Chapter 3
Mark sat in the den, contemplating the silence in the wake of Hardcastle's departure. The truth was, he felt a bit at ends, unanchored. It might have been that he wasn't used to just sitting and waiting anymore, but he really had no choice. He couldn't even go out and mess with the hedges; he didn't want to be where he wouldn't hear if the phone rang.
He even regretted abandoning his briefcase, and the omnipresent stack of paper-work back at the office, with their hasty departure the day before. He wondered exactly what further angles Hardcase was pursuing, and he decided he didn't very much like his theory about that. After all, if they couldn't ID either the shooter or John Doe—and Louie was still in the wind—that left only Westerfield as a possible starting point for further inquiry.
McCormick was beginning to regret having been so forthcoming with what he'd overheard in the alley—after all, could anything Louie said be taken at face value? He got to his feet, looked out the window at nothing in particular, then went back to studying the phone for a while, willing it to ring.
And it rang.
He jumped, and lunged for it, then paused with his hand on the receiver, and it still sitting in the cradle. Chances were, he assured himself, that it was just the judge, having arrived at his destination and being annoyingly punctilious about it. He held his place for another ring, being damned if he was going to be caught pouncing on it.
Then he picked it up, slowly, carefully, and said 'hello' without any audible eagerness.
The person at the other end said, "Oh," sounding a bit puzzled, and then, apparently got his bearings and added, "Ah . . . is Dr. Westerfield there?"
Mark heard noises in the background, beeps, and voices and general sounds of medical bustle. "Yeah," he replied, "I can get him, just a sec."
He put the phone down gently on the desk and headed for the stairs, trying not to get his hopes up. It might only be someone checking up on how the patient was doing, maybe a friend of the doc's. He'd only made it halfway up the steps when he saw Westerfield at the top, looking frowzy and half-awake, but obviously having heard the phone.
"For you," Mark said. "The hospital, I think. Careful on the stairs."
Westerfield came down, slowly but steadily enough. He pulled he phone to the edge of the desk and sat down in a chair before saying, "Hello?" and then after a pause. "Yeah, fine, Hal. Sorry I missed you this morning . . . no, really, just fine."
Mark hitched one hip on the desk and shook his head. But the tone of the next word out of Westerfield's mouth brought him back to full attention.
"When?" the doc asked, now appearing fully alert. And then, quickly, "Is he still there?"
Mark tried to get his attention, pointing to the speaker button on the phone. He was ignored.
"No," Westerfield said firmly, though it was obvious that he was still speaking to the man on the other end of the line. "Not that. I can be over there in twenty minutes," he finally looked up a Mark, then cast a quick glance through the window in the direction of the Coyote, "maybe fifteen. You think you can hang onto him that long?"
The answer must have been an affirmative. Westerfield looked pleased and said good-bye quickly. The phone was hung up a second later and he was edging forward in his seat, working on getting upright almost immediately.
"Who? What?" Mark asked.
"Louie, in the ER, asking for me. He didn't want to register."
"Damn." Mark reached for the phone again.
"Wait a sec." Westerfield intercepted his hand. "Who are you calling?"
"The police. Harper."
The doc shook his head hastily. "No. You call the lieutenant and he'll beat us there—him and at least a couple of uniform guys. Louie will bolt again and he'll probably figure I tipped them off. There'll be some major trust issues if I do something like that."
"But—"
"Major issues . . . he won't let me get close to him again. Seriously."
Mark knew he looked unconvinced and more than a little worried.
Westerfield raised his good hand, placatingly. "We're meeting him at the ER. It's well-lit, very safe. I'm amazed he showed up there. He must be in fairly decent shape. He wants to see me. That's a helluva breakthrough."
"Either that or he's desperate," Mark muttered. "It might be that. He might be running scared and you're the only person he trusts."
"All the more reason not to violate that trust," the psychiatrist said quietly. "I owe him. You understand that, don't you?"
Mark looked wistfully at the telephone, thinking about trust, and finally said, "Yeah," but it was painfully reluctant.
"And you have to get me there in fifteen minutes," Westerfield said encouragingly, already moving for the door. "I figured you could do that."
"Well, maybe," McCormick said glumly, "but we're taking the truck, okay?" He cast one more regretful look back at the phone, and then headed after him out the door.
00000
It took closer to twenty minutes, but whether that was because he'd been bucking Saturday traffic or a guilty conscience, McCormick couldn't rightly say. Through all of it, Westerfield had sat bolt upright on the passenger side, maybe even leaning forwards a bit, in silent encouragement. All trace of weariness had departed. It reminded Mark, more than a little, of Hardcastle in full view halloo, with the quarry in sight.
The man barely waited for the truck to come to a full stop before he was reaching across with his good hand to open the door. Mark shook his head, then climbed out on his own side and hustled around the vehicle to catch up to him.
"Once we're in there, once you've had a chance to talk to him, then can I call Frank?"
Westerfield cast him a curious sideward glance but said nothing as he tackled the stairs briskly. Mark took that as a qualified 'yes'. He pushed his concerns aside and even made it to the door first, pulling it open and holding it.
The waiting area was nearly full. Mark scanned it briefly, then realized Westerfield was getting a signal from the registrar. She pointed to her right. Mark saw him now, sitting off in a corner, next to a potted plant. He looked less intimidating, and more shabby, hunched forward in a chair.
He had that little section all to himself, despite the general crowdedness. The 'I'm not entirely sane' vibes were obvious, Mark supposed, and they created a buffer zone. He'd known guys like that in the joint, always with a little space to themselves.
