Blood Ties (27 page)

“Do you believe in God, Steve?”

She hadn't meant to ask the question. She couldn't imagine why she had. But there it was. Tregear only smiled and shook his head again.

“No. But Walter does.”

*   *   *

They didn't make love that night. Tregear seemed completely unmanned. And they hardly slept. They just lay in bed, holding each other, each the other's refuge against the world. And it occurred to Ellen that she had never felt so close to any other human being.

“I'll have to be on my travels again,” he said at one point. “When he starts up in some other place, I'll have to follow.”

“Do you think he knows you followed him here?”

“Yes. He doesn't know where to find me, and if we bumped into each other on the street I doubt if he would recognize me. But he knows I'm after him. I've got the Internet, but I'm no smarter than he is. He knows.”

“I think you're the smartest man I've ever known.”

“That's because you've never met Walter.” Tregear laughed, but the laugh was cut short. “I hope you never do.”

*   *   *

About a quarter to six the next morning, Tregear left Ellen asleep to get himself a glass of water in the kitchen. The apartment was laid out so that the only entrance to the kitchen was through the living room, where he found a strange woman asleep on the sofa.

As he wasn't wearing anything except his boxer shorts, Tregear decided to forget about the water and retreated back into the bedroom. By then Ellen was awake.

“There's somebody sleeping in your living room,” he said, as if he couldn't imagine why anyone would be interested to know that.

“Oh, yes. That's Mindy. She was my college roommate and hasn't found an apartment yet. She works in the DA's office and she's between husbands—it's a long story.”

Tregear nodded. “Perhaps I should get dressed.”

“That's not a bad idea.”

By six-thirty everyone was ready for breakfast. Mindy was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee while Ellen made oatmeal with blueberries.

“So when did that happen?” Mindy asked, tilting her head toward the living room, where Tregear was renewing his acquaintance with Gwendolyn.

“The day before yesterday.”

“A whirlwind romance?”

“You could say that.”

Ellen kept her back to the table as she stirred the oatmeal with perhaps more intensity than was strictly required and experienced the absolute impossibility of explaining someone like Tregear.

“I thought you didn't much care for casual sex.”

“There's nothing casual about it.”

Ellen brought out a bowl of oatmeal for Tregear and placed it on the coffee table, since Tregear seemed to be deeply involved in playing with Gwendolyn. He made feinting movements with his hand, as if to grab her, and she was dancing back and forth on the sofa cushions in excitement.

“I haven't seen her do anything like that in a year,” Ellen said. “I thought she was getting old, but maybe she was just bored. You seem to be good for her.”

Tregear picked up the bowl of oatmeal, and Gwendolyn, sensing that the game was over, climbed onto his right shoulder and stared at Mindy accusingly.

Breakfast conversation stumbled along, with occasional compliments on the quality of the oatmeal and the odd, faintly probing question for Ellen's new beau.

“Have you lived in San Francisco long?”

“No. Only a few months.”

“Do you work here in town?”

“I work for the Navy.”

“Oh.” Mindy took a moment to absorb the fact that Tregear said he worked
for
the Navy, which implied he was not
in
the Navy. “What do you do?”

“I create mysteries.”

Tregear smiled in a way that suggested there wouldn't be any further explanations.

Finally Mindy decided it was time she adjourned to the bathroom.

“Will you come to my place tonight?” Tregear asked, as soon as he and Ellen were alone. “I promise I won't come unstuck again.”

“Sure.” She looked around her for a moment, as if measuring the room. “You know, if this is going to become a regular deal, maybe I should bring a change of clothes.”

“That's a good idea, but maybe a better idea would be if you just moved in.”

“It's a little early,” she answered—and then immediately recognized that it was the wrong answer. “Would you like that?”

“Oh yes. I'd like it fine.” And then his face darkened. “But it's probably a bad idea. We won't have a lot of time.”

“Before you go on the hunt again?”

