Fatal Care (42 page)

He drove the final two miles to the condominium complex, thinking how lucky Joanna was that she’d stayed out late. Had she come home at her usual time, she would now be lying in a morgue somewhere, stone cold dead. And the hitter would have gone along her merry way. The goddamn hitter! Too bad she died before telling Jake things he wanted to know. Like why did she bring an accomplice with her? The hitter had always worked solo in the past. And it sure as hell doesn’t require two people to kill a defenseless woman. Then there was Brennerman’s threat to kill Joanna naturally. How do you put a couple of slugs into somebody and make it look like she died of natural causes? More and more questions, Jake thought miserably. And he didn’t have an answer for any of them.

Jake turned into the driveway of the condominium complex. He parked in the visitors area, got out of his car, and stretched his back. The police investigators and medical examiners were gone, as was the yellow crime scene tape. Off to his right Jake saw the dried bloodstain on the pavement where the hitter had bled out. Again he wished she’d lived long enough to talk.

He walked on, glancing over at Joanna’s parking space. Jake stopped in his tracks. Her space was still empty. He felt an awful hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Joanna never spent the night in the hospital.

Jake raced for the condominium complex. He jumped over a low hedge and sped by the mailboxes, almost knocking over a man walking his poodle. At the door to Joanna’s apartment he rang the doorbell three times and waited. After thirty seconds Jake reached for the key Joanna had given him and turned the lock.

He entered slowly, listening for any sound but hearing nothing. The living room was neat and fresh smelling, the fireplace clean with no ashes or logs. Jake heard a noise and stopped, trying to locate its origin. The noise came again. It was coming from the upstairs neighbor. He moved into the bedroom. The bed was made and hadn’t been slept in.

Jake hesitated, wondering if he should call Memorial Hospital. Maybe she had spent the night in her lab, or maybe she was in a car accident. Or maybe she had slept over at a friend’s house. Shit! Better call Memorial, he decided.

Jake walked into Joanna’s library. The drapes were opened, the computer turned off. He went to her desk and picked up the phone. He saw Joanna’s handwriting on a legal pad. She had jotted down Nancy Tanaka’s phone number and the directions to the technician’s house.

Jake glanced over to Joanna’s desk calendar. She was scheduled to meet with Nancy Tanaka at 6:30 last night.

Jake’s throat went dry as he quickly put the pieces of the puzzle together. They were planning a break-in at Bio-Med. That had to be it. He hoped against hope that he was wrong or that they hadn’t tried it yet. Nervously he fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. Then he dialed Nancy Tanaka’s phone number.

An elderly woman answered. She was Nancy Tanaka’s mother.

Jake introduced himself and told her he was looking for Dr. Joanna Blalock who was a friend of Nancy’s.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Tanaka said pleasantly. “She was here for a little while yesterday. Such a nice girl.”

“Yeah,” Jake said impatiently. “Do you know where they’re at now?”

“In Nancy’s lab at Bio-Med,” Mrs. Tanaka told him. “They had to finish an experiment.”

“And they haven’t returned yet, huh?”

“No, not yet,” Mrs. Tanaka replied, her voice now showing concern. “Is—is there something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said honestly. “Let me check it out.”

“Please call me as soon as you know.”

Jake hung up and ran for his car.

“I think we’re too late, Jake,” Farelli said somberly.

Jake nodded slowly, stunned by what he saw inside the Bio-Med compound. A California Highway Patrol car was blocking the entrance to the plant. Just inside the gate was another Highway Patrol car, and on the parking tarmac was a county sheriff’s car, a medical examiner’s car, and an ambulance with its rear doors opened.

Jake showed his shield to the Highway Patrol officer at the gate and drove through. The second highway patrolman waved him onto the parking lot. Jake took a deep breath, steeling himself against what he was about to face.

He got out of his car and saw Girish Gupta near the rear of the ambulance. The medical examiner was covering a corpse with a sheet.

“Want me to look first?” Farelli asked quietly.

“I can handle it,” Jake said, and took another deep breath. He walked over slowly.

Gupta glanced up at the detective. “What a gruesome way to die,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Multiple rattlesnake bites.”

Jake saw a black boot sticking out from under the sheet. It was the type Joanna wore. “Wh-who is she?”

