Fatal Care (21 page)

“Maybe she used a credit card.”

Jake smiled crookedly. “In your dreams.”

Jake watched Farelli hurry away, still thinking about the something he might have overlooked. It had to do with the two women, and it was right on the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t come up with it.

Jake stepped into Mirren’s small library and sat on the edge of the desk, lighting a cigarette. A side wall was covered with framed diplomas and certificates and photographs. Mirren’s medical degree was from the University of Michigan, his Ph.D. in genetics from Stanford. A distinguished physician, Jake thought, who played with fire and got burned.

Jake looked over at a large framed photograph and did a sudden double-take. Slowly he rose from the edge of the desk and stepped in closer. The photograph showed Alex Mirren shaking hands with Edmond Rabb. Lucy Rabb was looking on proudly. Below the photograph was a metal plaque. It read:

“Son of a bitch,” Jake muttered under his breath, and reached for the phone.

A television reporter across the street recognized Joanna Blalock as she got out of her car.

“Dr. Blalock,” the reporter shouted, “can you tell us why you’re being called into this case?”

Another reporter yelled out, “Aren’t you and Dr. Mirren colleagues at Memorial?”

Joanna ignored the questions and hurried up the lawn of the Mirren house. Neighbors and workers were watching the goings-on from nearby yards. Uniformed police were everywhere. Overhead a helicopter from Channel 14 was circling, getting pictures to feed back to the local television station.

Joanna ducked under the crime-scene tape and went past a thick hedge. The policeman guarding the door recognized her and gave her a half salute. Jake was waiting for her in the living room.

“It’s a zoo out there,” Joanna said, stepping over a vacuum cleaner.

“Tell me about it.” Jake’s voice was raspy from too many cigarettes. He crushed out the one he was smoking in an oversize ashtray. “You mentioned on the phone that you’d met Mirren a few days ago. What was that all about?”

“An experimental procedure gone bad.”

Joanna told him about the lipolytic enzyme used to clean out arteries and how it appeared to induce cancer in three patients. She described in detail her visit to the Bio-Med plant where she had met Mirren. “So far we have no definite proof to link the enzyme to the cancers, but I think it’s only a matter of time before we do.”

“So this enzyme was actually manufactured by Bio-Med?”

Joanna nodded. “And injected into patients at Memorial.”

“Man, oh, man! The lawyers are going to have a field day with this one.”

“I guess.”

Jake thought for a moment about Bio-Med and the enzyme they produced and the lawsuits and the huge amounts of money that were going to change hands. He wondered if Mirren was somehow involved in all this. “Did Mirren actually make the enzyme?”

“No,” Joanna answered. “It was discovered by Eric Brennerman. He’s the head scientist and one of the founders of Bio-Med.”

“So Mirren was just a worker there?”

Joanna hesitated and then shrugged. “As far as I could tell.”

“What kind of a guy was Mirren?”

“A big bully,” Joanna said at once. “He was the type who liked to come down hard on people who couldn’t defend themselves.”

That fit, Jake was thinking. In his experience, the bondage freaks often appeared tough on the outside, but deep down they were submissive little assholes who enjoyed being rendered helpless. Like a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, a police profiler had once told Jake.

“If I had to guess,” Joanna went on, “I’d say he was the type who wouldn’t have any friends. I doubt if anybody would want to get real close to him.”

“Well, somebody got real close to him last night.”

Jake took her by the arm and guided her to the hallway. “I want you to look at a picture.”

They went down the hallway and entered the compact library. Jake pointed out the framed photograph on the wall.

Joanna moved in closer and carefully studied the photo of Mirren and Edmond Rabb shaking hands. They were standing in the courtyard outside the Biogenetics Institute at Memorial. Lucy Rabb was smiling, standing close to her husband. The proud and adoring wife. Joanna wondered if Lucy was already planning her husband’s murder when the photograph was being taken.

“Nice, huh?” Jake commented.

“Real cute,” Joanna said, reading the plaque beneath the framed photograph. “I wonder why the Rabbs established an award for research in genetics.”

Jake shrugged. “What’s the usual reason for people setting up that type of award?”

