Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script (22 page)

Lacey's expression brightened considerably. "Do you think you can do that?"

Tyrell gave her a smile that conveyed confidence, amusement, and more than a little cunning. It was a complex smile, practiced and refined over the years to justify any doubts a client might have about Tyrell's stiff retainer.

"I don't think they have a case," Tyrell said.

"They think the video that PI shot proves I'm guilty."

"I think the tape can prove whatever you want it to prove," he said, maintaining his smile. "Tell me why Dr. Sloan was in your trailer when you were arrested."

"He lives a couple doors down from our beach house," she said. "He's the one who found the bodies, and he's the father of Steve Sloan, the homicide detective investigating the case."

"Interesting," Tyrell said, making a note on his legal pad. "So Dr. Sloan was alone with the bodies before the police arrived."

"I don't know," Lacey said. "The first time I met Dr. Sloan was when he and his son showed up at my house to tell me that Cleve had been killed."

"Dr. Sloan was there, too?" he asked in disbelief.

"I've never seen the two of them apart," she said, "Lt. Sloan brings his father with him everywhere."

"I want to know the details of each meeting you had with them," Tyrell said. "I need to know exactly what you told them and what their responses were."

Lacey recounted her first conversation with the Sloans, about her separation from Cleve and the money-laundering scheme she'd discovered. While she talked, Tyrell wrote quickly on his legal pad, filling page after page with indecipherable scrawl.

"Lt. Sloan practically accused me of murder right then," Lacey said, concluding her account. "And then he did this gunshot-residue test, which turned out positive because I'd been firing a gun all night on the set. He didn't believe me, of course."

"Did he have a warrant to perform the test?"

"He talked to a judge over the phone, then delivered a copy of the executed warrant later."

"Tell me about your next meeting," Tyrell said without even looking up from his pad.

"It was on the set. They came down while I was doing an action scene with Moira. Dr. Sloan had lots of questions about the movie-making process and how stunt doubles are used. He was obviously trying to play some kind of cat-and- mouse game with me. When I called him on it, his son came right out and called me a murderer."

"Did he read you your rights?" Tyrell asked.

"I dared him to arrest me, but he refused," Lacey said. "He said he didn't want to spend the night dealing with the media."

"I wish that conversation had been recorded," Tyrell said, still writing. "We could have used it to establish a pattern of harassment."

"Titus told me the Sloans came to his house to harass him, too," she said, "but that Dr. Sloan spent most of his time out of sight, creeping around the house."

'They were both at his house before his suicide?" he asked.

She nodded. "Is that important?"

"This gets better and better." Tyrell kept writing, even more furiously now, as if his hand couldn't keep up with his thoughts. "How did the videotape of Moira and Titus come into play?"

"The guy who shot it called me on my private line, saying it would cost me $300,000 to stay out of jail," she said. "I called Lt. Sloan right away and asked for his help."

"Excellent," Tyrell said, again not looking up from his pad as he wrote. "Go on."

"The Sloans went with me to the drop and caught the guy who was shaking me down. Turns out it was a PI who Cleve hired to follow me," she said. "The first time I saw the tape was today when the Sloans showed it to me. You've heard the rest. So has the entire world."

Tyrell stopped writing, cracked his knuckles, and leaned back in his chair. He thought for a long moment. Lacey seemed perfectly at ease with his silence. Unlike his other clients, she didn't fidget or needle him with questions as he let the facts snap into place, like bullets being loaded into an ammo clip.

"I have a lot more questions to ask you, and some detective work of my own to do, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that you will be cleared of all the charges against you," he said. "And you're going to enjoy the preliminary hearing immensely."

"I'm not looking forward to being put on trial," she said.

"Think of it as a show you're attending. Because you're not the one who's going to be on trial," Tyrell said. "It's going to be Mark Sloan."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Mark woke up in the morning, he looked out the back window and saw the flotilla of reporters offshore again—only now their cameras were aimed at his house instead of Cleve Kershaw's. Out the front window, he saw a thicket of satellite dishes rising from television news vans crowding the parking lot of Trancas Market on the other side of the Pacific Coast Highway.