Gupta pulled back the sheet. “A technician at Bio-Med.”

Jake breathed a deep sigh of relief. He kept his expression neutral, but inside he was still shaking.

“So many bites,” Gupta was saying. “I’ve never seen or even read about anyone being bitten like this. Have you?”

Jake shrugged absently, his mind only on Joanna. Where was she? Was she still alive? “Was this the only body found?”

“Of course.” Gupta stared at him strangely. “Do you expect there to be others?”

“Well, I—um—I,” Jake stammered, thinking fast, “I saw all the cop cars and thought there might be multiple victims.”

“No, no. Just one accidental death.” Gupta pointed at the corpse’s neck and arms. “But look at all those bites. She must have received a huge dose of venom. And that would explain why she died so quickly.”

Jake took out his notepad and checked the time Joanna and Nancy had met the night before: 6:30. “How do you mean, she died so quickly?”

“Most snakebite victims don’t die in hours,” Gupta explained. “It usually takes days. But perhaps the massive dose of venom hastened the fatal process.”

Jake leaned over and studied the corpse of Nancy Tanaka. There were snake bites all over her upper arms and neck. The puncture marks were obvious despite the redness and swelling around them. “How the hell did she get bitten so many times on the upper arms and neck?”

“Good question,” Gupta said, nodding. “Most snake bites are located on the foot or leg. But, as you can see, she was wearing boots.”

“Yeah, I see that,” Jake seemed to agree. “But what I’m asking is this: How did those snakes get up to her neck? You don’t figure they crawled up there, do you?”

Gupta considered the problem at length. “One possibility is that she tripped and fell getting into her car. Perhaps she landed in a nest of rattlesnakes.”

“Maybe,” Jake said, not buying the scenario. He knelt down and examined Nancy’s hands and elbows and knees, looking for bruises and abrasions. There weren’t any.

“She was working late last night, you see,” Gupta went on. “The warmth of her parked car must have attracted all the snakes. She must have tripped and fallen right into them. Perhaps she was stunned by the fall or struck her head.”

“If she hit the pavement like that, where are the bruises to show it?”

Gupta gave the corpse a cursory glance. “I suspect I’ll see them when she’s examined more closely at autopsy.”

And I suspect you won’t, Jake wanted to say. People don’t hit their heads when they trip on flat pavement. They land on their hands and knees. And if she did hit her head, where’s the abrasion? Where’s the blood? Something was off here.

Jake stepped over to Nancy’s car and studied it briefly. Its doors were closed, its exterior covered with fine desert dirt. There was nothing inside. Jake turned away—then suddenly turned back and again studied the dusty exterior of the car. Desert sand was everywhere—on the car, on the pavement around the car, even on the sign that read PARKING LOT. But there was none on Nancy’s corpse. He reached down and touched the cool body. “How long has she been dead?”

“Six hours or so,” Gupta reported.

Jake checked his watch. “So she died around three a.m. ?”

Gupta nodded. “That’s correct.”

“And who found the body?”

“The guards did when they changed shifts at seven.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. Bullshit! Had Nancy Tanaka lain out here all night, her body would be covered with desert sand, like her car and the pavement around it. And the guards didn’t find her body until seven? That was bullshit, too. Jake remembered the armed guards at Bio-Med from his earlier visit, and he remembered the dogs they used to patrol the grounds after midnight. Those dogs would have sniffed out the body pronto.

Unless the body wasn’t there.

A sudden chill went through Jake as he recalled Lucy Rabb’s confession, particularly the part where Eric Brennerman planned to kill Joanna in a natural way. The son of a bitch was using snakes.

Gupta saw the strange expression on Jake’s face. “Is everything all right, Lieutenant?”

Jake waved away the question as more pieces fell into place. They killed Nancy Tanaka with rattlesnake bites. They caught her inside the plant and set the snakes loose on her. That must be it. They tied her down and let the snakes bite away. And since she was wearing thick jeans and boots, the snakes went for the exposed parts of her body, like the arms and neck. Then, after she died, they dumped her out on the parking lot to make it look like an accident. That would explain everything—the location of the snake bites, the absence of desert dust on the corpse, the failure of the dogs to find the body. Everything.

