Murder on Potrero Hill (14 page)

Peyton smiled as they came to the automatic doors before the lab.

“So spill. How was your hot date last night?”

“It was good. Took me for martinis at the Top of the Mark.”

Marco let out an appreciative whistle. “You don’t say. And they let you in with your ass-kicker boots.”

Peyton punched him in the shoulder. “I wore heels and a dress. You should have seen it. Sleeveless little black number.” She pushed open the door to Abe’s lab.

“So what time did he leave this morning?”

“I’m not answering that,” she said, smiling as Abe walked toward them.

“Well, if it isn’t
Marco-my-heart-beat-faster
,” said Abe with a wink.

Marco grimaced.

“That was awful,” answered Peyton.

Abe hooked his arm in hers. “Don’t like that one? Okay, I’ve got more.
Marco-all-my-dreams-come true
.”

A bark of laughter escaped Marco.

Peyton shook her head. “You’ve gotta stop.”

“Oh, you’re no fun at all. So who’s having sex?”

Peyton gave him a bewildered look.

“You were talking when you came in.” He released Peyton by his bench and gave Marco
a once-over. “Is it you, Handsome?”

“Nope. It’s Brooks.”

Peyton glared at her partner, but he gave her a wicked grin.

Abe placed his chin on his fist, his dreads swinging forward. “Do tell. Who is it?”

Marco sat down on a stool. “Devan Adams.”

“The dreamy Assistant D.A.?”

“That’s the one.”

“You little hussy,” said Abe, slapping her arm.

Peyton laughed despite herself. “That’s enough. So you called us down here for something, Abe. What was it?”

The professional mask fell over Abe’s face. “Right. So I’ve got a biology lesson for you two.”

“Go on.”

“We need some background first.” He reached for a file and pulled it open. “When they brought Zoë Ryder into the ER, her blood pressure was almost non-existent. Dr. Singh made the correct assumption that she was bleeding internally, so what to do then?”

Peyton shook her head. “Transfusion?”

“Bingo. In order to do a transfusion, you have to type the blood. Simple skin prick, done.”

“Okay?”

“Here’s where it gets interesting. He tells Ryder what he’s going to do. Ryder offers to donate his own blood. Singh doesn’t really need it, but he goes ahead and types him, figuring he would feel like he was doing something positive to help his wife.”

Peyton glanced down at the file. “That’s all in there?”

“Every word. Our Dr. Singh is a meticulous note-taker as most E.R. doctors learn to be. Saves on depositions for lawsuits and such.”

“Go on.”

“Turns out Zoë is O negative. Universal blood donor.”

“And Ryder?”

“O positive.”

Peyton exchanged a look with Marco. “And?”

Abe tapped the file. “Remember I told you they sent me the fetus.”

Peyton straightened on the stool. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m as meticulous as Dr. Singh, maybe better. Let’s say I’m better.”

“Abe!”

He held up a long fingered hand. “I decided, on a whim, to type the baby.”

“And?”

“B negative.”

Marco’s hand closed into a fist on the bench. Peyton opened her mouth to comment, then stopped.

“Here’s your biology lesson. In order for the baby to be B negative, one of the parents had to be as well. We know Zoë was the mother for obvious reasons, which means…” He let the last trail away.

“Ryder wasn’t the father,” Peyton finished.

Abe touched his nose, then pointed at her.

Swiveling on her stool, she met Marco’s eye.

“That’s motive, Brooks.”

“That’s motive.”

Marco’s phone suddenly rang. He fished it out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear. “D’Angelo?”

Peyton could just make out the voice on the other end, taking rapidly. Marco didn’t answer, just listened, but his knuckles went white as he tightened his grip on the device. Peyton and Abe shared a look, then Abe began reading through his file again.

“Okay, yeah, got it,” said Marco. “No, let me call you back with that.” He thumbed the phone off and met Peyton’s gaze. “Seems our boy took a walk last night without our patrol noticing.”

“What?”

“The bank manager called. A night security guard caught Ryder coming out of the bank around two this morning. He’s an older guy, doesn’t know how to use his phone, so he didn’t get the briefing about keeping Ryder away from the bank.”

