Dr. O (2 page)

There was a long, long list of his "cures." Only trouble was that Dr. O's cures usually led to an agonizing death; only if the patient died did he feel himself a "successful surgeon." Lately, too, he had begun playing with poisons. In fact, he had sent in a request to the U.S. Patent Office to patent one of his poison concoctions, labeling it: Euphamirine. He was a card... a deadly, wild card. He'd adminster/test his concoction and sign a death certificate all in the same hour.

At the autopsy, there wasn't enough left of Sykes to be of any apparent use to either the FBI or anyone else. All that was left was a pale, pulpy shell of the man, his physical ghost. Donna Thorpe would never forget the sight of her friend and partner on the slab. In fact, she'd begun to have nightmares about Sykes and the way he had died.

For this reason she was never alone. She had Jim in bed with her, and the kids were never far away. Weekends now she'd have to cultivate new ties, new networks, including those personal ones with the local folk of Lincoln, that's all—join the bloody club, get some golf or tennis in, keep busy, forge useful contacts with local cops, attorneys, judges, and medical experts.

The alternatives were pretty near as bleak: let the mind fester until it boiled over with guilt and impotence and rage, compliments of Dr. Ovierto. Or quit, turn in her badge, walk out. Some people would applaud that.

She was goddamned forty this month. She ought to have kept Tom on a tighter rein, ought maybe to have been right beside him on this one, ought maybe to be wherever Bateman might now be. Barring that, maybe her superiors were right. Maybe Inspector Donna Thorpe ought to be in Nebraska.

They arrived at Washington National Airport, where Dr. Samuel Boas joined them to wish them well. Boas was a lanky, gray-haired man with probing eyes and a Germanic demeanor that gave very little away. Just before she stepped onto the plane he said to her, "It's no longer your problem now, Donna. Let it go and reclaim your life. You have so much else to turn to. Let it go."

She hadn't been able to respond to Sam. If there was anyone on the planet who should understand that she could not possibly let it go, it was him. She gripped his hands in hers. "Sam," she began slowly, "get the results of Tom's autopsy to me, whatever it takes."

"Or else you use your information against me? You've become that obsessed, haven't you?" His eyes covered over with a terrible sadness.

"Just do it." She stalked down the empty gangway to the plane, the last to board, fighting her own steps.

CHAPTER TWO

Twenty miles southeast of Denver, Colorodo

Dr. Maurice Ovierto believed that it would be great fun to keep Bateman for a while.

The safe-keeping of an imprisoned man —an FBI agent at that —was no simple matter. Still, before leaving for Europe, he had made arrangements, leaving the man enough food to sustain himself—if he stretched it. As for water, the bottom of the mine shaft that Bateman lay in was always wet. Ovierto had had to find just the right place, and he had. It was actually the most perfect place for his needs with regard to Bateman. No one around for miles. A rat hole from which escape was impossible, especially for a man with two severed Achilles tendons.

The location had also served well as prison to Tom Sykes for a while, before he became more trouble than he was worth, attempting an escape. Sykes had been tough and shrewd, and starvation had had little effect on the man's will to fight back.

Dr. O. now weaved through the curtain-network of chains dripping with condensation in the old foundry, a dark place thousands of miles from where Thorpe's old friend, Tommy Sykes had been buried alive. He'd begun to bore Maurice. He was just barely able to lift a finger anymore, much less present a threat or be of use in any entertaining way So, Ovierto buried him near his precious love, the sea.

Donna Thorpe would find that out in due time: that Sykes was alive when Maurice had decided to cover him over in the dunes of a deserted stretch of Florida beach. She'd learn the truth from Boas, when the autopsy report came in, if the autopsiest stayed off the booze.

Boy, Thorpe was going to be pissed.

