Diagnosis Murder 7 - The Double LIfe Read online

  To Gina Maccoby and Mitchell Stein

  for making my double lives possible

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Dr. D. P. Lyle for his friendship and his invaluable medical advice and Jack R. Parker for sharing his experience on autopsy practices.

  This book would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of William Rabkin, Tod Goldberg, Kerry Donovan, and, most of all, my wife, Valerie, and my daughter, Madison.

  I look forward to hearing from you about this book, or any of the previous novels in the series, at www.diagnosis-murder.com.

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dr. Mark Sloan believed in ghosts. Not as disembodied spirits of the dead haunting the mortal world, but as shadows of the living that linger in the places we go and the things we do.

  He never saw the ghosts, but in his role as a special consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department, there came a point in every homicide investigation when he sensed their presence.

  They lurked at the edges of his awareness, as if he were sitting in a dark room, his back to the door, but with the creeping certainty that someone was standing behind him. There was always a palpable change in the air, a displacement created not by physical movement but by the tremor of intent and the rumble of imminent death.

  The ghosts that haunted Dr. Mark Sloan were the murderers he pursued. He rarely felt them while he was working a crime scene or examining a corpse. Observing stark evidence of the murderer's brutality or pleasure, rage or intellect, remorse or glory, wasn't the same as actually feeling his physicality, sensing it all around like a low, barely audible hum.

  That came later.

  Mark would methodically conduct his investigation, interviewing witnesses and suspects, studying evidence and assembling disparate facts, waiting for that moment of skin-crawling awareness when he finally felt the breath of his adversary on the back of his neck.

  In that instant he always felt fear and dread. But he also felt a dark glee—the thrill of the hunt. He knew himself well enough after sixty-some years to admit without guilt that it was this jolt as much as anything else that drove him to do this ugly work, a calling that was as vital to him as his medical career.

  Of course, whenever he embarked on a homicide investigation, he knew there was a killer out there even if he hadn't yet felt his existence. So when the moment came, it was never a surprise. He expected it. He welcomed it.

  This time was different.

  His investigation didn't begin with a murder. It began with a coincidence at Community General Hospital in West Los Angeles, where Mark was the chief of internal medicine. He had a nagging instinct that something wasn't right, that somehow the natural course of events was out of balance, tipped by an invisible hand.

  The more he had looked into things over the past couple of days, the more his uneasiness had grown, taking on shape and substance. That morning, he awoke fully alert in the predawn darkness of his bedroom, hearing only the gentle lapping of the waves outside his Malibu beach house. But he strained to hear something else, the sound that had awakened him.

  The sound wasn't outside. It was the pounding of his heart. It was the rush of blood moving through his veins.

  It was fear.

  It was the awareness of a subtle shift in his environment. He wasn't alone. There was a presence with him now. A ghost.

  A killer.

  It was a sensation so visceral that it raised goose bumps on his flesh and left him trembling. He had to fight the childish urge to pull the covers over his head and hide.

  But he knew that wouldn't protect him. There was no escaping what haunted him. The killer felt close because he was lurking somewhere deep in Mark's psyche.

  The identity of his adversary was hiding in the facts Mark already knew, waiting to be revealed in that instant of astonishing clarity when the thousands of bits of information he'd assembled aligned themselves like pixels to become a sharp image.

  The key to making that alignment happen was recognizing some overlooked fact, by looking at what he knew from another perspective. Sometimes all it took was a word, a smell, or a specific image to make it all happen.

  Feeling the presence of a killer was one thing, but proving he was there and catching him were quite another. That was Mark's mission today. He was determined to go through everything once more, to find the answers that eluded him.

  He got out of bed, took a scalding shower, dressed for work, and was on the road by seven, driving south into the swirls of gray fog that drifted off the ocean and rolled over the Pacific Coast Highway, lapping up against the bluffs of Santa Monica like the surf.

  He exited the highway in Santa Monica and climbed the steep California Incline, the aging roadway up to Ocean Avenue that was carved out of the eroding cliff decades ago and reinforced with poured concrete. The California Incline always struck Mark as a grandiose name for something as mundane as a retaining wall with a road on top.

  Once he got onto the palm-lined Ocean Avenue, the Champs-Elysees of homelessness, he turned left onto Wilshire Boulevard. The street was choked with traffic as far east as he could see, turning what should have been a straight shot to Community General Hospital into an agonizing crawl. Mark didn't bother taking one of the many elaborate alternate routes on residential streets, knowing they were just as bad, a jittery journey between Stop signs that gave the illusion of faster movement but the reality of motion sickness.

  Sitting behind the wheel of his rented Ford Five Hundred, Mark was frustrated and impatient, acutely aware of his hard plastic surroundings. The car also had faux burled walnut trim seemingly designed by someone who'd heard about wood but had never actually seen any.

  The slow-moving cars crowded around him. He could feel their pressure, as if the walls of his car were crushing in on him. He choked on the exhaust fumes that seeped into the cabin despite the closed windows and sealed vents. But most of all, he felt the killer in the car with him, sneering at his discomfort and powerlessness.