Westerfield headed straight for him, slipping past the invisible barrier without any apparent hesitance, snagging a chair and setting it down across from the other man. Mark wondered for a moment if he was supposed to give them some privacy, but then decided somebody had to be the responsible party. He moved in and took a place, casually leaning up against the wall, but within a quick step and an arm's reach of the two of them.
Louie was still leaning forward and looking down. He hadn't reacted to the doc, now seated foursquare in front of him, and not even to McCormick's fairly overt intrusion. Westerfield shot a quick, sharp glance up at Mark, but said nothing to him. Then his attention was redirected, focused entirely on the man across from him.
"Hey, Preet, they said you wanted to talk to me?"
A little rocking motion. It might have been a nod, but the meaning wasn't clear. Westerfield said nothing more for a moment, until the silence seemed stretched to the breaking point.
Louie finally muttered a 'yeah', very soft. He sounded worried, not threatening. Mark eased back a little, trying to keep his stance loose. Westerfield crossed his legs, and shifted a little, as though he was settling in for however long a wait this would require. Louie finally lifted his gaze, though not his whole face.
"They're after me," he said, a bit harsher but still quiet.
Another pause, no further information followed. Westerfield finally asked "Who is?"
Louie's eyes shifted left and right, quick darting movements. He fastened for a moment on McCormick, then away. He breathing was a little faster.
"Them."
"The police?"
A nod, furtive, almost stealthy, as though Louie wasn't even sure if that much was true.
"They just want to ask you what you saw," Westerfield said patiently. "What happened yesterday."
The rocking was back, more pronounced now. He's ticking. McCormick didn't move closer, but he wondered what the countdown was leading to, and how much warning he'd have, if any. Mark was almost startled when the doc started talking again.
"You could just tell me, instead." It was calm and considered and Louie seemed to have heard.
"I don't know nothing; I don't know who the guy was."
"And Doe," Westerfield persisted, "you said something this morning. You said he was 'the type'."
Louie frowned.
"What did you mean? What type were you talking about?"
It might have been that Louie was having trouble remembering, but it looked like he was giving it a try. After another silent moment he offered up a knowing smile and said, "Aww, you know, that type."
McCormick wasn't sure where his own flash of insight had come from. It was there for only a split-second before he blurted it out.
"Doe's a fake."
Louie said nothing, but his smile, still with an edge of worry, broadened slightly. Westerfield looked momentarily startled, and then frowned slightly as though he was considering it.
"That's . . . an interesting assessment, Louie." The frown hadn't cleared yet, but Mark noticed the doc wasn't raising any counter-arguments. He finally added, "Care to tell me how you know?"
"I saw him, saw him making a phone call. If'n he don't know anything, then who's he know to call?"
"Maybe a number they gave him while he was here?" the doc suggested cautiously.
"Uh-uh, uh-uh." The rocking was back, but it seemed more excitement that nervousness, now. "Before, that's when I saw him."
Westerfield's smile dawned slowly. It was small but very satisfied.
"Preet, I owe you twice now."
Louie flashed a grin. "Maybe we're even." But the expression didn't hold. The shadow of fear was back a moment later.
"Listen," the psychiatrist's voice dropped down, as if he was speaking in confidence, "I can get you set up in there." He hooked his left thumb back, in the direction of the registrar's counter and the door to the inner sanctum of the ER. "Doc Poole is on today; you know him, right? He's a good guy. We'll get you in. Safe in there."
Mark watched the other man's tension rising. There was a ripple of muscle in Louie's jaw, and he straightened suddenly, pushing the chair back hard against the wall. The sharp, scraping sound had attracted some momentary attention from the person sitting in registration. She frowned and reached for a phone.
Men in uniforms would arrive momentarily, of that McCormick was almost certain. There would be confusion, and quite possibly a tussle, and there was Westerfield still sitting, slightly off-balance, in what would be the middle of it, looking like he still thought they could talk things over.
"Doc," Mark started, reaching for the man's good arm and trying not to sound too urgent. A hospital security guard had now made an appearance. The registrar was motioning in their direction and the guard was frowning. Mark tugged a little and repeated himself more urgently. "Doc."
Louie stumbled backwards slightly, knocking the chair off to the side. He caught himself with one hand against the wall, and then made a break for it, past a row of waiting patients and through a crowd that parted by the door.
Westerfield was half up. He looked over his shoulder, taking in the guard, the anxiously staring others, and the last glimpse of Louie through the glass, as he fled across the parking lot.
"Damn."
He shook himself free of the support. The security guard was moving towards them, looking pleased that his problem had apparently decamped. "Everything okay here, Doc?"
Mark watched Westerfield bite down hard on the answer to that question, as he visibly composed his face, and then apparently his answer, into something more civil than what he was thinking.
"Yeah, Marty," he finally exhaled. "Fine."
The guard nodded once quickly, apparently glad to have been of service, and was off. McCormick stood there for a moment, ready to offer further support, which looked like it might be necessary.
"We could—"
Westerfield waved that away impatiently. "Too late, he'll be long gone by now. He knows a lot of places to hide." He cocked his head with a rueful and unexpected smile. "Want to call Hardcastle now?"
Mark grimaced and shook his head, then gestured the other man toward the door.
"No rush, I suppose," the doc agreed. "Anyway, I'll talk to him. It was my idea."
