Fatal Care (39 page)

She’s going to die, and I can’t do anything about it. And I’m next! They’ll kill me with rattlesnakes the same way they’re killing her.

Joanna took deep breaths, trying to calm herself and get her brain working.
Think! Think! There’s got to be a way out
. She tried desperately to come up with an avenue of escape, but her mind stayed on Nancy and the horrifying death she faced. Two bites from two big rattlesnakes were more than enough to kill a human. And unless Nancy received the antivenin, she’d be dead within hours.

Joanna shook her head at herself.
Stupid! They’re not going to let Nancy live, regardless of what she tells them. She’s now the real danger to Brennerman because what she knows could send him to jail forever. No. They’ll kill her. Then they’ll kill me
.

Joanna pushed herself up from the floor and went back to the window. Nancy was still crying, but less violently. The frothy material had been cleared from her mouth. Joanna knocked on the window and tried to get Nancy’s attention, but the sound didn’t seem to carry into the adjoining room.

She gazed past Nancy and around the small surgical suite. It was like the room she was in. No windows to the outside, two doors. Abruptly Joanna spun around and looked at the door behind her and at the wall panel next to it. She stared at the door, wondering if it led to the outside of the building where she and Jake had seen the delivery truck. If so, it was a way out.

She hurried over to the wall panel, trying to remember the code she’d seen Brennerman punch in. The numbers flashed into her mind. 60-50-42. Quickly she punched the numbers into the wall panel. Nothing happened. There was no click. The door didn’t open. Joanna tried it again, but the result was the same. Nothing.

Shit
! The door had another code, she thought despondently.
How many codes can they have in this damn place? Nobody could remember all those—

She suddenly flashed back to the sleeve of Mirren’s white lab coat and the numbers written on it. Two sets of numbers, she recalled instantly. One set was 60-50-42, the same numbers Brennerman had used to enter the hot zone laboratory. What was the second set?

Joanna closed her eyes and envisioned the numbers written on the sleeve. The first code was 60-50-42. Yes. But there was another code, very similar to the first. She concentrated, thinking back.

Gradually the numbers came into focus. The initial number was 60 and the second was 50. But what was the third number? She concentrated even harder, but the last number remained a blur. It was a double-digit number, but that was all she could remember. It could be 10 or 99 or any number in between.

She’d have to try them all until she hit the right combination. And then hope that the second set of numbers on Mirren’s sleeve was the code to the back door.

Joanna glanced at her watch. It was 9:50 P.M. Brennerman and his goons would be back in twenty minutes.

Not enough time! Not enough time to go through all the numbers! Oh, Christ! Help me!

Quickly Joanna began punching numbers into the wall panel, starting with 60-50-10.

The butler led Jake and Farelli into the elegant living room of Lucy Rabb’s Bel Air mansion. She was standing near a white marble fireplace, dressed in a pale blue silk hostess gown. Her dresslike garment was form-fitted to show off her curves.

“Will that be all, madam?” the butler asked.

Lucy flicked her wrist in a wave of dismissal.

Jake said to the butler, “You stick around the kitchen. I might have some questions for you.”

“Very good, sir,” the butler said, backing out.

Jake glanced over at the white marble fireplace and the unlighted logs inside it, thinking they were every bit as cold as Lucy Rabb. A Renoir hung on the wall behind her. He wondered if she would inherit that, too.

“You’d better have a good reason for barging in here at ten o’clock at night,” Lucy snarled.

“How does murder grab you?” Jake sat on a French antique sofa without being asked to. “You’d better sit down, Mrs. Rabb. We’re going to be here for a while.”

“I’m going to call my lawyer,” Lucy threatened.

“Your lawyer is dead. Remember?”

Lucy reached for the cell phone on the coffee table. “I’m sure there’s another lawyer in that firm who will be happy to represent me.”

“Give him a call,” Jake said agreeably. “Tell him to meet us downtown.”

Her hand moved away from the phone. “Why are we going there?”

“Because that’s where we take people who are charged with first-degree murder.”

“What!”

“Oh, yeah,” Jake said easily. “It took us a while to put everything together, but I think we got it set up pretty good now.” He looked over at Farelli. “Don’t you think so, Lou?”

