Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1) (10 page)

13

San Francisco, California

The room was quiet except for the soft humming of the compressor that kept the bodies cold. Schwartzman breathed deeply as they entered, waited until Hal passed to close the door behind him. Entering the morgue brought a familiar sense of elation and also a deep calm. This was where things fell into place for her, where she worked out the puzzles. For years she had waited for some solution to fall into her lap.

For Spencer to simply give up and go away.

The staged victim, the flowers, the pendant—she had to believe the scene was meant for her. Maybe that sounded crazy; maybe it was. But she couldn’t believe in the kind of coincidences that would have to exist for this to be anything other than Spencer’s doing. His plan to terrify her. He had succeeded. This was not a crime planned by a man ready to give up.

The days of wishing and waiting were done. She had to do something about it now. She had Hal and Hailey, the support of a team.

She was still alone with Spencer—he wanted her and only her. But it was different now. It felt different. She was a stronger force.

She wondered if Spencer had any idea that this had changed in her mind.

“You okay?” Hal asked.

Schwartzman was breathing heavily. “Yes,” she said, surprised that it was the truth.

She pulled out a drawer from the wall and folded the sheet back to expose Victoria Stein’s head and shoulders.

“You can tell they’re not sisters just by looking at her?” Hal asked.

“Not definitively,” she answered without pause. “Short of testing DNA samples from both women, I can’t confirm the genetic relationship.” She might have asked if Hal thought Terri Stein would show up again. If she did, there could be a chance of doing that kind of testing. But Schwartzman already suspected the answer. Spencer would love the idea of sending someone to her office, making something that looked innocuous into a reminder that he was always lurking. She could only imagine how pleased he was.

But he had underestimated her, as well.

“Tell me why they’re not sisters.”

Schwartzman pulled on a pair of gloves and pushed the hair off the victim’s face. “Stein has a small widow’s peak,” Schwartzman said, pointing to the V on the forehead.

“Okay.”

“The widow’s peak is a dominant gene,” Schwartzman explained.

“And Terri Stein doesn’t have a widow’s peak?” Hal clarified.

She pictured the woman’s high, rounded forehead. “No.”

“So, if it’s dominant, does that mean everyone gets it?” he asked.

“No,” she admitted. “It’s not entirely understood how these attributes are passed on. It’s likely not as simple as one gene with two alleles, dominant and recessive.”

Hal frowned.

“Basically,” Schwartzman went on, “it’s possible Terri and Victoria Stein are, in fact, sisters. But it’s unlikely.”

“Because of a widow’s peak?” Hal said.

“In part because of the widow’s peak,” she answered. “Victoria Stein has the widow’s peak. Terri does not. Terri, meanwhile, has freckles and also a single dimple on her left side.” She returned to the victim. “Victoria has neither.”

“Freckles and a dimple? And that means . . . ?”

“Those things are all considered dominant traits in humans,” she explained. “Widow’s peak, dimples, freckles, along with some other things like the ability to roll the tongue and detached versus attached earlobes. Obviously I can’t check for the tongue rolling, and both women have detached earlobes, but the chances of the two women having those three different dominant traits between them is low.” The more the words rushed from her tongue, the more certain she was that the two women weren’t related.

“You mean having the three between them but not sharing them? Like you’d feel better if they both had widow’s peaks?”

“I’m not sure I’d feel better, but the claim that they were sisters would seem more plausible,” she told him.

“I hear you.” Hal leaned in to study the victim’s face. “And are we sure she didn’t have a dimple?”

“Positive,” Schwartzman confirmed. She lifted the corners of the victim’s lips. “We can see the existing lines in her face. The nasolabial folds, for instance, are perfectly clear.” She ran her finger along the creases that ran between the victim’s chin and nose.

