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Fountain of Death(70)

By:Jane Haddam


“On television, he was standing behind Tony Bandero,” Haraldsen pointed out.

“On television, everybody stands behind Tony Bandero,” Philip Brye said.

“We’re the ones brought the Cardinale woman in here,” Mordeck said. “Next door neighbor heard her vomiting and called us. Don’t ask me why she didn’t call an ambulance.”

“She told us why she didn’t call an ambulance,” Haraldsen said. “She wanted to be sure somebody had the authority to break down the door.”

“We called the ambulance and then we waited,” Mordeck said, “and then we came right in behind them.”

“I think they got there faster because it was us who called,” Haraldsen added.

“Anyway, we’ve been hanging around here ever since.” Tom Mordeck looked a little guilty. “Don’t ask me why. The whole thing just felt wrong, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t having the right kind of fits. I mean—”

“Jesus,” Haraldsen said.

“There’s a way they have fits when they’ve taken too many tranquilizers and there’s a way they have fits when they’ve taken too much dope, and this wasn’t either of them,” Mordeck said stubbornly. “I mean, for Christ’s sake. I’ve picked up enough of these guys. I know what I’m looking at when I see it.”

“Why don’t we just go see Pete Lindner,” Philip Brye suggested. “Have either of you two notified anybody official about this?”

The two officers looked confused. “Who’s to notify?” Haraldsen asked. “Do you mean, have we filed a report?”

Philip Brye shot his eyebrows up his forehead, looking at Gregor. “I hate to do this to you, but under the circumstances, I think it might be a good idea if they called Tony.”

“I know,” Gregor said sadly.

Tom Mordeck seemed stunned. “You want us to call in Bandero? He’ll turn the place into a circus. He’ll bring five television reporters with him. He’ll make everybody nuts.”

“It’s his case,” Philip Brye said.

“The only case that ever matters to Bandero is the case he’s got on himself,” Mordeck said. “Why don’t you two guys just wrap this one up and save his appearance for the press conference?”

Gregor Demarkian could see the elegance of this course of action. It was the course he would have taken himself if he could have thought of any way to justify it. There was no way to justify it. Jurisdiction mattered, even when it was held by a publicity-seeking jerk who only wanted in so that he could get his name in the papers.

Gregor Demarkian had known a lot of publicity-seeking jerks in his career, the most notable of them being J. Edgar Hoover himself. Before Tony Bandero, however, he had never known one who took such unhampered glee in the whole process; Even good old J. Edgar had at least pretended to be “a very private person.” Tony might be that rarity of rarities, a budding celebrity who would come out and say what everybody knew about him anyway: that he loved the hell out of publicity and wanted to live as public a life as possible.

Tom Mordeck and Ray Haraldsen were leading the way down a gleaming polished hallway into the bowels of the emergency room, their guns bumping against their hips as they went.





2


DR. PETER LINDNER WAS not the doctor who had actually taken care of Traci Cardinale, and pumped her stomach, and assigned a nurse to monitor her vital signs. Dr. Lindner was the head of emergency medicine for the entire Yale-New Haven complex, which made him much too important to do any of that. He sat in a large office with charts hanging from hooks on the walls and books piled every which way on the built-in shelves, but his own desk was scrupulously clean. He was, Gregor thought, like one of those executives from the largest corporations, who proved how well they delegated responsibility by showing how little paperwork they had on their desks to do. Dr. Peter Lindner himself did not look like the head of a large corporation. In spite of the Nordic sound of his name, he was small and dark and more Italian looking than Tony Bandero. The tops of his hands were covered with dark black hairs. His eyebrows met together over the bridge of his nose. His body was short-legged and long-trunked, the standard Mediterranean peasant’s. Gregor wondered where the “Lindner” had come from.

“It was Rama Kadhi who took care of her,” Lindner told Gregor and Philip Brye when he had gotten them both settled. He was passing out cups of coffee. Gregor didn’t know what it was, but all the police and emergency room people he ever met had near-obsessions with making sure their guests had coffee. “Kadhi’s a very good man in emergency, very competent and very calm, but I think he’s a little confused. He’s only been over from India for about two years, and then it took a while to transfer his accreditations. In fact, accreditations are the only reason I have him now. He has to complete the equivalent of an internship and residency to satisfy the board. After that, I suppose he’ll move out to the suburbs and start charging by the hour.”