She smiled, just to let him know she understood. Events were not in their control.

“Well, if we don't have a lot of time maybe we should make the most of what we do have. If you like, I'll pack a suitcase tonight. Can I bring Gwendolyn?”

“By all means, bring Gwendolyn.”

“Then can you give me a ride to work? I left my car in the police garage.”

*   *   *

When she got to the department, she was greeted by a rare sight. Sam was in front of the computer.

“I can't use this goddamn thing,” he said, without looking up from the screen. “They've been at it all night down in Half Moon Bay, and the data is coming in faster than I can get this fucking machine to show it to me. You take over.”

“Only if you get me some coffee. I didn't sleep much last night.”

There was the ghost of a smile on Sam's face, instantly suppressed.

“Steve was having a very bad time,” she said. All at once it seemed desperately important to make Sam understand. “I think being inside that house wasn't easy for him.”

“That doesn't come as much of a surprise.”

“No. No, it doesn't.”

They seemed to have exhausted the subject, so Ellen smiled and said, “Get out of my chair.”

“Okay.” Sam stood up. “I'll go around the corner for the coffee. Nobody's made any fresh here since yesterday.”

“Good. Good plan.”

By the time Sam came back and set a cup of Ralph's Finest Columbian on her desk, there was a blizzard of paper coming out of the printer.

“It's a bonanza,” Ellen announced cheerfully. “They've got prints galore. Walter seems to be losing his hair, so the bathroom was full of it. They're bringing in blood samples from the basement. They think, but they're not sure, that it's from two individuals.”

“Maybe Kathy Hudson died down there too.”

“Maybe so.” She smiled. It was such a pleasant subject. “And there's more. They found what they think is vomit in the bathroom. Walter is a clean freak, but he seems to have missed a spot around the back of the toilet bowl. I wonder what they can tell from that?”

“Maybe only that somebody threw up.”

But Ellen seemed to have missed the joke entirely—possibly because she hadn't been listening.

“Steve showed me a bottle of pills in the medicine chest. Painkillers. I wonder what's wrong with him.”

“Usually the prescribing physician's name is on the bottle. Or we can get it from the pharmacy.”

“That's what Steve said.”

For a moment Ellen was silent, staring at nothing. Then she looked up at Sam with the rigid intensity of a bird dog.

“I think we should work that angle,” she said. “I think we should do that right now.”

Sam nodded. “I'll phone and get somebody to hunt up the bottle.”

In five minutes they had the name. Mark Fairburn, MD. In another two minutes they found him in the online edition of the California Medical Directory. There was a telephone number and an address in San Mateo.

When Sam phoned, he got the doctor's exchange. The lady who answered seemed annoyed.

“The office isn't open on Sunday,” she announced, with considerable asperity.

“Then what's his home phone number? This is the San Francisco police.”

“Sure.”

“Lady, I'll bet you have a San Francisco phone book. Look up the number and ask for Sergeant Tyler in Homicide. I want to hear from you within the next two minutes. And when you call, give me the emergency number for the building.”

They got their answer in a minute and a half. But no one was answering at the Fairburn residence.

“Jesus. Who isn't home at eight-thirty on a Sunday morning?”

“Some people go to church, Sam.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

At nine-thirty, Sam called again. The phone rang and rang, but nobody picked up.

Sam swept his hat from his desk.

“You want to take a drive?”

On the way Ellen phoned the building number. “Can you have someone there to open up Dr. Fairburn's office?”

“You'll find it open, lady. You're not the first to call.”

Three-quarters of an hour later they were in the parking lot of a medical building on El Camino Real. When they went inside, of course Dr. Fairburn's door was locked.

The upper half of the door was frosted glass, but one could see shadows moving around inside. Sam rapped at the glass.

“Come on, open up,” he muttered. “Come on.”

He kept at it until someone came to the door.

It was one of those moments of species recognition. Nobody had to tell Ellen that the guy who opened the door was a cop.

