Eric turned just as two men entered the alley on foot and began sprinting after them, but he knew they were too late. After just a few yards they stopped, apparently realwng the same thing. Clearly enjoying the whole scenario, Felix Connolly eased the bug onto the roadway and accelerated back toward Boston.
"Any questions?" he asked.
"Wy one," Eric said. "Do you have anything left in that flask?"
Felix Connolly drove Eric to the Back Bay and pulled up in front of an old, elegant brownstone on the river side of Beacon.
"Your friend is in apartment Three-B," he said.
"If you need anything, here's my card. That number'll reach me day or night." He leaned over and shook Eric's hand. "You're a class act, Doc," he said. "You've handled yourself well through all this."
"Thanks for saying that. You're something of a piece of work yourself, Felix. Hang on to that flask."
The name slot next to the bell for apartment 3B read simply: RING ONCE AND WAIT. Eric's finger had barely left the doorbell when Laura spoke to him through the intercom and buzzed him in. She checked over the safety chain, and then pulled him inside the apartment and held him tightly. He could feel the tension in her body and in her kiss.
"I'm okay," he whispered, stroking her hair. "Everything's going to be all right."
He waited until some of the tightness in her muscles had lessened and her breathing had slowed, and then stepped back and surveyed the small apartment. The space was beautifully apportioned, with Scanavian furniture and oriental area rugs set on a Polished hardwood floor. On a loft eight feet above, a double futon abutted a half-moon window overlooking the Charles.
"This place is beautiful," he said. "Whose is it?"
"He didn't say so outright, but I have to assume it's Bernard's-or maybe someone he knows very well.
He dropped me off here a while ago, gave me a set of keys for each of us, and told me we should make Ourselves at home here for as long as we need to."
"Where is he now?"
"His wife drove up here with some clothes for him, and then took him to the airport. Assuming the plane left on time, he took off about an hour ago for Salt Lake City."
"Business?"
"Our'business, Eric."
"But Utah? With all that's going on, shouldn't he be-"
"Hey, slow down. I want to lay all this out for you in Order.
Are you sure you're okay?"
"Thanks to that lawyer, I am," he said. "I'm really exhausted, that's all. And I'm desperate as hell to get back at someone-anyone-for what we've been through- You know, I wasn't even able to bury Verdi. I left his body on the balcony."
She kissed him once again and then led him to the oak table in the dining alcove.
"You'll get the chance," she said. "For what it's worth, Bernard and I believe that whoever killed Verdi broke into Your place looking for what we have right here." She motioned to the pile of ledgers and papers on the table. "This is some stuff, Eric. Wait till you see it.
A lot of it didn't make sense to us, but we have feeling it will to you.
Are you up to looking at it now?
"I'm exhausted, but I'm not dead," he said. "Let's do it."
They began by scanning Donald Devine's two ledgers, but quickly discarded the larger of them as being pure mortuary business. The other book was much more of an enigma. There were, in all, seventy entries, spanning more than two years. The first entry read: RE — 3/19 — Rx by W, transf. by Carr. GOB 3/21; dpt. 3/24. Cost to GOB $200, transp. costs $511; 7bt. $711; Dep. $150; hal. due, $56 1. Pd. 41 "You have gasoline receipts that correspond to this PF?" Eric asked.
Laura retrieved a small stack and placed them in front of him.
"There are some I can't find, but fifty-nine of the seventy entries match a set of these," she said.
"They're all round trips from Boston to somewhere around here."
She pointed to the circled area in the atlas.
"What in hell was he into?"
Laura turned his face to hers.
"Eric, don't you see? The man had an intensive care unit in his basement. Why would he have that if he only dealt with corpses? He was transporting bodies, all right, but I don't think they were dead ones."
"Let's see if we can break one of these entries down," he said.
When they had finished, they rewrote the item, filling in as much information as they could.
P.F. March 19
Treated by W 'transferred by C.
Arrived Gates of Heaven March 21
Departed March 24 Cost to Gates of Heaven $200 transportation ' Ca ecei $511 On costs (s or Pts Plus meals 7btal $711 ($200 + $511) Balance due $561 ($150 advance payment) Paid April "- The initials heading each entry were different, but the abbreviations W and C. were present in every item, except for the last four. Three of those four, including P.T were treated by C. and transferred_ by C. The fourth, coded L.L was incomplete.
As they studied each item, other patterns began to emerge as well.
Each case spanned four or five days, from the initial date through transfer to the Gates of Heaven two days later, and ending with transport, Presumably to southeastern Utah, two three days after that.
"This is incredible," Eric muttered over and over.
"This is absolutely incredible."
"These people listed here weren't dead, were they?"
"I don't think so."
"What could Devine have been up to?"
"I'm not sure he was up to anything-at least not on his own. He was a strange little duck, but unless he was an absolute Jekyll and Hyde, it's hard to imagine him doing anything but taking orders from someone and getting paid."
"I agree." She walked across the room and back.
"Eric," she asked finally, "do you think Devine could have had anything to do with Caduceus?"
He pushed away from the table and looked up at her. Since their earlier conversation, and her description of Devine's macabre basement chamber, that notion had been drifting in and out of his thoughts as well.
"If all of these initials correspond to WMH patients, I think you may have something," he said.
"With these dates, it shouldn't be too hard to check outspecially if I can get into the record room, or at least tap into the record room computers. Wouldn't that be something." He pounded his fist into his hand.
"Goddam but wouldn't that just beat all."
Laura's face was glowing.
"Eric," she said, "I think he was part of them. I really do."
At eight-thirty they packed up Donald Devine's material and opened the bottle of Chardonnay that Laura had picked up for them.
"Tell me something," Eric asked. "Why do you think someone tried to kill you yesterday?"
"I don't really know," she said. "Bernard thinks the people Scott was after still believe I'm a threat because I can locate that tape.
If they thought I already had it, they'd have tried to capture me, then kill me later. Now he says I shouldn't leave this place until he gets back from Utah. But, Eric, I won't last a day cloistered in here."
"You've got to do what he says."
"I don't. Listen, I'm the one who started this by coming here.
It's my brother we're after. I need to do something."
"Look, just give me till tomorrow morning. I'm going to find a way to screen the files in the record room. Afterward, depending on what I find, we'll make some sort of move… and we'll do it together."
"What if the people at the hospital know you've been suspended and don't let you have access to the records?"
"It wouldn't surprise me if Caduceus has already seen to that," he said.
"But I'm not planning on going anywhere near the record room.
If I'm correct, the whole system's computerized."