“Because either they or somebody in their family have a serious genetic disorder,” Joanna replied. “So they want research done on the treatment and maybe even the prevention of the disease.”

“Well,” Jake said, thinking aloud, “we know that Rabb’s first wife died of some kind of cancer and he didn’t have one of those genetic diseases, did he?”

“No.”

“And his two sons that I talked to seemed okay to me,” Jake went on.

“And you can bet Lucy Rabb wouldn’t give a penny of her future inheritance for research.”

“That’s for damn sure.”

Joanna mulled over the question at length. “There has got to be a reason for his genetics grant. Multimillionaires don’t give away money without a very good reason.”

“Is there any way to check it out?”

Joanna nodded and then pointed at the framed photograph. “That was taken on the grounds at Memorial Hospital. That means the award was given there. I’ll ask Simon Murdock about it. He’ll know.”

Jake moved in next to her, still staring at the photograph. “Edmond Rabb looks real young there, doesn’t he?”

“He probably made them take a dozen shots, then picked out the one he looked best in.”

Jake grinned to himself. Only a woman would think like that. “Well, he doesn’t have to worry about getting old anymore.”

“He certainly doesn’t,” Joanna said. “Murder is one sure way to stop the aging process.”

Jake jerked his head around. “You got proof?”

“Beyond any doubt.” Joanna told him about the bits of worn leather that were embedded in Rabb’s skull fracture. “And the blow was struck when Rabb was still alive. Those little pieces of leather were soaked in blood.”

“A blackjack,” Jake said, rubbing his hands together. “A damn blackjack. It’s the perfect weapon here. You can hide it in your pocket or purse, you can generate a lot of force without much of a swing, and when you drop it in the ocean it doesn’t make much noise and it sinks right to the bottom.”

“You’re going to have to requestion all the people who were aboard the
Argonaut
the night Rabb was murdered.”

“Including Lucy Rabb and Mervin Tuch.”

“Them most of all.”

Jake smiled to himself. “This gets more and more interesting, doesn’t it? We’ve got two men in this photograph. One was definitely murdered, the other possibly.”

Joanna asked quickly, “Does Gupta think Mirren was murdered?”

Jake shook his head. “He thinks it was fun and games gone wrong.”

“But you don’t?”

“Let’s say there are some pieces here that don’t fit.”

Jake led the way out and into the bedroom. Gupta was leaning over the corpse, scraping off a sample of red lipstick for further analysis. The air was filled with the smell of a sickly sweet deodorizer.

Gupta glanced up and waved. “Ah, Dr. Blalock! How nice to see you again. And so soon, too.”

“I hope you don’t mind me taking a look,” Joanna said amicably.

“Mind?” Gupta dismissed the notion with a flick of his hand. “Your expertise is always welcomed.”

“Thank you.”

Gupta stepped back from the bed and watched and wondered—as always—what he had overlooked. Joanna Blalock had a knack for seeing things that other people didn’t. And she always seemed to make so much from such a small finding. It was as if the clue was sitting there, waiting just for her. Nonsense, Gupta told himself. His eyes were connected to his brain, just like Joanna’s. The difference was that her cerebral connections were more finely tuned.

Joanna slipped on a pair of latex gloves and walked around Mirren’s body, checking the ligature around his neck and the deep indentation it had left. His face was deep purple, congested with blood. She pulled down Mirren’s lower eyelids and saw the small petechial hemorrhages that indicated death by strangulation.

She studied his genitals and saw the semen stains on the sheet beneath them. Next she went to his abdomen and chest. Joanna saw the lipstick circles, but no whip or belt marks. Her gaze went to the black stockings that bound the corpse’s arms and legs. She noticed the cut-off end on one of the leg ligatures. Quickly she looked over at the black stocking around Mirren’s neck. It was shorter than the others and it, too, had a cut-off end. Finally she went back and carefully examined the ligatures around Mirren’s limbs.

“Well?” Jake asked.

“I can’t be sure,” Joanna said hesitantly. “But I’d guess it’s more than just fun and games.”

“Are you talking murder?”

“Maybe.”

It had to be, Jake thought. It had to be murder. Three people in the photograph and two die under suspicious circumstances within weeks of each other. They had to be connected. “Tell me why.”

