Bonnie

CHAPTER 8

“HERE IT IS, JOE.” CATHERINE pulled up the file on the hospital computer. “Theodore Danner.” She checked the date of entry and date of last treatment. “He was a patient here for a number of years. First, for his spinal injury, then follow-up rehabilitation. Eve said he was almost crippled when she met him. His surgery must have been very successful.”

“Apparently,” Joe said. “He was moving like a young man when we saw him at the bayou. Who was his surgeon?”

Catherine back-clicked. “Dr. Kevin Donnelly.” Then she frowned. “No, that’s not right.” She clicked back another page. “Dr. Michael Worzak did the spinal surgery. It was a brilliant success, total recovery. But it was the last mention of Worzak. All of these other pages are appointments with Kevin Donnelly.”

“Rehab?”

“No, there are notations of appointments with Donnelly even before the spinal surgery. They sent him to Donnelly on the recommendation of his doctor at the VA hospital in Milwaukee.” She frowned in puzzlement. “Maybe Donnelly wasn’t a surgeon and only did the preliminary. I’ll try to go back to the letter of recommendation and see why Donnelly was assigned as Danner’s physician. Danner must have been in tremendous pain. There’s a list of medications here administered to Danner that would choke a horse.” Her gaze traveled down the list. She stiffened. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“Thorazine. I remember that drug. Hu Chang used it occasionally as a base for some of his potions.”

“Your resident Hong Kong witch doctor?”

“That’s not funny. Hu Chang is brilliant.”

“And lethal.”

“Sometimes.” More often than not. She and Hu Chang had worked together when she was a teenager in Hong Kong on less-than-legal endeavors. He was amazingly creative when a poison or drug was needed. “But he’s my friend, so keep quiet, Joe. Thorazine, dammit.” She was checking the other medications. She recognized a few, and they were all leading in one direction. She flipped back to the beginning of Danner’s file. It was the letter of recommendation from a Dr. Herbert Nils from the VA hospital in Milwaukee. She started to read.

She inhaled sharply. “My God…”

“I WANT TO TALK TO GALLO,” Catherine said when she called Eve ten minutes later. “You listen, too, Eve. Put me on speaker.”

“You found out something?”

“Yeah, something I should have suspected. Are you there, Gallo?”

“He’s here.” Eve turned to Gallo and handed him her phone. “Talk to her.”

“Yes, talk to me, Gallo,” Catherine said. “I’m a bit pissed about your trying to avoid me. I didn’t deserve it, and you’re an ass for doing it. Though I don’t know why I should care.”

“Neither do I, Catherine.” He paused. “What do you want to say to me?”

“I don’t want to say anything to you. I want to ask you a question. What do you know about a Dr. Herbert Nils?”

“Nothing.” He frowned. “What should I know?”

“He was your uncle’s doctor at the VA hospital in Milwaukee. You were with him when he was undergoing treatment up there, right? You and your uncle shared an apartment?”

“That’s right. But for the last year before we moved down here, I was traveling the country with a couple buddies. When I came back, he told me that his doctor had recommended he go to a specialist in Atlanta.”

“Dr. Nils suggested it?”

Gallo frowned. “I think that was the name.”

“And did you ever meet him? Did he ask you to come in to discuss your uncle’s condition?”

“No. My uncle was always intensely private. Particularly when he came back after his discharge. He’d always been so strong, and I think it embarrassed him that he wasn’t the man he once was.”

“And did you meet his doctor in Atlanta?”

“I was only in Atlanta about six weeks before I went to basic training.”

“And you were obviously suffering a pretty intense distraction when you got down there.”

Gallo glanced at Eve. “You could say that.”

“Why are you asking these questions, Catherine?” Eve asked impatiently. “What difference does it make whether Gallo knew his doctor?”

“It makes a difference to me,” Catherine said. “I had to know if Gallo knew about Danner. Gallo’s not stupid. I couldn’t see why he would be so damned shocked, and I didn’t want to think he was a liar and pretending.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Gallo asked roughly. “I don’t lie, Catherine.”

