Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1) (20 page)

The pressure loosened ever so slightly on her neck. She stole several breaths, blinked away the flashes of lights.

“Don’t fight,” he whispered. “You’re not well, Bella. You have to take care of yourself.”

She froze at the mention of her cancer. A sob caught in her throat.

“I’m going to take care of you, Bella. You need me. You can’t go through cancer alone. The chemo, the radiation . . . say you need me, Bella.”

She shook her head. Her chest heaved. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say the words, not even to catch him.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “This is life or death, Bella. You will die without me. You have cancer. Eating away at you.”

But he was wrong. She could survive the cancer. She could fight that.

“You have to stay,” he said. An edge in his voice. The way there always was just before he hurt her. “You can’t run away. You know I won’t let you go again.” As quickly as the pressure had eased, it tightened again.

She dug her chin into his arm. Struggled to wedge it between his arm and her neck, to relieve the pressure on her carotid. Not enough oxygen.

“Shh,” he whispered. “The more you fight, the worse it will be.”

Her lungs burned with the desire to sob. There was no air in her. She forced herself to be still.

The pressure lightened. She took a full breath. Cried out.

The choke tightened. “Bella,” he warned.

She clamped her mouth shut. Grabbed hold of his arm again, tried to find the border of the arm protection, some vulnerable spot. Tears streamed down her face.
Let him win. Let him have this. He won’t kill you. He doesn’t want you dead. He wants you back.
Her stomach heaved in a tide of nausea. She went limp.

“Good girl. That’s it.”

She willed herself to be motionless. Closed her eyes. Focused on the burning smell of chloroform. Willed away the scent of Spencer. Imagined the morgue. Her tools. Her tray. The cold metal handle of the scalpel. The phone. She was recording him on the phone.

His lips on her temple. The soft kiss like a knife.

She clawed at his arm.

His hold tightened.

She couldn’t fight anymore. The fight drained away.

She was strong. But he was stronger.

“I’ve missed the feel of you, Bella.” His fingers on her jaw. Across her cheek. “I’ve missed your taste.” His tongue on her cheek. Then at the corner of her mouth. She gagged, wanted to spit. “How I’ve missed it.”

A whimper escaped her lips. How had she thought she could stand up to him? Trick him to confess? She was naive. Stupid.

He loosened his hold, pressed his lips to her ears. “You’ve missed me, too. But we’ll be together.”

She drew a breath against the burning in her throat, felt the sobs break free.

His thumb swept across her tears. “There’s no need to cry, Bella. I forgive you. I forgive you for leaving.” His lips on the line of her hair. “Because now we can be together. Ava made that happen.”

At the sound of Ava’s name, Schwartzman bucked against his hold. Again she swung her elbows. But he held her too tight, too close. She reached her hands back and tried to pinch and claw at his face, couldn’t reach. She would not give up.

The arm across her throat tightened.

She silenced her body.
Wait. Wait for an opening.
He couldn’t hold her forever.
Don’t move,
she told herself.
Then you can escape.
She imagined his fingers on her face, his kiss, his tongue. Fingerprints. DNA. Evidence. The recording on her phone. It would all be captured. The only thing to do was wait and get away. Then she could prove what he had done. All of it.

“You should sleep, Bella. We can talk later.” His arms clenched across her neck. She bucked against him. The hold cinched tighter. She reached back. Grabbed a pant leg. Tried to scratch, pinch, dig. Bright spots of light crossed her vision. Tingling in her hands and feet.

Wait.
She opened her mouth to speak, choked as the word rose in her throat.

He loosened the grip.

“Please. I’ll stay,” she croaked, the words fire in her throat. “I promise.”

“I know you will, Bella.”

“Now,” she said. “We can be together.”

“That’s a good girl.”

She waited for him to let go, but a beat passed and the pressure was back. Harder. The lights more blinding. A shooting pain in her right eye.
No. No.
But the words didn’t come out.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered.

Blacking out.

“Good night, sweet girl.”

The lights grew brighter. The fight was lost.

She was alone. With Spencer. She’d never be free. Panic rose in a black wave and swallowed her.

