“Monday.”
“So…Monday before last?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Eleven days. What type of doctor?”
“General Practitioner.”
“Was she sick? Did she hurt herself somehow?”
“No. I set it up after she mentioned she hadn’t been to the doctor in ten years.”
“Ten years? How is that possible?”
“She’s got a needle phobia. She’s never given blood.”
“Never? What about before she got married?”
“She and Sam got married in Vegas.”
“So you got her to give blood?”
“I did. But she was very unhappy about it afterward.”
“She was mad at you.”
“Yes.”
“Dangerously so?”
“I…wasn’t sure.”
“So you kept her sedated?”
She nods. “At night.”
That was probably wise. I always sedated Rachel at night to keep her from killing me in my sleep. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a great girl. But hey, she ain’t perfect, you know?
9.
Dr. D’Angelo’s office is located downtown on the corner of 4th and Spring, in the Davenport Medical Center. But I can’t get there before closing time, so I do the next best thing: talk Ruth Henry, Dr. D’Angelo’s longtime receptionist, into having a cup of coffee with me.
We’re sitting in Mocha Madness Coffee Shop, across the street from the Medical Center, when Ruth says, “You are absolutely the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in person.”
It’s true.
I’m amazingly good looking. I take no pride in it, since this isn’t the face I was born with. In fact, it took a team of plastic surgeons three years to create this face, and they only did it to keep my cover from being blown. Would’ve cost taxpayers a million dollars had I allowed Uncle Sugar to pick up the tab. But that wouldn’t have been fair, since I’m the one who put my cover at risk in the first place. Look, it’s a long story. Maybe someday I’ll write a book about how it all went down. Till then, try to accept the fact that I’m stupidly good looking.
“I was heartbroken to hear about Dr. Dee,” I say. In truth, I was stunned when I called his office earlier and learned he’d recently passed away.
Ruth shows me a weary smile. “Normally I wouldn’t have met you, based on your phone call,” she says.
“Why’s that?”
“For one thing, you called just before closing time, and I’m usually busy on Friday afternoons.”
“I got lucky.”
“You did.”
“What’s the other reason you wouldn’t have met me?”
“Because, no offense, I don’t recall Dr. D’Angelo ever having mentioned your name. But when you called him Dee, I knew you had to be an old college friend, in for the funeral tomorrow.”
I nod. The only reason I knew to call him Dee was because he’d been flirting with Rachel during the exam. “Please,” he’d said. “Call me Dee.” This, according to Nadine. Proving once again it’s the smallest bits of information that make the biggest difference in an investigation.
“Had I known what you looked like,” Ruth continues, “I would’ve got myself all gussied up!”
“Well, you look fine to me,” I say.
She winks. “A couple of the girls are working late at the office. I’d give anything if they came in and saw us together!”
I give her my best “aw, shucks” smile.
“I love your dimples,” she says.
Of course she does. My face was designed to make women love my dimples. The dimples alone cost a quarter mill.
“How’s your latte?” I say.
“Excellent, thanks.”
Ms. Henry is in her mid-forties and gone to seed. Her hairstyle is ten years out of date, and it appears she put her lipstick on with a paint roller. She has the teeth and fingertips of a chain smoker, the ticks and jitters of a caffeine junky. There is some sort of odd growth above her left eye that resembles a button mushroom someone jabbed with a fork. A yellow Livestrong bracelet circles her right wrist.
“Are you an athlete?” I say, shamelessly.
She follows my gaze to the bracelet, fingers it a moment. “This? Oh no,” she laughs. “One of the girls at the office was giving them out. I just like the color.”
“It’s fetching,” I say. Then shake my head in sadness.
“What happened to our poor Dee?” I lament.
“Myocardial Infarction,” she says, sadly. “Commonly known as heart attack.”
I nod, as if grateful for the translation. “Did he have a history of heart trouble?”
“He had chest pains a couple years ago. Had it checked out. He carried nitro in his pocket in case it happened again.”
“Did it?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“So it was a surprise?”
“A complete and utter shock.”
“You’re still working.”
“I am. In this town there’s always another doctor ready to step up to the plate.”
She looks out the window. “That your limo?”
“It is.”
“Nice.”
I waited until she turned her attention back to me. Then said, “How’d you learn about Dee’s passing?”
“Oh. Well, when he didn’t show up, I called his cell phone and got no answer. So I called his girlfriend, Lilly. She went over there, found him dead.”
“Over where, his home?”
“Yes. On Mulber Road.”
“And this was on?”
She takes a long sip before answering, “Tuesday.”
Her mouth is now rimmed in red lipstick and white foam.
“So he passed on Monday night?” I say.
“According to his kids, early Tuesday morning. Between midnight and six, they think.”
I nod solemnly, but inside I’m jumping for joy because these events add up to more than coincidence. Nadine took Rachel to see Dr. Dee for a blood test. Eight days later he and Nadine suffered heart attacks on the same morning that Rachel was kidnapped by a professional extraction team. Why does this make me so happy? It means Rachel wasn’t kidnapped because of me, and I can rule out revenge as a motive for her abduction.
Which means wherever Rachel is, she’s almost certainly alive.
Though the death and kidnapping are obviously connected, I have no idea why. According to Nadine, Dr. Dee gave Rachel a cursory exam, flirted with her a bit, and ordered some blood work. A few days later, he’s dead and she’s gone.
But why?
The only conclusion I can make at this point is Dr. Dee couldn’t have kidnapped Rachel. Not that he was a suspect in the first place. Jesus, listen to me: a suspect. What am I, a cop?
Ruth and I chat for another fifteen minutes, during which time I buy her two more mocha lattes. She orders the smallest size each time in order to get her card punched more often, which gets her a free latte for every six she drinks. By my count she’s on track to get a free one in thirty minutes.
I finally ask, “Did you happen to meet Nadine Crouch?”
“Crouch?”
“Older lady, friend of my mom’s. Before Nadine moved to Louisville, I told her to look up Dee and see if he was taking new patients.”
She scrunches her face to force the memory, which causes the growth on her forehead to shift its position. From this angle I can see several delicate hairs sprouting from it. She catches me staring.
“You like my beauty mark?” she says.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” I say, honestly.
She smiles. “When I was younger, I wanted to have it removed.”
“No!”
“I did. I used to hate it.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, you know how it is. Kids can be cruel. When you’re young…” Her words trail off while she thinks about being young.
“Now, of course, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” she says.
“Of course not!”
She winks. “You wouldn’t believe how much dick I get because of this!”
I nearly bolt my sandwich from earlier in the day. “Well, I’m not surprised,” I say, winging it as I go. “If I’m not mistaken, my buddy Dee was quite fond of you.”