But where was Joanna? Jake asked himself again. Was she still alive? Finally he said to Gupta, “I think you’ve got everything pretty much in hand.”

“A straightforward case,” Gupta said, covering the corpse. “And a very tragic one.”

“Where’s Dr. Brennerman?” Jake asked.

“He is inside,” Gupta answered. “But I must tell you that he is very shaken by this. Very shaken, indeed.”

“I can imagine,” Jake said flatly.

“He plans to give all employees the day off,” Gupta added. “As a sign of respect for the girl. It’s a nice gesture, don’t you think?”

“Very nice,” Jake agreed, envisioning Brennerman sitting in a gas chamber choking on cyanide.

Jake and Farelli walked away from the corpse and headed for the Bio-Med building. Jake put on dark glasses for protection against the sun’s intense glare. The day was clear and bright and hot, the air barely moving.

Farelli pulled at his shirt collar with an index finger. “It’s a good thing they found her body early. In this heat she would have turned ripe real fast.”

“Yeah,” Jake said absently, still thinking about Joanna.

“You figure the girl really fell into a nest of rattlers?”

“No way!” Jake looked over his shoulder to make sure they were out of earshot. He continued in a low voice. “I think they caught her, tied her up, and let the snakes go at her.”

“Shit.” Farelli shivered. “How did you come up with that?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Jake said. “Now, we have to be real careful with Brennerman. All we’ve got on him is Lucy Rabb’s confession, and he’ll deny every word of it. We’ve got nothing solid to nail him with.”

“And he’s guilty as hell,” Farelli muttered sourly.

“Tell me about it.”

As they approached the steps to the building, Farelli asked, “You think the doc is still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Jake said hesitantly. “I really don’t know.”

“Well, the fact that we haven’t found her body is a good sign, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Jake removed his sunglasses and put them in his coat pocket. “They may have already killed her and are just waiting for the right moment to let the body turn up.”

“Yeah,” Farelli nodded in agreement. “They couldn’t let two accidentally dead bodies show up at the same time. That’d be kind of suspicious.”

Jake nodded back. “Brennerman is no dummy. He’s not going to make stupid mistakes.”

“How do you want to play him?”

“Soft and easy. If we push too hard, he might lawyer up. And that’s the last thing we want him to do.”

They entered the reception area and went down the corridor leading to the big laboratory. Everything was still and quiet. The only sound came from their footsteps on the tiled floor. Jake noticed that the overhead surveillance camera wasn’t moving. He wondered if it was broken or just turned off. They came to the opened door of the main laboratory and walked in.

Eric Brennerman was standing by the giant fish tank. He had a black ribbon tied around the sleeve of his white lab coat.

“Can you believe that shit?” Farelli asked in a very low voice.

“The guy knows how to put on a show,” Jake whispered.

“Fucking Hollywood,” Farelli grumbled. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere and we got fucking Hollywood.”

Brennerman turned and waved them over. He had a very solemn look on his face.

“It’s so tragic,” Brennerman said, shaking his head sadly. “We’ve lost a wonderful person.”

“A terrible way to die,” Jake commented.

“The worst,” Brennerman agreed. “It’s awful. Just awful.”

Jake asked, “The snakes are a big problem out here, huh?”

“The desert is full of them,” Brennerman answered. “And of course, they’re cold-blooded, so at night they look for a warm place to stay. Cars that have been recently parked are perfect for them.”

“Have any of your other employees been bitten?”

Brennerman thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. But we’ve had some close calls.”

“But no actual bites.”

“Not until now,” Brennerman said, shaking his head again. “We warn our people about snakes all the time. And we discourage them from coming back at night for that reason. But Nancy would have none of that. If there was work to be done, she did it regardless of the time. She was a wonderful technician.”

Yeah
, Jake was thinking,
and a nosy one who knew too much. That’s why you killed her
.

“A terrible way to die,” Brennerman repeated softly. “A terrible accident that should never have happened.”

Jake nodded sympathetically. “But you know, there are some unusual things about those bites.”

“Oh?” Brennerman’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Such as what?”

Jake shrugged indifferently. “I don’t know. The medical examiner said something didn’t seem right and he’d check it out later at autopsy. Coroners are always looking for little things that other people miss. That’s how they make their living.”