“She has light parentheses lines, as well,” Schwartzman added, pointing to the fine semicircles on either side of her lips. “Those lines are extensions of the nasolabial folds. But there are no signs of any dimples.” She crossed the room and wheeled back her magnifying scope, raising it so that the height would be more comfortable for Hal. “Here,” she told him. “Look.”

Hal peered through the glass.

“See these,” she said, pointing to the facial lines around the mouth.

He stood back. “Okay. No dimples,” he agreed. “But it’s possible they’re stepsisters or half sisters. Or one of them was married to the other’s brother.”

“That’s technically true,” Schwartzman agreed. “But she didn’t talk about their relationship that way. She made it sound like they were sisters.”

“How so?” he asked.

Schwartzman paused to recall the words. “When I asked her if their parents were still living, she said that they had ‘both passed.’ Like she was referring to a single set of parents.”

“I agree. I would’ve thought the same. We call that a hunch.”

Schwartzman felt a twinge of pride. “I guess that’s what it was. She also said that she was glad to have a chance to meet me.” She paused, replaying the conversation. “No. Not glad. She said it was ‘really nice’ to get a ‘chance’ to meet me. Nice.” There was a twinge in her gut as she said the words. Like bad milk.

Spencer.

Hal wrote down the words. “Nice to get a chance to meet you?”

She nodded, watching Hal underline the word
nice
with the quick stroke of his pen. He agreed that it was odd.

“And she called me by name,” Schwartzman remembered. How had that woman known her name if it hadn’t come from Spencer?

“Maybe she saw the name on the door,” Hal said, his pen poised on the page.

“My name’s not on the door.” Something she had specifically requested, one of the tactics to evade Spencer. She wasn’t listed on the department’s website either.

Schwartzman had commented on the photographs. Only of the two girls. The one at Fort Sumter. Something flashed through her memory. Another piece dropped into place. “I asked her about one of the pictures from the house.”

“Which one?”

“There was one of the two girls standing in front of a ship. Not a ship, an aircraft carrier.”

“Sure. I remember.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I took a picture of it.”

Schwartzman slid Stein’s body back into the wall. She pulled off her gloves and dropped them in the trash as Hal searched for the image.

“Here.” He handed her the phone.

Schwartzman turned the phone sideways and used her fingers to zoom in on the image.

She was right.

“That’s the USS
Yorktown
,” she said, breathless again. “I went there a dozen times with my aunt as a child.” She tilted the phone so he could see. “In this picture, you can see the entire length of the boat behind the girls.”

“Okay.”

“In reality, that’s impossible. The dock that leads to the boat isn’t long enough to allow for a view of the entire boat. You can see maybe two-thirds at best.”

Schwartzman studied the edge of the girls for evidence that they were somehow edited into it.

“You’re sure?” Hal asked.

“Positive. My aunt took a picture of me and that boat almost every summer from the time I was maybe four until I was in high school. Every picture is me and one end of the boat or the other, never the whole thing.”

She handed the phone back to him and watched as he zoomed in on the girls until the image was completely grainy. “So you think it’s been Photoshopped?”

“Yes.”

Hal was about to say something when his phone buzzed from his pocket. “Harris.”

Schwartzman could hear a deep, craggy voice on the other end.

“Did you find anything?” he asked.

The man said something, and Hal’s expression said it was bad news. “Hang on. I’m going to put you on speaker. I’m here with my colleague.” Hal lowered the phone and nodded to Schwartzman. “You repeat that, Gary?”

“Your Victoria Stein doesn’t exist,” the craggy voice said.

“Doesn’t exist or isn’t with the bureau?” Hal asked.

“Doesn’t exist. Period.”

Hal groaned.

Schwartzman glanced toward the bank of drawers. If that wasn’t Victoria Stein, who was it?

“The driver’s license is a fake,” the voice went on. “The Social Security number belongs to an elderly woman—Victoria Stein—in Pensacola, Florida, and the credit card links to that Victoria Stein’s bank account.”

“Florida?” Hal asked. “Huh.”

Schwartzman watched him, trying to put it together as he did.

