Devil’s Waltz. By: Jonathan Kellerman

anything-hoped it would help clear the air and we’d reach an

understanding. But she never even tried to contact me. Finally, I

called her in, asked her how she was planning to support herself.

She told me about the job at your hospital. Made it sound like

something prestigious-was quite snotty, actually. Though your Mr.

Huenengarth said she’d been little more than a bottle washer.”

No bottles in Ashmore’s lab. I was silent.

She looked at her watch, then over at her purse. For a moment I

thought she was going to get up. But instead, she moved her chair

closer and stared at me. Her eyes were hazel, hot, unmoving. An

inquisitive heat. Chipmunk searching for the acorn hoard.

“Why all the questions, Doctor? What are you really after?

“I really can’t give any details because of the confidentiality issue,”

I said. “I know it doesn’t seem fair.”

She said nothing for a moment. Then: “She was a thief. Those

textbooks in her locker had been stolen from another student. I found

other things too. Another student’s sweater. A gold pen that had

belonged to me. So I won’t be surprised if she was involved in

something unsavory.”

“She may have been.”

“Something that led to her being murdered?”

“It’s possible.”

And what’s your involvement with all of this, Doctor?”

“My patient’s welfare may be at stake.”

“Charles Jones’s sister?”

I nodded, surprised that Huenengarth had revealed that much “Is some

type of child abuse suspected?” she said. “Something Dawn found out

about and tried to profit from?”

Swallowing my amazement, I managed to shrug and run a finger across my

lips.

She smiled. “I’m no Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Delaware. But Mr.

Huenengarth’s visit made me very curious-all that pressure. I’ve

studied health-care systems too long to believe anyone would go to that

kind of effort for an average patient. So I asked my husband to make

inquiries about the Jones boy. He’s a vascular surgeon, has privileges

at Western Peds, though he hasn’t operated there in years.

So I know who the Joneses are and the role the grandfather’s playing in

the turmoil the hospital’s going through. I also know that the boy

died of SIDS and another child keeps getting sick. Rumors are

floating. Put that together with the fact that Dawn stole the first

child’s chart and went from abject student poverty to being quite

cavalier about money, add two separate visits from professionals

personally looking for that chart, and one doesn’t need to be a

detective.”

“I’m still impressed.”

Are you and Mr. Huenengarth working at cross-purposes?”

“We’re not working together.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“The little girl’s.”

Who’s paying your fee?”

“Officially, the parents.”

“Don’t you consider that a conflict of interest?”

“If it turns out to be, I won’t submit a bill.”

She studied me for several moments. “I do believe you might mean

that.

Now tell me this: Does possession of the disks put me in any danger?”

“I doubt it, but it can’t be ruled out.”

“Not a very comforting answer.”

“I don’t want to mislead you.”

“I appreciate that. I survived the Russian tanks in Budapest in 56,

and my survival instincts have been well developed ever since.

What do you suspect might be the importance of the disks?”

“They may contain some kind of coded data,” I said, “imbedded in the

random number table.”

“I must say I thought of the same thing-there really was no logical

reason for her to have generated that table at such an early stage of

her research. So I scanned it, ran a few basic programs, and no

obvious algorithms jumped out. Do you have any cryptographic

skills?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Neither do I, though good decoding programs do exist, so one no longer

needs to be an expert. However, why don’t we take a look right now,

and see if our combined wisdom produces anything. After that, I’ll

hand the disks over to you and be rid of them. I’ll also be sending a

letter to Huenengarth and the police, carbon-copied to my dean, stating

that I passed the disks along to you and have no interest in them.”

“How about just to the police? I can give you a detectives name.”

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