Snapshot (22 page)

“Dr. Muir?”

“Probably.”

“I don't see where you're headed.”

“Can you do it?”

A pause again. “Probably. I can fudge it. Research subjects. Family reactions. Follow-up therapy. I don't know.”

“Good.”

For the shadow of a second, before hanging up, I thought about asking him what I should say to Paolina when she woke. There's a temptation to listen to experts. I resisted it. Hell, he didn't even know her.

I glanced at my watch; I'd have to leave in twenty minutes. Better wake Paolina, ferry her back to her mom. Maybe I'd have time to ask her a few questions about Paco Sanchez, how he'd approached her, who'd brought up the possibility of travel—

It didn't make sense.

He worked for a detective. And it had to have something to do with me, because of the garbage.

Now, I was a cop for six years, and I've put a few pimps away for pretty long spells. There are felons and ex-felons and ex-husbands who might think they'd be better off if I'd never entered their lives.

One of them might hire a not-too-savory investigator to get the goods on me. But hurt me by stealing Paolina?

The doorbell rang. I hurried, envisioning a UPS man holding a fat, detailed file sent by Emily Woodrow.

There were cops on the doorstep.

26

“You didn't have to send the storm troopers!” I said in a voice so dangerously soft it was almost a whisper. I controlled the volume carefully; if I let myself get a single decibel louder, I'd scream.

Mooney glanced innocently up from his desk. “Hey,” he said, shoving back his chair and standing abruptly, “what is this? Paolina? Honey, I'm sorry. What the hell, guys? A kid?”

The younger of the two cops smirked. “You said pick her up. She wouldn't budge without the kid.”

Mooney closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Right. I'll talk to you later. Go back to work.” As soon as the door slammed, Mooney shrugged and turned to me. “Traffic patrol,” he said. “I'll stick 'em both back in traffic.”

“Heavy traffic,” I suggested, tight-lipped and angry.

“Carlotta, look, it's for your own good. There are guys from Winchester looking for you with a warrant.”

Winchester was Emily Woodrow's backyard. A muscle on the right side of my neck tightened like a fist.

“Mooney, is anybody dead?”

“Carlotta, believe me, I had no idea Paolina would be with you. Those guys. I can't believe them.”

“Is anybody dead?”
I repeated.

“No. No, honest. Paolina, come on over here and give me a hug, okay?”

“She hasn't even had breakfast, Mooney.”

Paolina marched over and threw her arms around Mooney's neck. “I missed you,” she said. “Those guys, they wouldn't even run the siren or flash the lights. Are they for-real cops?”

“Hey, that's my girl!”

“Mooney, I hate to interrupt, but what's going on here?”

“A minute,” he said. “Paolina, Jo Triola was asking me about you the other day. When's Paolina coming by? And you know, she's got a whole boxful of doughnuts in her room. Smelled 'em when I came in.”

“Mooney, just tell me quick, and let me take her out to breakfast. Okay?”

“Are you two mad?” Paolina asked anxiously.

“No, honey. But I need to talk to Carlotta alone. For a little while.”

“My mom didn't call you, did she?”

“It's not about you, Paolina. Honest. Come on, let's find Jo and the doughnuts.”

I waited. I fidgeted. Winchester cops with a warrant? Dammit, I ought to be in Winchester right now, chatting with Harold Woodrow. Maybe I ought to make a run for it. Hah.

Mooney's not in Donovan's league as an interior decorator. Not even a poster on the wall to take my mind off the institutional paint and the smell of police station. I glanced at his compulsively neat desk top. He'd left a single file folder dead center, labeled
Tina Sukhia
. Sealed.

I was fingering it when Mooney opened the door. He pretended not to notice. “Here,” he said, holding out a napkin-wrapped bundle. “Paolina sends you a glazed doughnut, with love.”

“Mooney, you can't keep ordering your hounds to pick me up. I don't work for you anymore.”

“I know that. And I also know who your client is. So maybe we can have a meaningful conversation.”

“I don't see where the two points follow,” I said. “You think you know who my client is. So what?”

“Where were you last night?”

“You recording this?”