“What are you doing here, Sam?”

The man was in his middle forties, heavily built and bored-looking. He held out his hand and Sam took it.

“We want to talk to the doc,” he answered.

“Well, you're a little late. He went jogging last night and ran into a bullet.”

“No kidding.” And then Sam remembered his manners. “This is my partner, Ellen Ridley. Ellen, Pete Castaldi. We go back. Can we come inside, Pete?”

Rather than answer, Detective Castaldi simply moved out of the way.

“So what did you want to talk to him about?” Detective Castaldi seemed only mildly interested.

“We wanted to know why he's prescribing painkillers to our prime suspect in three homicides.”

“So who's the suspect?”

Sam appeared to find the question amusing.

“Well, he's been a lot of different people. Yesterday his name was Walter Stride, but I imagine he's somebody else by now.”

“Walter Stride.” Castaldi wrote the name down in his notebook. “Well, we're going to have to go through all of the good doctor's records, on the off chance he was killed by a dissatisfied customer. I suppose we can start with Walter Stride. I'll let you know if we find anything.”

“He'd probably stick with Walter, but he could have been using one of his other aliases. Look for somebody who became a patient within the last six months.”

“You think your Walter may have killed Fairburn?”

“I think it would be an enormous coincidence if he didn't.” Then he shook Castaldi's hand again. “We'll get out of your way, Pete. Nice to see you.”

When they were back in the parking lot, Sam took off his hat and looked into it, his fingers moving along the inside of the band.

“You know, I think I'm getting senile,” he said, putting his hat back on. “They put the patient's name on prescriptions and I forgot to have them check it when I phoned. Probably it doesn't matter anyway.”

“Why wouldn't it matter? We can save those guys some work.”

Sam just shook his head.

“They're not going to find Walter's records, under any name. He already had them when he killed the doctor. It's the only thing that makes any sense.”

Ellen was mystified, and she must have looked it.

“Didn't Tregear say his father had worked as a locksmith? He came here last night, picked the lock and stole his file. Then he shot Fairburn. Why kill the doc when everything anybody would want to know is in his files? Do you see?”

Yes, Ellen saw.

“Then the question becomes…” She paused as the idea jelled in her mind. “The question is, what doesn't he want us to know?”

“That's my girl.”

 

21

The lab was very busy. The blood samples from the basement were established to have come from two different individuals. A match with Sally Wilkes was made late that afternoon, but the second sample would take longer because it was more degraded. Hair samples from the suspect's bathroom were a DNA match with the semen found in Sally Wilkes.

The police had their case. They just didn't have Walter.

The secretary at Allied Heating and Cooling was their one tenuous link, so Sam phoned the owner, who gave him a Burrows Street address. They drove down and invited her to come back to the station for a conversation. Walter's cell phone had been found in Half Moon Bay, and the last call received had been from Allied. Thus it was made clear to Mary Plant that her refusal to cooperate would guarantee a charge of obstructing justice.

She was left in a holding room while Sam and the lieutenant debated the wisdom of letting Ellen conduct the interview.

“The current theory is that the secretary's got a letch for our suspect,” Sam explained. “I think she'll be more likely to open up about it if she's talking to another woman.”

“Ellen doesn't have the experience. I want you in there.”

Hempel, who had never demonstrated any particular flair for interrogation, sat behind his desk with his arms crossed, apparently convinced that he had made his point.

“Come off it, Dave.” Sam lit a Camel, suddenly filling the room with blue smoke. “She's never going to get any experience if we don't let her try. Besides, she's clever. She's the best choice.”

Hemple, two beats behind as usual, suddenly looked suspicious.

“What makes you think the Plant woman was having it on with…” He took a moment to consult the case file. “… Walter Stride, if that's his real name.”

“It almost certainly isn't. Besides, I said it was a theory, not a proven fact. It appears to be the way Walter works.”