates interns and anyone else who can’t afford them from suspicion.”

“Unless it’s someone with a status symbol thing,” Rossetti said thoughtfully. “Y’know, like an intern who really wants a Ferrari but will settle for a pair of pricey Italian shoes. Makes him feel classy.”

“You may be right,” Harry admitted. “Meanwhile, put a check on every doctor in this hospital. I want to know
who they are, where they come from, where they worked previously, whether they are married, and what their home lives are like.”

Back in the squad room, he picked up Mal’s message about the Welcome Home note. He figured it was the tabloids; they were experts at accessing information. It might also have been some nosy reporter who had been calling the unlisted numbers and hanging up. It made sense.

He called Mal at the office. She answered right away and sounded as though she had been waiting for his call.

“Hi, Scarface,” she said cockily, but he detected an undertone of nerves.

“I could always claim I earned it in a duel.”

“Like Errol Flynn?”

He sighed. “First it was Bogart and Scarface, and now it’s Flynn. Right now, with half my hair missing, I look more like Bruce Willis.”

“That’s not bad,” she said.

“Squeeze barely recognizes me.”

“I barely recognize you. But that’s because every time I see you, you do a disappearing act.”

“My mother warned me my job would be my downfall.”

“Your mother was right. Besides,” she added wistfully, “I think I’m missing you.”

“You
are misssing
me
, Malone?
Missing
my strong manly presence?”

“Yup.”

He waited for her to say something else, but there was silence.

“About the Welcome Home note,” he said. “It has to be the tabloids.”

“After what happened, do you really think they’d do a thing like that?”

Harry wasn’t convinced, but he wanted to reassure her, take that little wobble of nerves from her voice. “They know how to get things like unlisted numbers, addresses, where to find the dirt on people—”

Suddenly she made up her mind. It couldn’t go on—she had to tell him. “Harry,” she interrupted him, “I need to see you.”

He knew she wasn’t joking. He didn’t ask questions, he just said, “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“My knight in shining armor,” she said softly.

“I hope I can live up to that. I’ll be there around seven, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said quietly.

She sat on her pretty garden terrace, waiting for him, looking out over Manhattan’s skyline—the turrets and towers that she had conquered as Mallory Malone. But her past as Mary Mallory was not over and done with yet. And because of what she now believed in her heart, she had, finally, to tell Harry the truth.

He was right on time. He walked into her apartment and into her heart precisely on the stroke of seven. They stood looking at each other across the room.

He glanced ruefully at his old leather jacket and jeans. “One knight in slightly tarnished armor, reporting for duty, ma’am.”

“Oh, Harry,” she said, still looking into his eyes. She loved him when he was silly, and she wanted to laugh, but it got stuck in her throat.

He saw she was nervous and slung an affectionate arm around her shoulders. “What’s up, Mal? Come on, you know you can tell me anything.”

She gulped back the panic and got a grip on herself. “It’s important, Harry. You see, now I think I know who he is.”

Harry took a deep breath. He had always suspected that
Mal knew more than she was telling, but not this much. He saw the panic in her face and tightened his arm reassuringly around her.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Just take a deep breath, Malone, and begin at the beginning.”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” she said. “It’s in the past, I didn’t think it related to the murders. To us. But now I know it does, I
feel
it.”

“Okay, Mal, I’m listening.” He sat next to her and held her hand.

M
ARY MALLORY WAS EIGHTEEN
when she met him. She had never had a boyfriend, never dated, flirted, necked, or petted. She was a virgin.

The café where she worked six nights a week as a waitress was a simple place, patronized by office workers and staff at the nearby hospital who wanted an inexpensive meal, and he was one of the regulars. He always sat at one of her tables, if he could, and after a few visits they got to smiling at each other and saying how are you tonight, that sort of thing. She liked him because at least he looked straight at her instead of through her, and he treated her as a person, not just a plain, overworked waitress.

She thought at first he must be in the military, his hair was cropped so short. But then she decided he couldn’t because he also had a neat little beard. Besides, he was nearsighted, as she was, and always wore glasses with heavy black frames to read whatever book or journal he brought with him.

Chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits was his favorite meal, and he always cleaned his plate. She smiled. She’d bet when he was a kid, his mother had told him he wouldn’t get ice cream unless he finished his broccoli. Somehow that made her feel a tenderness for him.

One night, after he had been coming to the café for several weeks, she went to take his order as usual. He put a marker in his book and smiled at her, then asked her
name. He had nice white even teeth and a friendly expression, but she was so surprised, she blurted out, “Mary Mallory Malone,” without even thinking. Then she added, embarrassed at the way it sounded, “But now I’m always called Mary.”

“I like Mary Mallory,” he said. “It’s different.” He asked if she worked at the café full time.

