Authors: G. H. Ephron
Addiction (20 page)
Cautiously, I leaned out into the airshaft and looked down. It was dark and hard to see much of anything. But the beam of Annie's flashlight was visible, all the way down at the basement floor. Amazing that it was still working, after a four-story fall onto a concrete floor.
The sound of footsteps echoed up from below. We pulled back into the shadows and waited. The footsteps grew louder. It sounded like a door was being opened at the base of the stairwell. A man's voice echoed up, “Anybody in there? What the hell is wrong with the lights?”
A strong beam of light rushed up to fill the airshaft. An alarm blared, and red lights on each of the landings started flashing. The light confirmed what I'd surmisedâabout a dozen wooden spindles had been broken away, leaving a hole that the flashlight had fallen through, and through which I easily could have followed.
“They shouldn't find you here,” I said to Annie.
Annie scrambled to her feet. “Don't worry about me. With any luck, I'll meet you later, somewhere near the tunnel entrance.”
She brushed her hands on her dark pants, leaving light handprints. I touched the floor of the landing. The light particles that coated it were coarse. I sniffed. Sawdust. That's when I realized that though the wooden spindles were broken away at the top, at the bottom they'd been sawn through.
I crouched and leaned out over the airshaft. The flashing lights made the air pulsate. A man lay sprawled on the basement floor. Dark pants, jacket. His arms were splayed and his legs twisted grotesquely. A bald security guard was leaning over and picking up Annie's flashlight, which had landed on the man's back. Soft landingâthat explained why the flashlight still worked. He examined it. Turned it off. Then he looked up.
“Don't move,” the security guard barked up at me.
IT TOOK the security guard a few moments to turn off the alarm. My ears were still ringing, long into the silence. When I shut my eyes to clear my head, circles popped like flashbulbs behind my closed eyelids.
The guard hollered up at me again, and I identified myself. He told me to come down and wait with him. He'd called the security office, and the police were on their way. I descended to the bottom of the staircase and stepped into the base of the airshaft.
The guard hadn't turned the body over, but he didn't need to. I recognized the Brioni jacket. It was Liam Jensen. And I knew he was dead. His head and forearm lay in a pool of blood. In death, he seemed smaller. In some disconnected corner of my brain, I envisioned bones telescoping as a body lands on a concrete floor.
I turned away. I felt the emotional dam that had erected itself eroding. The last thing I wanted to do was close my eyes and be alone in my head with my memories. I felt drained and tired as I slumped against the wall. I stared down at my hands and twisted my wedding ring.
We waited. About ten minutes later, I heard footsteps clumping down the hall. Voices. I took a deep breath and turned my hands
into fists, forcing energy into my arms. I straightened my back, squared my shoulders. By the time MacRae and his partner appeared, I was ready.
into fists, forcing energy into my arms. I straightened my back, squared my shoulders. By the time MacRae and his partner appeared, I was ready.
All MacRae said was, “You again.”
He snapped on some latex gloves and quickly examined the body. “Who is he?”
“Dr. Liam Jensen,” I said. “Head of the Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Unit. This building.”
MacRae had his pad out. He flipped it open and started to write. “J?”
“J-E-N-S-E-N,” I said. “Liam. L-I-A-M. MD.”
MacRae wrote quickly, paused, added some more scribbles. “How the hell did he ⦔ MacRae squinted up into the air shaft. “Jee-zus H. Christ. Fell from way up there. Accident?”
“Doubtful,” I replied.
MacRae didn't look surprised. He was eyeing my sneakers, which were coated with sawdust. “You were up there?”
I nodded. “I almost fell through the hole myself. The lights weren't working.”
MacRae glanced around the base of the stairs until his attention snagged on an empty light socket. “Is that the emergency lighting?” he asked.
“Looks like someone sawed through the wooden supports between the third and fourth floors,” I said. “If Jensen was coming down and lost his balance or was pushed, it wouldn't have taken much pressure to break through.”
MacRae looked at me speculatively. “You here alone or have you got company?” For a dumb guy, he was uncanny.
I brushed the sawdust off my pant leg. “I don't see anyone with me, do you?”
“How long have you been in the building?”
How long had Jensen been dead, I wondered. “I've been here for about an hour.”
“And before that?”
“With a friend. Since ten.”