“Identity theft,” Hal said.

“Technically,” the agent agreed. “What’s weird is that there are no charges to Stein’s bank account. That card was issued in March, delivered to Victoria Stein in Pensacola, and activated through the automated number, but your perp hasn’t used it once.”

Hal exhaled. “No chance she’d be with another agency?”

“No. I checked.”

“The DOJ have anything to add?”

“Nope,” he said. “Nothing there. If you get me an image, we can run your victim through recognition software, see if we can come up with a name.”

“I’ll get one over.”

“Probably take us a week, though. Those guys are way backed up.”

A week.
The body would be a Jane Doe by then.

“What about the other name?” Hal asked. “Terri Stein.”

“You get any kind of ID on her?”

Schwartzman exhaled. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask for ID. She never saw families. They went to the police station for answers, not the morgue. But this one found her.

“No,” Hal said. “And I think she’s in the wind.”

“I assume you don’t know if we’re dealing with a Teresa or just Terri?”

Schwartzman shook her head. Of course she hadn’t gotten the spelling of her name. She hadn’t asked for ID. She hadn’t done anything right.

“Okay. I’m running it both ways,” the agent said.

“Plus, Teresa could be T-E or T-H-E,” Hal said.

“Ah, Christ, Harris. Hang on.” There was the sound of the agent hunting and pecking on the keyboard, then a pause. “I’ve got a hundred and sixty-three variations on the name. You want me to narrow it by age?”

“Yeah,” Hal said. “Narrow it to ages twenty-five to forty and send it over.”

“Will do, but I’m guessing none of these is your suspect.”

Hal sighed. “I know it.”

“Sorry, buddy.”

“Appreciate the call anyway.” He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket.

“The Stein sisters don’t exist,” Schwartzman said.

“Doesn’t look that way,” he conceded.

“So the two women pretended to be sisters,” Schwartzman said. “One of them supposedly lives in LA and the other here. Then one of them kills the other.”

Hal watched her. “You have a theory about why?”

Because Spencer enjoys scaring me? No.
That’s too simple.
He had something larger in mind, but she had no idea what his plan was. She shook her head.

“Until we know who they are, it’ll be hard to figure out what they were up to.”

There had to be something else they could do. “So what’s the next step?”

“We’ll put together a composite sketch on Terri Stein, and I’ll run Victoria’s image through the database and get it out to Missing Persons. Someone, somewhere will recognize them.”

Schwartzman lined up the tools on her tray, spacing them with a focused precision. That plan was too slow. She wanted something she could do right now. That moment. Something to connect Spencer to the woman lying in the metal drawer.

“Once we know who they are,” said Hal, “we’ll figure out how they connect to Spencer McDonald.”

The scalpel slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor.

She watched as Hal bent to retrieve it, watched as he set the knife on the tray and slid it into line with the others. The pulse in her carotid thundered inside her eardrums. “You mean ‘if’ they connect to him.”

“Do you believe it’s an ‘if’?” he asked.

Without answering, Schwartzman lifted the scalpel and carried it to the cleaning station. She knew what Spencer was capable of, the lengths he would go to get her back, the time he would devote to a plan. Their careers weren’t long enough to wait him out. She straightened her neck, drew her shoulders back.

“Do you doubt the connection?” he asked again.

She turned toward him. “No, I do not.”

“I don’t either. Not even a little bit.”

She let the words sink in. He believed her. Not just that Spencer was crazy or scary but that he was capable of this.

For the first time, someone was truly on her side.

“We should get to work, then.”

She opened the door and waited as he passed. “Yes,” she whispered.

14

San Francisco, California

There was no word from Hal on Friday. It had been a busy day in the morgue, made worse by the fact that she stopped what she was doing every time her phone made a noise. She completed three autopsies before leaving at three forty-five to make it to Dr. Fraser’s on time.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that she didn’t hear from Hal. There was no reason to be in touch unless there was something to report.