30

Charleston, South Carolina

Harper leaned her forehead against the closed freezer door. It wasn’t cold. Not even the slightest bit. She wished it were. She longed for cold air on her face and neck. Lately Charleston was too hot. Too crowded. Too city. She was getting old. Living close to downtown had always appealed to her even though it meant living in a tiny house with a huge mortgage. Only the memory of last month’s utility bill kept her from sticking her head in the freezer for ten minutes. Almost $200 for their thirteen-hundred-square-foot place.

She and Jed had always managed. Dual income, one child. They made the numbers work. Bought cars used and drove them into the ground, traveled little if at all. In her fifteen years, Lucy had been on only one plane ride, to bury Jed’s grandmother in Illinois when she was three.

Harper turned her cheek to the freezer. As a kid, she loved the small walk-in freezer in her parents’ restaurant, which she was largely forbidden from entering. Her mother was convinced that Harper would get locked in and somehow forgotten there. The allure was too strong in the hot weather, and anytime she didn’t have a specific task to complete, Harper disappeared to the back corner and yanked on the metal lever. There was a hissing as the door cracked, the crisp cold rolling over her like a spell. Among the grills and ovens in Charleston in the middle of July or August, that walk-in was the closest thing to heaven on earth.

She gave up on the idea of a frosty fix. Instead she found the last bottle of Dixie beer from the six-pack Jed’s brother brought down on his last trip from Durham.

The heavy beer was the kind that might help her sleep. That was what she needed. A deep, dark sleep. The kind of sleep to help her forget this case. Anna Schwartzman knew something that she wasn’t saying. But why? If she knew the identity of the killer, why keep that a secret? To protect someone?

It was obvious Schwartzman cared about her aunt. She’d seemed genuinely distraught that there was another murder. So what possible incentive did she have to hold something back?

So desperate for a lead, Harper had Googled the Inspector Harris Schwartzman had mentioned on a lark. There were a ton of Harrises in the California police departments. But when she added
Inspector
as his title and narrowed the search to San Francisco, she came up with only one.

Inspector Hal Harris. Homicide.

Harper left him a long, rambling message. Who knew if he’d even call her back?

She grabbed the beer bottle by the throat, popped the top, and sat in a kitchen chair.

Why the hell couldn’t they find a single witness who had seen someone enter Ava Schwartzman’s home? Two wealthy women dead in two days. Four blocks apart. Friends, but so very different.

Frances Pinckney had been a stay-at-home mom to her three children, married for forty-two years. She attended church and garden club and played bridge with friends.

Ava Schwartzman, on the other hand, had never married or even had a serious longtime lover. At least not one that anyone knew about. She lived in the house her parents had bought when they came to Charleston to escape religious persecution as German Jews just before the start of World War II. She attended law school and continued to practice until the day she died. Ava was heavily involved in philanthropy and donated primarily to organizations working to protect civil rights.

According to Frances Pinckney’s children, the two women became friends when Ava did the Pinckneys’ estate planning, before Thomas Pinckney passed. As was natural in that kind of situation, Frances relied heavily on Ava in the months after her husband’s death, and the two women had begun a friendship. The children told Harper that their mother and Ava had dinner almost every week. No one knew exactly what they had in common, but both women counted the other as a close confidante.

And now both were dead. As with Frances Pinckney’s death, there was no indication that robbery was a motive in Ava’s death. No signs of forced entry, although there was the possibility that a key to Ava Schwartzman’s house was taken from Pinckney’s home.

But there was no way to prove it.

Harper groaned and pulled herself up from the table, draining the last of the beer, then filling a bowl with chips. She had a terrible weakness for sea salt and vinegar chips.

Not the healthiest dinner, but Jed and Lucy would stop for dinner on the way back from the volleyball game in Charlotte, and Harper had no inclination to cook for herself. One bowl. What could it hurt? She used a healthy-size cereal bowl, topped it off, and tucked the bag under her arm in case she wanted a little more, then went back to the bedroom, where she changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed.

Across the room, her phone let out a desperate ping to indicate a voicemail. The call had come from an unfamiliar number with a 415 area code. Missouri maybe. Or was that 414?