"Nah, I'll do it. We're great believers in personal responsibility over at Gulls Way," he said with some chagrin. "God, I hate it when he gets to say 'I told you so.'"
Westerfield nodded in what appeared to be all-purpose sympathy. He said nothing more until they were outside, blinking in the afternoon sunlight. Then he paused, turning sideways. Mark pulled up short, wondering briefly if the man was going to head back inside, maybe seeking out the relative safety of a hospital bed. Instead he was looking at Mark steadily, with a questioning expression.
"How'd you figure it out?" he asked curiously.
"What?"
"What Louie meant," the doc said, with just a hint of impatience, "about Doe faking it."
"Oh," Mark hesitated, then back-tracked. "The phone call?" he finally offered.
"No," Westerfield shook his head, "you knew what he meant before he explained it and you believed him right away. How come?"
McCormick frowned. It was really two questions, and the understanding part was harder to explain. He finally settled for a general theory.
"You know it's pretty easy, Doc. The faking it, I mean. I've seen it done. I've done it."
"In prison?"
"Hell, no," Mark said sharply. "In prison they really make it not worth your while to do that. No, the last thing you want to do there is let on that you're crazy, even if it's true."
Westerfield didn't argue with the terminology or the point; he just stood there, apparently waiting for the rest of the story.
Mark sighed. "Okay, I talked my way into a locked ward one time. It was one of Hardcastle's cases. We needed some information in a hurry."
"You were on parole?"
"Well," Mark shrugged, "yeah."
The doc puzzled through that for a moment, then said, "That's got to be some type of violation. The judge let you—"
"Oh, hell no, I didn't tell him. And I didn't lie. And I did answer all their questions. Really. I can't help it if the truth sounds crazy sometimes."
The psychiatrist gave him one long, hard stare. Then there was a hint of a smile.
"I'll bet that was a very interesting intake interview."
McCormick's own smile was slightly relieved.
"Yeah, I think they finally settled on some sort of delusional disorder. Can you blame 'em?"
"I'm surprised they let you go."
Mark grinned. "They didn't. Hardcase came and sprang me."
He saw one of Westerfield's eyebrows rising in disbelief.
"Yeah, well," he added, "He's been used to my kind of crazy for a while now. Besides, you can't trim hedges in a straitjacket."
The doubtful look stayed on the other man's face as they got in the truck, but he made no further comment. In fact, a fairly pointed silence had descended on both men as they drove. Mark was starting to wonder if the personal responsibility ethic was contagious—maybe something in the water up at the estate. At any rate, Westerfield seemed to be lost in contemplation of their latest fiasco.
They were nearly home before the doc spoke again, and then it was in a tone of half-convinced justification. "We've learned something, I think."
"Yeah," Mark replied. "Doe's not what he seemed to be . . . not that he was actually seeming to be anything."
"Oh, an amnesiac is a definite something," Westerfield smiled. "At least a dissociative one is. Saying you don't know your name is a very public way to announce you have a problem you don't want to talk about. That's one of the reasons it's always intrigued me so much. But a real fugue patient usually plays by the rules. Louie's right, making a phone call is cheating." The doc looked more satisfied than disappointed.
They were in the drive, pulling up. All appeared quiet but the 'Vette was parked in plain view near the fountain. Mark sighed.
"We were barely gone an hour," Westerfield said glumly.
"He probably called home and got the machine then came back to check things out." Mark opened his door, and stepped out, straightening his shoulders.
The doc was still sitting there, in no apparent hurry. "We could just say we went over to the hospital," he half-muttered.
Mark gave him a sharp look. Obviously the man hadn't drunk quite enough of the water yet. He shook his head slowly. "You can try that," he said, "but, believe me, it'll just prolong it. Better to just 'fess up."
Westerfield said nothing, but climbed out of the truck, leaning on the door for a moment. The judge hadn't come out onto the porch. Mark wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
He walked around to the passenger side of the truck and said, "Come on."
Mark didn't knock—that would have been odd under most circumstances—but neither did he holler any of the usual greetings as he opened the door. If Hardcastle was in the den, he'd already noted their arrival, and it wasn't likely he'd be elsewhere.
McCormick maneuvered himself between Westerfield and the open doorway and tried to arrange his face in a not guilty expression, for what good that would do. One quick step in and . . . no one was there. The chair empty, and everything just as they'd left it. He frowned, trying to parse out the meaning of it all.
The doc sidled around him and looked equally puzzled, then said, in a practical tone, "Well, he's here somewhere."
Mark stood frozen for a moment, giving the place a hard listen.
"The basement," he said abruptly, and when the older man still looked puzzled, he added, tersely, "Well, I'd hear him if he was anywhere else. It's either the basement or out by the pool. You think he's sitting out there getting some sun?"
Westerfield shook his head.
"And he wouldn't have heard the truck if he's in the basement. Not even the door," Mark explained, heading down the hall and around the corner to the door, the other man at his heels.
His time he opened the door and hollered. "You there?"
The reply was distant, from one floor down and around a corner, but distinctly affirmative and not obviously hostile.
"What's he doing down there?" Westerfield asked curiously.
"The files," Mark said, and let that stand for an explanation. "Careful," he added, "there's no railing on the left further down."
He took the steps at less than his usual trot, partly so as not to hurry Westerfield, and partly because he still wasn't sure what sort of reception awaited him at the bottom. But the doc was right behind him and the man sitting at the table in the file room looked as though he had been genuinely immersed, with a file open in front of him and a stack to either side.
