Every Move She Makes (11 page)

Nothing stood out other than the usual sorts of injuries one might
expect from a hit-and run victim. Crushed skull, blunt force trauma to
his entire torso, some brown paint transfer on his Levi's. Not a lot to
go on. "And toxicology came back on your last OD." She dropped that file
on the counter as well. "Say hello to victim number nine. Same tainted
stuff as the other eight. Patricia was pretty upset. She made sure the
lab ran it twice. Sort of strange, like she was getting personally
involved." "How could she not," I said. "He was just some clean-cut kid.

Things like this aren't supposed to happen to kids like him." "You're
probably right. This one got to her. She wanted Doc Meyers to finish the
case for her." I didn't open the file, since I recalled it well.

Freshman at University of San Francisco. Frat party. No one admitted
where the drug came from, no one recalled him taking it. Parents
well-to-do, not knowing where they went wrong, mourning the loss of
their only son. Their devastation, my helplessness, promises to find the
killer, not knowing if I could, knowing I never wanted to bring a child
into this world. Not to face that. "How about that last case Patricia
worked?" I asked, putting the file beneath the others. "The frozen john
Doe?"

"Ice Man? Waiting on toxicology."

"There's a surprise. Any changes? When I left her, she didn't have any
idea about the cause of death."

"That's how it was when I typed it. just a frozen guy.

Could have been in there a week, could have been a month," Mary said, as
if that were commonplace. I guess in the morgue anything was possible.

"I sent the preliminary report to you about ten minutes ago."

"I was out of the building. Must have missed it.

Thanks, Mary," I said. I turned to leave, stopped, and eyed her. "Did
she talk to you about meeting Sam that night?"

"Your folks from IA asked me that. I told them no.

Can't remember the last time she talked about Sam."

"She never mentioned about Sam cheating on her?"

"Honey," she said with a laugh, "that woman couldn't have cared less.

Their marriage was for appearance's sake only.,,

Appearance sake only? What on earth did she mean by that?

"They-" She stopped when a group of doctors walked in, young, scrubbed
fresh and clean, in surgical greens. "Oh, hello," she told them as they
lined up along the counter. "Doctor Meyers is tied up, but asked if you
wouldn't mind waiting in his office." They filed past, all five.

"Teaching class," Mary whispered. "Get back to me later when we won't be
overheard." "Sure," I said, leaving her. I was curious to find out what
she knew. Why would Scolari buy Patricia a Range Rover to get back in
her good graces if their marriage was one of convenience? And what about
the records clerk he'd dated, and gotten booted out of the house for?

What

was her name, Allison? Was that for appearance's sake, too?

No time like the present to find out. I still had half an hour to kill
before lunch-not that I had plans-but what better way to spend the time
than talking to the little number Scolari had dated in Records? The
Records division of the San Francisco Police TDEPARTMENT was a hub of
activity, filled with officers and citizens alike. I couldn't simply
walk in and say, "Hey, Allison, mind if we talk?'-mostly because I
didn't want anyone to know I was going to question her about Scolari's
case. IA didn't take kindly to anyone stepping on their toes. After
considerable thought, I knew I needed a good cover. Cops are great at
adlibbing. We have to be. Like car salesmen and politicians, we law
enforcement officers are in a profession where we must make people
believe we know what we're talking about, even if we haven't got a clue.

"Hi," I said to the clerk in the window, thinking I was off to a great
start. Ready for an Oscar. "I've been waitin for a report on a homicide
I'm working." The clerk, Sue by her ID badge, smiled. "You have a case
number?"

"Um, no. I called it in, though. It's pretty confidential.

The press and everything. I think I spoke with Allison?" She looked
around the counter. "No, I don't see anything. How long ago did you call
for it?" I shrugged. "Maybe an hour or two?" Sue looked under papers,
thumbed through a few file folders. "Not here. Hold on, I'll go get
Allison. You can ask her yourself I kept my Cheshire cat smile to myself
A few moments later, Allison strolled up to the window. The second she
saw me, she immediately turned away.

"Wait. Please." She hesitated, her back to me.

"It'll only take a minute." She didn't move.

"For Sam?" I continued softly.

