William Brown - The Undertaker

“East on Anderson Road about a mile. You can't miss it,” he chuckled. “If that's where you really want to go.”

He was right. I couldn't. The building was a sprawling low-tech affair that someone had cobbled together from painted cinder blocks, narrow casement windows, and the occasional panel of cedar siding. It had a center core with a peaked roof, and three long, one-story wings that thrust out to the left, right, and rear. The building stood on a slight rise well-back from the road behind a gravel parking lot. A large, well-manicured lawn, no doubt somebody's old bean field, dressed-up with tall hedges and curved flower beds of roses and geraniums, surrounded it. Beyond the nearly empty parking lot stood a dense buffer of big oak and pine trees.

It was about 2:30 when I turned into the clinic's driveway and parked the Bronco in the “Visitor's Parking” space. I knew I shouldn't be doing this. When I left Tinkerton's office I should have driven straight to the State Police Headquarters, the State Attorney General, or even the FBI, but I couldn't. After the stunt with the delivery bags, Edna the secretary, and confronting Tinkerton in his own office, I felt I was invincible. I'd taken on Dannmeyer, Greene, and Tinkerton and they hadn't laid a glove on me. All I needed was one solid chunk of evidence to wrap it up and tie a bow around it. I figured I'd find it in the Varner Clinic, since that was where the bodies started going cold. Besides, I was two steps ahead of them. There was nothing these clowns could throw at me I couldn't handle now. I was hot. What could Tinkerton do to me? A lawyer? Nothing.

By the same token, what could I do to him? The sad truth was, not very much. The obituaries? The newspaper stories? They were interesting, but not nearly enough to get an indictment much less a conviction. Without hard evidence or one of them talking, the State Police, the State Attorney General, and the FBI would laugh me out of town. Go up against a trio of local, stand-up guys like Ralph Tinkerton, Lawrence Greene, and Sheriff Virgil Dannmeyer on their home turf? The Michigan football team stood a better chance of getting a break here in Columbus than I would. Knowing they were dirty and proving it would be two very different things.

That's why I took a shot at Varner. He was a doctor, an M.D., for Chris’ sake. All the ones I knew were invariably risk averse and not nearly as smart as they thought they were once they got outside medicine. Ever watched a doctor invest in real estate? A bar, an office building, or a trendy restaurant? They could lose money faster in oil well scams, cattle, or thoroughbred horses than they could possibly make it. Got something you want to unload? Find a doctor. Better still, find a group of them. You can't lose. Yep, Anias P. Varner was their weak link, particularly if I could get him off balance and keep him that way. If he stonewalled me, I could try the State Police or give it up and turn the Bronco east, but I had to give it one last try.

The exterior of the clinic looked cheap and poorly put together. The siding was grooved, plywood paneling and the brick accents looked to be that cheap, glued-on, fiberglass stuff. As I walked across the lot, I saw a six-foot high chain link fence running around the perimeter of the clinic grounds. It was tucked discreetly into the wall of oak and pine trees and painted black to be nearly invisible. It was the glint of sun on the white electric insulators told me the fence was there and it was carrying some juice. There was also a row of small security cameras tucked up under the eaves of the building. Their overlapping fields of vision covered the entire perimeter, sides and rear. Interesting. With an electric fence and cameras, were they trying to keep people from breaking in, or trying to keep them from breaking out?

The clinic's front doors were those new pneumatic, motion sensor, no-hands models that pop open when you get within five feet. Inside, they had decorated the clinic's small lobby with the taste and sensitivity you'd find in the waiting room of a car wash. No Ethan Allen here, the walls were a practical light beige. There was thin blue carpeting, cheap faux-leather chairs, and framed prints of Impressionist paintings from Wal-Mart on the walls. The chairs looked empty and unused, arranged in small, intimate groupings. The clinic must be real private, I thought, so private that the patients didn't get very many visitors.

In the center of the far wall, I saw another set of double doors. They must be the entrance to the clinic itself. Through the small panes of glass, I could see a long, brightly lit corridor beyond. In the ceiling above the doors was another security camera, pointed right at me. I smiled. There was no sneaking up on these folks.

To my left was a large, U-shaped reception desk with a very large, blond-haired woman holding court behind it. She was dressed in a white nurse's uniform and she eyed me up and down like a St. Bernard in heat. It wasn't that she was unattractive, but she was far too heavily made up for my taste. And way too big. With her broad shoulders, long arms, and round, rosy- cheeks, she could easily fill the heavy weight slot on the Russian women's wrestling team.

I smiled. She smiled. “Hi, I wonder if I could see Dr. Varner.”

“And, you have an appointment?” She cocked her head coyly to the side and asked in a deep, husky voice.

“An appointment? Uh, no, I'm afraid I don't.”

“Then it would be tres impossible,” she shook her head. “You see, Doctor Varner is on rounds now. After that, he has appointments and several surgeries that will run well into the evening. That's why the poor man never sees anyone without a referral and an appointment. I'm sure you understand.”

“ Ah, certainement! With his schedule, of course I can. But tell me, what is the Doctor working on now?”

“Well, there's the new Herbal and Holistic Medicine Unit,” she ticked them off on her fingers for dramatic effect. “And Weight-loss and Body Recontouring Unit, Substance and Psychic Dependency, Cosmetic Re-engineering, Glandular and Hormonal Re-balance, and of course Dr. Varner's own Personal Preference Surgery.”

“Ah, Personal Preference Surgery. I remember now.”

“You remember? You mean you've been here before?”

“Oh, my, yes, I'm one of the Doctor's former patients.”

“One of Doctor Varner's? Ree-ally?”

I leaned forward and whispered, “That's why I must see him.”

“Personal Preference?” she asked again, still not sure.

“Yes! And very personal, as I'm sure you know.”

“Oh, yes!” Her eyes flashed.

“So,” I gave her a big smile, “if you could be a big dear and give him a message that Peter Talbott has come back to see him, I just know he'll pop right out and see me.”

“Well,” she seemed to glow. “If you'll have a seat for a smidge, I'll let him know you're here. But with his schedule, it may still be quite impossible.”

She picked up the telephone and I stepped to where I had a full view of the double doors that led back to the clinic and waited for the explosion. It didn't take long. Within a minute or two, a fat little man in a white smock with a stethoscope hanging around his neck burst into the waiting room. “What is the meaning of this outrage!” he sputtered. His nervous eyes darted around the small lobby until they settled on me. “Who are you?”

“Me? I'm Peter Talbott.”

“Peter Tal…?” he frowned, almost losing it.

“Yeah, the real one,” I answered, a confident smile forming on my lips. Weak link? One look at Varner and I knew that with a little pressure, he'd crack like a hot chestnut. “And I think we should talk, don't you?”

“Talk? Talk to you?” he scoffed. “Why should I?”

“Because it's me or the State cops and there's nothing your pals Tinkerton or Greene can do to help you then. You're going down.”