Dead Watch

said. She poured and handed him a glass. “I talked to Novatny. They have no ideas, other than this Schmidt man.”
    “But Schmidt’s a pretty good idea,” Jake said. “What happened in New York? You said something odd happened.”
    “First of all, tell me what happened the other night. When you got mugged.”
    He told her, succinctly, trying not to show his embarrassment, nipping at the wine while he talked. She listened intently, and then said, “Doesn’t sound like a robbery.”
    “I know,” he said. “And I know what you’re going to say. I don’t think the Watchmen are involved. Goodman thinks I’m out scouting around for him. I was actually thinking that your friend Barber might be a possibility—though I don’t see what beating me up would have gotten him.”
    She frowned: “He has a violent streak in him. I’ve seen that in the past. I think Linc was attracted to it. But remember when you told me about The Rule? Who benefits from your getting beaten up?”
    “The Rule doesn’t say that the benefit has to be obvious. In fact, it usually isn’t. We just don’t know enough yet . . . So: New York?”
    “Yes.” She poured a glass of wine for herself, set the bottle on the coffee table, and perched on an easy chair, folding her legs beneath herself as women do. “I took the shuttle up early this morning and went to the apartment. To check it, make sure everything was okay, to look for some papers, to pay the maid. I needed to get Linc’s will, for one thing, some insurance policies that Johnnie Black needs to see. I got everything I needed, but . . . his medical records were gone. There were two big folders, in the top drawer of the file cabinet, and they were gone. They aren’t here and I know they aren’t at the farm. I can’t see why they’d be in Santa Fe, his doctor is in New York.”
    Jake thought about it and shrugged. “I don’t know what that means.”
    “Neither do I. Except that underneath the bed sham, I found a bottle of prescription medicine, Rinolat. I looked it up online, and it’s a painkiller. I didn’t understand it all, something about monoclonal antibodies. Anyway, he was taking a heavy dose. The stuff would put a horse to sleep.”
    “I know . . .” He slapped his leg. “I have some experience with it. Was it dated?”
    “Yes. A month before he disappeared.”
    “He was sick?”
    She shook her head: “Not as far as I know. I haven’t seen him for a while. The last time I saw him, he was a little cranky, but he wasn’t in pain. Not that I could see.”
    “Huh. The stuff isn’t of any use recreationally . . . Are you sure it was his?”
    “The prescription was in his name, from his doctor.”
    Jake sipped the wine, swirled it in his glass. He didn’t know much about wine, but it tasted fine; tasted like money. And he thought about the autopsy report. Novatny said that Bowe’s body had been suffused with painkiller, possibly to keep him helpless. But was that what happened? “You think somebody stole the medical file? Have you talked to the maid?”
    Madison nodded. “Yes. I did. This is the other funny thing. She saw his doctor. At the apartment. With medical equipment.”
    “What doctor?”
    “James Rosenquist. He’s an old friend of Linc’s. One of his special friends, or once was. I called him, and he said he hadn’t seen Linc for six months, since a physical. But James has a white streak in his hair—he’s a little vain about it—and the maid said the man she saw in the apartment, the doctor, had a stripe like a skunk.”
    “Ah, man.” Jake leaned back, rubbed his face, and yawned. Shook his head and admitted, “I still don’t know what it means.”
    “Neither do I. It’s just that there seems to be another mystery in New York and there shouldn’t be two mysteries at the same time. Not unrelated ones,” Madison said. “I was thinking about siccing Johnnie Black on James, but since James denies even seeing Linc . . .”
    “Rosenquist is in New York City?”
    “Yes. He has one of those practices on the bottom floor of a co-op, on the Upper East Side.”
    “One of the rich guys,” Jake said, “who’ll be all lawyered up.”
    “Absolutely.”
    Jake sighed, gulped the wine, bent forward to pick up his case, winced at the pain. “Mrs. Bowe. Let me check around, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know what I can do.”
    “What if James, what if Rosenquist is hooked up with Goodman somehow? I