“First of all,” Joanna began, “there’s the ligature around his neck. It was twirled into a cord, so it left a very deep mark for all the world to see. A pro would never do that.”

Right, Jake thought. She was thinking the same way he had.

“Perhaps the hooker was inexperienced,” Gupta suggested again.

“I don’t think so,” Joanna explained. “The bindings on his wrists and ankles are done exactly right. They’re neatly tied and secure, but not too tight. And she left him just the right amount of wiggle room. So we can say he was tied up by a pro, but it looks as if he wasn’t strangled by one.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed, remembering the little boy next door who had told his mother he saw two women. “Are you saying there were two women here?”

“I’m saying that’s a possibility,” Joanna said carefully. “It’s also possible that the hooker who tied him up became angry and lost her cool and in a fit of rage killed him.”

Gupta was having trouble putting the pieces of evidence together. It still didn’t look like murder to him. “But surely he would have had an inkling that they were doing something wrong. At some point he would have known his life was in danger. Why didn’t he scream for help? Perhaps the neighbors would have heard and come to his aid.”

“He didn’t scream because he couldn’t,” Joanna told him. “Assuming your scenario is correct, he wouldn’t have realized that something was wrong until it was too late. The stocking would already have been around his neck. And people being strangled can barely make a gurgling sound, much less scream.”

Gupta considered all the clues uncovered so far, weighing them carefully. “So it could well be murder. But our evidence for that is still weak. Very weak indeed.”

Joanna nodded. “It would never stand up in a court of law.”

“Perhaps the autopsy will tell us more.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

Joanna peeled off her gloves and dropped them in the wastebasket. She glanced back at the corpse of Alex Mirren, wondering if there was any way to track down the hooker involved.

Farelli hurried into the room and nodded to Joanna. “Hi, Doc,” he said genially, and smiled at her. “How are you doing?”

“Just fine.” Joanna grinned back.

“Nasty business, huh?”

“The worst.”

Farelli turned to Jake. “The little boy’s asthma is better. He’s ready to talk with us.”

“What’s this about?” Joanna asked.

“An eyewitness, we think,” Jake told her. “Want to come along?”

“You bet!”

Mikey Sellman looked like a little boy out of a Norman Rockwell painting. He was a thin eight-year-old with tousled blond hair and deep blue eyes. His legs dangled over the side of his bed, not yet long enough to reach the floor. Next to him was his dog, a beagle named Sparky.

“How you doing, Mikey?” Jake asked.

“Okay,” the little boy said.

Jake eased himself down on a small stool so that his eyes were on the same level as the boy’s. “I heard you weren’t feeling so good last night.”

“My asthma.”

“But your mom says you’re feeling better now.”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Jake said, nodding. But he could still hear a few wheezes coming from the boy’s chest. “I’m Detective Sinclair, and these people over here are some other detectives.” Jake pointed with his thumb to Joanna and Farelli. “Do you feel up to answering some questions for us?”

“Sure.”

“Late last night your mom said you saw some people coming out of Dr. Mirren’s house,” Jake began, his voice soft like that of a storyteller. “Is that right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did you see?”

“A lady came out.”

“What did she look like?”

The boy shrugged. “It was dark.”

“Do you remember anything about her?”

Mikey started scratching the dog’s stomach, smiling as the dog stretched out happily. He looked back at Jake. “She had real bushy hair.”

An Afro? Jake wondered. “Was she black?”

Mikey shook his head. “And she had real long legs.”

“Good,” Jake said encouragingly. “That really helps us. Now, how bushy was her hair?”

Mikey held his hands up to his head and kept them over a foot apart. “Like that.”

Jake remembered the long, coarse red hair he’d found in Mirren’s basin, thinking they probably came from the hooker’s bushy hair. “What time was that?”

Mikey turned to his mother, who was standing by the door. “It was in the middle of
Dragnet
.”

“
Dragnet
?” Jake raised an eyebrow. The popular television series hadn’t been on for over thirty years.

“Uh-huh.”

“Mikey watches the TV Land channel,” Mrs. Sellman explained. “They show a lot of old reruns.”

Jake asked, “What time does
Dragnet
come on?”

“Ten o’clock.”