Knock Off (20 page)
Apparently not. Her beady little eyes followed me out the door.
With no time for dinner, I stopped for coffee. It wasn’t the first time a Frappucino had doubled as an entrée for me. I stopped at the Western Union office on Australian Avenue and stood in line with my downtrodden brethren, suffering dirty looks as I sucked on my six-dollar frozen coffee.
When it was my turn, I stepped up to the smudged Plex-iglas and spoke to the attendant through the speaker em-bedded in the glass. A few minutes later, I locked the stack of crisp bills in my glove compartment and headed for Dr.
Wong’s office.
“Office” was a bit of a stretch. I knew the guy had a Ph.D. from Stamford, so how come he was practicing out of a strip mall? I definitely had the right place—his name was stenciled on the door: FRANK WONG, CLINICAL PSY-CHOLOGIST.
As soon as I walked in, I smelled the musty odor of water damage, poorly masked by a sickeningly sweet cherry odorizer. No receptionist. Or maybe she was just gone for the day. “Hello?” Dr. Wong appeared in the hallway, smiling and offering his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said after we shook hands. “I have to return a call. Would you mind giving me five minutes?”
“Of course not.”
He turned and went to one of two doors off the hall, closing it behind him. The waiting area was sparsely furnished with a few mismatched chairs and a bookcase. The only magazines were local apartment locators, so I went over and tilted my head to peruse the titles of the books in the bookcase.
Knowing Yourself. Loving Yourself. Finding Yourself.
“Killing yourself,” I muttered. There was something decidedly creepy about being in a shrink’s office. Shrink, Jr., technically, but that didn’t make me any more comfortable. There was nothing wrong with me that a little shopping couldn’t cure. “Little” being the operative word, given my newly hosed over employment situation.
Wong’s five minutes turned into ten. He came out, apologized, then ushered me into his modest office. Unpacked boxes were stacked discreetly in the corner. In addition to the boxes, his desk seemed out of place. It was high-end, polished, and didn’t seem to fit with the worn chairs and cheap prints. The wall behind him was littered with framed awards.
“You used to teach?” I asked as an ice-breaker.
“Yes,” he said, his dark gaze as annoying as his single-word response.
“Teacher of the Year,” I commented, pointing to the certificate from a private Christian college in northern Florida.
“Impressive.”
“It was an honor.”
“Why’d you leave teaching?”
“I recently decided to go into private practice. I specialize in adolescent behavior issues.”
Something about his answer didn’t sit well. Why would someone leave excellence for mediocrity? Why was I trying to analyze a therapist? Taking out my pad, I did my whole “reason for talking with you” thing. I had it down pat, so I moved quickly on to the questions.
Like the others I’d spoken to, Wong agreed that the jury was a diverse group but that in the end they had all agreed Dr. Hall had not committed any malpractice.
“I heard you helped the others understand some of the complicated medical procedures?”
He shrugged. “I have a little experience with transplants, so I was able to answer some of their questions.”
“What kind of experience?”
“A friend of mine needed a liver transplant. I educated myself on the process.”
“Was it successful?”
Pain flashed in his eyes. “He was deemed an inappropriate candidate and removed from the waiting list. He died two years ago.”
“Before the law changed?” I was educated, too.
He nodded. “Very good, Miss Tanner. Yes, he had AIDS, and before the law changed, doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies could legally refuse to perform transplants on patients they considered too high-risk to waste the limited number of organs available.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
“I take it you weren’t—”
“Out of the closet?” he finished bitterly. “I mean, I wasn’t passing or anything—just discreet. I had hoped to keep my sexual orientation private.”
“Why?”
“I worked at a very conservative college and didn’t have tenure. I knew they’d manufacture a reason to terminate me if they found out. Turns out I was right.”
“They found out?”
“A little over three months ago.”
“How?”
“I didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell.”
“Has anything else strange happened?”
“Strange? No. Just a run of bad luck. You know what they say, when it rains it pours.”
“Lots of rain lately?”
