Stuart Kaminsky - Midnight Pass

Stop number one was less than five minutes away, the office of Dr. Obermeyer. This time there were two patients waiting in the reception room, an ancient, little, bent-over woman who tilted her head upward and glared at an equally old man directly across from her, who met her glare for glare.

Neither of them looked up at us when we entered.

Carla the receptionist, hair eater, however, did. Her glare was even better than the old couple.

“I’m calling the police,” she said.

“First give Dr. Obermeyer a name,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll want the police coming to talk about it and I don’t think he’ll be happy with you if you call the police before you give him the name.”

She hesitated.

“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble the last time I was here,” I said. “You’ve got your job and you were just trying your best to do it.”

She picked up the phone and pushed a button.

“That man with the baseball hat is back,” she said. “With another man. He says I should give you a name.”

She looked up at me.

“Dutcher,” I said.

“Dutcher,” she said into the telephone. “Yes.”

She hung up.

“He’ll be with you in a minute,” she said.

I sat. Ames stood. It was less awkward to stand when you had a shotgun in your jacket. We watched the old couple glare at each other across the room for just about a minute. Then the door to Obermeyer’s office opened and a well-dressed, slender woman came out. She was probably in her late forties. She was certainly not happy.

“The tests results will be back in three days,” Obermeyer said, gently touching the woman’s shoulder. “I’ll call you immediately. I don’t think there’s anything to be concerned about. We just want to be careful.”

The woman glanced at Ames and me as she went out the door, and Obermeyer said, “Mr. and Mrs. Spoznik, I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

The glaring couple gave him no sign that he had penetrated their concentration.

Obermeyer nodded at Ames and me and we followed him into his office. He moved behind his desk, a barrier from patients and intruders like me. Ames sat in one chair, right leg not quite bent, and I sat in the other.

“You mentioned a name,” Obermeyer said.

“Dutcher,” I said. “You know it, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Kevin Hoffmann’s real name is Dutcher, Alvin York Dutcher,” I said.

“So?” he asked.

“He had a sister, Claire Dutcher,” I said.

“Interesting,” he said. “But-”

“Fraud, murder,” I said. “And you’re a party to it.”

“Wait,” Obermeyer said, quickly standing. “I had nothing to do with any fraud, any murder.”

“William Trasker’s not too sick to me moved, is he?” I asked.

“In my opinion…” Obermeyer began, reverting to his role as confident physician.

“It’s all going to come apart in the next few days,” I said. “You’ll go down with it.”

Obermeyer sat down again.

“William Trasker is a very sick man,” he said. “I’ve kept him comfortable and sedated. He is dying.”

“But if he wasn’t sedated,” I said, “could he get up, walk, talk?”

“How long has he got, Doc?” Ames asked.

Obermeyer looked at Ames with surprise.

“That’s difficult to determine,” the doctor said. “As I told Mr. Fonesca, probably a few days.”

“If a group of cancer experts looked at him,” I said, “what would they say?”

Obermeyer sunk back.

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh.

“He can function, move, make decisions?” I asked.

Obermeyer nodded and said, “I told you, he is heavily sedated.”

“And you’ll tell that to the police?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll tell the police that I think that Mr. Trasker is in no condition to make decisions for himself, that it should be left to his next of kin, whoever has power of attorney.”

“And we both know who that is,” I said.

Obermeyer said nothing. I got up. So did Ames.

“There’s a small town in North Dakota,” Obermeyer said, almost to himself. “No more than six thousand people in the entire county. That’s where I came from. They need a doctor. I think I’ll go back there. It’s simply not worth all this.”

He looked up at me as if he needed my permission.

“Sounds like a good idea,” I said. “And I won’t try to stop you if…”

“If what?” Obermeyer said hopefully.

“Is there anything I can give Trasker that would bring him back, anything fast?”

“You want him conscious and functioning?”

“I want him conscious and functioning.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve got samples.”

He got up and we followed him through a door to an examining room with a locked glass cabinet. He opened the cabinet with a key on the ring in his pocket and took out an amber pill bottle.

“Take the bottle,” he said. “Three of these with water will work. But no more than three.”

“How fast?” I asked.

“Imagine forty cups of coffee in one gulp,” he said.

Ames and I left him standing next to his examining table. In the outer office we passed the glaring couple. They seemed to be going for the Guinness World Records.

The clouds had thinned out now. I turned on 930 on the radio and listened to Neil Bortz while I drove down the trail. Fifteen minutes later we were at the gate to Kevin Hoffmann’s estate.

We got out and I pushed the button on the stone wall. No one answered. I pushed the button again. This time Stanley came out of the house, adjusted his glasses, and walked down the path to face us through the fence.

“Fonesca,” he said. “I’ve made some calls about you. There are people who think you’re not very interested in living.”

“LaPrince,” I said. “There are people in Louisiana who remember you.”

He paused and shook his head.

“You sure you want to go that way?” he asked, looking at Ames with amusement.

“Tell Hoffmann we’re here,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” Stanley said with a shrug, and went back to the house, leaving the door open behind him. There was a click and the gate opened.

Ames and I went up the cobbled path and through the door. Kevin Hoffmann stood just inside the door. There were no lights on. He stood in a patch of sun that came from a window on his right.

He was wearing white designer jeans, a black silk shirt, and a two-day growth of gray stubble. He did not look good. He was in no mood for New York Yankees attire.

“Dutcher,” I said.

Stanley stood back to Hoffmann’s left, facing Ames, who stood facing Stanley. Stanley’s right hand was in his pocket. The pocket looked heavy.

“That is the name I was born with,” Hoffmann said. “How does that change things?”

“Alvin York Dutcher,” I said.

“My parents were very patriotic,” he said. “My father loved this country, loved Lindbergh, Sergeant York, Franklin Roosevelt, Enos Slaughter, and anything about baseball. Are you here to accept my offer?”

Kevin Hoffmann was smiling, but the smile had the hint of a twitch and his words a touch of nervous amusement.

“Your sister love baseball too?”

The smile was gone now.

“My sister’s dead,” he said.

“I know. She was shot two days ago. Claire Elizabeth Dutcher, who changed her name to Claire Collins when she became an actress, who changed her name to Roberta Trasker when she married the man lying upstairs.”

“Yes,” said Hoffmann. “Bill is my brother-in-law. And I have power of attorney. Which, according to my lawyer, means that since he is unable to make decisions on his own because of his illness, I can make all decisions for him.”