The Second Opinion, page 29
“You know,” Dan said, “except for your man Prevoir you haven’t directly killed anyone as far as I know, and Prevoir was severely damaged goods. Besides, it could just as easily have been one of us shooting in self- defense. I have friends on the force. And—”
“Enough! The one inexcusable sin you can commit around here is to talk to me as if I were some kind of dolt. On my very worst day, my brain could wrap itself around yours and wring it dry. You know, Thea, it’s none of my business, but I really think you could do a lot better than this guy, here.”
“Actually, I think he’s pretty terrific.” She squeezed Dan’s hand and gave her brother time for a rebuttal, but he simply sat in the chair that was their father’s favorite, nudging at an acorn with his foot and looking amazingly like the man. “How did this happen, Dimitri?” she asked finally. “How did you get involved with Hartnett in this scheme?”
There was clearly less arrogance in Dimitri’s tone when he replied. In fact, he sounded more direct, more human, than she could remember—except for his remark to Dan about needing to tell his son he loved him before putting limits on the boy’s use of certain computer games. It was as if he had something to say, and wanted to ensure he was taken seriously.
“Actually, I wasn’t involved with Hartnett,” he began. “Hartnett was involved with me. When they were developing Thor, that’s the Beaumont’s system of electronic medical records, Hartnett knew me and put me on a retainer as a troubleshooter. And believe me, there was plenty of trouble. Before long several of the IT people had told him that the whole program would have crashed had it not been for me. He increased my hours and took me around to see some of the private doctors in action. What an education that was.”
“I think I can see what’s coming,” Thea said.
“What I saw, watching doctor after doctor sitting glued to their computer screens and making almost no eye-to- eye contact with their patients, gave me an idea.”
“Go on, please. In addition to making little eye contact with their patients, the doctors only communicated with one another through their computers, right?”
“Consultations, pathology reports, surgical notes, lab results. Because of the pressure put on them by the managed care and insurance companies, nobody had the time to communicate person- to-person with anyone. Not exactly your old horse- and-buggy house calls.”
“And with your skill, everything that’s written in a computer data base is—”
“Like a palette of paints to an artiste, or raw chicken to a gourmet chef. You got it.”
“Hartnett provided the medicine, you provided the IT.”
“Actually, sister, not to belittle your profession, but it really ain’t that hard. I read Harrison’s internal medicine text and did some other studying. Most of medicine is pretty routine.”
“I’ll agree with you there. Of course, it does help to have, like, a hundred and eighty IQ.”
“Aw, you flatter me. Hear that, Cotton? A hundred and eighty.
What’s your number?”
“No idea. I always thought it was as high as it needed to be. I know my football jersey number, though, eighty- nine. You ever play football, Dimitri?”
“Don’t goad me. I warned you once about doing that. Twice is my limit. The third time, I blow. Ask your friend Thea, there, what happens when I blow.”
“Leave him alone, Dan. I was always scared to death of him when he lost his temper. Then again, there were a lot of people who were pretty scared when I lost mine, too. Dimitri, Prevoir told us about the other patients—ones that you got paid to—”
“You know, I thought when I got to the head of the stairs back there in the hospital, that was what he was talking about, but I wasn’t close enough to hear. Bad Gerald. I suppose you believe him.”
“I do, yes. Are there reasons I shouldn’t?”
“Well, probably not. Hartnett and I were each taking a finder’s fee off the donations that people like Jack Kalishar made to the hospital, but as I said, Hartnett was greedy. Okay, okay, I’m greedy, too. When I presented my little variation on a theme to him, he jumped at it, so we hired Prevoir to be our middleman.”
At her brother’s admission, Thea felt a deep sadness wash over her. During their time growing up in this home, there was a distance between the twins and her that widened as the years passed. In school they had popularity just for being attractive and being twins. That they were bright and able only heightened their celebrity and increased their annoyance with their odd little sister. They were successful, but they were uninteresting. They were skilled, yet totally self-centered. They always won, but they were terrible winners.
Dimitri was different.
All his life that she could remember, he had been zany and unpredictable, obstinate and incorrigible. But he was also approachable and funny, self- deprecating and egomaniacal. And despite the nearly twelve-year difference in their ages, he taught her things and shared secrets with her at almost every level of her life.
“Why would you do that, Dimitri?” she asked, knowing the answer, perhaps, even more clearly than did the man himself. “How could you?”
“Boredom,” Dimitri replied lightly. “It’s like the age-old question: Why does a dog lick his genitals? Answer: because he can. It was a challenge to research our subjects and to choose enemies who might be willing to part with a large sum of money in exchange for jealousy, or revenge, or more power, or pure greed, or . . . or because they could. If I had lasted in that community college longer than the month or so I did, I would have made a hell of a psychologist. I’m proud to say that almost one hundred percent of those I researched and ultimately approached said yes to making a deal with us. Two million, three, five—we operated on a sliding scale.”
“How did you manage to switch the MRIs around?”
