Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (12 page)

The easiest way, of course, would be to see Joanna Pate. She might know who the other nurses were. But the thought of seeing her again made me nervous. She was a very desirable young woman. I was afraid of what she might do and how I might react. I was thinking about that when one of the lab technicians tapped me on the shoulder, startling me. His skin and hair were almost as white as his lab coat.

"Weren't you here when the medical examiner picked up that lady who drowned?" he asked.

"Her name was Sally Pruitt," I said. "Yes, I was here. Why do you ask?"

"I'm glad I ran into you," he said, going to his desk. "The guys from Dr. Barbette's office left something behind the other day."

He brought me a plastic bag. Inside the bag was Sally Pruitt's rabbit-foot keychain and the single shiny key.

"Are you going to be seeing Dr. Barbette anytime soon?" the technician asked.

I would now that I had an excuse, I thought.

"Yes," I said, taking the bag and putting it in the pocket of my lab coat. "I'll be sure that he gets it."

I didn't know when I'd have an opportunity to go down to the county morgue, but I had a sinking feeling it would be sooner rather than later.

A strong wind beat the rain against the windows of the hospital, but despite the storm's fury the ER was surprisingly quiet. I spent the last hour of my shift catching up on all the paperwork generated by the chaos that had started my day thirty-six hours earlier.

I was on my way out to go home when I saw a woman in the waiting area, reading the evening edition of the newspaper. The headline was in big, bold type and immediately grabbed my full attention.

BABYSITTER MISSING, FOUL PLAY FEARED

It was the word "babysitter" that got me. Had The Storm Killer struck again?

There was another copy of the newspaper abandoned on an empty seat. I snatched it up and quickly read the article.

Tess Vigland, eighteen, disappeared from a home in Chatsworth last night while babysitting the two children of a single mother. When the mother, who'd been out on a date, returned a little after one a.m., she discovered the front door ajar, her children asleep in their beds, and the babysitter gone. The mother immediately called the police.

According to the article, a neighbor reported seeing Tess outside around eleven thirty p.m., talking to a man inside a large, dark sedan parked in front of the house. The witness didn't see the man's face and couldn't identify the make or model of his car.

Police told reporters that Tess left her shoes, purse, and wallet behind in the house, which indicated she wasn't planning on leaving and suggested foul play. Yet there were no signs of a struggle, leading police to believe she may have been abducted by someone she knew.

I tossed the paper aside. The Storm Killer. Good God, what was I thinking?

I'd worked myself up into believing there was some killer out there, stalking babysitters and using the storm to hide his crimes. I had absolutely no basis for leaping to that assumption.

Someone had murdered Sally Pruitt and made her death look like an accident, but that didn't mean every woman who died or disappeared in Los Angeles during the storm had been killed.

Muriel Thayer died in an accident on a rain-slick road. She was a nursing student and she babysat to earn extra money. That was all I really knew. It was hardly enough evidence to assume she was murdered.

I knew even less about Tess Vigland. She was a babysitter and she was gone. But her disappearance certainly couldn't be blamed on the weather, nor was she dead.

Yet
.

That little voice in my head just wouldn't leave me alone, making my imagination run wild.

It was obvious what I needed to do: Go home, see my family, and get some rest. Everything would look different in the morning.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I didn't go home.

Instead, I called Katherine and told her I had to deliver Sally Pruitt's rabbit-foot key chain to Dr. Barbette right away.

"I hope you aren't thinking about cheating on me," she said, "because you're lousy at deception."

My heart dropped into my stomach, the blood drained from my face, and I nearly passed out. It was a good thing I was standing in the emergency room, because I was going to need one soon.

She knew about the kiss. She knew how it made me feel. She knew I'd kept it from her. How did she find out?

Was it all over my face?

Maybe it was. Literally.

I felt a pang of panic. Had I walked back into our bedroom with another woman's lipstick on my face?

"I haven't lied to you about anything," I stammered.