She pushed “Play” on the voicemail and pressed the “Speaker” button.

“Detective Leighton, my name is Hal Harris. I’m a homicide inspector in San Francisco.”

She sat up. Inspector Harris had returned her call.

“I got your name from Captain Brown,” the message continued. “Captain Brown also gave me your home number, so I apologize in advance if I’m interrupting dinner.”

“This is probably going to sound a little weird”—he made a sound like a soft chuckle—“sorry. The accent on your voicemail reminds me of my mom’s sister. She’s from Savannah. She used to call everything bat-shit crazy. That’s what made me laugh just now.” The voice stopped, and Harper thought he’d disconnected.

A soft sigh. “It’s been a long day, Detective, but I hear you’ve got a homicide victim out there named Ava Schwartzman. I’ve got one out here, and I think they’re connected. And this is going to seem—well, it’s going to sound bat-shit crazy, excuse my French. I believe the cases are related to my colleague out here. She’s the medical examiner, and her name is Annabelle Schwartzman and—” There was a beep and the message ended.

Harper stared at the machine. It didn’t sound as if Inspector Harris had gotten her message at all. She lifted her phone to call Captain Brown when it rang in her hand. The same phone number.

“Detective Leighton,” she said.

“Oh, hi,” came the same voice from the message. “I was leaving a message and I got cut off.” A brief stop. “Actually, if you didn’t get it, that would be g—”

“I did. I just heard the message. This is Inspector Harris?”

“Yes. And sorry about that message,” he said. “I’m afraid I probably didn’t make much sense.”

The inspector sounded about her age—late thirties, early forties. A gruff tone but a kind voice. In years of detective work, Harper had learned to tell a lot of information in a very quick time. “I called you earlier today. Did you get my message?”

“You called me?”

“Yes. Maybe three hours ago.”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m confused,” Hal admitted. “What did you call me about?”

“Same thing you’re calling me about, I think. And you ought to be confused. I know I am. None of this makes a lick of sense,” Harper told him.

“I’m working this one alone, and it’s making me nuts. So you heard about my colleague out here? Annabelle Schwartzman.”

“Actually, I met her earlier today.”

There was a brief pause on the line. “She did go out there.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Damn.”

“She seemed to think she knew something about her aunt’s death, as well, but she asked if we could meet tomorrow to talk.” Harper sighed audibly. “I sure would appreciate if one of y’all would let me in on what’s going on.”

“I’m happy to tell you, Detective Leighton.”

“Call me Harper, please.”

“Okay, Harper. I have to warn you, though—it’s kind of a long story. I’m not sure if you’ve got someplace you need to be.”

Offering up information without asking for anything in return was a rare event in police work. Usually “cooperating” meant handing over everything you had on a case and getting out of the way. Harper had a good feeling about Inspector Harris.

“Now is perfect,” Harper told him, settling back against the pillows as Hal Harris started the story about a woman who may have been killed by a woman posing as her sister. An obsessed ex-husband. At the center of it, Annabelle Schwartzman. Harper let him talk, interrupting only for clarification, and ate her chips. As he explained that he believed the murder in Charleston might be related, Harper reached for a pen and paper. “His name is Spencer MacDonald, and he’s a mean SOB.”

“Spencer MacDonald?” she repeated. “He’s here in Charleston?”

“Greenville. I’ve been in touch with a deputy down there, but I’ve done about all I can do from here. I’m privy to some very nasty details about MacDonald, and after what we’ve seen out here, I think he’s more cunning than I gave him credit for.”

“I’ve got some contacts down there,” she told him. “Let me see what I can find out in the morning, and I’ll give you a call.”

“Be careful, Detective. One of our patrol officers was assaulted last night. Eighteen stab wounds.”

Violent crimes in Charleston were rarer than one might think. They had their share of drug- and gang-related murders, some domestic situations that escalated to murder. But deaths like Frances Pinckney’s and Ava Schwartzman’s, the kind of man who would stab a police officer eighteen times, those were rare. Almost unheard of. She’d certainly never had one in her career. Harper stared at the name she’d scrawled on the notepad. “You think MacDonald did that? So he’s in San Francisco now?”

