The Blackmail Club by David Bishop Page A

desk, the anticipated couch, and two occasional chairs on an area rug near the window. Jack and Nora sat there.
    Several hunting and golfing photos hung on the side wall. In one of the golf pictures Radnor stood with Chris, Troy Engels, a CIA deputy Jack knew, and Chief Mandrake.
    Nora opened a scratch pad. She kept most of her notes in her Palm Pilot, but she had told Jack she believed people were more comfortable talking without technology.
    “Doctor, you were listed after me as the person to be contacted in the event Chris needed others to make decisions about his care. Why us? Why not his wife and son?”
    Radnor put his hands flat on his desk blotter. Then brought them together and separated his palms leaving his fingers touching like flexing tent posts. After lowering his hands, he spoke.
    “Chris thought very highly of you, Mr. McCall. To say he loved you as a man loves a son would not be a stretch. I’m sure it was no secret to you that he saw his own son Donny as a huge disappointment. As for Sarah, she was ten or twelve years older than Chris. Maybe he figured she’d die before he would need someone to make any acute-care decisions for him.”
    “What made Chris depressed and suicidal?”
    Radnor ran his hand back over his shaggy crew cut.
    “Mr. McCall, your question presumes Chris suffered from depression. Frankly, I agree. One cannot contemplate, let alone carry out suicide without being depressed. Admitting some failure on my part, I saw nothing that indicated he was suffering anything near that level of depression.”
    “Doctor, we understand the two of you had been collaborating on some research project, and that you were also treating him for his own problem. What problem was that?”
    “Chris and I had been friends since school. His death stunned me. I miss him. We were coauthoring a highly technical research paper. In laymen’s terms, our hypothesis holds that some relationship exists between kleptomania by the very wealthy and sexual dysfunction among that same group. While very few of our total patients who suffered from a sexual dysfunction also suffered from kleptomania, a high percentage of the wealthy who suffered from kleptomania also struggled with aberrant sexual behavior.”
    Jack found it an interesting aside, but Radnor had evaded the question.
    Nora crossed her legs, letting her black high heel slip off the back of her suspended foot. “Doctor, for which of those conditions did you treat Chris Andujar?”
    “I’m sorry, Ms. Burke. I told Sarah I would cooperate any way I could, but I must respect patient-doctor constraints.”
    “Doctor,” Jack pleaded with hands spread, “Chris is dead. His wife asked you to talk with us. You know I was his primary designee to be consulted for his care. Please. Work with us.”
    “Yes, Chris is dead, but my other patients may not want their treatment conditions to become public even after they die. I’m sorry, Mr. McCall, there is nothing further I can say.”
    “A court could rule otherwise upon a petition from his wife.”
    “I would then be free to tell you what you want to know—what I would be happy to tell you if I could do so without compromising my reputation. Then again, seeing the police have ruled his death a suicide, a court might see such a petition as an unnecessary fishing expedition into a doctor’s files. No, Mr. McCall, we’re into areas where I must assume if Chris had wanted you to know, he would have told you himself.”
    “He did tell me Dr. Radnor. Chris had come to the realization he was bisexual and he hoped that with your help he could get free of it.”
    Radnor moistened his lips and tilted back his chair. “Chris guarded that secret, but seeing he told you I see no reason not to answer your question. He was desperate to rid himself of his gay side. He knew it would devastate his antediluvian wife, and destroy his already fragile relationship with his son.”
    “How promiscuous was he?” Nora asked.
    “From