Ovierto snickered at this. Good and holy bitch, Donna just didn't know what to make of him, sending her letters to tell her where to go and what to look for, providing her with clues so the game might continue, telling her what it was she was looking for and who was responsible. If the public only knew! One day, maybe he would tell the world just what a bunch of screw-ups the FBI was made up of. Without directions they'd be unable to find their way to the john. Was it any surprise they could get nowhere near him? He was that good....They were so fucking stupid they'd have trouble following a monopoly board. He was so far ahead of them that they were only now dispatching a team to the site of the killings in England.

And the idiots had busted Thorpe, burying her in a Nebraska bureau! No matter, he could do business with Donna in Nebraska. It all made for a kind of Wizard-of-Oz logic, except that Dorothy hailed from Kansas, and now Donna hailed from Nebraska. Close enough. Might even be fun getting out of D.C. Certainly was closer to Bateman than Virginia... getting warmer, Donna... hotter, hotter! The thought made him chuckle. He got so little out of life, a good laugh was the least he might take, he told himself.

He'd have to remember to share this one with Donna soon... give the poor girl a call, for old time's sake.

He plied his way through the dangerous sections of the ancient foundry here amid a Colorado backwash, miles from the nearest town. The rental car was out-side, but would draw no attention from the road be-cause he'd pulled it around back. One thing he knew, aside from how best to practice bad medicine: how to really get around. He owned a "doctor killer", the latest in private jets made by Beechcraft—owned it outright, registered under an assumned name. So far, they had not traced this alias.

He heard a noise and at first believed it was Bate-man in agony. He'd have to be in agony now, left alone in that craggy hole all these weeks without a scrap be-yond the raw chunks of meat tossed down to him be-fore Ovierto left. Bateman's ankle tendons had been surgically severed. He could neither stand nor walk, even if he could escape the dungeon into which he had been thrown. Bateman's suffering had been long and gratifying, and the thought that it would continue gave Dr. Ovierto a contented feeling. But the noise was not human; it was rather a scurrying sound, and Dr. O saw a rat race across a girder, onto a pillar, and up and away.

He reached Bateman only to find a corpse. He'd come all this way for nothing.

"Damn... damn," he cursed his luck. He'd been looking forward to watching Bateman's last breath. Maybe he could do something yet with the body, he thought. Maybe Donna'd be interested in chasing it, as she had in chasing Sykes's. Death may come, he thought, but it was never too late for fun.

Below the glare of his flashlight, Bateman's lifeless male form was not entirely useless if he were to enjoy himself; had Bateman been a female agent... well... no use in wishing. He'd just go out and get one.

The place was already rank from Bateman's remains. Rats were feeding on him down in the darkness. Dr. Ovierto wondered if he wanted to fight the rats off for any of the man's parts. It again occurred to him that Donna might like to have a part of Bateman sent her, something she could stew over. He chuckled quietly to himself.

"All right, you!" came a voice disrupting the stillness, military and aggressive, yet female in timbre. "I want you to come straight out into the light, now!"

It was a gift, a police officer by her uniform, come to him like a conch washed ashore at his feet. He could use a woman in the experiment he had in mind.

"Right away, officer," he called back, looking about to ascertain whether she was alone or with a partner.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked as he came closer to the light, grinning at her like a death mask.

"My property, officer. Just purchased it."

"March out into the light where I can have a look at you," she ordered.

He did so with aplomb, saying, "I assure you, officer..."

"Whatever you want to buy this old place for?" she asked.

"Plans... big plans for it."

She was alone except for the voices coming over the radio in her car. He reached into his breast pocket.

"Hold it, right there!" she ordered, bringing up her weapon.

"Please, I only want to show you the papers. I only just signed them."

She relaxed. She was a smooth, black woman, with a fine buxom shape. He spread the papers on the hood of her squad car. She leaned in closer to see, unaware that the breath-spray container he lifted toward himself was actually pointed at her face. The spray instantly blinded her, sending her reeling while, at the same instant, Dr. O grabbed the .38 special from her hand.

