The Oath (35 page)

Hardy interrupted. “And he was one of Markham’s nurses?”

“Yeah. But with this alibi for Carla. And the other one, Connie Rowe, was home with her family—husband, two kids. She didn’t go out.”

“Okay.”

“So the scenario at Markham’s house is that someone came between ten and ten forty-five, and Carla opened the door to whoever it was. Then the kids start going to bed while Carla and X talk a while. At some point, X excuses himself and goes into Markham’s office where he keeps his gun.”

“Who’d know that?” Hardy asked abruptly. “Not just that he had one but where he kept it?”

“That’s a point,” Fisk said, “but if X was an acquaintance of Carla’s, which it looks like he was, he might have known.”

Hardy thought that this was reasonable enough. “Okay. Let’s go back to who’s left,” he said, “besides my client, of course.”

Bracco had them on the tip of his tongue. “Driscoll, Ross, Waltrip, Cohn.”

Hardy had come across the name Cohn only about an hour before in his reading—the report Bracco and Fisk had written up on what they’d discovered last Friday night but had forgotten to tape. At that time it had leapt off the page at him and brought his heart to his throat. Hearing the name again now, he showed nothing, even let himself chuckle. “You realize I haven’t talked to even one of those people. Who are Waltrip and Cohn?”

As far as Hardy knew from the transcripts and reports he’d read, the inspectors hadn’t spoken to any of these people, either, although they didn’t volunteer that. Instead, Bracco was low-key. “Just some doctors who’d also been in the ICU that day—Kent Waltrip and Judith Cohn.”

“But no sign they’d been to Carla’s?”

“No,” Fisk replied. “We assume they both knew Markham, but other than that, we don’t have much on them.”

“Their names, is all,” Bracco added. “I don’t think either of them played any role here, but we kept them in just to be thorough.”

Hardy nodded. “So it’s Driscoll or Ross?”

It was Bracco’s turn to break a small smile. “Under the local rules.” Meaning, not including Kensing.

Hardy allowed a friendly nod. “So how are their alibis? Driscoll and Ross?”

Obviously embarrassed, the inspectors exchanged a glance. “We haven’t had a chance to talk to them, either.”

“Maybe you want to do that,” he said gently. “Meanwhile, just to be thorough, I’ll try to get in touch with Waltrip and Cohn.”

The second and third names on Kensing’s list had been cremated, rather severely limiting the options for further forensic analysis. The fourth name was Shirley Watrous.

She had died on the day after last Christmas. She’d been admitted to the hospital a week before that for acute phlebitis, then suffered a stroke in her bed that left her paralyzed and unable to communicate. Moved to the ICU for observation and further testing, on the fifth day she passed away without ever regaining consciousness. The hospital PM listed the cause of death as cerebral hemorrhage.

This time around, Strout knew exactly what he was looking for—the Pavulon cocktail—and he found it. Mrs. Watrous, too, had been murdered.

Glitsky, Ash, and Jackman were crammed into Marlene’s office, having a powwow. Her office mate had checked out at close of business, and Jackman sat at his desk. Glitsky had pulled a chair around and was facing them, straddling it backward.

“Of course,” Glitsky was saying, “he’s got no idea what he was doing on November twelfth”—he was talking about Rajan Bhutan—“but the day after Christmas, he might remember.”

“Is he a Christian?” Marlene asked. “Maybe he doesn’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Either way, it’s a holiday.” Jackman turned to Glitsky. “Abe, he’s clean on Carla Markham?”

“He’s got maybe twenty people who’ll swear where he was when Carla got shot. For me, that clears him on both her and Markham.”

Jackman pushed some paper clips around the blotter in front of him. When he spoke, it might have been to himself. “It beggars belief that Kensing could be the source of this problem at Portola when there’s no relation to Markham.”

Marlene added her own thoughts. “I think it’s high time we get him in front of the grand jury, find out what he knows once and for all. Have you ruled him out on Carla, Abe?”

Glitsky almost laughed. “Not close. Far as I’m concerned, he’s still the inside track. Matter of fact, I’m dropping by his place on my way home.” Glitsky produced a terrifying smile and then a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “With a search warrant this time.”

Marlene got out of her chair. “If you can give me five minutes, I can have a subpoena for you to deliver, too. You mind?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jackman interjected. “You’re both forgetting something. I promised Hardy we’d give Kensing thirty days’ grace.”

