Fatal Care (43 page)

“And they’re very good at it, too,” Brennerman said easily. “But our medical examiner is from India, I believe. I’m not sure how much he knows about rattlesnake bites. Probably not a great deal.”

“But he knows a lot about snake bites in general,” Farelli informed Brennerman. “They got snakes all over the place in India. As a matter of fact, there are more cobra bites there than anywhere else in the world.”

Jake smiled inwardly, wondering where Farelli had gotten that information.

“I—ah—I wasn’t aware of that,” Brennerman mumbled unevenly.

Jake sensed the nervousness in Brennerman’s voice. Not a lot, but some. Maybe Brennerman was becoming unnerved enough to start making mistakes. Jake decided to push a little harder. But before he could, Brennerman asked a question.

“Are you here because of Nancy’s accidental death?”

“In a way,” Jake replied. “Why?”

“I just thought it was a bit out of your territory.”

“Well, we came out here for a couple of reasons,” Jake said, quickly concocting a story to shake Brennerman up a little more. “We started out this morning to question Nancy Tanaka about the Mirren murder case. Some new developments have turned up. So we phoned her house and her mother told us Nancy was in her lab at Bio-Med. Then we got the call that Nancy was dead and we hustled out here.”

Jake looked over to Farelli. “Too bad. Now we’ll never get the information we needed from Nancy Tanaka.”

Farelli thought for a moment and then said, “Maybe one of the other technicians will know.”

“Perhaps I can help,” Brennerman offered.

“Maybe you can.”

Jake turned to the fish tank and tapped on the glass wall. The salmon ignored him. “It seems that Alex Mirren was conducting experiments on human fetuses.”

“What!” Brennerman looked genuinely surprised.

“Yeah,” Jake went on. “He was buying fetuses from an abortion clinic on a regular basis and obviously doing something with them out here.”

“That’s not possible,” Brennerman said firmly. “I control everything that goes on at Bio-Med, and I would have known. I can guarantee you that never happened.”

“Oh, it happened,” Jake assured him. “And we have to find out if it’s connected in any way to Mirren’s murder.”

“Well, if it occurred, I knew absolutely nothing about it.”

“But we think Nancy Tanaka did,” Jake said. “And she can’t tell us about it now, can she?”

“Regrettably, no.”

Jake felt like kicking himself. He’d played that card wrong and let Brennerman off the hook too easily. The scientist wasn’t showing any signs of nerves. Jake decided to try another tack. “Nancy Tanaka’s mother told us something else that’s a little strange. She said Joanna Blalock was at their house last night and had come along with Nancy to the Bio-Med lab. Do you know anything about that?”

“I don’t think Dr. Blalock could have gotten past the front gate,” Brennerman said at once. “We have very tight security here, particularly at night. And, as you no doubt saw, there are no other cars in the parking lot.”

Jake scratched his head, feigning puzzlement. “Maybe she snuck in in Nancy’s car.”

“Again, the guard would—” Brennerman stopped in midsentence, now thinking back. “You know, the guard at the gate reported that he thought he saw two women standing by Nancy’s car in the parking lot last night. But when he looked again, he saw only one. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. The lighting in the lot isn’t very good.”

“What time was that?” Jake asked promptly.

“Right after they ar—” Brennerman realized his mistake before he completed his sentence. “I mean, right after
she
arrived. Somewhere around a quarter to nine.”

Jake kept his expression even, but he had caught Brennerman’s slip of the tongue. So Joanna had been here. But where was she now? And was she still alive? “Can we talk to this guard?”

“Sure,” Brennerman said. “He’s just outside. I’ll call him in.”

Farelli waited for Brennerman to walk across the laboratory to a wall phone. Then he moved in close to Jake. “He’s going to rehearse that goddamn guard, if he hasn’t done it already.”

“Let him,” Jake whispered back. “The guard can still tell us what we need to know.”

“You figure they might have Joanna somewhere in the back of this building?”

“I doubt it. They’re not stupid enough to keep a live witness here. Or a dead one, for that matter.”

Farelli sighed wearily. “Things don’t look so good for the doc.”

“I know.”