He glanced up from what he was doing, an unrevealing expression on his face, as though he was waiting for an explanation but had no intention of asking for it. Mark swallowed once, smiled, quick and thin, then started to open his mouth.
The man just behind him and to his right spoke first, and it was with a tone of bemusement. "'The files'?"
Mark cut a quick glance over his shoulder, then back at the room in front of him. A motley collection of cabinets lined two walls, with unfiled papers lying here and there. A shotgun was propped in one corner, and there were two mug shots thumb-tacked to a spare bit of wall by the light switch.
McCormick saw it for a moment with new eyes, the way home looks after a long vacation, when you return and find things weren't left quite as ship-shape as you remembered. And there in the middle of it, hunched over a table that was more functional than decorative, was Hardcastle.
It was increasingly evident that the man wasn't angry, not even pretending not to be angry. If there was any air about him, it could only be described as distracted.
"You went somewhere?" he asked.
Mark nodded. This time he noticed Westerfield was keeping his mouth shut, too, though he was sill studying the room around him with unconcealed curiosity.
"Where?" The judge finally frowned
McCormick shot a glance to the side and then answered blandly, "To the hospital."
Hardcastle sat up straighter, looking at Westerfield with a little more care.
"You hadn't called here?" Mark asked. "That's not why you came home?"
"Ah," there was another sudden shift of the judge's eyes. For a brief moment McCormick might've almost catalogued it as evasiveness. "Well," he finally eased back in the chair, "I wanted to look some stuff up." Then he frowned again, as if he'd had a chance to think through what Mark had said. "So, why were you at the hospital?" The furrows in the man's forehead looked as if they'd settled in to stay. "And how come you didn't call me?"
"I got a message here," Westerfield jumped in before Mark could arrange the facts in the least damning way. "It was from the ER. Louie showed up there asking for me. I wanted to talk to him before he got spooked off."
Hardcastle took this in without comment, then turned almost at once to Mark. "So, you didn't tell Frank, huh?"
McCormick shook his head, then lifted his gaze and fixed the older man with a look. "Louie would've spooked, too. The guy's pretty nervous. But the doc got him to sit down and talk for a few minutes."
"Anything useful this time?"
"Maybe," Mark said. "He thinks Doe is a fake."
The judge harrumphed.
"He had some evidence," the younger man added. "He saw Doe making a phone call, which is a pretty neat trick for a guy who's claiming he doesn't remember anything."
The judge gave that a considering nod but then seemed to refocus on the other issue. "But you didn't call Frank after you met with Louie, either, huh? Lemme guess, he bolted again. You know, we coulda grabbed him. Frank could've had the guy hauled in, material witness."
"Not a chance. Either he would have gotten away, or someone would've gotten hurt," Westerfield interjected abruptly. "He's very single-minded about getting away from things that frighten him."
The psychiatrist pulled out a chair and sat down across from Hardcastle. "Listen," he said, "it was my idea and I stick with it. I needed to talk to him and I did. I'd like to talk to him some more and that may be possible as long as he trusts me."
"But do you trust him?"
Westerfield sat back for a moment. He appeared to be thinking about it, but there was only a brief hesitation.
"Yes. He's not the guy who shot me."
Hardcastle took in a slow breath. "Okay," he finally said, "Louie's legit and Doe's a fake . . . and we still don't know why the shooter took a shot at you."
Mark wasn't sure if he'd really heard it or not, that slight emphasis on the word 'you' that implied more than he thought they knew.
"Just because Doe's a fake, doesn't mean somebody might not be shooting at him." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and hitched his elbow on the top of the file cabinet next to him.
Hardcastle gave that a nod, but it was Westerfield who spoke next, and it almost seemed a non sequitur.
"You have a lot of files," he observed mildly, casting a long gaze around the room again.
The judge matched it for a moment, and then finally looked down at the folder in front of him, closed it, set it on the stack to his left and said, "Yeah. Kinda sneaks up on a person, I guess."
"The lieutenant mentioned it once, right after we first met. He said you kept track of things—cases in your courtroom that hadn't gone well." Westerfield's look of astonishment was back. "I had no idea."
"Well," Hardcastle pushed the stack a bit further to the side, "it started out with those. But that's not all of it." He frowned for a moment, casting another quick glance to the cabinets, then back. "I've acquired things."
"Looks like it."
"Reference materials," Mark said suddenly, and then paused for a moment, hoping it hadn't sounded apologetic. "Stuff you can't get at the library," he added, with a slight grin.
That expression hung there for a moment. The doc, as usual, seemed to accept what he was being told without any overt judgment but McCormick still felt vaguely ill at ease. He tried to trace that to the source, and then his eyes went back to Hardcastle.
"So what were you down here checking, anyway?" He leaned forward a little, trying to get a closer look at the stack of files.
"A hunch," the judge replied cryptically, leaving Mark to wonder just who was supposed to not know any more than that.
He ventured one more query. "Any luck?"
Hardcastle was already on his feet. "Not yet," he said tersely. He spoke to McCormick but then cast another look at Westerfield and added, "Don't suppose you had 'em take another look at your shoulder while you were over there?"
"It'd only been about six hours since the last time." The doc's protest might've carried more weight if the man himself hadn't sunk down in the chair, like someone who had no immediate plans to get up.
"Come on," the judge said, offering him a hand and, Mark noted with a smile, effectively having redirected the topic of conversation.
