emotion held him in stasis. Then he squinted at Sean. "When my son
died he began to say, then hesitated.
Sean studied him, obviously curious about what Pittman intended to say.
"When my son died, I can't describe how angry I was at the hospital, at
his doctors. Jeremy's death wasn't their fault. It's just that I
desperately needed somebody to be angry at. If somebody had made a
mistake, then in a bizarre way Jeremy's death would have made sense.
Medical carelessness. The alternative is to accept that Jeremy died
because Of a cosnuc crapshoot, that he was unlucky, that he just
happened to get a type of rare, untreatable cancer. That kind of
thinking-diere's no pattern or point; the universe is arbitrary-can
drive a person crazy. When I finally accepted that Jeremy's doctors
weren't to blame, I still needed someone to be angry at. So I chose
God. I screamed at God. I hated Him. But eventually I realized that
wasn't doing any good, either, Because God wouldn't scream back, How
could I possibly hurt Him? What good is it to be angry if you can't
punish what you're angry at? My anger was useless. It wasn't going to
bring Jeremy back. That's when I decided to kill myself.
The reference caused Sean's gaze to narrow, his expression somber.
"Anger." Pittman's jaw muscles hardened. "When I was with Millgate, he
said something to me. A name. At least it sounded like a name.
'Duncan.' Millgate said that several times. Then something about snow.
Then a while later, he said, 'Grollier.' I didn't know what he meant,
and I was too damned busy to ask him. All I wanted was to put
Millgate's oxygen prongs back into his nostrils and get out of there.
But the gunman who was waiting for me at my apartment sure thought it
was important to find out if I'd repeated to anyone what Millgate had
said to me. Anger.
Pittman stood. "Stop running away? Hunt them? Yes. When Jeremy died,
my anger was useless. But this time, it won't be. This time, I've got
a purpose. This time, I intend to find someone to blame."
Pittman stood across from the Emergency entrance to the hospital. It
was shortly after midnight, and the same as two nights earlier, a
drizzle created a misty halo around streetlights. His mind continued to
reel from the trauma that so much had happened to him in the brief time
since he had last been here. Chilled by the rain, he shoved his hands
into the pockets of a wool-lined navy Burberry overcoat that Sean had
pulled from a crate. In his right pocket, he touched the .45. It was
the only thing that he had taken from the gym -bag, which he'd left with
Sean at the loft. He peered up toward the pale light in the tenth-floor
window of what had once been Jeremy's room. Determination overcaine his
weariness. Necessity insisted. There were so many things he needed to
learn, and one of them was why Millgate's people had taken the old man
from the hospital that night. That was when everything had started.
After waiting for a gap in traffic, Pittman crossed toward the hospital.
At this late hour, the front lobby was almost deserted. The few people
who were slumped in the imitation leather chairs in the lobby seemed to
pay no attention as he headed toward the elevators. Nonetheless, he
felt exposed.
His nerves troubled him for another reason, for he knew memories he
would have to fight when he got off the near the intensive-care ward on
the sixth floor. He not to falter when he glanced toward the large area
on his left, the intensive-care waiting room. A group of hauntedlooking
men and women sat on uncomfortable metal chairs, their faces haggard,
their eyes puffy, struggling to remain awake, waiting for news about
their loved ones.
Grin-dy recalling when he had been one of them, Pittman forced himself
to concentrate on his purpose. Past the entrance to the children's
intensive-care ward, he turned to the right and went down a short
corridor to the door for adult intensive care. He had never been in
that area, but he assumed that it wouldn't be much different from the
children's area.
Indeed, it was virtually identical. After pulling the door open, he
faced a pungent-smelling, brightly lit ten-foot-long hallway, at the end
of which was a counter on the left and glass cabinets behind it. The
counter was covered with reports, the cabinets filled with equipment and
medicines. Amid the hiss, wheeze, beep, and thump of life-support
systems, doctors and nurses moved purposefully in and out of rooms on
the right and beyond the counter, fifteen rooms all told, in each of
which a patient lay in urgent need.
Pittman knew the required procedures. Automatically he turned toward a
sink on the left of the door, put his hands under a dispenser of
disinfectant, and waited while an electronic eye triggered the release
of an acrid-smelling red fluid. He swabbed his hands thoroughly, then
put them beneath the tap, where another electronic eye triggered the
release of water. A third electronic eye activated the hot-air
dispenser that dried his hands. He reached for a white gown from a
stack near the sink when a woman's grating voice stopped him. "May I
help you? What are you doing here?"
