Darwin's Blade (21 page)

Dar stopped speaking.
What the hell am I talking about?
Had it been Dallas Trace's arrogance or the death stench of the hospital that had set him off? Maybe he was just going crazy.

After several minutes of silence, Syd said, “And you don't believe in crusades, either.”

He looked at her. At that moment she was a total stranger to him—certainly not the woman whose company and repartee he had enjoyed so much over the past several days…

“Crusades always end up sacrificing innocents. Like the original Crusades to free the Holy Land,” said Dar harshly. “Sooner or later it's a fucking Children's Crusade, and kids are on the front line.”

Syd frowned. “What are you so angry about, Dar? Vietnam? Or your work with the NTSB? The
Challenger
? What are we—”

“Never mind,” said Dar. He was suddenly very tired. “The grunts in Vietnam had a saying for everything, you know.”

Syd watched the traffic.

“No matter what happened,” said Dar, “the infantrymen would learn to say, ‘Fuck it. It don't matter. Move on.' ”

The traffic stopped. The Taurus stopped. Syd looked at him and there was something more than anger in her eyes.

“You can't base your philosophy on that. You can't live like that.”

Dar returned her stare, and only when she looked away did he realize how angry his gaze must have been. “Wrong,” he said. “It's the
only
philosophy that lets you live.”

They drove into San Diego in absolute silence. When they were near Syd's hotel, she said, “I'll take you up the hill to your condo.”

Dar shook his head. “I'll walk to the Justice Center from here. They're releasing my NSX from impoundment this afternoon and I'm meeting the body-shop guy there.”

Syd stopped the car and nodded. She watched him as he got out and stood on the curb. “You're not going to help me any further with this investigation, are you?” she said at last.

“No,” said Dar.

Syd nodded.

“Thanks for…” began Dar. “Thanks for everything.”

He walked away and did not look back.

T
uesday was a big day for guns, culminating in a high-velocity rifle bullet aimed directly at Darwin Minor's heart.

The day started dismally with more heat, more rain clouds threatening—unusual for Southern California for this time of year, of course, but almost
all
of Southern California's weather was unusual at almost any time of year. Dar started his own day in a foul mood. His anger from the previous day bothered him. The fact that he would not see Sydney Olson again bothered him. The fact that this bothered him, bothered him the most.

The repairs to the NSX were going to cost a fortune. When Harry Meadows, his body-shop friend—and one of the few people in the state who could do decent bodywork on the Acura's aluminum skin—met him at the Justice Center on Monday evening, all he could do was shake his head. The final estimate on repairs had made Dar take a full step backward.

“Jesus,” Dar had said, “I could buy a new Subaru for that.”

Harry had nodded slowly and mournfully. “True, true,” he said. “But then you'd have a fucking Subaru rather than an NSX.”

Dar could not argue with the logic of that. Harry had taken the bullet-scarred NSX away on a trailer, swearing that he would take as good care of the car as he would of his own mother. Dar happened to know that Harry's aged mother lived in poverty in an un-air-conditioned trailer sixty-five miles out in the desert where he visited her precisely twice a year.

On Tuesday morning Lawrence called. There were several new cases that needed photographing. Lawrence did not know which ones would require reconstruction work—it depended upon which went to litigation and jury trials—but he thought that he and Dar should visit each site.

“Sure,” said Dar. “Why the hell not? I'm only about a month behind in my paperwork as it is.”

As Lawrence drove, he must have sensed something was wrong with Dar. There is a certain bond between men that goes deeper than verbal communication. Men who have known each other for years and worked together—occasionally on dangerous projects—begin to gain a sixth sense about their friends' thoughts and emotions. This allows them to communicate on a level deeper than women could ever understand. Lawrence and Dar had just picked up coffee and donuts at a Dunkin' Donuts in north San Diego when Lawrence said, “Something wrong, Dar?”

“No,” said Dar.

Nothing more was said.

The first accident site was halfway to San Jose. Lawrence parked the Trooper in the crowded parking lot of a low-rent condo complex and they walked over to the inevitable yellow-taped-crime-scene rectangle around a 1994 red Honda Prelude. The accident had occurred in the middle of the night, but there were still two uniformed officers there as well as a few gawkers—mostly gang-banger-aged kids in droopy shorts and three-hundred-dollar athletic shoes. Lawrence identified both himself and Dar to the nearest police officer, politely asked permission for Dar to take pictures, and then got a statement from the officer.

As Dar shot images, the young patrolman tried to explain, pointing happily to the various pieces of evidence—the broken windows on the car, the cracked windshield, dents in the hood of the Prelude, slimy gray matter on and around the front of the car, as well as blood on the shattered windshield, the hood, the fenders, the front bumper, and pooled in a wide, dark stain on the asphalt. Obviously it had not rained very hard here during the night or morning.

