Dr. O (24 page)

"Stop! Police!" shouted Donna.

Robyn cried out, "Hold it, or I shoot!"

The big man didn't seem to fit, Robyn thought; his size was much bigger than Ovierto's profile indicated. But then, he could be wearing lifts and padding.

"Geeeeeet awayyyyyy from meeeeeee!" he cried, turning and lifting a large knife that flashed, reflecting the orange street lamp.

"Put it down!" shouted Robyn at the same moment the man turned and ran out into the traffic, dodging cars. Donna and Robyn climbed the fence. Together again, they parted traffic as best they could, trying to keep track of the weaving figure of the suspect as he disappeared into the enormous, sprawling Lincoln mall that was lit like a temple before them.

"Damnit, he'll disappear in there!" shouted Donna.

People in cars cursed them and Robyn lifted a finger to more than one of the drivers as they weaved across Constitution Avenue. Someone threw a smoking pipe from a car window at them; another man threw catcalls instead.

Inside the mall, there were several directions the big man might have gone. If he wore a disguise, the men's room for a quick change, Robyn suggested. There were several levels to the mall which crisscrossed and tangled about themselves in a kind of concrete taffy pull, and it was fairly crowded with people.

Robyn located a map, but Donna knew the place well, and so she pushed on. Soon they were outside the men's room and nodding at one another. Donna kicked through the door, and they rushed in, bringing up their weapons. Men inside at the urinals responded with curses and confusion.

"Police!" shouted Robyn out of habit.

"FBI business," said Donna. "You, you, you! Out!" she told the men who were obviously not what she wanted.

"Out of the stalls, now!" shouted Robyn.

A flush and a young teen stepped from the only occupied toilet. He was shaken and unnerved by the women holding guns on him.

"Come on!" shouted Donna. "We've wasted enough time here."

"Maybe this guy knows the back areas here," suggested Robyn.

"So do I. Come on! Ovierto isn't getting away from me this time."

Robyn could hardly keep pace with Donna as she rushed from the men's room down the long corridor to a door marked Mall Personnel Only. They pushed through and ahead of them they heard the movement of a caged animal knocking over items in his way.

"It's him! We're back on!" said Donna, cocking her weapon, holding it to her cheek in the semidarkness of the mall's back corridors. It seemed like a human maze, filled with the debris of a merchant's nightmare—discarded, disused, abused, and broken items, stacked boxes, trash, mannequins staring from vacant eyes, dollies, and half-filled racks. Ahead of them they heard whimpering and heavy breathing.

"We've cornered the bastard," said Donna.

"Are you sure it's him?"

"Of course it's him! You saw the knife."

"He's too... too large."

"Disguise."

"I'd have noticed our waiter if he was that god-damned large!"

They faced a dead end but there was no one in sight. There was a door at the back. Along the sides were naked, statuesque plastic women and men leaning in rows upon one another. The opposite wall was covered with a pair of gurneys filled with cardboard.

Robyn crossed to a door, but found it electronically bolted. "No one's gone through here."

Donna indicated the gurneys with a flick of her gun. They approached cautiously. "He's a brutal bastard," Donna said. "Doesn't deserve to breathe another breath." She reminded Robyn of Joe's death, of Sykes, Bateman, and what Ovierto had done to her.

"I'm going to pull it over," said Robyn, taking firm hold of the gurney and bringing it down with her weight, spilling the useless contents all about them. There was no one inside. They approached the second of the gurneys. There was no doubt now.

"Wait," said Donna, taking out a book of matches and lighting them.

"Donna!"

But she cast them into the cardboard collection which ignited like old rags. "Let the devil take him!" she said, laughing.

As the flames whooshed upward, Robyn said, "No!" and pulled this gurney over as she had the other, singeing her hair as she did so .The flaming cargo spewed across the floor, and, at the same time, the mannequins behind them exploded outward, hitting both of them as the hiding figure of the big man came at them with the knife.

Donna's gun had cascaded from her. Robyn brought up her weapon and fired as the knife came at Donna's eyes.

The gunshot was like an explosion in the confined area, and it sent the lumbering man in the overcoat sprawling against the wall, his blood smearing in an uneven line behind him as he slid to the floor. He was so stunned he could not move, and the huge, ebony- handled kitchen knife lay on the floor beside Donna Thorpe, who picked it up and stared at the helpless figure before her. Donna's arm arched upward, the knife flashing death as it came down, but Robyn grabbed her arm to put an end to the thrust. Their eyes met; both women were breathing heavily and shaking.

"Let me go! Let me kill him!"

The big man before them looked up with pleading eyes, blubbering something unintelligible, crying.

"Look at him now!" shouted Thorpe. "Go ahead, plead with me, Ovierto! Beg! Beg for mercy!" She pulled free of Robyn, the knife still clearly in her control.

"Donna! It's not him! It's not Ovierto!" Robyn shouted.

Thorpe froze, looked from the dying man to Robyn and back again. "It's... it's just another of his disguises. That's all. He came at us with the knife! It's him."

"It's not Ovierto," Robyn said firmly, taking the knife from her. "Look closely at him. He's a dupe, another stand-in for Ovierto."

"Oh, Christ... Christ..."

"Get the lights turned up in here, and get an ambulance," Robyn told her.

Thorpe did so but not before Leonard Groiler was dead. A check of his work permit made it clear that he was a former mental patient with some retardation who had been working at the restaurant about the kitchen. Robyn was certain that an FBI check of Ovierto's acquaintances among the mad of the world would show that Groiler was one of them. He had done exactly as Ovierto had instructed, playing his part to the end, made to fear these two women who were bound to come after him with guns.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

At the Lincoln Mall the scene was chaotic until Dr. Samuel Boas arrived to take charge of the body, his familiar calm and dignified comportment lending comfort even to Thorpe, whom he took aside and spoke to. Thorpe was visibly crumbling, and Robyn feared she'd come apart completely. Boas gave her some sedatives and sent her home in a car.