“Just after I lost my job, the brakes failed on my car, and I almost had a nasty accident. Now my clients keep making excuses to stop seeing me. If this keeps up, I’ll have to consider relocating and starting fresh.”
I leaned forward, resting my palms flat against his desk.
“Doctor, I know Stacy told you about her concerns.”
“Yes. It struck me as . . . far-fetched.”
“Kind of like having your job torpedoed, your brakes tampered with, and your ability to make a living evaporating? All in the same time frame as the deaths of three other people?”
He looked scared, and rightfully so. “The mechanic said the brake line could have been severed by road debris.”
“But your job? And now your practice? Do you think road debris is responsible for those, too?”
“I’m a gay man who treats teenagers. It isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that some parents would be uncomfortable with that.”
“Do you tell your patients?”
He shook his head. “No. I mean, I would, under certain circumstances, but it hasn’t happened so far.”
“What circumstances?”
“If a child was conflicted about his or her sexual orientation, I might draw on my own life if I thought it was appropriate. Do you know the percentage of gay teens who commit suicide?”
“Yes. It’s roughly the same as the percentage of your fellow jurors who’ve been murdered.”
“When did the first juror die?”
“In February.”
“Well, my . . . troubles began in December.”
Okay, that didn’t fit the pattern. Unless . . . “You got fired in December. When was your car accident?”
“Last week of January.”
“So, if you are a target and bad things continue happen-ing, maybe the killer is still working on the right plan for you.”
“Plan?”
“Yes. Some way to kill you that wouldn’t seem suspect.”
“But why? I’m no threat to anyone. I barely have
friends, Miss Tanner, let alone enemies.”
“Something about the malpractice trial. Please think.
Maybe you saw Dr. Hall with someone? Overheard him say something? Ran into him in the men’s room? Holy shit!”
“What?”
“Men! You’re all men. So far, the killer has only targeted men.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, practically jumping out of my chair. “But I think you should go, um, hide or something.”
“Hide? You put the fear of God in me, and all you have to offer is ‘hide’?”
“I’m a paralegal, not a superhero. Just keep yourself safe.”
I jumped in my car and called Liam’s cell before shifting into DRIVE. “Why would the killer only be afraid of the men on a jury?”
“Is this the setup of a bad joke?”
“No.” I shared the information on my recent meeting with Liam. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re on a caffeine high and taking a pretty big leap in the logic department.”
“Wanda and Paula haven’t had anything weird happen to them.”
“Or they have and they lied.”
“Why are you urinating on my theory?”
“Urinating?” he repeated with a deep, sexy chuckle.
“You can say ‘pissed,’ Finley. You won’t offend my tender sensibilities.”
I’d like to kick you in your tender sensibilities. “So I’ll talk to the other men on the jury. Will that convince you that I’m onto something?”
“It’ll convince me that you’re psychic.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m serious. I just got a call from a cop friend of mine.
Juror Number Eleven, Daniel Summers, was just found dead.”
Behind every great solution lurks
an even bigger problem.
Sixteen
“Dead how?”
“Um, he’s no longer breathing?”
“Liam, stop being a pain in my ass and tell me what you know.”
“He took a header down the stairs at his condo.”
“He was pushed?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But it does follow the killer’s pattern of arranging accidents.”
“Or the guy was clumsy, or drunk, or distracted, or—”
“Why can’t you ever give me a single, supportive, specific answer to any of my questions?”
“Okay, try this. I can specifically tell you that there were prints on the note pinned to your door.”
Hot damn! “Whose?”
“Not in the system.”
I pounded the heel of my hand against the steering wheel to vent some of my frustration. “What does that mean?”
“It means the person whose prints are on the note has never been fingerprinted.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“But, based on size, they probably belong to a woman or a kid.”
A kid? God, had I totally lost all objectivity? Was my wishful thinking true, then? It really had been just one of the neighborhood kids playing a prank? “So what happens now?”
“You’re dating a pilot, right?”
“How did—? Never mind. Yes, why?”
“What we have ourselves in right now is what he’d call a holding pattern. Patience, Finley, patience. Chill out for a while. It doesn’t look like either one of us is going to get anything new tonight.”
