Sleight of Hand (15 page)

"If one of the Stepford wives answers the door, I'm outta here," he told Drake.  

He remembered the man, Eades, as mid-thirties, a short, skinny man with bony hands that Jimmy had worried about crushing when he shook them.  A CPA in one of the firms downtown, Eades specialized in managing pro-athletes' money, rolling short-term millions into long-term security.  That had been Jimmy's lead in, their common ground.  Denise was a financial planner, worked with most of the guys at the House, helping them to eke mortgage payments or tuition savings out of a city employee's take home pay.

While they waited for the door to be answered, Jimmy wondered how Eades had changed in the eight years since he'd lost his wife.  He'd guessed that he'd somehow recovered from his grief, probably by immersing himself in his work.  This house was a definite step up from the Bloomfield duplex he'd last interviewed the CPA in.

The door opened.  A gaunt man with thinning red hair wearing jeans, a Pitt sweatshirt and Fruit Loops in his mustache answered the door.  

"Detective Dolan," he greeted them with a smile that came a few beats too late.  "Come in, come in."  Clinton Eades stepped aside, and they joined him inside the slate-floored foyer.  

"I didn't realize it was so late," Eades continued, rambling on in breakneck fashion.  He wiped the cereal from his mustache and grinned.  "Food fight with the two year old–you know how it goes.  Stella," he called out to the rear of the house, the kitchen presumably, "I'll be in my study."  

Without waiting for an answer, he led the way into a large room paneled in knotty pine with a hunter green hobnail sofa and a desk that would rival a pool table for square footage.  Eades took the seat behind the desk, barricading himself from them.

"This is Detective Drake," Jimmy introduced DJ.   "If you don't mind, he'll just take some notes.  And I'll record us, so in case I have to refresh my memory later I won't need to bother you again."  Eades agreed readily to the prospect of not having to see the policemen again.

"Has there been–have you found–" His voice broke.

"No sir, I'm sorry to say.  Periodically we try to revisit these cases, don't want to ever give up on them."

Eades nodded, but the look in his face said that he'd already given up on finding his wife's killer.  "I appreciate that."

"Is Stella your new wife?" Jimmy asked, moving to perch on a windowsill to one side of the desk, leaving Drake unobtrusive in the background.

"No, our housekeeper."  Eades reached for a framed photo that sat on his desk and passed it to Jimmy.  "That's Cynthia, my wife.  We got married three, no four years ago now.  She's a realtor.  And that's Billy, our son.  He was only eight months when that was taken."

"And your older son, Mitchell?  How is he doing?  He'd be what, sixteen now?"

The father's face blanched, and the skin around his eyes tightened, revealing deeply etched lines there.  

"Mitchell," the name seemed painful for him to speak, "was never the same, after–" He paused and looked past Jimmy, out the window.  "I tried to get him help, counseling, kept him in school as long as I could–they said the routine would be good for him.  But things just kept getting worse.  Fights, bullying the other kids.  Stealing things from teacher's desks, lying.  Then, when he was in sixth grade a teacher found him in the boys room, smoking pot, forcing some third graders to strip naked and urinate in front of him."

Jimmy said nothing, allowing the father to collect his memories of the painful past.  "Mitch was thirteen then," Eades continued after a moment, still not making eye contact.  "We had to go to court.  They ordered him into a residential treatment program–out near Latrobe.  I was only allowed to visit him on weekends.  I thought it was just a phase, a result of everything he'd been through, but when he came home, things only got worse.  He beat up a teacher–broke the man's arm with a baseball bat, and the judge sent him to juvenile detention.  But he got into trouble there–went on a rampage one night, right before he was due to be released, and they sent him to another residential facility–this one with higher security.  He's still there.  They said next time he does anything he'll be charged as an adult.

"He won't talk to me or see me anymore.  I send him letters, pictures of his brother but the envelopes come back unopened.  This is the last thing he sent me."  Eades slid open the desk drawer and pulled out a thin sheet of lined notebook paper.  The painfully printed pencil strokes were marred by erasures and smudged fingerprints.  "See for yourself."

Jimmy glanced at the note.  

