“It could be important,” she said, still thoughtful. “Kidnapping me was an act of desperation. You said he was unscrupulous, but that was an extreme act. He’s desperate, Charlie. I just wonder why.”
Charlie nudged the torte to the center of the table and, smiling, she nudged it back.
“Okay,” he said after taking another bite. “The summation probably suggests that there’s only one person who could have been responsible for eight deaths. Merrihew himself. And he can’t accept that, but neither can he accept eleven accidental deaths. It’s a dilemma for him, and he wants an out.”
She nodded approvingly. “You’ve thought that all along, haven’t you?”
“Yes. But so what? If they were accidents, God’s turned against him, something like that. And the role of Job has little appeal at his age. He wants a flesh-and-blood villain.”
“One he would kill,” she said.
“Without a qualm. He wants that project built while he has his faculties more or less intact. God alone knows how many millions he’s already put into it. No consortium, no backers, his own money. He has no intention of sharing immortality.”
“Does he have siblings?”
“A sister, a couple of years younger than he is. A doctor, I think, in the Philadelphia area. Why?”
“I want to talk to her.”
Charlie put his fork down and picked up his coffee, regarding her over the rim with his curiously opaque eyes flat and hard. “Why?”
She could not tell him that she intended to do whatever she could think of to prevent his going after Merrihew. Instead, she said, “I don’t know exactly. A nagging feeling that we’re missing something. Look, he doesn’t know when to expect you to return from your fishing trip. As far as he knows I’m wandering around in the forest, lost, in a ravine, eaten by bears, whatever. He must be in a sweat. Let’s let him sweat another day, head for Philadelphia, talk to the sister, and then decide what to do next.”
That was a problem, they had decided. Not only was Merrihew staying out of sight, there was little point in accusing him of kidnapping Constance. All traces of her presence in DeHaven House would be gone, and there would be no one there except a skeleton crew getting things ready for the opening of the facility in a few weeks. She had not seen anyone clearly, no license number, nothing tangible. Charlie had noted the license plates; he always did notice things like that, but that didn’t mean a thing. She had not seen them. These were stated reasons for letting that issue go. The unstated reason, one they both understood well, was that Charlie considered this a private affair.
Charlie had said, “How do you satisfy the kidnapper’s demands when the kidnappee is sitting by your side? Damned if I know the answer.
“Besides,” Charlie said after the waiter came to clear the table and discreetly leave a tab, “you can’t just walk in on a doctor and demand answers to your questions.”
“I’ll make a few calls,” she said. “People I know in Philadelphia. Someone may know her, or know someone who does.”
He did not argue. She had a network that was enviable; she knew people all over the country, and the fact that she did peer reviews, and also published reviews of books on psychology, as well as publishing her own books, did not hurt a thing. Her network had paid off more than once over the years.
Debra Merrihew was a pediatrician, married to Alfred Finelly, an orthopedic surgeon. Nothing unusual about that, a mutual friend of hers and Constance’s had said on the phone, except that Al’s practice was in Los Angeles, and Debra’s in Philadelphia. They saw each other on holidays and vacations, she had said a bit cattily, and that kept the marriage stable. There were three grown children.
At ten minutes before six on Monday, Constance and Charlie were in a dim bar waiting for Debra Merrihew Finelly, who had agreed to see them after office hours. She was late.
“At six I’m out of here,” Charlie said grumpily. Perfectly at home in New York City traffic, he had found Philadelphia impossible to navigate at that time of day, and they had ended up parking the car in a lot and taking a cab to the bar.
Constance smiled at him and sipped Chardonnay. “I think she just came in,” she said, nodding toward the entrance. A woman had entered, paused in the dim light, squinting.
Debra Merrihew Finelly was sixty-one, and at the moment she looked it, solid like her brother, and not fat. She had iron-gray hair, was dressed in a rumpled skirt suit and low shoes. She saw Constance and approached the table.
“Constance Leidl?”
Constance stood up and took her hand as Charlie pulled out a chair for her. “Dr. Merrihew? Or is it Dr. Finelly?”
She introduced Charlie and they seated themselves.
“Merrihew,” Debra said. She held up her hand for the waiter. “Jack Daniels on the rocks, and a glass of water. Followed by a double burger, medium rare, and fries. Pronto!” Then to Constance she said, “I’ve had a hell of a day.”
“I’m grateful that you could see us,” Constance said.
“Two people I know and respect said I should,” Debra said. “Seems people owe you, and I’m part of the payback. Way the game works. What do you want?”
“To talk about your brother.”
“He’s a louse, a heel, evil, wicked, bad news, dangerous, not to be crossed. Next topic?” She grinned, not to take the charge from her words, apparently, but to ease the sudden tension that had emerged. “Sorry. See, I put a kid in the hospital at five after five, temp one oh five, no diagnosis yet. Ordered a bunch of tests and they’ll start coming in in about—” she looked at her watch — “an hour or a little more, and I have to be there when they do. I don’t have a lot of time to discuss brother Jason. Cut to the chase, that’s the order of the day.”
“Good enough,” Constance said. “Does he have long-standing enemies? People who would like to see him ruined? And know enough about him to see that it happens?”
“Enemies, sure. They’d like to see him six feet under. Nobody knows what makes him tick. Including me. Next?”
The waiter brought her drink and she gulped down half of it, then drew in a breath. “Needed that. Why are you asking about him?”
“Last week he had hoodlums kidnap me in order to coerce Charlie into investigating deaths at a work site that apparently means a great deal to him. We want to know more about him before we decide what to do about it.”
Debra nodded. “That sounds like his style. His terraces? I read about them and the accidents. The only thing he’s cared about since he was a kid. He’s trying to expiate his sins or something. Not my field, but it figures.”
“What do you mean?”
Debra looked at her watch. “Our father died in an accident that shouldn’t have happened. A trapdoor opened and let a ton or more of grain fall on him, smothered him. He was a bully and a tyrant all around, but that was over the top. Jason swore that the trap was secure the last time he checked. Afterward, he made our mother give him some money and he took off for South America — we both thought for good — but he came back, and he began to run things his way. He terrorized her exactly the way our father had done. Fourteen years ago, when she died, he came for the funeral, the first time he had been around for more than twenty years. We both said some pretty nasty things, and he slapped me hard. I yelled that he should look in the mirror, and he’d see our father looking back. He ran out and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since. But what I said was true. He’s turned into the father he hated and feared, and possibly killed. That day, fourteen years ago, he looked like him, talked like him, and acted like him. It spooked me, seeing Father in the house on the day we buried my mother.” She finished her Jack Daniels and sipped some water. “Do you suppose they had to go slaughter a cow to make my hamburger?” She looked at her watch again.