This dampened the room’s enthusiasm level for a nanosecond, but only that. Marlene had the answer almost before the objection was out. “That was on Markham’s murder, Clarence, when Kensing was our suspect. Rather specifically. There’s no way Hardy could object to the grand jury needing to hear about the list Kensing himself provided.”

“And as soon as possible.” Glitsky turned to the DA and added formally, “To keep our mutual and cooperative investigations on track.”

Jackman considered for a long beat, then finally nodded. “Okay, do it.”

D
r. Kent Waltrip told Hardy he’d made his morning rounds at the ICU—he had a patient coming out of a bout with spinal meningitis—and he’d finished up at about 10:15, after which he’d gone to the clinic to see his regular patients. He’d worked there all day.

Judith Cohn’s office number, too, was listed and Hardy was surprised and happy when he got his second human being in a row to answer the phone at a little past 5:00. He identified himself to the receptionist, explained his relationship to Eric Kensing, then asked if Dr. Cohn would please call him when she got the message.

“I could page her right now,” the cooperative voice replied. “If you give me your number I’ll just punch it in.”

Two minutes later, Hardy was standing by his open window looking down on Sutter Street when his direct line rang. He crossed to the desk in three steps, picked up the phone, and said his name. On the other end of the line, he heard a sharp intake of breath. “Eric’s lawyer, right? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. Thanks for getting right back to me. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions?”

“Sure. If they’ll help Eric, I’m here.”

“Great.” Hardy had considered his approach—he didn’t want to scare her off—and written a few notes. Now, sitting down, he pulled his pad around. “I’m trying to establish Eric’s movements on almost a minute-by-minute basis on the day Tim Markham was killed.”

“The police don’t still believe he had anything to do with that, do they?”

“I think it’s safe to assume that they do, yes.”

He heard her sigh deeply. “Don’t they know the man at all? Have they ever talked to him?”

“Couple of times, at least.”

“Christ, then they’re idiots.”

“They may be,” Hardy said, “but they’re
our
idiots. And we have to play with them. I understand you had your own patient or patients in the ICU on that day, as well. Tuesday a week ago.”

“Oh, I remember the day well enough. It started bad and kept getting worse. You know how it works with scheduling the ICU and ER, don’t you?”

Early on, Kensing had explained the Parnassus idea to maximize efficiency. The doctors at the Judah Clinic, who were part of the Parnassus Physicians’ Group as well as usually on the staff at Portola, were responsible for making sure that at least one physician was assigned to the ICU, and at least one to the ER as well, at all times. This duty was on a rotating schedule and its essential purpose, according to Eric, was to eliminate at least one full-time doctor’s salary from the payroll. Its other effect was to leave the clinic perennially shorthanded. It was not a popular policy.

“Basically,” Hardy replied, “there’s a staff physician covering each room.”

“Right. In the ICU, only a few of the beds, if any, contain that physicians’ personal patients. Except if they get somebody straight out of ER or the OR, or a critical baby, something like that. Anyway, so that morning I had ER downstairs, late to work as it was, when the Markham madness just broke it open—”

“Wait a minute. You were with Markham in the OR? You did the surgery on him?” So, Hardy realized, she had not just floated by the ICU to check a patient—she’d been there at Portola all morning.

“Yeah. He was a mess. I was amazed he survived to get in, much less out. Anyway, I walked in, frazzled at being late to begin with—I’m
never
late—”

“What had happened?” Hardy asked quickly. “With you being late?”

“It was so stupid, I just overslept. Me, Miss Insomnia. I think I must have turned off the alarm when it went off and never really woke up. I guess the only good news is I was well-rested for Markham’s arrival. I needed to be, believe me. Although Phil—Dr. Beltramo? He’d just worked ten to six—he didn’t appreciate it much.”

“So when did you make it up to the ICU finally?”

“I came up with Markham’s gurney, when we got him admitted and settled in there, Eric and I. Then I bopped up, I don’t know for sure, must have been four or five times before he died. Maybe every forty-five minutes, whenever I got a break. I’d pulled him out, after all. He was my patient.” She grew silent for a moment. “I didn’t expect him to die. I really didn’t.”