They made their way back upstairs, Mark lingering behind for a moment, ostensibly to turn off the lights. He felt only a twinge of guilt as he stepped back over to the table and took a quick look at the stacks. He recognized a few names—mob guys, mostly, if he wasn't mistaken. There were none with whom he had any detailed familiarity. You mean none that have personally tried to kill you.
These were the files Hardcastle had meant when he said 'I've acquired things.' Some of them were hard-won, too, the result of carefully cultivated relationships with people from both sides of the law. But what the hell that had to do with the matter at hand, McCormick had no idea.
"You coming?" the judge hollered down from the top of the stairs.
"Yeah," Mark said, as he shrugged and set the topmost file back down where he'd found it. "Right behind you." And he headed up the steps.
00000
The judge suggested food, and, though no one was particularly hungry, Mark made some one-handed sandwiches. It was in the middle of their unenthusiastic kitchen-supper, that the phone rang again.
Hardcastle leaned over and snagged it first, beating McCormick by half a ring. All the younger man got out of it was the identity of the caller.
Hardcastle said "Hi, Frank, you saved me a call."
Mark sank back down in his seat, not looking forward to hearing the judge relay the details of this afternoon's escapade. But what followed was a semi-surprised grunt from Hardcastle, and a few more sub-vocal utterances, and a couple of terse yeses, punctuating short periods of intense listening. Whatever was being said, it didn't meet with the judge's approval.
"Yeah, sure. We can come down." He was casting another evaluating look at Westerfield. "It'll take us a little while, though." And with that decided, there was only a brief good-bye from the judge's end, and one that must have been just as perfunctory from Harper.
Hardcastle put the receiver back and let out a breath.
"Now what?" Mark finally asked. "And why didn't you tell him about Louie?"
"Louie's dead," the judge said sharply.
Westerfield's eyes came up abruptly from a heavy-lidded study of nothing in particular, snapping into focus on the older man.
"Leastwise they think it's him. Frank asked if you could come down and do a positive ID. I didn't think that'd be much of a problem, seeing as you saw the guy twice today alone."
Mark thought Hardcastle probably didn't mean it quite the way it had come out—part of it was frustration, but not even all of that was directed in Westerfield's direction. Still, it came across as at least peeved. It hardly mattered, though, the doc's own expression had flattened out into weary resignation even before the judge had uttered the words.
"You tried to convince him to come in," Mark said in hasty defense. "Twice. If you couldn't convince him, I don't know who else could've." He turned his face to Hardcastle. "The guy was wound up; he wasn't listening to reason. Nobody could have gotten him into a squad car."
Hardcastle pinched the bridge of his nose and then shook his head in what appeared to be an agreement with a negative.
"Yeah," he said, "sounds like it."
"How did he die?" Westerfield asked quietly. "Shot?"
Hardcastle nodded. "Two.The chest. In an alley, a couple blocks north of the mission. No witnesses, at least nobody who's willing to come forward, not even to say they heard the shots fired—it was called in anonymously from a pay phone."
"What time?"
"About an hour and a half ago. Pronounced at the scene. They've still got him there, but they want to bag him and take him to the morgue." All the irritation had gone out of the judge's voice. The words weren't harsh, merely flat. "You know, Saturday . . . they're kinda busy." There was a note of half-apology to that and, beyond that, a weariness that seemed to mirror the other man's. "He matches the description, but it might not be—"
"Milt." Westerfield halted him with a tone that was insistent, and quite firm. "Twenty minutes after he left the hospital, and a half mile south of where he was last seen." He shook his head once. "Let's go give the lieutenant his ID."
00000
"Not close enough for powder burns," Frank said. "The first shot must've knocked him back, The second went in at an upward angle—exit's through the right shoulder. And he still managed to turn over. Tried to crawl away."
Dusk, reinforced by the narrowness of the alley, was fast overtaking the scene. Colors were muted out, where there would have been any color at all. The blood smeared on the ground along the short path the man had dragged himself—four feet, no more—appeared more brown than red, and it had lost its glisten.
The three of them stood there, as though listening to a lecture from a tour guide. Harper spoke in his usual short, clipped phrases—only the essential words. Mark waited for him to lapse into the familiar immediacy of the present tense.
"I figure it like this," Frank jerked his chin toward the north-facing entry to the ally. "He comes down this way, maybe he's looking back there, over his shoulder. The shooter is here, behind the dumpster. He says something, or maybe just steps out. The victim turns, and takes the first slug, just to the right of center."
"Then it might have been random." Mark said. "No way anyone could've known he was headed this way and gotten here first."
Westerfield added nothing. He stepped over to the already bagged body on the gurney, just behind the morgue wagon. It was obvious he was in no mood for preparatory rituals or carefully reasoned out maybes.
Frank gave the attendant a nod and the zipper was pulled down.
The face was already distorted by the position the body had lain in. The night shadows were deep in the hollows of the man's eyes.
"It's him," the doc said on the tail end of a slowly exhaled breath.
"Any next of kin that you know of?" Frank asked.
A silent shake of the head and then, after a pause, "But he's a vet. Medical discharge . . . they owe him a burial. They've owed him that for twenty years now."
00000
The ride back to the estate had been made in near silence and, now that they were there, McCormick felt the tension even more. He decided Westerfield had it easiest, being able to plead fatigue even at this relatively early hour. Hardcastle made all the inquiries a good host had to make as soon as they were in the hallway, but it was obvious that the doc wanted nothing except to make it to the solitude of the room upstairs.