Peyton frowned. “I thought they took his keys.”

“They did. He must have gotten another set from that friend of his.”

“Okay, so he goes to the bank after what? Money? He had to know that stuff is locked in the vault at night.”

“He wasn’t after money. Once the security guard told Andrews about seeing Ryder, they viewed the surveillance video. He used the keys to get into the bank, but all he took was a briefcase that was stored in a credenza beneath the windows. We missed it when we searched his desk because it was part of the general furniture in the place.”

“A briefcase? He breaks and enters a bank to steal back his own briefcase…” Peyton’s voice trailed off. “What the hell is in that briefcase?”

“Our murder weapon?” suggested Marco.

“Where the hell is Ryder now?”

“Patrol did a wellness check on him around five when they changed men. Said he was in his apartment. They want to know if you want them to bring him in.”

Peyton looked away. Her eyes landed on the table where Abe did his dissections. “No, we’ll get him. I don’t want him flushing those pills or something if he thinks we’re coming for him. We need to get a warrant to search the place, then we’ll arrest the son of a bitch and haul his ass in.” She pushed herself off the seat and started for the door. “Thanks, Abe.”

“You got it, my soul
sista. Bye,
Marco-a-wish-upon-a-star
,” he called after them. Peyton waved over her shoulder, but Marco gave him a dramatic scowl.

Once through the automatic doors, Marco put a hand on Peyton’s arm and stopped her. “Put a call into your boyfriend and ask him to meet us at Interrogation. It’d be good to have him there when Ryder confesses.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, but she reached for her phone.

“And you let him spend the night?
Hoowee, you are a hussy, Brooks,” said Marco with a laugh.

Peyton swung at him, but he ducked out of the way.

CHAPTER 8

Jake was wrenched out of sleep by the violent pounding on his front door.

“Police! Open up!”

He blinked, looking around the flat. The blanket was pooled around his waist and Zoë’s journal just peaked out between the folds.

“Police! Open up!”

Jake grabbed the journal and shoved it under the coffee table, then he scrambled to his feet as the pounding began again. He fumbled for the lock and turned it, but before he could open the door, it was forcefully shoved inward, knocking him backward.

Guns pointed in his face and he automatically lifted his hands. Police officers streamed into the flat, fanning out around his living room. Behind them entered Brooks and D’Angelo. They also had their guns drawn, but when they saw he wasn’t offering any resistance, they both holstered them.

“You’d damn well better have a warrant,” he said. It came out braver than he thought it would. His heart was trying hard to force its way out his throat.

Brooks held up a piece of paper.

He lowered his hand enough to take it, but he couldn’t make sense of the words on the page. Another headache hammered behind his eyes. He handed the paper back. Brooks nodded at an officer standing behind him. The man shoved Jake against the wall and frisked him.

“What the hell is this about now?”

“He’s clean,” said the officer, releasing him.

“Search everywhere,” said Brooks and the officers dispersed throughout the flat.

Jake turned toward her, pulling his t-shirt back into place. “Why the hell are you doing this to me?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Where’s your briefcase?”

He involuntarily glanced toward the coffee table. She followed his gaze, then circled around the couch, leaning over to move his tablet aside as she picked up the briefcase. D’Angelo moved closer to Jake as she riffled through the case, then dropped it on the coffee table again.

“Nothing,” she said, then looked down at the tablet. Picking it up, she turned to a cop going through his bookshelf. “Hand me an evidence bag.”

When he did, she slipped the tablet into it and zipped it shut. Then she faced Jake, nodding at D’Angelo.

“Jacob Ryder,” she began as D’Angelo took his cuffs off his belt, “you have the right to remain silent…”

Jake just stared at her as D’Angelo grabbed his arm and snapped the cuffs on his wrist.

*   *   *

Peyton watched Jake through the one way mirror. He sat at the metal table, his head in his hands. He hadn’t moved for the last ten minutes. Marco leaned on the table beside her.

“How long did tech say they would need with the tablet?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No estimate.”

The door opened and Captain Defino and Devan walked through. Marco rose to his feet and shook Devan’s hand.

“Captain,” Peyton said and then smiled at Devan.

