Until Judgment Day (2 page)

D
ISTRICT
A
TTORNEY
Kathryn Mackay hovered at the foot of the hospital bed watching her husband, absently gnawing a thumb nail. Petite and intense with dark brown eyes and curly black hair, Mackay still wore the heather-green wool Gianni suit she'd worked in that day.

A huge bloody gauze bandage was wrapped around Granz' head, and blood matted his dark sandy-blond hair. His breathing was labored and he moaned softly.

A young carbon copy of her mother, thirteen-year-old Emma Mackay had on Gap jeans with her blue and white sweatshirt and sat on the bed holding Dave Granz' hand.

“Will Dave be okay?” Emma's voice quivered.

Several years earlier, Emma's father, also a prosecutor, had been murdered in a courtroom shooting. She knew her mother's and stepfather's jobs were dangerous, and, despite their continual reassurances, she worried they might also be taken from her.

Doctor Morgan Nelson shook his head. “I need to do a test to find out.”

“What kind of test?”

“It's called an MRI—a magnetic resonance imaging scan—it'll let me look inside Dave's head to see if everything's okay.”

“What if everything isn't okay?” Emma asked.

“Then the test will tell me how badly he's hurt and what I need to do to fix it.”

When County Communications called to tell Kathryn that Granz was injured and paramedics were transporting him to the hospital, she phoned their best friend, forensic pathologist/coroner Morgan Nelson, and asked him to be Dave's admitting physician. She knew that, although Nelson had been Coroner for twenty years, he retained his privileges at County General Hospital. She also knew her husband would be an uncooperative patient.

She had little trouble convincing him. Dave and Kathryn were his closest friends since his wife had died from cancer a few months earlier, and he was waiting at the ER when the ambulance brought Granz in.

Granz' eyes fluttered open and he tried to sit up. “I—oh, shit, my head hurts. Where am I?”

“County General.” Nelson pushed him back down. “Be still, you'll rip the IV out of your arm.” Nelson was tall and lanky and wore thick tortoise-shell bifocals that magnified his bloodshot eyes so he looked like an owl that was in bad need of a good night's sleep.

“IV!”

“The accident damn near tore off your scalp. Paramedics stopped the bleeding and I stitched you up, but you lost enough blood to supply the Red Cross.”

“What time is it?”

“Ten o'clock,” Mackay told him.

“I've been here four hours?”

“Yes. Smith said you passed out right after he got to the scene. Luckily, he had dispatched paramedics while he was code three.”

“I didn't pass out, I was resting.” He tried to smile.

She gave him a stern stare. “Dammit, Emma and I have been worried sick. This is nothing to joke about.”

“Sure it is.” He winced as a sharp pain shot through his head. “What happened to our liquor-store perp?”

“DOA at the scene,” Mackay told him. “Parolee just out of San Quentin three days ago.”

“He's my next patient,” Nelson told him.

Nelson checked the IV, scanned the monitors that recorded Granz' blood pressure, pulse, and respiration. He nodded and jotted a note on the clipboard he had removed from the door to the room. “I'll autopsy him tomorrow morning.”

“On Thanksgiving?” Mackay asked.

Nelson shrugged. “Not ready to celebrate the holidays yet.”

He stood and told Mackay, “Now I've got to leave instructions. The tech might be able to run the MRI tomorrow—I'll try to talk him into coming in on a holiday. Meanwhile, the night nurse'll monitor the vitals overnight. I'll be on call—he's in good hands.”

“I ain't staying overnight,” Granz protested. He started to sit, but moaned and fell back immediately.

“Why not?”

“Don't need to—I feel fine.”

“You can't even sit up by yourself.”

“Just a little dizzy's all.”

“You're damn lucky you've got a head left.”

“You're a master of overstatement.”

“Oh really? A minor knock on the head might make you lose consciousness for a few minutes, but not almost four hours. I can't dismiss those head blows as insignificant.”

“I've got a hard head.”

“You sure as hell do.”

Mackay sat on the bed. “Don't be stupid, Dave. Let them monitor you here in the hospital until Morgan can evaluate your MRI—make sure you're okay.”

Nelson nodded in agreement. “You think you're invincible, Dave, but you're not. There's no way to know you haven't suffered a deep brain bruise or other serious head injury without an MRI, and it might take a day or two to schedule. Meanwhile, you need to stay right where you are.”