He'd been preparing himself for a media assault since last night, ever since Larry King called to ask him about the audiotape CNN had acquired of his confrontation with Lacey McClure. Mark declined comment and disconnected the phone. Steve wisely spent the night at Parker Center and arranged to meet Mark at Community General the next morning to fill him in on the latest developments and to get Amanda's autopsy report on Titus Carville.

Mark got through the night undisturbed, thanks to the police officers Steve sent to keep reporters off the private street they lived on, just as Steve had on the day of the murders. The way things were going, Mark expected that his secretive, publicity-shy neighbors would soon start up a petition asking him to move.

Community General Hospital was walled in by television news trucks when Mark arrived, and a crowd of reporters was waiting for him at the entrance to the parking structure. The reporters were held back by private security guards, and Mark was able to drive through without having to face a single microphone or camera.

Once he was inside the hospital, Mark immediately noticed how unhappy and tense all the nurses and doctors seemed to be. At first he feared it had something to do with him, but then he learned from one of the nurses about the layoffs Dent had imposed during his brief absence. It was an outrage, and Mark promised to take the issue up with the administrator at the earliest opportunity.

That opportunity came a lot sooner than Mark anticipated. Dent was waiting outside the pathology lab, which doubled as the adjunct county medical examiner's office, where Titus Carville's body had been taken.

"Just the man I want to see," Mark said. "We need to talk."

"You could have seen me yesterday," Dent said. "But you didn't come in, did you? You called in sick—too shaken from your injuries to treat patients, yet, tellingly, not too shaken to play detective."

Mark ignored the dig. "You didn't consult me, or any other department heads, before laying off nurses. What were you thinking? We don't have enough nurses in this hospital as it is. Most of them have been working double shifts just to keep up with the workload. We should be hiring more nurses, not laying off the ones we have."

"We have a budget to balance, Dr. Sloan," Dent said. "Some sacrifices are inevitable."

"We're a hospital, those sacrifices should not come at the expense of patient care," Mark said. "You can't run Community General like one of your company's amusement parks."

"Your concern would be a lot more compelling if you had the slightest interest in patient care."

"I've been a doctor in this hospital for more than forty years," Mark said. "I've treated thousands of patients."

"Only lately, most of them have been dead. Take today, for example. You're not here to treat patients, are you? You're here to see a corpse. And look at what it's costing the doctors, nurses, and patients of this hospital."

Dent marched to the window and pointed to the media trucks outside. "Look outside, Dr. Sloan. Everybody in this hospital has to run a gauntlet of reporters because of you. You've not only inconvenienced the staff of this hospital, but also the relatives of the patients we are caring for."

"I am not responsible for what the news media does," Mark said. "Go outside and take it up with them."

"You're the reason they're here, Doctor."

"Lacey McClure is the reason they're here," Mark said. "She murdered two people. All I did was help catch her."

"And by doing so, once again Community General suffers. Who do you think is paying for the security guards outside? We are. And we're going to have to recoup it somewhere, either with cuts in staff and services or in higher fees to our patients," Dent said. "So before you complain to me about layoffs, look at your own behavior and the costs incurred by this hospital because of it."

Mark sighed heavily. "What do you want from me, Mr. Dent?"

"I want you gone," Dent said.

"I'll be glad to take a few days off until the media attention dies down," Mark said.

"I was thinking of something more permanent." Dent offered Mark a manila envelope. "Take a look at your severance package. I think you'll find it very reasonable in light of the current situation."

The elevator opened behind Mark and Steve emerged, looking very tired. Mark glanced at Steve, then back at Dent.

"I'm not interested," Mark said, ignoring the envelope in Dent's hand.

"This is a limited-time offer, Dr. Sloan, reflecting Hollyworld's respect for your years of service," Dent said. "But that respect is significantly diminishing with each passing day, along with the cash settlement we're willing to pro vide."

"Give the settlement to the nurses you laid off," Mark said. "It will tide them over until I can get their jobs back."

"The only way you can do that is by leaving," Dent said. "And letting us use your salary to hire a few of them back."

"I'm not leaving," Mark said.

