Then he told me the Homeland Security viewpoint.
“There’s an honest-to-God fear that terrorists could smuggle a nuke—say from North Korea—by way of a container coming from Hong Kong into LA,” Joe said. “And the chance that we’d detect such a device, at present, is practically nil.
“We don’t yet have effective systems in place. I see an opportunity to help secure the port. I think I could do important work out here.”
The ferry engines ground into reverse with a roar, and the bulky wooden ship coasted into dock. Suddenly we were in the center of a shoving mob, moving us down the gangway. Talking was impossible as our handhold was broken apart and strangers seeped between us.
Joe’s Town Car was waiting beyond the docks, gleaming and black. He held open the door for me and asked the driver to take us to the lot where I’d parked my car.
“I know it’s a lot to think about,” he said.
“Joe, I want to talk more about this. I hate that you’re leaving. I really hate it, especially this time.”
“Me, too, Linds. We’ll find a way.”
The Town Car stopped in the parking lot, and we both got out. I leaned against the sun-heated flank of my old Explorer.
I felt tears coming into my eyes as we embraced, exchanged “I love yous” and wishes for a safe trip home.
We hugged and kissed again.
It had been another beautiful day added to our scrapbook of special memories. I could still feel the pressure of his lips on mine, the sting of salt against my whisker-burned cheeks.
I could still feel him, as if he were right there beside me.
But Joe was gone.
Part Three
IN SEARCH OF CAR GIRLS
Chapter 46
I CAME BACK TO THE SQUAD ROOM after lunch with Cindy, feeling several pairs of eyes tracking me as I passed the desks on my way to my office. I was thinking that a week had passed since Caddy Girl’s picture had been posted in the Chronicle, and now Jag Girl’s photo would be running beside it.
It was infuriating that we were still hoping for tips from the public.
Where were the leads?
Why was there so little evidence?
What the hell were we overlooking? How were we messing up?
I waved Jacobi and Conklin into my glass cube and closed the door, hung my jacket up. Conklin sprawled in the chair, his long legs spanning the length of my desk, while Jacobi parked, as usual, on the edge of my credenza.
I told Jacobi and Conklin that I’d put the photo of Jag Girl out to the press and asked if they had anything new.
“My partner’s got something for you, Boxer.” Jacobi isn’t prone to smiling, but I thought I saw a spark of pride light up his stony eyes.
“Yeah, we’ve got sorta good news,” said Conklin as he sat up straight in the chair.
“Any kind of news is good news on this case.”
“We got the DNA back on Caddy Girl’s rape kit.”
“Excellent. What do we know?”
“We got a cold hit, Lou,” Conklin said.
My rising hopes crashed.
A cold hit is a little bit of not much to go on. In this case, there was a matching DNA profile in the database—but the donor’s ID was unknown.
Conklin spread the computer printout on my desk, spun it so it faced me. Then he took me through it, slowly, patiently, the way I took my bosses through detail they were too thick to get.
“This sample came from the sexual assault kit of a white female who was killed in LA two years ago,” Conklin said. “She was in her early twenties—raped, strangled, and found in a field a few days after she was dumped there. No ID on the victim, and she was never identified. LAPD thinks she was a transient.”
“What was she wearing?” I asked him.
“No designer clothes. A polyester top pulled up to her neck. It’s no wonder we didn’t get a hit before,” Conklin said. “Completely different MO than the Car Girls. This victim wasn’t dressed up or posed in a car, but for sure, the same guy who had sex with this victim two years ago had sex with Caddy Girl.”
“Maybe the LA vic was our perp’s first kill,” Jacobi added. “And he’s been polishing up his act ever since.”
“Or maybe he’s got a partner now,” I said, trying on another theory. “Maybe this new cat has a lot more imagination.”
Chapter 47
LEO HARRIS WAS LOCKING UP the register in his Smoke and Joke shop when the bell jingled over the front door.