Mark watched him take the stairs slowly, with his good arm cradling the sling. The judge had already departed, toward the back of the house, not the den. Mark wondered if he was looking for a little solitude, too, but finally decided he wasn't going to get it—not just yet at any rate.
He followed him back, finding him in the kitchen putting away the things from their suddenly interrupted supper. He looked up as McCormick entered.
"You want another sandwich?" he asked mildly.
"No," Mark replied, "I want answers." He sat down and pointed to the chair across from him. "Why did you come high-tailing it back here today to look at files. What do you know and why aren't you talking about it? Is it something about the doc and Louie?"
The judge's eyebrows went up a notch at this last question, then his brow furrowed back down and he shook his head, letting out a sigh. He grabbed the back of the nearest chair and slid it out for himself, settling down into it slowly, as though he was buying himself some time to organize his thoughts.
"Not Louie, nah." Hardcastle shook his head. "I mean, yeah, they know each other—there's something going on there—but that's not what I was looking into. What I got this afternoon, from Frank, is the ID on some prints. They're Doe's. They lifted them off his file at the hospital, the page he signed when he was released. Hah, that's what he signed it even, 'John Doe'. Cute, huh? Took a while to get it, needed a court order, some real careful wording, medical records and all."
Mark thought about that one and decided it must've been a project that required some guidance from a very interested ex-member of the judiciary, who could put the squeeze on a brother judge and then call in a favor from the FBI.
"Okay," he finally said, "So, we know who Doe is; we're halfway home . . . Who is he, anyway?"
"Well," the judge scratched his nose thoughtfully, "unless they've got some real shady characters getting their prints on the paperwork over at St. Mary's, our Doe is a guy named William Tunis."
Mark frowned, squinted, thought for a moment, and then said, "Never heard of him."
"Good, then all those file cabinets down there are still useful, I guess. Tunis is a hit-man—mostly East Coast: New York, Jersey. I was trying to figure out who his contacts might be around here." Hardcastle looked at him with chagrin. "Just how goofy do you think I look when I'm down there?" he added.
"Nope," Mark waved that away with a half-smile, "Westerfield has standards." The smile slipped. "So, Louie, what was he, a random act of violence?"
"Nah, an inconvenient witness, most likely. Even if he didn't know the shooter, there was no way for that guy to be sure."
"And so the shooter just hung around in case he showed up again? I dunno . . . and Doe, I mean Tunis, he was the original intended victim? He was just hiding out. Maybe it was some sort of mob retaliation and the doc just got in the way. So why are you being so hush-hush about the latest developments?"
Hardcastle shook his head. "Wish I could say that, but, come on, kiddo, that would be a sloppy way to hide, don't ya think? Getting everybody all interested in him like that.
"And even if it was Tunis's idea of a clever disguise, why the hell would he agree to go to the hospital? The last thing he'd want is for people poking around, trying to figure out who he really was. I'm surprised they didn't fingerprint him straight out," he muttered, half to himself. "I guess medical people don't think that way."
Mark smiled thinly again. "You mean they don't think straight-off that everybody has a record somewhere?"
Hardcastle glanced up sharply. "Lots of people get fingerprinted: military guys, people who are applying for some government jobs." He looked a little indignant and then added, "Files, resources. You gotta know who's got what."
Mark sighed. "Look, Judge, it's all right to think that way. And it's okay to have a bunch of stuff in the basement, really. It's not normal, but it's okay. Some people collect stamps, or baseball cards." He let that sit a moment, turning back to the main issue. "But if you're right, if Tunis wasn't hiding out, then what the hell was he doing?"
"Bait," Hardcastle said flatly.
McCormick resisted another sigh. He'd already thought of that one; he'd only been hoping that the judge had come up with an alternative explanation. "Bait for Westerfield? Why?"
"Don't know that part, yet." The judge looked at him speculatively. "I don't suppose he's said anything while the two of you were our gallivanting around today. Any suspicions, worries?"
"Nothing more than you'd expect from a guy who just got shot yesterday." Mark frowned. "Heck, not even that much. He seemed pretty together today . . . he hasn't said anything to you?"
The judge shook his head. "But it makes sense; you see that, don't you? If someone wanted to get the doc out there, put him in a spot where him getting killed wouldn't necessarily look like it was intentional, they could set it up like this."
"They'd have to have known an awful lot about him—what kinda bait would work—what he'd do. And why the hell would they want to kill him? You think he's been out there playing the ponies? No way. That's ridiculous."
"Well, might be that Tunis was aiming to meet him in the hospital. Might've thought that'd be his in. Then, once he was his patient . . ." The judge's voice had trailed off; his expression had gone a little distant.
"What?" Mark said impatiently.
"His office." The judge leaned forward in his chair, both elbows on the table. "His records. Maybe there's something there that Tunis wants."
"Makes more sense than the ponies." Mark squinted again. "But then why shoot him? Or was the second guy trying to shoot Tunis after all? To keep him from getting close to the doc, maybe."
"It'd help if I knew who hired these guys. That's all I know."
"It'd help if you asked the doc if he's got any ideas." Mark cast a gaze upwards at the ceiling in the general direction of the guest bedroom, then he dropped his eyes back down. "But maybe not tonight."
"Yeah," Hardcastle nodded. "You can ask him in the morning."
"Me?"
"Well, you're his lawyer." The judge shrugged with what was probably supposed to be a rare stab at diffidence. Then he frowned, adding, "And I'm starting to wonder if maybe he needs one."