“You don't work in this building, do you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Two suspicious deaths in as many weeks. And you're here both times.” He eyed me up and down, registering the black pants, black shirt.
I stared back. I tried to remind myself that he was only doing his job, but all I could think was, what did Annie see in this asshole, anyway?
“So what are you doing here now, sneaking around in the middle of the night?” He looked at me, waiting for an explanation. I folded my arms and stared back at him. He planted his feet, hooked his fingers in his pant loops, and didn't blink.
There were footsteps overhead. We both looked up.
“Hullo? Who's there?” Arnold Destler was gazing down from the main floor, a flight up. “What in the name of God is going on?” he barked.
Destler thumped down the stairs. He arrived wearing gray sweats, looking like an overstuffed sock with a very pink head sticking out one end. I'd never seen him out of a suit, without his bow tie. “I came over as soon as Security notified me,” he said.
He approached Jensen gingerly, up on the balls of his feet. “Poor devil,” he said. He looked up into the airshaft, probably calculating the institute's liability. Then he took inventory of all of us crowded in at the base of the stairs. Security. Police. Me.
“Peter?”
“He was here when Security discovered the body,” MacRae said. “He was just about to explain what he's doing here.”
“Research,” I said, the word popping out of nowhere.
“Research?” MacRae echoed in disbelief.
“Our staff are very dedicated, Detective,” Destler said. I tried not to look surprised, but Destler was the last person I'd expect to leap to my defense. “It's not unusual to find us working into the wee hours of the morning. I was even working late myself.” Destler was a renowned workaholicâknown to hole up in his office long after the rest of us had gone home to our lives.
By now, additional officers had arrived, including a medical examiner. He asked us to give him some space so he could do his work. We shifted into the corridor.
“This isn't even your unit,” MacRae pointed out.
I was about to answer when my beeper went off.
Destler said evenly, “Medical research crosses organizational boundaries. We try not to operate in individual stovepipes. Isn't that so, Dr. Zak?”
“We try not to,” I said. The beeper was blinking the number of the nurses' station on my unit. I looked up. Destler and MacRae were waiting for me to say more. “There's some work being done here using Kutril, an extract of kudzu, to treat addiction. I was looking for the raw data.” I needed to get to a phone.
“You should have come to me for that,” Destler said.
“Pardon me?” I said, belatedly processing his words.
“Yes. Those files were given to me for safekeeping.”
“You have them?”
MacRae looked like he was watching a tennis match. He could see two players, swinging their rackets, but he couldn't locate the ball.
Destler went on, “I know Dr. Temple didn't think we were as supportive of her work as we might have been, but she did have a sizable grant from the NIMH. And despite the questions that have been raised about her methods, her results are quite ⦠interesting.”
The medical examiner stepped into the corridor and pulled MacRae aside. They conferred. I took the opportunity to use the in-house phone in the hall to call my unit. “We noticed all the emergency vehicles,” the night nurse said, “so we did an extra bed check. Olivia Temple isn't in her room. Neither is Matthew Farrell. We've searched everywhere. They're not here.”
Immediately I thought: Albert House. “When were they last seen?”
“According to the charts, at eleven o'clock checks.”
“I'll be back as soon as I can,” I told her. “I think I know where they are.”
When I got off the phone, MacRae finished talking to the medical examiner. Destler looked at him expectantly. “Apparently Dr. Jensen died at least several hours ago,” MacRae told us. I was relieved. “And he probably died instantly.” He turned to me, “You have someone who can vouch for your whereabouts this evening?”
After an instant's hesitation, I said, “Annie Squires.”
He'd have made a great poker player. MacRae didn't even blink. He just nodded and took a note. All he said was, “You can go now. I'll be in touch.”
Destler walked me partway down the hall. When we were out of earshot, he stopped. “Research?” It was a controlled explosion. “In the middle of the night?”
I swallowed. “We have a patient who's gone through physical withdrawal from Ritalin, and we're treating her with Kutril for the psychological dependence. There's nothing else that ⦔
Destler interrupted, “I know what Kutril is.” He glared at me. “But it's an experimental treatment. Who is this patient you're treating for Ritalin addiction?”
“Olivia Temple.”
“You're
still
treating Dr. Temples daughter, even after her arrest? Doesn't that seem just a bit inappropriate?”
still
treating Dr. Temples daughter, even after her arrest? Doesn't that seem just a bit inappropriate?”