“Come on. I know you weren't home.”

The doughnut was sticky. “Is there coffee to go with this?” I asked.

“I can get some. Hang on.”

I waited.

“You break the seal on the file yet?” Mooney asked when he came back, two plastic foam cups steaming in his hands.

“You can't break it yourself?”

“I called you last night. Late. No answer.”

“I was out partying,” I said. “Need the gory details?”

“This is not about your social life, Carlotta. Harold Woodrow, a Winchester big shot whose name rings bells with some well-connected people, says you were busy breaking into his house.”

I chose one of the coffee cups. Didn't matter which. Mooney takes cream and sugar, same as me.

So. Harold wouldn't have been too surprised when I didn't turn up at nine thirty. Harold might have arranged the whole thing so I wouldn't turn up at nine thirty. But why?

I toyed with my cup. “This Woodrow, he happen to see me?”

“He wasn't home.”

I licked my sugary fingers, thought fast. “Where was he?” Out with the girlfriend, I'd bet.

“Nobody thinks he trashed his own place, Carlotta.”

“The cops actually went out and looked?”

“Yeah.”

“So why don't they think he did it himself? Because he's a big shot?”

“Damage.”

“He's probably insured.” I caught a chunk of my lower lip between my teeth, worried it. Who'd break into Harold Woodrow's house? Kids out for kicks? Professional burglars? Someone who wanted whatever material Emily was supposed to send me?

“Let's talk about you instead of him,” Mooney said.

I sipped coffee that was too hot to taste.

“He named you,” Mooney went on when I said nothing. “Gave the cops your address and phone number. One of the guys knew me. Otherwise you'd be making the acquaintance of the Winchester lockup.”

“Did I take anything, or was I just out burglarizing the homes of the well-connected?” I asked. “Does that mean mob-connected, by the way?”

“Government-connected. Important-people-connected. He's a lawyer.”

“Yeah, and we all know no lawyers are mob-connected.”

“Woodrow told the locals his wife hired you to keep tabs on him.”

It made me angry; it really did. Here I'm prepared to spend time in jail to shield Emily Woodrow, and her husband goes and loudmouths his jackass theories to the cops.

I managed a smile.

“Did Emily Woodrow hire you?” Mooney asked.

I was sure he'd heard about the thousand bucks, maybe even seen the cancelled check. “What if she did?”

“Then you make the connection between the Woodrows and Tina Sukhia, right?”

I kept silent.

He leaned back in his chair, big feet on the desk, hands clasped behind his head. “I talk to this Woodrow on the phone, drop the name ‘Sukhia,' and he hesitates, says Sukhia might have been a nurse at JHHI. Well, I know damn well she was. So I figure maybe his wife wasn't paying him much attention while their kid was in the hospital, and maybe he got together with Sukhia, who was no bad-looker. The wife guesses something's wrong, hires you, and you tell her about it.”

“Good figuring,” I said. “Why did I break into the house? I forget.”

“Can't you just talk to me? Aren't we on the same side here?”

“What side is that?”

“Somebody killed Tina Sukhia.”

“Or maybe she killed herself,” I maintained, although I was less and less inclined toward that theory.

“I don't buy it.”

“Intuition?” I asked.

He stuck his tongue out, gave a halfhearted raspberry. “I have to take an educated guess,” he said. “Nobody's gossiping in my direction.”

“What do you expect? You look like a cop,” I said. “I wish you'd brought me another doughnut.”

“I want to know where your client is.”

“So do I.”

“Come on.”

“You never believe me when I tell the truth.”

“Sure I do. Try it.”

“Let's trade.” Mooney and I have an ongoing, years-long game of
Let's Make a Deal
in progress.

“What?”

“You wouldn't have left that folder on your desk if you didn't want to tease me.”

“Maybe I've got zip.”

“Maybe I don't know where my client is.”

We stared at each other.

“Even exchange?” I said.

“I'm not giving gifts.”

I smiled at him. “Keep your precious file sealed. Just answer a few questions. Appease my curiosity. Tina stopped working at JHHI. Why?”

“Resigned.”

“Not fired?”