Which meant there was nothing.

No lead on Terri Stein, no news about Victoria’s real identity. No link to Spencer. No word from him either.

She couldn’t decide if that was a surprise or not. What she did know was that it wouldn’t last.

His silences never did.

Dr. Fraser’s office was designed to calm, with its fichus trees and fresh-cut yellow tulips.
Yellow.
She rubbed her palms over her shoulders and drew a deep breath to calm her racing heart. For distraction, Schwartzman checked her e-mails and the most recent lab results on her phone.

The origin of the specific lavender seeds found in the victim’s lungs couldn’t be isolated. She wasn’t surprised. Lavender wasn’t commonly associated with murder, so the notion of sourcing a specific plant was probably uncommon. She forwarded the information to Hal. Checked for new e-mails every fifteen or thirty seconds and, finally, out of desperation, picked up an issue of
Us Weekly
off the table.

The cover story was about an actress facing cancer. The proud-looking woman smiled for the camera. Her head was shaved entirely bald. She wore a bright-yellow sweater. Yellow was the color of cancer. Of course it was.

Schwartzman was grateful when she was finally called into the exam room. Dr. Fraser was comprehensive in his explanation of the procedure and her odds. “I sit in this room with women whose biopsies come up totally clean and women who will be back the next week to plan treatment,” he told her. “Whatever happens after this, Annabelle, I am here to help you get through it.”

She shivered.

“It’s normal to be nervous.” The door opened, and a nurse came in. She introduced herself as Bonnie. Perky. Alert. Positive.

“Bonnie is a breast cancer survivor,” Fraser announced.

She wore a pink pin pinned to her surgical top, above her heart. “Nice to meet you, Annabelle,” Bonnie said, offering her hand.

Again Schwartzman felt the deep run of cold.

“Please,” she said.
Please don’t call me that. Annabelle.
“I go by Anna.”

“Of course,” Bonnie said, making a note.

She wasn’t nervous. The idea of breast cancer was terrifying, but one only had so much room for terror, and she was already consumed by something, someone, much more lethal than cancer.

The biopsy itself was quick and not terribly painful. They took samples from both adrenal glands as well as from the calcification in her right breast. Bonnie chatted through the entire procedure, explaining in more detail than necessary how long the soreness might last, that she could take ibuprofen, and on and on about procedures and coping with anxiety.

“I’ll be fine,” Schwartzman said finally, and Bonnie’s mouth snapped closed. Perhaps she’d been too short. Distraction techniques were useful. She had plenty of experience there.

And yet there was something calming about the idea of cancer. When thoughts of breast cancer crowded her brain—for as long as her mind raced with images of mastectomy, chemo, and being bald lasted—she wasn’t wondering when and where and how Spencer would appear again.

Arriving home that evening, though, she was antsy and frustrated. It was almost six and nothing from Hal. She would probably have to wait until after the weekend to hear anything.

She tried to imagine a way to put work aside for the night. She could go to a movie. She hated being in the theater alone. She was normally so content with a book and a cozy blanket, a glass of Evan Williams bourbon. She was working on the last bottle her father had left when he died. There had been eleven. She wondered if she would buy it herself when the final bottle was gone, or if it would no longer appeal if the bottles hadn’t come from him.

She’d successfully been able to push Spencer from her mind before, hadn’t she? She just needed to find a way to do it again. Distract herself with work or a book . . . an old movie?

She had almost convinced herself to go to the new exhibit at the de Young Museum when a text message came in from Ken Macy.

New Balinese place you have to try. Only been open 1 week. Was there last night. No delivery for takeout yet. Soon, I hope. Will keep you posted.

She could just go by herself for a quick dinner. Get out of the house. The restaurant was ten blocks away. She entertained the idea of walking. It wasn’t raining, but the weather was cool enough to be comfortable in a jacket. She had expected spring to come more quickly in San Francisco, but May was as wet and cold as the winter.

