Keeper (5 page)

We didn’t notice her when she came in. Late twenties, maybe, a little plain, looking like every other expectant mother who had entered the clinic in the last week of work. Sitting in the second-floor waiting room, her purse in her lap, her belly showing second trimester, she struck me as odd only because she was Caucasian and alone. Most of the white patients at the clinic came with someone else, a friend or lover to hold their hand. She had been nervous, but I had yet to see a patient who wasn’t. Mostly, I put that down to the noise of the SOS protesters outside. So I didn’t stop when she came in, but continued back to my office.

Romero had, not unreasonably, explained that she would not allow a guard on her when she was with a patient, and I didn’t argue the point. Excuse me, ma’am, just put your legs in the stirrups and don’t mind him, he’s my bodyguard.

Not good for business, if nothing else.

So, while Romero did her job, I did mine. I had taken over an empty office on the second floor as our on-site command post and, while Natalie patrolled the second floor and Dale watched the first, I did as much advance work as possible over the phone. Truth to tell, there wasn’t a whole lot of advance work to be done. Romero’s schedule was simple. We had all our alternate routes memorized, our formations down, our communication clear. The only other thing for me to do was try to determine the source of the threats, and I could do only so much of that at the clinic. Mostly phone calls, either to Detective Lozano or Special Agent Fowler. My attempts to set up an interview with Jonathan Crowell at SOS had all failed. I got the feeling Crowell didn’t want to talk to me.

So I called Rubin at Romero’s apartment to check on Katie.

“How’s it going?” I asked him.

“Fine,” Rubin told me. “I’m bored senseless and Katie’s having the time of her life. She’s stolen my sketch pad and is working in charcoals now.”

“Any problems?”

“Well, she’s got charcoal dust all over herself, but I’ve managed to keep it off the furniture.”

“You’re a funny guy,” I said. I could hear music in the background, and Katie was saying something.

“No, no problems,” Rubin said. “No phone calls, no letters, and no protesters. I just finished checking the mail. It’s clean. I really don’t think they have her home address yet, Atticus.”

“It’s only a matter of time. Enough of her life is public record and it’s there for them to find. All it takes is one SOS member who also works for the IRS or a bank. Let me know if you see anything suspicious.”

“Of course,” he said, sounding hurt. “Katie wants to speak to you.”

“Put her on.”

I listened as the phone changed hands, then Katie said, “Hello, who is this?”

“It’s Atticus, Katie,” I said, thinking it was a hell of a thing to ask after she had told Rubin she wanted to talk to me. “How you doing?”

“Oh, it’s ’Cus, hello. When are you coming home?” 

“Not for a while yet. Your mom hasn’t finished work.” 

“Where’s my mommy, can I talk to my mommy?” Katie asked.

“I’ll see if she can call you later.”

“Okay, she’s working. We can’t talk to her, but we can. Ask her, please, so I can talk to her.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Okay. David says hi, he says hi, and we’ll see you, okay? I’ll see you, okay?” she said, and then the phone was back to Rubin before I could answer.

“You’ll be coming in at the same time?” he asked. “Yeah. We’ll radio our ETA once we’re moving. You’re not going too stir-crazy?”

He chuckled. “Hell, no. We’ve done finger-painting and
Sweatin’ to the Oldies
and she’s on charcoal now, like I said. After that, we’re going to watch some episodes of
The Incredible Hulk.
Romero got them for her on videotape. As far as I can figure, she can’t really discern a difference between Bill Bixby and David Banner, but she sees the difference between Banner and the Hulk. It’s sort of cool. Bixby’s this consummate nice guy, but if you get him mad he becomes the incredible protector. Super strong, but only doing harm to evildoers.”

“There’s something to that.”

“Would that we all could turn green and frighten our problems away.”

“Don’t get too many ideas. See you later,” I said.

“Cool. Don’t get shot,” Rubin said.

At exactly two o’clock, I performed our hourly radio check. Both Dale and Natalie called in, told me that I was loud and clear. Rubin didn’t respond because he was out of range. I went for a cup of coffee in the second-floor waiting room, and was headed back past the nurses’ station when I heard sudden yelling and the sounds of metal hitting the floor.

