Fatal Reaction (6 page)

CHAPTER 11

Dorian slipped off his surgical cap and rubbed his tired eyes. Hours under the intense operating room lights, of staring through the magnifying loupe, had a drying effect that no drops could quench.

PACU nurses moved fluidly around the recovery room, answering the alarms of the monitors connected to a row of patients coming out of anesthesia. Emily Warren remained sedated among them.

Dorian headed to the waiting room where Derrick, Emily’s husband, sat in the corner, reading, or rather staring, at a magazine. He never turned the page. His short, brown hair was flattened on one side from leaning against his hand, and his green eyes, visible through his glasses, were bloodshot. The table next to him was covered in empty coffee cups, and his leg bounced up and down.

“Mr. Warren?” Dorian called out to him.

Derrick all but leapt out of his seat. “Is Emily all right? How did everything go?”

“Why don’t you join me in the hallway?” Dorian smiled to ease Derrick’s nerves. “Emily’s surgery went well. You’ll be able to see her in about an hour or so, as soon as she wakes up.”

“‘Well,’” Derrick said, wringing his thin hands, “as in, we’ll be able to have a baby?”

“There are no guarantees. Everything looks great so far, but we have to start Emily on medication to stop her body from rejecting the new uterus. Once she is healed and her body has fully accepted the transplant, we can talk about pregnancy. It’ll be at least three months, but it could take longer.”

The overhead speaker crackled, and a monotone voice paged him.

“They keep calling you,” Derrick said, a hint of annoyance in his tone.

“Excuse me a minute, would you?” Dorian was headed for the wall phone when Noreen burst through the door to the second-floor stairwell, red faced and snarling. Dorian rushed toward her. “What the hell are you doing here?” He steered her away from Derrick, who flashed a concerned look in their direction.

Noreen pulled her arm free and set her hand on her hip. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for the last half hour, paging you, calling you . . .”

“The overhead page doesn’t come to the operating room, for one, and my phone is in my locker. I’ve been in surgery all morning. What’s so important?”

Noreen thrust the folded newspaper against his chest.

He caught the local news section as it was about to fall. A page-two article told of an investigation into the death of Sydney Dowling, one of his more recent patients. He looked over his shoulder at Derrick Warren, pacing the floor and casting occasional glances in their direction.

“This doesn’t say anything about us,” Dorian said. “Or about her surgery.”

“She’s been calling the office nonstop. You don’t think they’re going to wonder what she was so concerned about?”

“Let them wonder. Have you talked to Mitchell?”

Noreen shook her head. “Not yet, but I’m sure he’s seen the news. And that’s not the worst of it. Stephanie Martin’s in the emergency room with Jared Monroe.”

Dorian wiped his hands over his face. “What happened?”

“She came in by ambulance. I couldn’t get much more information than that. Jared called the office to talk to you, and Kristin transferred him to me. What if it’s organ rejection, Dorian? It’s all the evidence anyone needs, if they’re smart.”

“But they’re not
smart
. Only three of us know what happened, and there’s no reason to suspect otherwise. I can’t talk about this right now. Not here.”

Dorian opened the door to the waiting room and called the attention of the secretary behind the check-in desk whose name he didn’t know. “Hey, excuse me.” He waved, and she looked up from her monitor. “Please take Mr. Warren to the recovery room and have him set up someplace quiet with his wife.”

Derrick, who Dorian could tell had been listening, knitted his eyebrows together. “I thought I had to wait an hour.”

“I moved it up.” Dorian waited until the PACU door opened before heading back to Noreen, standing with her arms folded. “Could this day get any worse?”

“It’s about to. You know who I saw on my way in?”

Dorian sighed. “No, who?”

“Marco Prusak.”

CHAPTER 12

Pamela Lewis sat cramped behind a small desk in the outer waiting area of Mitchell Altman’s office. Her mousy brown hair was wound into a tight twist, shellacked in place with a glistening coat of hair spray.