Speak for yourself, I thought. Patrick is waiting for me.
Besides, I am patient. I waited almost ten minutes after hanging up with Liam, then I dialed Dave Rice, Juror Number Five’s, phone number, thinking I was getting pretty damned good at this investigation stuff. Unlike Liam, I was not going to sit on my butt—which still smarted—waiting, at the mercy of others. The phone began to ring.
“I am so getting the hang of this,” I said, mentally preparing myself for yet another professional, productive interview. “I am proactive. I am personable. I’m effective.”
“Hello?” a man’s brusque voice answered.
“Mr. Rice, this is Finley Tanner.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Evans called you and—”
“Leave me alone.”
Click. I glanced at the phone. That was harsh and rude.
I debated for a few seconds, then hit REDIAL.
“Look,” he growled, a half-ring into the call. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Don’t hang up!” I knew I had to talk fast. Something told me my window of opportunity was slamming closed.
I rushed through the history of the suspicious deaths, then broke the news about Daniel Summers. “You’re in danger, Mr. Rice. We have to meet so I can—”
“Lady, I don’t have time for you. Don’t call here again.”
I listened to the sound of the dial tone for a few seconds.
That hadn’t worked out as planned. Okay, I’d give him a few minutes and try again. Maybe after the reality of what I’d said set in, he’d be more inclined to hear me out.
I pulled into a convenience store and watched five minutes tick off the dashboard clock before I called back.
“Hi,” a woman’s voice practically sang. “You’ve reached Dave and Jenny. We can’t come to the phone right now, but leave us a message.”
The voice was a little familiar. It took me several seconds to realize that the strong, vibrant voice was a better version of the woman I’d spoken to earlier in the day. Obviously she had a cold or something, because when compared to the tape, she’d sounded like crap.
I tried the number three more times. Still no Dave Rice.
He was screening, the bastard. Man, I hate that. I mean, I don’t have a problem being the screener, just the screenee.
Plus, with Daniel Summers, um, no longer breathing, you’d think Dave Rice would be a little more cooperative.
At the very least, he should be taking precautions.
Since I was only a few blocks from Jane’s office, I decided to drop in. That, and I hoped she might be in the mood for a drink. I needed one, and I had some time to kill before I met with Harold Greene, then hunted down Nurse Callahan. I wasn’t totally comfy with the idea of going home, and Patrick wasn’t expecting me until after midnight.
Oh, yeah, and if she had time, I was hoping she could give me her take on the financial stuff Liam had dropped by my job.
Former job? Hell, what do I call it?
Jane was in her office, burning the evening oil. Actually, she was burning a cranberry candle—I recognized the scent immediately. Plus, classic Bob Dylan tunes were blar-ing so loudly the framed paintings along the corridor were rattling in time with the bass.
I didn’t understand Jane’s love for the Dylans. Along with Mumbling Bob, the musical equivalent of poet laure-ate for the sixties’ generation, Jane also had a thing for Dylan Thomas. Okay, confession time. I don’t get poetry. Yes, it can be lyrical, and the language is beautiful, but if I have to buy a book of poems, then a companion book to explain what the poems mean, well, hell, I’d just as soon skip right past that to something that doesn’t require a dissertation-level clarification.
Jane’s dark hair was twisted into a clip, and she was so focused on the calculations before her—and harmonizing to the lyrics of “Ain’t No Man Righteous”—that she didn’t notice me in the doorway.
When she finally did glance up, she started, flinging her mechanical pencil across the room. “Jeez, Finley,” she grumbled, grabbing a small remote and lowering the volume.
“How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to know that”—I cleared my throat to deliver a proper, whine-nasal-mumble Dylan imperson-ation—“sometimes the devil likes to drive you from the neighborhood.”
“Screw you.”
I practically collapsed into one of the leather chairs opposite her cluttered desk. I always thought accountant types were supposed to be neat, orderly, and organized. Not Jane.
I was surprised she could find her own hand in all that chaos.
Removing her half-glasses, she peered over the edge of her desk and said, “Great shoes.”
“Thanks. Want to go have a drink?”