Stupid Things You Think When The Adrenaline Pumps #87: Well, Jesus, Atticus, if you knew this was going to happen, why did you just pour yourself a cup of coffee?

I dropped the mug, running to the noise, and pulled my radio. Just before I keyed the transmitter, Natalie came over the air, saying,
“Room two twenty-three, principal’s inside.”

I pressed the button and said, “En route.” Came around the comer, bringing my gun out as I heard Dale call in that he was on his way.

It took maybe another five seconds to find the right door, and that was more than enough time to commit murder, but I couldn’t move any faster. I found 223 as Natalie pushed inside, following her into the room.

The woman I’d seen in the waiting room earlier stood behind the examination table, a plastic pop bottle in her hand. The cap was off, and the bottle was half-filled with a red liquid that had been splashed over the equipment, walls, and Dr. Romero. The woman was shouting.

I went for Romero as Natalie went for the other woman.

“She’s pregnant,” I shouted to Natalie. Felice Romero had her glasses off, and the skin that had been protected by them was untouched, although a thick strip of red ran from her dark hair down across her lab coat. I wrapped my arms around her, pivoted, and dropped her outside the room, just as Dale came around the comer.

“Principal’s clear,” I told him. “Get her secure and call the police.” Then I turned back to see that Natalie had the pregnant woman pinned against the wall, one hand on the bottle, immobilizing it. Natalie’s right forearm was pressed under the woman’s chin.

“You’ve been marked!” the woman was screaming. “Anytime we want to, butcher! Anytime we want to!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Natalie said, “or I will knee you so hard you’ll miscarry right here.”

The woman shut up. Whether because she believed the threat, or because Natalie had six inches on her and the ability to crush her larynx, I don’t know.

I holstered my weapon and then took the bottle out of the woman’s hand, setting it down on the counter.

“She got paint on my blouse,” Natalie told me.

“You’re overdressed anyway,” I said.

“It’s going on my expense report,” she said.

I took the woman’s purse and began looking through the contents. “Write it up,” I told Natalie. “All expenses will be reviewed.”

“Skinflint,” she said.

“No free rides,” I told her. The purse held a lipstick, a pocket Bible, a hairbrush, five subway tokens, a folded piece of paper, and a driver’s license. The license was state of New York, and identified the pregnant woman as Mary Werthin. I showed the license to Natalie, who snorted, then I dropped it back in the purse and unfolded the sheet of paper.

It was a photocopied wanted poster, with a grainy picture of Dr. Romero centered on it. At the top of the sheet were the words
WANTED FOR MURDER,
and beneath the picture,
DOCTOR FELICE ROMERO.
At the bottom of the sheet was a list of her crimes. According to the paper, Dr. Romero had murdered over one thousand children.

I kept the wanted poster, putting it in a pocket, then set the purse on the counter beside the bottle.

“I want a lawyer,” Mary Werthin said.

Natalie sighed heavily. “Would you cuff her, please?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You two look so nice together.”

“You can’t hold me, you’re not the police,” Mary Werthin said.

I got my cuffs and locked them around the hand that had held the bottle. Natalie backed up, releasing her grip, and I turned Werthin carefully toward the wall, and cuffed her other hand behind her back. Natalie dragged a chair away from the comer and I led Werthin to it. Once she was seated, Natalie went to the sink and ran some water over a paper towel, dabbing it at her blouse. The blouse was white, and the paint had pretty much ruined it. After a few more swipes at the paint, Natalie sighed and threw the towel in the trash can.

I said, “Whose idea was this, Mary?”

Mary didn’t look at me. She found a paint blotch on the floor and examined that. After a while she said, “Anytime we want to, we can stop her. This was only a warning.”

I looked around at the paint-spattered room. It wasn’t as bad as I’d first thought coming in. “You stay with her,” I told Natalie. “The police should be here in a couple of minutes. I’m going to check on the doctor.”

Natalie nodded.

I picked up my coffee mug and stopped at the nurses’ station. I asked Lynn Delfleur to check the appointment book for Mary Werthin. “When did she make her appointment?” I asked.

She flipped pages until she found the name, then said, “Two weeks ago. She came in for a counseling session last week, just before you guys started here.”

