Part 26 (2/2)
”Why are you doing this, Harris?”
”I'm not doing doing anything, lieu. I'm just telling you that there's new evidence in the Kelly Wade case and it's got to stay open.” anything, lieu. I'm just telling you that there's new evidence in the Kelly Wade case and it's got to stay open.”
”That's a kook letter! It doesn't count!”
”It's addressed to Kara Wade and says, in effect, get out of town or wind up dead like your sister. Where I come from, that's a threat. And it may mean that Kelly Wade herself was threatened before she died.”
Rob watched Mooney mull that, watched him try to find a way to make an end run around it, watched him give up.
”d.a.m.n it, Harris. Okay. So what are we doing with this 'threatening' note?”
”It's down in fingerprints now. We got a set from the victim's sister yesterday, and we found a set of Dr. Gates' from when he registered for a handgun in 1980. Both of those are all over the bill and the check. But they've picked up a third set. That's the one we're running down now.”
”And when that comes up as blank as the set from the hotel room, what're you going to do?”
”I'm going to start shaking Dr. Gates' tree and see if any rotten apples fall out.”
”Okay,” Mooney sighed. ”But make sure you do it all legal like. Make sure all your paperwork is done. I don't want no hara.s.sment calls from this shrink.”
”Right, lieu. But I know you'll be behind me a hundred percent if he does call, right?”
Mooney tossed the file across the desk.
”Oh, yeah.”
Rob glanced at his watch. If he hurried his afternoon paper shuffle he could be down by Gates' office in time to start following him again. The guy had to go someplace besides his office and his home.
11:35 P.M.
”Time to move,” Ed thought, but he didn't move.
He had the jitters now. It was one thing to pull a fast one on a receptionist. It was something else entirely to enter a locked building with a stolen key and rifle through the confidential files of a state licensed physician. We weren't talking fun and games, here. We were talking breaking and entering.
Ed had already put himself through the man-or-mouse s.h.i.+t and had run the line about A-man's-got-to-do-what-a-man's-got-to-do through his head at least a thousand times by now. It didn't help. But he was going to G.o.dd.a.m.n do it or never be able to look at himself in the mirror again.
Taking his coffee with him, he got up from his window seat at the all night Burger King on Twenty-third Street and headed for the door.
B and E time.
” He walked down Seventh Avenue. He was still dressed in his overalls, but beneath them he wore khaki slacks and a flannel s.h.i.+rt-in case he had to run and needed a quick change of appearance. He'd left his tool box at home. All the tools he needed were the keys in his right pocket and the flashlight in his left.
He slowed as he pa.s.sed Barney's, checking the window displays-he preferred Brooks Brothers-and stopped short of the Kramer building. What if someone spotted him going in, or questioned him? What would he do then?
First off, he wouldn't worry about it. And if he was stopped, he'd just say he was Dr. Gates and hope whoever it was didn't know the doctor by sight.
Ed glanced around. No one in sight. He hurried up to the lobby door with the key ready, hoping it was the right one, and thrust it into the lock. It fit. It turned. He pulled it open and scooted inside. He didn't bother with the elevator-that would mean standing where he was visible from the street-but went directly to the stairs. His mouth was dry as sand by the time he reached Dr. Gates' office door. He didn't allow himself to pause and think. He used the second key and opened the door. If anyone was inside he'd say he was part of the cleaning crew and would come back later.
Dark inside except for the glow from the fishtank and the blip on the computer screen. And quiet. He closed the office door behind him, turned the bolt.
Made it!
He felt weak. He had to take a pee. He wanted to turn around and get out of here. But that would have been stupid after coming this far and taking all these risks. No turning back now. He pulled out his flashlight and began his search.
The reception area he knew from this morning. He went into the consultation room. He dearly would have loved to turn on the lights but he was afraid lighted windows might draw attention from someone on the street. Maybe he was being overly cautious, but he was taking every precaution he could think of.
Nothing in the consultation room, at least nothing he was looking for. He wanted the files. There was a flush oak door behind the desk. He opened it and was faced with three more doors. The middle turned out to be a small private bathroom.
Thank G.o.d! he thought as he stepped in to relieve his aching bladder. Never should have had that third coffee Never should have had that third coffee.
The room behind the left hand door was lined with file cabinets. And it was windowless. He flipped on the light and pulled on the handle of the nearest drawer. It wouldn't budge. Same with all the others. Every cabinet was locked.
Ed spent a few moments cursing Dr. Gates with every four-, ten-, and twelve-letter word he knew. He'd never imagined he might run into locked files inside a locked office.
As he turned to make his way back to the consultation room, he noticed that the third door was standing ajar. He pushed it open and shone his flashbeam inside.
Another windowless room, only empty. But the walls... they were covered with fabric. Thick fabric. The floors and ceilings too. He stepped inside and checked the inner surface of the door. That was covered too. He touched it. Soft. Then he realized where he was.
In a padded cell.
February 21 12:05 A.M.
Kara hung up the phone. She was grateful that Rob cared enough to call and check on her, but was uncomfortable with the implication that she needed someone to watch over her. Or was she being too a.n.a.lytical?
She lay back in bed and waited for the Halcion to work.
No dreams tonight. Please, no dreams.
She wasn't up to any s.e.x tonight, real or imagined. Peace, that was all she wanted. And a reasonably normal life, one in which she would feel safe sleeping in the same house as her daughter.
Actually, she was spending more time than usual with Jill these past five days. And Jill, with the adaptability of a nine year old, had been quite content to go to parks and places like the Museum of Natural History when her mother was around, and watch the VCR when she wasn't. Today Kara had tried to watch a Disney movie with Jill. But it was Freaky Friday Freaky Friday, the one in which Jodie Foster switches bodies with her mother. It struck Kara as too much like that d.a.m.n crazy note. She'd had to leave the room.
And her book... her book was going nowhere while the deadline kept creeping up. She didn't want to blow this. She was counting on that second payment on the advance. But more than that, she believed in her book, knew it would be an important contribution to the women's movement. If only she could get back to work on it.
Tomorrow... she'd force herself to work on it tomorrow...
Right now she felt sleep creeping over her. She blanked her mind and welcomed it.
Rob sat in his car, smoking and sipping Dunkin' Donuts coffee as he watched Gates' townhouse. He was waiting for the lights to go out so he could call it a night.
Rob had been asking around about Gates. n.o.body knew too much about him. Seemed to be a real homebody. Took vacations from his practice but never left town. No social life that anyone knew of. His world seemed to consist of his home and his office, and occasionally a trip to the hospital. Gates could walk to all three: a few blocks downtown on Seventh Avenue and he was at his office. A few blocks further down and he was at St. Vincent's on Eleventh Street in the village. That was his world. Family dead, no friends, no close ties to the medical community. The guy lived in a vacuum.
Actually, he lived in a Victorian townhouse. Rob knew the type well: four floors and a bas.e.m.e.nt. Once upon a time, before the recent regentrification of Chelsea, he had lived in one of these townhouses, two blocks down on Nineteenth. He had been a rookie then and had been rooming with Tony Morano, a friend from the Academy. But they had shared one of seven apartments in a subdivided building just like Gates'. Two apartments per floor and one in the bas.e.m.e.nt.
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