Before Another Dies (11 page)

I heard footfalls and saw a uniformed officer round the same corner West and I had a few moments before. West saw him too. “Secure the front of the building.”

The officer looked puzzled. “Sir? There's nothing to secure.”

West turned to face the man fully. “I said, secure the front of the building.”

The officer looked at West, then at us, and the light went on. “Of course.” West retreated to the corner of the building and pretended to watch airplanes land.

Fritzy and I continued to stare at the Cessna. Something about it bothered me.

chapter 13

I
drove Fritzy home in her car and used the time to tell her of my conversation with Pastor Lenny. She was grateful and said that if I trusted him, then she would do the same. West followed and then gave me a ride back to city hall. There was little conversation. I was as wrung out as a dishrag. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. West gave me the gift of silence while I tried to calm my nerves and quiet my brain.

Once back in my office I spent the rest of the evening preparing for the city council meeting. A few minutes before seven, I entered the council chamber, then gaveled the meeting open precisely on time. The agenda was clean and simple, not unusual for the first meeting of the year. We followed our usual routine of roll call, the pledge of allegiance, the reading of the minutes, and report from the city manager. We waved the closed-session report since we had not met in closed session since before the holidays. We dealt with one zoning change, agreeing to allow a piece of residential property to be rezoned commercial.

The only issue that was close to contentious was the election of one of the four sitting council members to the position of deputy mayor. To my surprise, Jon made a motion that a decision be put off until council had had time to discuss the matter in closed session. I was sure Tess had put him up to it, but nonetheless it came as a breath of fresh air. Tess seconded the motion. No surprise there. I waited for Titus or Larry to argue the point, but neither rose to the challenge. In the face of two murders, one the husband of a beloved employee, little that we did that night seemed to matter.

We dismissed at 8:10. That night was a slow one, but there were storm clouds on the horizon. There were always storm clouds. I returned to my office, filed a few papers, and then drove home.

Home sounded good. Before I pulled from the parking lot, I was already dreaming of a massive dose of hot chocolate and bed. It hadn't occurred to me that I had skipped dinner until I turned on my street. Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich would precede the hot chocolate. I saw a large car at the curb. Someone was behind the wheel. A second later, I recognized the vehicle. It was a Ford Excursion—Jerry's SUV. I pulled onto my drive and activated the garage door opener. Moments later, I was parked inside. I exited the car and saw Dr. Jerry Thomas standing on the driveway.

“Chinese food?” He held up two white paper bags.

“What are you doing here? And how do you know I haven't eaten?”

“It doesn't matter.” He smiled and held up the bag in his left hand. “Brownies. Warm brownies with macadamia nuts.”

“For a physician, you sure are devious. Come in.”

Jerry followed me through the garage and into the house. I closed the door with the press of a button, walked to my security system, and entered my code.

I have known Jerry since high school, where we were sweethearts. Like many high school romances, nothing worked out. We each married someone else and lost that someone. My husband was dead; his wife was living somewhere with a man who had more money and didn't keep doctor's hours. Jerry is fairly trim, but over the last few months a little paunch had been testing his belt. Middle age catches up to everyone sooner or later.

“So you haven't eaten, right?” he said, making his way straight for my kitchen. The floor plan is simple. The first floor holds a large living room, which adjoins the dining room, which in turn is open to the kitchen. The rest of the lower floor is taken up by the laundry, walk-in pantry, and a large bathroom. Since I rattle around in this house alone, three of the four bedrooms are guest rooms. All the bedrooms are upstairs as is the game room, which I've converted to my home office.

“No.” I set my purse down on one of the wrought-iron end tables that bracketed my white leather sofa. I walked to the dining room. “I was just thinking of a grilled cheese sandwich and some hot chocolate.”

“Belay that grilled cheese, Matey. I's brung you a bounty of Hunan shrimp, lo mein noodles, and kung pao chicken.”

As he removed the small boxes of food from the bag, I pulled two plates from the cabinet. “What was that? An imitation of a pirate?”