“I couldn’t be sure. You’ve been behaving pretty weird since your uncle showed up on the scene.”

“Why would I lie about knowing Nils?”

“Thorazine.”

“What?”

“It’s one of the meds your uncle was taking. You told me once that he was once addicted to prescription drugs. It doesn’t surprise me. The amount of drugs he was given at the hospital in Atlanta was staggering. I imagine they kept him pretty well out of it in that VA hospital in Milwaukee, too.”

“He was in pain.”

“Maybe. But that wasn’t the main reason he was given drugs.”

“What is this Thorazine? And why would that have made you think I was lying to you?”

“Thorazine is a very powerful drug, and it was prescribed by both Nils and your uncle’s doctor in Atlanta. I recognized it because Hu Chang used it as one of the ingredients when he concocted a knockout potion that could also cause severe disorientation.”

“I imagine most pain medication can be used to do that.”

“Yes, but Thorazine was better than the majority of drugs.” She paused. “Because it was used in psychiatric treatments for schizophrenia. It was also useful in cases of split or multipersonality when combined with other drugs.”

“What?”

“Dr. Nils was a psychiatrist. The honorable discharge Ted Danner received from the Army was on the condition that he seek help and have regular therapy from an accredited psychiatrist.”

“No, he had a back injury.”

“Yes, but that was minor. He would have been able to return to active duty after his operation except for his mental problems.”

“It’s not true,” Gallo said harshly. “He was as sane as you are. And he wouldn’t have lied to me.”

“He did lie to you. It was all in that letter from Dr. Nils.” She paused. “Something happened on that last tour of duty in the Middle East. According to Nils’s letter, Danner’s superiors said that he was behaving irrationally and had fits of violence. They had noticed it before, but it became more pronounced, and they couldn’t overlook it. Then there was an incident.”

“What kind of an incident?”

“Nils didn’t know. Perhaps the military didn’t want to crucify Danner after his years of valiant and loyal service to the Army. Or maybe they just didn’t want to cause a situation that might be awkward for them. Anyway, the doctor who recommended the discharge merely said that Danner had done something that made it impossible to keep him with his unit, and they discharged him. Nils tried to treat your uncle, but he wasn’t having any luck. Danner wouldn’t talk to him, so he referred him to a specialist in Atlanta who was supposed to be the best psychiatrist in the Veterans Administration. Dr. Kevin Donnelly.”

“He would have told me. He wouldn’t have lied.”

“He loved you. You had a case of king-size hero worship. Do you think that wasn’t important to him? Mental problems carry a certain stigma in our society.”

“I wouldn’t have cared. I would have helped him.”

“But he’d always been your savior. He couldn’t stand to have the situation reversed.”

Gallo was silent, and Eve could see the conflicting emotions struggling in his expression. He finally said, “And you think he was so sick in the head that he could have killed Bonnie?”

“I’m not saying that. It’s a possibility. But maybe he only knew about her death and the people who killed her. Why would he kill Jacobs? All I’m saying is that the ugliness we saw in Danner in that bayou may have been growing in him for years. We have to find out the rest.”

“How, dammit? You said he wasn’t talking to Nils, and Temple hadn’t even seen him before he signed that death certificate.”

“The psychiatrist who treated him in Atlanta may be the key. Dr. Donnelly’s records show that he was treating him at least twice a week for years. There were a couple periods when he saw him every day for weeks. I’d judge by that that Danner was cooperating with Donnelly. He must have thought he was making progress, or he would have recommended alternate treatment.”

“You mean put him in an asylum. He’s not crazy. No one can tell me he is.”

“She’s not trying to tell you he’s crazy, John,” Eve said quietly. “Start thinking with your head instead of your emotions. He had a problem, and it might have caused him to do something that he wouldn’t have done if he’d been well. We have to find out if that happened.”

