Tail Spin

Why all this denial? Savich wondered. Or had his brain simply reduced it to nothing, only a footnote, and who cared? Savich said, “And the bomb in your plane?”

There was dismissal in his light voice. “That’s a no-brainer. Jackson’s a federal cop, he has enemies, don’t you think? Bad guys who want revenge?”

Savich met Sherlock’s eyes for a moment, then focused again on Dr. MacLean’s face, those gray eyes clear now, filled with sharp intelligence, insult, and fear. “You don’t remember speaking about three of your patients to Arthur Dolan?”

His clear, smart eyes focused solidly on Savich’s face. Anger washed color over his pale face. “What the devil do you mean? Tell tales of my patients to a friend? Naturally not. What kind of professional ethics do you think I have? Besides, I told you, we only talked about sports.”

Down the rabbit hole, Savich thought. He said patiently, “No, sir, it has nothing to do with your ethics, it has to do with your disease.

“When we were investigating the first attempt on your life, we found a bartender at your golf club in Chevy Chase who’s known you and admired you for years. He said he remembers listening to you speak to Arthur Dolan over martinis. He remembers you speaking about three of your patients, all well known, and that’s why the bartender listened, and didn’t forget.” Unfortunately, the bartender had been working so he didn’t hear all that much, but enough to know something was very wrong.

Dr. MacLean looked affronted, then, inexplicably, the anger and insult died out of his eyes and he began to laugh. The laugh must have hurt his ribs or his chest because he drew up short, breathed lightly for a moment, then said, his voice suddenly confiding, deep and rich, like a storyteller’s, “Was one of the names Lomas Clapman?”

“Yes,” Savich said. “Why don’t you tell us about him.”

Dr. MacLean’s eyes glittered; he looked suddenly revved, excited, and there was something mischievous in his manner, like he was flirting with make-believe and being drawn right into it. “Clapman’s an idiot, a buffoon, all puffed up in his belief he’s got the biggest brain in the known universe. He worships himself, lives happily mired in self-deception. Ah, how he hates Bill Gates. He always calls Gates ‘a little bugger. ’ I mentioned that many people think Bill Gates is not only extraordinarily smart, he’s a stand-up guy, what with his foundation doing more good for people than any of the so-called relief agencies. Why not see if he could outdo Gates’s foundation? He could certainly afford it.

“You see, I was trying to pull him away from this obsession he has with Gates, trying to channel his energies toward a positive goal. It didn’t work. He yelled at me. You know what? I leaned back in my chair and laughed back at him. He threw a paperweight at me and stormed out.” Dr. MacLean shook his head, still laughing. “What an unprincipled yahoo. I didn’t see him again after that. He didn’t even call to cancel his weekly appointments.”

Before the disease had struck him, Sherlock doubted she would have ever heard Dr. MacLean speak in that sneering, dismissive, mocking voice about a patient. Had he really laughed at his patient? She doubted it. She wondered if he would remember speaking like this to her and Dillon. She said, “Did Mr. Clapman tell you anything that, if made public, could hurt him?”

“Yes, certainly,” MacLean said, no hesitation at all, not a single protest about physician ethics or scruples. “Lomas built his company on the back of his supposed best friend and partner. He sold his first plane design, some sort of low-flying tactical aircraft, to the government back in the early eighties—fact was, Lomas stole his friend’s idea and schematics right out from under him. His partner was an inventor, his head in a different reality, and he didn’t even notice when Lomas put the patents under his own name. As for the partnership agreement, it didn’t cover the patents. The poor schmuck killed himself maybe fifteen years ago, dead broke. Can you believe that?”

Sherlock said, “Was Mr. Clapman seeing you because he felt guilty about what he did?”

“Not at all. He thought he deserved every unethical dime in his coffers. Nah, he saw me once a week because he wanted to brag about how great he was, and I was forced to sit there for fifty minutes and listen to him. His wife left him, you know, and I can’t say I blame her.”

Savich said, “If that got out, I imagine it would have considerable negative impact on Mr. Clapman personally and on his company, not to mention lawsuits from his partner’s widow and family.”

“You think Lomas tried to kill me? Excuse me, is trying to kill me? To keep me quiet?”

“Possibly,” said Savich. “But you know, it just doesn’t seem enough to me.”

MacLean laughed. “Lomas also falsified performance trial data, massaged the stats on his fighters to meet government requirements. I told him to put a halt to that, that it would come to light, things like that always did. I remember he actually giggled, said it was all history now, anyway.”

“Bingo,” Sherlock said.

MacLean stared at them, a drug-happy smile on his face, his eyes glittering, a bit manic. “You think old Lomas would try to knock me off for that? He told me straight out that everybody does it, that the Pentagon knows everyone does it, and so they simply make allowances, they even have tables that show the range of acceptable deviations, that sort of thing. He said it was all a big game.”

Sherlock said easily, “Could you tell us exactly why Lomas Clapman was seeing you, Dr. MacLean?”

“He was impotent. After all the tests and a couple of tubs of Viagra, his doctor recommended he see me, see if his inability to sustain an erection was mental or emotional.”

Savich said, “Did you help him?”

“I’ll tell you, Agent Savich, Lomas is so filled with envy and arrogance, I think it would take God himself to help him.” MacLean closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the pillow, and sighed.

EIGHTEEN

Savich said, “The bartender our agent spoke to said you also talked about Dolores McManus, a congresswoman from Georgia.” And Savich waited to see if he would continue to talk with candor and cynicism, or would revert to the psychiatrist renowned for his discretion.

MacLean closed his eyes for a moment, hummed deep in his throat, carefully rearranged himself a bit to ease his ribs. They watched him give his pain med button a couple of pushes. Several minutes passed in silence. MacLean said, “Sorry, I just wanted to float about for a little bit, such a lovely feeling. These drugs are first-rate. Ah, Dolores—you strip away all the glitz and glamour and the attention her position has brought her, and what you’ve got is one simple basic human being—not many frills or mental extras, if you know what I mean.