Millingsford's wife entered with a rolling tray containing a cozied teapot, cups and saucers, a lemon poppyseed cake and small plates. "You'll have to fend for yourselves, I'm afraid. I'm awfully sorry. We have a sick foal I must attend," she explained. She left.
Daphne poured them both tea and cut some cake for him.
He chewed some cake, looking into the fire. "Have you met him?
Tegg?"
"No."
"His problem-and this is a problem with nearly every surgeon, including this one-is his ego. He keeps his nose high. He was quick to put people down. He intimidated most everyone around him. That had its plusses-he effectively controlled everyone, and that sense of leadership is important for any surgeon. The surgeon must be in control. Everyone must know it, must feel it." He glanced at her. Here, he was in control. "The incident that led to his expulsion is what I wanted to talk to you about. We had an, open heart to do. Tegg was to assist. I was delayed by another surgery, across town. The patient was submarining-we were losing him quickly. I was nowhere to be found. "Tegg informed the nursing staff that I had okayed his beginning the procedure without me. He lied: No such conversation had ever taken place. As I have said, he controlled the nurses. They went along with it. Tegg accepted full responsibility. Taking charge was one of his long suits. "When you perform open heart or any invasive thoracic surgery," he continued, "you open the chest cavity with something called a sternal saw. It's a very useful tool-the sawing used to be done by hand. It's tricky, however. You must maintain an upward pressure at all times-that's the way the blade works." His hands flexed as he spoke. "In my absence, Tegg mishandled the sternal saw. He severed the left ventricle, killing the patient.
"Naturally, Tegg was asked to leave and was told in no uncertain terms that he would never be accepted in any residency program. if he applied, all would be revealed. He went on to veterinarian school-I wrote a recommendation for him."
"Was he ever charged for that killing?"
"This is medicine, Miss. Matthews. It wasn't murder. It was a mistake. Mistakes happen."
"There were no lawsuits?"
"Yes, there was a lawsuit.
That's one of the reasons he was dismissed. The school had to dismiss him immediately in an attempt to defend its position on this. To clarify it. That is precisely why no other program would have ever taken him."
She took some notes while her thoughts were still fresh. She looked up and asked. "Do you remember the patient's name? The one who was killed?"
"You don't forget an incident like that," he explained. "His name was Thomas Kent."
She wrote this down as well. She underlined it.
Thomas Kent 3 P. m.
When Daphne cleared the jetway at SEATAC airport she saw Lou Boldt and an airport security patrolman anxiously awaiting her, standing away from the steady stream of departing passengers.
Boldt reached out, took her briefcase in one hand and her upper arm in another. They walked fast. He steered her over to a shuttle cart that was waiting for them. The air was electric with urgency. Sharon's time was running out.
Boldt said, "Maybeck's cooling his heels in Interrogation.
Shoswitz wants you part of it." Before she had a chance to ask, he answered, "He was busted at a dog fight by the County Police who weren't aware of our investigation or our surveillance. It's a mess. There's a lot of screaming going on."
They climbed onto the cart, and it hurried off almost before she sat down, throwing her into the seat. She said, "We're running out of time. You know that, don't you?"
"We're taking an amphibian to Lake Union to save time. Tractor trailer carrying chemicals overturned on 1-5. Traffic's been diverted to 99. Nothing is moving. There's an hour delay at least. Don't look at me, it was Phil's idea."
"The lieutenant spending money?" she said over the repetitious beeping of the cart's pedestrian warning system. "There's a rumor going around that one of the church groups pressured the mayor about Sharon's whereabouts. Whatever happened, the lid is coming off this thing. KING radio ran a story about our finding remains along the Tolt. They're trying to draw Green River comparisons. We're sitting on the rest of it, but Phil suddenly.wants results."
"It's about time." Boldt said, "Yes. That is what it's about." The cart pulled up at gate A-7, where a charter pilot awaited them. Daphne handed her keys over to the airport security man who was going to return her car to the department. Boldt and the pilot shook hands. The three. of them hurried down a flight of stairs and out to the waiting plane with its overhead engine, wheels and short pontoons. The plane looked so tiny compared with the huge jetliners.
Daphne shut her eyes in terror as they landed on Lake Union seven minutes later. From the plane, they were chauffeured in a patrolcar, sitting in the back, contained by a cage, the doors without handles. "You know, in seven years I've never ridden back here," she said.
It had been too loud to talk on the plane. in a strained voice Boldt informed her, "Immigration's computers kicked dozens of names. We failed to realize how many commuters travel between the two cities on a daily basis. It's a long list and it's going to be a bitch sorting it out. To make matters worse, we've been unable to get a list of the various employees, and that's the first list we wanted to check Immigration against."
"One step forward, two steps back." "Doin' the policeman's polka," he said, making her smile.
The car braked severely. She looked up to see they were already at the Public Safety Building. The driver let them out. Boldt was still carrying her briefcase. The frantic pace lent an urgency that she now felt physically as well. She was taking short, quick breaths. Her heart was racing.
Shoswitz met them on the ground floor; the driver must have called in their position. This kind of treatment was heady. Shoswitz wouldn't allow anyone else on the elevator with them. As the three of them ascended, the lieutenant asked Boldt, "Well?"
"She's pretty much up to date."
"What can you tell us about Tegg?" the lieutenant asked her. "And I want it all. Guesses, hunches, anything. I've got a meeting with the captain in-" he checked his watch, "ten minutes. Go!"
She had tried to bring her thoughts together on the flight down from Vancouver. These last few' minutes had rattled her. The elevator car reached the fourth floor. Shoswitz hit the stop button, preventing the doors from opening. He was waiting for her to brief him.
She said quickly, "Tegg is a paranoid. He's running from his past, trying to prove himself. In his mind, he's better than everyone, yet everyone's against him. Outwardly he could very well be Joe Normal, a good doctor, a good husband, a good father. But inside he's paranoid. He thinks of everyone as inferior to him; he tolerates them, but that's all. He's quick to blame, and he has an explanation for everything. He's Mr. Right. Mr. Perfect. By now he's found some way to put a twist on his killing a man named Thomas Kent-killed him in surgery-but half of him knows that this twist is a lie, that he's lying to himself, and that's been eating away at him a long, long time." "How dangerous?" Shoswitz asked. "To our people?"