Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (19 page)

Why did Chet slit Tess Vigland's throat and make no at tempt to disguise her murder as an accident?

What happened to the blackmail film? And why didn't Alistair Whittington try to save himself by giving the film to Chet?

He got out of bed and trudged to the kitchen to discuss the questions with Steve, but it was well past nine a.m. and his son had already left for work. Mark couldn't blame him for wanting to get an early start. Steve had a homicide investigation to lead, and he wouldn't get far until he identified the victim.

The fog was thick over Santa Monica Bay, the ocean breeze blowing the light drizzle and the sea spray against the windows. He liked these gray days almost as much as the sunny ones. There was something comforting and beautiful about a deserted, windswept, foggy beach. Mark made himself a bowl of cereal with strawberries, washed it down with a few cups of strong coffee, then showered, dressed, and braved the traffic to Community General Hospital. The morning drizzle had become a heavy shower. The traffic barely moved.

He turned on the radio to listen to the news, but his thoughts immediately drifted back to the murder and to the past. Old memories kept coming back, making it difficult to think about anything else.

Maybe that was the whole idea.

It occurred to him that the past might just be a clever distraction. The new killing could have nothing at all to do with what had happened in 1962.

The killer could be an old adversary playing an elaborate mind game, showing just how much he knew about Mark and how easily he could manipulate him.

There was only one man Mark knew who was capable of that.

Carter Sweeney.

The man's homicidal tendencies were hereditary. His father, Regan Sweeney, was a mad bomber who had terrorized Los Angeles and killed dozens of people. Mark captured Regan and sent him to the gas chamber, where he was put to death. Regan's son, Carter, became obsessed with revenge. He and his sister, Caitlin, tried to destroy everything Mark held dear—his reputation, his career, his family, and his friends. And when that failed, the Sweeneys blew up Community General Hospital, trapping Mark, Steve, Amanda, and Jesse in the flaming rubble.

Mark survived that encounter, only to be kidnapped by the Sweeneys and forced to engineer a daring hundred-million-dollar robbery. He managed to foil the Sweeneys again, leading to their capture. They were sentenced to multiple life terms in prison for their homicidal rampage.

Carter Sweeney was a brilliant and resourceful man. Could he have reached out from his prison cell and enlisted someone to terrorize Mark again?

Mark doubted anybody was devoted enough to the Sweeneys to murder for them, but it wasn't a possibility he could entirely dismiss. If his investigation didn't turn up some compelling leads soon, he would make the journey to Pelican Bay Penitentiary and confront his cunning adversary face-to-face once again.

Steve's first stop when he got to headquarters was the Scientific Investigation Unit, which was analyzing the stuff the beachcomber had found at Point Dume, the place where the unidentified victim was most likely dumped into the sea.

The items included a Hot Wheels car, a charm bracelet, an earring, a watch, a fingernail clipper, a class ring, a fishing lure, a coat button, a nipple ring, and a cell phone. Most of the stuff was mass-produced and virtually untraceable.

The easiest item to trace was the cell phone, which be longed to Tia Davidoff, twenty-seven, of West Covina. Officers were sent to her home and found her alive and well. She'd lost the cell phone on the beach a week before the murder, so she wasn't even a potential witness.

The watch was identified as a Fossil, and from the serial number on the back the techs were able to trace it to a gift shop at Universal City Walk, a shopping center adjacent to the movie studio. It was a discontinued style, purchased three years earlier. The manufacturer was being contacted to see if whoever bought the watch had sent in a warranty card. Otherwise, there wasn't much hope of identifying the owner of the timepiece.

The coat button, with a distinctive hawk etched on the surface, came from a Stanton-brand men's raincoat, a line carried exclusively by Nordstrom department stores. Tens of thousands of Stanton raincoats had been sold over the years.

The techs had better luck with the class ring. It was manufactured in China under license by the Rossiter Jewelry Company of Clayton, Nebraska. The ring was the company's popular "Continental" style, individualized for the graduating class of Northgate High School in Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, two years ago. A police officer had been sent out to the school to get a copy of the class yearbook.