“I’m done for the night,” the black man said without turning around. “Register’s closed. Come back in the morning. Thank you.”
He heard footsteps shuffling toward the counter anyway, baggy pants whiffing around the customer’s ankles.
“I said, we’re closed.”
“I need some smokes,” the voice said, soft and slurry, a young man’s voice asking, “You got Camels?”
“Try the Searchlight Market,” Mr. Harris said. “You can see it from the door. Right on the corner of Hyde.”
The sixty-six-year-old man closed the cash drawer, turned his blank eyes toward the customer, seeing just his outline, waiting for the kid to leave his shop.
“Put the money on the counter, old man,” the voice said. “Back up to the wall. Keep your hands up and maybe I won’t hurt you.”
Harris was aware of every sound now—the deep breathing of the boy, the buzzing of the neon sign in the window, the dull clang of the trolley at the intersection of Union and Hyde.
He said, “Okay, okay. We don’t have a problem. Let me open the register. I got a hundred bucks under the drawer. Hell, take a carton of cigarettes and just get —”
“Get your hand away from that button!” the boy yelled.
“I’m just opening the register.”
Harris pressed the silent alarm under the counter and at the same time heard the jangle of Midnight’s collar as she ran downstairs from his apartment, starting her nightly patrol of the store.
Harris thought, Oh, no, even as he heard the police dog’s growl. Then the click of the gun, the kid’s scared shout: “Fucking get away from me, dog.”
There was an explosion, a gunshot; then Leo Harris called out, “Midnight!” Then came another deafening explosion that seemed to rock the small room.
Harris clutched at his chest. He fell, grabbing at the toiletries and cigarette cartons, hearing the sound of the punk busting out the door, the door slamming, the tinkling bell. . . .
Then he was thinking about his companion and friend of twelve years, hearing poor Midnight’s yelping and whining over the sounds of bottles falling, broken glass scattering on the floor.
“Someone help us, please! We’ve been shot.”
Chapter 48
LEO HARRIS AWOKE lying on his side, face turned to the wall. He felt Midnight’s muzzle against the back of his neck, her hot breath on his cheek. Then he heard a man’s voice saying, “You okay, Mr. Harris? It’s Larry. Officer Petroff. Can you hear me?”
“My dog. I think he shot Midnight.”
“Yes, sir, she’s right here; looks like she took a shot to her hip. Dragged herself over to you. Easy girl, I’m not going to hurt you. Tell her it’s okay, Mr. Harris.”
“Be still. Thatsa girl.”
“I’ve got EMS coming for you, Mr. Harris, and my partner and I, we’re driving your dog to the animal hospital. She’ll be fine, good as new.”
Leo Harris went out again. When he came to, he felt the bumps as the paramedics jostled him into the ambulance, heard someone call it in: “Emergency room. Paramedic Colomello. We’ve got a male, approximately sixty-five years old, with a GSW to the right thorax. Blood pressure’s one forty over one hundred. Pulse, one fifty. We’ve got decreased breath sounds on his right side. Heart sounds are good. No other obvious injuries. We’re about to transport him. We’ve got normal saline running wide open.”
“Imagine. The little prick shooting a blind man,” Officer Larry Petroff said to his partner.
“I stand corrected, Mr. Harris. Now don’t worry about anything. They’ve got good docs on board at Municipal. Traffic or not, you’ll be there in three minutes. Midnight’s going to be fine, too. You’re both very lucky.”
“Yeah, today’s my lucky day,” said Leo Harris.
Chapter 49
NURSE NODDIE WILKINS was fuming. If she got into her car this minute, she’d still be a half hour late for her date with Rudolpho. This job sucked. It was sucking up her whole life! Plus, the damn hospital was cutting back on her benefits every chance it got. The cheap bastards.
She bumped open the door to room 228 with her hip, careful not to spill the tray. The only light in the room came from the TV. “Hey, Mr. Man,” she called out over the cheers of 49ers fans in an uproar about something stupid and ridiculous.