Marco walked in from the hallway and caught her off guard.

“Marco, you scared me half to death. I told you, Mitchell isn’t here.”

Marco hung his coat on the hook behind the door. “I know what you told me, Pam, but it’s important that I see him. I’ll wait until he gets back.”

Pam pushed her chair back from the desk and grunted as she heaved her considerable weight forward. The fabric of her snug blue-and-white dress pulled tight across her backside and hips, and Marco, though he would never tell her, could see the pattern of her underwear through it. Pam lumbered toward Mitchell’s door and blocked Marco’s view.

“I’m not sure when he’s going to be back, but I’ll make sure he gets your messages,” she said loudly.

Marco sat on one of two chairs next to a round table topped with a vase of white lilies. “Maybe you could have him overhead paged for me?” He matched her in volume, guessing Mitchell was listening. “He’s in there, isn’t he?” he whispered, and pointed at the door.

Pam nodded. “I’m sorry, but Mitchell insists on not being interrupted today.”

Marco pulled his left ankle on top of his right knee and slapped his checkbook down on the table. “I’m sure he’d make an exception.”

The door opened behind Pam, and she moved to the side. Mitchell, four inches shorter and probably a hundred pounds thinner, stepped into view.

“What do you want, Marco?”

Pam lowered her head. “I told him you weren’t available.”

“I heard.”

Marco picked up his checkbook. “We need to talk.”

“Seems I have no choice. Come in.” Mitchell slammed the door behind them. “I swear that woman can’t do anything right,” he said of his secretary, who had really tried her best to keep Marco away. It was no secret that Mitchell preferred the younger, prettier secretaries, like Amber, the twenty-four-year-old who worked for the CFO, one office away, and to whom he could almost always be found talking. Pam didn’t stand a chance, and Mitchell took out on her the fact that he felt stuck. “What can I do for you?” He unbuttoned his expensive, navy blue suit jacket and poured himself a cup of coffee without offering one to Marco.

“None of this is Pam’s fault,” Marco said, waiting to be asked to be seated.

Mitchell hung his jacket neatly over the back of his chair, exposing a monogrammed dress shirt and a Rolex watch that cost more than all of Marco’s material possessions combined. “Are you waiting for a written invitation? Have a seat.”

Marco sat, checkbook in hand, and after pondering the hundred ways to say what he had come to, settled on the simplest. “I want to come back to work.” He didn’t intend to explain why.

Mitchell rubbed his hand along the back of his head where the faintest hint of horseshoe-shaped razor stubble peeked through his pale skin. “The suspension sticks, Marco. Do you realize what you could’ve done to the transplant program with that stunt of yours?”

Marco clicked his pen, wrote out a check to the County Memorial Foundation in the amount of fifty thousand dollars, and slid it across the desk. “Whatever disruption I might have caused, this should cover the damages.”

Mitchell hesitated to pick up the check and took off his wire-rimmed glasses. “What am I supposed to do here? How do I explain why you did what you did without looking like a fool? Help me out. What possessed you?” His eyes fixed on Marco’s stained hands.

“I can’t explain how where I come from makes me who I am.”

“How hard can it be?” Mitchell settled back in his chair. “I started off as a shop floor manager in a tape company, working to pay for a college education my family was too poor to afford. I spent five years there and had replaced a man who, after forty years of service, was forced to take a job greeting customers at Walmart to subsidize his retirement. I swore I wouldn’t be that person. I’m money motivated. That’s why I do what I do.”

Marco considered the story and drafted a second payment. He folded the fifty-thousand-dollar check, made out directly to Mitchell, along the perforations and slid it across the desk. “What about now?” He needed to get back to his lab before someone discovered the evidence.

Mitchell leaned forward, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. “Add a personal apology to Dorian and we have a deal.”

“I can start back to work immediately?”

