Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

"Yes." She leaned her head toward his in a conspiratorial gesture. "That's how I knew you took what happened seriously and would want to know about the Tuesday visit." A curt nod punctuated the claim.

More excited than afraid, he thought with a grin. "Okay, then here's what I need to know. Any enemies?"

Her eyes widened in delight. "Me?" She sounded honored, as if someone thinking she could matter enough to be the target of who knew what was high praise indeed. Back went her head and out came a hoot of laughter. "Go on!" She waved a hand at him, the way one fends off flattery while enjoying it to the hilt.

He asked her a few more questions, not so much because he thought she could tell him anything else, but to feed the relief most patients got from being part of something bigger than their disease. As they talked, his gaze roamed over the same simple belongings on her nightstand that he'd seen before, and once more his eyes fell on her calendar. Yet this time he noticed she'd marked about a quarter of the days with crosses, occasionally two and three at a time. Looking for a way to wrap up their conversation- Janet wanted him home on time this evening- he changed the topic. "Are those the visits Father Jimmy paid you?" he said, pointing at the markings.

"Oh, no. He's here almost every night. Those are the times some pitiable soul tries to pass on but gets jumped on by that team of young doctors with the squeaky cart. Why people here can't at least slip away without all that fuss, I'll never understand."

Earl noticed the DNR bracelet on her own wrist. She certainly had a point, he thought, but said nothing. Still, the large number of crosses disturbed him.

11:07 p.m.

Stewart stepped inside the entrance to his house, closed the door, and slumped against it. If only he could just as easily bar the outside world from his life, not allow it to rampage through and trample everything, he thought. Except it already had.

He looked around at his marble entranceway, its polished gray surface softened in the dim glow of recessed lighting. Tonight it looked like a mausoleum, but a well-furnished one. A rosewood end table supported a small brass lamp with a green shade. It funneled a golden spot on the mail his housekeeper had placed there for him. Usually the sight of letters waiting for his attention had an uplifting effect- the prospect of reading the latest news from admiring colleagues was one of the pleasures he savored at the end of a marathon day. Not anymore.

From the dimly lit living room to his left came the quiet strains of Mozart. His stereo was programmed to come on at the same time as the lights so he wouldn't return to a silent, dark home- the ruse of a man who'd allowed his personal life to become stripped bare by work. This clever tactic now struck him as pathetic, and underscored the emptiness of the place.

Tocco came running down the stairs from where she'd been sleeping on his bed, black coat gleaming, brown eyes full of warmth, and pink tongue ready to slurp him a kiss. The Labrador retriever, big as a bear cub, greeted him the same way she had every night for the last ten years.

It didn't comfort him at all.

Couldn't.

Maybe never would again.

He dropped his briefcase and walked in a trance through the tasteful arrangements of antique chairs, a pair of sofas, more end tables with brass lamps, all chosen by a hired decorator, to where he had a wet bar in a recessed corner.

He never drank. At parties club soda would be his choice of beverage. "ICU may call," he told any host who tried to ply him with liquor. The truth was that he didn't like the taste. Never had, not even at beer parties in med school.

Nevertheless, he poured himself a tumbler of brandy and downed it the way he would some foul medicine.

It burned his stomach. Little wonder, with nothing to eat all day.

Tocco pushed her snout under his free hand and turned her head so he'd have an ear to rub.

He poured himself another drink, wandered into the dining room, and slumped at a table made of Brazilian mahogany that could seat twelve but rarely did. Then he got up and, leaning against a matching hutch filled with seldom used fine china, admired his little-seen collection of wall tapestries, each one a van Gogh recreation.

Still restless, he abandoned his untouched drink on the polished wood and entered a kitchen that had every appliance known to chefs, but a refrigerator with little more than staples and the freezer filled with gourmet frozen meals. As he stared at the selection, feeling less like eating than before, Tocco walked up to the cupboard that held her dog biscuits and wagged her tail expectantly.

He walked over, pulled a few from the bag, and threw them at her feet. She plopped down, captured the nearest one between her paws, and gnawed happily on its upright end, oblivious to the collapse of her master's world.

He strolled through a swinging door to a den with a plasma screen the size of a billboard and a thirty-speaker theater center. A stack of overdue DVDs lay on the floor. At the top of the heap, Vittorio De Sica's The Bicycle Thief teetered precariously, ready to fall to the floor.

He ended up back in the entranceway, sank to the marble floor, and proceeded to add up the score.

The first dozen calls had been more of the "Is it true?" crap that he'd fielded with Garnet there.

And he'd danced the same I'm-all-right, if s-all-a-big-misunderstanding jive, but knew he'd ended up conning no one.

Next the ones who had already made up their minds signed in.

"It's not just you. All the research money is drying up," they lied apologetically. "Of course you'll be the first to be funded again once the economy improves…"

They'd stripped ten million dollars' worth of pending grants from him in less than two hours, and he knew he'd never get that kind of cash again. His fall had been extra steep because so many wanted to punish- no, make that eviscerate him.

Tocco wandered out of the kitchen, spiraled three times before plopping down, and contentedly gave herself a bath, as if her master sprawled in the middle of the foyer floor were no big thing.

Grateful for the one living creature that hadn't judged him today, he reached over and rubbed the ear he'd ignored earlier.

She immediately tried to give his hand a kiss.

He thought of the men and women who'd dissed him today. He remembered their goofy, want-to-be-around-a-winner expressions when they threw endowments at him and felt it a privilege to do so, not the sour faces that he had imagined went with the cold, dismissive tones they'd subjected him to over the last twelve hours. It reminded him of the discrepancy between how the eternal whines of disappointment from his ex-wives differed from the eagerness with which they'd once said "I do."

But the loss of control over his domain at work panicked him the most. His ability to command respect and make others do his bidding had slipped through his fingers like water.

He got up and glanced to the coatrack where Tocco's leash usually hung. It wasn't there.

He wandered down to the basement, to check the hook where the housekeeper sometimes left it.

Tocco followed, wagging her tail in anticipation of a walk.

He eyed the water pipes and saw the face that had haunted him since 1989.

Purple, swollen, and twisted, the image of it lurked at the core of his memory, always ready to intrude without warning, triggered by the slightest of associations. It could happen while he presented a paper, listened to accolades from younger colleagues, even appeared once in the middle of an interview on Oprah. Like an avenging ghost, it haunted him, particularly the bulging eyes. Their black scrutiny bored through his pupils and, like probes, activated what no anatomist could find- the convoluted cerebral coils of gray and white matter that housed conscience. Because that cold lifeless stare forced him to relive his treachery, admit to the innuendos and whispered lies that had been the ruin of the phantom who looked on him so accusingly. His only sure respite from the curse? When a case consumed him in ICU.