“Well, this guy, Barry, he's mad at his girlfriend—Sheila something—she lives upstairs in 2306, she's down at the station now making out a statement,” said the cop. “Anyway, Barry's a biker, big fucker with a beard, and Sheila gets tired of him and starts seeing other guys. Well, at least one other guy. Barry, he doesn't like that. So he comes by here, we figure about two-thirty
A.M.
, the reports of a disturbance come in about two forty-eight, and the first report of shots fired came in to 911 at three-oh-two
A.M.
At first Barry is just, you know, screaming up at Sheila's window, shouting obscenities at her, her shouting obscenities back, you know. The main entrance, it's got an automatic lock so you gotta buzz to get in and go up, only Sheila doesn't buzz him in.

“This really pisses Barry off. So he goes back to his truck—that's it, the Ford van parked over there—and comes back with a loaded shotgun, double barrel. He starts using the butt of the shotgun to bash in the side windows of Sheila's Prelude there. Sheila starts shitting bricks and screaming louder. The neighbors call the police, but before a black-and-white can answer, Barry gets it in his mind to get up on the hood—he must've weighed about two sixty, you see how he dented the shit out of it just standing on it—and he begins bashing in the windshield with the butt of the shotgun. We figure, to get a better grip or something, he somehow got a finger inside the trigger guard…”

“And shot himself in the belly?” said Lawrence.

“Both barrels. Blew his guts all over the hood, headlights, front bumper—”

“He was still alive in intensive care when I got the call this morning,” interrupted Lawrence. “Do you have an update?”

The cop shrugged. “When the detectives came to take the girl downtown, word was that the medics had pulled the plug on Barry. Sheila's comment was ‘Good riddance.' ”

“Love,” said Lawrence.

“It's a many-splendored thing,” agreed the uniformed officer.

They stopped for three obvious slip-and-fall scams—two at supermarkets and one at a Holiday Inn where the claimant was famous for slip-and-falls near ice machines that leaked—and a slow-motion parking-lot swoop-and-squat where five family members were all claiming whiplash. The last accident scene was in San Jose itself. On the way, Lawrence and Dar stopped for lunch. Actually, they just went through a Burger Biggy drive-through and ate their Biggies and slurped their Biggy milk shakes while Lawrence drove.

“So how did Barry's shotgun
sepaku
relate to any of your insurance carriers?” Dar asked between sips.

“First thing Sheila did this morning was file a claim on the Prelude,” said the big insurance adjuster. “She says that it's totaled—that State Farm owes her a brand-new car.”

“I didn't see that much damage,” said Dar. “Some broken glass. The dents in the hood. Nothing else that a car wash won't take care of.”

Lawrence shook his head. “She claims that she would be too traumatized to ever drive the Prelude again. She wants full payment…enough to buy a brand-new SUV. She's had her eye on a Navigator.”

“She told the insurance people all this this morning before going to the cops to give her statement?”

“Sort of,” said Lawrence. “She called her insurance agent at four
A.M.
”

The last accident site was also in a run-down condo complex, this one right in San Jose. There were uniformed officers on the stairway and an obviously bored plainclothes detective on the third floor. There was also the smell of death.

“Jesus,” said Lawrence, pulling a clean, red bandana out of his hip pocket and holding it over his nose and mouth. “How long has this guy been dead?”

“Just since last night,” said Lieutenant Rich of the San Jose PD. “Everyone heard the gunshot about midnight, but no one reported it. The apartment's not air-conditioned, so things have been getting ripe since about ten
A.M.
”

“You mean the body's still
in there?
” Lawrence asked incredulously.

Lieutenant Rich shrugged. “The ME was here this morning when the body was discovered. The cause of death has been established. We've been waiting for the meat wagon all day, but the county coroner has jurisdiction on this and his vehicle's been busy all day. Real mess on the freeways this morning.”

“Shit,” said Lawrence. He gave Dar a look and then turned back to the lieutenant. “Well, we have to go in and take photos. I have to do a scene sketch.”

“Why?” said the detective. “What the hell has the insurance got to do with it at this point?”

“There's already threatened litigation by the deceased's sister,” said Lawrence.

“Against who?” said Officer Rich. “Do you know how this guy died?”

“Suicide, isn't it?” said Lawrence. “The lawsuit is against the deceased's—Mr. Hatton's—psychiatrist. His sister says that Mr. Hatton was depressed and paranoid and that the psychiatrist didn't do enough to prevent this tragedy.”