“Nope. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. I'm going home.”

“If those head blows caused intracranial swelling or bleeding, you might not make it to the hospital again in time.”

“Ain't gonna happen.” Granz pointed at the IV and nodded at Nelson. “Take the IV out, Doc.”

Nelson shrugged in exasperation and started to disconnect the monitors and tubes.

“Morgan!” Mackay implored.

“Can't keep him against his will, Katie, you know that. If I don't disconnect him, he'll do it himself.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Granz said, “I'm gonna drive back up Highway Nine and pick up that free-range bird I ordered special from Felton Market, then we're gonna feast on turkey, stuffing, gravy, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I ordered a surprise for Sam, too—a big bone with lots of meat on it.”

Sam was the yellow Lab Dave had bought Emma as a companion after her father's death. “Can't let it go to waste.”

He winked at Emma. “That work for you?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no'?”

“Doctor Nelson said you might be hurt really bad. I think you should do what he and Mom tell you.”

Mackay started to join in, but he held his hands up, palms out, in a “stop” gesture. “I'm not staying in the hospital tonight—I'm okay.”

Mackay knew that when her husband made up his mind, there was no changing it and the more she tried, the more he dug in. But she could sometimes cut a deal with him. “Just to make sure, will you at least let Morgan schedule an MRI for Friday?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Friday's a holiday, too.”

“Jesus Christ! How about Saturday?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Going Christmas shopping.”

“Dammit, you're being macho and stubborn.”

“No, I'm being practical. Doc's just being overly cautious—prob'ly afraid I'll sue him for malpractice if he doesn't do an MRI.”

He glanced at Nelson. “Just kiddin'.”

Then he looked back at Mackay. “And you're being overly protective.”

“I'm being your wife.”

“I know, but I'm fine.”

“Sure you are.”

“Look, make you a deal. If I don't feel a hundred percent better by the time the holiday season's over, I'll think about it.”

S
UNDAY
, D
ECEMBER
22

I
N ORNATE RED AND GREEN
letters bordered by multicolored bows, green holly boughs, and red berry clusters, the white canvas banner hanging above the double oak doors of the community room read:

W
ELCOME TO
S
ACRED
H
EART
C
ATHOLIC
C
HURCH
A
NNUAL
C
HRISTMAS
B
ENEFIT
R
AFFLE FOLLOWING THE
10:15
A.M.
M
ASS

A flyer posted beside the doors listed the prizes: autographed books by local authors; Annieglass; matching men's and women's Trek mountain bikes; six box-seat tickets to a Sharks hockey game; a week in Maui; a round of golf for four at Pebble Beach; champagne brunch on the seventy-foot
Chardonnay II;
watches, jewelry, and dozens of less valuable items.

The announcement in the Religion Section of the
City Post,
a weekly tabloid, said that at noon, Reverend John Thompson would personally draw the final ticket and present the grand-prize winner with a check for $10,000.

 

He stood for a few seconds at the back of the hall and watched the Monterey Diocese Finance Officer spin the wire-mesh basket, pluck out a ticket, and ceremoniously announce another winner's name.

He checked his watch: 11:45
A.M.

“Just in time,” he muttered to himself.

Then he swung the oak door open and slipped quietly outside, walked around the corner of the community hall, pulled an Advil bottle from his pants pocket, popped a couple of tablets in his mouth, and swallowed them without water. His rapid, shallow breaths came out in a thick fog that rose lazily into the cold, clear air and slowly dissipated.

He strode quickly toward the rectory, stepping over small cracks in the old concrete path that connected the community hall to the front door of the detached stucco structure that had served as the parish priests' home, office, and sanctuary for more than seventy-five years.

Through the window, he saw Reverend Thompson sitting at a huge oak rolltop desk.

The priest was tall and wide with a thick shock of salt-and-pepper hair and was smoking an ornately carved briar pipe. A steaming coffee mug sat beside the ashtray on one corner of the desk. On the other corner, a thirteen-inch color TV was tuned to a San Jose State—Notre Dame football game.

Thompson drew on the briar, inspected the bowl, tamped the tobacco, relit it, then leaned back in the leather high-backed chair and blew a perfect smoke ring at the ceiling.

He rapped on the rectory's heavy wooden door.