“So that you can kill him?” Gallo’s eyes were glittering in his taut face. “That’s where this is leading, isn’t it? You told me once that you’d kill the monster who murdered Bonnie without a second thought.”

“And I would.” She met his gaze. “I won’t lie to you. If I find out that Ted Danner killed my little girl, I’m not going to care about his mental problems. I’m only going to care that he robbed Bonnie of her life. You may be torn, and I can understand it. But there’s no way I could pity him. It’s not possible for me. You see him as wounded, and I see him as a monster.” She paused. “And I will kill him if he’s guilty. I won’t wait for a court to declare him incompetent and let him free or put him in some plush booby hatch.”

“I can’t let-” He broke off and drew a deep breath. “What are we talking about? He didn’t do it. I know he didn’t do it.”

“Well, I don’t know that, John,” she said grimly. “And if you get in the way of my finding out, I’ll take you down.”

“Cool it,” Catherine said quickly. “We’ll find out, Eve. I think Donnelly is the key. There must have been some kind of bond between them since they were together all those years. The relationship between patient and therapist is usually very intimate. The psychiatrist often is looked upon as almost a father figure.”

“Not my uncle,” Gallo said grimly. “He wouldn’t have chosen to look upon anyone as a father figure. He told me my grandfather was an addict and abused both him and my father. That’s why he was so horrified when he became addicted to prescription drugs.”

“Regardless, there could have been an element of emotional dependence on Donnelly,” Eve said. “What did Donnelly’s case files on Danner say?”

“No case files. Which doesn’t surprise me. A psychiatrist’s records are usually ultraconfidential. Donnelly wouldn’t have turned them over to the hospital for anyone to riffle through.”

“Then how do we get in touch with him to ask him questions? Do you have an address or telephone number? Can you contact him through the hospital?”

“He’s no longer with this hospital. He resigned a number of years ago. He left no forwarding address. He placed all of his former patients with other psychiatrists and left his position.”

“Someone has to know where he’s at,” Gallo said. “He must have had contact with other doctors and patients and their families. Particularly if he went to the trouble of placing his other patients with competent professionals. He can’t just have disappeared.”

“Maybe he could,” Catherine said. “If he was paid enough.”

“You’re thinking that Temple’s payoff and Donnelly’s resignation might not be a coincidence?”

“Donnelly had his last appointment with Danner two weeks before Temple signed that death certificate. Something big was going down about that time.”

“You believe that my uncle may have told Donnelly something in a therapy session that Donnelly used as a bargaining tool?” Gallo asked. “That his confidentiality only went as far as his wallet?”

“I don’t believe anything right now. I’m just throwing ideas out there to see if they stick.” She paused. “But I located something else in Donnelly’s records. I had to dig because it was buried deep. Donnelly was involved in a court case about that time, a patient’s mother accused him of experimentation, of implanting false memories into her son’s mind.”

“What was the verdict?”

“I don’t know, the court records were sealed. He didn’t lose his license, but it might have spurred him to leave the hospital. Joe is talking to the head nurse in the psychiatric ward right now. The records clerk said she’d been here at the hospital for the last twenty years, so she’d have to have been familiar with Donnelly. I’ll let you know as soon as he comes back.” She hung up.

Eve pressed the disconnect and gazed at Gallo. “Well?”

“What do you expect me to say?” He turned away. “Am I scared and sick to my stomach about all this? Hell, yes. But all we know for sure is that my uncle lied to me, and he had a problem. We’ll have to see what Quinn finds out.”

“Yes. That hospital doesn’t appear to have a great staff, does it? First Temple, and now this Dr. Donnelly. Memory implant? That would be truly criminal to experiment on a sick man.” She dropped down in the chair. She felt scared and sick, too. She couldn’t forget the image of the gentle, kind man who had looked at Bonnie and told Eve what a pretty little girl she was. “But I don’t see how you could have been fooled. I was a stranger to him, but you must have suspected he wasn’t quite…”

“Sane? He was more normal than anyone I knew. Almost everyone I grew up with was a little twisted and lived in dysfunctional homes. It went with the territory.” His lips twisted. “When you live with poverty, vice, and drugs, you don’t expect normalcy. You know that yourself, Eve.”