No. She didn’t walk. Walking meant crowds, unfamiliar people. She imagined passing people on the streets. Looking at their faces. Would Terri Stein, or whoever she was, be out there somewhere? Would Spencer? She used to love to walk, but these days she didn’t allow herself that kind of vulnerability.

She drove only to and from work and once a week to the store, the dry cleaner. If she was at a scene late, she asked one of the officers to escort her to her car. She had meals delivered. She lived like a shut-in.

Because of Spencer.

Since leaving Spencer, she’d rarely ventured far from her routine—school, work, the occasional outing. But since Spencer had found her again in San Francisco, every time she left her building—no, every time she opened her apartment door—it felt as if she was taking a risk.

Hal Harris had left her a voicemail informing her that he’d reached out to the Greenville police. Spencer was there. Or so they said. But she knew better. She’d lived almost seven years certain that Spencer was just behind her while—as far as anyone else could tell—he never left Greenville.

She could stay home, order something else. There were a hundred places in San Francisco that delivered. Takeout and her book. The McCullough book sat closed on the table by the chaise, a slender white bookmark to remind her that she’d read only ten or twenty pages in a week. She could read.

No.

She needed to be out. If only for a few minutes.

Decided. She would drive to the new Balinese place. Be there in ten minutes, wait twenty or so for the food, and be home in another ten. An hour, hour and a half, on the outside. What if . . .

She caught herself.

Enough. Enough of letting Spencer rule your life.

It was a restaurant. There would be people. The restaurant was located in the Marina District. The streets would be packed. In fact, parking would probably be a nightmare. Have an Uber take her? She rejected the idea before it was even fully formed. She simply couldn’t imagine getting in a stranger’s car. If someone could hear her thoughts, they’d say she was paranoid, crazy even. She couldn’t argue.

The truth was that even with something so simple, Spencer ruled.

Pocketing her car keys and a single credit card, her driver’s license, and her phone, Schwartzman headed out. Her pulse raced slightly as she emerged from the parking garage and took her first turn. Her hypothalamus sent messages to kick her sympathetic nervous system into action. She was more alert, more tense. She took deep breaths and turned the radio to a 1990s country station. Heard Garth Brooks.

Slowly the music, the familiar roads calmed her. The restaurant, Rumah, was actually a couple of blocks east of the busiest part of the marina. Schwartzman drove past to confirm its location. The door opened, and a couple came out, but it didn’t appear to be packed. She found a parking place half a block from the restaurant. Walking toward the restaurant, she was relieved. She could do this.

A couple walked past with two huge dogs, crossing into the street to allow her to pass. “Evening,” the man said.

Schwartzman studied his face. He wasn’t familiar. He didn’t sound Southern. Just someone being polite. It still happened.

She reached the door of the restaurant. Four women sat at one table, dressed up for a night out. A long table surrounded by dark-headed adults and children, a gray-haired man at the head. Couples sprinkled in, but she saw no one alone.

She hesitated. Sitting alone would be so uncomfortable.

She could always order and go wait in her car. Or just walk through the streets. There were plenty of people out.

“Hello.”

Schwartzman jumped and spun, catching one foot on the other as she twisted away. She stumbled backward and fell hard on her backside. Rough pavement shredded her palms, and her keys flew from her hand as she tried to break her fall. Her heart hammered in her chest.

The man who squatted in front of her was Ken Macy. “I am so sorry.”

Schwartzman wiped her hands tenderly across her pants, the skin raw.

“Let me help you up,” Macy offered, reaching for her hands.

She turned on her side and got up on her own. She scanned the sidewalk for her car keys.

“Did you drop something?”

“My keys,” she said, getting back on her knees to peer under a black Mercedes SUV parked at the curb.

Macy used the flashlight on his phone to scan the pavement. “Did you hear them land?”

Hot with embarrassment, she wanted to go home.