The nurse angled the tray onto the swinging arm of the bedside table, staying out of her patient’s reach. Mr. Harris was sixty-six and recovering from his gunshot wound; still, she had to move quickly or, legally blind or not, he’d grab her with his good arm. He was nice enough, though, a sweet older guy who sure loved his dog, Midnight.
“I got your dinner, Mr. Harris, and your two ice creams, soon’s I take your blood pressure.”
The nurse turned away from her patient, rolled the blood-pressure machine from the corner toward the bed, expecting to hear his “Sweetheart, fluff my pillow. Thatsa girl.”
Noddie glanced over to the bed. Her stomach dropped the equivalent of half a dozen stories.
Something was wrong.
“Mr. Harris! Mr. Harris!”
She shook the patient’s arm, and his head lolled, coins slipping off his eyes onto the bedding. One of the coins dropped to the floor, rolling to the corner of the room, rattling before it fell flat to the linoleum.
Dear sweet Jesus, it had happened again!
Those horrible coins. On the eyes of Mr. Harris this time.
Chapter 50
FOR THE THIRD MORNING in a row, Yuki pulled open the heavy glass-and-etched-steel door at the Civic Center Courthouse. This was now officially an obsession. The question—was she completely nuts?
She flashed her ID at the security guard and then took the elevator to courtroom 4A.
She was on leave from her job, and it was either come to court every day or go crazy with heartbreak and fury. The only thing that got her out of bed in the morning was that she could watch Maureen O’Mara make her case against Municipal Hospital.
Court was already in session when Yuki entered the packed room. She saw one vacant place in the center of the gallery and wriggled past a dozen pairs of resistant knees before finally taking a seat. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Yuki then sat riveted as men and women who’d lost family members at Municipal took the stand, each witness telling in wrenching testimony how he or she had lost a child, or a spouse, or a parent because of medical neglect and malpractice.
Yuki was still so raw it was all she could do to stop herself from weeping along with the witnesses. But she didn’t cry. She forced herself to look at O’Mara’s case the way a lawyer would.
It was exactly as Cindy had said at Susie’s more than a week ago.
The patients had been admitted through the emergency room, they recovered in the ICU, then something happened and the patient died.
That was exactly what had happened to her mom.
If only she could go back in time and check her mother out of that hellhole.
If only she had done that.
Yuki heard Lawrence Kramer dismiss a tearful mother on the stand. “I have no questions for this witness, thank you.”
As the poor woman choked back sobs, Yuki pressed a handkerchief hard against her own eyes with both hands.
She took deep, painful breaths as Maureen O’Mara called the next witness.
“Call Dr. Lee Chen.”
Chapter 51
YUKI LEANED FORWARD in her seat, scrutinizing the plaintiffs’ witness, Dr. Chen, who spoke with the controlled fervor of an intelligent person who didn’t want to come off as sounding too smart. She knew all too well how that felt. Hell, it was practically her life story.
Chen listed his credentials—an MD from Berkeley, followed by twelve years in the emergency room at San Francisco Municipal.
In response to O’Mara’s questioning, the serious-looking doctor in black-framed glasses told the court about a night when he was the attending physician in the ER and a thirty-year-old woman named Jessica Falk was brought in by ambulance.
“Ms. Falk had been swimming in her pool,” said Chen. “She felt woozy and dialed nine-one-one. She was in ventricular fibrillation when she came into the ER. We defibbed her, got her heart back into normal sinus rhythm so she was stabilized. She was doing just fine,” Chen told the jury. “Then she was transferred to the ICU.”
“Please go on, Dr. Chen,” said O’Mara.
“I knew Ms. Falk pretty well—our daughters go to the same day care center—so I stayed on top of her case. I looked in on Jessie about six hours later, when I was going off my shift. We talked for a while, and she was okay. She missed her little girl was all. But when I checked her chart the next day, I learned that she’d had irregular heartbeats, probably the result of conductive disturbance—and she died.”