"It's what you didn't say and you might as well have shouted it out," she replied. "The keychain is just an excuse to ask Dr. Barbette some more questions."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relieved. This wasn't about Joanna. But it made me realize again just how guilty I felt about the kiss, for enjoying it, for wanting more. I would make it up to Katherine somehow, even though she didn't know she'd been slighted.

"You don't mind?" I asked.

"I'll wait up," she said. "I want to know everything."

"Really?" I said.

"This is better than an episode of Perry Mason," she said.

"I love you," I said.

"Of course you do," she replied, and I could hear the smile on her face. "I'm irresistible."

If Dr. Barbette was surprised to see me, he didn't show it. He was in middle of conducting an autopsy of a Hispanic man in his twenties with multiple stab wounds in his neck, chest, and stomach.

"What happened to him?" I asked as I came in. "Horatio Ortega stabbed himself sixteen times with a steak knife," Barbette said. "Or so says the guy who was caught carrying Horatio's watch, wallet, and bloody steak knife."

The medical examiner peeled off his bloody gloves and shook my hand.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Sloan?"

I took the plastic bag out of my pocket and gave it to him. "You left this keychain behind the other day. It be longed to Sally Pruitt."

Dr. Barbette nodded and tossed the bag on an empty autopsy table. "You didn't make the trip all the way down here just to deliver that key."

"My wife said the same thing," I said.

"You want to ask me something about Sally Pruitt's murder," he said.

"My wife said that, too," I said.

"What else did she say? You could save me the trouble of having this conversation at all."

I told him what I'd learned so far about Sally Pruitt, how she was living with her parents and babysitting to earn money for tuition in Community General's nursing school.

"As fascinating as that is," Dr. Barbette said with a sigh, "I'd appreciate it if you got to the point, assuming there is one."

"Earlier this week, a woman died in a car accident on Mulholland," I said. "Her name was Muriel Thayer."

Dr. Barbette cocked an eyebrow. "What about her?"

"She was a nursing student at Community General," I said. "She was also babysitting to earn extra money."

"You think there's a connection," Barbette said.

"I was hoping you could tell me," I said. "Are you sure her death was an accident?"

"Yes," he said. "And no."

Goose bumps crawled up my back. He led me over to one of the morgue drawers as he spoke.

"She lost control of her car on one of those hairpin turns," he said. "The car went over the cliff and rolled over several times before reaching the bottom of the canyon."

"Were there any skid marks on the road?"

Dr. Barbette shrugged. "I just cut the bodies, but here's the interesting thing."

He opened the drawer in front of him, revealing a corpse I presumed to be Muriel Thayer. Beyond the Y-shaped autopsy incision, I noticed she was covered with deep bruises and numerous lacerations. She had a compound fracture of her right leg and a broken nose, and was missing several teeth.

"She was hurt pretty bad, as you can see," he said. "What you can't see is the collapsed lung, the cracked ribs, and the ruptured spleen."

"None of those wounds is fatal," I said.

"You must be a doctor," he said.

"So what killed her?" I asked.

"My best guess is a heart attack or heart arrhythmia," he said.

"Are you sure she wasn't dead before the car went off the cliff?" I asked.

He glared at me. "I may have been mistaken calling you a doctor. Think a minute."

I flushed, embarrassed that I'd asked such a stupid question. "If she was dead, she wouldn't have bled or bruised. Sorry, it's been a long day."

"You aren't used to thinking about death," he said. "You're more experienced in preventing it. If you're serious about investigating murder, you'll have to change the way you look at things."

I gestured toward the body. "Is she still here because you have some doubts about the circumstances of her death?"

"I don't have any doubts," he said. "Her parents are coming from Chicago to claim her body. The storm has delayed their arrival."

He may not have had any doubts, but I did, even though there was no evidence to suggest that she was murdered. Judging from the expression on Dr. Barbette's face, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Many factors can contribute to the sudden loss of life. Not every cause of death can be conclusively determined," he said. "That doesn't make them homicides."