“As soon as you’d like.” Mitchell folded and pocketed the check. “It could probably go without saying, but this is a confidential arrangement.”

“Of course. Everything around here is.”

CHAPTER 13

Mike pulled into the Aquarian parking lot and shook his head. A day after Sydney’s murder, Samuel had already put room 11 back into service. The yellow crime-scene tape had been torn down, but the knots that had held it in place remained, warning anyone who didn’t know that something bad had recently happened there. Mike zippered his jacket and stepped out of his patrol car into an ankle-deep snowbank. Other than the section where residents had haphazardly shoveled, the lot was under a solid half foot of snow. He trudged to the rental office, stomped the snow off his boots and pant legs, and stared through the window.

Samuel slept behind the cluttered check-in desk, wearing the same clothes as the last time Mike saw him. He banged on the door before walking in.

“Hey, Sam, wake up.” Sam startled and nearly tipped out of his chair. His foul body odor, a mix of onions and chicken soup, filled the room, and had Mike wanting to go back into the cold. “You’re looking pretty rough there, Sam.”

Sam sat up, the pointed bones of his shoulders melting into his skin. “S-s-something I can do for you, S-s-sergeant? I already gave my s-s-statement, twice.”

“I have a few new questions to ask.” Mike noted Sam to be more clear and present than the day before. “Anyone give you the okay to open that room back up?”

Sam took a sip from a cup of coffee old enough to have a creamer ring around the fill line. “Officer Blake d-d-did. I told him I ain’t got that many rooms to r-r-rent to leave that one closed up.”

Mike made a mental note to give Julian hell when he saw him next. “Tell me about when the woman, Sydney, checked in. What did she have with her? How did she pay? Did you notice anything unusual? Was anyone else there?”

Sam shrugged. “I—I—I didn’t see her.” He pointed at a metal lockbox and a tattered logbook on the counter. The handwritten sign read, “Honor system $10 an hour $30 a night. Ring bell for kredit card. Must sign in.” The punctuation was minimal, and “credit” had been misspelled. “M-m-most people pay cash.”

Mike turned the log so he could read it, noting three signatures for the room that night, none of which belonged to Sydney. “Is this the only register?”

“Yep. B-b-but the room was paid for. I ch-ch-checked the cash.”

“The victim’s name’s not on here.”

“W-w-we’re not much for real names.”

Mike nodded, figuring neither Marilyn Monroe nor Harvey Keitel had been the last to check in. “What about the security tapes? You never handed any over.”

“Th-th-that’s because there ain’t any to give you.”

A dull ache formed behind Mike’s eyes. “What do you mean there
aren’t
any?” Annoyance had him giving out unsolicited English lessons.

Sam opened the top desk drawer, pulled an off-brand cigarette from the pack, and tried to light it with his shaking hand. The lighter flame danced, and eventually the tip of the cigarette caught. “The cameras ain’t r-r-real. Some of the people that lived here wanted s-s-something done about”—he looked up as he considered his words—“the people who’ve b-b-been away awhile.”

“You mean ex-convicts?”

Sam’s bloodshot eyes darted between Mike and the door as if being caught talking to the police would adversely affect his business. “W-we all got problems in life. I don’t judge. I put fake cameras in to s-s-stop the complaining.”

“And I assume the hourly regulars and traffickers know they’re not real?”

Samuel exhaled a cloud of smoke, having sucked down half a cigarette in only a few drags. “I—I—I don’t know what you mean.” He crushed out the butt in an overfull ashtray and opened the door. “If there ain’t anything else, I—I—I have cleaning to take care of.”

Mike, believing Sam’s evasiveness stemmed more from being strung out and preserving his economy than knowing anything about what happened to Sydney, headed out into the cold. The crisp breeze carried away the terrible smell he couldn’t believe he’d almost gotten used to. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, heading toward his cruiser.

“L-l-looking forward to it.” Sam pulled down a ripped shade with another red-marker note that said, “Back in 5 minutes.”