“Doctor, did you find that unusual?”
“I thought it was unusual for a woman of Jessica’s age and physical condition.”
“And so, what did you do?”
“I called for a postmortem and a board review.”
“And what were the findings of the autopsy?”
“Somehow Jessie Falk had received epinephrine. It was not prescribed.”
“And what would be the effect of epinephrine on that type of cardiac patient?”
“Epinephrine is a synthetic form of adrenaline for God’s sake. She should have gotten lidocaine, an antiarrhythmic. That would have smoothed out her heart rate. Administering epinephrine was like giving her cocaine. It would be lethal for a cardiac patient.”
“So that’s a pretty big mistake, isn’t it, Dr. Chen? What happened when the hospital board reviewed Ms. Falk’s case?”
“Actually, no action was taken,” the doctor said, biting off his words.
“No action?”
“Well, nothing with respect to Jessie Falk, anyway. I was terminated two weeks later.”
“Because you blew the whistle?”
“Objection! Counsel is leading the witness,” Kramer said, coming to his feet.
“I’ll rephrase, Your Honor. Dr. Chen, why was your employment terminated after twelve years?”
“I was told it was for ‘budgetary reasons.’”
O’Mara dropped her head, letting the power of the doctor’s words stand without embellishment. Then she lifted her face to the witness.
“I only have one more question, Dr. Chen. Who was the doctor who admitted Jessica Falk through the emergency room?”
“Dr. Dennis Garza.”
“To your knowledge, did he conduct a follow-up exam of Mrs. Falk when she was in the ICU?”
“His signature was on the chart.”
“Thank you. That’s all I have for you, Doctor.”
Chapter 52
AS KRAMER GOT UP to cross-examine Dr. Chen, Yuki swung her head, scanning the courtroom until she found Dr. Garza three rows ahead on the aisle. That scum.
He was getting up from his seat, raking his black hair away from his forehead as he headed toward the door. Yuki’s face burned.
Where is that bastard going? Get back here, Garza. You need to listen to this!
Yuki stood, too, excusing herself, working her way across the row of knees again, stepping on toes, banging the bench-back with her briefcase.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
By the time she reached the hallway, Garza was out of sight.
Yuki saw
elevator doors closing. She ran forward, pressed the button, reversing the doors. But the elevator car was empty.
She arrived at the lobby in time to see the back of Garza’s navy-blue jacket, the man striding purposefully, heading away from her and out of the courthouse.
Yuki followed him, her heels clacking loudly on the lobby floor. Now she was wondering what she was going to say or do when she caught up with him.
This was so unlike her, Yuki thought as she pushed open the heavy door, stumbling into the blinding light outside. She wasn’t this impulsive.
She was organized, disciplined.
But right now, she couldn’t stop herself. The obsession was taking over, as if she were in a wild Hitchcock movie.
Yuki searched the sidewalk, saw Garza heading along McAllister toward the Civic Center, head up, forging through the pedestrian traffic.
Yuki followed, running at times to catch up with him, then pacing herself behind him; finally, she called out his name. “Garza!”
The doctor stopped, and he spun around to face her. He squinted his eyes against the sunlight.
Yuki drew closer, stopping just short of handshaking distance.
“I’m Yuki Castellano.”
“Yes, I know who you are. The question is, why are you stalking me?”
“I asked the medical examiner to autopsy my mother’s body,” she said.
Garza struggled not to look surprised. “I hope that made you feel a lot better. Did it?”
“I do feel better, Doctor, because I don’t feel crazy anymore. But I am in a rage. My mother died because you screwed up. Again.”
Garza looked incredibly annoyed now.
“Me? Personally? You’re sure of that?”
“Don’t play games with me. I’m talking about my mother!”
“I’m sure the ME will send me her report. Maybe I’ll even read it.” Then Dr. Garza turned away and walked to a black Mercedes parked at the curb.
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