  Murder gives you power, Mark. There 's nothing else like it. You ought to try it sometime. You'll feel great.

  He glanced at the empty passenger seat. Was this the ghost of the killer whispering to him or the collected shadows of all the murderers he'd pursued? Or was it some nightmarish aspect of his soul? He wondered then, as he often did, if it was really possible to come face-to-face with so many killers and not be infected, even a little, by their evil.

  Not so long ago, Mark was shaken by the discovery that one of his closest friends, a doctor he'd known most of his life, was a serial killer. For decades, Mark's friend had spent his days relieving pain and suffering and his nights inflicting it. The revelation made Mark question many of his basic assumptions about life, about medicine, and about himself.

  Over the last forty years, he'd been told many times that he had a gift for solving murders and capturing killers, a unique ability to see patterns and connections where others saw only a blur of information.

  But what if his gift was actually a mutated curse? What if he was so good at catching killers because, at some level, he thought the same way they did? Or worse, was driven by the same desires?

  Mark shared this fear with his forty-something son, Steve, an LAPD homicide lieutenant, during an evening walk on the beach.

  "Of course you think like them," Steve said. "They're hunters and so are you. You just have different prey. And you don't kill what you catch."

  "Several of the murderers I've caught have been executed," Mark said. "I watched them die."

  "Only because they asked you to be there so they could enjoy one last act of manipulation, and inflict just a little more
misery, before they died. You've never killed anyone."

  "Not with my own hand." Mark knew his son had killed in the line of duty, but he'd never summoned the courage to ask Steve what it felt like.

  "Did you enjoy watching them die?" Steve asked.

  What about you, Steve? Mark thought. His son watched those executions unblinkingly, without the slightest hesitation.

  When Steve killed someone in self-defense, those terrible experiences happened quickly, in the heat of battle. But Mark couldn't help wondering if Steve found it exciting, too. Was there just a little thrill involved? Was it the adrenaline rush of survival, or something darker?

  Mark shook his head, more to clear his thoughts than to respond to Steve's question. "Witnessing those executions made me sick."

  "That's what sets you apart," Steve said. "That's what makes you human and them inhuman. You've spent your career saving lives, not taking them."

  Mark often thought about that conversation, about what was said and what wasn't.

  His investigations had led to many murderers being imprisoned for life or sentenced to death. He wondered if he could pursue killers with the same zeal if he had to carry out the sentences himself.

  He didn't find the answer to that question, or any others, during his commute that morning. When he finally arrived at Community General, he sped up to the second tier of the parking structure and pulled into his reserved spot, coming up just short of tapping his front bumper against the concrete pillar, the sure sign of a man in a hurry.

  But despite his short, tiresome journey and a mild case of claustrophobia, he didn't hurry to get out of his charmless rental car. Instead he sat there for a long moment, disoriented and disturbed, as if he'd just this instant awakened instead of an hour ago.

  It's nothing a hot cup of coffee and a surge of caffeine won't cure, he told himself.

  Mark emerged from his car just as Dr. Jesse Travis strode out of the ER like a man who'd been released from prison. He was wearing a lab coat over his wrinkled blue scrubs, his hair was askew, and a day's stubble showed on his face. There was a surprising spring in his step, though, considering he probably hadn't slept much in the last twenty-four hours.

  Many people were quick to misjudge Jesse, taking his boundless enthusiasm and boyish demeanor as signs of inexperience and immaturity. But in a medical crisis he became a different person, displaying a confidence and calm authority that eluded him in every other aspect of his life.

  The two men, the mentor and his apprentice, met in the middle of the steep incline leading up to the next level of the parking garage.

  "Good morning, Jesse. Coming off a rough shift?"

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "I assume every shift is rough," Mark said.

  "This was worse than most. I'd be glad to wow you with tales of my medical heroism, but I've got to get home. Susan and I only have a two-hour overlap before she starts her shift, and that doesn't give us much time to—"

  Mark interrupted. "I get the picture."

  Jesse and his wife, Susan, a nurse at Community General, were longtime lovers who were still adjusting to becoming husband and wife.

  "I'd like to meet the cruel administrator who scheduled us on opposite shifts," Jesse said. "We never see each other lately."

  "It makes you two appreciate one another even more."

  Jesse narrowed his eyes at Mark. "Spoken like someone in charge of scheduling."

  Mark raised his hands, begging off. "It wasn't me."

  "But it's worked out for you. There's nothing to get in the way of me devoting all my free time to those files you want me to go through."

  "See—there's a positive side to everything."

  Jesse still regarded Mark suspiciously. "After I've had a couple hours of sleep, I'll get back to it."

  "Let me know when you find something."

  "I can't help noticing that you said when, not if," Jesse said. "You still think there's something there?"

  Mark nodded. "I know there is."

  Jesse studied Mark. "I believe it. You've got that look."

  "What look?"