“She was going to have an abortion?”

Lynn shook her head. “Prenatal checkup. Second trimester.”

“You checked her ID when she showed up today?”

“I always check IDs,” Lynn said.

“And she did nothing suspicious?”

She glared at me. “Not that I noticed.”

I thanked her and continued down the hall.

Dr. Romero was in the bathroom opposite her office, the door shut, Dale standing outside. I’m tall, but Dale is big, with about two inches and thirty pounds on me, mostly muscle and bone. His face is broad and smooth, his Japanese features clear. As I approached he said, “She’s unhurt. The glasses kept the paint out of her eyes.” 

“When that lady came in, you and Sheldon ran her through the metal detector, right?”

He nodded.

“Didn’t check the purse?”

“We haven’t been checking bags. I assume that’s about to change?” He said it without sarcasm.

“Yeah. Go on downstairs, meet the cops when they get here,” I told him. “We’re holding the assailant in two twenty-three. Her name’s Mary Werthin.” I handed him my mug. “Dump that for me.”

He took the mug with a nod and headed off down the hall. I could hear water running in the bathroom. After a moment, I knocked on the door.

“What?” Dr. Romero asked.

“It’s me,” I said. “Are you all right?”

“How the hell did that woman get in here?” she asked. “Why didn’t you people stop her?”

“Ms. Werthin made her appointment two weeks ago. Lynn checked her ID. There’s no way we could have known she was going to pull something like that.”

“She could have had a gun,” Dr. Romero said.

“No, she couldn’t have. At least, not easily. She went through the metal detector downstairs. We haven’t been checking bags. We’ll start now.”

“You’re searching bags?”

“We will now,” I repeated.

The door opened. The doctor was wearing a black T-shirt, and her hair was wet, but the paint had come off. She put her glasses on and said, “I’m not certain I want that.”

“It’s your choice, of course.”

She stepped past me and across the hall, into her office, motioning for me to follow. I shut the door after me, and sat down in one of the chairs by her desk. Dr. Romero lit a cigarette, and remained standing.

“She could have killed me,” she said after a moment.

“She could have.”

“You’re supposed to keep that from happening.”

“Yes.”

She turned and looked at me, waiting.

I hated this part of the job. This was the Cold Hard Truth part. I said, “I can’t protect you completely. No one can. If somebody really wants you dead, if they’ve got the patience, half a brain, and a little money, they’ll get the job done. It might take them ten years, but they’ll do it. No depth of security will keep it from happening, no number of bodyguards, no amount of money. You could move to the Yukon Territory, and if somebody really wanted you dead, they would follow and find a way. There is no such thing as absolute protection.

“What you’ve hired me to do is to protect you to the best of my ability. My ability is substantial. I work with some of the best people around, and I’m very good at my job. But I can’t guarantee you anything. From now on, we will search all bags that enter the building.”

“Invasion of privacy,” Dr. Romero said.

I nodded. “Yes, it is. But that’s your choice. We can risk another Mary Werthin, or I can have every bag searched. No gun is going to find its way in here.”

“But there are guns that can be smuggled past metal detectors.”

“Knives, too,” I admitted. “But both take a lot of money and some connections, and the odds of either of those items finding their way in here without whoever’s carrying them attracting our attention are very low. And we’re still not certain that the threat against you is lethal. What that woman did reeks of terrorism, not murder.”

She struggled with it for almost a minute, finally sitting down in her chair. “All right, search the bags,” she said.

I pulled my radio and keyed it, saying, “All units, SOP change: Search the bags.”

Natalie radioed a confirmation, followed by Dale, followed by Sheldon.

“That woman . . . she didn’t want to kill me,” Felice said. “Even what she said, that was just a scare tactic, wasn’t it?”

“I think so. She had a wanted poster for you.” I took the sheet out of my pocket and unfolded it, placing it on her desk.

She smoked for a few seconds, looking at it. 1 waited. “Not a good picture,” she said finally.

“No.”

“You think this came from Sword of the Silent?” 

“Possibly.”

“I am used to being harassed, I’ve told you that. This won’t work on me. Common Ground is in six days, and I won’t be scared off.” She said the last more to herself than to me. “I have done nothing wrong.”