EIGHTEEN
Savich said, “The bartender our agent spoke to said you also talked about Dolores McManus, a congresswoman from Georgia.” And Savich waited to see if he would continue to talk with candor and cynicism, or would revert to the psychiatrist renowned for his discretion.
MacLean closed his eyes for a moment, hummed deep in his throat, carefully rearranged himself a bit to ease his ribs. They watched him give his pain med button a couple of pushes. Several minutes passed in silence. MacLean sighed and said, “Sorry, I just wanted to float about for a little bit, such a lovely feeling. These drugs are first-rate. Ah, Dolores—you strip away all the glitz and glamour and the attention her position has brought her, and what you’ve got is one simple basic human being—not many frills or mental extras, if you know what I mean.
“I wanted to sleep with her, I knew I could please her, but she wasn’t interested.”
Sherlock’s mouth dropped open. This was a kick. She said, “Dr. MacLean, you propositioned a patient?”
“Oh no, I merely thought about it. I could tell she’d never see me that way.” He sighed. “Even though she’s nearly as old as I am, she still has gorgeous breasts, nicer than Molly’s. Three kids’ll make your breasts sag, Molly tells me, and then says to count my blessings. Molly’s always been big into counting blessings. Even with all this crap, she still tells me I’m her biggest blessing.” He continued without pause, “It was difficult to keep my eyes on Dolores’s face, to listen to all her crowing. She was so proud of being on the A-list, wouldn’t shut up about all the famous people who call her by her first name. Then she’d switch gears and crow for the umpteenth time about how her background hasn’t slowed her down. She’d been a housewife with a college degree in communications, no work experience of any note, raising two kids, but she had one major asset— her mouth. She never hesitated to mix it up with the mayor, the governor, the newspapers, the phone company. It was her successful assault on the EPA that got her elected to her first term. She cut them off at the knees about a local cleanup project they weren’t funding.
“Being elected to Washington simply gave her a bigger canvas. I have to admit, watching her take on all comers—it’s a treat. She can spin on a dime, make you believe you just left the room when in reality you were actually coming through the door. It’s her only talent, and makes her the perfect politician. As for substance, I guess she has about as much as any of her colleagues.”
Sherlock asked, “Do you remember telling Arthur Dolan if she had anything in her past that could harm her if made public? Something so grave she’d feel threatened?”
“I never told Arthur a thing, I’ve already told you that. I wouldn’t. Would she feel threatened enough to kill me? Of course not. Everything in her past is nickel-and-dime stuff—really nothing much at all, except that she murdered her husband.”
They stared flabbergasted at MacLean, saw his eyes go vague, the manic light die out. He was about to go under. He’d given himself one too many doses of the pain meds. This congresswoman murdered her husband? The bartender hadn’t heard anything about murder.
As if on cue, the door opened and Dr. Bingham looked in. He listened to MacLean’s vitals, but didn’t attempt to engage him in conversation. They all stood by his bed and watched him drift off.
Dr. Bingham nodded, then straightened.
Savich said quietly, “Do you have a moment?”
Sherlock shut down the small recorder in her bag as she left the room.
Once outside in the wide hallway, Dr. Bingham asked, “Was he alert? Did he make sense?”
Savich thought about how to describe one of the strangest interviews he’d ever tried to conduct. “He was alert, yes, and he made perfect sense, for the most part. But it was how he spoke of his patients, his family, his tennis partner—it was like there were no brakes between his thoughts and what came out of his mouth. He didn’t seem to realize he was saying outrageous things, vicious things, and he spoke so matter-of-factly. Without the requisite social buffing, I suppose his descriptions of his patients are painfully accurate.”
Sherlock said, “But his disdain, Dillon, his contempt for them— I simply can’t imagine that’s how he normally thinks of his patients. Then he’d become himself again, I guess you could say. Serious, ready to fight to the death for the privacy of his patients. It was an amazing interview.”
Dr. Bingham said, “Given his reputation, I would agree with that. It’s a very sad thing that’s happening to him, this dementia, and the resulting loss of sell. It’s a horrible thing, in fact, horrible.” Dr. Bingham shook their hands, walked away, his head down, hands in the pockets of his white coat, and Sherlock would swear she heard him humming.
Sherlock said, “Dillon, do you think it’s possible Dr. MacLean’s having us on, maybe making a lot of this stuff up?”
Savich shook his head. “He might have exaggerated part of it. I don’t know.” And to Agent Tomlin, he said, “Take good care of Dr. MacLean. This guy’s a huge target.”
“No one gets past me,” Tomlin said. “You can count on that, Agent Savich.”
Savich was aware of Tomlin staring at his wife until they entered one of the elevators at the end of the long corridor.
Sherlock said as she pressed the lobby button, “Are you inclined to believe that Congresswoman McManus murdered her husband?”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“I wonder if that was why she went to see a shrink—you know, bad dreams, guilt, remorse.”
“There’s that,” Savich said, and pulled her against him, kissing her until the elevator stopped at the third floor and a bleary-eyed intern staggered in.
NINETEEN
Slipper Hollow
Tuesday
“It’s a beautiful day,” Rachael said, shading her eyes and staring up at the clear blue summer sky, the thready white clouds. She pushed her hair behind her ears, tugged at the skinny braid. “Hard to believe there’s so much actual bad out there in Uncle Gillette’s world.”
“I fear bad is rampant in the land,” Jack said. “But it’s not right here.”
“Unlike Uncle Gillette, I never thought of Slipper Hollow as confining, never considered it a place to escape from. It was always a sanctuary, a haven where I’d be safe. Of course, I was a kid. Looking back now, I recognize that Mom was restless, wanted to go out on her own.”
He looked at the braid in her hair, plaited closer to her face this morning. When she leaned her head to the side, it cupped her cheek. He said, “I really like the braid.”
“What? Oh, thank yon. Jimmy liked it, too.” Her voice shook a bit on his name.
“For the most part,” Jack said, “I agreed with your father’s politics.”
“I did, too. Can you believe Uncle Gillette washed and ironed our clothes?”
“I nearly kissed him for it, but drew back at the last minute.”
“I kissed him enough for both of us. I believe he’s gathering all the reports he can find about Jimmy’s death. There are even film clips from the funeral. He said he’d have it all together for us by this afternoon.”
Jack nodded. He felt suddenly itchy felt his left elbow ache, something that tended to happen when something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t figure out what it could be. Slipper Hollow was a sanctuary, Rachael was right about that. It was cut off from the world; it was safe. Here they could enjoy the peace before they hunkered down to examine all the details of this psychotic situation. Psychotic? Jack thought about that for a moment. Odd, but psychotic was what came to mind. His elbow shouldn’t be itching, but it was, big-time. He chose to ignore it. “You’re not married,” he said.