He considered it. “She left pretty quickly. Could have turned in her resignation under pressure, I suppose. But I've read the letter on file. Nothing unusual.”

“She have a new job?” I made it casual, like I'd just thought of it as a possibility.

“Told the boyfriend she did.” There was something in his voice, hesitancy beyond his usual circumspection.

“Lying to him? Maybe stepping out?”

“She was earning money, getting paid a lot. And get this: no pay stubs. No checks. Cash.”

Damn. I wanted an address for the elusive Cee Co. Did they even exist?

“Maybe she was more than stepping out, maybe she was hooking,” I said, just to keep talking.

He scribbled a note on a scratch pad. “I'll have Triola run escort services. But a nurse hooking? I figure cash payments, plus location of death, makes it swiping drugs from the hospital.”

“If that's why she was fired, for stealing, they'd tell you, wouldn't they? Once she was dead.”

“Hospital pharmacies aren't corner drugstores, Carlotta. Somebody knows the right procedures, the right computer codes, they could probably steal a hell of a lot before they got caught, if they ever got caught.”

“Sukhia was a nurse, not a pharmacist. Would she know?”

“Computers are computers. If one person can rig them one way, another person can rig them another way.”

“You got somebody checking?”

“My turn. Is the Woodrow guy telling the truth?”

“About me breaking into his house? Forget it. Was anything stolen?”

“He doesn't think so. Is he telling the truth about why you were hired?”

I exhaled, waited.

Mooney smiled. “The romantic link to Sukhia, it's crap, right?”

“Intuition, Mooney? Instinct?”

“Better than that. Here, take a look.” He grabbed a flimsy sheet of paper out of his top desk drawer, flapped it in front of my face. “You're gonna love it.”

“What is it?”

“Read it. Take your time.”

It was a photocopy of a typewritten note.

The salutation was heavily inked out, so heavily I didn't think even the police lab could make heads or tails of it. The meat of the message was simple:

SHE WILL LIVE WHEN YOU ALL DIE! THERE IS NO PRICE FOR LIFE BUT DEATH. TORTURERS. KILLERS. MURDERERS.

“You met the Woodrow woman,” Mooney said evenly. “Did she write that?”

“How would I know?”

“She seem okay? She seem odd?”

“Her daughter died.”

“According to the husband, she sees a shrink.”

“That doesn't make her a psycho.”

“Read it again. I'm glad I'm not a doc at the hospital where her kid died. Or a nurse, like Tina Sukhia.”

I shrugged. “Where'd you get the note?”

“One of Muir's partners. Man named Piersall.”

I hadn't seen Piersall. Could he have been the man in the white coat who pushed Emily Woodrow out of her daughter's room?

“He the only one who's received a letter?”

“Only one who's told us about it.” He lowered his voice. “I need to find that woman, Carlotta. I don't like how the note says, ‘you all,' like she's planning more than one death here.”

I didn't like it either.

“I don't know where she is, Mooney.”

“Convince me.”

“Ask her stupid husband how many times I've called, trying to reach her. Ask the jerk if she's written me any more checks. He keeps tabs on her checkbook.”

“What did you tell her about Tina Sukhia?”

“Nothing.”

“What did she tell you about Tina Sukhia?”

“Nothing.”

“I ought to let Winchester lock you up.”

“You'd have to look after Paolina.”

“This Woodrow woman gets in touch, you call me.”

“Right.”

“I didn't book you. I didn't read you your rights. I didn't embarrass you in front of Paolina—”

“I'll call you, Mooney. The minute I hear. And you?”

“Me?”

“Are you looking for Emily Woodrow? Hard? Is there an APB? I'm worried about her. Honest-to-God worried.”

“If you were so worried, you should have named her yesterday.”

Somebody banged loudly on the door, opened it before the echo died. “Oh, hi. Didn't know anyone was in with you. Maybe I'll—”

“Wait,” Mooney said. “You get the lab report?”

“That's why I'm here.”

“Those spots on her dress, they get a reading on those? Blood?”

“Rust,” the man said. He was slight and thin. His moustache drooped. “Common rust.”