“Now, Matt, if I did that, I couldn’t trust or use what you gave me.” She took another sip of wine to appease him. “Besides, I’m not the one who called this meeting. In fact, I’m a little mystified as to why you even bothered. This is your brother’s problem.”
“Problem? Is he in trouble for declining to answer your questions?”
His concern for his brother sounded genuine, and she played off it. “His lack of cooperation doesn’t look good. He seems more interested in covering his backside than in getting to the bottom of what happened.”
“He’s following federal patient privacy guidelines.”
“Baloney,” she said. “He’s got a lot of wiggle room when it comes to those regs. He could help us more.”
“Has he done anything illegal?”
“Maybe not illegal, but certainly unethical.”
“My brother is not only one of the top psychiatrists in the country but also an honorable and generous man. On his own time and at his own expense, he developed a school-based program that screens teens for mental illness. He’s worked hard to increase the public’s understanding of brain disorders through free educational seminars. He goes to bat for patients who are discriminated against on the job. He started a suicide help line that is still up and running and saving lives today.” He took a deep drink, nearly finishing his wine, and pointed a finger at her. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a more ethical and giving man than Luke.”
“He needs to give to me. When a patient dies—”
“It’s tragic, but it happens.” He drained his glass. “People with mental illness are at great risk for—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “I already heard the company line.”
“It’s not a line,” he shot back. He ran his eyes around the restaurant. Catching the waiter’s attention, he pointed to the empty bottle.
She took a sip of water and checked her watch. She regretted ordering dinner. The conversation was moving in circles, and he was getting drunk. “Why am I here?”
“You’re here because you’re hoping I’ll say something inflammatory that you can use against my brother. Get him to turn over those patient files.”
Staring at him, she wondered if he was one of those rare individuals who actually got smarter as they got drunker. “Fair enough. Why are you here?”
He grinned. “I wanted to have dinner with a beautiful, interesting woman.”
“Spare me.”
His smile flattened. “I wanted to see why you were focusing on my brother. He doesn’t make a very good first impression, and I wanted to …”
“Do a little PR work for him?”
He shifted in his seat. “Don’t you have any siblings, Bernadette? Someone you feel protective of?”
She noticed a catch in his voice. Had he somehow found out that she’d lost a sister years ago? Rather than answer his question, she said evenly, “Your brother is a smart man. He doesn’t need your help.” She took a sip of wine. “He went to Harvard, I noticed. Saw the degree on his office wall. Did you go there, too?”
Matthew barked a laugh.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she said with a small smile.
“It’s a difficult school to get into,” said Matthew, trying to recover a little dignity. “I don’t know any other people in our circle who went there.”
“I just met a professor at the U. Wakefielder. He went to Harvard. He’s about Luke’s age.”
“Don’t know him,” said Matthew. “Is he at the medical school?”
“Literature professor,” she said.
“The liberal arts,” he said somberly. “Good stuff.”
“You’re sure you don’t know him? Luke wouldn’t know him?”
“Sorry.” He perked up as he saw Clive approach. The waiter showed Matthew the label, uncorked the bottle, and poured a small amount. Matthew tasted it and nodded. “Very good.”
“Matt, I’m only good for the one glass,” she interjected.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m good for more than one.”
A lot more, thought Bernadette. Watching Clive refill Matthew’s wineglass, she hoped she wouldn’t have to give her dining companion a ride home. As far as she was concerned, she’d wasted enough time with this man. “Will our food be much longer?” she asked as the waiter set down the bottle.
“I’ll check,” said Clive.
Matthew took a drink of wine. “What’s the rush? It’s a Saturday night.”
“Believe it or not, I still have work to do,” she said.
“Now you sound like my brother.”
“He’s a taskmaster?”
“Taskmaster. Perfectionist. Always on the job.”
“What do his patients think of him?”
“They like him.” He took another drink. “No. Wait. Like isn’t the correct word. They respect him. I doubt any of them actually like him. For all his good works, he’s not a likable man. I don’t think his own wife likes him. She loves him, I’m sure. But she doesn’t like him.”
If not enlightening, the conversation was at least getting interesting. She wondered what a third bottle would do for him. “Why is Luke unlikable? Does he have a temper?”
He retrieved his goblet and used it to motion toward her. “You’re trying to get me to say something incriminating about Luke, and I refuse to do it. As I said, he’s a saint.”
“An unlikable saint.”
“Like our father,” he said, and downed his glass of wine. “Strict. Disciplined. Very moral. Very Catholic.”
“Hence Matthew and Luke,” she said.
“Exactly. My parents were very fond of biblical names.” He tipped his empty wineglass toward her. “Not that Bernadette is a slouch name when it comes to holiness.”
“What do your parents do for a living?”
“Mother was a homemaker. That’s the politically correct term, isn’t it? Father was a psychiatrist.”
“Was. He’s retired?”
He shook his head. “Deceased. Both my parents are deceased. And you?”
“My parents are dead, too,” she said. “Heart stuff.”
“That’s what did my mother in,” he said sympathetically. “Bad ticker.”
“Your father?”
“He had a lot of health problems. He was older. They were both older parents. At least they never had to be in a nursing home.” He sighed and asked wearily, “So … no husband? No Mr. Saint Clare?”
This conversation was depressing her. She held up her barren left hand. “What about you?”
“Unattached,” he said, sighing again.
Mercifully, the waiter materialized with their dinners, setting a steaming plate down in front of each of them. Clive noticed Matthew’s wineglass was nearly empty and refilled it. “Is there anything else I can get for the two of you?”
“I’m good,” said Bernadette, her hands folded in her lap.
“I’ll check back in a few minutes,” said Clive, moving on to the next table.
“This looks divine,” Matthew said, picking up his fork.
She waited for him to resume the melancholy Q and A, but he’d put his head down and was poking at his fish. She tried to keep her voice light. “How large of a family did you come from, Matt?”
Rather than answer he took a drink of water. “Would you please pass the bread?”
She handed him the basket. His eyes were down as he fiddled with a pat of butter. He’d gone from a painfully personal discussion to a quiet fascination with hard-crust rolls. The wine must have loosened his tongue too much and now he was reining it back in. Maybe if she gave him an opening, he’d resume the proverbial gut-spillage. “I came from a small family, especially by farm standards.”
“Came?”
She pushed a cube of pineapple around with her fork. “I had a twin sister. She died when we were in high school.”
He looked up from his food. “I’m sorry. An illness or … an accident?”
“Drunk driver.”
He nodded. “It must have been hard. Did they get the fiend?”