Do No Harm

The beak quivered, then opened weakly. The bird was still alive. It rustled feebly against the scalpels impaling its wings, its head and feet rasping gently against the wall. David crossed to the wall, and pulling a scalpel free from Stanley's wing, unceremoniously ran the edge across the bird's throat. Because its syrinx had already been removed, the blade ran deep through the throat, severing the windpipe. The cockatoo ceased its movement against its pinnings.

David fisted the scalpel and drove it into the wall, where it stuck.

Bronner and Jenkins lowered their guns slowly. Jenkins's face had reddened, his cheeks flushing with color.

David's breath left him in short spurts, reverse gasps. "Innovative," he managed. His legs were shaking, so he donned his white coat, wrapping it around himself like a robe.

Bronner lowered his flashlight with a faint groan and hoisted his pants. "I'll have Dispatch contact SID, and Yale and Dalton. I'll keep an eye on the front." He looked at David. "Don't touch anything else." He left Jenkins and David with the blood-splashed wall.

"Not his usual MO," Jenkins said. "He's getting bolder. More courageous." He chewed his lip.

David nodded. "We're right on track."

He followed Jenkins to check the garage. On the side of the Mercedes, Clyde had written ashole in what appeared to be red spray paint. Jenkins shined his light beneath and inside the car, then took a step back.

They went back into the living room to wait for Bronner's return, and Jenkins flipped all three light switches, using a pen. David noticed immediately that the de Kooning was missing. He pointed to the blank space above the mantel.

Jenkins raised his eyebrows.

"A painting," David explained. "A de Kooning."

"I didn't have him pegged for a collector." Jenkins's joke was an offering of sorts. David's laugh was genuine. When Jenkins smiled, the harshness left his features. "Motive, motive, motive," he said. "Assuming he's not aware of its value or… artfulness, why did he take it?"

"It was a modern piece, a somewhat violent depiction of a woman."

"I see."

David felt momentarily like a pervert. He thought of the drawings Clyde had made as a child, the crayoned revenge he'd exacted on the study's nurses. Clyde probably found the de Kooning to be pleasing. The notion that David's taste in art was similar to Clyde's was not comforting. That the painting had been his mother's lent the theft a certain irony.

"Worth a lot?" Jenkins asked.

"Yeah," David said. "Now I'll have to deal with insurance. My penance for being part of the medical establishment." He ran his fingers through his hair.

Jenkins peered around the impeccably decorated living room. "Right."

The vase sat crooked on the Oriental cabinet, and David walked over and reached to straighten it.

"Don't touch that," Jenkins said.

David froze. "Sorry." He studied the small collection of photographs arrayed around the base of the vase, focusing on the shot of him and Diane from the ER Catalina retreat. His eyes lingered on the picture of Elisabeth in the tub, before skimming across the rest of the silver frames. One of the photographs was missing; there were normally five. David crouched and peered behind the cabinet. Some loose change, several clusters of dust, and the silver gleam of the frame.

"There's a picture frame back here," he said. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket. "Can I get it?"

"Let me." Jenkins took the gloves from David, pulled them on, and moved the cabinet a few inches out from the wall. He grabbed the frame by the corner and held it up for David to see. The photograph of Peter with David's mother. Janet Spier, the steel gleam in her eyes, her chin raised in what David had previously thought regal fashion, but now recognized as a symptom of her deeply ingrained sense of superiority. Peter's smile, deferential yet confident, his arm across Janet's shoulders.

There was a smudge on the glass over Peter's face, and David knew, even before he leaned toward the frame and inhaled the saccharine odor, that it would smell of the orange-flavored lozenges.

Clyde had studied the photograph before he'd taken the de Kooning and, in replacing it, had accidentally knocked it behind the cabinet.

A flash of Peter after Clyde's escape, still shaken after he'd tripped Clyde in the hall. "The way he looked at me… "

David and Dash had neglected to add Peter to the list of potential victims. David doubted that Clyde had grown bold enough to attack a man, but it now occurred to him that a disabled man might be a possibility, as the boyish security guard had been. And Peter was a representative of the hospital. Depending on the extent of his surveillance, Clyde might even know that Peter was David's close friend.

"Do you think we could get some protection on Peter Alexander?" David asked, pointing to the photo.

"That's up to Yale," Jenkins said. "And the Captain. But I'll radio Dispatch and have someone swing by now to check the welfare."

"I'd appreciate that."