"I want you to spend a little time with Death, sweet-heart." He spoke into her ear where she lay on the ground, tossing her head from side to side before the blow from his massive fist knocked her unconscious.

Now he had his hands full. The radio in her car was crackling with static and a dispatcher's voice. He'd have to get rid of the car, but he must first secure her.

He took hold of her and she lashed out at him, beating with her fists, kicking, trying to bite. He pummeled her again, causing bruises and bleeding about the face, shouting, "Stop it, now! Stop it!" He only quit hitting her when she slumped unconscious again.

He then dragged her inside.

There he began stripping away her clothes, finding the heavy belt with night stick, the uniform and badge an additional kick as he ripped them all off. This done, he lashed her body with chains, pinning her to the darkness of the concrete wall down which dripped water and which rats curiously crawled.

Bateman had disappointed him....

Reading her badge plate, he rolled her name off his lips: "Roshwanda Farris. You won't disappoint me, will you, Roshwanda? You like going to the doctor's office, don't you? I got my medical in my car."

She screamed and pulled away from his touch when she awoke to find his hands rushing over her nude form. But she could not see. She felt the warmth of blood in her eyes and streaming down her face where he had slit each pupil. Blind and helpless, she presented an alluring target for Dr. O.

"As for your eyes, I've done you a kindness —a thing Dr. O is not known for. Who knows, I might even let you live to tell your friends and family about me, about us ... about this night. And if you just can't tell it to anyone else, you can tell it to yourself and the walls of your asylum, over and over." He shrieked the laugh of the mad, blotting out her scream.

"You know, darling," he left spit in her ears where he spoke into them, "I've sent a lot of people to asylums across the country. It's either that or death. Which do you prefer?"

CHAPTER THREE

Lincoln, Nebraska

Two days later H.Q. knew nothing more about Bateman's whereabouts than did Donna Thorpe in Nebraska, and the fact that they had heard nothing from Dr. Ovierto had everyone imagining the worst. Bateman was only twenty-seven years old.

Donna Thorpe was firmly in place, in charge of the Nebraska Divison of Criminal Operations on the seventh floor of the Nebraska Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a building that wheat had built in Lincoln, Nebraska. She was still uneasy in her reassignment, still resisting it, still thinking always of Dr. Maurice Ovierto. The Ovierto operation had cost the Bureau hundreds of thousands of dollars, while it had a bottom line of zero.

She somehow must now roll the dice with a sure hand to regain her former status, to gain reassignment to D.C., and to get even with Ovierto.

But Thorpe was off the case. Her only hope of get-ting back to D.C., of being returned to her former status and demanding Ovierto, was to make a big score from Lincoln, Nebraska. As unlikely as that had seemed the first day of her reassignment, she was sniffing out something big; the smell was so strong it followed her home, to the shower, and into bed with Jim. She was afire with the idea.

Donna had every right to now reopen an old case, a murder that occurred in Nebraska, one of Dr. O's ear-liest victims. Some still argued that contention, but she and Tom were sure it was the dire work of the doctor. She had every right to reassess the case that had been forgotten over time. In so doing, she had every right to the recent forensics reports on Dr. O's latest victim, to compare. She felt a twinge of guilt about the Nebraska victim, knowing that she didn't acutally care about the ancient history in which a woman had had spleen and pancreas had been removed with the skill of a surgeon.

The woman had undergone the operation without anesthesia. A self-professed killer had taken responsibility for the slaying before taking his own life, and the case had been dropped, but Tom had stumbled on it during his research years later. At the time they'd had enough to deal with, and the information on the Nebraska case was let go —until now.

Now, it would enable Donna to keep her foot in the Dr. O affair —to provide her a smokescreen, if not un-official sanction.

She had a list of possible, future victims of the mad-man, and their addresses. For Thorpe's money, Ovierto had been responsible for a number of deaths abroad, and if his threats were to be taken seriously, Ovierto was racing toward several key scientists who'd done governmental research at Fermilab, just outside of Chicago, Illinois.