Rogue Wave (14 page)

Handing it back, she said, “It looks as if Robin and her father were very close.”

Maeve laughed, a startlingly bitter sound. “Like two peas in a pod, they were. Johnny was always looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And when Robin was born, from the first moment he set eyes on her it was like she was the leprechaun that was going to lead him to it.” Her voice softened. “Such a dreamer, that man. He’d sit in his junkaporium—that’s what I called it, his antique haven in a storefront surrounded by pawnshops—all day long. Of course,
he
didn’t think of his stuff as junk. He—”

“What about Robin?” Kiernan wondered if the decor in this house stemmed from Mr. Matucci’s fondness for “antiques.”

Maeve’s face tightened momentarily. “She had too much sense. She loved him, but not enough to make his mistakes. She wanted to take care of him, get him out of that shop south of Market, him like a sitting duck for any punk with a Saturday night special. Johnny got held up there more times than he could count.” She shook her head in exasperation. “From the time she was twelve, Robin always had a job. Gave up all her team sports. Never had time for girlfriends. It was always work to get Johnny out of that shop. She was a deckhand as soon as she was old enough for working papers.” She picked up another picture from atop the carton and thrust it at Kiernan. “Robin on
Early Bird.”

The picture didn’t surprise Kiernan. Robin stood on the bow of the boat, a tall, tan woman smiling confidently, her long red hair blowing behind her. Olsen hadn’t been exaggerating about Robin’s beauty. She was a woman who would draw stares anywhere. And the boat itself was sleek, freshly painted, brass fixtures gleaming in the sun. It was to the other party boats Kiernan had seen at the Wharf as Robin was to deckhands like Zack: both were a different class of beast.

“Was Robin always so sure of herself?”

Maeve took the picture in both hands. Looking at it, her eyes misted slightly; she seemed to be speaking directly to it. “Nothing that girl couldn’t master once she put her mind to it.” The edge that had marked her voice was gone. Now she was just the proud parent. “Took ballet through the YMCA and starred in the one performance, she did. Cot a brown belt in their karate class. In junior high she made the team in every sport she tried. She could fix anything. Just like her father. She rewired the back porch when she was still in high school. Never took her car to the mechanic unless she didn’t have time to deal with it herself, and then”—Maeve shook her head—“she spent as much time getting on them for their mistakes as she would have doing the work herself. When Robin set her mind to something, you could consider it done.”

“But she didn’t get her father out of the store south of Market.”

Maeve laughed, the bitterness back. “She wasn’t as sharp as she thought. Johnny refused to move. She was so mad at him she yelled—only time I’ve ever heard her do that. She said some crackhead would break in and shoot him. Said he’d die in that shop.” Maeve shook her head. “But he passed on naturally; she’s the one who died on the job.” It was a moment before she could continue. “Johnny had no intention of moving. Robin called him a liar. She never could understand that what Johnny valued was the dream. And that if he moved, he risked destroying it.

“Maybe she was afraid—”

“Not Robin,” she snapped. “Robin wasn’t afraid of anything. And she never panicked.”

Maeve was close to falling apart. Kiernan hesitated, then forced herself to say, “Surely she must have panicked at that hit-and-run accident of hers?”

“No! Robin never had an accident. Robin was too good a driver.”

“But there’s proof. Perhaps she was too ashamed to mention it?”

Maeve’s hand went to the door.

“Maybe Robin talked about it to her friend Jessica Leporek?”

“Maybe you haven’t been listening to me,” Maeve said, with a surge of anger that took Kiernan by surprise. “Robin never had girlfriends. She didn’t have time for other women.” She slammed the door shut.

Kiernan walked slowly down the path. Investigating was supposed to clarify cases. But everything she uncovered created new questions. Those deckhands of Robin’s, did they remind her of her father? Was she trying to protect them as she had failed to save him? A compassionate woman?—not if she ran down Garrett Brant and left him to die.

Why did Robin, who had never had time for girlfriends, suddenly start seeing a woman who even Tchernak found trying?

And what about Harpoon? Why was Robin calling it, Pedersen defensive about it, and Delaney curious? And what the hell was it?

K
IERNAN PULLED THE
J
EEP
around the corner. It was past ten. She picked up the phone and punched in a number.

“This is Dr. O’Shaughnessy, calling for Dr. Rosten.”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Rosten is out of the office.”

