Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(82)

"The laugh was a good touch, Peabody."

"Thanks. I thought it added just the right tone. Boy." She scanned the waiting area. It was full, jammed with people in varying forms of distress. A good many of them made the badasses across the street look like boy scouts, but they sat, and they waited.

The room was clean. Fresh paint, spotless rug, thriving plants. A portion was sectioned off and held child-sized chairs and toys. In it she saw a boy of about four rhythmically bashing a boy of about two over the head with a foam mallet. He punctuated each bash with a cheerful: "Bang!"

"Shouldn't somebody make him stop doing that?" Eve wondered.

"Huh? Oh, no sir. He's just doing his job. Older siblings have to beat on younger ones. Zeke used to just about drill a hole in my ribs with his finger. I really miss him."

"Whatever." Baffled, Eve walked to the reception desk.

They were shown into Louise's office. However much the clinic had evolved, Louise's space was still small, still cramped. The clinic's benefactors needn't worry that the doctor was using their contributions to plump her own work nest.

Eve used the wait time to check on any voice or e-mail that had come into her unit at Central, stewing when she found one, very brief transmission from Roarke.

Louise dashed in, a pale green lab coat over jeans and a white T-shirt. Something that looked like curdled milk dribbled down the breast of the lab coat.

"Hi, gang. Coffee! I've got ten minutes. Spill it."

"You've already spilled it." Eve gestured to the dribble.

"Oh, I'm running peds today. Just a little baby puke."

"Oh. Bleck."

With a chuckle, Louise grabbed coffee from the Auto-Chef. "I imagine you come home some days with a lot more interesting bodily fluids on your clothes than a little harmless baby puke. So?" She sat on the edge of the desk, then sighed. "Ah, I'm off my feet. Feels almost better than sex. What can I do for you?"

"Are you up on the story about the two murdered college kids?"

"I've caught the media reports. Nadine's particularly." She blew on her coffee, drank. "Why?"

"I'm working on a theory that the individual who killed them may be sick, even dying. Some disease, some condition."

"Why?"

"It's a complicated theory."

"I've got ten minutes." She dug in her lab coat pocket and came up with a red lollipop to go with her coffee. "You'll have to simplify it."

"There's an old superstition about absorbing the soul through the camera. I think he may be taking it to another level. He talks about their light-pure light. And how they belong to him now. It could be reaching, but what if he thinks he needs their light to live?"

"Mmm." Louise sucked on the lollipop. "Interesting."

"If he does, then it may follow he got some bad news regarding his life expectancy at some point. Don't you guys call tumors and masses, the bad stuff, shadows?"

"A tumor, a mass, would show as a kind of shadow-a dark spot-on an X ray or ultrasound."

"Those are like images, right? Like pictures?"

"Yes, exactly. I see where you're going, but I'm not sure how I can help."

"You know doctors, and they know other doctors. You know hospitals and health centers. I need to know who's gotten bad news in the last twelve months. I can fine-tune that to male patients between the ages of twenty-five and sixty."

"Oh well then, piece of cake." Louise shook her head, and drained her coffee. "Dallas, even with cancer vaccines, early diagnosis, the success rates of treatments, there are quite a number of people who fall to incurable or inoperable conditions. Add to those, the ones who for whatever reason refuse treatment-religious reasons, fear factor, stubbornness, ignorance-and you've got hundreds just in Manhattan. Maybe thousands."

"I can cull through that."

"Maybe you can, but there's one big problem. It's called doctor-patient confidentiality. I can't give you names, and neither can any other reputable doctor or health care provider."

"He's a killer, Louise."

"Yes, but the others aren't, and are entitled to their privacy. I'll ask around, but no one's going to give me names and I couldn't, in good conscience, give them to you."

Irritated, Eve paced the limited confines of the office while Louise pulled another lollipop out of her pocket and offered it to Peabody.

"Lime. Thanks."

"Sugar-free."

"Bummer," Peabody replied, but ripped off the clear wrapping.

Eve huffed out a breath, settled herself. "Tell me this. What kind of shadow is most usually a death sentence?"

"You don't ask easy ones. Assuming the patient took the recommended vaccines, went in for routine annual exams so early detection was a factor, I'd go for the brain. Providing the mass hasn't spread, we can remove, kill, or shrink most bad cells, or if necessary, replace the involved organ. We can't replace the brain. And," she added, setting her empty cup aside, "this is ridiculously hypothetical."

"Gotta start somewhere. Maybe you can talk to your brain doctor pals. The individual remains highly functional, able to plan and execute complicated acts. He's articulate and he's mobile."