"Hello. Ross residence."
"Hello. Is Dr. Malachi Ross at home, if you please?"
"May I tell him who's calling?"
"My name is Rajan Bhutan. He may not know me, but please tell him that I am a nurse at Portola Hospital attached to the intensive care unit. He might remember the name. It is most urgent that we speak."
"Just a moment, please."
Another wait. Rajan closed his eyes and tried to will his mind into a calm state. It would not do, not at all, to sound frightened or nervous. He was simply conveying information and an offer. He straightened his back in his chair. Drawing a long and deep breath down into the center of his body, he let it rest there until it became warm and he could release it slowly. He took a sip of water, swallowed, cleared his throat.
"This is Dr. Ross. Who is this again, please?"
"Dr. Ross, I am Rajan Bhutan, from Portola Hospital. Perhaps you remember, I was in the ICU with Dr. Kensing when Mr. Markham died. I am sorry to bother you at home."
"How did you get my home phone number?" he asked. "It's unlisted."
"It can be found if it's needed. If one knows where to look."
After a short silence, Ross sounded slightly cautious. "All right. How can I help you? The maid said it was urgent."
Rajan reached for the water again and drank quickly. "It is that. I need to speak with you frankly. Are you in a place you can talk freely?"
Ross's tone kissed the bounds of aggressiveness. "What's this about?"
"It is something we need to discuss."
"That's what we're doing now but I'm afraid I don't have too much more time. My wife and I are going out in a few minutes. If it can wait-"
"No! I'm sorry, but it cannot. It has to be now or I will speak to the police on my own."
After a short pause, Ross said, "Just a minute." Rajan heard his footsteps retreating, a door closing, the steps coming back. "All right, I'm listening. But make it fast."
"As you may know, the police are looking into the deaths now of several patients at the ICU that they are calling homicides."
"Of course I've heard about that. I run the company. I've been monitoring it closely, but that has nothing to do with me personally."
"I'm afraid it has, instead, to do with me, Doctor. The police have talked to me more than once. I am the only nurse who has worked the shifts when several of the deaths have occurred. I think they will decide I have killed these people."
He listened while Ross took a couple of breaths. Then, "If you did, you'll get no sympathy from me."
"No, I would not expect that. No more than you would get it from me if they charged you with killing Mr. Markham or the others."
This time the pause lasted several seconds. "What are you saying?"
"I think you know what I am saying. We would not be talking still if you did not know. I saw you."
"You saw me what? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Please, Doctor, please," Rajan said. He could feel his throat catching, and reached for the water. "We don't need to waste time in denials. We don't have time. Instead, I have a proposal for you."
"You do? How amusing. You've obviously got an agile mind, Mr. Bhutan. So I'd be curious to hear what it was, although your premise is fatally flawed."
"If it is, we shall see. My idea is only this-you may remember the day after Christmas, four months ago, when you did a drop-in at the ICU? Is that still familiar to you? I was on that shift and there was a patient named Shirley Watrous."
"And the police think you killed her? Is that it?"
Rajan ignored the question. "But you were there with me. I keep a daily diary, but also I remember. You and I had a pleasant discussion about working during the holiday season. People don't like it, but it is in many ways preferable to the family obligations and raised expectations. You may remember."
"Maybe I do, but what's your point? Was that the day after Christmas? I don't remember that."
"But you must, you see."
"I'm hanging up now," Ross said.
But he did not, and Rajan went on. "I didn't even realize what you were doing, of course. And then the police told me the names of some of the others. And I realized you'd been there for all of them, and what you'd done.
"I feel like a fool, really. Perhaps I always knew, but how could one in my place ever even suggest that you were doing…what you were doing? I, not even a doctor.
"And who was to say it was the wrong thing, to put these people beyond pain, even if I had been sure? No one even questioned the deaths before, so how could I accuse you when everyone else seemed to take these things for granted?"
Rajan's clipped tones were speeding up and he forced himself to slow down. "Then when I saw you with Mr. Markham's IV, I thought again I must have been wrong. I did not want to know. I was too afraid to say anything. Then I was afraid because I had not said anything sooner. But now I am most afraid of all, because I know if I accuse you, you will accuse me. But I was not at the hospital for all these killings, and I know you had to be, because you did them."
He was at the end. He closed his eyes for the strength to finish. "So please, Doctor. Please. You must tell the police I was with you when these people died. You will be my alibi. And, of course, I shall be yours."
"You can't be serious?" Ross's tone was harsh, filled with disbelief and even outrage.
But he was still on the line. Rajan had seen similar bluster among the vanquished during bridge tournaments, and even chess games, when in fact they had known all was lost.
"Your nerve amazes me, Mr. Bhutan. Are you sure that's all you want?"
"No, not quite. I'm afraid I will have to be leaving the country soon. So I will also need to have fifty thousand dollars, please. Tonight. In cash."
Panic was the devil.
Ross had a core belief that it was a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate acts. His great talent, he sometimes thought, was in recognizing the desperation of others.
Emergency at the office, he told Nancy. Something to do with an audit. Yeah, even Friday night. These people worked all the time. He had to go in, but he'd make it up to her. Tell the Sullivans he was sorry-to make up for the last-minute cancellation of their dinner date, maybe they'd fly them all up to Tahoe next weekend.
In his office, behind the locked door, he was pulling the tenth pitiable little stack of bills out of his safe. This man Bhutan…he shook his head, almost smiling at the man's naivete. Fifty thousand dollars for what he knew? That was yet another problem with most people-very few had a clue about value. If it were Ross, it would have been ten times that, and a bargain at the price. But perhaps Bhutan really was being shrewd. If he accused Ross, Ross would indeed accuse him, but that would lead to awkward questions about why he had not spoken up sooner.
Just for a moment, he stood stock-still, trying to remember. He had been alone in the room. He was certain. Bhutan had not come in until he was done. Could he really have seen him from the hall? Seen him without being seen?
Not that it was going to matter. He couldn't take the chance that Bhutan would panic and talk to the police despite being paid. Or not panic and decide he needed more money. Or just do something stupid and give them both away.
And if Bhutan was bluffing, if he really hadn't clearly seen Ross at the IV, so much the worse for him. He actually presented an excellent opportunity to resolve this increasingly sticky problem.
The bills would be back in here by tomorrow morning, although he would miss owning what he called his Bond gun. There was a certain charm in the Walther PPK that his father had chanced upon in a downtown gutter one evening, and had eventually given to him. He loved the secret sense of sin it gave him, the thrill of private power.