Thirty-Three
Arn stayed at the house until the city police took the report. They spread copious amounts of fingerprint powder around the door and lock and photographed the indistinct footprint on the porch, scuffed from Arn stepping over it in his pursuit of the intruder. The evidence tech had just left when an alarm company technician pulled to the curb in front to install a new unit. He assured Arn the new wireless system didn’t depend on phone lines to alert the police dispatcher.
“Good thing ol’ Sonny here was around,” Danny said as he passed Arn and Ana Maria cups of coffee, “to tell you someone was breaking into the house.”
Arn admitted the dog had woken him when the would-be intruder was on the porch. He had to concede that Sonny was the hero of the night, and by the time he left the house this morning, Danny had guilt-tripped him into allowing the dog to stay. “As long as he doesn’t sit on my feet with those … hairy nuts.”
Danny shrugged. “I can’t promise that. I’m surely not going to shave him, if that’s what you’re hinting at. Sonny is his own man. Or in his case, his own dog. Me and Sonny will be holding down the fort.” Danny locked the door and armed the system after they left.
Ana Maria slid into the passenger seat of Arn’s 4-4-2. “Had to be Jillie and Don’s killer last night?”
“That’s not the only enemy I’ve made recently,” Arn said. “Don’t forget Karen Glass.”
“And you can’t rule her out? She’s a ranch girl. Probably strong as most men.”
“I ran that through my mind this past night,” Arn said. “And just because her bond conditions say that she’s to have no contact with me, I doubt that piece of paper would stop her from coming around. But what I don’t know is why risk getting caught coming into our house when we’re no closer to catching the killer than we were when this started.”
“Maybe he—or she—thinks we’re closer than we are,” Ana Maria said.
Arn fished into his pocket for his keys when his cell phone rang. “Chief Oblanski asked me to send a patrol deputy to hunt up Eddie and Karen Glass this morning,” Slade said. “They were still in bed when my officer banged on their door an hour ago.”
“And they couldn’t have been acting as if they just woke up?”
“Could have,” Slade said. “But my deputy’s pretty sharp. He believes them when they told him they were sleeping all night.”
“What did your best friend have to say?” Ana Maria asked when Arn disconnected.
“He said Eddie and Karen were sleeping this morning when his deputy rattled their cage.”
“And they couldn’t have faked it?”
“That was my first thought,” Arn said. He stuck the key in the ignition but Ana Maria stopped him. “If you drive this thing like an old man again, I’m walking.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Well, blow the doors off some Camaro or Mustang once in a while,” Ana Maria answered. “You got a 4-5-5 under the hood, Arn. Drive it like it’s hot. And I know it is, ’cause I put that Quick Fuel carb on myself. How else are you going to pick up chicks?”
“The only thing I’ll pick up if I drive like you want me to is some tickets and higher insurance premiums.”
Ana Maria shook her head and pushed in the 8-track tape. Music blasted from the rear speakers. “What the hell is that?” she asked as she turned down the volume.
“Zamfir,” Arn answered. “Playing the pan flute. It’s his latest hit album.”
Ana Maria groaned. “Get some Three Dog Night tapes. Santana. Something lively.”
“I could pop in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir—”
“Don’t you dare,” she said.
They drove the tree-lined historic streets of Moore Haven Heights on the way to Dr. Oakert’s house. Arn turned onto 5th and pulled to the curb in front of the doctor’s brick home. “Let me do the talking,” Ana Maria said. “If he still thinks there’s a dinner date in our future, he might cough up some more info this time.”
Arn followed her up the steps. When she got no answer ringing the doorbell, she walked back down and bent to the bay window facing the street. She cupped her hand over her eyes and looked in. “His computer monitor is lit up. He’s got to be in there.”
Arn banged on the door so hard he thought it would break the hinges, then banged again between ringing the doorbell.
Ana Maria jumped back. “Shit! He scared the hell outta me.”
“Who?”
“Maury. He looked out the window as I was peeking in.”
Arn slammed his hand into the door with enough force that the sound echoed off nearby trees, and finally the door cracked an inch. “Go away,” Dr. Oakert said.
“We need to talk, Doctor.”
“Leave me alone.”
“A few minutes.” Ana Maria beamed her widest smile. “Just give us a couple minutes.”
Dr. Oakert shut the door and the chain rattled on the other side. He opened the door and peeked out quickly before slamming it shut after they had entered.
As Arn’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he took in a quick breath. Dr. Oakert’s four-day growth of stubble showed scraggly and graying. His droopy lids rimmed his bloodshot and sunken eyes, and he wore his thick glasses askew on his face. In short, it looked as if he’d aged ten years in the past week. Especially without his toupee. He carried a pistol beside his leg and he looked wild-eyed at them. “I’d feel better if you put that away while we talked,” Arn said.