“Not just any pirate, a Chinese pirate. Nothing but the best for you.”

“Were there Chinese pirates?” Sometimes Jerry was a nutcase.

“Ask your dad, he's the historian. I'm just a lowly pediatrician trying to do a good deed by feeding the mayor. It's my civic duty.”

“And Chinese food shouldn't be eaten alone. Right?”

“Absolutely. What say we eat out on the deck, then we can have brownies and hot chocolate.”

“Both? That's a little overkill, don't you think?” I helped dish the food.

“It will give our pancreases something to do, sort of insulin push-ups.”

I was starting to feel good. The smell of the food made my stomach rumble, and Jerry's off-the-wall humor made me smile. With plates filled with steaming chow, we went out the sliding glass door that separates my dining room from the outside and sat in the pair of loungers I kept for sunning.

The night was cool but not cold, and the ocean breeze made the food smell even better, something I didn't think was possible. “Sorry, I don't have chopsticks. Forks will have to do.”

“It's a shame. You'd be impressed with my skill and dexterity. I've thought of teaching classes.”

That made me laugh. “Last time I saw you wielding chopsticks, you dropped a shrimp in your shirt pocket.”

“I was saving it.”

The moon stood guard overhead and dribbled its light on the ocean. A lullaby of waves kissing the shore massaged my ears and mind. Tension began to drain from me. I was thankful Jerry had shown up. It was late, I was tired, but having a friend nearby was the best therapy.

“You've had a rough couple of days,” Jerry said.

“Is that why you're here? To cheer me up?” The soft noodles were wonderful. Food was such wonderful therapy.

“Partly. Partly because I like being with you. We haven't talked in two weeks.”

“It's just been a week, Jerry.” In the distance tiny white lights danced on the water; fishing boats plying their trade.

“Yeah, well, it seemed longer.”

Jerry is a good friend, and there are times when we come close to being more. His gentle spirit, keen intelligence, and caring heart make him irresistible—at least they should. For some reason, I can't move beyond friendship. I know if I winked at him twice he'd propose, but I've held off on winking. My mother thinks we're ideal for each other. She's probably right. So what's the problem? I don't know. I do know that when I am with Jerry, I keep comparing him to Judson West. It's a stupid thing to do, but it comes from my unconscious, and that's where I store all my stupidity. When I'm with West, I compare him to Jerry. Sometimes I feel like a boat with propellers fore and aft: I churn up a lot of water but don't make much headway.

“Thanks, Jerry, I needed this.”

“What you need, young lady, is me, and you know it.”

“Young lady,” I guffawed. “I haven't been called young lady in a long time.”

“Well, you're not old.”

“I feel old. I walked into a fast-food place the other day and I could see the counterperson eyeing me. I know she was wondering whether or not to offer me a senior discount.”

“When you're sixteen, everyone looks old.” He put his plate down. “I'll be back. It's time to rescue the brownies from the sack prison.”

“I can do that.” I started to get up.

“I know you can, but you're not. Sit back down.”

I did as I was told. He walked back into the house. I shouted, “There's whipped cream in the fridge!” I paused then added, “It's not mine. I'm keeping it for my mother.”

There was a laugh and a muted, “Yeah, right.”

I leaned back in the lounge chair and let the cool night air wash over me. It was January, and the night was cool enough to raise the occasional goose bump but not enough to be uncomfortable. I love Southern California.

Minutes later Jerry reappeared with brownies and hot chocolate on a tray. He set it down on the short redwood table between the lounge chairs and retook his seat. I took a brownie and studied it. Guilt covered me like the night air. I thought of the calories, the sugars, the refined flour. I chomped down. Wonderful! The second bite was better.

We listened to the gentle surf and for a few moments I was able to forget about Jim Fritz, the dead man in the Gremlin, Tess and Jon, and life in general. A brownie on the shoreline is magic. I was in a thin glass bubble of comfort, but there's a problem with thin glass bubbles.

“You want to talk about it?”