00000
There hadn't been much left to say after that. Hardcastle watched the younger man fidget for a few moments, then get up, and push his chair back in slowly, all as if he was thinking it over, and all without raising a single argument in protest.
"I think I'll turn in. Been a kinda long day."
The judge nodded to that and watched him turn to leave. "See ya in the morning," he said.
"Yeah," McCormick said, slump-shouldered, giving him an off-hand wave without turning around.
He listened to the footsteps in the hallway, the front door opening and closing—both quietly—and then the silence. He thought about excuses for being not around when the hard questions got asked in the morning. Being there might be almost as damning as asking them himself, and that had been what he'd been trying to avoid all along. He wasn't sure how much of this McCormick was getting—that he didn't want to be the one to raise issues between him and his . . . shrink? Friend?
He didn't know which way to slice it, but he sure as hell knew it wasn't his place to throw a wet blanket on any constructive relationship of McCormick's. Didn't matter, though, when the dust settled, the kid would know who'd raised the issue in the first place. So that's still it, huh? At the bottom of it all, you don't care how the rest of it comes out, just not having Mark blame you for all of it.
No, he was pretty sure he didn't want the doc riding for a fall.
Pretty sure.
Hardcastle let out a long, slow breath and started to rise from the table, with a half-formed impulse to head back downstairs to the files. He paused in that motion; he'd heard something, someone, on the stairs coming down. There wasn't anything particularly stealthy about it; the slow, measured tread might only have been caution and weariness.
The judge lowered himself back into his seat, strangely glad he hadn't made it any further into the basement. The footsteps were coming from the hallway now, obviously headed his way.
Westerfield didn't appear too surprised to see him there, either. He hadn't gotten very far into the getting ready for bed process, still in street clothes, though his shirt was unbuttoned. He gave a quick, small smile and a nod toward the kitchen counter.
"Forgot to take the pills." He stepped into the room.
Hardcastle was on his feet again, crossing over to the sink and opening the bottles, as he had that morning, then handing them over one at a time.
The doc tipped the first bottle into his bad hand and tapped out two tablets. These were followed by the antibiotic capsule. Then he accepted the glass of water the judge had drawn. He took everything with more apparent willingness than he'd shown that morning and two pain pills was one more than he'd shown sufferance for at breakfast.
He finally handed the glass back with a nod of thanks.
"You okay?" Hardcastle asked.
Westerfield seemed to give that more thought than a simple 'yes' would have required. He finally smiled ruefully.
"Been better."
The judge said nothing, but nodded in the direction of the chair McCormick had recently vacated. The other man moved toward it, not seeming either eager or reluctant. Hardcastle let him settle in before taking the chair across from him.
"Coffee?" he asked.
Phil shook his head. "Might be a bad idea. Beer'd be more to the point," he looked momentarily wistful, "but that'd be a bad idea, too." He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. "Don't worry. It's always this way. Hard to sleep for a while."
Hardcastle felt his eyebrow go up in question.
Westerfield gave him a one-shouldered shrug. "Never happened to you, I suppose. The massive screw-up."
The judge opened his mouth, the start of a protest, but the other man held up a hand.
"It was, at least it was in my opinion, and mine's the one that counts as far as getting to sleep is concerned. Funny thing is," Westerfield's gaze drifted off a little to the side, "it wasn't the first time I misjudged things for Preet."
Hardcastle watched him, saying nothing. He settled back a little, unobtrusively he hoped, and gave the other man some space.
"And yet he trusted me," Westerfield shook his head slightly, in what appeared to be wonderment, "practically right from the start."
There was nothing more for a moment. Hardcastle bided his peace. When the silence settled into something a little more solid, he finally let the question slip out. "You knew him from 'Nam?"
"Ah?" The doc lifted his chin just enough to let it down again in a nod. "Yeah, met him there. He'd only been in country a week or so when his lieutenant sent him to me." Westerfield frowned slightly looking up again. "You're familiar with the concept of combat psychiatry?"
"Yeah." The judge nodded. "Had it back in WWII. Treat the guys near the front and as soon as possible."
"But a whole new set of rules in 'Nam." Westerfield squinted. "Every war is different," he finally sighed. "And every one's the same."
Silence again. Then a little more prodding. "So, what was wrong with Louie?"
"Ah, well, not all that much to start out with."
"But he was sent to you—"
Westerfield smiled thinly. "Yeah, his lieutenant wasn't too happy with him. Louie was there on the MacNamara plan. You're familiar with that? You know, 'Project 100,000', they dropped the minimum requirements for testing and went out and recruited a bunch of guys like Louie Preta, trained them as combat troops, used them to take the pressure off the rest of the selective service pool. Selective service," he shook his head, "now there's an oxymoron. I don't believe much in the IQ as a useful measurement, but a few of those guys wouldn't have hit 70.
"Funny thing was, though," Westerfield's eyes had gone a little distant, "some of 'em actually did pretty well—helluva lot of courage under fire. But Preet's lieutenant, he was kind of dicey about the whole thing, sent him in. He was hoping I'd give Louie a medical. I talked to him, talked to the lieutenant. Preet was pretty eager, liked being given the responsibility, wanted to be part of his platoon. I wrote up a report, said he was okay. The whole thing didn't take more than a couple of hours."
"It's not rocket science," Hardcastle frowned. "I had guys who came straight from behind a plow. Some of 'em could barely read, but they knew which way to point the gun and when to stay low. Hell, better than some college boys."