“I’ll feel better if I have it,” Dr. Oakert said. “You want to talk or not?”
The doctor led them through the house, past his computer and over and around trash, into the kitchen. Arn was sure the dishes piled in the sink and spilling onto the counter were the same as the ones he’d seen on his last visit. Dr. Oakert set his gun on the kitchen table next to a clump of dried food and shoved a partially eaten and moldy Swanson’s TV dinner aside. “I’d offer coffee, but you’re not going to be here long enough.” He motioned to chairs around the table.
Ana Maria leaned over and laid her hand on Dr. Oakert’s arm, but he jerked away. “What’s wrong, Maury?”
Dr. Oakert rubbed his eyes as he focused on her. “Why do you think there’s anything wrong?”
“Because you haven’t been to your office in two weeks and you look as if you haven’t slept in a month. And this—” She pointed to the gun. “Thought you never had use for them.”
“So, I had a revelation.” Dr. Oakert grew silent as he stared at the floor.
Arn scooted his chair closer to the doctor, and his gun. Given Oakert’s state of mind, he wasn’t sure what he might do. “We’re here to talk about that special patient of yours—”
“Never mind him—”
“—that visited you recently.”
“How do you know that?”
“SWAG,” Arn answered. “Scientific Wild Assed Guess.”
Dr. Oakert rubbed his rummy eyes again. He cupped his mouth with his hand as if he would be heard and whispered, “He came here a couple days after I closed my office. Right after you left. He dared come to my house. He threatened me.”
“If you exposed him?”
Dr. Oakert nodded. “He said if I told anyone about him, he’d do to me what he did to Jillie and Don Whales. And all the others.”
“What others?” Arn pressed. “Who else has he killed besides Jillie and Don?”
The doctor looked at a spot in the corner of the room.
“Maury,” Ana Maria said. She laid her hand on his trembling arm, but this time he didn’t jerk away. “Let us help you. Tell us about this man, and we’ll see that you have protection.”
Dr. Oakert paused as if weighing the offer. “I can’t. He’s still my patient, and I cannot break that trust.”
“Don’t you think his threats breached that trust?”
Dr. Oakert stared at Ana Maria. “He’s sick,” he began. “In time, I know he will recover. In time, he will get his urges under control, like he did before. And he will be a fine person once again. I cannot help you find him.”
“This’s just stupid,” Arn said. “One of your patients threatens you bad enough that you fear for your life and buy a gun, and you still won’t lift a finger to help yourself?”
“If I’m wrong about him”—Dr. Oakert tapped his gun—“I’ve got this.”
“When was the last time you shot it?”
“Never have. I just bought it.”
“I bet you don’t even know how to operate it,” Arn said.
“The man at the gun store showed me.”
Arn threw up his hands. “This is just stupid. Don’t bank on that piss-ant little gun to save your ass. Any man powerful enough to overpower someone as big as Don Whales is certainly powerful enough to take that and shove it—”Arn stood and walked away from the table before he might slap the doctor senseless.
“Give us something to go on,” Ana Maria said. “Anything that’ll help us find this man without breaching your confidentiality.”
Dr. Oakert looked up at her.
“Before he kills again.”
“He won’t.”
“If you believed that you wouldn’t have bought the gun,” Ana Maria pointed out. “Please.”
Dr. Oakert rested his elbows on the table into a glob of grape jelly, but he paid it no mind and held his head in his hands. “He’s a ghost of patients past.”
“What ghost, Maury? What patients?”
“That’s all I can say. Now leave. I don’t want you two hurt if he returns.”
Arn and Ana Maria stood and started out of the kitchen with the doctor following, his gun held loosely beside his leg. Napa Hospital was displayed on his computer screen, along with a list of patients, Ana Maria paused to read it but Dr. Oakert hurriedly shut the computer down. “Leave,” he said.
They passed through his study and the wall lined with appreciation letters and commendations. “When did you move to Cheyenne?” Arn asked.
“Three years ago.”
“When you retired from practice in California?”
Dr. Oakert grimaced. “I called it voluntary retirement. I got tired of dealing with the criminally insane.”
“Like your special patient here in Cheyenne? Was he your patient in Napa as well?”
Dr. Oakert’s eye twitched. A micro-tic that told Arn he’d touched a nerve.
Unlocking the three locks, the doctor opened the door just far enough to allow Arn and Ana Maria to leave before slamming it shut.
Arn looked over his shoulder. Dr. Oakert had pulled the curtain aside and watched them walk to the car. “Whether his patient killed Jillie and Don is not certain,” Arn said. “But my educated guess is that one of his patients in Napa Hospital followed the doctor here.”