Slowly she turned. Her voice was low as she approached the window. "I've
already given a full report to IA." "So have I. But what I'm looking for
is answers that might be overlooked." Allison regarded me as though she
wasn't sure what to believe. I stared right back, trying to see what a
woman like her saw in a man like Scolari. Allison was in her early
twenties, petite, with a face that might grace the cover of
COSMOPOLITAN. She could have her choice of any man. Why him? "Okay," she
said. "But I'd rather not be seen talking to you out here. Meet me in
the locker room by the showers in five minutes."

"I'm there," I said.

She leaned down, grabbed something from a drawer under the counter, then
handed me an empty routing envelope, I guess to make it look as though
she were turning over the nonexistent report I'd asked for. "Thanks," I
said. She didn't respond, just gave a harried glance side to side, then
got back to her station. That was a girl with something on her mind.

Something I definitely wanted to know. Five minutes later she appeared
in the locker room, motioning me to the showers. Following her, I was
surprised when she turned one on, then peeked into each of the stalls to
make sure we were alone. Now I was truly curious.

"Well?" she asked.

"Isn't this sort of overkill?"

"Sam told me this entire place is bugged."

"Maybe with roaches." "Well, you can think what you want, but Sam's wife
is dead, IA is all over my butt, and I'm not taking any chances. Now,
what did you want?" "Tell me about Sam." She tucked a strand of perfect
hair behind her ear, then eyed the tile in the shower stall as though it
took her entire concentration. Maybe it did. Finally she said, "I don't
think he killed his wife, if that's what you mean."

"Why not?" I prodded.

"I don't know. Something he told me about the night she was killed."

"You were with Sam that night?" I asked, incredulous.

"He came to say he couldn't see me anymore. That his wife wanted a
divorce, and he was going to try to fix it." Fix a marriage that was for
appearance's sake only? Allison bit her manicured thumbnail, neon pink
to match her lips. stood?" She started, looked at me as though she'd
forgotten our conversation. "I can't remember. I'm thinking." I wondered
if IA had gotten any further. Maybe a gentle reminder. "He was telling
you something the night she got killed .. "I don't know. Something about
the frozen guy. I can't think with all this water on." I reached over
and shut off the faucet, then regretted my action when she threw me a
dark look. "I can't remember," she said, her expression telling me she'd
closed me off. "Do me a favor," I said, reaching into my black shoulder
bag and pulling out a business card. "When you remember? Call me. It's
important. For Sam," I said, since that had seemed to break the ice the
first time. She took the card and left. I stayed a minute longer, to
preserve her air of secrecy, for all it was worth. She'd been spooked
about something, that much was apparent, but what? And what had she felt
was so important, the shower needed to be on? All that to tell me that
Scolari didn't kill his wife?

I was missing something. She was missing something.

A few brain cells, is what I thought at first, until I recalled the way
she handed me the empty envelope. Was she an airhead? Or was it all an
act? Scolari had left her with the impression of his innocence, because
of their last conversation. Because Scolari had spoken to her about the
"frozen guy." The Ice Man? I sank onto the wooden slats of the bench,
stymied, wondering if she wasn't feeding me a line. Scolari wasn't even
at the Ice Man's autopsy. As far as I knew, and according to the report,
Patricia hadn't found anything significant. Had she called Scolari after
the autopsy? Spoken to him about it before they were to meet that night?

Whatever it was, it still didn't explain why Allison
was so sure of Scolari's innocence, but at least it was something to go
on. I decided to take another look at the Ice Man's case. Back at my
desk, I found the autopsy report. I hadn't turned the first page when I
was called out to a homicide at Golden Gate Park near the tea garden.

The victim was a man, late twenties, suspected of a drug overdose. The
rest of my afternoon was spent out at the scene, as we tried to
determine if it was related to the other OD cases. I didn't get back to
the Ice Man case at all, returning to the office just long enough to
check my messages before heading home for the day. Mathis was still at
my apartment when I got there, and I refrained from asking if Scolari
had bothered to show. Torrance arrived at eight that night, and I
decided to organize my closet, my goal to avoid him completely. I sorted
through clothes I would never fit into again, and things I hadn't worn
in years. I neatly stacked and labeled inv shoe boxes on the top shelf,
getting downright anal about it. All that was left was a cardboard box
on the floor, dust covered and sealed with masking tape. My aunt had
packed it after my father died. I'd avoided it for eleven years. Too
many painful reminders of my brother's life. And of my father's broken
heart. He never seemed to recover from the hurt and humiliation of his
son's tragic death.

