ANNIE AND I cut across aboveground to Albert House. It was faster than taking the tunnelsâstraight instead of zigzag. And it was all downhill. I ran flat out, Annie matching me step for step.
Despite the spotlights at the upper corners, Albert House looked derelict. The circular drive was sprouting thigh-high weeds. At one side of the building was a Dumpster. Some of the trademark windows were covered with plywood. A NO TRESPASSING sign was hanging crooked, and the massive oak door was padlocked shut. I borrowed Annie's crowbar, wedged it in, and leaned into it. Wood splintered as the screws pulled away, until the hasp was hanging, the padlock dangling from its ring.
The door swung open. Annie flashed her light around the entryway. We peered into the gloomy interior. There were wide steps up into the lobby. The embossed ceiling was etched with cracks, some so deep that you could see up into the dark space between the ceiling and the floorboards above.
We started in, past a large rubbish bin loaded with old lath and plasterboard. The sharp smell of turpentine rose from some rags lying on the top. Alongside were crates of miscellaneous pipe.
There was a pile of broken two-by-fours, along with a giant wooden spool of electrical wire.
Annie flashed the beam across the main lobby and up into the ceiling. The two-story space had once been imposing. There was a wide staircase going up, and overhead hung a huge brass chandelier, dull with dust.
“Feels more like a mausoleum than a mansion,” Annie said.
The place smelled of dry rot, and the floor felt spongy in places. I wondered how much they'd be able to salvage. Annie was making her way over to a panel of light switches.
“Be careful,” I said. “The floor's not ⦔ Just then a floorboard cracked under Annie. She pulled away to solid footing and advanced more slowly toward the wall panel.
“Dr. Destler!” I called out. I stared up into the darkness. I expected my voice to echo, but it didn't. The pulpy walls and rotting floorboards seemed to absorb sound.
There was a click, and the chandelier flickered to life. Then two or three bulbs popped, sending off a shower of sparks. A bulb fell to the floor and shattered. The room descended into gloom again.
“Must've blown a fuse,” Annie said. “We could look for the box.”
“Forget about it,” I said as my eyes adjusted. “There's no time. We've got to find them.”
Annie pulled something from the edge of the central staircase. “Looks like someone's here.”
She handed me the tall roll of paper. I sniffed at it. No dust or mildew smell. I opened it while Annie held up the light. There were several sheets, rolled into one other.
I examined the top sheet. Architectural plans. The legend said “Albert House”âit was the main floor. The grand entrance hall remained, but it was no longer at the center of a harmonious symmetric layout. A new wing was getting added off to the east side, with its own entrance. It looked like the kind of space that could be used for outpatient therapyâa lobby, and medium-size interior spaces leading to smaller ones that could be offices or examining rooms. Most of the original building was to be gutted. The offices
at one end of the first floor were being replaced by a lecture hall with a semicircular stage and stadium seating. In careful calligraphy the room was labeled
Destler Hall.
I whistled. We were talking major capital campaign to pay for plans this grandiose. But as far as I knew, there wasn't one under way. There had to be a donorâone with very deep pockets.
“Which way?” Annie asked.
She flashed the beam down the hall one way, then the other, then up the stairs, then in my face. I blinked away the light. She turned the beam aside. From somewhere upstairs, there were footsteps, scuffling sounds.
I dropped the plans, and we rushed up the curving stairs. We stood on the second-floor landing and listened.
“What's that?” Annie asked, indicating down one of the stretches of hallway leading off the landing. A light flashed back at us from floor level near the end of the corridor. Annie got to it first and picked up a yellow hard hat with a light mounted to it. With a metallic ting, the filament in the bulb snapped. I ran my hand across a deep dent in the yellow dome. I hoped the head wearing it had fared better.
There were voices from farther down the hall. We ran. One of the office doors was open. In the gloomy twilight, Destler was backed up against the window. His face was in shadow. “Get away from me,” he growled at Daphne, who had a length of two-by-four aimed at his gut.
“Channing was right about you,” Daphne said, her voice disdainful. “You'll do anything to get what you want. You had to keep your pals over at Acu-Med happy, or else what would happen to this brilliant monument to your hubris?”
“I didn't kill her,” Destler said.
I stepped into the room. “Daphne,” I said.
Daphne jerked her head toward me, but the battering ram remained pointed at Destler.
“Keep her away from me,” Destler demanded. “She's out of her mind.”
“Go away, Peter. This doesn't concern you,” Daphne said.
“If it's about settling accounts, then it does,” I said. “He didn't kill her.”
Daphne laughed. “Of course, he didn't. He doesn't have the balls to kill.”
“But he had no compunction about screwing her after she was dead,” I said.
Daphne took a step closer to Destler, her sweater sliding off one sloping shoulder.
“Keep away.” Destler bleated. “I have a gun.”
“You?” she scoffed. “That's a load of rubbish. You're nothing but a sodding coward.” Destler could have grabbed the end of the piece of wood. But he didn't. He pressed himself against the window.
Daphne lunged at him. Destler reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He waved it around. I could just make out a small handgun.
“Destler, put that away,” I said. “You'll get someone killed ⦠.”
Daphne swung the two-by-four. Destler ducked, and it crashed into the window, breaking the glass. Then, with a thud, it connected with Destler's hand. Destler howled as the gun skittered across the floor and into a corner. Daphne threw herself across the room and grabbed it. Destler ran past me and out of the room.
Daphne turned and confronted me. “Get out of my way,” she said. “He's not going to get away with it.”
