Daddy's Little Killer (20 page)

"Good guess," he said.

"It would be very helpful if you would tell
me who you think is so interested in my investigation."

"You don't really have to ask that
question."  Orion sipped instead of guzzling.

"Datello."

"Bingo.  Question is, why would he be
interested in you before you even showed up in Darkwater Bay?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons."  Reasons
about which I would not elaborate under any circumstances.  It
was enough to know that the Darkwater Bay connection had nothing to
do with Hardy's offer of work and everything to do with Rick's
murder.

"His uncle is a big time organized crime
figure back in your territory, isn't he?"

"Sullivan Marcos.  You could say that
his name conjures certain stereotypes.  I had nothing to do
with organized crime investigations at the FBI, Orion."

"I wouldn't go that far.  There was a
link, Doc, a very significant link I learned today."

"My ex-husband?"

Orion nodded.

I sighed.  Conversation over.  My
little secret wasn't going to stay buried for long.

"Is that why you left the FBI?"

"I wasn't fired, Orion."

"No, I'm sure you weren't, given the urgency
that your friend David showed when he tried to lure you back home
where you belong earlier."

"I don't belong
there.  I haven't
belonged
for a very long time."

"Did you know who I was Monday night?" 
Orion avoided my gaze by staring at the floor.  "Were you
playing a game with me?"

"No more than you were me," I said. 
"And I could ask you the same question, Orion.  What were you
really doing in Washington?  Did someone send you to find me
and encourage me to come to Darkwater Bay?"

"I know you don't believe in a thing called
coincidence, so I won't insult you by trying to play it off as
chance.  I was in D.C. for a specific reason.  It led me
to you, a woman I believed was Diana Farber.  I couldn't
figure out what Kelly and Varden were doing, I just knew that I
needed to stop them from harassing an innocent bystander."

"Ah.  You
were
following the
PI's.  That makes more sense than any scenario I could
imagine.  Why were you on their trail?"

"It's a case I'm not at liberty to
discuss."

"Right," the word drawled from my
lips.  "Because somehow, what you were investigating at the
time links back to me for some reason, and we can't possibly
explain what that link is, could we?  God forbid I have a
little insight into why someone wanted to abduct me from my hotel.
 Twice."

"Doc, I honestly have no idea how you fit
into any of this.  Like I said, I'm not even sure I know who
hired those two boneheads.  You'd think that someone with
Datello's resources could find men more capable, wouldn't you?"

"The thought occurred to me."

"But who else could it be?"

"I suppose the answer to that might lie in
whatever case you were investigating that led them to … Kelly and
Varden, was it?"

He nodded.  "I can't say."

"Can't is different than won't,
Orion."  I watched his lips form a thin, tight line, his
posture stiffen.  "Maybe you could say if the phone call you
got Monday night that put the skids on our mutual mistake was
related to Kelly and Varden."

"Peripherally, but not really."

"Was it related to Gwen Foster?"

"Gwen never hired me."

"Yes, you already told me that.  Did
someone else hire you on her behalf?"

"Look," Orion rose abruptly and slammed his
glass onto the end table by the sofa.  "You're gonna need a
secure place to stay tonight until you can make other
arrangements.  I had Paul get your bags packed.  He's on
his way over here with them now.  You can argue all you like,
Doc, but for tonight, this is the safest place you could possibly
be.  Nobody's gonna spy on you here."

"Nobody but you."

He held his hands up in supplication. 
"I've got a thing tonight.  I won't be back for hours, if not
until morning.  If anybody has the opportunity to spy here,
it's you.  Knock yourself out.  I let Michel at the desk
know you'd be here, in case you need to go out.  He'll let you
back in."

"So many irons in so many fires.  Don't
forget to take protection," I sneered.  Orion would find my
luggage exactly where his employee left it.  I had no
intention of spending the night in his lair.  Nor did I
believe that Orion wouldn't be watching exactly what I was doing
all night.