It didn't matter that I had become an officer.

My brother's death made me want to right the wrongs in the world. It
killed my father. He died of a heart attack almost a year to the day
after he found out that the son he'd cherished, the son who'd followed
in his footsteps to become an officer of the San Francisco Police
Department, had overdosed on heroin. I almost left the box there,
unopened, but heard the sound of Torrance typing away on his laptop. I
suppose that's what made me open it. One more reason not to go out
there, face the man who'd invaded my apartment, my life, thought my
partner was guilty. I tore off the tape, dry and brittle from years of
neglect, and pulled out books smelling of dust. There was a Barbie case,
with a Ken doll I recalled being curiously disappointed over, when with
prurient interest I had unclothed him, hoping for some hint as to the
mystique of the male anatomy, certain that what I found was not what it
was all about. Beneath the Barbie case was a photo album that I didn't
open, containing pictures of my mother, who ran off with an insurance
salesman when I was two, pictures of Sean, who looked so much like his
son did now, and pictures of my father. I put it aside. At the bottom of
the box was a Fisher-Price clock, the bartered remnant of Sean's and my
childhood. I wound it, held it to my chest, listened to the steady
ticktock and the familiar tune bringing forth memories long buried of
warm breezes, summer days. I opened the album, turning to a time when
death was a word that held no meaning for a five-year-old girl. The
following morning Mathis greeted me at my kitchen table, and I found
myself smiling at his offer to share his McMuffin breakfast. "What? No
bagels?" I asked him.

"Next time," he said.

Back to the Hall. Different day, same murder. I reviewed the Ice Man's
case while I waited for nine o'clock to roll around. Pending toxicology
results, the only thing that stood out on the autopsy report was a small
contusion behind the subject's ear. The preliminary findings suggested
that he died of a blow to the head, Reid had guessed. I recalled saying
something to just as Patricia right before she interrupted me to point
something out on the Ice Man's head to her assistant. What were we
talking about? The seeds. I'd picked up the bag, and she was telling me
about them. She'd found them tucked in the band of his wedding riiig.

Seven seeds.

Unidentified.

Which reminded me that I'd intended to have a botanist look at them.

Worth a try, I thought, pulling out my directory, then calling UC

Berkeley's Professor Rocklin. I made an appointment to bring by the
seeds that afternoon, then went down to the Property section to remove
them from evidence. The place smelled of sawdust. "Got the stuff right
here," Martin said. He stepped over a coil of orange extension cord
lying next to a circular saw. "And I got that picture of my grandson."

He took a packet of photos from his desk, handed them to me, then took
my request form. I flipped through the photos, each showing a tearful,
chubby, towheaded little boy sitting in a barber's chair. In the last
picture he clung to his mother, his tear-streaked face pressed into her
neck, his silken hair neatly cut. Sometimes I wondered what it would be
like to have a kid of my own, especially when I accompanied my aunt to
Kevin's football games. But whenever the thought set my biological clock
to ticking, I immediately hit the snooze button. I didn't want my kids
growing up to be drug addicts or cops, or just kids without parents like
my nephew. Being a cop and having children didn't mix. It hadn't worked
for my father or my brother, and it Nvouldn't work for me. "Pretty cute,
huh?" Martin said, lifting a box from beneath the counter that separated
us. "As a button," I said, reluctantly replacing the photos in the
envelope. I set them on the countertop, surprised to see Martin pulling
the seeds from the box, then handing them to me. I'd often had to wait
ten, fifteen minutes for evidence-and that was considered expedient.

"Talk about service."

"Hey, you call, we deliver."

"I didn't call."

"Someone did. That was about fifteen minutes ago.

Hey, Smitty!" he shouted toward the back of the office. A toilet
flushed. Bill Smith wandered to the front, tucking in the shirt of his
uniform over his protruding stomach. In his early sixties, he'd been
working Property for as long as I'd been at the PD. "What's the matter,"