He smiled back, turning to the mirror. “That our perp?”

“That’s the one,” said the captain. “Who’s
gonna question him?”

“Brooks,” answered Marco.

“You know how you’re going to approach it?” asked the captain.

“I think so.”

“Then you’re on,” she said, nodding toward the window.

Peyton smoothed her hands on her jeans, picked up the file, and walked to the door, pulling it open. She crossed to the Interrogation room and the officer stationed outside of it opened the door for her. When she entered the room, Ryder didn’t lift his head.

She dropped the file on the table and leaned on it. “So let’s go back to the beginning, okay?”

Ryder raised his head and stared at her through his fingers. His brown hair was mussed and a couple days growth of beard shadowed his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot.

“What do you want from me?”

“The truth.” She took a seat in the other chair and opened the file. “You say you found Zoë in the bathroom. She was unconscious, so you called 911.”

“That’s right.”

“What did you do while you waited for the ambulance?”

“I tried to get Zoë to respond.”

“How? Did you shake her? Yell at her?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Where was Zoë earlier that day? Was she working at the coffee house?”

“No, she had the day off, so she went with her mother to visit Blake.”

Peyton looked down at the file and turned a page. “Let’s talk about Blake.”

Ryder frowned. “Blake?”

“You used to visit him with Zoë when he first had his stroke, then you stopped. Why?”

Ryder rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t see the point. The doctors all agreed he wasn’t responding to treatment. He wasn’t coming back.”

“Did this cause trouble between you and Zoë?”

“I don’t know. I guess. She couldn’t accept that he was gone. As long as he was in that hospital, she held out hope.” He sighed. “I think they should have…” His voice trailed off.

Peyton leaned forward. “You think they should have what?”

He looked up at the mirror. “Nothing.”

Peyton flattened her hand on the file. “I want to help you, Jake. I do, but I can’t help you if you won’t be honest with me.”

Ryder stared at her for a moment, then exhaled. “You don’t want to help me. You just want to close this case and it doesn’t matter what the truth is. You just want a person to blame and that’s it.”

“I’m giving you a chance to tell your side. We’ve got enough to hold you on now, Jake, so I don’t really need to talk to you, but I thought you might like an opportunity to explain things to me. What did you start to say about Blake?”

“I think they should have taken him off life support.  It would have been kinder to him and kinder to his family. They could have mourned his loss, then moved on with their lives. As it was, Zoë never did.”

“I guess that was a point of contention for you, wasn’t it?”

Ryder wrapped a hand around his chin. “No, not contention. It made me feel helpless. I wanted to make things right for Zoë, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t make it better.”

Peyton looked at the file. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. She’d given him an opening to complain about his wife, but he didn’t take it. She needed to upset the balance between them if she was going to get him to confess, but she didn’t want to give away her biggest point of leverage.

“So, did you take the pills from the nursing home when you visited Blake?”

He dropped his hand to the table and his frown deepened. “Pills?”

“The warfarin. It’s stroke medication, you know? Did you sneak them off Blake’s bedside table or something?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, then he gave her a level look. “Besides, they don’t leave medications lying around like that in hospitals or nursing homes.” He leaned forward. “I didn’t have anything to do with my wife’s death and no matter how you phrase things, I’m not going to confess to something I didn’t do.”

She rose to her feet and moved to the end of the table, closer to him. “Let’s talk about the baby.”

Jake looked away.

“A lot of men get scared, knowing there’s a baby on the way. They worry it will change their lives.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“That’s right. Dr. Singh was impressed with that performance. He genuinely believed you didn’t know.”

Jake swiveled his head and looked up at her. “If you really want to find out what happened to Zoë, you’d start there. I’ll bet you they gave her the wrong medication and are trying to cover it up.”

“We were talking about the baby.”

“Of course. You don’t even want to consider there might be another possibility to Zoë’s death. You just want to put me away for something I didn’t do.”

“Explain to me how a husband doesn’t know his wife is pregnant. Three months go by and you don’t question why she doesn’t have a period, you don’t question why she keeps getting morning sickness?”

Jake opened his hands, palms up. “I didn’t know. I don’t know why, but I didn’t.”