Brennerman hung up the phone and walked back to them. “The guard will be right in. But to be honest, I don’t think he can add much to what I’ve already told you.”

“He might remember some details for us,” Jake said.

“If that was Joanna Blalock,” Brennerman continued, “I hope she didn’t wander around the grounds and get herself lost in the desert. It’s very, very dangerous out there.”

“Maybe she came into the lab with Nancy Tanaka,” Jake suggested.

“I’m positive that didn’t happen,” Brennerman told him. “We looked at the surveillance film first thing this morning. It showed only Nancy Tanaka entering.”

“But your surveillance camera is broken,” Jake countered.

“The one in the corridor is,” Brennerman countered back. “But we have a hidden camera in the reception area as well. That’s the surveillance film we looked at.”

The guard came through the door and glanced around.

Brennerman waved him over, pleased with the way things were going. The hidden camera had recorded Nancy Tanaka walking into the reception area by herself. It had later recorded Nancy and Joanna Blalock entering, but that segment of the film had been erased and appropriately doctored. There was absolutely no evidence to put Joanna inside the Bio-Med plant. And the detectives had been so useful in helping him place Joanna Blalock somewhere out in the desert. Now nobody would be terribly shocked when they found her body.

“Yes, sir,” the guard said, coming to the military position of attention in front of Brennerman.

“The detectives have some questions for you regarding last night.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said again, and turned to Jake.

“You remember Nancy Tanaka coming to work last night?” Jake asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you wave her through or search her car?”

“I searched it,” the guard answered. “I looked in the front seat and back. The girl was the only one in the car.”

“Could somebody have been hiding on the floor in the back?”

The guard hesitated, thinking. “I don’t think so. There wasn’t much room back there.”

“Did you search the trunk?”

“No, sir.”

“I see,” Jake said, wondering if that was where Joanna was hidden. “And then the car went in and over to the parking lot. Right?”

The guard nodded.

“What did you see next?”

“A minute or two later I glanced over at the parked car and thought I saw two women.”

“But you couldn’t be sure?”

“No, sir. When I looked again, I could see only one.” The guard looked over at Brennerman, like someone seeking approval, then continued. “I saw Nancy walk into the building and that’s all I saw.”

“Could the other woman have run to the side or back of the building?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think so. The dogs would have started raising hell.”

“I thought the dogs weren’t let out until midnight?”

“They aren’t,” the guard said. “The dogs were in their cages. But if anybody gets too close to the back of the plant, they bark like hell.”

“What if somebody wandered out toward the desert?” Jake asked. “Would they get upset over that?”

“Probably not,” the guard replied. “And they wouldn’t go out after him, either. They’re too damned smart to get themselves stuck in the desert somewhere.”

“And the dogs were let out at midnight?”

The guard nodded. “Twelve o’clock sharp.”

“And they didn’t chase after anything, huh?”

“They were calm all night,” the guard reported. “There wasn’t anything out there.”

Jake knew the guard was lying. According to the medical examiner, Nancy Tanaka died at 3 A.M. and that meant her body would have lain out on the pavement most of the night. The dogs would have sniffed her out in a flash. But they didn’t. Because she wasn’t on the pavement most of the night. She was inside, where they killed her. “What time were the dogs taken back to their cages?”

“At dawn.”

And that’s when they dumped Nancy’s body in the parking lot
, Jake thought. And that’s why the corpse wasn’t covered with desert sand. It had been on the pavement for only an hour or so.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” the guard asked.

“No. That’s fine. Thanks for your time.”

Jake watched the guard leave, then turned to Brennerman. “I think we’re done out here.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t have been more helpful,” Brennerman said sincerely. “And I’m really concerned about Joanna, if that was her. The desert around here can be so unforgiving.”

Jake and Farelli walked through the laboratory and reception area, then out into bright sunlight. The day was hot now, very hot, with the air not moving at all. Both men started perspiring heavily under their suits. It felt like it was a hundred degrees. They headed for the parking lot.

“What do you think?” Farelli asked.

“They’re lying their asses off,” Jake said disgustedly. “And we can’t prove a damn thing.”

Farelli nodded. “We can’t even prove the doc was out here.”