Macy walked off the curb and into the street to search from the other side.

Standing again, Schwartzman glanced at her palms. The right one was bleeding, and the left had several small pieces of rock embedded in it. She would need to wash them.

“Got ’em.” Macy returned the keys, and she winced as the rough edge of her house key touched the abrasion on her palm. “Let me look at that,” Macy said, taking her hand before she could tell him no.

She flushed at the touch of his hand. Warm, soothing. She forced herself to pull away. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t let go. “Ouch. Come on. You can wash up inside. You’ve got a little gravel in that one.”

She was desperate to stay and leave, both at once. “I’m okay. Really,” she said, starting to turn for her car.

“You need to get that cleaned out, Doctor.” He smiled gently and nodded toward the restaurant. “And the food’s really good. I’ll order for us.”

The air stuck in her throat.

Macy sensed her stiffen. “Hey,” he said with a reassuring touch on her arm. “Just two friends having dinner.”

She glanced over his shoulder in the direction of her car. Racing past him to make a run for it crossed her mind. “I—”

“Colleagues,” he offered. “Honestly, Doctor. Just food. You need food. I can tell. And a nice cold bottle of beer is going to feel great on those hands.”

He was right. She could have a meal with a colleague. In a public restaurant. This was what normal people did. For tonight she could be a normal person. What was more, she wanted to have dinner with him.

“Say you’ll stay,” he said softly.

“I’ll stay.” She felt a moment of joy. She was out, with a friend. She felt safe and happy. She could do this.

“Good.” Macy held the door open, and the noise from the small restaurant flooded out into the street. “Restroom’s in that back corner,” he told her, pointing over her shoulder.

She made her way around the tables, glancing at the food on the table. Her stomach growled. When was the last time she’d felt hungry? Not even hungry, she was ravenous.

In the bathroom, Schwartzman turned the water on cold and tested it with her fingers before letting it run over her palms. The burn passed quickly, and after a few moments in the cold water, she lathered with soap and gently washed. The scrapes were mild, none reaching below the top layers of the epidermis. They would be healed within a day or two. She let the cold water run over them again, then pressed the backs of her hands to the warmth in her face before patting her skin dry and heading back into the restaurant.

Her stomach gave a little jolt as she spotted Macy, hand raised from a two-top against the far wall of the restaurant.

He was smiling. He had an easy smile. It made her want to smile back.

She was relieved that they were far from the front window. She would not think about needing to hide; for one hour, she would not think. Instead, without allowing herself to hesitate, she walked toward him.

He rose when she arrived at the table and moved out of the seat against the wall to let her take it. Schwartzman appreciated the gesture. Having the view of a room made her more comfortable. She wondered briefly if he’d planned it this way. He was the kind of man who would notice those things.

The waiter returned with two glasses of water and asked if they were ready to order.

“Maybe a drink.” Macy looked across at Schwartzman. “I didn’t order any drinks because I wasn’t sure what you’d want.”

Schwartzman opened the menu and scanned the list of beers. “I’ll have a Tsingtao,” she told the waiter.

“I’ll have the same,” Macy said before turning to her again. “You okay if I order us a few starters? There are a few things I think you’ll like.”

“Sure,” she told him, wrapping her hands around the cool water glass. This was not a date. She felt both relief and disappointment.

Macy picked out a couple of things she’d never heard of, and the waiter left the table. Now she would have to make conversation. She should have asked more questions before the waiter left. Something to bridge the awkward gap between falling on her butt in the street and being seated across from a man she hardly knew.

Macy, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease. He rubbed his hands together like someone about to partake in something wonderful and took a long drink of water. Then he launched right in. “How long have you been in the city?”

“Just a few months,” she told him, then quickly asked about him.

Macy was easygoing and funny, and it took little time to get him talking. Leaning back, he told her about moving down from Klamath Falls, Oregon. His father was a cattle rancher, and Macy was the only boy surrounded by five sisters.