“No,” Hal said. “In fact, I confirmed earlier today that he hasn’t been out of South Carolina since a visit to his mother in Florida a few months back.”

“So, how did he stab a patrol officer—”

“We don’t know. In fact, we know almost nothing. Only what Schwartzman told me. That she woke up at approximately one in the morning and found the officer in her bed, fully dressed and bleeding to death.”

“And you believe her?”

“I want to,” he admitted.

The woman she met today was reserved, stoic. She knew better than to judge Anna Schwartzman by her demeanor in the mortuary. But eighteen stab wounds? “So if she didn’t do it—”

“It’s possible he set it up,” Hal said. “MacDonald.”

Harper digested the theory. An accomplice. Two men working together. MacDonald’s motivation was related to Anna Schwartzman, but what about the accomplice? Why stab a police officer? For some, it was just for the pleasure. With the Internet, it wasn’t even much of a stretch to think MacDonald might have found someone willing to do his dirty work. But why that officer? “The patrol officer and Schwartzman—they’re involved?”

“I don’t know,” Hal said honestly. “No one seems to think so, but . . .”

“But they’d have to be for motive, right? If you go with the idea that MacDonald wanted to off the new boyfriend?” Harper asked.

“Maybe.”

Harper wrote, “Stabbed eighteen times.”
How in the hell was that guy alive? She was afraid to ask. She’d seen enough to know he’d be in rough shape.

“Only problem with that theory is that setting the murder up at her house makes her look good for it,” Hal said.

“True,” Harper agreed. “Assume there’s no motive for her to kill the officer?”

“None.”

“You have any evidence at all that there was someone else involved?”

“The strongest piece we’ve got is the presence of a potent gas in the apartment. A general anesthetic. Lab’s calculating the rate of dispersion to identify the concentration at the time of the attack.”

“Be hard to stab if you’re high on laughing gas.”

“Right. The drug wreaks havoc with hand-eye coordination, among other things.”

Her thoughts returned to the officer. She had to ask. “How is he? The officer?” A catch in her voice. One of their own. “He going to make it?”

“He’s stable.”

She imagined him in a hospital room, hooked up to the machines. If he were conscious, the inspector would have more answers. “But you can’t talk to him?”

“No,” Hal said with a sigh. “He’s heavily sedated. Doctors hope tomorrow.”

When Harper had met Schwartzman, she’d held her chin up, a show of strength. Nothing in her appearance hinted at what she had been through. The terror of waking in the night to someone she hardly knew. Then to find him bleeding to death. “You ask Anna why she thinks that guy was stabbed?”

“Schwartzman? She was pretty rattled when I saw her. Only thing she could think of is that they had a dinner together. Wasn’t planned. They just both happened to be at the same restaurant.”

“That seem likely?” Harper asked.

“None of it seems likely, but I’ve got no reason to think she would lie,” he said. “At least not about that.”

Harper tried to wrap her head around the kind of man who would orchestrate all of this because his ex had a random dinner. Surely there was more to the relationship than Anna was saying.

“I haven’t talked to her since the night the officer was attacked,” Hal said. “I don’t know if she’s heard that the officer—Ken Macy is his name—I don’t know if Schwartzman knows that he’s going to pull through. Hell, she might even think she’s a suspect.”

“Is she?”

“Well, until we find someone else, she’s the only suspect.”

Harper blew out her breath.

“All I know is she left here and went out there. It’s a suicide mission. There’s a lot she’s not saying. She’s—” He stopped, and Harper waited, pen poised. She needed to know what Anna was. If this MacDonald was after her, then he was also the best suspect for the two murders on her turf.

“Inspector?”

“I actually don’t know exactly what she is. Scared, certainly, but oddly determined, too.”

It was obvious from his voice that Hal Harris cared about Schwartzman. He respected her. He was worried for her. “I get the feeling this isn’t the first time MacDonald has done something like this,” he added.

Harper sat up. “You mean he’s killed before?”

“No,” he said. “It might be the first for that, but he’s been harassing Schwartzman for a lot of years. And he’s definitely capable of violence. Some of what I know was shared in confidence, so I can’t be specific . . .”