Pittman looked. A heavyset woman was marching down the hallway toward
him. She was in her middle forties, had short gray hair that emphasized
her strong Scandinavian features, and wore white shoes, white pants, and
a white hospital top.
Pittman couldn't tell if she was a doctor or a nurse. But he understood
hospital mentality. If this woman was a nurse, she wouldn't mind being
called a doctor. She would correct him, of course, but she wouldn't
mind the error. On the other hand, if she was a doctor, she'd be
furious to be called a nurse.
"Yes, Doctor, I'm with the team investigating Jonathan Millgate's death.
" Pittman opened a flip-down wallet and flashed fake police ID that Sean
O'Reilly had given him.
The woman barely looked at the ID. "Again? You people were here last
night, asking questions, interrupting our schedule. " Pittman noticed
that the woman hadn't connected him when he addressed her as doctor. "I
apologize, Doctor. But we have some important new information we have to
check. I need to speak with the nurse who was in charge of Mr.
Millgate's care at the time he was taken from the hospital.
Pittman tried not to show his tension. Pressured by time, he couldn't
be sure that Millgate's nurse would be working this weekend. What he
was counting on was that in a hospital, conventional weekends didn't
apply. If each nurse took -off Saturday and Sunday, no one would be
available to watch the patients. So schedules were staggered, some of
the staff taking off Monday and Tuesday, others Wednesday and Thursday,
et cetera. Conversely, nurses tended to have the same shift for several
weeks in a row: seven to three, three to eleven, eleven to seven. That
was why Pittman had waited after midnight-because he needed to speak
with the who had been present when, at this time two nights ago,
M
illgate had been whisked away.
:,That would be Jill," the doctor said. 'Is she on duty tonight?"
"Yes.
Pittman didn't show his relief. "But she's too busy to talk to you
right now."
"I understand, Doctor. The patients come first. But I wouldn't be
troubling you if this wasn't important. When she takes a break, do you
think you could-?"
"Please, wait outside, Mr....
"Detective Logan."
'When she has a moment, I'll ask Jill to speak with you.'
It took forty minutes. Leaning against the wall in the corridor outside
the intensive-care ward, Pittman identified with the forlorn people in
the waiting room. His memory of the stress of that kind of waiting
increased his own stress. His brow was clammy by the time the door to
intensive care was opened. An attractive woman in her late twenties
came out, glanced around, then approached him.
She was about five feet five, and her loose white hospital uniform
couldn't hide her athletic figure. She had long, straight blond hair, a
beguiling oval face, and cheeks that were so aglow with health that she
didn't need makeup.
"Detective Logan?"
"Yes."
"I'm Jill Warren." The nurse shook hands with him. "Dr. Baker said
you wanted to ask me some questions."
"That's right. I wonder, could we go somewhere that isn't crowded?
There's a coffee machine on the floor below us, near the elevator.
Perhaps I can buy you a ... "
"The floor below us? You sound as if you know this hospital fairly
well."
"I used to come here a lot. When my son was in intensive care. Pittman
gestured toward the door to the children's
"I hope he's all right now."
"No... . He died."
"Oh." Jill's voice dropped. "What did-?"
"Bone cancer. Ewing's sarcoma."
"Oh." Her voice dropped lower. "I shouldn't have ... I'm sorry for .
"You couldn't have known. I'm not offended."
"Do you still want to buy me that cup of coffee?"
"Definitely."
Pittman walked with her to the elevator. His tension lessened as they
got in and the doors closed. The worst risk he'd taken in coming here
was that the doctor who had seen him when Millgate was removed from the
hospital would be on duty, recognize him, and call the police.
Now Pittman's brow felt less clammy as he reached the lower floor, which
was deserted except for a janitor at the far end of the corridor. Using
the last of his change, he put coins in the machine. "How do you like
your coffee? With cream? Sugar? Decaffeinated?"
"Actually, I'd like tea." Jill reached past him, pressing a button.
Pittman couldn't help noticing the elegant shape of her hand. The
machine made a whining sound. Jill turned to him. "What do you need to
ask me?" Steaming liquid poured into a cardboard cup.
"I have to verify some information. Was Mr. Millgate alert before his
associates showed up and took him from the hospital?"
"Associates is too kind a word. Thugs would be more like it. Even the
doctor who insisted on removing him."
""Did Millgate object?"
