Diagnosis Murder 4 - The Waking Nightmare by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page A

"Forget it."
    "I'm no shrink, but I think Lenore Barber and Rebecca Jordan are connected," Jesse said. "Both women are trying to kill themselves. You can't save one, so you glom on to the other."
    "Glom?" Mark asked.
    "You can't save Lenore, so it's imperative that you save Rebecca," Jesse said. "She is your surrogate Lenore Barber!"
    Jesse smiled, clearly quite pleased with himself. Mark glowered, which was something Jesse had never seen him do before. He'd seen Steve glower plenty of times and now he knew where his friend picked it up.
    "I saw a woman try to kill herself and I'm concerned about her health and well-being," Mark said. "The way I am about all my patients."
    "When was the last time you came in to check on a patient at four a.m.?"
    Mark's glower got much more glowerful. Before he could respond to Jesse's question, Steve strode up to their table. Steve looked tired and irritable and was working on a good glower of his own.
    "You could have left a note for me or at least turned your cell phone on," Steve said. "I woke up and you were gone."
    "And you deduced I was here," Mark said.
    "I didn't deduce anything," Steve said.
    "Why start now?" Jesse muttered.
    Steve shot him a look, though he was tempted to shoot him with a bullet, then turned his attention back to his dad. "I'm here because I'm supposed to get Amanda's autopsy report. What are you doing here?"
    "That seems to be the question of the day," Jesse said.
    Mark told Steve all about how he'd witnessed Rebecca Jordan's suicide attempt and brought him up-to-date on her current condition.
    "So you had two jumpers in one day, Rebecca Jordan and Winston Brant," Steve said. "That has to be some kind of record."
    "I forgot about that other connection," Jesse said. "It's fascinating how everything that happened to Mark yesterday is thematically and emotionally connected. No wonder he can't sleep."
    "There's more?" Steve asked. "What else happened to you?"
    "Earlier in the day I met with a patient who, you could say, is killing herself and I haven't been able to stop her," Mark said. "Jesse believes I'm focusing on Rebecca's case because I couldn't save my other suicidal patient."
    Steve glanced at Jesse. "I see what you mean."
    "You do?" Mark said.
    "You don't have to be a detective, or a doctor, to see what's going on here," Steve said, shaking his head. "It's obvious. You're in deep trouble, Dad."
    "Thanks," Mark said.
    "But I think I can help solve your problem," Steve said.
    "Do tell," Mark said.
    "Forget about Lenore, let Jesse deal with Rebecca, and you concentrate your attention on the compelling mystery surrounding Winston Brant's murder," Steve said. "Narrow your focus, and you eliminate two-thirds of your troubles."
    "Which, coincidentally, means I'd be focused entirely on helping you with your case," Mark said.
    "I bet you feel better already," Steve replied.
    "Ordinarily, you'd be telling me to do the opposite," Mark said.
    "Then it proves I really am looking out for your best interests," Steve said.
     
    Amanda didn't usually open for business so early in the morning, but now that the murder of Winston Brant had be come "the Case of the Dropped Dead Skydiver" on every TV station in town, she was feeling some pressure to move fast. She met with Mark, Steve, and Jesse in the pathology lab, which doubled as the adjunct county medical examiner's morgue.
    "Here's my autopsy report," she said, handing a file to Steve and a copy to Mark.
    "Where's my copy?" Jesse asked.
    "All you need are the headlines," she said, "which I'm about to tell you."
    "You all have reports," Jesse said. "It's not fair. I should have a report."
    "Fine." Amanda snatched a file from her desk and slapped it into his hands before continuing. "The cause of Winston Brant's death was a knife stabbed directly into his heart. There were no other wounds or injuries, unless you want to count the nick on his chin from shaving."
    "Wait a minute," Jesse said, flipping through his file. "This isn't