Murder Suicide Read Online Free PDF Page B

Being killed."
    Heller sat straight up, as though a gust of wind had blown him back against his chair.  "He shot himself with his own gun."
    "A gunshot from his pistol caused his death," Clevenger said.  "But it’s possible someone else could have been with him in the alleyway this morning."
    "Someone else," Heller said, looking confused.  "I never even considered...  The police were very clear with me on the phone this morning.  So were the paramedics in the E.R.   They said it was suicide.  A Detective Coady."
    "It might be," Clevenger said.  "And if Snow did kill himself, I’ll try to find out why."
    Heller stood up and walked to the wall of windows behind his desk, folded his arms and looked out at the Boston skyline.  Several seconds passed in silence.  He shook his head.  "You wouldn’t be here if the police were sure it was suicide," he said.  "You’re telling me there’s a real chance my patient was murdered.  He may actually have intended to go the distance with me."
    Heller seemed to be viewing Snow’s cause of death as a verdict on whether Snow had abandoned him.  "I can’t say yet," Clevenger said.  "I need to find out much more about who he was — and whether someone might have wanted him dead."
    "And you’ll have to be thorough.  You’ll want to get your hands on every bit of information about him you can."
    "I like my margins clean, too," Clevenger said.
    "Then you need to know something."  He turned around, looked at Clevenger.  "John would have been risking more than his speech or his vision in the O.R. today."
    "What do you mean?"
    Heller seemed uncertain how much he wanted to divulge.
    "Was there a significant risk of death?" Clevenger asked.
    "In a manner of speaking," Heller said.  He walked back to his seat, sat down.  "If I tell you this, I need you to keep it between you and me.  It’s privileged doctor-patient information.  I figure you’re kind of like John’s psychiatrist — postmortem.  This is a curbside consult.  Doc-to-doc."
    "Okay," Clevenger said.  "Doc-to-doc."
    Heller leaned forward, planted his elbows on his thighs.  "The areas of the brain involved in John’s seizures," he said, "included the hippocampus, the cingulated gyrus and the amygdala.  Those turn out to be the areas most intimately involved in facial recognition and the emotional components of memory — at least if you believe the animal studies coming out of UCLA and the University of Minnesota.  It’s preliminary work, but those structures are looking more and more like the data bank where we record who we know and how we feel about them.  I think the initial findings will come out in Neurosciences within two or three months."
    "You’re saying Snow could have suffered amnesia?"
    "A very severe and particular form," Heller said.  "His memory for facts would have been unaffected.  His intellect would have survived.  His imagination may well have flourished.  But he would have been alone.  The surgery would very likely have turned anyone with whom he had an emotional connection into a stranger — his wife, his children, everyone."
    Now Clevenger was the one leaning forward.  "So he could still be an inventor, but he wouldn’t remember the people close to him.  A kind of interpersonal amnesia."
    "Precisely," Heller said.
    "And he was still willing to go through with the surgery?"
    "I thought so — until this morning.  Things had become... complicated for him.  He and his business partner — Coroway — were at each other’s throats over Coroway’s plan to take the company public.  John was dead set against it.  He didn’t want to be controlled by anyone, especially bean counters.  And his marriage was in trouble."
    "I need to know," Clevenger said.
    Heller looked him in the eyes.  "He had a mistress.  I think he saw the surgery as a chance for rebirth, a chance to escape."
    "To escape..." Clevenger said.
    "All the loose ends in his life.  The messiness.