Read Online Tight Lines by William G. Tapply - Free Book Online Page B

credulity is of no interest to me, sir, and I don’t appreciate being bullied by some ambulance chaser. So if you—”
    “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m not after a lawsuit, Doctor. Please. One question.”
    “I never heard of her. What else can I tell you?”
    “Pertofrane. Do you prescribe Pertofrane?”
    He laughed. “Hardly.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m a plastic surgeon, Mr. Coyne.”
    “So?”
    “Pertofrane is an antidepressant.”
    “Oh.”
    “Listen. The reason I don’t need to look up your client in my records? What was her name?”
    “Mary Ellen Ames.”
    “Yes. The reason I don’t need to look her up is that I just opened my office eight months ago. I haven’t had that many patients. I’d remember her. Anyway, I don’t prescribe Pertofrane.”
    “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
    “Me, too,” he said. “I was hoping you needed some cosmetic work.”
    “I probably could use some,” I said. “Guess I’ll try to get by without it.”
    I hung up and glanced at my notebook. Warren, the third McAllister doctor, was a psychiatrist. Somebody had prescribed the antidepressant drug Pertofrane for Mary Ellen. Sounded like the shrink to me. If he prescribed drugs for her, it meant he treated her. Psychiatric patients met with their shrinks several times a week, I knew. If anyone was going to know where Mary Ellen had gone, it would be her shrink.
    I tried the number for Warren McAllister and got his answering machine. My message simply stated my name and phone number and asked the doctor to return my call at his earliest convenience. I didn’t know if gynecologists prescribed drugs like Pertofrane. If I struck out with Dr. Warren, and if Dr. Arline didn’t return my call, I’d give her another try.
    I thought of calling Sherif Rahmanan. He had lied to me, and it pissed me off. He knew Mary Ellen’s phone number. Probably knew a lot more about her, too.
    But if he knew where she was, he wouldn’t have tried to reach her at home. I decided I had enough to do without making Professor Rahmanan sweat over his wife finding out that he had maintained a relationship with Mary Ellen all these years. I just wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to tell her that Susan was going to die.
    I fooled around with paperwork for the rest of the afternoon, trying to get caught up. I’d spent a lot of time on Susan recently—billable time, theoretically, although Julie always accused me of being slipshod about keeping track of billable time.
    Around four Julie buzzed me. “Line two,” she said. “It’s your wife.”
    “Gloria?”
    “Of course.”
    “She’s not my wife,” I said gently. Gloria hasn’t been my wife for a decade. Julie refuses to acknowledge that fact. She assumes that our divorce is merely a temporary hiatus in a lifelong partnership. I poked the flashing button on my phone and said, “Hi, hon.”
    “Brady,” said Gloria without preamble, “do you know what William has done?”
    “Drilled a hole in his ear?” I said. “Wild guess.”
    She hesitated for just an instant. “He told you?”
    “I saw him last week.”
    “You visited him?”
    “No, he was in town for an interview. He sponged lunch off me.”
    “Hm,” she said. “He didn’t tell me he was going to be in town.”
    “It was just a quick trip. He’s trying for an internship at the Aquarium.”
    “Well, what did you do?”
    “Do?”
    “About his ear.”
    “Well, I asked him where it came from. He said he was drunk when it happened. I guess he figures that absolves him of responsibility.”
    “Yes,” she muttered, “he would think that way. So would you.” She paused. “Reason I called…”
    “Hmm?”
    “Wanna do lunch?”
    “Do?”
    “Meet for. Eat.”
    “Sure. When? Where?”
    “How’s Friday?”
    “Fine. You coming in town?”
    “Yes.”
    “Remember Marie’s?”
    “That little Italian place in Kenmore Square?”
    “That’s the one. Say twelve-thirty?”
    “Fine,” she said.