"I guess I'm not making your job easy."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I got off the track right away. I didn't answer your first question.
Yes, he was alert. Otherwise-to answer your second question-he wouldn't
have been able to object." She sipped from the cardboard cup. "How's
the tea?"
"Scented hot water. These hospital machines. I'm used to it." Her
smile was engaging.
"Why did Millgate object? He didn't want to be moved?"
"Yes and no. There's something about that night I still don't
understand."
"Oh?"
"The men who came to get him insisted that he had to leave because
there'd been a story about him on the late news. They told Millgate
they had to get him away before reporters showed up."
"Yes, the story was about a confidential Justice Department report that
somehow became public. Millgate was being investigated for being
involved in a covert scheme to buy nuclear weapons from the former
Soviet Union."
"Nuclear weapons? But that isn't what they said in the newspapers."
Jill's eyes were such a pale blue they seemed almost translucent.
"What who said?"
"The men who came to get Millgate that night. In the newspapers, they
said they took him away because they were afraid this obituary
reporter-what's his name?"
"Pittman. Matthew Pittman."
"Yes, in the newspapers they said they were afraid Pittman would kill
Millgate if Millgate stayed in the hospital, where Pittman could get at
him. But that night, they never said anything about Pittman. All they
seemed to care about was the report that Millgate was being
investigated."
Pittman felt tense again.
"It's like they changed their story," Jill said.
"And Millgate didn't think the news report about his being investigated
was a good-enough reason to take him from the hospital?"
"Not exactly." Pensive, Jill sipped her tea. Her solemn expression
enhanced her features. "He was willing to go. Or to put it another
way, he was passive. Melancholy. He didn't seem to care about leaving.
'Do whatever you want,' he kept saying. 'It doesn't matter. None of it
does. But don't take me yet.' That's what he was upset about. 'Not
yet,' he kept saying. 'Wait. ' "
"For what?"
"A priest." Pittman's pulse sped as he remembered that at the Scarsdale
estate he had overheard two of the grand counselors talking with concern
while he crouched on the roof of the garage.
"... priest, " an elderly man's brittle voice had said.
"Don't worry, " a second elderly voice had said. told you the priest
never arrived. Jonathan never spoke to him.
"Even SO.
"It's been taken care of," the second voice had entphasized, reminding
Pittman of the rattle of dead leaves. "It's safe now. Secure.
"Tell me about him," Pittman said quickly. "The priest. Do you know his
name?"
"Millgate mentioned one priest a lot. His name was Father . " Jill
thought a moment. "Dandridge. Father Dandridge. When Millgate was
brought to intensive care, he was certain he was going to die. He
didn't have much strength, but the few words he got out were always
about this Father Dandridge. Millgate told business associates who were
allowed to visit that they had to send for him. Later he accused them
of not obeying. In fact, he accused his son of lying to him about
sending for the priest. There's a priest on duty at the hospital, of
course. He came around to speak to Millgate. But it seems any priest
wasn't good enough. It had to be Father Dandridge. I was on duty early
Thursday morning when Millgate begged. the hospital priest to phone
Father Dandridge at hisparish in Boston. I guess the hospital priest
did.
"What makes you think so?"
"About an hour after Millgate was taken out of here Thursday night, a
priest who called himself Father Dandridge came in to see him. He was
&nb
sp; very upset about not being able to hear Millgate's confession."
"He came from a parish in Boston? Do you remember the name.
"I'm afraid not."
Pittman's spirit sank.
"But you don't have to phone Boston to talk to him," Jill said.
"What do you mean?"
"Father Dandridge made a point of telling me that he wasn't returning to
Boston. Not until he had a chance to talk to Millgate. If I heard
anything, the priest said, I was to call him at a rectory here in
Manhattan. St. Joseph's. The priest said he'd be staying for the
weekend. " Jill glanced at her watch. "Look, I'm sorry, but I've been
off the ward too long. I have a patient who's due for his meds.
"I understand. Thank you. You've helped me more than you can imagine."
"If there's anything else you need to know .
"I'll get back to you."
set down the cardboard cup and walked quickly toward elevator.
it took about twenty seconds for the doors to open, and as she waited,
facing the doors, obviously aware that he watched her, Pittman was
impressed that she didn't act self-conscious. After she got in the
elevator, as the doors closed, for a fraction of an instant she smiled
at him. Then she was gone, and the excitement that Pittman felt about
what he had learned was replaced by exhaustion that weighed so heavily,
his legs bent.