“I didn’t say our little operation didn’t take some work and some patience. We mostly got our patients from the executive health program at the Beaumont. They think they’re doing their clients a favor with their detailed history and all those tests. The one they’re doing a favor for is me. Information. In my world, it’s all about information. Then it was just a matter of monitoring their physician’s electronic medical records and making the switch when I saw a useful test result coming. Anything that pops up on a doctor’s screen is gospel. It’s like, look at that cute little computer. Would it ever lie to me?”
“But what about Hayley?” Thea felt pleased at seamlessly working the woman into their exchange. The more they talked about her, the more chance there was that Dimitri might slip. “She had her test done in Atlanta.”
“She could have had it done in South Africa or Bora Bora. The Internet is the Internet. Dr. Stephen Bibby, Rhoads Terrace Professional Building, Atlanta. I hacked his system—it was a piece of cake, incidentally—and monitored every test he ordered on Lady Long, waiting for one that fit with what we had in the library. It actually took most of a year before I learned that an abdominal MRI was ordered and moved to intercept it. Forty- eight-year- old woman, one hundred thirty to one hundred sixty pounds, no prior surgery, no fractures. Finding a match in my rather extensive library of films wasn’t that hard. MRIs are like looking at an anatomy text. I’ve actually become quite good at reading them.”
“So you showed me. The woman you chose to replace Hayley had calcifications in some of her abdominal lymph nodes, though, that Hayley didn’t have.”
“Nice pickup. I won’t miss those next time.”
“I can’t believe no one caught on to this.”
“We see what we wish to see, dear sister. Lydia Thibideau is spread way too thin building her pancreatic-cancer empire. She sees the cancer and ho hum, enrolls the patient in one of her studies, and then pads back to her stately office to apply for another research grant.”
Thea shook her head in utter amazement. This wasn’t her quirky, outrageous, unfocused brother speaking. This was a violin virtuoso, a batter capable of hitting a home run almost every time at bat. This was a man who could have changed the world. If only . . .
“You are the master, Dimitri,” Dan said. “I am genuinely impressed.”
There was no hint of cynicism in his voice.
“Thanks,” Dimitri replied. “I’m pretty impressed, myself.”
“Dimitri,” Thea said, “boredom may have been a factor in what you did, but I think I know now what was really driving you, and I don’t think you’re being completely honest about what your real intention was.”
For nearly a minute the only sounds were the songs of morning birds in the dense New England woods.
“I hated him,” Dimitri said suddenly.
CHAPTER 53
“I hated him more than anyone could ever imagine.”
Aching for him—for all of Petros’s children—Thea stared across at her brother, then stood and took several tentative steps toward him. He stopped her with a flick of his gun barrel, then rose and backed away, his arms extended, hands warning her.
“Dimitri—”
“I don’t need your pity or your understanding or your sympathy.”
“Dimitri, Petros didn’t know the first thing about parenting, let alone parenting children with special needs.”
“The things he said to me. The pain he caused me not by violence, not by hitting me, but by ignoring me. He gave up on me. From the very beginning because I was different, he gave up on me.”
Thea made no attempt to stem her tears.
“Dimitri, all he knew was what he got from his parents. He raised us the way he was raised. That was the best he could do. Think of how bad it would have been for us without Mom.”
“It was bad with her, at least for me it was. Listen, people came from all over the world to get a second opinion from your father,” he went on, marginally calmer. “They named an institute after him. The Petros Sperelakis Fucking Institute of Fucking Diagnostic Medicine. Maybe I didn’t have Asperger syndrome like you did, but then again, maybe I did. Your father never made any effort to find out.”
“Dimitri, he’s an internist, not a psychiatrist.”
“He was a doctor, just like you are. He could tell when someone wasn’t right—when they needed a diagnosis, when they needed help. He knew enough to understand that something exists from a person’s neck on up.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, Dimitri.”
“The great Dr. Second Opinion never made any effort to get me diagnosed and treated. And by the time I understood what had happened, it was way, way too late. I hate him more than anyone could ever imagine. It gave me joy every time I did something to disrupt his little empire. The worst thing that ever happened to me was when he started asking questions about why so many patients were being cured so easily. That’s why I had to . . .”
His voice trailed away and he stared down at the gun in his hand.
“Oh, no, Dimitri,” Thea groaned. “No! You’re the one who ran Petros down, not Hartnett.”
“And I was thrilled he ended up the way he did—at least until you came home I was.”
Dimitri’s gun hand had begun to shake. His lips were tight and bloodless.
“You didn’t hate him,” Thea said. “You were afraid of him. All of us were.”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me! I hated him. He deserved everything he’s gotten.”
“Were you the one who tried to kill me, too?”
“No. Hartnett never told me he was going to do that or I would have stopped him—at least I think I would have. Now, let’s get going. We have a plane to catch.”
“No! I’m not going.”
“The hell you’re not. You mess with me and she’s dead, Thea. Surely you’ve heard enough to know I’ll go through with that. What do I have to lose?”
“So tell me the truth, Dimitri, if you can. You have a deal with someone about Hayley, don’t you?”
Dimitri shrugged matter-of- factly.
“There’s a fellow named Gregory Rose who’s willing to part with a good deal of money—although not to him it isn’t—to keep her from causing him trouble anymore. Is that what you mean?”
