Playing God (45 page)

"Don't want to talk about O'Leary's body? Then how about how you got hooked up with O'Leary in the first place, Dr. Bailey. I have two theories about that. How about this?" Reluctantly, but drawn by the words, Bailey turned back toward him. "You had a problem with your partner, Dr. Pleasant, and his unpleasant habit of reclaiming Oxycontin from deceased patients and selling it to drug addicts, didn't you, Dr. Bailey? Pretty damned embarrassing, wasn't it. Was O'Leary your solution?"

Bailey's face was red. He reached out to push the officer aside, thought better of it, backed away from the unmoving police officer, and moved toward a second door. And a second cop. Burgess went on talking, loud enough so the whole room could hear. "Did you pay Kevin O'Leary to kill your partner, Stephen Pleasant? Dr. Pleasant, as you've said yourself, was ambitious and greedy. Did he get too ambitious and too greedy and you decided he had to be stopped?"

"I didn't... Goddammit! Are you refusing to let me leave the room? Am I under arrest?"

"Why would you be under arrest? Just because you deliberately drove your car into a police officer, causing serious injury?" As Bailey hesitated, Burgess continued. "But I think, before you rush away, you might want to hear my second theory." Talking faster and louder now, before Cote, who'd just pulled up, could get from his car to the door. "You got hooked up with O'Leary when he tried to blackmail you about a video tape, didn't you? A videotape of you and a black prostitute named Alana Black, filmed during a sexual encounter arranged by your good friend, Dr. Pleasant. Funny how you can know a guy's cheating on his wife and never think he'll screw you, too, isn't it?"

"Shut up," Bailey ordered, turning on him. "You have no right!" He charged across the room, shoving people out his way.

"I wonder how your sweet wife, Madeline, would react to a full color video of you sucking the big brown breast of a voluptuous naked whore? Of you jamming yourself down that girl's throat? I've got that tape, Dr. Bailey. I wonder how Madeline—"

"How dare you bring my wife into this!" Bailey yelled. "Stephen Pleasant was a rotten shit, forcing me to deal with extortionist scum like O'Leary."

"You think you're any better? Harboring a man the police are looking for? Driving O'Leary to that video store where he tried to rape a fifteen-year-old? Willing to do anything to get that tape back? You think other people don't matter, doctor, as long as your own precious ass is protected? Because you're some God-like doctor, you can decide who's worthy to live or die?"

Bailey's big head swiveled around at all the staring faces, his face so scarlet with rage it looked like he was the one in danger of a heart attack. "You shut up!" he said, lifting a big clenched fist. "Goddammit, detective. You shut up! O'Leary was a pimping, drug dealing, blackmailing scum. He deserved to die."

Captain Cote came through the door just in time to catch that statement and see an enraged Bailey shove several people aside and slam a furious fist into one of the few undamaged parts of his ace homicide detective, in full view of at least six cops and a dozen other witnesses. Burgess, knocked back against the wall and sliding slowly to the floor, folded himself around the pain with an inward smile of triumph. Go ahead and let him walk, you oleaginous starfucker. At least this time, you can't sweep it under the rug.

Chapter 34

He left the mess at Maine Med in Cote's competent hands. Quickly, and without surprise, Burgess ascertained that the Suburban contained neither O'Leary's body nor the Rubbermaid container. But Burgess was on a roll. No time to stop now. In flagrant defiance of Melia's orders, he hitched a ride to the station, got Stan's car, and drove back to Shaw's house, the endorphin high from having outfoxed Bailey a pretty good offset to the shrieking voices of his aggravated wounds. He found Perry and Sam sitting in Sam's car while a bunch of self-important state police processed the garage.

"No body," Sam reported. "We got an earring like O'Leary wore. We got his car. We got Bailey buying cement and the storage container. Lying about the cement to a cop. And who knows what these crime scene boys will find?"

"Damn," Burgess said. "Nothing in the Suburban, either. I was hoping—"

"Wait." Perry's eyes lit up. "Pleasant's wife. Who knows what she saw, heard, or even carted off in her little Volvo, to go out with her trash."

"Stan, you're a gem. Let's go see her. Wanna come, Sam?"

"Gotta see this thing through. I'll send someone over in a bit."

Burgess felt giddy. Manic. Like the crazy fucker Kyle always accused him of being. This many hours up on this little sleep, beaten down, broken and shot, wasn't he entitled to be insane? But he hadn't laid a finger on Cote.

He filled Stan in as they drove to Jen Kelly's house. Her Volvo was parked at the door. Burgess walked over and looked in. Three big black trash bags that hadn't been there before. He sighed. Now they had to either get her to agree to let them search, or camp on her doorstep until they got a warrant. Wearily, he mounted the steps and rang the doorbell, absently rubbing the spot where Bailey's fist had landed. Old fart still packed quite a punch.

When she recognized them, she turned on her heel, crossed the hall, and picked up the phone. Burgess, feeling uncharitable, followed her and depressed the phone switch. "You can do that later," he said. "We have to talk."

"No. I don't want to talk to you anymore. I want you out of my house. I want to call my lawyer."

"Why? Were you a party to your husband's death?" Burgess said. "To the death of Kevin O'Leary?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She folded her arms defensively. "I'm just protecting my privacy."

"And to hell with the murder investigation?" Burgess said. "Do you know what was going on at your father's house today?"

Perry came in and closed the door behind him. She looked from one of them to the other nervously. "What do you want? Why are you here?"

"For starters," Burgess said, "I'd like the truth."

"I've always told you the truth."

"Bullshit!"

