Without remorse - Tom Clancy [286]
Back up.
Кеllу had rescued the Madden girl, but he'd had help getting her straightened out. Professor Sam Rosen and his wife, another physician. So Kelly finds Doris Brown - whom would he take her to? That was a starting place! Ryan lifted his phone.
'Hello.'
'Doc, it's Lieutenant Ryan.'
'I didn't know I gave you my direct line,' Farber said. 'What's up?'
'Do you know Sam Rosen?'
'Professor Rosen? Sure. He runs a department, hell of a good cutter, world-class. I don't see him very often, but if you ever need a head worked on, he's the man.'
'And his wife?' Ryan could hear the man sucking on his pipe.
'I know her quite well. Sarah. She's a pharmacologist, research fellow across the street, also works with our drug-abuse unit. I help out with that group, too, and we -'
'Thank you.' Ryan cut him off. 'One more name. Sandy.'
'Sandy who?'
'That's all I have,' Lieutenant Ryan admitted. He could imagine Farber now, leaning away from his desk in the high-backed leather chair with his contemplative look.
'Let me make sure I understand things, okay? Are you asking me to check up on two colleagues as part of a criminal investigation?'
Ryan weighed the merits of lying. This guy was a psychiatrist. His job was looking around in people's minds. He was good at it.
'Yes, doctor, I am,' the detective admitted after a pause long enough for the psychiatrist to make an accurate guess as to its cause.
'You're going to have to explain yourself,' Farber announced evenly. 'Sam and I aren't exactly close, but he is not a person who would ever hurt another human being. And Sarah is a damned angel with these messed-up kids we see in here. She's setting aside some important research work to do that, stuff she could make a big reputation with.' Then Farber realized that she'd been away an awful lot in the past couple of weeks.
'Doctor, I'm just trying to develop some information, okay? I have no reason whatever to believe that either one of them is implicated in any illegal act.' His words were too formal, and he knew it. Perhaps another tack. It was even honest, maybe. 'If my speculation is correct, there may be some danger to them that they don't know about.'
'Give me a few minutes.' Farber broke the connection.
'Not bad, Em,' Douglas said.
It was bottom-fishing, Ryan thought, but, hell, he'd tried just about everything else. It seemed an awfully long five minutes before the phone rang again.
'Ryan.'
'Farber. No docs on neuro by that name. One nurse, though, Sandra O'Toole. She's a team leader on the service. I don't know her myself. Sam thinks highly of her, or so I just found out from his secretary. She was working something special for him, recently. He had to fiddle the pay records.' Farber had already made his own connection. Sarah had been absent from her clinical work at the same time. He'd let the police develop that themselves. He'd gone far enough - too far. These were colleagues, after all, and this wasn't a game.
'When was that?' Ryan asked casually. '
'Two or three weeks ago, lasted ten working days.'
'Thank you, doctor. I'll be back to you.'
'Connection,' Douglas observed after the circuit was broken. 'How much you want to bet that she knows Kelly, too?'
The question was more hopeful than substantive, of course. Sandra was a common-enough name. Still, they'd been on this case, this endless series of deaths, for more than six months, and after all that time spent with no evidence and no connections at all, it looked like the morning star. The problem was that it was evening now, and time to go home for dinner with his wife and children. Jack would be returning to Boston College in another week or so, Ryan thought, and he missed time with his son.
There was no easy way to get things organized. Sandy had to drive him