Chapter 18 

My frustration level built to the breaking
point and boiled over when I marched into an empty squad room at
central and found the lock on my door had been jimmied open. 
The computer's hard drive was gone, torn out rather clumsily. 
Naturally, my search had been aborted in the process.

In the ill advised attempt to slow the
progress of my investigation, Kelly and Varden had made a rookie
mistake, one that told me more than Orion's suspicions had.

Whoever hired them had unfettered access to
the police department.  In lieu of the rickety elevator, I
jogged down three flights of stairs to the information desk. 
An civilian employee I'd never met was on duty.  Simms. 
I gazed at his weary face.

"Mr. Simms, my name is Helen Eriksson."

"Yeah, I heard."

"I'm curious where Detective Myre is. 
I was here earlier and he was in the squad room and now he's
gone."

"Myre went home at eleven."

"And who covers homicide after that?"

"They're on call, Dr. Eriksson.  Didn't
the chief give you any orientation today?"

Which chief?  I smiled
sheepishly.  "We've got this big case, and in all the
excitement …"

"Lowe pulled a Lowe," Simms shook his head
and rifled around beneath the dilapidated countertop.  "Let's
see what I got in here.  Ah, heck, it'd be easier if I just
told you how it works around here.  The detectives ordinarily
are in the squad room, or active duty, from seven to four-thirty
Monday through Friday.  If something happens during off hours,
they're on call, and dispatch pages them."

"Like Tuesday night at the Foster home."

"Exactly."

"Were you on duty last night, Simms?"

"Every night from eleven to seven, Wednesday
through Sunday."

I glanced at my Rolex.  Eleven
twenty-seven. 

Simms whistled.  "That's a nice piece,
Dr. Eriksson."

"Call me Helen," I mustered a friendly
smile.  "So if the detectives are typically here until
four-thirty every day, why was Myre upstairs at nine when I went to
my office?"

"Couldn't say," he shrugged.  "It's not
normal, that's for sure, and I'd bet my puny paycheck that the
missus was having a fit that he wasn't home yet."

"Detective Myre is married?"  Given his
rumpled, generally unkempt appearance, I struggled to imagine the
kind of woman who would marry him.  The thought of his teeth
was enough to make me shudder.  He had the dentition of early
stage meth-mouth and smelled like he existed on a diet of tuna and
red onion with a dash of garlic thrown in for social purposes.

"Oh yeah.  If you spend much time
around the guy, you'll notice that the woman has him on a very
short, tight leash."

"I'm not sure I know what that means."

"She calls him.  Constantly.  I
picked up a day shift for Molly a couple of months ago, and I swear
to God every time I saw him that day, he had the phone to his ear,
promising Susan this that and the other.  I don't know how the
guy gets anything done."

"And you mentioned this to Molly?"

"She said that's Myre's typical day. 
He doesn't do a darn thing but talk on that phone and run errands
for Rogers and Daltry."

Interesting.  Rogers and Daltry seemed
to exert a fair amount of control in the homicide unit.  "Tell
me, Mr. Simms.  How many detectives work out of the homicide
unit?"

"Just the five of them."

"I've only met three."

"Ah," he nodded again.  "You probably
haven't seen Sandoval and Marquez.  Captain Martin hired them
when the last two dinosaurs retired about a year ago.  We
don't see a whole lot of them, on account of taking the scut."

My eyebrows lifted in silent question.

"That would be the cases that Rogers and
Daltry think are simple enough for them to close.  Mostly
suicides, bar brawls gone awry, that kind of thing."

It explained the cases
that central
was
closing.

"I appreciate your help.  I'm heading
out for the night – oh, but before I go, did a couple of gentlemen
come through here tonight?  Big guys, look like they might've
been line backers in their youth?"

"I haven't seen a soul but you, Helen. 
I can ask Benny tomorrow night when I see him if you like."

"I'd appreciate that, Mr. Simms."

"Aw, heck," his chin dipped to his
chest.  "Call me Rudy."