“Dr. Liu is her doctor, and I believe the treatment is appropriate. I already have Dr. Temple's research analysis, her preliminary paperâ”
“You do?” Destler's eyebrows rose to meet his nonexistent hairline.
“Yes. But Olivia has experienced some side effects, and I wanted to ⦔
“What side effects?”
“A seizure. We need to see if other patients experienced similar problems, and how they were treated for it.”
“The data from the trial was given to me for safekeeping,” Destler
said, his voice cold. “Now I can see why. I think you and Dr. Liu had better be in my office, first thing in the morning.”
said, his voice cold. “Now I can see why. I think you and Dr. Liu had better be in my office, first thing in the morning.”
He put both hands up to his collarbone. I had the impression he was reaching up to straighten the bow tie that wasn't there.
“Christ,” he said, “when the press gets a hold of this, they're going to have a field day.” Then he muttered, “Damage control,” and started back.
I hurried to the opposite end of the building, to the door from the basement to the tunnel. My mind was churning. If Jensen fell to his death before midnight, then the wooden spindles had to have been sawn through within a few hours of that. Annie and I might have come across Jensen's body earlier if we'd come up that staircase. And why was Destler being so helpful? Was it just to protect the institute from more public tarnish?
I stood at the door to the tunnel and looked up into the dark stairway. I whispered, “Annie!” I listened to the silence. I called her name again, as loud as I dared.
I heard her light footsteps. In a minute, Annie was beside me. “You survived,” she said.
“I had to tell MacRae I was with you tonight.”
“Well you were,” she said. She didn't miss a beat. “I'll bet you enjoyed that.”
“Actually, I did.” I couldn't hold back the grin. But I quickly turned serious. “I'm sure Jensen had to have been pushed off the staircase. But how? It wouldn't have been easy.”
“Maybe he was drugged first. That coffee on his desk could have been spiked,” Annie suggested. That would have explained why it was left there, unwashed. He never made it back to tidy up. “One way to find out. We take a sample of what's in that mug, and I get it analyzed.”
Annie had already started up the stairs. I followed. I said, “Olivia Temple and another patient are AWOL.”
Annie paused. “That music?”
“Probably. The idiots.”
“This shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes,” Annie said, continuing up.
This time, Annie took a minute to get Jensen's door open. We knew we didn't have much time before the police showed. I groped for the lamp and turned it on. I stared at the desktop. The only suggestion that someone might have been in there after us was that the pencils and pens alongside the blotter weren't parallel with the edge of the desk. I was sure I'd left them perfectly aligned. That, and the fact that the Acu-Med mug had vanished.
On top of the file cabinet, leading the mug lineup, an Acu-Med mug now stood. I examined it. It had been rinsed out, but it was still damp.
There were footsteps in the hall. We both froze. It sounded as if someone had put a key into the outer office door. A moment later, the knob to the inner door turned. Was it the police or someone coming back to erase any other clues to Jensen's murder? We waited. The doorknob returned to neutral.
I yanked the door open. No one was there. I rushed out. The door to the stairway at the far end of the hall was closing. And there were footsteps clomping up the opposite staircase. Probably the police and security guards. Annie and I ran the other way.
It felt as if I didn't take another breath until we'd reached the basement and were out in the tunnel. There was no sign of whoever had preceded us. The rain had stopped pounding, but the ceiling still dripped, and the walls exuded the smell of decaying concrete.
When we got to Albert House, Annie put her hands in front of her face as she advanced on the door. She took a credit card out of her wallet, crouched, and started working on the lock.
“Hold on a minute,” I said, and inserted my master key. It worked.
“Show-off,” she said.
Annie pushed the door open. The basement corridor of Albert House was dimly lit. Mildew and dust thickened the air. Some old furniture lined the hallâa battered metal desk, a stack of mattresses,
iron headboards. I pressed a finger under my nose to keep from sneezing.
iron headboards. I pressed a finger under my nose to keep from sneezing.
The music wasn't too far away. Annie tried the first door. It opened into a closet. Inside was a deep white porcelain sink with a galvanized metal bucket in it. The next door was another closet, this one with shelves. It had old linens that no one had bothered to remove, neatly folded inside. The smell of mildew was overpowering.
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