“And you don’t think it’s strange she didn’t tell you? I mean that’s a pretty big secret. You’ve got to wonder why she would keep it and…” She leaned closer to him. “What else she might have hid.”

Jake’s gaze snapped to her face. “Every moment of every day. It’s driving me insane.”

“I’ll bet. It’s got to hurt. Being lied to, being deceived. It would make anyone angry. Hell, I’d be downright furious about it. I’d feel betrayed on so many levels.”

Jake just stared at her.

“Here you work your ass off to provide for her, while she pisses around in a coffee shop and mopes about her dad. You do everything in your power to make her happy and she withholds the most important information from you. It would make even the most reasonable person want revenge.”

Ryder looked at the mirror. “Just charge me with whatever you want and let me go home. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Peyton ignored him. She reached for the file. “Let’s go back again, okay?”

He closed his eyes and pressed his palms against his temples.

“The paramedics come and they try to find a pulse. They can’t, so they begin CPR and start an IV. They transport you to the hospital and the only thing you know is her blood pressure is too low. They don’t tell you anything else.”

Ryder continued to ignore her.

“You arrive at the hospital where Dr. Singh takes over. At some point he comes out and tells you Zoë needs a transfusion.”

Ryder lowered his hands and opened his eyes, staring at the table. Still he didn’t answer.

“You volunteer to give blood, right?”

“Right.”

Peyton pushed the file in front of Ryder and leaned on the edge of the table, bringing herself closer to him. “Here’s what I learned the other day. In order to do a transfusion, they first have to type the person receiving it, so they don’t give them the wrong blood. You know what Zoë’s type was?”

“No.”

“O negative. You know what your type is?”

Ryder leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “O something.”

“That’s right. O positive.”

“What the hell does this have to do with anything?”

Peyton lifted her brows at him. “A lot.” She pointed to the file with her index finger. “Your baby was typed as B negative. B negative?”

Ryder’s face went slack.

“Now as I understand it – in order for the baby to have B negative, one of his parents had to have it as well, which means, Jake…” She leaned toward him, crowding his personal space. “Which means you weren’t the father.”

Ryder fixed his eyes on hers and a shudder went through his body. She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed convulsively.

She leaned back. “My dad was a cop. He always said a case was like a stool, built on three legs. First you’ve got your suspect, second you have your evidence, and third you have your motive.” She tapped the file with her finger. “That, Jake,that is what we call motive.”

Ryder’s brown eyes searched her face. She wasn’t sure what he was looking to find.

“Tell me, Jake, did she confess? Is that what happened? She told you she’d been having an affair and you…what? Did you snap? A little warfarin in her dinner, some in her morning cup of coffee? Maybe you thought she’d miscarry? Maybe that’s all you wanted, but it killed her instead? I can understand that, Jake. I can understand wanting to get rid of the baby. It was tearing your relationship apart, destroying your life.” She closed the file and crossed her arms also. “Let’s face it, Jake. Zoë’s concern over her father wasn’t affecting your marriage, but her pregnancy was, her affair was. Did you find out who it was? Someone at work, someone she met on-line?”

“I want to go home.” His voice was flat, brittle. His gaze shifted to the mirror. “I want to go home.”

“Come on, Jake. Just tell me the truth. Tell me what happened. I understand. It must have felt so horrible to know she was cheating on you, using you that way. God, what man can stand the thought of his wife carrying another man’s child.”

Ryder moved so suddenly, Peyton wasn’t prepared. He slammed his fists onto the table and rose to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process. Peyton stumbled back off the table and scrambled to her feet as the inner door slammed open. Marco loomed in the entrance with his gun drawn.

Peyton held out her hands. “It’s all right!” she said. “It’s all right!”

Ryder stared at both of them, his chest heaving, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I want to go home,” he said. “I just want to go home.”

Marco slipped the gun back in his holster. “Sit down, Ryder!” he commanded.

Ryder sank into his chair again, his hands hanging by his sides. He looked so lost, so forlorn. Peyton watched him in surprise. He didn’t look like a man ready to confess.

Marco touched her arm and the two of them backed from the room. They returned to the observation room where the captain and Devan waited.