Steve left them to their work and went to see the file clerk in the basement. They spent two hours trying to dig up the files on the Sally Pruitt and Tess Vigland homicides. They finally found them in a water-stained, dust-covered box deep in the bowels of the storage room. Steve blew the dust and cobwebs off the box and brought it upstairs to his desk.

The files were undamaged and surprisingly complete. He found crime scene photos of Sally Pruitt and Tess Vigland, as well as their autopsy reports. He also found black-and-white studio portraits, most likely school photos, of Muriel Thayer, Ingrid Willis, and Clara Cohen. There were also crime scene photos of Alistair Whittington and his home, inside and out.

Steve found Harry Trumble's typed reports, pecked out on a manual typewriter with a crooked "T," and his personal notebooks, filled with his almost illegible handwritten scrawl. From what Steve could tell, Trumble's investigation concentrated on the family members and boyfriends of the two known victims, Sally Pruitt and Tess Vigland. Harry also interviewed known sex offenders in the area, all to no avail.

He read the statement his father had given to the police after his arrest at Whittington's house. Harry's own report did nothing to contradict Mark's version of events, which made it seem as if he'd been working hand in hand with the police from the outset.

There was a detailed background file on Mark Sloan, calling him a "member of the police family" by virtue of his father, Detective James Sloan, and suggesting that LAPD should consider using the doctor as a consultant in the future.

They had come to regret that, Steve thought wryly.

There was no mention in any report of Dr. Chet Arnold, or Harry Trumble's gunshot wounds, or the house in Northridge, or anything that exonerated Alistair Whittington of the murders.

Enough of the past, he decided. There was a killer on the loose today and he wouldn't be found in a musty file. Steve made a list of all the players from the 1962 drama and began working the phones, and his computer, to track them down. He'd nearly completed his task when, as if on cue, an officer showed up at his desk with a Northgate High School yearbook.

Steve started with the senior class, scrutinizing each page, until he found the photo he was looking for. Brooke Haslett was smiling brightly, full of hope and eagerness, ready to fulfill her destiny, never imagining that it was a knife's edge across her throat and the eternal embrace of a cold emerald sea.

Mark was shocked to find Dr. Dan Marlowe emerging from the operating room in sweat-soaked scrubs, a smile of satisfaction on his face. The big man went to the waiting room, where a frail woman in her fifties, flanked by her two adult sons, rose from their hard plastic seats to hear his news. Her sons steadied their mother on her feet. Judging by her wan appearance and loose skin, and the telltale impression under her shirt of an IV port on her chest, Mark guessed that the woman was chronically ill and undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

Whatever news Dan told the family must have been good, because the woman practically flew into his arms, giving him a strong, grateful hug that nearly knocked the brown wig from her head. When they parted, she was crying tears of relief and joy. Her sons each shook Dan's hand in turn, and then the doctor made his way to Mark, who stood at a respectful distance from the family.

"What are you doing, Dan?" Mark asked angrily.

"What I was born to do," Dan said. "And it feels damn good."

"What were you thinking? How could you possibly have operated on someone?"

"Because he was in desperate need of angioplasty," Dan said.

"Surely you could have referred him to another cardiologist," Mark said.

"Rufus King has been my patient for thirty years," Dan said. "He trusts me, his family trusts me. And they've endured so much tragedy lately, I had to do this. I couldn't let those boys face losing both their parents."

"You could just as easily have killed him," Mark said. "You're in no condition to be performing surgery."

"I told you I intend to keep practicing as long as I can."

"I thought you'd use your good sense and stay out of the OR. You've got cancer, Dan. You're heavily medicated on painkillers. If your patient knew that, do you think he'd really want you passing a catheter into his heart? One slip—"

"Damn it, Mark. I feel fine," Dan interrupted. "The minute I think I'm a danger to my patients, I'll stop."