I nodded, not really believing him.

"Do you think I'm incompetent, Dr. Sloan?"

"No, sir," I said, horrified that I might have offended him. "Of course not."

"I've been doing this a long time, young man. I've probably conducted hundreds of autopsies. If there was any evidence of murder, I would have found it."

"I'm sure you would," I said, trying desperately to make up for my mistake. "I didn't mean to imply, in any way, shape, or form, that you weren't doing your job. Of course you were. Exceptionally well."

"Then again," Barbette said, a contemplative look on his face, "the killer might not have left any evidence for me to find."

He gave me a tiny smile and, with it, a little encouragement. I smiled back appreciatively and with great relief.

"I'm sorryy if I distracted you from your work, Dr. Barbette," I said. "I'd better be going."

"What's your hurry? As long as you're here, would you like to assist me on another autopsy? It's a dismemberment case. You don't get many of those."

"I wish I could," I said, "but I should get home to my wife."

"Very well," he said, sounding a bit disappointed. "Thank you for delivering Miss Pruitt's personal effects."

A thought occurred to me. "What happened to Muriel's things?"

"I have them," Barbette said. "They're in a box for her parents."

"Could I see them?"

"I don't see why not," Barbette said.

He led me to a storage room, drew a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door. The tiny room was lined floor to ceiling with metal shelves. On each shelf were identical cardboard file boxes labeled with serial numbers and names. Dr. Barbette went to Muriel's box, pulled it off the shelf, and carried it back into the morgue, setting it down on the empty autopsy table.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said, lifting the lid off the box. There wasn't much inside. Each item was in its own plastic bag. "I'm just curious."

Dr. Barbette smiled, amused. "That's how it starts."

"How what starts?"

"Every investigation," he said. "You think you're going to find Sally Pruitt's killer in that box?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned his back to me and returned to the corpse with the multiple stab wounds.

I sorted through Muriel's things. Her bloody, torn clothes had been neatly folded and placed in a bag, as if they might be worn again. Her raincoat, gloves, shoes, jewelry, and purse were each bagged separately, but the contents of her purse were collected together in one bag. I emptied the bag out on the table, the items spilling onto the metal with a loud clang.

I looked up apologetically at Dr. Barbette.

"Sorry," I said.

When I lowered my head again, my gaze fell on the bag containing Sally Pruitt's keychain. I didn't want it to be inadvertently included with Muriel's things, so I picked it up to set it aside. That's when I noticed Muriel Thayer's keyring on the table. I picked up the keyring and fanned out Muriel's keys, comparing them to the one on Sally's rabbit foot.

I found an exact match.

They both had the same key.

It wasn't evidence of murder—at least it wouldn't be to a court of law or any reasonable person.

But it was to me.

The back of my neck tingled. I could feel the killer's presence again, as if he was right there in the room with Dr. Barbette and me and the woman he'd killed.

I looked up and saw Dr. Barbette staring at me. "What have you found?"

"Sally Pruitt was murdered and tossed into the river. She didn't have her purse or her jewelry. All she had was this." I held up Sally's key with one hand. "Six days earlier, Muriel Thayer died from causes you can't conclusively determine. This was among her possessions."

I held up Muriel's key beside Sally's. Barbette walked over and examined them both. He frowned.

"You want to know my professional opinion, Dr. Sloan?"

"Absolutely," I said.

"It's creepy," he said. "But that doesn't make it murder. There could be a thousand innocent explanations. Even so, you should tell the homicide detectives what you've found."

I knew he was right, but I wasn't looking forward to my inevitable encounter with Harry Trumble. There would be no talking my way out of the fact that I'd ignored his warning and investigated the murder anyway.

The phone rang. Dr. Barbette went to answer it. I studied the keys, as if staring at them hard enough would reveal what lock they fit into and where it was.

Dr. Barbette hung up and came back over to me. "Another day, another body."