"I have!" More like an irate child than a mother with a child of her own.

"You said you last saw your husband at breakfast on the day he died. That wasn't true, was it? I have a witness who saw you at the hospital that night, waiting for him. Who saw you talking to him. Saw you run away in tears and drive out in such a hurry you took the security arm right off."

"I wasn't there," she said.

"I can match the paint," he said. "Your car, the security arm. And once I know that's a lie, why should I believe anything else you say?"

"I wasn't there," she repeated, stubbornly, giving him the full eye treatment, a wide, innocent stare with those big baby-blues. Pretty eyes in a sweet, sweet face. It must have worked for her in the past or she wouldn't bother. But it didn't work on the meanest cop in Portland. He was long past feminine wiles. If he hadn't been, this case would have cured him. Good-looking women seduced you, lied to you, shot you.

"Yes. You were." Burgess felt mean. He was sick of these people who lied and thought it didn't matter. Who killed and thought it didn't matter. Who condoned killing because it was easier and thought that didn't matter. He moved closer to her, into her personal space, and raised his voice. "What do you care about, Jen? Do you care about finding your husband's killer? Do you care that your baby will grow up without a father? That Mackenzie will? Does anything matter to you?"

She brought her arms up defensively in front of her. "No!" she said. "No. I didn't care if anything happened to Stephen. I'm not sorry he's dead. He was horrible to me. I thought he loved me, but he was only in love with my money. With Ted Shaw's money. Stephen wanted the money for this lifestyle, but my father ended up using it to pay off Stephen's blackmailers. All that money wasted to keep me from knowing what I already knew... and of course to spare us the embarrassment of having it made public."

"Because Jack Kelly told you?"

"He blames himself. Sure. But after Stephen said he'd stop, I knew because I followed him myself. He was so damned arrogant he didn't even notice! I would have given him another chance. If he'd only tried." She raised her eyes to his again, asking him to share her amazement. Then she lowered them. "But I didn't kill him, detective. After my mother's cancer, I got a new respect for life. And then, after Stevie, it was even greater. I don't think I could ever take a life, no matter how much I hated."

"But you were happy to let your father—your biological father—do it for you."

Her gaze stayed fixed on the floor. "No. I'm sure you don't believe me, but I don't think Ted... my father... killed Stephen."

"But he or they, he and his friend, Doctor Bailey, killed that man whose body was in the garage tonight. The one they were trying to get rid of."

"Body?" she said uncertainly, looking from one of them to the other. "What are you talking about."

"Kevin O'Leary," Perry said. "Big, ugly bald guy. Tattoos. Ears like cup handles. Used to come to collect the blackmail. Peddle the drugs."

"Drugs?" she said uncertainly. "I don't understand... Stephen didn't..." She bit her lip, brought her focus back to his question. "No." She shook her head vigorously. "I never saw anyone like that."

"In the back of your car there are three plastic trash bags," Burgess said. "They weren't there when I looked in your car at your father's place. What's in the bags?"

She took an unsteady step backward. Looked at the phone again, maybe wondering if she could get to it before he could stop her. She put a hand on the wall to brace herself. She'd gone deathly pale. "I don't know about any bags."

Maybe she didn't. It was possible, in their hurry, that her father and Dr. Bailey had dumped the bags in her car, expecting she wouldn't notice. "Come outside with me. I'll show you."

"I can't leave the baby."

"It's right outside the door," Burgess said. "Stan will listen for the baby. Come on." He jerked open the closet, pulled out a coat. "Here. Wear this."

Like an obedient child, she took it and put it on. Pulled gloves from the pocket and followed him down the steps. Walked slowly, warily, toward her car. Very slowly, she put out her hand, grasped the latch, and let the tailgate rise. The light came on and she stared in surprise at the bulging black bags. "They're not mine," she said. "I don't know how they got here."

"Mind if I look inside?"

"No. Of course not."

Burgess tugged on gloves and pulled the nearest bag toward him. It was surprisingly heavy. He knew, as soon as he undid the wire and released the smell, what he was going to find. He looked in and turned away, gagging at the horrific sight and smell. Standing in the shadows at the edge of the dim trunk light, he tried with the sluggish responses of an exhausted body to quell his rising sickness.

"What is it?" she demanded, reaching for the bag. "What?"

His stomach twisted and roiled. Tough as nails Burgess, who thought he'd seen it all, was going to be sick like some baby cop. Too busy losing his lunch to serve and protect.

She stepped closer, curious. He tried to stop her, reaching out to grab her hands, to pull her away. "Don't look!" he ordered. "Jen, for God's sake, don't look."

Defiantly, she grabbed the bag and pulled it open. She took one long look at Kevin O'Leary's head and crumpled, with a cry, onto the ground.

Burgess hollered for Stan, then staggered away and was sick behind a bush. The spasms ignited all his injuries. He dragged himself back to the car, aware that he'd finally past his limit. Exhausted his utility here, there and everywhere, until he got some rest.

Stan rushed down the steps, staring in surprise at the girl on the ground and Burgess's face. "What the hell happened, Joe?"

Burgess gestured toward the closest bag. "Grab some gloves and have a look. It's O'Leary."

Perry jerked on a pair of gloves and peered in. "Holy shit!" He looked a little rocky himself. He knelt beside Jen, put the gloves in his pocket, and touched her face. "Out like a light."

"She was so mad she had to look, Stan. I told her not to, so she marched right over and peered in. Mind bringing her inside? We can't leave her here." Stan slid his arms beneath her, lifted her easily, and carried her into the house.