"Dad," it read, "don't send no more pictures especially of Billy.  I can't see him or you no more, so don't come here or call.  It's the only way I can take care of you all.  Good bye.  PS: when you see Mom tell her I'm sorry, sorry."  He passed the note to Drake.

Eades hadn't moved, still staring out the window, silent tears sliding from his eyes.  "The day he wrote that Mitchell tried to kill himself," he told them.  "That bastard took everything from me–Regina, Mitchell.  God, I wish he'd come after me instead."  

The father swiped a hand across his cheeks, finally turned to face Jimmy.  "Even if you caught him now, it would be too late, wouldn't it, Detective?"

"Maybe not for someone else's family," was the best Jimmy could offer.  Eades nodded slowly.  "When Mitch said 'when you see Mom', he wasn't talking about your new wife, was he?"

"No.  After Regina was–died–we used to pray together every night, talk to her, in a way.  Mitch used to always whisper things for me to tell her when I saw her, couldn't talk to her himself.  Poor kid was always thinking I was going end up dead too, I guess.  I don't think he ever had a full night's sleep since that day–never felt safe again."

"It must have been difficult for you to try to be both mother and father to him.  While suffering your loss as well."

Eades shrugged.  "Tell the truth, those bedtime prayers were about the only time we ever talked, I mean more than please pass the ketchup, and Mitch gave up on those a few months later.  Like he locked me out of his world.  I kept food on the table and clothes on his back but no matter how much I was there for him, it wasn't enough.  I just didn't have what he needed."

"I'm sure you did the best you could," Drake put in as he returned Mitchell's letter to Eades.  Jimmy knew his partner was getting impatient.  DJ hated the emotional stuff, always wanted to cut to the chase.

The father shrugged and deposited the evidence of his failure back into the depths of the desk drawer.

"If you could just think a moment, remember back to the day of your wife's murder," Jimmy went on after giving Eades a moment to collect himself.  "What was the routine for Mitchell that day supposed to be?"

"The same as always for a Tuesday or Thursday.  Regina would drop him at school on her way to open the studio.  He had school, then met with his speech therapist until four o'clock when he'd walk over to the studio and wait for Regina to drive him home.  I worked seven to three, so the rest of the week, I'd pick him up from school myself."

"And besides you and your wife and the therapist, who else would have known Mitchell's schedule?  A babysitter?  Neighbors?  Did he mention his therapy sessions to anyone else?"

Eades shook his head.  "No one knew except the school.  Mitch was very upset about needing speech therapy, refused to do it during the regular classroom session that the school offered.  Said it made him feel like a dummy, so he told all his friends he was working on a special extra credit project."  He frowned.  "Why all these questions about Mitch?  You spoke with the therapist, you know all this already."

"We think the killer," Jimmy said, lowering his voice, although he knew there was no way to soften the blow, "might have known your son's schedule, might have purposely arranged things so that Mitchell would be the one to find your wife's body."

Eades flinched at that.  Jimmy could understand his discomfort at the idea.  Bad enough that someone would want to kill your wife in a horrible fashion.  But also to plan it so your only child would be tortured, haunted by the display was a grotesque thought.  

One that only a cop who'd seen too much of the evil people could do would think of.  Jimmy calculated how long he'd have until his time toward a full pension was in.  Eight years.  Days like today, that seemed for-fucking-ever.

<><><>

"Dr. Hart, stat to Trauma One."

Cassie rushed to the trauma room.  Once there she found a pair of college-aged boys hovering over a gurney bearing a little old lady wearing only a thin flannel nightgown.  

"What's the story?" she asked, pulling on her gloves.

"She's our landlady," one of the students answered.  "We just found her like this, she'd left her back door open and we saw it when we were leaving for class this morning–"

"Seventy-two year old found cold and unresponsive on her kitchen floor," Rachel translated.  "Brought in by private vehicle, history of angina and hypertension, on nitro and Lasix.  No other meds, no allergies."  As she spoke, two other nurses cut the nightgown from the woman and began to get her vital signs.  Cassie moved to assess her patient.

"Bag her, she's not breathing.  She's cold–someone grab a core temp."  Cassie slid her fingers to the woman's carotid pulse and waited a full minute.  The monitor showed a slow, irregular heartbeat, but she felt no pulse.  "Start chest compressions.  Warmed IV fluid, two lines, make sure the oxygen is heated too."  She barked out the commands as she completed her examination.