“Who's there?” Thompson's voice was deep and powerful, the result of many years' sermons designed to reach the rear pews, where the people who most needed to hear them usually sat.

“Reverend, there's a problem with the raffle. May I come in?”

He heard Thompson tap the briar pipe in the ashtray, then a desk drawer opened and closed.

“Enter, please.”

He twisted the knob. It wasn't locked. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him and engaged the dead bolt.

Thompson snapped the top onto an air-freshener can and rotated his chair to face the entry. “Nasty habit, smoking—wasn't expecting company.” He stared at his visitor quizzically. “You look familiar. Are you a member of my parish?”

The room was expensively but sparsely furnished, with thick beige cut-pile carpeting. Besides the matching desk and chair, there were glass-fronted oak bookcases, a set of straight-backed visitor chairs, and a huge ancient leather sofa that looked like it had heard more than its share of church secrets.

“We were acquainted years ago.”

“What's your name?”

“That's not important.”

“I don't understand.”

Thompson took a noisy sip of his coffee and cupped the mug in his big hands. “So, what's the problem?”

“You.” He crossed the room in two quick steps.

“Excuse me?”

He reached under his coat and pulled out a pistol, then felt the front of his pants tighten. He looked down, horrified to discover a throbbing erection.

He jammed the muzzle against Reverend John Thompson's forehead, and squeezed the trigger.

T
HE FIRST THING
DA Kathryn Mackay spotted when she rounded the corner onto Paseo Delgado at 1:15
P
.
M
. was a green coroner wagon parked in front of the small lawn between the Sacred Heart Church community hall and the main church building. At the back of the lawn, recessed slightly from the street, sat the rectory building, its front door slightly ajar.

Yellow crime scene tape was stretched from the corner of the community hall across the lawn and sidewalk, to the railing of the stairs that led to the church's main entrance.

A sheriff's patrol car was parallel parked in front of the coroner; two unmarked detective units and the CSI van angled in toward the curb nose-first, rear ends sticking into the blocked-off street.

Mackay parked her Audi and greeted the uniformed deputy who stood sentry outside the crime scene. She was wearing a simple black dress and a gray cashmere jacket. Her makeup was still fresh, her hair still perfectly in place.

The deputy recognized her and lifted the tape so she could pass. She ducked under and, walking up the concrete path, nodded at the two deputy coroners who stood by with a gurney, talking quietly, waiting for the go-ahead to remove the body from the crime scene. She pushed the rectory door open. A lone investigator was hunched over a tripod-mounted Pentax camera whose macro lens was aimed at the dead priest.

“Oh, God, Charlie.” Mackay crossed herself. “That's Reverend Thompson.”

Sergeant Charles Yamamoto, head of the Sheriff's Crime Scene Investigation unit, glanced up. “Ms. Mackay.”

Yamamoto was a solemn man and a meticulous investigator whose expertise Mackay greatly respected and appreciated. “You knew him?” he asked her.

“I've attended mass at Sacred Heart a few times but I didn't know him personally. I do know he was beloved by his parishioners. Where's the rest of your CSI team?”

“Small room, gotta work here alone.”

Mackay nodded. “Where's Sheriff Granz?”

“Not here yet. County Comm not get hold of him till five minutes ago.”

“What detective got called out?” Mackay asked. “Big boss. Miller. In community hall interviewing witnesses.”

“Is it okay for me to come in?”

Yamamoto shook his head. “Haven't vacuumed yet.”

“Okay, I'll stay out.”

Mackay examined the body from a distance. Thompson's lifeless hands held a coffee mug, but it had tipped over and dumped its contents onto his lap. His head was slumped onto his left shoulder, and except for open, vacant eyes and a hole in the center of his forehead, he looked like he'd fallen asleep in his chair.

“What can you tell me?” she asked.

“Single shot. Close range. That door in wall by desk go into church, behind altar. Locked. Front door unlocked when RO get here.” Yamamoto was referring to the responding officer, the patrol deputy who was dispatched initially by County Comm. “No forced entry,” he added.

“So, how'd the perp get in?”

He pointed at the window beside the entry door. “Dirt wet under window, no prints. Look like walk right through front door.”

“Hmm.” Mackay was thinking out loud. “Someone the reverend knew, or was expecting.”

“I'd say so.”

“Find any empty cartridge casings?”

“No.”