“You don't have to kill him,” I said, raising my hands, the palms facing her. “I know what he did. He was willing to destroy Channing's reputation, let the accusations of improper behavior and dishonest research stand. Even though he knew better. Soon everyone else will know, too. He'll be out on his ear, and there won't be another hospital in the world that will touch him. Without his job, without his title, without Acu-Med to bankroll him, you'll have your revenge.”
“It's not enough,” she rasped. “He disgraced her.” She gave a weak, dry cough. “Her reputation. All her brilliance, her goodness ⦔
“He only finished what you started. So much easier to destroy her reputation after you killed her and tried to make it look like suicide.”
Daphne backed away. Glass from the broken window crunched under her feet. “Kill her? How could I? I loved her. She was like my child.”
“And Robert was your husband. Wasn't that the beginning? Killing him and making it look as if ⦔
“Robert wanted to die. He forced me to do it when he couldn't,” Daphne said, sobbing. “I loved Robert. I couldn't shoot him.” Her voice turned to quiet crooning. “Couldn't shoot him.”
“But you could shoot Channing. Doesn't that tell you something about what's happened to you?” Daphne stared at me, her mouth open, her eyes shadowy. “Making it look like suicideâyou played right into their hands. Jensen could make it look as if all of Channing's work was corrupt, her relationships with the people she loved most were twisted. And Destler was happy to go along. After all, she committed suicide. How else to explain it?”
Daphne wrapped her arms around herself. “I had to stop her. How else could I stop her?”
“She wanted you to resign. She thought you weren't yourself. When you killed Robertâmaybe it was assisted suicide, maybe he wasn't quite ready to die, only you know thatâthat's when Channing realized something wasn't right. That's what she and Jensen were arguing about at her party. She was willing to go public with what she knew if you wouldn't resign.”
Daphne's eyes widened. “Dangerous incompetence. How dare she? What did she know? I was the one who taught her everything. Molded her. Made her who she was.” The words ended in wrenching sobs.
“So you kill her. And then you turn into her avenging angel. Did you kill Jensen because he realized you killed Channing, too? Now you're ready to murder Destler. All in the name of protecting Channing's reputation. I wonder what Channing would make of all this.”
There were heavy footsteps in the hall. Destler's voice. “They're down here. Careful, she has a gun.”
Daphne backed up, nearing the broken window. Beams of light danced in the hall as the footsteps came closer. Two burly security guards appeared in the doorway.
“Keep back!” Daphne screamed.
She glanced behind her into the darkness, then turned back to face the guards. A gust blew through the broken window. She raised a hand to her face. With her hair now standing out around her head, she looked like Medusa. “No!” she screamed, and turned, as if she was about to climb onto the windowsill, but Annie had slipped behind her.
Daphne raised the gun she was still holding.
“Don't!” I shouted.
Daphne turned back to me. She steadied the gun, pointed it at her own head, then placed it in her open mouth.
“No!” I screamed.
Before I could lunge for her, she'd squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger. But there was only a click. She took the gun out of her mouth and gaped at it. Another click.
“You bloody coward,” she said, staring at the gun. She threw the gun, narrowly missing my head. “Bloody, stinking cowards, the lot of you,” she cried, and sank down in a heap.
Annie and I closed in on Daphne from either side.
“Doctor Smythe-Gooding?” It was Jess. She'd come in behind the security guards.
Daphne looked up, hesitant. In an instant, her face turned radiant, smiling, as if she'd experienced an ecstasy of revelation. “Oh, Channing! Thank God it's you!”
Jess looked at me in confusion. “Of course, I'm here,” Jess said, the uncertainty in her voice contradicting her words.
Daphne rose to her feet. She drifted past me, past the security guards, until she'd reached Jess. “Such a lovely shawl,” Daphne said. “It was always my favorite.” Daphne touched the scarf Jess had taken with her from Channing's office.
Jess held out the red and gold scarf. She opened it up and spread it across Daphne's shoulders. As she did it, Jess seemed to find her center. “Yes. It is a lovely shawl, and now you're wearing it.”
Daphne pressed her face into the scarlet silk and inhaled deeply. Then she grasped Jess's arm. “You have to defend yourself!” Daphne said. “Your work. They're trying to destroy you. Just like they did Robert.”
“Robert ⦔ Jess turned the word over slowly.
Daphne straightened herself. She held the ends of the scarf together in one hand and with the other hand tried to smooth her hair. “Plagiarism. Utter nonsense. His work was entirely original, his hypotheses brilliant. He was pushed out of the way, just like you're being pushed out of the way. And they get away with it because it's all”âDaphne put her finger to her lipsâ“hush-hush. Never mind that it's ⦠it's patently inconceivable.”
Daphne sniffed. “Phonying up your research? Having an affair with a resident you were supervising?” She snorted a laugh. “You couldn't even let me help Robert die. You with your moralizing, your rules”âshe concentrated on the floor and began pacing up and back, her voice stridentâ“the arbiter of right and wrong. You made me so angry, I wanted to kill you.” She paused. “I dreamed about doing it.”
“You're not well ⦔ Jess started.
“Why do you keep telling me that? I'm perfectly fine.” Daphne coughed. “Just a few things I need to do. I have to make them stop. Destler. Jensen ⦔
“Dr. Smythe-Gooding, Dr. Jensen is ⦔ Jess said gently.
“Oh, dear,” Daphne murmured. Then with mock seriousness: “
Doctor
Smythe-Gooding. You haven't called me that, not since we first worked together. I remember how bright you were. How eager to learn. How tireless, vital ⦔ She choked on the last word.
In the silence I could hear sirens. “I remember, too,” Jess said. “Those were good times. But right now, you have an appointment. And they're waiting for you.” Jess checked her watch. “Have been for about twenty minutes.” Jess put a hand on Daphne's shoulder.