Farelli nodded. “Rock solid, if you ask me.”

“This is insane!” Lucy screeched.

“A judge and jury won’t think so,” Jake went on. “Not when they hear what we’ve got.”

“And exactly what do you have?” Lucy challenged, not backing down.

“Oh, a whole lot.” Jake stared at her, waiting for her to start squirming. She didn’t. “Let’s start with the cell phone calls made from the
Argonaut
. Two calls were made to a bar called Club West. It’s a known front for a New York-based gang that specializes in professional hits.”

“So?” Lucy shrugged.

“So, the first call was made a week before your husband was murdered. And the second call was made a day before Mervin Tuch got whacked. Now, we can’t just chalk that up to coincidence, can we?”

Lucy wasn’t fazed. “Anyone could have made those calls. I certainly didn’t.”

“Uh-huh,” Jake said evenly. “And I guess you didn’t know the blond hitter who came aboard the yacht and murdered your husband. Right?”

Lucy shook her head. “I didn’t know her.”

“Her?” Jake said at once. “I didn’t say the hitter was a female.”

“Oh,” Lucy mumbled, thinking fast. “I thought you did.”

“When?”

“When you questioned all of us aboard the
Argonaut
.”

She’s good
, Jake was thinking. Lucy Rabb wasn’t smart, but she was quick. And she knew how to lie. “Naw,” Jake continued. “You knew her. And you brought her aboard the yacht.”

“I did not,” Lucy denied firmly.

“Sure you did. And let me tell you how we know that.” Jake paused to light a cigarette, his eyes never leaving her. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs twice rapidly. “You ordered the caterers for your yacht party, didn’t you?”

“I believe so,” Lucy replied, being more careful.

“You arranged just about everything for that party. Right?”

“Just about.”

“Now, this hitter knew exactly when the caterers would be arriving at your party. And she knew what they’d be wearing, so she could put on a similar white jacket and blend in with them. That’s how she got aboard the yacht.”

Lucy remained silent.
Let him talk
, she thought.
He’s got nothing. He’s guessing
.

“How did she find all that out?” Jake asked, blowing smoke at the ceiling. He waited a moment before answering his own question. “Well, there’s only one way the hitter could have known all those details. Somebody on the inside had to tell her.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“It was you, all right,” Jake pressed on. “You brought her aboard the yacht and you introduced her to people who remembered the hitter from the photograph that was taken.”

“There were no photographs taken aboard the
Argonaut
that night,” Lucy countered.

“You’re absolutely right.”

Lucy nodded, pleased at catching him in a lie.

“The photograph we showed them came from the surveillance film taken in the parking garage where Mervin Tuch was murdered. The hitter was actually caught on film whacking Mr. Tuch. And the FBI did a great job enhancing her picture from the tape. Would you like to see her photograph?” Jake asked, and reached into his coat pocket.

Lucy turned her head away.

“No? Okay. Maybe later.”

Jake crushed out his cigarette in a Chinese porcelain ashtray atop the coffee table. He decided to push harder, but not too hard. He didn’t want her to lawyer up. “There’s a lot more that connects you to the hitter. You remember Mr. Clean? You know, the bald security guard who was on duty the night of the party. Well, his memory suddenly improved a lot. He recalls seeing you and the blond hitter and your husband talking and laughing together. It was almost like the three of you were old friends. Did you do the introductions?”

“The guard is mistaken,” Lucy said.

“I don’t think so.” Jake waved away her answer. “You see, he remembered too many details. Like he recalled how strange it was for you and your husband to be so chummy with the hired help.”

“That proves nothing.”

“Oh, it gets better,” Jake went on. “When Mervin Tuch got iced, we had to go through all the things in his office. He left some interesting notes and papers behind. And to tell you the truth, Mrs. Rabb, you don’t come out looking so good. There was a lot of real personal stuff that—Well, you know . . .” Jake let his voice trail off.

“There was nothing between us,” Lucy said hastily.

“There was plenty between you, business and otherwise.”