"Yeah." The doc gave that a nod. "And I didn't hear anything more from the lieutenant, so it seemed like I'd been right."
"'Seemed'?"
Another nod, this one more reluctant. "Six months went by; I didn't even remember the name. We were seeing a thousand guys a month. I got another request, this time it's a forensic evaluation on a prisoner from Long Binh Stockade—he was being held on a charge of murder."
"Louie?"
"Yeah, fit to stand trial or not? The story was he'd been accused of killing another man from his squad. No question he did it, shot him in front of witnesses and then threw the rifle down and didn't resist arrest."
"What happened?"
"Well, that took some digging. Different lieutenant this time—different platoon, hell, a different company. Louie had been out of synch with his original unit. I should've taken that into account in the first evaluation. The other guys did their tour—got sent back. Preet was held behind and put into a new company to shore up their numbers. That was how they did it. Hell on everybody, more so when the guy being infused was someone like Louie—you know what they called them?"
Hardcastle shook his head.
"MacNamara's morons. Not everybody, you know, not the guys in Preet's original unit, most likely. He'd gotten himself two bronze stars with them . . . but that's what some people called them." Westerfield shook his head.
"The second time I saw him, I wouldn't have recognized him, except there was my old report—in his records from nine months back. This time around he was pretty deep into what looked like a psychotic break. Not talking. Took a couple days of Thorazine before he'd even eat anything. I did talk to a couple of other guys from the squad; I finally got Preet to talk to me.
"He didn't really remember what had happened, but there was one other guy in the unit, he'd come in about the same time as Louie. He said Preet had been made the scapegoat, ridiculed, bullied. The man who'd been shot was the instigator. He'd made a hobby out of pushing Louie's buttons. Preet had started acting strange, that made the others react more.
"He was practically short time when he finally snapped. A smarter man would have sat back, shirked a little, ridden his time out. But Louie wasn't smart, and he was probably already sliding into his first acute episode." Westerfield was frowning deeply. He finally shook his head again. "Took me a whole lot longer than a couple hours that second time. 'Schizoaffective disorder with paranoid ideation and mild mental retardation.' That was just the bottom line, though. The whole report went on for quite a few pages."
Westerfield cocked his head slightly. "The medical battalion chief had a few choice words for me. Said maybe I ought to reconsider, on account of that my original report had said the guy was good to go and, with the witnesses and all, it was pretty much an open and shut case for first degree murder."
"You let it stand though, huh?"
"Yeah." The doc said firmly. "Being wrong once, well, I'd just have to live with that. But I sure as hell wasn't going to be wrong twice." Westerfield looked up at him again. "You know what I mean? I had to fix it, at least the part of it I could fix."
Hardcastle was aware that he was expected to respond, but nothing came readily to mind except the obvious.
"Yeah," he said quietly, "I know."
The other man nodded wearily. "So Louie went home on a medical. Not fit to stand trial. I lost track of him again. He must've done better back here. The Thorazine helped, most likely, and taking away all the other stressors. Putting him into a more stable environment."
"But eventually they let him go?"
"'Eventually' was a couple of months," Westerfield said with mild disgust. "I don't think I should be the one to talk. After all, I'd said he was fit for combat duty. But that was the dawn of the outpatient era. Get people out of institutions and back into the community. Normalize them . . . well, he really wasn't dangerous as long as you didn't hand him an M-16 and then call him names and bully him. Not dangerous to others, at any rate . . ."
He settled into silence. It looked to Hardcastle like the pills were finally kicking in. It seemed as if the story was going to stop far short of recent events.
But then, just as abruptly, he started speaking once again. "But that, that's all old news. I'd say I'd come to terms with it; I understood which part of it was mine and which was things that were beyond my control—'The System.'"
Hardcastle nodded again, just once.
"But today . . ." Westerfield rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head. Obviously the pills weren't quite as effective as they'd seemed.
"You did the best you could with the information you had," Hardcastle said. "If we'd backed Preta into a corner it's very possible someone might've gotten hurt, and then you'd be sitting here second-guessing yourself on that one." He paused, studying the other man, wondering if he was getting through. He finally started up again, "Judges, doctors, we get used to it; you sign a piece of paper and something happens—"
"'With great power comes great responsibility.'"
The judge frowned. "Is that Winston Churchill?"
"No," Westerfield looked at him wryly, "Spiderman, I think."
"Yeah, well," Hardcastle shrugged, "lots of responsibility, but not as much power as you think. Things happen that you have no control over. You can only influence the outcome so much and after that—"
"You lie awake a few nights and try to figure out how you'll fix it . . . or do better next time," the doc said on a heavy sigh.
"That's about it." Hardcastle watched him rise slowly, his good hand on the table to steady himself. "But tonight you ought to try and get some sleep. Not one more damn thing you can do right now."
"Yeah, too late for that," Westerfield admitted. He was on his feet still looking unreconciled.
The judge felt a twinge of guilt of his own, for leaving questions unasked. The other man was in the doorway before he blurted it out, "Catching the guy who did it, that's one thing we can do."
Westerfield paused, looking over his shoulder with a half-frown. "I suppose," he finally said. "Won't do Preet much good, though."
"No, but it's the right thing to do. It's justice. That's really what justice it, doing the right thing."
The man in the doorway smiled thinly and finally nodded. "Better late than never," he said, and then he turned and was gone.
The judge sat for a moment, listening to the retreating footsteps in the hallway, and then up the stairs, again slow. Then he got to his feet himself, and headed for the basement.