Hearts of Sand(20)

“Not yet.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry. He’s coming in on the noon train, and the chief of police himself is going to meet him.”

“Has anybody told him that the state forensics lab lost its certification?” Evaline asked.

“I don’t know. Do you want me to call the police and ask?”

“No, really, that’s all right. If he doesn’t know already, he’ll know soon enough. Did we remember to get him his car and driver?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “Of course. You checked all that out last week.”

“I just want to make sure everything is in order,” Evaline said. “When this is over, I never have to see any of it again.”

“Right,” Jenny said, teetering a little. “There’s something I forgot. We got a call from the Office of Health Care Access.”

“The Office of Health Care Access. That’s one we haven’t dealt with before.”

“The woman who called is sending over some papers,” Jenny said, “so I suppose we should read those. It was something about something being wrong at Tim Brand’s clinic.”

“Something being wrong that has to do with health care access? Really? The man provides free health care services to strays who wander in from Bridgeport.”

“She said something about the rules for emergency rooms.”

Evaline had been leafing through the messages, putting aside the ones she thought might be important. When she heard “emergency rooms,” she looked up.

“Somebody called from something called the Office of Health Care Access, talking about Tim Brand’s clinic and emergency rooms?”

“Exactly,” Jenny said. “But Tim Brand runs a clinic, not an emergency room. There’s an emergency room at the hospital. I tried to explain that to her, but she wasn’t listening, and then she said that she’d send over these papers. So I figure we just have to get the papers and read them.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Evaline said.

“I don’t see how.”

“I knew she was going to do something,” Evaline said. “I just didn’t know what. I wonder if she really thinks she’s going to get away with this.”

“Who’s going to get away with what?”

“She can’t imagine nobody will trace it back to her,” Evaline said. “The only hope she’s got is that it will take longer to trace than it takes her to get elected to the United States Senate. And I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Jenny brightened. “Oh, you mean Mrs. Westervan. Is she head of the Office of Health Care Access?”

“No,” Evaline said.

She got up from behind her desk and started pacing.

Evaline Veer had never much liked Virginia Brand Westervan, and she liked her less and less as the years went by.

“Damn,” Evaline said, sitting down again.

Jenny looked uncertain. “Are you all right? Can I get you something?”

“Yes,” Evaline said. “Get me Tim Brand. Get him out of bed. I don’t care. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll be in this office in under half an hour.”

2

There were two times in the last two weeks when Kyle Westervan thought he might have pushed this thing too far, and both times he turned out to be wrong.

The first time was, of course, the night Chapin Waring had been murdered. There was no scenario on earth that started with Chapin Waring being murdered—even thousands of miles away in a brothel in Bangkok—that didn’t end in a hailstorm of Federal agents from one end of Connecticut to another.

He’d sat in his office in New York for days, waiting. He’d ridden home in his Saab every night very late, waiting. He’d woken up every morning in his bed at home, waiting. The waiting had felt like one of those long, slow nightmares where you know you’re asleep, but can’t make it out the other side no matter what you do.

And then nothing had happened. The Waring house was cordoned off as a crime scene. There were two officers stationed at the end of the drive at all times. There was another officer stationed on the patio in back, where the house overlooked the sea. People came and went, but nobody knocked on his door or called his office to ask anything about where he had been at the time of the crime.

The other time Kyle had been sure everything was about to fall on his head was last Saturday, when Hope Matlock called. Kyle got the impression that Hope was living hand to mouth these days. She was obviously not skipping any meals, but he thought that might be because she was skipping out on the utilities or making some other accommodation he found completely outside the pale. She was also very nervous. Talking to her was like plucking on a taut elastic band. She jumped if you did anything unexpected. She always seemed on the verge of tears.