Thomas Perry - The Face-Changers

He pushed the button for the third floor and tried to collect his thoughts. They already knew Dahlman was gone, and the newswoman had assumed he had known too, at first. But he hadn’t wanted to let her be the one to tell him, and he knew he wasn’t a good enough actor to let her record his reaction on camera.

He stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall toward the room assigned to Dahlman. There were two men in sport coats, one gray tweed that matched the man’s gray, bristly hair, and the other a brown that looked a little like one Carey had that Jane never let him wear. The men had plastic wallets stuck in their breast pockets so they hung over to display badges, one gold and the other silver. Carey pretended not to see them as he walked to the doorway.

The younger one in brown stepped into his path. “I’m sorry,” said the man. “This is a crime scene.” He studied Carey’s face, as though trying to verify that Carey had seen his badge.

Carey turned his head to look in puzzlement at the older man, then back at the one in brown. “I understand. Dr. Dahlman is in custody, but I’m his doctor, and I’d like to see him.”

The older man was holding a little spiral notebook in his hand and he consulted it. “You are Doctor …” He flipped a page. “McKinnon.” It wasn’t a question, but he said, “That right?”

“Yes,” said Carey. He craned his neck to look in the doorway at the empty room, then looked at the policemen in surprise. “I operated on him earlier this evening, and he’s supposed to be in there. Can you tell me where he’s been moved?”

“I’m Captain Folger,” said the man. “This is Detective Kohl. I wish I could tell you where he is. He’s missing. If you’ll come with me, you might be able to help us clear this up.” He was reassuring and calm, but not quite friendly.

Carey knew it was time to start causing trouble. “What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Carey simulated the amazement he might have felt. “That’s crazy! He’s seriously injured and tranquilized. You’re trying to tell me he just got up out of bed? He was supposed to be restrained. And where were the policemen who were supposed to be watching him? We should be looking for him.”

“We’ve already done that,” said the policeman. “But he’s not in the building anymore.” As the policeman stepped off down the hall, Carey almost smiled. Jane was out. She had done it. The policeman said, “I think you understand we’d like to ask you some questions—about his condition and so on.”

“Of course,” said Carey. He followed the older policeman down the hallway, reminding himself that he couldn’t let himself get lazy now. He had to think. The man had said “Captain” Folger—a very high rank, the sort of policeman who was in charge of a station, not the sort who wandered around looking for people.

Then Carey felt rather than heard something behind him: the younger one, Detective Kohl, was following a few paces behind them. Was he cutting off Carey’s retreat, or was his position simply the result of starting to walk after his boss had? Carey decided that, for the moment, he had better not assume anything was meaningless.

Captain Folger opened the door to the conference room at the end of the hall, and to Carey’s surprise, he went in and closed it behind him. Detective Kohl stepped to Carey’s side. “Have you ever had a patient walk off before?” Carey decided he was trying to distract him.

“Usually if they chicken out, it’s before I operate.”

The detective seemed to think that was a very witty thing to say. He laughed, then said, “I guess he can’t have gone far.”

Carey shook his head. “I’m amazed he went anywhere. He’s sixty-seven years old, he’s lost blood, he’s been bruised by the impact of the bullet, he’s—”

“Oh, yeah,” Detective Kohl interrupted. “I’ve seen it a few times, and I know what you mean. Whatever’s going through his mind, he hurts.” He said it with a satisfaction that reminded Carey that this man was no friend of his.

The door opened, and Captain Folger beckoned and stepped aside. “Thanks, Doctor.”

As Carey went past him into the familiar room, Folger began to recite names. Carey listened, aware that he should hold the names in his memory, but they were just words. “This is Officer Graley, Officer Wilchevsky, Mr. Marshall, and I’m Captain Folger, in case you didn’t catch it before.” Nobody stood to shake hands.

As Carey had expected, the captain did the talking. “Dr. McKinnon, I should say at this juncture that we appreciate any help you can give us. If you would be more comfortable consulting an attorney before you say anything, we understand: there’s no way to predict whether you might open yourself up to some kind of malpractice litigation or other legal problems. It would cause delay that’s probably unnecessary, but after all, we do need to respect your rights, too. Because this is an official police inquiry, it can’t be off the record and could come out in court.”

Carey admired the smooth, affable way the captain had spoken. It seemed to him that Folger had probably read him his rights and set a trap at the same time. If Carey was here to delay the police, Folger had offered him a simple way to do it. But that would confirm their suspicion that he was the enemy.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” he answered. “Will it?”

“I can’t give anybody legal advice,” said Folger. “And I don’t know anything about all these civil suits against hospitals and doctors. We just do the criminal stuff.” He paused. “Want to go ahead?”

Carey nodded.

“Our logs say officers brought Richard Dahlman in here at seven-fifteen this evening. The hospital records say you operated on him at eight-fifteen. Is that right?”

So this was going to be about the subject of times. He didn’t want to talk about times. That would help them isolate exactly when Jane had slipped Dahlman out, and if they knew when, they would know where it had happened. People might remember having seen Jane there. He answered with names. “Yes, I operated. Dr. Shelton was anesthesiologist and Dr. Stern assisted. The surgical nurse was Mrs. Brooks.”

“What did you do to him?”

“I removed fragments of a bullet from his left shoulder—five, I think. Very small—particles, really. The main projectile had expanded as it passed through, and glanced off a bone. That seems to have been what caused the pieces to come off. It also caused a fracture with bone chips, torn musculature, and damage to a major vein. The main artery was not severed, and there appeared to be no significant nerve damage.”

“How long did that take?”

“Not long. It couldn’t have been more than forty-five or fifty minutes at the outside.”

Folger looked at his notes. “The anesthetist keeps a timed record. Did you know that?”

“Of course,” said Carey. “That’s right. If you need exact times, you should get Shelton’s notes.”

“We have.” He frowned, then handed the sheet of paper to Carey. “Is this his handwriting?”

“I guess so,” said Carey. It said fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. “He usually keeps his own notes.” He handed the paper back.

“Fifteen minutes. That seems like world-record speed.”

Carey shrugged. “Faster than it seemed to me, at any rate.” He added, “No surgery is entirely without risk. We don’t keep a patient open any longer than necessary. When I was sure I had removed the foreign objects that had shown on the X-ray, repaired the damage to the vein to stop the bleeding, and sutured the muscles, I closed.”

“What kind of risk are you talking about?”

Carey cocked his head. “Infection, adverse reaction to anesthetics, shock and possible cardiac arrest, hemorrhage …”