The patient had an obvious fractured left hip and from the imprint on her skin, had been lying on the tile floor overnight.  She was now hypothermic to the point where her heart had slowed and no oxygen could reach her brain.  If Cassie could restart her heart and warm her, she had a fair prognosis.  Big if, especially given her age and underlying heart disease.  

Just one problem.  Hypothermic victims were notoriously susceptible to fatal heart arrhythmias.  Any action Cassie took might trigger a lethal heart rhythm.

She followed the ALS algorithm and instilled warmed fluid into the abdominal cavity where it could diffuse its heat to her patient's organs.  Despite her efforts, the patient's heart rhythm deteriorated into ventricular fibrillation, exactly what Cassie feared would happen.  

"Charge the paddles."   She gave three shocks in rapid succession, hoping to restart the patient's heart.  No result.  "Another epi."

Cassie looked over through the open door as a nurse rushed in with the lab results.  Virginia Ulrich stood at the nurses' station talking with Rachel.  Probably trying to find out if Cassie was the one who called Children and Youth.

"Epi's in."

"Again three-sixty," she said.  "Clear!"  She hit the button to send the electricity to the monitor pads.  

A strange man in a business suit came to the open doorway.  "Dr. Hart.  Cassandra Hart?" he called out as if he were a bellhop with a telegram.  Beyond him Cassie could see that Richard had joined Virginia Ulrich and Rachel and that they all watched her with anticipation.

"Out! We're in the middle of a resuscitation," she snapped.  

Instead of being intimidated or leaving, the man entered and approached her.  "Are you Dr. Cassandra Hart?"

"Yes, and this lady is trying her best to die, so whatever you want it can wait."  She turned her back on him.

Then she felt something slide into the back pocket of her scrubs.  She whirled around, amazed at the man's rudeness only to see him give her a quick wave.  

"Consider yourself served, Dr. Hart."  He walked out.

Cassie looked past him to see both Richard and Virginia Ulrich smiling at her.   Rachel's customary dour look had deepened.   Then she realized that everyone in the trauma room was staring at her.  

"Focus, people," she directed her team.  "Any pulse?"

"No pulse."

"Repeat the epi. Shock again at three-sixty.   What's her temp?"

"Rectal temp is ninety-six."

Damn, that was almost normal, definitely warm enough that the patient should have responded to their treatment.  She quickly re-assessed the patient.  She didn't see anything that they had overlooked.

Cassie sighed, one hand on the woman's neck, her fingers searching in vain for a pulse. "Anyone have any ideas?" she asked.  Sometimes as leader of a code you became too focused and could miss something.

"It's been almost forty minutes," one of the nurses said quietly, her eyes downcast.

The rest of the team remained silent, each looking at the other professionals in the room.

"Anyone object to calling it?"  Again silence.   "Okay, time of death is eleven twenty-two am.  Thank you everyone.  You all did good work."  

She left her team to go search for the college students and see if any next of kin had arrived.

Only afterwards did she remember the paper the man had shoved into her pocket.  She pulled it out and quickly scanned it.  Her eyes widened.  It was a restraining order issued by Judge Franklin forbidding her from coming anywhere within fifty feet of Charles Ulrich.  What the hell?

She started back toward the nurses' station but neither Rachel or Virginia Ulrich were still there.  Instead she found her boss, Ed Castro.

"I was just getting ready to call you.  A man came into the middle of a resuscitation and gave me this." She stopped when she saw the look on Ed's face.  He was furious.  At her.  

"Not here.  My office."  

He strode back down the corridor to his office. It wasn't until he ushered her inside and shut the door that Cassie became worried.  She was in trouble, big trouble.  Ed Castro was one of the most agreeable men she'd ever met–easy going was an understatement for his managerial style.  He never conducted business behind closed doors.

Then she saw who was seated in the chair in front of the desk.  Karl Sterling, a frown marring his Norman Rockwell features.

"What the hell's going on?"  Ed placed his hands on his desk and leaned forward.  "I leave for two days–"

Cassie held up the restraining order.  "I have no idea.  I don't understand–"