Yes, she did. That’s why she had fought so desperately to get away from that life so it wouldn’t taint Bonnie. “You didn’t notice anything different about him when he came back from overseas when he was discharged?”

“No.” He thought about it. “It’s hard to remember. No, maybe he seemed a little quieter. But I was a teenager, and I was self-centered like most kids and might not have noticed. There wasn’t anything weird about him. He was a good guy, Eve.”

She didn’t answer.

His lips thinned. “It’s true. He was the best-”

Eve’s phone rang and she glanced at the ID. “Joe.” She punched the button. “What did you find out, Joe?”

“I found out that the people here who know Donnelly aren’t willing to talk about him. I talked to a nurse and two doctors on staff. The head nurse was wary about giving out any information at all. She said he was an exceptional doctor and had a great rapport with his patients. She knew nothing about any court case.”

“Good, then there’s a chance that Danner bonded with him,” Eve said. “Did you get an address?”

“No, she hasn’t heard from him in several years.” He paused. “According to her, the reason he quit was that he was suffering severe burnout. He was going to take a rest before he opened his own practice.”

“Where did he go? Can we trace him?”

“We can try. He was going to visit a cousin, James O’Leary, who lived in Ireland.”

“Ireland? What city?”

“Dublin. The cousin might know something. I’ve already placed a few calls, and Catherine is having Venable do some checking. We should know soon.” He paused. “Are you okay, Eve?”

“Fine. Confused, a little scared. But I’ll get through it.”

“You always do.” He didn’t speak again for a moment. “I don’t like the way this is playing out. I want to come to you.”

“Not yet.” She wanted to see him, too. It didn’t seem right that she wasn’t working beside him toward finding Bonnie. Yet it had been her choice, and she had to stick with it. But it was damn difficult.

“There’s no reason,” Joe said roughly. “Tell Gallo that we’re going to find his uncle no matter what he does. I’m not going to let him find him first, so that he can decide whether or not he wants to keep him away from us. Danner is a prime suspect, and there’s not going to be a cover-up.”

“You know I wouldn’t let that happen.” She was watching Gallo’s face. All the torment and uncertainty had faded, and his face was hard and without expression. What was he thinking? Whatever it was, she had to find out. “I have to go, Joe. Let me know what you learn from Donnelly’s cousin.”

“Eve, I mean it. I don’t trust Gallo, and you shouldn’t either. I need to be there with you.”

“You will be. I love you.” She hung up the phone. She studied Gallo for a moment. He had closed himself away from her, and she wasn’t sure how to reach him. “Joe seems to have hopes of a breakthrough if he finds out where Donnelly is right now. Do you think that your uncle would have confided in this psychiatrist?”

“How can I be sure?” Gallo shrugged. “The man you tell me he’s become isn’t the Ted Danner I know. You’re looking at this with an objectivity that I don’t possess.”

“Objectivity?” She shook her head. “What the hell do you mean? This is about Bonnie. There’s no way I could ever be objective about Bonnie’s murderer.”

“Listen to you, you’ve already convicted him,” he said fiercely. “You’re wrong. He wouldn’t have killed a child.”

“I hope not, for your sake.” She glanced away from him. “But we have to figure out a few things before we can even delve into what he’d do or not do. How did he make a connection with Jacobs and Queen? Did you write to him and tell him that you’d been contacted by them to go into North Korea on a special mission?”

“No. As you know, Jacobs and Queen were in Army Intelligence, and they told me it was top secret.” His lips twisted. “I had no idea what a dirty secret it was going to turn out to be. Drugs and smuggling instead of saving the world from nuclear proliferation. I was a fool.”