Ovierto had them laboring under the delusion they were the hunters, when in fact he was the hunter, Robyn realized too late. Still, Groiler had come at them wielding the knife, and the shoot was a clean self- defense maneuver. Anyone looking at the evidence would have to grant that much.

Thorpe had shown Boas the note from Ovierto, and Boas had taken it from her and placed it in an evidence bag. But before she left, Donna pleaded with him to return it to her, saying, "It's come down to him or me, Sam... him or me."

Boas had argued, but she was adamant, refusing to leave until he returned the note to her.

"But it's evidence."

"I don't want anyone else knowing about it, Sam."

He relented, walking her to the car, putting her in the care of two other agents.

Meanwhile, Robyn, too, was shaken. The result of her firing a weapon had been the death of a retarded man, knife in hand or not. No one walked away from a shooting feeling good about it, except in the movies. Taking Gotopolis's life was more of a reflex response to danger than anything else, and, given what she had seen Gotopolis capable of, she hadn't been overly remorseful. But the lumbering retard was very likely acting out of fear, threatened by a scenario placed in his brain by the sick predator, who had convinced him that he, Ovierto, was the only one he could trust. For this reason, she felt a great remorse for the man she had killed.

Ovierto had twisted them around his little finger again.

Why hadn't she seen it coming?

At what point could she have slowed the events?

Had it been necessary to fire as she had?

Could she have wounded the man enough to stop his assault?

Had she time for two shots instead of the single deadly one to the chest?

If she hadn't fired, wouldn't Thorpe have been killed?

A thousand questions about the seconds it took to kill Groiler.

Donna was blaming herself, saying that she should have known what was going on, angry at herself for not seeing it for what it was. Robyn had spent the last half hour trying to convince her otherwise, but to little avail.

Now Robyn was being questioned by another FBI agent, a guy named Riley. Riley was good-looking in a quiet, reserved way; something about his manner calmed her, even though his job, obviously, was to get a clear picture of what happened. He, like Boas, wanted to see the note that had come, presumably, from Ovierto. She promised him he'd get it tomorrow, if she had to pry it from Donna's grip. She was tired, weary, and weak.

"Let's get out of here, then," he told her. "They've got more than enough help. Let me take you home. Where are you staying?"

Boas watched them leave, and Riley exchanged a wave with Boas as he got into his side of the car.

Riley was perhaps thirty, thirty-two, about Robyn's own age. He asked her if she had any intention of taking the FBI exams to become an agent.

"No, just working this one case with Donna... Inspector Thorpe."

"You two've become quite close. Staying with her here in D.C. What's the address?"

"You seem to know a lot about it. My guess is you know the address."

"Refresh my memory."

She rattled off the street number, and a silence settled over the car until he said, "Everybody in the club is concerned about her, that's all, Muro. It's got to be tough being the sounding board for a brutal, sadistic man like Ovierto."

"Yeah, you could say that."

"She's not... coming unglued, is she?"

"Thorpe? You kidding? She's like nails."

He laughed lightly. "I've heard that. But even nails get rusty."

"What the hell are you fishing for, Riley? What's your job, anyway, some kind of Internal Affairs officer? Checking on Thorpe, chasing buzz-bull and rumors?"

"I've worked similar cases, and I'm just worried about her, all right! Everybody's worried about her. Everybody."

"Who is everybody?"

"The entire Bureau."

"Her superiors, you mean."

"You're pretty shrewd at getting answers yourself," he conceded. "Look, if you are her friend, you'll sit her down and tell her she's looking at a lot of flak on this and what happened in Seattle, not to mention her pushing some goddamned four-star general at the Pentagon against the wall."

"She didn't push anyone—"

"Pushed, pressed, probed, whatever term you want to apply."

"Just tell me something, Riley, whose side are you on?"

They'd arrived at the apartment, and the car came to a screeching halt. Riley had opened his door to come around when she said, "Don't bother. I know my way up!" She slammed her own door and rushed from him.

Riley pounded the top of the car, obviously unhappy with the way things had gone. He chased after her and caught her at the elevators inside where the light was muted.

"I thought I made it clear that—"

He cut her off. "I've got a team of agents working under me, good men, and we'd like to help any way we can. Soon as Boas told me about the note... well, I figured, we have a clue, a way to track Ovierto this time."

She was interested instantly. "What are you saying?"

"I've already got my guys canvassing every cold storage facility in D.C."

"Cold storage?"

"For the bodies. If he's going to attempt an ex-change, he's got to put the bodies on ice, right, for a while?"

She considered this, a small half-smile coming over her. "Riley, you may have something there."

"I worked a few years in morgues to pay my bills. I know a little something about bodies."

"So, how do we go about this?"

"Bills of lading have to be worked out, if he ships the bodies to Canada."

"But he could just fly them himself. He's got a jet."

"A Lear or something, isn't it?"

"Beech craft."

"Hot little numbers, but the bodies would be easily detected, as old as they are. The odor alone—"

"So he has to send them commercially? In refrigeration?"

"Unless he's lying to her... unless he has no intention of making an exchange."

"He'd do it, one way or another... to humiliate her further, to hurt her. So, he'll want the bodies in place."

"So, you trust he'll take the bodies to the Canadian border, to the St. Lawrence Seaway?"