The Machiavelli Covenant Read Free Page B

open some doors that might otherwise have remained shut.

    • 8:25 P.M.

    Headlights suddenly reflected in Marten's rearview mirror and he watched a car come down the street behind him. As it drew nearer he could see that it was a dark late-model Ford. The car slowed as it approached Stephenson's home then moved on past, turning at the end of the block. For a moment he thought it might have been the doctor herself, but if it had been she'd changed her mind and kept on going. It made him wonder ifmaybe she wanted to return to her house but was afraid to. If so, it underscored the reason he was there and went hand in hand with what had happened earlier when he'd tried to get in touch with her.
    He'd phoned her office twice that morning. Both times he'd explained to the receptionist that he'd been a close friend of Caroline Parsons and that he wanted to discuss Caroline's illness with Dr. Stephenson. Each time he'd been told the doctor was with patients and would return his call later. By noon there had been no response.
    After the lunch hour he'd called again. Still the doctor was not available. This time he asked that Stephenson be told that if she was reluctant to discuss Mrs. Parsons's situation she need not worry because he had the lawful authority to access her medical records. His tone had been wholly businesslike and was meant to ease any professional concerns Stephenson might have had. In truth, despite Caroline's letter and what she had told him, he had no tangible reason to believe there had been foul play. Caroline had been terminally ill and under enormous stress and life would have seemed desperately hopeless and cruel any way she looked at it. Nonetheless, the letter existed and the questions lingered, and so until he was wholly convinced Caroline had been wrong, he would continue to pursue it.
    What surprised him, what turned him and made him sit waiting in the dark outside Stephenson's home, had come at ten minutes to four in the afternoon, when the phone rang in his hotel room.
    "This is Dr. Stephenson," she'd said, her voice flat and without emotion.
    "Thanks for calling back," Marten had said evenly. "I was a close friend of Caroline Parsons. You and I met briefly in her hospital room."

    "What can I do for you?" she pressed; this time her voice had an impatient edge.
    "I would like to talk to you about the circumstances surrounding Caroline's illness and the cause of her death."
    "I'm sorry, there are privacy issues. It is not something I can discuss."
    "I understand, doctor, but I have been given legal access to all of her papers, her medical records included."
    "I'm sorry, Mr. Marten," she said sharply, "there is nothing I can do to help you. Please don't call again." Abruptly she hung up.
    Marten remembered standing there, the receiver still in his hand. Like that, he'd been shut down and shut off. What it meant was that if he wanted to see Caroline's medical records he would have to go through an entire legal process and then months and perhaps thousands of dollars in legal fees later, he might or might not get to see them. Even if he did—especially if Caroline had been right and there had been foul play—how could he be sure that the records he had been given access to had not been tampered with?
    From his own past experience he knew that investigators who took no for an answer and went home rarely got any answers at all. The detectives who stayed in the game and pressed it, who sometimes didn't go home for days were the ones who got the resolutions they were looking for. It was why he knew what he had to do next. Get to Dr. Stephenson right away and ask her point-blank if she thought Caroline had been murdered.
    It was an approach that more often than not got some kind of concrete response. Usually it came in the way a question was answered, a hesitation or an awkwardwording of a phrase, or by the person's eye movement or body language, sometimes by all three. Rarely did someone involved with a