“Meaning the shooter used a revolver.” She was thinking aloud again.

“Could be automatic, perp pick up ejected brass before he take off.”

“True.”

Yamamoto shot a few more frames and disassembled the camera, then removed a battery-powered vacuum from a case and switched it on. He vacuumed the floors, furniture, window ledges and other flat surfaces, emptied the contents into a bag, sealed and initialed it, and set it aside.

The bag would be turned over to the Department of Justice laboratory where a DOJ criminalist would log it in to maintain the evidential chain of custody, then examine the contents under a microscope in hopes of identifying bits of fiber, hair, or other particles that could be traced to a specific origin.

Yamamoto motioned to the two coroner's deputies. They rolled the gurney in, wrestled the heavy corpse into a thick black plastic bag, and zipped it tight. Yamamoto helped them hoist it onto the gurney. When they had rolled it out to the waiting wagon, Yamamoto ran the vacuum over the floor where the body had been, dumped the contents into another bag, and stored the vacuum.

“How about the Woods Lamp?” Mackay referred to a special handheld infrared light that illuminated microscopic fibers snagged off a perpetrator's clothing, usually on doorjambs, furniture edges, or rough fabrics.

“Room not dark enough. Seal crime scene, come back tonight when Woods Lamp be effective.”

Yamamoto fidgeted, a sign he wanted to get back to work gathering evidence, but he was too respectful to tell her.

“Thanks, Charlie,” Mackay said. “I'll go to the community hall, check in with Lieutenant Miller.”

Miller was sitting at a folding table interviewing an elderly man, jotting down notes on a yellow legal pad. When he finished, he thanked the witness, stood, and walked over to where Mackay was waiting.

The antithesis of Yamamoto, Miller was personable and talkative, with a perpetual smile. Tall, with a florid complexion and bushy red beard, he wore blue jeans and a 49ers T-shirt. His nickname, Jazzbo, resulted from his avocation as trombonist-saxophonist in a jazz band.

“Afternoon, Kathryn.”

“Any witnesses that can tell us what happened?” Mackay asked.

“Everyone was inside at the raffle.”

“Anyone hear a shot?”

He shook his head. “Apparently it was a pretty boisterous crowd. They were raffling off some expensive prizes.”

“So, we don't know what time the reverend was murdered?”

“He delivered the ten-fifteen mass. Sometime between when it ended at eleven-twenty and noon, a parishioner went to the rectory to get Thompson for the grand-prize drawing and found his body. We've got more people to interview, but I doubt they'll be able to add much.”

When Mackay walked out, the bright sun blinded her, and she didn't see Sheriff Granz climbing out of his unmarked car. He called to her and waved.

When her eyes adjusted, she smiled and waved back.

He kissed her. “How long've you been here?”

“About ten minutes. I got paged out of noon mass and dropped Emma off at Ruth's on the way here.” Ruth was a friend who'd been her daughter's sitter for years. Mackay hesitated, then said, “Emma and I missed you at mass.”

“Kate—”

“You're Catholic, Dave. I don't understand why the three of us can't go to church together as a family, and neither does Emma.”

“I stopped going to church when I was a teenager, and don't want to ever go again. I don't expect you to understand,” he told her.

“If you'd explain your reasons to me, I'd try to understand.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“As usual.” She knew a crime scene was neither the time nor place to pursue the touchy personal issue further, and let it drop. “You said you were going to catch up on some work this morning. I tried to call your office before we left for church, but you weren't there.”

“I think I had to go out for a while.”

“You think?”

“You know what I mean. What's up here? County Comm said there's been a murder.”

She quickly filled him in on the skimpy details she'd gleaned from her conversations with Yamamoto and Miller.

“Someone just walked past a couple hundred people into the priest's office, shot him in the head, and walked out without anyone noticing?” Granz asked.

“Apparently. Miller's team is still interviewing. Maybe they'll get lucky and find someone who heard it, tell us exactly what time Reverend Thompson was killed.”

She glanced up and noticed him staring absently at the sky. “Dave?”

“Huh? What?”

“Did you hear me?”

“No, sorry. What did you say?”

“I said your detectives haven't finished interviewing witnesses yet.”

“Why don't I check in with Miller, wrap things up here, then meet you at the morgue.”

“Sure. Are you okay?”

Without answering, Granz turned and walked away.