“He didn’t just die, Doctor. Somebody killed him.” Hardy was trying to assimilate this unexpected information, which, he had to admit, Cohn was volunteering easily enough. He wasn’t picking up any phony sympathy for Markham, any reticence to describe her own actions. “And the police continue to think it might have been Eric. Were you in the ICU when Markham went code blue?”

“No. I was down in the ER. Although I heard it, of course, and came right back up.”

“But you didn’t notice Eric in, say, the ten or fifteen minutes before?”

“No. The last time I saw him he was in the hallway with Rajan Bhutan. He’s a nurse there. They were with a patient on a gurney.”

This comported perfectly with everything he’d heard so far about the minutes just before Mr. Lector’s monitors started to scream and, as before, it didn’t do his client any good, except insofar as it might implicate Cohn herself.

“Let me ask you this, Doctor. Did Eric tell you anything about his visit to Mrs. Markham’s later that night?”

“Not really,” she said. “I was asleep when he finally got in and then we didn’t get any time together for a few days after that. What would there be to say, though? It must have been depressing as hell.”

But Hardy had cued on something else. “What did you mean, when he finally got in?”

“Back from Mrs. Markham’s, you meant, right?”

“Right. So you were at Eric’s place that night?”

A small laugh. “You didn’t know that? Whoops, blown our cover, I guess.” Then, more seriously, “I thought he could use some company after the day he’d had. I know I could.”

Reeling from this latest revelation, Hardy struggled to control his voice. “So what happened? Did you go home from work together?”

Another laugh. “No, no. We’ve given up trying to plan anything. We’re both on call half the time. Our hours get too weird. I just went over there and let myself in. I’ve got a key.”

“Aha,” Hardy said, jostling her along.

“But Eric stayed late at Portola, then went to Mrs. Markham’s. By the time he got home, I’d finally gotten to sleep.”

“The insomnia kick back in?”

“Jesus, with a vengeance, probably because I’d slept in that morning. I’ve said a million times, if I could change one thing in my life, other than my frizzy hair, it’s insomnia.”

“Hemingway says he wouldn’t trust anybody who’s never had it.”

“Yeah, well look what happened to him. Insomnia just plain sucks. There’s no upside and I ought to know. Can you imagine what it would be like to want to go to sleep, close your eyes, and presto, you’re gone? I would call that heaven. I’d sell what’s left of my soul for half of that.”

“But that wasn’t Tuesday night?”

“Jesus.” She suddenly sounded tired just thinking about it. “It must have been one o’clock, and I started trying—I’m talking in bed with the lights out—around ten.”

“And Eric wasn’t home by then?”

“No. He was still at Mrs. Markham’s. Evidently it went on pretty late.”

Glitsky held the warrant up in front of him. “We’re talking now,” he said. Marcel Lanier was with him and brushed past in a show of force, getting himself inside the apartment.

“Where do I start, sir?” he asked.

“Back to front, but maybe first the bedroom. I’ll be with you in a minute or two.”

“What are you looking for?” Kensing had gotten back from a run recently. He still wore his running shoes, shorts, and a tank top. He’d been at his kitchen table, drinking orange juice and ice, when the doorbell had rung. Now he turned at the sound of Lanier rummaging somewhere back in his room. “You can’t just come in here and tear things apart.”

Glitsky turned the warrant around, pretended to read it, came back to Kensing. “Judge Chomorro says I can. Oh, and before I forget.” He handed him Ash’s subpoena, as well.

“What’s this?”

“An invitation to talk to the grand jury. Tomorrow, nine thirty.”

“You can’t do this,” Kensing repeated. “This isn’t right. Mr. Hardy had a deal with the DA. I’m going to call him.”

“Go ahead.” Glitsky stepped over the threshold. “He’s not allowed in here without our permission when we’re conducting a search. He might take something. But you can call him if you want. Then you can both wait until we’re done. Take it easy, Doctor. I told you last time you should have let me in when we could have talked in a more comfortable atmosphere. You’ve really left me no choice.”

“What are you looking for?”

Glitsky read from the warrant. “Medical paraphernalia, specifically syringes and prescription drugs—”

“I’m a doctor, Lieutenant. You want, I’ll go get all that for you.” He turned and wiped sweat from his brow again. “I don’t believe this. This is America, right? We do this here?”