  "Like you're staring right through me at the sonofabitch." Jesse gave Mark a smile and glanced at his watch. "Yikes! I've got to go. I'll meet you at Barbeque Bob's for lunch."

  "I'm buying," Mark said.

  "At the restaurant your son and I own," Jesse said. "Do you really think I'd take your money?"

  "You didn't have a problem taking it when you were looking for investors."

  Jesse pondered that for a moment. "Come to think of it, you're right. Now that I'm saving up to buy a house, the idea of you slowly paying off my debt to you makes sound financial sense to me. I'll show up for lunch hungry."

  As Jesse hurried towards his car, he caught a movement in his peripheral vision. It was a car coming down from the next floor. The old Camaro glided out of the murk like a shark, picking up speed. The driver was hidden behind deeply tinted glass, which only added to the car's aura of menace.

  There was also something unsettlingly deliberate about the way it was rolling forward. It took a second before Jesse realized consciously what he knew instinctively.

  The driver was adjusting his steering, keeping Mark dead center in front of him.

  Dead center.

  At that instant the car shot forward, the engine roaring, the tires squealing, the deafening sounds echoing off the walls of the parking structure.

  Jesse shouted Mark's name in warning.

  Mark turned and saw the car bearing down on him, the dirty chrome grill like fangs with flesh caught between the teeth, and he knew several truths at once.

  This wasn't an accident. There was no time for escape. And he was going to die.

  But the impact he felt next wasn't from the car. It came from the side, knocking him off his feet. Mark saw the concrete rushing up to his face and took an instant of solace in the knowledge that he wouldn't hear the sickening, wet smack or feel the excruciating pain. All he would know would be a deep, never-ending night.

  And as he was thinking that, his night came.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The first thing Mark became aware of was the pain. He grabbed it like a rope and used it to climb his way into awareness. The closer he got to consciousness, the greater the pain became, until it felt like an ax was buried in his skull.

  He wanted to shrink away from the pain and fall back into the senseless depths from which he'd risen. But he fought the temptation. He kept his grip on the rim of consciousness by trying to recognize other sensations sharing the bandwidth with his pain.

  He smelled the aroma of disinfectants, soap, and rubbing alcohol and recognized it as what passed for fresh air within the walls of Community General Hospital. The realization grounded him, strengthening his hold on consciousness. He was in the hospital.

  Was he asleep on his office couch?

  No, the sounds were wrong. He was hearing electronic hums, clicks, and beeps, the cicadas of the intensive care unit.

  Had he fallen asleep in a chair while watching over a patient? Was his head aching from lolling at an uncomfortable angle for too long?

  No, he was lying flat. His head was on a pillow.

  As the murk in his mind began to clear, he became aware of other irritations: the catheter, the IV in his left arm, the electrodes on his chest, and the oxygen cannula in his nostrils.

  With those sensations came an obvious realization that nonetheless came only gradually to him: He was a patient in the ICU.

  How could that be? What had happened to him?

  He tried to open his eyes, but it was like bench-pressing weights with his eyelids, an effort that required the full measure of his meager concentration and nearly sent him plummeting back into unconsciousness.

  What saved him from slipping back was someone dabbing a wet towel against his brow. He focused on that, the moisture and the relief, and then his eyes opened and he found himself trying to focus his blurry vision on a woman's face.

/>   Mark blinked hard and the image sharpened. It was an ICU nurse that he knew. But he couldn't remember her name; he was having a hard enough time just keeping her face in focus. Seeing her, however, confirmed his conclusions about where he was and his present circumstances.

  The nurse was a slender Asian woman in her early thirties with a bright smile and perfect teeth.

  "Welcome back, Dr. Sloan."

  He tried to speak, but couldn't summon his voice. She placed a hand gently on his chest to soothe him.

  "Take it easy. I know you've got lots of questions. I'll get Dr. Noble."

  She left before he could try to say anything.

  Mark glanced at the machines around the room and studied the readout from the cardiac monitor. There was nothing irregular about his EKG or his blood pressure, and there was no breathing tube down his throat.

  That was a good start.

  Besides his agonizing headache, which probably accounted for his blurred vision and disorientation, he wasn't aware of any other pain.

  He tried flexing his fingers and toes, then lifting his arms and legs. They were stiff, but otherwise normal. No broken limbs or paralysis. He made fists, then rubbed his hands together to test his sense of touch. Everything was okay. In fact, he was even able to reach out, pick up a plastic cup from his bedside table, and take a sip of water.

  The headache seemed to be his only ailment. He raised a hand and gingerly explored his head. There were stitches above his brow and some swelling.

  He let his gaze drift around his cubbyhole in the ICU. There were several fresh bouquets, the "get well" arrangement from the gift shop downstairs, and two others that were wilting. There were also some gift boxes of candy neatly stacked next to the flowers. Two of the boxes had been opened and freely sampled, suggesting that someone got bored sitting at his bedside. A paperback copy of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, with a deeply creased spine, was on the chair, suggesting that his visitor wasn't Steve. His son would have left some issues of Sports Illustrated and Guns & Ammo.