“How could you know Jacobs and Queen were criminals? They deceived the Army for years.” She went back to the main subject. “If you didn’t tell him about Jacobs, how did he find out about them?”

“I don’t know. My uncle was sharp. He’d been a Ranger for years, and he had contacts with all kinds of brass in different departments of the Army. People liked him, trusted him. Maybe he found out that Jacobs and Queen sent me on that mission.”

“And that would make him angry. He was very protective of you, wasn’t he?”

“Of course he was,” Gallo said curtly. “He got used to trying to keep me safe from my dad. But that doesn’t mean he’d go after a superior officer just for sending me on a dangerous mission. Why would he? He knew being a Ranger was risky. When I told him I wanted to join the service, he tried to talk me out of it.”

“But you wanted to follow in his footsteps. He must have felt terribly responsible when he thought you’d been killed on your first mission.”

“And you’re saying that sent him off his rocker?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe not. I remember when Danner told me that you’d been killed, he was very bitter against the Army and anyone else who might have been guilty of contributing to sending you to your death. So he might not have been as philosophical as you think about accepting the risks of your being a Ranger.”

Gallo was shaking his head.

Lord, he was stubborn. But how could she blame him when she was forcing him to look at his uncle in a completely different way than he ever had before. Tough. “It’s true. He loved you, and he was bitter. That’s all I know. I thought it was perfectly natural. I had no idea he had a mental problem.” She had a sudden chilling memory of Danner smiling down at Bonnie and telling Eve that her daughter looked like Gallo. She had not looked any deeper than the obvious in any of Danner’s actions. She had felt sorry for him. But had there been something ugly and twisted of which she hadn’t been aware in that contact with Bonnie? “All we’re doing is guessing. We have to get Donnelly’s records of his therapy sessions with Danner.”

“And we have to find Donnelly before we can do that.” He turned away. “And I’m not going to wait around for Quinn or Venable to locate this cousin in Dublin. I’m going to start making phone calls myself.”

“Because you want to be two steps ahead of them?”

He gave her a cool glance. “Does that surprise you?”

“No, right now for you it’s all about getting to Ted Danner before any of the rest of us do. But it’s not going to happen. I’m sticking with you all the way. I’m not letting you out of my sight, John.”

“Really?” He tilted his head. “You’re still so sure that Bonnie wants us to be together?”

“Yes.” She met his eyes. “I thought it was because she knew you were in pain and needed to be here when we found out what happened to her.”

His smile was twisted. “And you don’t feel like that any longer?”

“Another reason occurred to me. Perhaps she wanted me to be with you to make sure that everything went as it was supposed to go. That you didn’t try to stop me from finding Bonnie and the man who killed her.”

“You believe I’d do that?”

She couldn’t read his expression. There was hardness in the curve of his lips, and his dark eyes were glittering with a hint of recklessness. Yet she was still aware of the underlying pain that lay beneath that hardness. In which direction was he headed? Eve knew that he loved Bonnie. But he also loved his uncle and was very grateful to him for years of protection and affection in a barren world. “I don’t know what I believe right now. But I’m not going to take a chance. We’re joined at the hip until we find your uncle.” She smiled wearily. “So you can call information in Dublin and see if we can locate Donnelly’s cousin if you like. Do you know how many O’Learys there will be in that city? I’m going to call Catherine back and see if Venable or Joe can narrow down the odds. We’ll see which method will get us what we need the quickest.”

IT TOOK OVER AN HOUR for Catherine to get back to Eve about O’Leary’s phone and address.

“I found him,” Catherine said. “O’Leary owns a pub outside Dublin.”

“What’s his phone number?”

Catherine rattled off the number. “But you don’t need it. I talked to him. He was belligerent as hell and drunk as a skunk, but he did finally answer a few questions. He hasn’t seen Donnelly since he visited him after he left the hospital. He stayed with O’Leary for about three months, then went back to the U.S.”