"Not voluntarily, anyway," Dent said, and walked off, dumping the envelope in the trash on his way.

Steve joined his father. "What was that all about?"

"The hospital administration wants to get rid of me," Mark said.

"So what else is new?"

"They laid off a bunch of nurses," Mark said. "Susan was one of them."

"Can you get them back?" Steve asked.

"I don't know," Mark said. "But I'm going to try. Anything new on the Lacey McClure case?"

Steve motioned to the path lab. "I'll fill you in after I get the autopsy results."

Mark opened the door and walked in to find Amanda in her scrubs, leaning over the corpse of a young man, rope burns around his neck.

"Hanging?" Mark asked.

Amanda nodded. "Rigged up a noose to the garage door opener, then sat on a stool, reading old
Goodnight Moon
until his wife came home. When she drove up and opened the garage with her remote, she hung him. Lifted him two feet off the ground."

"My God," Mark said. "He must have hated her."

"I heard about this one," Steve said. "Tanis Archer is working it. Turns out the wife was having an affair."

"Why was he reading
Goodnight Moon
?" Mark asked.

"They've been going through infertility treatments," Steve said. "It wasn't working."

"It's horrifying how far people will go to hurt one another," Mark said.

"Which I suppose brings us to Titus Carville," Amanda said, peeling off her gloves and going to her desk. She sorted through the files on her desk until she found the one she was looking for, then gave it to Steve. "He died of an overdose of rohypnol."

"The date-rape drug that was used to knock out Cleve Kershaw and Amy Butler," Steve said. "Cute."

"It was mixed in with the coffee in the cup on his desk," Amanda said. "I'm guessing he's been dead two days."

"Around the time someone was taking a shot at you," Steve said to his dad.

"Is there a connection?" Mark asked.

"We checked Titus Carville's phone records," Steve said. "And guess who he called the night before the attempt on your life?"

"Albert Frescetti," Mark said, then added, for Amanda's sake, "the shooter."

"I know, he's behind you. Third drawer on the right," Amanda said, then turned to Steve. "You think Carville arranged for the attempt on Mark's life to make you think the Mob was involved?"

"I think Lacey arranged it," Steve said, "and had Carville do the dirty work. It was a stunt to implicate the Mob and get rid of dad, who she was worried might punch a hole in her alibi."

"And when the hit failed, Carville killed himself," Amanda said. "That would explain the suicide note. He was distraught over failing his Lacey."

Mark shook his head. "He was expecting Lacey to show up. He'd made his bed with her special sheets because he expected her to sleep with him. That's not the act of some one about to kill himself."

"Unless she wouldn't sleep with him because of his failure," Amanda said. "What if she showed up and berated him until he had a complete breakdown. She stormed out, then he went into his little Lacey shrine and swallowed a bunch of roofies."

"That's exactly what Lacey wants us to think," Steve said. "Lacey couldn't risk turning Titus against her, he knew too much. He had the power to send her to prison with one phone call. Burnside would have given him immunity in a heartbeat and Titus could have sparked a multimillion-dollar bidding war over the rights to his story. She had to kill him."

"It's all speculation," Mark said. "We don't have any evidence to back it up."

"We don't need any. She'll go down for Kershaw and Butler," Steve said. "How many life sentences can she serve, anyway?"

Moira Cole's tiny bungalow had a leaf-covered, wood shake roof and was nestled deep in an overgrown corner of Topanga Canyon. Her home was destined to be kindling in one of the next big Malibu fires. It wasn't a guess on Mark's part, it was a certainty. Wildfires scorched the Santa Monica Mountains with frightening regularity, propelled by the hot Santa Ana winds and consuming hundreds of homes in a relentless march to the sea.

Several years ago, Mark had seen the fires up close, not very far from where he and Steve now stood outside Moira Cole's bungalow. That fire incinerated sixteen thousand acres and turned day into night under dense clouds of smoke. He'd treated victims of the inferno and hunted a killer who hoped the flames would mask his crimes. But the lasting memory Mark had from that experience was the horrific sight of wild rabbits scrambling aflame out of the blazing chaparral, starting new fires wherever they fell.