“Oh no, I’m really a student,” she replied, with a shy smile.

“You work such long hours,” he said, surprised. “When do you find time to study?”

“At nights, mostly,” she confessed. “I like it then, it’s quiet, no one bothers me.” And then she blushed. No one ever bothered her anyway, yet here she was, talking like a regular person.

“I know how it is,” he said seriously. “I put in a lot of hard years as a med student. Now I’m an intern at the hospital, and I’ll tell you, the workload doesn’t get any easier.” He showed her the medical textbook he had brought along. “I can’t afford to let up,” he said. “Just got to keep on studying until I get where I want to be.”

She wondered where that was but was too shy to ask, so she took his order, and he returned to his textbook.

He waved good night to her when he left and she found he’d given her a good tip. Mary smiled as she cleared his table. She realized, surprised, that she had actually had a conversation. With a man.

The next night she washed her long limp hair and tied it back with a ribbon. She wore a new blue T-shirt and a sixties kind of multicolored Indian-looking skirt that she had bought for a couple of dollars from the secondhand shop. She looked up expectantly every time the bell over the door jingled, but he did not show up that night. Nor the next. When he did not come for a whole week, she resigned herself to the fact that he had probably found a new place whose food and waitresses he preferred.

Then, unexpectedly, on a busy Saturday night, he was back again. The café was crowded, but she promised him the little corner table he favored as soon as it was free, and while he waited, he drank a glass of red wine.

“So how’re you doing, Mary Mallory?” he asked when she finally got him seated.

She stood waiting with her order pad poised. “Just fine, thanks,” she said, smiling at him. “We haven’t seen you in a while, though.”

“Family problems.” He shrugged. “I had to go home for a few days.”

He didn’t tell her where home was, and she didn’t ask. He ordered the chicken and said, “I can’t stand the food in the hospital canteen. I miss my mother’s cooking, and the chicken and biscuits here are a kind of nostalgia trip.”

“It must have been nice to go home then,” she said, but he looked at her, puzzled. “For your mother’s cooking,” she explained.

He nodded. “Oh, sure. I guess you already know what I want to order.”

She wrote chicken and biscuits on the order pad and showed him. He laughed. “You got it,” he said.

When he had finished his meal, he asked her what she was studying. “Media communications and journalism,” she said. “So I can ask the questions instead of having to answer them.”

“Good answer, Mary Mallory,” he said approvingly.

She found herself waiting for him, ready with a smile, when he next came in, eager to take his order. Chatting a little, making real conversation, wasn’t so hard after all, she told herself happily.

One night he came in late. He was the last customer to leave the café, and when he paid his check, he said to her, “I’m not in a hurry tonight. I’ll drive you home, if you like.”

She rushed into the ladies’ room to check her appearance,
suddenly nervous. She combed her hair and smoothed her skirt and applied a touch of lipstick. She wished she had some perfume, hoping the aromas of the steamy little kitchen didn’t still linger on her clothes. Then she took a deep breath and walked out onto the street where he was waiting for her.

The car was a brand-new BMW convertible. He held open the door, and she stepped in, feeling like a princess. He pressed a button and the top slid smoothly down. Then he switched on the radio. It was a bit chilly, but she enjoyed the way the wind tugged at her hair as they drove toward the dank little house she shared with several other students. The soft music on the radio created an intimate little world, enclosing the two of them, and she leaned her head back dreamily against the fine leather cushion. She wished the drive would never end.

“This must be it,” he said, peering at the ramshackle building she called home. A street lamp shed an unfriendly yellow light on the brimming garbage cans and rusty bicycles, and a prowling dog stopped and sniffed, then lifted its leg on the BMW’s tires.

“Goddammit!” he yelled viciously. “Get the hell out of here!” He glanced angrily at her. “They should exterminate animals like that. All they do is spread disease.”

She was surprised by his anger, especially since she was acquainted with the dog. It belonged to a neighbor and was a friendly creature who sometimes came and sat on their porch. Still, it was unfortunate that the dog had chosen to lift his leg on his smart new car.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s just the way it is in this neighborhood.”

He shrugged. “I’ll go by the car wash on the way back.” Then he slid his arm along her shoulders.

Mary Mallory looked at him, big-eyed with surprise. She was holding her breath with the shock of it when he pulled her toward him and kissed her on the mouth.

It was her first kiss, and she quivered with the unexpectedness of it. Her emotions had been locked inside her for so many years, she was like a volcano ready to erupt.

He let go of her, then leaned across and opened the passenger door. “See you next week,” he said.

She slid out of the car, said a hurried good night, and stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, waving as he drove off. She put her hand to her lips, still feeling the imprint of his kiss, half relieved and half disappointed that he hadn’t done it longer.