“Oh, she was out here, all right.”

“Not according to the surveillance film.”

“Those damn tapes can be altered to show only what they want us to see.”

Farelli rubbed his chin. “Maybe we should let the FBI take a look at that film.”

Jake shook his head at the idea. “We’ve got to concentrate on finding Joanna, and those tapes won’t help us do that.”

“I think she’s dead, Jake,” Farelli said gloomily. “All we’re going to find is a body. You may as well face up to that.”

They walked onto the hot pavement of the parking lot. The heat of the asphalt was so strong it penetrated through the soles of their shoes. A highway patrolman was standing guard near Nancy’s car. The ambulance had left.

Jake looked into the back seat of Nancy’s Honda. It was small and cramped. The guard was right. Nobody could have hidden back there.

Jake went to the rear of the car and tried to open the trunk. It was locked. He turned to the Highway Patrol cop and asked, “Have you got something to open this trunk?”

The cop fetched a crowbar from his car and quickly pried the trunk lid open. A wave of heat came out of the enclosed space. Jake fanned the air with his hand and then leaned into the trunk. It appeared to be empty except for a deflated spare tire and a dirty towel. In the far corner Jake saw a woman’s black purse. He reached for it and hurriedly opened it. The purse belonged to Joanna. “She was here,” he said softly.

Jake backed away from the car and wiped the sweat from his forehead with an index finger. “She was here,” he said again.

“And now they’ve probably got her body hidden away someplace,” Farelli surmised.

Jake nodded sullenly. “They couldn’t let her stay alive, not with what she knew.”

“Two women murdered by that son of a bitch,” Farelli growled. “And he’s going to walk.”

Jake asked himself, had they used rattlesnakes on Joanna? Probably, he had to admit. That way her death would look accidental and nobody could prove otherwise. There was just no solid evidence to nail the murdering bastards with. All they had was Lucy Rabb’s confession, and all that would do was send her to jail for awhile. Yeah, she’d take the fall all right, and Eric Brennerman would walk. And Joanna would still be dead.

In the distance Jake heard the sound of trucks. He turned in the direction of the noise and scanned the flat desert terrain. At first he saw nothing, but then he spotted the desert sand being kicked up by the vehicles. Gradually they came into view. Two four-wheel-drive Jeeps were approaching.

“What the hell is that all about?” Farelli asked.

“I don’t know,” Jake answered, seeing the Jeeps more clearly. Uniformed guards were driving. Big rottweilers were in the back. The Bio-Med logo was painted on the sides of the vehicles. “I think they were searching for something.”

“Yeah,” Farelli said. “And from the looks of things, they didn’t find it.”

“Or maybe they didn’t find
her
.”

Farelli jerked his head around. “You think she’s still out there? Alive?”

“Maybe,” Jake said, trying not to get his hopes up. “But if she is, we’d better get to her before they do.”

Farelli pointed at the county sheriff’s car at the edge of the tarmac. “I’ll bet that guy could form a posse real quick.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Jake said, and reached for his cell phone.

The small cave Joanna was hiding in was going to be her tomb. She was trapped with no way out and she knew it. She also knew she was dying.

The heat in the cave was almost unbearable, and it was made worse by the fever Joanna had. She was on fire, burning up, her leg infected and worsening by the hour.

With care she peeled back the makeshift bandage on her leg and tried to examine the wound. The light was poor at the back of the cave, so she wriggled her way forward into the sunlight that was streaming in. Joanna waited for her eyes to adjust to the brightness and then inspected the wound. It was red and tender and swollen with yellow pus forming in its center. To make her situation even worse, there were red streaks extending up her thigh. The infection was spreading.

Joanna replaced the bandage and squirmed back to the rear of the cave. It was more of a hollow than a cave, extending back fifteen feet into the side of the hill. There was barely enough space for Joanna to sit up without striking her head. But it had saved her life. Without the cave, they would have caught her and she’d be dead.

The water bottle was empty, its contents long gone. She’d had to decide whether to drink the water or use it to clean her wound or divide it and do both. She ended up drinking the water, but it was only a hundred cc’s, little more than a mouthful and not enough to survive. Without more water she’d be dead in a day.