On the way to my car, I pulled out the cell
phone and called Maya.  "Do you have access to federal crime
databases at the morgue?"

"Good morning to you too, Helen."

"It's not morning.  Yet."

"Yeah, we have access.  I routinely run
our unmatched DNA through CODIS."

CODIS is the Combined DNA Index System,
another database operated by my former brethren at the FBI. 
It allows DNA to be stored in a database for comparison with
unidentified DNA in open cases.  The theory being that DNA can
be matched to known offenders whose samples have already been
collected and identified.

I explained the break in, vandalism and
theft in my office.  "I need a secure computer to run a ViCAP
search.  Obviously, that place isn't central.  Do you
mind if I use a computer at your office?"

"I'll call security and let them know you're
coming."

"Maya, while I've got you on the phone, can
I ask something?"

"Shoot."

"Have you had cause to review many autopsies
performed by your predecessor?"

"Riley Storm?  Wow, you're really
rooting through the garbage at warp speed, kiddo.  It took me
a full month to realize the depth of his incompetence."

"But are you sure it was that?"

"Let me just put it this
way.  If Dr. Storm were competent, we'd have people out here
studying the residents of this city with a fervor you couldn't
imagine trying to determine why the incidence of sudden cardiac
death dwarfs the rest of the
world
."

"I wondered."

"He liked listing massive coronary failure
as a cause of death.  And he didn't dig any deeper to
determine causality of that particular phenomenon that happens in
every death."

"You're saying that we all die because the
heart fails?"

"As in, it fails to continue beating. 
He didn't miss the obvious stuff, like a stabbing or a gun shot
wound, but if it was unclear in any way, good old Riley called it a
heart attack."

"He didn't list that as the cause in
Brighton Bennett's death."

"Uh, no.  That he called simple
exsanguination due to dismemberment."

I shuddered.  "He was certain that she
was alive when that happened?"

"As a heart attack."

"You're a funny girl, Maya."

"Of course, all I have is a half-ass report,
so it's tough to say what he really did in terms of a postmortem
examination.  Based on the body of work I've reviewed, I'd
lean toward an assumption that they rolled her remains into the
room, he collected what blood he could find and stamped the cause
of death onto a form.  I already told you that his evaluation
of the neck and wrists for the type of weapon used were woefully
vague."

"Yeah, you mentioned that.  It makes
another question pop to mind.  Do you know what the chain of
custody was at that time for body fluid samples collected?"

"I can't imagine that it's changed at all
over the years, Helen.  We collect and it's stored securely
until a judge divvies out the portion provided to the defense for
its testing procedures.  Why?"

"I'll get into it later," I said. 
"Right now, I'd like to get started on my record search in
ViCAP.  I appreciate your help, Maya.  And if you don't
mind, if you could ask someone whose been at the lab longer than
you if the procedure for storing samples obtained on autopsy has
changed over the years, I'd appreciate it."

"I can tell you're onto something. 
I'll ask Billy first thing in the morning and let you know. 
Have a good night, kiddo, and be safe."

I glanced into the
rearview mirror on the car.  Two sets of headlights were
evenly spaced behind me.  Orion was at his
thing
.  Like I didn't know what
that really meant.  In practical terms, my shadow had shrunk
by a third – to Kelly and Varden, and my so-called friends from the
FBI.

Orion made a strong argument for the
security of his penthouse.  There were no locks to smash for
easy access by elevator.  Frick and Frack didn't look like
they had the physical stamina to climb thirty flights of
stairs.  David wouldn't break in to obtain evidence.  The
FBI didn't have to resort to illegal means to obtain evidence.

I made a note to replace the stolen MacBook
in the morning and get the software I needed loaded.  It sure
would save a lot of time searching for a secure place to perform a
basic task.

Security asked for identification, and I was
required to sign into the morgue.  One of the guards escorted
me to Maya's office and unlocked the door.  "Dial 8000 on the
phone when you're ready to leave, Dr. Eriksson.  You cannot be
in the morgue unaccompanied after hours."