Savich looked at them. “Dr. MacLean is talking to a reporter about Congresswoman Dolores McManus murdering her husband.”

FORTY-NINE

Washington Memorial Hospital

It was nearly noon when they stepped onto the elevator in the hospital. They’d dropped Sean off at his grandmother’s house. She promptly hauled him off to church, whispering in his ear that she’d made potato salad for him, which made Sean beam at her and say in a confiding voice, “I’ll teach you how to fry Zhor, Grandma. You gotta get him into the Forest of No Escape and wrap a monkey vine around his neck.”

“My day will be perfect.”

The six people on the elevator obligingly moved to the side so they could enter. Savich said quietly as he punched the button, “I’ve got Ollie going through purchases made by Laurel, Quincy, Brady Cullifer, Greg Nichols, and three of the senator’s former staffers. We’ll see if a nice brown jacket shows up.”

“It could be a hired thug, Dillon.”

There were still two people on board when the elevator reached their floor.

Sherlock said, “I’ll speak to Dr. MacLean, Dillon; you take the reporter. Scare him spitless, okay?”

“That’s the plan.”

The reporter was the Washington Post’s Jumbo Hardy, a smart-ass the size of a well-fed linebacker with both a brain and a mouth. He always looked droop-eyed and worn-out, like he hadn’t slept in a week, only Savich knew better.

Jumbo gave Savich a grin, fanned his big hands in front of him. “Hey, isn’t this something—I got one of the big guns.”

Savich said easily, “I’m surprised to see you again so soon, Jumbo. Don’t you ever sleep?”

“More than you do,” Jumbo said. “I didn’t think you could outdo your press conference, but having you show up in person to get rid of me—what’s going on, Savich?”

“Yeah, you got my attention. Glad you could stick around.”

“Your guy gave me no choice, said he’d arrest my butt and toss it in a janitor’s closet on the fifth floor of the Hoover Building. He said I wouldn’t be found until next month.” Jumbo gave Savich a big toothy smile. “I was just checking out Congresswoman McManus.” He patted his laptop. “It ain’t MAX, but I can still find most stuff, like the details about the death of her husband. Now I hear from her very own shrink that she admitted paying some hit man in Savannah to take out her old man. Now, that’s news, Special Agent Savich, big news.”

“I know you’re not about to write about this until you’ve got verification. And you also know you’re not going to get it. Listen, Jumbo, you know very well Dr. MacLean is suffering from frontal lobe dementia, a disease that makes him talk about all sorts of stuff he shouldn’t, even stuff that didn’t happen. You also know there have been attempts on his life—”

“Nearly more attempts than we poor representatives of the people can keep up with,” said Jumbo. “That deal last night, what a fiasco for you guys. I mean, an FBI agent getting stabbed in the neck with a needle, not to mention a nurse saving the day. What’s that all about?”

“Hang that up, Jumbo. We’ve already made a statement.”

“The people got a right to know, Savich, that’s all I was saying. I heard rumors about this disease of his, but no one ever confirmed it. To tell you the truth, that’s why I didn’t mind staying. I know he’s real sick, know what he says is likely libelous, and that he can’t control himself. Talk to me, tell me what’s coming down here.”

“Off the record?”

“If I agree, when do I get to go on the record?”

“When everything is over. All right, Jumbo, I need your help.”

Jumbo whistled, sat back, his arms behind his head, and crossed his legs. “What is this? You need my help? When did the sky fall? What’s going on here I haven’t already guessed?”

FIFTY

Sherlock found the good doctor sulking in his room.

A neurologist, Dr. Shockley, was checking MacLean’s reflexes, humming under his breath. MacLean was ignoring him. His eyes narrowed when Sherlock came into the room. It looked to her like he was ready to yell his head off.

Dr. Shockley straightened. “Well, you’re good to go, Dr. MacLean, despite the excitement.”

Sherlock introduced herself, waited for him to leave the room, which he did, with one last very long look at MacLean.

Before he could spit at her, Sherlock intoned just like she would to Astro, “Bad dog, Dr. MacLean, very bad dog.”

“Bad dog?” MacLean said slowly, “Bad dog? That’s pretty funny, Agent Sherlock, but that’s exactly my point. I’m not your damned dog. It’s none of the FBI’s business if I want to talk to a reporter. It’s just talk, a bit of conversation with another sentient human being—wait, he’s a reporter, but at least I was sentient.”

“Hey, that was pretty funny, too. Are you done?” When he would have continued, Sherlock raised her hand. “I understand, Timothy, I really do. But you’ve got to believe me now. It was wrong—you broke patient confidentiality, and to a reporter. Try to think clearly about this for a moment. This is exactly why someone is trying to kill you. Do you understand that your speaking to Jumbo Hardy was inappropriate?”

MacLean shrugged. He looked petulant.

A different tack then. Sherlock punched him in the arm. “I hear your wife was pretty upset about what happened last night. She didn’t want to leave you alone.”

“Yeah, right. Oh, that stupid Molly, she’s always hovering, always checking my pulse, my eyeballs, my goddamned feet. She says my toenails need trimming. I didn’t do anything to deserve it—well, hardly anything, at least in cosmic terms.”

“You told her to go find a lover because you found her disgusting.”

He shrugged. “Well, fact is, she smelled funny.”

Down the rabbit hole, Sherlock thought. “She loves you.”

He was silent for a very long time. Then, “No, she doesn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

MacLean leaned his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes. “When she found out what finally happens to people with this disease, she nearly left me.

“Everyone thinks she’s a bloody saint for sticking so close to me, but I know the truth. I know she’s siphoning off all the money she can out of our joint accounts. I know she’s got a lover, you see. Only thing is, she can’t very well leave me in this sucky condition, now can she?” He paused, shrugged. “It isn’t Pierre or Estelle behind this. No, Molly’s the one who’s trying to kill me.”