“Does he have an address?”

“Not a current one. He hasn’t heard from him since about a year after he left Dublin. It appears they didn’t get along too well. O’Leary likes his pints a bit too much, and his cousin was always trying to make him cut down his drinking. Actually, from what Venable tells me, O’Leary is an alcoholic. I can see a psychiatrist trying to help him with his problem, but O’Leary didn’t appreciate Donnelly’s interfering in his life.”

“Where was Donnelly’s last address?”

“A university town near Valdosta, Georgia.”

“What? He’s not practicing any longer? He’s teaching?”

“He wasn’t on the staff as far as we can tell. Joe and I are going down there to ask some questions. Do you want to meet us there?”

Gallo was shaking his head.

“Maybe not,” Eve said. “We’re in the car on our way to the airport to catch a flight for Atlanta. And I imagine Gallo wants to talk to O’Leary himself. Let us know what you find out.” She hung up, and said to Gallo, “Though I don’t know what you think that you can find out from O’Leary that Catherine didn’t.”

“Probably nothing. But there’s no use all of us converging on that university town. I’m my uncle’s next of kin, and maybe the hospital would tell me something they wouldn’t tell Catherine and Quinn.”

“And you don’t want to get too close to Joe or Catherine,” Eve said shrewdly. “They might get in your way.”

“Very perceptive. I don’t deny that could be part of it.” He gazed at Eve. “When we get to the airport, I’m going to try to call O’Leary and see if I can catch something that Catherine didn’t find out. She said he was drunk. But after I make that call, I’m boarding the first flight to Atlanta.” He paused. “But you might prefer to catch a flight to Valdosta to meet Catherine and Quinn. You might find it more profitable.”

“Forget it,” Eve said grimly. “I’m not leaving you, John.”

“I was afraid that would be your answer.” He looked back at the highway, and said soberly, “I hope you won’t regret it, Eve.”

She hoped she wouldn’t either, she thought. She didn’t know whether staying with Gallo would translate into protecting him or battling with him. She didn’t want to do either. She wanted to be with Joe at this crucial time.

Stay the course. Every instinct was still telling her that she had to travel this path.

But why, Bonnie?

“ WHY, BONNIE?”

Bonnie lifted her head as Eve’s words swept to her like a wind through autumn leaves.

So much pain. So much bewilderment.

She couldn’t always hear her mother when she spoke to her when Bonnie was here on this plane. As she’d told Eve, it was like being in two different worlds with different rules and memories. She was not allowed to take this world with her. The balance was difficult, and letting her go back from here to Eve’s world was a trade-off. It was usually only when Eve needed her most that she could break through the barrier and be there for her.

Why?

I wish I could tell you, Mama. I don’t know myself. I’m feeling my way and hoping that everything will come together. I have to have faith that it will. I don’t even know why it couldn’t have happened before. I wanted all the hurt to go away for you, and it hurt me that it didn’t. But there’s that wonderful order here that I have to trust.

As Bonnie was doing this moment in the middle of this forest that teemed with life… and death.

She fell to her knees beside the injured doe that was soon going to pass to the other side.

She could see the deer’s heart beating frantically with fear. Fear was always the most terrible part of the passing.

Don’t be afraid. I’m here with you. She gently put her hand on the deer’s head. I’ll show you. See? You’ll be safe soon, and there will be nothing but the joy. Do you see it?

The doe was quieting and looking up at her with eyes that no longer held the fear, only the wonder.

Trust. Love. It’s all there waiting for you. It’s only the beginning. Do you see it?

Wonder was being replaced by the joy in the deer’s eyes.

And Bonnie knew she was beginning to see it.

“WHY ARE YOU PHONING ME? Why the hell are you bothering me?” James O’Leary’s voice was rough with irritation and slightly thick from the alcohol he’d obviously been imbibing. “I’ve already talked to that nosy Ling woman. She wouldn’t leave me alone. I told her I didn’t have time to talk to her. I have a business to run. Now you come asking me the same questions.”