Crash. Tinkle.

Not really. Still, I told him what I knew and what I had seen.

“So Detective West is handling the case?”

“He's the head of robbery-homicide and the only homicide detective we have.”

“I don't have a problem with it. I was just asking.”

“That's good.”

He broke off a piece of brownie and nibbled it. That was Jerry: Do one thing at a time, do it slowly, do it well, and then move on. I was doing my best not to press the whole thing in my mouth and swallow it whole. “It's odd. Both men had their necks broken. Both are indirectly tied to city hall; one by location of the murder, one by marriage.”

“West made the same connection,” I said. “He also said they were intimate murders. By that, he meant that the murderer required a close proximity to the victim and had to make physical contact. That's almost too obvious to state.”

“Makes you wonder.” He broke off another piece of brownie and held it between his fingers as if it helped him think. “Are there other similarities?”

“You're not going private eye on me, are you?”

“I'm a reasonably intelligent man, and I enjoy a challenge. I'm just thinking out loud.”

“I see more differences than similarities,” I said. “Different location. Lopez drove a beat-up AMC Gremlin, is Hispanic, and younger than Jim Fritz by a couple of decades. Lopez was estranged from his family; Jim was a candidate for perfect husband.”

Jerry didn't speak at first. He stared out at the moon-painted waves. “It's good to look at things that way, but it's also good to look for other connections. Everything is connected. Take the ocean. It's easy to see the connection between it and wind and the shore, but it's not so easy to see its connection to the moon. Every grade-school kid knows the sun and moon influence the tides. The moon is 240,000 miles away but it will have an impact on all the oceans of the world, including that little strip we're watching now.”

“So you're saying that there may be other connections we're not seeing?”

“Yes, and I know it's not our job to see the connections. That's up to Detective West and his pals. Still, it is intriguing.”

I chewed on that like I was chewing on the brownie. “Give me an example.”

“Okay.” He repositioned himself in the chair as if he expected it to take off and fly around for a while. “When I was in med school and doing my rotations, I spent some time in the emergency room. I worked with a Dr. Mendelssohn. The guy was a genius at emergency medicine. The paramedics would roll in and say, ‘Auto accident, adult male, thirty-nine years of age, head trauma,' then spout off a list of vitals. Mendelssohn sucked the information in like a sponge but also asked questions. ‘Was he alone in the car? Drugs and alcohol involved? Did the car have air bags? What type of collision was it?' It all meant something to him. Air bags indicated one type of injury. No air bags made him think of chest problems. He would examine for these things anyway, but the more information he had the better he liked it, the better judgments he made.” Jerry chortled. “He used to say, ‘The problem with the obvious is that it is obvious.' It took me awhile to figure that out. What he meant was—”

“The obvious keeps us from seeing everything,” I said.

“Yeah, that's it. If a man walks into the hospital with an arrow sticking out of his forehead, I'm pretty sure I know why he's there. Of course, I would treat the problem, but I wouldn't be a very good doctor if I didn't start asking questions. How does a man get an arrow in the forehead? Accident? Foolishness? Maybe he has other wounds. Did he fall when struck? You get the idea.”

“So you're saying I should be looking for other connections?”

“This is only a mental exercise. You should stay out of the investigation. My point is this: When you started listing differences I kept hearing similarities. That's the way I'm trained to think.”

“Like what?” I reached for the hot chocolate. Jerry had my interest.

“You noted that they were men of different age, my brain heard that they were both men. You said that one drove a beat-up car and the other was found dead in an airplane; my brain heard that both were in vehicles of transportation—both parked, I might add—”

“And when I said that one was estranged from his family while the other was a perfect husband?”

“I heard both have wives.”

“I still don't see any meaningful connections,” I admitted.

“There may not be, but it would be a mistake not to look. Was there anything else unusual about the guy in the Gremlin?”

I thought for a moment. “He was listening to the radio. Floyd figured out from the estimated time of death and the radio station that Lopez was listening to . . . that UFO, parapsychology guy.”