“Did you know that Roberta Hinkle’s main specialty was domestic or marital issues?”
“I did not,” Noah said. “Her website said she did background checks, which is what was needed. It also said she had graduated from Brazos University, which seemed convenient. The employee she was investigating attended the same university.”
“You found Roberta Hinkle online?”
“I did,” Noah said. “And we communicated first by email and then several phone calls.”
“Did you ever meet Roberta Hinkle in person?”
“I did not,” Noah said.
“What hospital are you with?”
“The Boston Memorial,” Noah said. “I am a surgical chief resident.” He purposely did not let on that he was currently suspended from active duty.
“Okay,” Detective Moore said. “Thank you for your time and cooperation. And one piece of advice. You’d better find yourself another local private investigator for your background check.”
“Why?” Noah asked.
“She was a homicide victim last night,” Detective Moore said. “We believe it involved the spouse of one of her marital discord clients. She had standing restraining orders pertaining to several that we know of.”
36
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 9:21 A.M.
Very slowly Noah put his phone down on the utilitarian Formica desk and stared at it as if it were responsible for the shocking news. Any thought of hunger completely vanished. The idea of the private investigator he had retained only the day before being murdered seemed like too much of a coincidence. At the same time, he recognized that he was suffering from a certain amount of understandable paranoia due to what was happening in his own life, which would tend to make him think this new development somehow involved him.
After orienting himself to time, place, and person by taking a few deep breaths, Noah got up from the desk and stumbled into the small bathroom to splash cold water on his face. Then he stared at himself in the mirror while holding on to the edge of the sink for support. What was reverberating in his mind was the idea that whoever had broken into his apartment and bugged his computer would have known he’d hired Roberta Hinkle. Could this individual be responsible for her untimely death? If that were the case, then Noah himself was at least indirectly responsible.
Noah visibly shuddered and looked away from his own image. The idea was horrifying, and he knew he had to get a grip on himself. Such thoughts had to be wild, paranoid conjecture. He understood ever since the awful day in Dr. Hernandez’s office, his mind had been in overdrive, and now it was at its worst, like a runaway train.
Looking back at himself in the mirror, he used his fingers to rearrange his hair and straighten his tie as a way of organizing his thoughts. Returning to the bedroom, he sat back down in the desk chair. He even picked up his phone with the sudden idea of calling back Detective Moore to voice his fear about his possible involvement, but then he caught himself. Such a self-implicating statement would have pulled him into the vortex of a murder investigation without a shred of actual evidence. Such a situation would have serious, unknown effects on his own life, which wasn’t going that well. With the upcoming Advisory Board meeting to determine if his ethics suspension would be reversed, the last thing he needed was to be involved with a homicide in any capacity.
Quickly, Noah abandoned the phone by tossing it back onto the desk as if it had suddenly become too hot to hold. Yet the shock of realizing how close he had come to causing himself great harm had the unexpected effect of calming him and allowing him to think more clearly. Surely Roberta Hinkle’s death had to be due to her marital investigative work as the Lubbock detective believed, especially with there being restraining orders already on file. Finding the murderer would just be a matter of time.
With his mind under a semblance of control, Noah went back to puzzling over his apartment being broken into, not for burglary but apparently to bug his computer. Why and who could have been responsible? It was far-fetched to think it could have been the hospital. And why was he being followed? And why and how was the FBI involved?
The only thing that would incorporate all these disparate aspects, especially if the murder of Roberta Hinkle was thrown in, would be the involvement of organized crime. Ridiculous as the idea might seem, it was in a far-fetched way supported by Ava’s moonlighting lobbying job with the Nutritional Supplement Council. Noah had often joked over the years with resident colleagues that organized crime and the nutritional-supplement industry shared some similarities, both operating more or less in the open and making a ton of money robbing the public while thumbing their noses at the authorities. The only difference was that organized crime robbed the public literally while the nutritional-supplement industry did it figuratively.
As was his wont on occasion when deep in thought, Noah got up and paced back and forth in the small room. What he was mulling over was his acknowledged belief the nutritional-supplement industry had to think of Dr. Ava London as a gift from heaven. For her lobbying efforts, she couldn’t be better qualified. Considering her credentials, smarts, attractiveness, and outgoing personality, she had enormous and possibly unmatched credibility and effectiveness. In Noah’s mind, there was no wonder that they paid her as well as they apparently did.
Suddenly, Noah stopped in the middle of the room as the corollary idea occurred to him that the NSC would understandably be ferociously protective of Ava’s well-being and reputation, and they might even do it behind her back. Could his questioning her competence have been the source of all this hullabaloo? If it were the case, it certainly was a major overreaction since Noah truly thought of her as a terrific anesthesiologist. There had been only those few misgivings . . .
Resuming his pacing, Noah’s mind veered off in another direction. If what he was thinking was true, maybe it wasn’t an overreaction on NSC’s part but rather indicative that there was some potential problem with Ava’s training. He couldn’t imagine what it could be that wouldn’t have come out when the BMH Anesthesia Department had done their due diligence before hiring her. Yet it made a certain amount of sense.