Chaz just nodded, and sent the looping in his head to new levels.
“Did anyone see you come in just now?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Now the first thing we do is get you back to New York. My chauffeur will drive you there tonight. No stops, and you come into your apartment through the garage so as to avoid the doorman. Tomorrow you make a big deal about having had the flu and returning to the city. My driver will say whatever we tell him, so we’ll fudge the time you left. Make it earlier, and he’ll attest you were well past Albany at the time in question.”
He nodded again.
“Before you go, have a look at these photos. Tell me what you think.” He threw a stack of large prints on the coffee table between them.
Chaz, still cradling his head with one hand, focused on the first image. He found himself looking at a medical record for Kelly dated July 1951. “How’d you get these?”
“Subtlety and finesse, remember?”
Chaz rubbed his eyes and strained to read the writing in the photo. “So she had cramps as a kid,” he said when he finished, “and her mother interfered then as she does now. What good does it do us to have this?”
“Keep going.”
He looked at the next set of pictures. Again he wasn’t impressed. “Cam Roper spent years talking with her. We knew that. He’s the bastard who put ideas of medical school in her head.”
“Oh, I think our Kelly had a mind of her own.” He reached over and handed the next photo to Chaz personally.
Chaz started when he recognized her familiar handwriting. The sight of it catapulted him back to the early years when she wrote him every few days about their plans, the wedding, the life they’d have together, and a bittersweet ache for squandered chances gripped his stomach. But as he read further, a fury as consuming and fresh as if he’d intercepted the letter the day it was written enveloped his chest and squeezed. “That bitch. That betraying, lying bitch…” Speechless with anger, he rose to his feet and let the photo fall from his hand. He’d loved her, wasted his life over her, his whole goddamned life, and it just kept getting worse.
His father walked behind him and gave his shoulders a squeeze, then started to massage them with his surgeon’s fingers, strong and penetrating. It felt good. “Easy, son. I know seeing this must hurt. But surely you had your suspicions.”
The roiling in Chaz’s stomach grew worse.
“The good news is it may finally be your way to get clear of her.”
“Nothing will ever do that, not after all this time.”
“It will if we can give the police her lover.”
The effects of whiskey and exhaustion left him slow to react. “You mean give the letter to the police?”
His father broke off the massage, exasperated. “Of course not. How the hell would I explain where we got it? No, we first find out who this man was, then hand him over. They get a new suspect, and you’re in the clear.”
His brain emerged from its misery. My, God! he thought, seeing the glimmer of a way out.
“Don’t you have any idea who it might have been?” his father asked.
Chaz felt an old resentment rekindle itself – no, the right word was jealousy. Jealousy over anyone she had befriended and seemed to have fun with. Not that he suspected an affair back then. He hated how her moving close to others meant she drew away from him. But now he could find the bastard who’d been screwing her and stick him with her murder. The idea lit a fire in him.
So which one had cuckolded him?
A guy in her class? Or one of the residents two years ahead of her. Hell, it might even have been a colleague of his, sharing consults with him during the day and banging her at night.
Someone outside the hospital?
Someone not even a doctor?
He ground his frustration between a fist and a palm. “We’ll never figure it out!”
“If we keep track of Mark Roper’s conversations we will.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He knows about this letter,” his father said, walking over and retrieving the copy from the floor. “That means he’ll be looking for the man as well. We listen in, and sooner or later he may end up talking to or about the guy. Then either he turns him in, or we do it for him.”
Chaz’s hopes stirred again. “That sounds as if it just might work.”
“I also want you to see the rest of these.” His father handed him the remainder of the photos from the file.
“What are M and M reports doing here?”
“I thought you’d tell me. Aren’t those your initials signing off the resident and student orders?”
Chaz had to hold the snaps just right to see the writing. “Yeah, but what have they got to do with Kelly?”
“Could they have been what your darling Kelly was trying to hold over your head so you wouldn’t go looking for her?”
“But it concluded here nothing was wrong. During my entire career I don’t recall ever being faulted for using digoxin incorrectly.”
“What exactly did she say to you the night she disappeared? Can you remember?”
Remember? How could he ever forget?
She had ambushed him as he left his Park Avenue office around five that Thursday afternoon. It was hot the way only New York could get in August, when the city sealed itself in its own bubble of dirt, exhaust, and exhaled CO2 from eight million people.
Kelly’s white dress had seemed to float on the humid air as she walked out from under the awning of the next door coffee shop. He had no idea how long she’d been waiting there. The only warning of the extent to which she was about to shake his world was the ferocity of the expression on her face.
“I’m leaving you, Chaz,” she said, stopping while still five feet away, her arms folded across her breasts. “Tonight.”
“What?” The people pushing by on either side of them blurred, the traffic noises sounded hollow and distant. He stepped toward her, his hands ready to grab her arms.
“Don’t come any closer or I’ll scream!”
The sibilant command stopped him cold. He hated public scenes. No doubt that was why she had staked out his office and caught him in a crowd. Seething, he remained where he stood, aware again of the people jostling his shoulders and wondering if they heard her. “Damn it, Kelly.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Leaving you. And don’t try to follow me, or I’ll ruin your career – put a stain on your record that’ll never come out.”
“What are you talking about?” His cheeks burning, he took another step.
“I warn you,” she said in an overly loud voice. People turned to look at her. Some gave him funny glances. But no one stopped.
Except Chaz.
“Daddy’s little progeny headed to be Chief of Cardiology,” she said, her voice taunting and still far too loud for his liking.
“Well, forget about it,” she went on. “One patient dead, one near dead, both on your watch. I can make you equally responsible, or not.”
“What patients?” He could barely keep from lunging at her, as enraged at her slipping from his control as at what she said. But occasional passersby still seemed to be paying attention, especially to her.
“Think I’d tell you now, so you could make records disappear? Just know there’s a viper in your nest, and you missed it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Stay away from me,” she said, louder than ever, “and I’ll clean it out so there’s no reflection on you. Come after me, and your dream of being top dog at NYCH or anywhere else that counts is over.”
“Kelly, for God’s sake-”