Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

Bronner and Jenkins lowered their guns slowly. Jenkins's face had reddened, his cheeks flushing with color.

David's breath left him in short spurts, reverse gasps. "Innovative," he managed. His legs were shaking, so he donned his white coat, wrapping it around himself like a robe.

Bronner lowered his flashlight with a faint groan and hoisted his pants. "I'll have Dispatch contact SID, and Yale and Dalton. I'll keep an eye on the front." He looked at David. "Don't touch anything else." He left Jenkins and David with the blood-splashed wall.

"Not his usual MO," Jenkins said. "He's getting bolder. More courageous." He chewed his lip.

David nodded. "We're right on track."

He followed Jenkins to check the garage. On the side of the Mercedes, Clyde had written ashole in what appeared to be red spray paint. Jenkins shined his light beneath and inside the car, then took a step back.

They went back into the living room to wait for Bronner's return, and Jenkins flipped all three light switches, using a pen. David noticed immediately that the de Kooning was missing. He pointed to the blank space above the mantel.

Jenkins raised his eyebrows.

"A painting," David explained. "A de Kooning."

"I didn't have him pegged for a collector." Jenkins's joke was an offering of sorts. David's laugh was genuine. When Jenkins smiled, the harshness left his features. "Motive, motive, motive," he said. "Assuming he's not aware of its value or… artfulness, why did he take it?"

"It was a modern piece, a somewhat violent depiction of a woman."

"I see."

David felt momentarily like a pervert. He thought of the drawings Clyde had made as a child, the crayoned revenge he'd exacted on the study's nurses. Clyde probably found the de Kooning to be pleasing. The notion that David's taste in art was similar to Clyde's was not comforting. That the painting had been his mother's lent the theft a certain irony.

"Worth a lot?" Jenkins asked.

"Yeah," David said. "Now I'll have to deal with insurance. My penance for being part of the medical establishment." He ran his fingers through his hair.

Jenkins peered around the impeccably decorated living room. "Right."

The vase sat crooked on the Oriental cabinet, and David walked over and reached to straighten it.

"Don't touch that," Jenkins said.

David froze. "Sorry." He studied the small collection of photographs arrayed around the base of the vase, focusing on the shot of him and Diane from the ER Catalina retreat. His eyes lingered on the picture of Elisabeth in the tub, before skimming across the rest of the silver frames. One of the photographs was missing; there were normally five. David crouched and peered behind the cabinet. Some loose change, several clusters of dust, and the silver gleam of the frame.

"There's a picture frame back here," he said. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. "Can I get it?"

"Let me." Jenkins took the gloves from David, pulled them on, and moved the cabinet a few inches out from the wall. He grabbed the frame by the corner and held it up for David to see. The photograph of Peter with David's mother. Janet Spier, the steel gleam in her eyes, her chin raised in what David had previously thought regal fashion, but now recognized as a symptom of her deeply ingrained sense of superiority. Peter's smile, deferential yet confident, his arm across Janet's shoulders.

There was a smudge on the glass over Peter's face, and David knew, even before he leaned toward the frame and inhaled the saccharine odor, that it would smell of the orange-flavored lozenges.

Clyde had studied the photograph before he'd taken the de Kooning and, in replacing it, had accidentally knocked it behind the cabinet.

A flash of Peter after Clyde's escape, still shaken after he'd tripped Clyde in the hall. "The way he looked at me… "

David and Dash had neglected to add Peter to the list of potential victims. David doubted that Clyde had grown bold enough to attack a man, but it now occurred to him that a disabled man might be a possibility, as the boyish security guard had been. And Peter was a representative of the hospital. Depending on the extent of his surveillance, Clyde might even know that Peter was David's close friend.

"Do you think we could get some protection on Peter Alexander?" David asked, pointing to the photo.

"That's up to Yale," Jenkins said. "And the Captain. But I'll radio Dispatch and have someone swing by now to check the welfare."

"I'd appreciate that."

Jenkins called in the request, then he and David stood in silence as they awaited the other cars, not wanting even to sit on the couches in case that would disturb evidence. It was an awkward silence.

"How was Nancy?" David asked.

Jenkins shrugged. "Awful," he said. "She's awful." His head bobbed in an intimation of a nod. "What are you gonna do? What the fuck you gonna do?" He raised his hands, then let them fall to his sides. The silence of the room was deafening. "My first day on the job, we were responding to a radio call," he said. "Domestic violence. Some crackhead out in Central had shot his wife. I got there with Dalton-me and Dalton were partners before he got promoted. Kicked in the door. Lady was laid out in the kitchen. Sawed-off shotgun from about two feet. What was left of her head was pasted to the refrigerator. The thing is… " He paused and took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. "The thing is, she had a newborn. The baby had been playing in the other room, but it found her. Crawled across the damn apartment. It was nursing on her when we showed." He lowered his head. "That's the kind of thing you're supposed to see in a war. Bosnia, or some village in Vietnam. Not in an American city." He shook his head. "Not here."

A few cars pulled up front, blue lights flashing. Coming in the open front door without knocking, Yale announced his arrival with a sharp snap of his gum. He was dressed for the office at a Wall Street firm. Behind him, Dalton looked more aptly like someone roused in the middle of the night. His stained tie was jerked hard to one side, Rodney Dangerfield style, and he wore unmatched socks.

David followed them silently back to the bedroom. Yale appraised the scene silently, then gestured with two fingers for David and Dalton to follow him into the bathroom. He leaned into the shower and turned it on as hot as it went. The head sputtered a few times, then the water turned cloudy. Using his pen, Yale flicked the head to the side, and the water sprayed onto a bar of soap. It fizzed, then dissolved rapidly under the alkali.

"Looks like our boy had plans for your pretty face," Dalton said.

"No," David said. "He knows I've been unscrewing that showerhead every time before I turn on the water. That's what he wants-my anxiety."

Yale worked his gum as they headed back into the living room, where Jenkins was just signing off a radio call. "Everything clear on Peter Alexander," Jenkins told David.

Yale threw open the front door and nodded, and the Scientific Investigation Division poured into the house, toting bags and boxes.

Yale lowered his hard, cool eyes on David. "I'm gonna take a look around," he said. "Then why don't we have a chat at the barn. Get out of these boys' hair." He turned to Jenkins. "We got it from here." Yale winked at Jenkins, and Jenkins headed slowly for the door.

"Officer Jenkins," David called out. When Jenkins turned around, David said, "Thank you."

Jenkins nodded once before ducking outside.

Waiting in the back of the detectives' generic sedan while Yale, Dalton, and the SID went over the house, David paged Ed on his cell phone. Ed was seemingly at a club or bar of some sort when he called back, leaving David to wonder when, exactly, he slept. In the background, Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" blared. For Ed to hear him, David had to raise his voice. Ed grew upset once David described the night's events, displaying an endearing sense of responsibility.