Herbert’s computer disks. Then I threw in my calls to Ferris Dixon and
Professor W W Zimberg’s office, and my updated blackmail theories on
Herbert and Ashmore.
“High intrigue, Alex-maybe some of it’s even true. But don’t let
yourself get distracted from Cassie. I’m still checking on
Huenengarth. Nothing yet, but I’ll stay on it. Where will you be in
case something does come up?”
“I’ll call Stephanie soon as we hang up. If she’s in her office I’ll
run over to the hospital. If not, I’ll be home.”
All right. How about we get together later tonight, trade miseries.
Eight okay?”
“Eight’s fine. Thanks again.”
“Don’t thank me. We’re a long way from feeling good about this one.”
thinking of all the damage that could be done to a child in that TIME
I Kept heading south to the on-ramp.
Traffic was backed up to the street. I nosed into the snail-trail and
oozed eastward. Nasty drive to Hollywood. At night, though, the
ambulance would fairly zip.
I pulled into the doctors’ lot just before four, clipped my badge to my
lapel, and walked to the lobby, where I paged Stephanie. The anxiety
that had hit me only a week ago was gone. In its place, a driving
sense of anger.
What a difference seven days make.
No answer. I phoned her office again, got the same reCeptionist, the
same answer, delivered in a slightly annoyed tone.
I went up to the General Peds clinic and walked into the examination
suite, passing patients, nurses, and doctors without notice.
Stephanie’s door was closed. I wrote a note for her to call me and was
bending to slip it under the door when a husky female voice said, “Can I help
you?”
I straightened. A woman in her late sixties was looking at me. She had on the whitest white coat I’d ever seen, worn buttoned over a black dress. Her face was deeply tanned, wrinkled, and pinch-featured
under a helmet of straight white hair. Her posture would have made a
marine correct his own.She saw my badge and said, “Oh, excuse me, Doctor.” Her accent was
Marlene Dietrich infused with London. Her eyes were small, green-blue,
electrically alert. A gold pen was clipped to her breast pocket. She
wore a thin gold chain from which a single pearl dangled, set in a
golden nest like a nacreous egg.
“Dr. Kohler,” I said. Alex Delaware.”
We shook hands and she read my badge. Confusion didn’t suit her.
“I used to be on the staff,” I said. “We worked together on some
cases. Crohn’s disease. Adaptation to the ostomy?”
Ah, of course.” Her smile was warm and it made the lie inoffensive.
She’d always had that smile, wore it even while cutting down a
resident’s faulty diagnosis. Charm planted by an upper-class Prague
childhood cut short by Hitler, then fertilized by marriage to The
Famous Conductor. I remembered how she’d offered to use her
connections to bring funds to the hospital. How the board had turned
her down , calling that kind of fund-raising unethical.
“Looking for Stephanie?”
she said.
“I need to talk to her about a patient.”
The smile hung there but her eyes iced over. “I happen to be looking
for her myself. She’s scheduled to be here. But I suppose our future
division head must be busy.”
I feigned surprise.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Those in the know say her promotion Is
imminent.”
The smile got wider and took on a hungry cast. “Well, all the best to
her . . . though I hope she learns to anticipate events a bit
better.
One of her teenage patients just showed up without an appointment and
is creating a scene out in the waiting room. And Stephanie left without checking out.”
“Doesn’t sound like her,” I said.
“Really? Lately, it’s become like her. Perhaps she sees herself as
having already ascended.”
A nurse passed by. Kohler said, “Juanita?”
“Yes, Dr. Kohler?”
“Have you seen Stephanie?”
“I think she went out.”
“Out of the hospital?”
“I think so, Doctor. She had her purse.”
“Thank you, Juanita.”
When the nurse had gone, Kohler pulled a set of keys out of a pocket.