"Really? Based on what you've done, I don't think you're capable of making that judgment." Mark yanked up Dan's left sleeve, revealing a Fentanyl patch on his inner arm. The patch released a powerful pain medication that was absorbed into the skin and could cause dizziness, slurred speech, and slowed reflexes. "You got someone else to write you a prescription for this patch, because you knew if I discovered you were in that much pain, I would never have let you into the operating room. If someone dies under your scalpel, I'll be equally responsible because I helped you hide your condition."

Dan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry, Mark. The last thing I want to do is put your career at risk."

"It's not my career I'm worried about," Mark said.

Dan studied his friend's face. "But you're definitely very worried about something, and it wasn't this. You didn't come down here to talk to me about performing an angioplasty. You didn't know about that until you saw me."

Mark nodded solemnly. "Let me buy you a cup of coffee. I need to tell you a story."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It would have taken most of the day for Mark to tell Dan Marlowe everything, so he gave him only the key points. He revealed that Dr. Whittington didn't commit suicide, he was murdered by their friend Chet Arnold, who also killed five women. Now someone had murdered another woman in a manner that mimicked those earlier killings. To solve the crime, Mark was revisiting the past for clues and needed Dan's help.

They sat in the same booth where, only a few days ago, Mark had told Dan Marlowe he was going to die.

"How could you have kept the truth about what happened secret all these years?" Dan asked.

"I did it for the good of the families involved," Mark said.

"I don't know if Constance Whittington would agree with you."

"She knew the truth, but I didn't see how it would help Gladys Arnold and her kids to know Chet was a serial killer."

"But they're going to know now, aren't they?" Dan said. "Do you think it's going to feel any better forty years later than it would have then?"

"No, of course not," Mark said. "They will feel betrayed not only by Chet but by me and the entire police department. I was hoping they'd never have to know. But the killer has made that impossible. Maybe that was the point."

"I don't see what I can do for you," Dan said.

Mark wasn't sure either. His entire investigation, at least as far as the past was concerned, was a matter of stumbling around in the dark, hoping to trip over some thing significant.

"Did Chet ever confide in you?" Mark asked.

"He never told me he was a murderer, if that's what you're getting at," Dan said. "I know he wasn't happy in his marriage."

"What was his problem?"

"Being married," Dan said. "He talked more to Alice than he did to me."

"I didn't know they were close," Mark said.

"They weren't," Dan said. "He just enjoyed listening to her war stories and had to contribute something personal to the conversation to get her to talk."

"I lost track of Alice. She left Community General not long after Dr. Whittington's death," Mark said. "Do you have any idea where she might have ended up?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact I do," Dan said. "She gave up nursing. She's a veterinarian out in Agoura now."

Mark looked surprised. "You two have kept in touch?"

"Not at all. I lost track of her the same time you did. My daughter, Emily, and her family live out there. Their dog got a burr in his paw, so she took him to the vet, who turned out to be Alice. That was three, maybe four months ago."

Mark looked past Dan to see Steve entering the cafeteria and heading their way. Dan twisted around in his seat to follow Mark's gaze.

"Hey, Steve," Dan said, shaking the detective's hand. "You look pretty grim."

"Murder is grim business," Steve said with a shrug.

"On that happy note, I better go clean up," Dan said. "Thanks for the coffee, Mark. I'll keep our discussion to myself."

"I appreciate it," Mark said.

"Just returning the favor," Dan said, walking away. Steve looked after him, then turned to his dad, speaking up once the cardiologist was out of earshot.

"What favor?" Steve asked.

"One I can't do for him any longer," Mark said with a sigh. He knew he couldn't keep Dan's condition a secret from the hospital administration, not after this. Dan's privileges would surely be suspended immediately.

"But that's nothing for you to worry about," Mark said. "What's up?"

"A few things. I checked out Jesse's weather theory. Since 1962, there have been many rainstorms over these same days in February, though none quite as destructive as that one was."

"So we're still left with no clue why the killer waited until now to resurrect the past."

"I've also managed to track down everyone you worked with back then," Steve said. "I'd like you to be with me when I talk to them."