DECEMBER 2006
gc 6p today
SEBASTIAN LOOKED AT the text and wondered what had happened that required a conference, but whatever it was was serious.
He shrugged and got off at the next exit, texted at the light— 10 mins —then turned around and headed back north.
He walked into the Golden Corral on Barry Road, paid, grabbed a plate and a glass, and collected food and pop before he went in search of Knox, who was in a back corner chowing down on imitation crab salad.
“’Sup?” Sebastian muttered, sliding into a seat across from him.
“You got here quick,” Knox replied low after he’d swallowed his bite.
“On my way home from HRP. Saw your text at Briarcliff.”
“Ah. Well. Webster has been sent upon his life’s journey.”
Sebastian’s eyebrows rose. “That’s good news. When’d this happen?”
“Yesterday. Eilis hasn’t been notified yet. I told them I’d do it, but I wanted to tell you first.”
“Fast work. How’d you manage that?”
“Worked a little extra-judicial magic through about four questionable souls until it got to the person who did the deed, who was not in on it and doesn’t know it was wrong and wouldn’t think to ask questions because there was nothing suspicious about it. Standard medical care.”
“Excellent.”
When Knox was no more forthcoming, Sebastian impatiently gestured for him to continue.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Need? No. Want? Yes. Pony up.”
Knox heaved a longsuffering sigh. “I asked a certain medical malpractice attorney to give me the name of the shadiest doctor he knew of. He gave me the side-eye but didn’t ask questions.”
“Good man.”
“Well, that doc’s up here in the Northland in a swank building, so I’m out riding and I happen to rock up to the place—”
“You aren’t that threatening in padded-ass bike shorts and helmet.”
“Precisely.”
“Ah.”
“So I ask for him. Receptionist is cock-blocking appropriately, so I slip her a Benjamin. Now she knows I know the score. She disappears. Comes back. Takes me to the guy’s office. I’m sitting there looking around while I wait. All signs point to a clientele of upper-middle-class soccer moms who need Mommy’s Little Helper and-or their husbands who are strung out on oxy. He comes in all pissy, asks who I am and what I want. I tell him my name, flash my badge, and he damn near passes out. Barely makes it to his chair. He’s trying to hide that he’s scared shitless. I start pointing out things I find interesting—all things that I could arrest him for immediately, but I don’t say that—and then I tell him I need him to contact such-and-such a person at such-and-such a practice, and tell them that he was Webster’s primary care physician. He is to search through his records and find the solid, longstanding history that indicates insulin-dependent diabetes and send those records to them, including recommended dosing for a consistent morning blood sugar of, oh, approximately three hundred.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“They OD’d him on insulin.”
“Ah, well. At least some good came of your dad’s murder.”
Knox nodded. “I know way more about poisons than I want to.”
“Does this pill pusher know the end game?”
“Uh … I don’t think so, but he’s smart enough to have kept off my radar, although not Bryce’s—he specializes in junkies—so he probably got the concept if not the particulars, and he would not want to know the particulars in any case. When you decide to tell Eilis, tell her they forgot to give Webster his heart meds. They aren’t going to do an autopsy, the orders went through too many channels, and Webster had no next of kin who could dispute it. He’s on his way to the crematorium as we speak.”
“I certainly appreciate it,” Sebastian said fervently. “Although I kinda feel bad for asking.”
Knox shrugged. “I’m too jaded not to want to go all star chamber on people who definitely pose a threat to society. There are degrees, but that one hit hard for some reason—Eilis reeks of pathos—”
“Understatement,” Sebastian muttered.
“—and so when you asked me to take care of it, I figured you knew something I didn’t and that it was bad because this is not your style.”
“Actually, no. All she said was that gardening was the only way she made it through her time with him. There was something in her body language and voice—I can’t explain it. You know, that way stoic people tell you bad shit that happened to them like they’re telling you it’s sunny outside, but you know it had to be really bad for them to even mention it at all.”
Knox nodded. “You want the transcripts?”
“Don’t need ’em. I just didn’t want to have to deal with him seven years from now or whenever he was scheduled to be released. That should make Eilis feel safer.” He paused. “You ever been to her place?”
Knox shook his head.
“Five acres, twelve-foot-high by three-feet-thick concrete walls around the whole thing, with ten-foot-high three-feet-deep thorny hedges on either side of the wall, solid cast iron gate, reinforced concrete and steel-framed house with double-thick walls, and a bank-vault-level security system.” Knox’s eyes widened and he whistled. “Her only exterior vulnerability is her windows, but she was willing to compromise on that. Her only fire vulnerability is drywall, doors, and drapes. Can’t see a fucking thing from the road. She said she feels safest when she’s alone, on her property and she never allows anyone on her property when she’s not there. That’s some next-level terror.”
“Pathological, more like. Her office building like that?”
“No, but she’s got a security team that is not your run-of-the-mill pot-bellied low-IQ high-school drop-out rent-a-cop.”
Knox barked a laugh. “The A-Team.”
“Mossad.”
“Oh.”
“That doc gonna come back on you and rat you out?”
“I clarified that if he ended up on my docket by some happenstance unrelated to me or this particular conversation, I would do a full investigation as per my job description and take it from there, but that my dealings with him would not be part of it and I wouldn’t exploit what I’ve already observed. Further, that if he did claim that I had asked him to do this, people would believe it, but they wouldn’t be able to prove anything. It would be pointless because I mapped it out so it couldn’t be tracked back to either of us, and I’d just throw that accusation in my trophy case and go about my business.”
“Damn. You get more like Nocek every day.”
Knox scowled. “I don’t use my powers for evil.”
“Yes, you do.”
“And again I remind you that I’m the one doing your dirty work. I might be the gun, but you’re the one pulling the trigger.”
“Eh, you’re right. Thank you again.”
“Welcome. Grandpa would be proud.”
Sebastian chuckled. “Yeah, he would.”
★