Jake decided that now was the moment to crack Lucy Rabb wide open. He’d have to tell some lies and half-truths, but that didn’t bother him. Just as long as she gave him the whole story. “And it was all spelled out in Mervin Tuch’s files,” he said. “He talked about the plans you and he had and how nice things would be once your husband was out of the way. You two would control Bio-Med, and all those millions would be yours. Hell, he even talked about old man Rabb’s plan to give Bio-Med to some charity. Boy, that must have been a shocker, huh? All that money flying out the window.”

Lucy’s face went ashen.

“Funny how a smart lawyer like that would leave something so incriminating in his files.” Jake shook his head at the lawyer’s made-up stupidity. He glanced over at Farelli. “It’s hard to figure why he’d do something like that, isn’t it?”

“Maybe he was covering his ass,” Farelli suggested. “Maybe he was worried she’d point the finger at him later and try to lay it all on him.”

“Well, he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore,” Jake said, turning back to Lucy. “Because he’s dead, which leaves you, Mrs. Rabb, holding the bag.”

Farelli added, “You’re going to take the fall, lady. Big time.”

Jake waved a hand expansively around the elegant living room. “You can kiss all this good-bye. Where you’re going, they don’t have Renoirs on the wall.”

Lucy’s face came apart. Then the tears flowed. She tried to sniff them back. “It was Mervin Tuch’s idea. He planned it all. I knew nothing. Then he—he seduced me.” She reached for a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “He took advantage of me.”

Right, Jake was thinking. Like the other two hundred guys who were there before him. “So he planned it all?”

“Everything.”

“He even hired the hitters, huh?”

Lucy nodded.

“Set it all up by himself, did he?”

Lucy nodded again. “Every detail.”

“Then who had him killed? Who set that up?”

Lucy’s mouth opened, but she said nothing.

“It was you. It had to be.”

“No!”

Jake leaned forward, staring her down and making her squirm. “Why did you do it? Was he blackmailing you?”

“I think I’d better call my lawyer.”

“Fine,” Jake said hoarsely. “But you’ll make the call from downtown.”

Lucy looked at her cell phone but didn’t reach for it.

“Tuch was in the process of getting a loan for a half million from his bank,” Jake continued. “We know all about that, and we know you were going to sign your Bio-Med stock over as collateral. That sounds like blackmail to me.” He looked over to Farelli. “What do you think, Lou?”

Farelli nodded. “That’s how most juries would figure it.”

Lucy Rabb suddenly saw a way out of her predicament. “It was blackmail, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Tuch was going to put everything off on me. And I knew nothing. That’s the honest-to-God truth.”

“How was he going to set you up?” Jake asked.

Lucy shrugged. “You know how smart lawyers are. They know how to screw people but good.”

“Yeah. Right,” Jake said flatly. “He was so damn smart he got himself killed.”

“I didn’t have him killed! I swear it!”

“Sure you did.”

“No! I swear—”

Jake waved away her lies and glanced over at Farelli. “Read her rights. Then cuff her.”

“Don’t! Don’t do that!” Lucy cried.

“You’re not leaving us much choice.”

“What if I told you everything?” Lucy bargained. “Could I get immunity?”

“Immunity from what?”

“The murders,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I can’t promise you anything,” Jake said. “But I’ll talk to the DA.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means you stand a chance of getting out of prison before you’re an old, wrinkled-up woman.”

Lucy hesitated, trying to read the detective’s face. “You promise me you’ll talk to the DA?”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Lucy’s head dropped to her chest. “Okay,” she said resignedly.

Farelli read her her rights slowly and carefully.

Jake took a small tape recorder from his pocket and placed it on the coffee table. He turned it on and then looked at Lucy Rabb. “Start talking.”

Joanna furiously punched numbers into the wall panel, still looking for the right combination to open the door. She was now up to 60-50-42.

The sound system came back on. Brennerman and the guards had returned to interrogate Nancy Tanaka again.

“Just a few more questions,” Brennerman said soothingly.

Nancy started sobbing. “Please help me.”

“We will,” Brennerman promised. “But only if you give us the right answers.”

Joanna glanced hurriedly over her shoulder, hoping she was looking through a one-way window.
It had to be one way. That’s why Nancy didn’t recognize me when I was pounding on the window. She couldn’t see through it
.