“Did he leave a copy of the—”

“He didn’t leave anything for you.” The exasperation was so clear in the woman’s voice that Kiernan wondered just what Rosten had said. Had he described her to his secretary as a badgering former lover, a pain-in-the-ass private investigator, or had his tone of disgust in itself been enough to get the message across?

“When will he be back?”

“He has a meeting till noon. And he’ll be out all afternoon.”

Kiernan put down the receiver, careful not to slam it. Why was Marc Rosten making such a big deal about the autopsy report? It would be public record as soon as it was typed. Was he reconsidering his findings? Or was he just digging in his heels?

Her motel, the Western Sun, shoddy at best, had one saving grace—it was within walking distance of a decent coffee shop. She ran the four blocks, bought two pounds of beans, grinder, filter, and filter papers with which to educate Olsen, and a large container of Major Dickason’s blend to drink on the way back.

There was still an inch or so of coffee left when she got to her small, pinky-beige room and picked up her one message: Olsen had made her appointments: Jessica Leporek at 11:00 A.M. and Dwyer Cummings at 6:00
P.M.
the next day. Leaning back against the scarred maple headboard, she savored the last aromatic drop. Caffeine had no redeeming qualities, she had informed patients in medical school. It is an alkaloid drug that can overstimulate the central nervous system …; it increases blood sugar, causing insulin to be released only to bring it catapulting down … But one of the credos of that same medical-school class had been that acceptance of the Hippocratic oath conferred immunity to the dangers of caffeine.

She dialed Olsen’s number. Maybe he’d gotten word back on Robin Matucci’s heirs.

“Olsen Investigations.”

“Skip, it’s Kiern—”

“Good news!” Silence followed.

“You’ve come up with something?” Kiernan prompted.

“There’s a Carl Hartoonian in Marin County. He’s connected with something called Atmospheric Analysis, which provides aerial printouts of the ocean.”

“You think he’s Harpoon?”

“Worth a try.”

“Good work! Give me the address and I’ll check him out.”

“I could go see him.” There was a whiny quality to Olsen’s voice.

“I’ll do that this afternoon.” She wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to see Harpoon herself.

“I’ve got the time. I—”

“No you don’t.” She had the urge to send him to his room. Control! she muttered to herself. You need this man. “Skip, order in some pizza and we’ll have a business meeting tonight.”

“Pizza! I can’t eat cheese, you know that.”

“No, Skip, I don’t.” The man had an incredible ability to irritate. “Order it without cheese.”

“You don’t want anchovies, do you?”

“Get whatever you want on it. I like everything. I’ll stop for beer and see you at seven.”

“Okay, it’s a date,” he said, sounding considerably more cheerful, either from the catholic array of topping options or the prospect of beer.

Kiernan hung up. She was near the Golden Gate Bridge, probably half an hour away from Atmospheric Analysis and maybe the unveiling of Robin’s secret.
If
Hartoonian was Harpoon. She felt as frustrated as Ben Pedersen. So close, but she couldn’t go until she’d dealt with Rosten’s autopsy notes.

“What are the chances,” Kiernan muttered aloud, “of Marc Rosten having those notes for me?” About the same, she decided, as the Western Sun Motel making the cover of the
Condé Nast Traveler.

Begrudging every moment taken, she pulled on her “professional woman” costume: a suit made from the darkest green Australian tweed her dressmaker could find, straight, fitted, but not quite severe; black heels that made her almost normal height; silver stud earrings inlaid with slivers of malachite. She raced for the Jeep. Makeup she’d deal with at the red lights.

At ten to twelve she pulled into the morgue parking lot and walked up to the back door. The night watchman’s job at the morgue is not a sought-after position. The morgue at night was a lonely place, and cold. A place that nurtured fears. Night watchmen came, and went fast. But Angus Labcatt, the day man, had been at the back door when Kiernan started medical school. He prided himself on knowing every intern who had done a rotation here.

As she rapped on the glass door, he looked her up and down and smiled. “Dr. O’Shaughnessy. My, don’t you look beautiful. I’ll have to tell Millie tonight that you look like you could be running the place. Not just the morgue here, but the whole city. My, my, you look good.”

“Well, thank you, Angus,” she said to the old man. “You don’t look bad yourself. Is Marc Rosten treating you well now that he’s running the joint?”