“You’d better thank God this is America, Doctor, and that this is how we do it. Anywhere else it wouldn’t be so pleasant.” Glitsky was reading from the warrant again. “Clothes with splatter or stains consistent with blood—”

“You’re going to find that, too. I work with blood every day. It comes from inside people.”

Glitsky raised his eyes in a baleful expression.

“I want to call Hardy.”

“Absolutely. I’d never try to stop you. But he’s not coming inside here.”

Another thumping noise emanated from the bedroom.

Glitsky raised his voice. “Marcel! Easy! By the book, please. Nice and neat.”

The doctor hung his head for a minute, then looked back up. “This is bullshit,” he said.

Bracco struck out trying to reach either Malachi Ross or Brendan Driscoll. He was in the middle of leaving a message with the latter’s answering machine when another call came in on their line and his partner picked it up. “Fisk. Homicide.”

“Sergeant Fisk, this is Jamie Rath again, from Carla Markham’s coffee group? I’m calling because I’ve been worrying all day. My daughter said something last night and it got me to thinking that maybe it was something you’d want to ask her about.”

“What was it?”

“Well, you know she plays soccer. She’s at practice right now, in fact. But she also runs cross-country, so she gets up early every morning and runs down to the greenbelt on Park Presidio and then up to the park and back the same way.”

“Okay.”

“Well, we were talking about Tim’s accident, me just being a bitchy mom trying to remind her how dangerous the streets could be, even when you were paying attention. And she said she didn’t need me to remind her. On the same day that Tim had gotten hit, almost the same thing had happened to her, only a couple of blocks away.”

Fisk was snapping his fingers at his partner, indicating he ought to pick up the other line.

Mrs. Rath was continuing. “It had scared her silly. She’d just turned off Lake onto Twenty-fifth, coming back home, and was crossing the street. She saw this car coming, but there was a stop sign and she was in the walkway. Then suddenly she heard the tires screech and she looked over and jumped backward and the skid stopped just in time. Lexi was standing there with her hands on the hood, just completely flipped out. She said she yelled something at the driver, to watch where she was going, then slapped at the hood and went back to running. But I didn’t have to tell her how dangerous it was. She knew.”

“Did she say anything else about the car? What color it was, for example?”

“Oh yeah. It was green, which I guess is what made me think about Tim. Didn’t I read that the car that hit him was green?”

Bracco butted in. “What time does your daughter get home from soccer practice, Mrs. Rath?”

Lexi sat between her mom and dad, Doug, on the couch in their living room. She’d been home long enough to have showered and changed into jeans, tennis shoes, and a light sweater. She was a tall and thin fourteen-year-old with braces and reasonably controlled acne. Her long brown hair was still wet. She was holding both of her parents’ hands, nervous at being the center of attention, at talking to these policemen who were sitting on upholstered chairs facing her. “It wasn’t really that big a deal. I mean”—her eyes begged for her mother’s understanding—“I had this kind of thing happen before while I’ve been running. Maybe not this close, but almost. People just space out when they drive, but I know that. So I pay attention when I’m out there.”

“I’m sure you do,” Fisk responded. “And paying attention the way you do, did you notice anything unusual about the car that almost hit you?”

Lexi threw her eyes up to the ceiling in concentration, looked from Jamie to Doug, back to the inspectors. “I really only saw it out of the corner of my eye. You know, there was a stop sign. I saw it coming up the street and thought it would stop, so I didn’t break my stride. I guess she didn’t see me until I was right in front of her.”

“So it was a woman? The driver?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, yes, sir. Definitely.”

“Was there anybody else in the car?”

“No, just her.”

“Did you get a good look at her?”

She nodded yes. “But only for a second.”

Bracco had been letting Fisk take the interview. He’d crowed all the way out here about the car, the car, the car. Jamie Rath had called him at the detail, or at least he’d answered the phone. He knew all along that the car would be part of it. Bracco didn’t mind—Fisk tended to be good when gentleness was called for. But Bracco thought that sometimes he didn’t hit all the notes. “But you
did
get a good look at her for that second, is that true? Do you think you could recognize her again?”

“I don’t know about that. Maybe. I don’t know.”

Doug patted her reassuringly on the leg. “It’s okay, hon. You’re doing good.”

“You
are
doing good, Lexi,” Fisk seconded. “What we’re asking is maybe we could send an artist out here to try to draw her face as you remember it. Would that be all right with you?”