The Sisterhood - Michael Palmer [89]
Ben cut him off. “She already has, David.”
“What?”
“The lieutenant called a short time ago. I talked to him for half an hour. He wants you—and Dr. Armstrong—to quit playing Holmes and Watson and let him do his work.”
“Do his work?” David’s voice was incredulous. “Ben, the man has spent almost a week tar-and-feathering me. He’s the other side. He’s one we should be fighting.”
Ben shook his head. “No, pal, he’s not,” he said firmly. “He’s, a damn good cop. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve been in practice. Whether you believe it or not, he doesn’t want to see you fall.”
“Then why the fuck did he arrest me?”
“Had to.” Ben shrugged. “Pressure from all sides and a ton of circumstantial evidence. Motive, opportunity, weapon—you know all that.”
David clenched his fists. “I also know that I didn’t kill that woman,” he said.
“Well, John Dockerty’s not one hundred percent convinced you did either. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to work on Marcus Quigg, the pharmacist who—”
“Dockerty told me who he is,” David broke in. “But, Ben, I never met the man. Why would he want to do this to me?”
“One of the big three,” Ben said. “Vengeance, fear, money.”
David shook his head. “Ben, until Dockerty said his name, I’m sure I never heard it before. Marcus Quigg isn’t exactly John Jones, you know. If I took care of a Quigg … no, vengeance doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Unless it was a sister or daughter,” Ben said. “Different name.”
“I guess.” David slapped the desk in exasperation. “But there are just too many unpredictable events to believe anyone could have planned to frame me. Way too many.”
“David, right now it can’t do anything but harm to try and overthink this thing. There simply isn’t enough information … yet.” Ben paused, twisting his wedding band as he searched for words. “David,” he said finally, “I wasn’t going to bring this up today, but maybe it’s best that I do. I told you yesterday that I wanted complete honesty from you, yes?” David nodded. “You didn’t mention to me that you were once accused of deliberately overmedieating a cancer patient of yours. Is that true?”
David stiffened. Disbelief widened his eyes. “Ben, I … this is crazy,” he stammered. “That was at least nine years ago. I was completely exonerated. I … how do you know about it?”
“Lieutenant Dockerty knows. I don’t know who, but someone tipped him off.”
“The nurse, it must have been that goddamn nurse. How in the hell …?”
“What happened?”
“It was nothing. Really. I ordered pain medicine on a dying old lady—every four hours as needed. And believe me, she had plenty of pain. Well, I found that this one nurse was too damn lazy to check on whether she needed it. So I changed the order to every two hours, lowered the dose, and took out the ‘as needed’ part so the woman had to receive it. The next day the nurse reported me. There was an inquiry and I think she ended up getting censured.”
“Well, now it seems she’s getting even,” Ben said. “Listen, David, you must tell me everything. No matter how insignificant it might seem to you. Everything. This nurse coming forward after nine years may be yet another coincidence. There was the article in last night’s paper. But if someone put her up to it, we’ve got even more problems than we realized. And maybe, just maybe, you have the answer inside you without even knowing it.”
“Maybe …” David’s voice drifted off. For a few seconds he squinted and scratched above one ear.
“What? What is it? Do you remember something?”
David shook his head. “I could swear something popped in and out of my mind. Something someone said about Charlotte Thomas. I …” He shrugged. “Whatever it was—if it was—is gone.”
“Well, go home and take it easy, pal. We’ll meet again tomorrow. Same time?”
“Same time,” David said weakly.
“Say, listen, if you’re free tomorrow night, why don’t you plan on coming here at four. We can talk, then you can come home and have dinner