The detective chuckled. “I don't think that's gonna fly. I'd have to testify in court that the psychiatrist did everything she could to keep this poor nut happy. Come on in, I'll show you. You can take your photos, but I don't think you'll want to hang around long enough to do too careful a scene diagram.”

Dar followed the plainclothes officer and Lawrence into the small, overheated apartment. Someone had opened the only window that would open, but that was in the kitchen and the body was in the bedroom.

“Jesus Christ,” said Lawrence, standing next to the bloodsoaked bed and pillows, looking at the crimson spatters on the headboard and wall. “The .38's still in the poor bastard's hand. The ME says that this isn't suicide?”

Lieutenant Rich, who was trying to hold his nose and look dignified at the same time, nodded. “We have testimony from the shrink that Mr. Hatton was definitely depressed and paranoid, also schizophrenic. The psychiatrist was aware that the late Mr. H. always slept with the .38 Smith and Wesson on his nightstand next to his bed. He was afraid the UN was planning an invasion of the United States…you know, black helicopters, bar codes on road signs to show the African troops where to go to get the gun owners…the usual shit. Anyway, the shrink—she's a woman, by the way, and quite a looker—says that the short-term goal of her therapy was to have Mr. Hatton bring in the pistol for safekeeping.”

“Guess that goal won't be reached,” said Lawrence through his bandana.

“The shrink says that Hatton was extremely paranoid, but in no way suicidal,” said the detective. “She's willing to testify to that. But the poor schmuck was on about five types of meds, including Doxepin and Flurazepam to sleep. Knocks him right out. According to the doctor, Hatton always tried to get to sleep by ten-thirty
P.M.
”

“So what happened?” said Lawrence as Dar shot some regular thirty-five-millimeter stills with high-speed film.

“Hatton's sister called him at three minutes before midnight,” said Lieutenant Rich. “She says that she usually doesn't call him that late, but that she'd had a terrible dream…a premonition of his death.”

“So?” said Lawrence.

“Hatton didn't answer the phone. His sister knew that he was taking sleeping pills, so she waited until nine this morning to start calling again. Eventually she called the cops.”

“I don't get it,” said Lawrence.

Dar crouched by the body, studied the angle of the arm and the turn of the wrist that rigor mortis had sculpted in place, studied the wound high on the dead man's temple, and then moved around the bed to sniff at the pillow on the empty side. “I do,” said Dar.

Lawrence looked at Dar, at the body, back at Lieutenant Rich, and then at the body again. “Aw, no. You're shitting me.”

“That's the ME's analysis,” said the detective.

Lawrence shook his head. “You mean—he was all doped up with sleeping pills, his sister calls because she has a dream that he's died, and this guy thinks he's answering the phone but actually picks up the .38 on the nightstand and blows his brains out? There's no way anyone could prove that.”

“There was a witness,” said Lieutenant Rich.

Lawrence looked at the empty but mussed side of the bed. “Oh,” he said, getting the picture…or at least part of it.

“Georgio of Beverly Hills,” said Dar.

Lawrence turned slowly to look at his friend. “Are you telling me that you can look at the imprint on the other side of the bed and sniff around—amidst all this stench—and tell me the name of the guy from Beverly Hills that Mr. Hatton was sleeping with?”

The police detective laughed, then covered his mouth and nose again.

Dar shook his head. “The perfume. Georgio of Beverly Hills.” Dar turned to the plainclothes officer. “Let me take a wild guess. Whoever was in bed with Mr. Hatton at the time of the accident didn't come forward last night—either because she's married or the situation would be embarrassing in some other way—but she's given you a statement since then. Whoever she was, you found her this morning…and probably not by checking all of the women in Southern California who wear Georgio.”

Detective Rich nodded. “Two minutes after the patrol car pulled up this morning, she broke down and started sobbing, told us all about it.”

“What are you two talking about?” said Lawrence.

“The psychiatrist,” said Dar.

Lawrence looked back at the body. “Mr. Hatton was boffing his shrink?”

“Not at the time of the accident,” said Lieutenant Rich. “They'd finished their boffing for the night, Mr. Hatton had taken his Flurazepam and Doxepin, and they were both asleep. The psychiatrist…I'll keep her name out of it for right now, but my guess is that you'll be hearing it on the eleven-o'clock news a lot in the days to come…she heard the phone ring at midnight, heard Hatton fumble around and say, ‘Hello?'—just as the gun went off.”

“She obviously decided that discretion was the better part of valor on her part,” said Dar.

“Yeah,” said the detective. “She got her ass out of here before the blood quit sprayin'. Unfortunately—for the shrink—the snoopy live-in manager saw her drive off in her Porsche about five minutes after midnight.”