“You know that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Yeah? Then why did you screw that arrangement up, too, by talking her out of continuing her treatment? Too bad. According to her medical record, which I happen to have on file up there”—he gestured to the carriage house—“she has a wicked penicillin allergy, and I was about to arrange for her next chemo treatment to contain enough penicillin to cure every case of strep throat on the East Coast. Whammo! Can you imagine it? The mother of all anaphylactic reactions. Lydia Thibideau’s chemo agent would have gotten all the blame, and I would have gotten all the cash.”
“Oh, Dimitri. You never did plan to let her live, did you?”
“You’ll just have to trust that I have decided to return the down payment and let her live. Disrupting Petros’s world just isn’t as much fun anymore. Besides, no one would ever be able to find sweet Ms. Long to validate the kill.”
“I don’t trust anything you say. Dimitri, I love you. You’re my big brother. But you’ve done some bad things—some very bad things. You’re not well and you need help. Just put the gun down and tell me where Hayley is. Please don’t let anything happen to her. She’s a very good person. There are people who can help you—meds you can take. Please.”
“I don’t need your kind of help. I-I’m upright and leaving the country, and he’s a vegetable. Don’t tell me I need help. Now, if you want your friend to live, you’ll come with me. So long as you cooperate, you have my word that Ms. Long will stay alive and well in her fortress of solitude.”
Fortress of solitude.
The words resonated in Thea’s mind. Superman had referred to his secret arctic ice palace by that name, but there was something else. . . . Something else.
“Shit!” Dimitri exclaimed at the instant Thea connected with the significance of the phrase.
“I know, Dan!” she cried out. “I know where she is!”
Muttering more obscenities, Dimitri grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward the carriage house.
At the same instant, through the corner of her eye, Thea saw Dan dive from the love seat and roll toward the gun he had tossed aside.
She went absolutely limp and dropped to the ground, but Dimitri grasped the collar of her blouse and continued dragging her toward the door.
“Don’t hurt him, Dan!” she screamed. “Please don’t hurt him!”
Dimitri kept his grip on her and turned long enough to fire off two shots at Dan. Both missed badly, sending up jets of dirt and pine needles.
When Dan reached his gun, Dimitri had shoved Thea into the carriage house and closed the massive door with his foot.
“Dimitri, please,” Thea begged. “It’s senseless now. I know where Hayley is. I remember about the fortress of solitude. Please let me help you.”
“Up!” Dimitri snarled, dragging her up the stairs.
“No!”
Halfway up to his loft Thea pulled free of his grip and rolled over against the ornate balustrade. Dimitri looked down at her, and for a moment she felt certain he was going to shoot her point- blank. He was wild-eyed—confused and absolutely frantic. This was not a puzzle he could reason out. This was not a malfunctioning computer, or a predictable video game. The variables in this scenario were changing too fast, and Thea knew that his lack of flexibility was being strained past the breaking point as he struggled to keep up.
“Dimitri, stop!” she cried as he reached the top of the staircase.
At that instant, the massive front door burst open, and Dan dove in and rolled, coming to rest in a prone shooting position, his gun pointing up the staircase.
Dimitri fired twice, splintering the floor a foot from Dan’s face.
Dan scrambled behind the door. He was now shielded and his line of fire was well clear of Thea.
“Put down the gun, Dimitri,” Dan called out. “Let us get you some help.”
“You should have just stayed with me, Thea,” Dimitri said, tears streaming down both cheeks. “You should have just come to Brazil with me and helped me get settled in a new place. I would have told you. I would have told you where she was.”
It was the first time Thea had ever seen him cry. She pulled herself to her feet and reached a hand out to him. Below her, Dan had moved to the base of the stairs. He had no cover, and his gun was fixed on Dimitri’s chest, but still he didn’t fire.
“Dimitri, it’s over,” Thea said softly. “It’s over.”
“You’re right about that,” he managed. “You could have helped me, Thea. It wouldn’t have been so hard. You could have gone with me and helped me get set up. New places can be scary, you know.”
With that he whirled and sprinted to his right, into his sleeping area. A moment later, before Thea could reach the top of the stairs, there was a single gunshot.
She cried out and ran to him. Dimitri was on his back, his head turned to one side, the pistol still in his mouth. The back of his skull had blown open. On the pillow beneath him was an expanding disc of blood. His eyes were peacefully closed. Beside him, resting beneath his hand, was a ragged, filthy stuffed animal—a lion no more than eight inches high, with most of its mane and the tuft at the end of its tail still largely intact. From her earliest memories, Thea had associated the animal—Rex, she clearly remembered—with her brother, but she had no memory of seeing it with him since he began living in the carriage house, maybe twenty years ago.
A lion.
Thea knelt beside him and gently moved the gun aside.
“Oh, Dimitri,” she said, making no attempt to wipe her own tears, “oh, baby, I am so sorry.”
Dan moved behind her and set his hands on her shoulders.
“He missed me on purpose, Thea,” he said. “He was a terrific marksman. You saw the shot he made in the hospital. He could have put me away with every shot he made. He wanted me to kill him. He wanted me to end it.”