Mike was about to get into his car, when a door opened behind him.

An overweight woman, wearing a flannel nightgown and robe, called out to him. “Hey, you have a light?” She shook a cigarette from the soft pack in her hand and pinched it between her lips.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

The woman reached into the deep pocket of her blue terry cloth bathrobe and produced a lighter. “How about a minute?”

Mike felt a bit dense for missing the signal. “Yeah, I have a minute.” He trudged back through the snowy lot toward room 13.

A curl of smoke mixed with the woman’s coffee-soaked breath. “This is an off-the-record conversation, yes?”

“Sure,” Mike reluctantly agreed.

“No names, no signatures?”

“If that’s what you need.” Mike knew he could bargain later if the woman knew anything valuable.

“It is. This isn’t the kind of place you want to live running your mouth. You knew that girl from last night, didn’t you?” The woman had the unique talent of simultaneously talking and exhaling smoke.

“I did, yes.”

“I knew you did because I saw you crying.” Mike lowered his gaze, a bit embarrassed. “Got a daughter, myself,” the woman said, taking another drag. “That’s why I go outside to smoke. It’s no good for her. Gotta keep my baby girl safe, you know?” Inside, the young girl in the cutoff footie pajamas napped on the couch. Mike put her at four years old, not quite old enough for school. The wind kicked up, and the woman pulled the door the rest of the way shut. “Sam tell you the cameras are fake?” Suspecting a trap, Mike didn’t immediately answer. “It’s okay. He thinks we’re all as stupid as he is. I saw him put them up. Know what gave it away?” Mike shrugged, unsure of where the conversation was headed. “No wires.” The woman, who had clearly never heard of wireless cameras, was nonetheless right about these. She looked across the parking lot and down the row of rooms. “Know what else?” She continued without being answered. “I saw someone leave that room that night.” She pointed at room 11. “I heard raised voices, a woman’s voice, I guess, but I was right at the part in my program where the CSIs were going to figure out who did it, so I waited to hear. You ever watch that program?” Mike shook his head. “Probably get enough of that at work, I guess. Anyway, by the time I lowered the TV, the fight was over. I got up in time to see someone walking away.”

“Walking away” and “walking out of the room where Sydney’s body was found” were two different things. “You saw someone leave
that
room, specifically?” Mike pointed at room 11.

“No. I heard
that
door, specifically, slam.” She turned his words around on him. “I know it was
that
door because it shook my place. I’ve been living here three years. I know what it feels like to have the next door shut.” She lit a second cigarette off the end of the first. “Some nights, I hear it on the hour.”

Mike considered telling the woman that a by-the-hour motel wasn’t the best place to raise a young child, but he supposed she already knew that. It wasn’t his place to pass judgment, and, most likely, there wasn’t anything she could do about her circumstances. “Did you get a look at the person? See a car, maybe? Can you tell me anything in particular? Did the person have a tattoo? Or walk with a limp? Anything?”

The woman shrugged. “Black coat, black hat, black boots, and between the bitch of a snowstorm and the fact Sam still hasn’t fixed the motion lights, that’s all I got. Person might as well have been a shadow.”

A sound, like a roll-up shade, caught their attention.

Sam appeared in the office doorway, sipping from the old coffee mug.

His presence shut the woman right up. She crushed out half a cigarette after smoking the first one to the filter. “I have to go.”

Mike couldn’t stand to lose a lead, no matter how vague. “Can you tell me anything else about the voices you heard, or maybe how tall the person you saw leaving was? Anything at all?”

“Been about all the help I can be,” the woman said.

“How about height and weight?”

The woman lowered her voice. “I’m no good at sizing people up, but I’d guess they were no taller than five foot five, five foot six, maybe, and they were skinny.”

“Like a woman?” Misty moved quickly to the head of the suspect line.

“Maybe, I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.” The woman glanced at Samuel and hurried inside.