Allan Folsom - The Machiavelli Covenant

Lorraine Stephenson had called him at ten minutes to four. By four twenty he had walked the several blocks from his hotel to George Washington University Hospital. At four twenty-five he was in the hospital's medical staff office talking to the woman behind the desk. Once again his experience as a homicide detective served him well. Doctors who regularly work at a hospital are registered with that institution's medical board and their personal records are kept on file in the medical staff office. Because she had visited Caroline at University Hospital, Marten expected Dr. Stephenson would have formal medical privileges there and consequently her personal records would be on file in the medical staff office. Assuming that, he'd simply told the woman at the desk that Dr. Stephenson had been recommended to him as a possible family physician and he would like some professional information about her-where she had gone to medical school, done her residency, that kind of thing. In response the woman had brought Stephenson's file up on her computer screen. As she did, Marten looked around the room and saw a large box of facial tissues on a filing cabinet several feet behind her. Stifling a sneeze and saying he had caught a cold in the rainy weather, he asked if he might have a tissue. It took the woman ten seconds to get up from her desk and walk with her back to him to retrieve the box of tissues. It took Marten seven seconds to step around her desk, look at her computer screen, scroll down, and retrieve what he needed. Three minutes later he left the office with a handful of tissues and the knowledge that Dr. Lorraine Stephenson was divorced, had graduated from Johns Hopkins University Medical School, had done her residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, kept professional offices at the Georgetown Medical Building, and lived at 227 Dumbarton Street, in the city's Georgetown section.

• 8:27 P.M.

Again Marten saw lights in his mirror. A car approached and then passed. Where was she? Out to dinner, to a movie, some kind of professional conference? Suddenly he thought of Stephenson's tone and manner, heard her words as she'd ended their conversation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Marten," she'd said sharply, "there is nothing I can do to help you. Please don't call again." Then she'd hung up.

Maybe there was more there than he'd thought. Maybe what he'd heard as cold aloofness had really been fear. What if Caroline had been murdered and Stephenson had been involved or had even done it herself? And then he'd telephoned her saying he had a legal document giving him access to Caroline's medical records and that he wanted to talk about her illness and the cause of her death. If Stephenson had been involved, what if she had returned his call and put him off simply to buy time so that she could cut and run? What if at this moment she was on her way out of the city?

• 8:29 P.M.

Another vehicle came down the street behind him. It began to slow as it neared Stephenson's home and Marten saw that it was the same Ford that had slowed minutes before. This time it slowed even more, as if whoever was in the car was trying to see inside the house, to determine if a light or lights had been turned on, an indication that the doctor had come home.

No sooner had it moved past, than it abruptly sped up and drove off. As it did, Marten caught sight of the driver. A chill touched his neck and ran down his spine. It was the same man who had been driving the car that had so slowly passed him near the Washington Monument the night before.

What the hell is this? Marten thought. Coincidence? Maybe. But if it's not, then what is it? And what does he want with Dr. Stephenson?

• 8:32 P.M.

Marten saw a car turn at the end of the block and start down the street toward him. As it neared he could see it was a taxi. Like the other car it slowed as it reached Stephenson's home, then it stopped. A moment later the rear door opened and Dr. Stephenson got out. She closed the door and the taxi drove off, then she started for the house. At the same time Marten stepped from his rental car.

"Dr. Stephenson," he called out.

She started and looked back.

"It's Nicholas Marten, Caroline Parsons's friend," he said. "I'd like a few minutes of your time."

Stephenson stared at him for the briefest moment then suddenly turned and walked hurriedly down the sidewalk away from her house.

"Dr. Stephenson!" Marten called again and went after her.

His feet touched the far curb and he saw her glance back. Her eyes were wide and filled with fear.

"I mean you no harm," he said loudly. "Please, just a moment of your-"

She turned back and kept on. Marten followed. Suddenly she broke into a run. So did Marten. He saw her pass under a streetlight and then disappear in darkness beyond. He ran faster. In a moment he was under the streetlight and then in the darkness. He didn't see her. Where the hell was she? Another twenty feet and he had his answer, she was standing there watching him come. He stopped.

"I just want to talk to you, please, nothing else," he said, then took a step forward.

"Don't."

It was then he saw the small automatic in her hand.

"What's that for?" He looked up from the gun and saw her eyes locked on his. If before he had seen fear, he now saw cold resolve. "Put the gun down," he said firmly. "Put the gun on the ground and step back from it."

"You want to send me to the doctor," she said quietly, her stare unwavering. "But you never will. None of you ever will." She paused and he could see her trying to decide something. Then she spoke again, her words deliberate and clearly enunciated. "Never. Ever."

She was still staring at him when she shoved the barrel of the automatic into her mouth and pulled the trigger. There was a loud pop . The back of her skull exploded and her body dropped like a stone to the pavement.

"Jesus, God," Marten breathed in horror and disbelief.

A heartbeat later his senses caught up with him, and he turned in the dark and ran from the scene. In ninety seconds he was in his rental car turning off Dumbarton and down Twenty-ninth Street. Stephenson's suicide was the last thing he had expected and it had unnerved him. It had been an act clearly done out of sheer terror and came about as close to confirming that Caroline had been right as you could get, that she had been murdered . Moreover, it made him believe Caroline's other allegation was true as well, that the plane crash killing her husband and son had been no accident.

Right now all of those things faded to the background. The important thing was that he not be caught in the middle of it. There had been nothing he could do for Stephenson, and a call to 911 for help could well have forced him into a situation where he would have to identify himself to the police. They would want to know why he was there. Why she had shot herself in front of him on a darkened sidewalk several hundred yards away from her house. Why his rental car was parked just across the street from it.

What if someone, a neighbor maybe, had seen him sitting in the car and then confronting Stephenson when she came home and following her when she ran off down the street? The questions would be nagging and ugly. He had no proof of anything Caroline had said and if he told the truth his story would seem incredible at best and the police would probe deeper. All he needed was for them to begin doubting who he was and look into it. If they did they might well open the door to the past, one that could turn loose the dark forces in the Los Angeles Police Department still hunting him. Men who hated him for what had happened in L.A. those not-so-many years ago and were still trying to track him down and kill him. It meant he had to keep as far away from all this as possible yet still remain close enough to stay on top of it.