“Jes’ fine. But he’s only got another two weeks to treat me fine. Then the chief gets back.” He laughed, and Kiernan couldn’t gauge whether his amusement was in expectation of his chief’s return, or because Angus, who collected rumors and observations about his doctors to take home to Millie, recalled her affair with Rosten.

She didn’t wait for him to tell her. “I’m here to see Rosten. I’ll tell him he should use the powers of his temporary position to get you a Barcalounger, so you can lean back and contemplate who you can let in.”

“Well, if anyone can tell him—” He grinned.

“Would you call his secretary and let her know I’m coming? No, wait, don’t give her my name. Just tell her his luncheon date is coming.”

“Done.” He grinned. “You have a good time.”

Kiernan hurried along the hall, heels clicking like playing cards against bicycle spokes. Unlike the night before, the hallway was crowded. Interns in green scrubs, technicians in lab coats, and pathologists rushed back and forth between morgue and lab. Lawyers hurried out, headed for the courtroom, and uniformed police officers sauntered in from the main office. She paused at the counter there, located the sign that identified Rosten’s secretary, and called out, “I’m here to have lunch with Marc, uh, with Dr. Rosten.”

The woman looked up with a curiosity that suggested luncheons with strange women were not the norm for Rosten. “He’s not back yet.”

Kiernan restrained a sigh of relief. “He told me to wait in his office.”

The woman hesitated.

A metal cart clattered down the hall. “He said it would be quieter in there,” Kiernan yelled over the din.

With a shrug, the woman motioned her around the counter and opened Rosten’s door. “If you need anything I’ll be here till twelve-fifteen.”

“Thanks. But Marc assured me he’d be back by noon. If he’s not here by then I’ll leave without him.” She smiled. “We can’t let these men think they can keep us waiting.”

She got a defensive nod in return. Rosten, she recalled, had always been a favorite with the secretaries. Apparently he still excited their maternal protectiveness.

The door clicked shut. She let out a sigh. It was already five to twelve. Rosten had better not be back till noon. Where would his autopsy notes be? She had only been in this office a couple times. But there’d been a new coroner since then. He had rearranged the entire office. Try the files first. She pulled open the top drawer and looked toward the back. Nothing on a Delaney.

Those maternal secretaries, they’d check on their Dr. Rosten’s guest. All they’d need to see … Quickly, she looked in the bottom drawer, the John and Jane Does. Only two now, both Johns. The first was black and the second dead of hypothermia in a doorway in the Tenderloin.

11:57. But punctuality was not Rosten’s strong point. He could be back later than planned. Or earlier. The office was eerily silent, almost as if it had been sealed. Just as it had been on her first visit, with the class. She’d gotten in early, sat alone for five minutes; she’d not so much heard the lack of sound as felt the pressure of the unmoving air, and wondered if this was how it would feel in the freezer, if the tenants were not beyond feeling altogether. Rosten could clomp up to the door unheard. If he caught her he’d make sure she never got in another morgue in any city in the state. Tantamount to taking her license.

Hurriedly, she circled Rosten’s desk and pulled open the top drawer. A preliminary report from the coast guard was on top. Coast guard letterhead with handwritten notes. She stared at the Xeroxed page. The coroner’s office never requested copies of the coast guard reports. Things worked the other way around. The coast guard requested final copies of the autopsy, after all the lab protocols were in, which usually was not until two months after the body had been found. The coast guard could tell how the boat had sunk, but they needed findings from the corpse to figure out why: drugs, alcohol involvement? The state of the boat did not clarify the state of the corpse. In her years here, Kiernan had never once heard of a coroner or medical examiner worry about what was in that report.

She read: “The autopsy was performed on the body of Carlos Delaney by Marc Rosten, M.D. at 1:45
P.M
.” She skipped the list of observers present and read: Final Diagnosis: 1. Asphyxia due to drowning.

Exactly what Rosten had told her. No reason to hide that.

She flipped to the next page “Gross Examination of Autopsy,” scanning the paragraph headings: Lungs, Heart, Liver, Gallbladder, Spleen, Pancreas, Gastrointestinal Tract, Adrenals, Kidneys, Bladder, Prostate. Nothing that wouldn’t be expected. Head: “Small subdural hemorrhage interior to left anterior, proximal temporalis muscle.”