“Because I’m not satisfied that she got the right answers,” Gallo said.

O’Leary muttered a curse. “I’m hanging up now.”

“And I’ll call you back. If you don’t answer, then I’ll get on a plane and be knocking on the door of your pub within a matter of hours. I won’t give up, O’Leary. And I’m much more difficult to deal with in person. It would be much smarter if you give me a few moments right now.”

Silence. “What the hell did Kevin do to you all?”

“Nothing that would get him in trouble with the authorities. We just need some information from him that he may have obtained from one of his patients.”

“Then he won’t tell you anything. I used to ask him to tell me if those nuts he talked to had any weird stories that would give us a chuckle. He’d never say a word. Asshole.”

“You didn’t get along with him?”

“He was always trying to get me off the booze. It’s not his business. Just because he doesn’t want to have a good time, why try to keep me from doing what I want to do? He was lousy company, always sitting around brooding or taking walks. He said that he had some heavy thinking to do. That was okay, but when he tried to tell me what to do, I blew up. I told him I didn’t want him around here any longer.”

“You kicked him out?”

“I had a right. We got along real good when we were in school together, but then he got all serious and telling everybody what to do. He wouldn’t leave me alone. He even offered to hypnotize me to get me to quit drinking. He said that it would reinforce my will. I’ve got plenty of will if I want to use it. I know what’s good for me.” His tone was surly. “I told him to go and lecture someone else and leave me to go my own way. Do you know what he said? The bastard said if I needed him, to call, and he’d be there and work with me.”

“Terrible. And you only received one card from him after he left Dublin? The one from Valdosta, Georgia.”

“I got a couple more from him, but I tore them up. I didn’t need him whining at me.”

“From Valdosta, Georgia?”

“Yeah, I told the Ling woman that was the only address I had from him.” He suddenly burst out, “It’s not as if I’m some kind of criminal, dammit. So I like to drink a little. I don’t hurt anyone. He acts as if I’m going straight to hell. I threw that rosary down the toilet.”

“Rosary? He gave you a rosary?”

“No, some priest stopped by the pub about a year ago.”

“You didn’t mention that to Catherine Ling.”

“Why should I? I just wanted to get rid of her. And all she wanted was to know if I had an address for Kevin.”

“I think she would have been interested. What was the name of this priest?”

“Father Dominic from some church in Atlanta. He said he’d just come from Rome, and he’d promised my cousin he’d get a rosary blessed by the Pope and give it to me.”

“What church in Atlanta?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I told him to tell Kevin to go to hell. I don’t need his rosary.”

“The name was Father Dominic?”

“I think so. I didn’t pay much attention. I just wanted him out of my pub.”

“And that’s the last contact you had with Kevin Donnelly?”

“That was no contact. I told you, I threw the rosary down the toilet and told the priest to get out.” He was silent. “When you get hold of Kevin, you tell him that I’m doing just fine. I don’t need him or anyone else telling me what to do.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know.” Gallo hung up and turned to Eve. “Father Dominic. He had contact with Donnelly no longer than two years ago.” He paused. “And Donnelly offered to use hypnosis to help O’Leary stop drinking.”

“It could be an innocent offer. Hypnosis is often used by psychiatrists. It doesn’t have to mean that he’s endangering anyone.”

“He was brought up on charges for implanting false memories. What better way than using hypnosis? I’ll slit his throat if he was doing his experiments on my uncle.” He checked his wristwatch. “We have forty minutes before our flight. Let’s get to the gate and see if we can start making some phone calls to see if we can find a church in Atlanta that has a Father Dominic.”

“There may be more than one.”

“Then we’ll start interviewing all the Father Dominics and try to find the right one.” He took her elbow and strode toward the security gates. “And hope to hell he’ll lead us to Kevin Donnelly.”