by Lee Goldberg
"Even if Dawson's death was an accident, that has nothing to do with the information we subsequently uncovered," Steve said. "The fact is, Dad's instincts were right. A respected epidemiologist analyzed the annual data and determined that the odds were one in a trillion that the staggering increase in these kinds of deaths was due to natural causes."
"That's the epidemiologist's interpretation after a cursory examination of the data," she said. "I'm sure I could get a dozen other experts, medical and otherwise, who could give me a dozen other explanations "
"It's your job to prosecute the murderers, not defend them and refute the evidence."
"My job is to make sure there actually is evidence, Detective. I need to be especially vigilant about that in cases where you and your father are concerned. I've been burned before."
"We were right before, and you got the conviction."
"After I was publicly humiliated and nearly lost my career in disgrace along the way," she said. "That's not how I prefer to do my job. You and your father have a habit of building cases out of circumstantial evidence that's shaky at best and information acquired through creative means. Which brings me to my next question: Where did you and Dr. Sloan get the confidential patient records? I don't recall you mentioning anything about obtaining a warrant to search through hospital files. You sure as hell didn't come to me."
Karen made a show of going through her notes, looking for the information she knew wasn't there, then looked at him judgmentally.
Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "They came from a confidential source."
"Who broke the law and violated the privacy of the patients involved. Therefore, any information derived from those stolen records is inadmissible in court. In fact, you and your father could both end up facing criminal charges for theft, invasion of privacy, computer fraud, aiding and abetting—and that's just for starters."
"Fine. Forget those records. We can get the same information through other channels. Or we can obtain the necessary warrants now to look into the hospital files and get what we need," Steve said, ignoring her blustering about his own possible criminal culpability. She wouldn't dare prosecute rim and risk embarrassing the LAPD. "But the facts aren't going to change. The patients are dead. Guyot and Duren were their nurses and their killers."
"Let's talk for a minute about Ms. Duren, shall we? You focused on her because you picked her car at random from footage taken by a traffic camera on the San Diego Freeway."
"She was following the Camaro that nearly ran over my father."
"There were thousands of cars on the freeway at the time. How could you possibly know whether or not she was following him? Maybe she was just going to work."
"He got on the freeway at Wilshire Boulevard and so did she—"
"So do hundreds of vehicles every hour," she interrupted.
"She stayed three car lengths behind him, matched his lane changes all the way into the Valley," Steve continued. "He merged onto the eastbound Ventura Freeway and so did she, three cars behind him. He got off at the Van Nuys exit and headed north, and so did she."
"I'm sure there are lots of people who got on the San Diego Freeway at Wilshire Boulevard, transitioned to the eastbound Ventura Freeway, and got off at the Van Nuys exit. Did you check?"
"No."
"So it could be a coincidence that a nurse who is connected in some way with some of the thousands of natural deaths that occur in Los Angeles each year happened to be driving behind the car that allegedly was involved in the attempt on your father's life."
"She is hardly some innocent stranger. My father was investigating suspicious patient deaths. She is a nurse suspected of killing patients at Beckman Hospital," Steve said, raising his voice, his frustration getting the better of him.
"Even the investigators at the hospital concede they have no proof that she is culpable in any patient's death."
As Steve got more agitated, her voice got lower, more patronizing.
"Because they were unwilling, like you, to exhume the bodies and get that proof," he said. "Thanks to their cowardice and inaction, ten more people are dead."
"Spare me the melodrama," she said. "You don't even know Guyot was in that Camaro. All you know is that his brother stole cars—and you don't even know that, at least not as far as the court is concerned. His brother was convicted as a juvenile, and those records are sealed and therefore inadmissible. I'm such a nice lady, I won't even ask how you broke into those restricted files."
Steve took a deep breath and spoke evenly, almost gritting his teeth to keep from yelling. "No, Counselor, we don't know for a fact that Guyot was driving that Camaro, but he works in the Valley, near where the car was stolen. He worked on the Beckman Hospital critical-care ward with Duren when patients were dying—"
"Imagine, patients dying on a critical-care ward," she interrupted. "I wonder how often that happens?"
Steve ignored the dig and pressed on, even though he knew it was futile. "Five of Guyot's patients died shortly after surviving near-death experiences, and so did five of Duren's. These aren't coincidences. This is a straight line from a pile of corpses to the two people who murdered them."
Karen sighed wearily. "I bet if we look hard enough, which you clearly haven't, we can find other doctors and nurses who live or work in the San Fernando Valley who were also employed at Beckman Hospital. We might even find a few who happened to be traveling on the San Diego Freeway, the main route into the San Fernando Valley, during morning rush hour on the day your father was nearly killed. We might even find some who've had five patients die this year. This isn't a case, Detective. It's a joke."
Steve rose from his seat. "They will kill again. I hope you'll be able to live with yourself when the next corpse comes in."
"I'll sleep just fine," Karen said, tossing her notes into the trash. "I can't prosecute a case without evidence. If you really believe these two are murderers, prove it."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There were restaurants that paid consultants and designers a fortune to replicate the eclectic, beat-up, sawdust-covered-floor character that Barbeque Bob's came by naturally. The ramshackle rib shack was a neighborhood fixture decades before longtime customers Steve Sloan and Jesse Travis bought the place from the original owner and became the guardians of his secret recipes.
The two men met for lunch in one of the back booths, seated on the hard benches across the scratched wooden table from Tanis Archer and Amanda Bentley. A big platter of pork spareribs, slathered in sauce, was in the middle of the table, along with bowls of macaroni salad, potato salad, baked beans, and hot buttered cobbettes of corn.
The four of them were wearing Barbeque Bob's bibs, which was one reason they were sitting in the back booth. Being seen in a bib wouldn't enhance the reputations of either Steve or Tanis as tough cops. Jesse had enough trouble overcoming his boyish looks and instilling confidence in his patients without getting caught wearing a bib. The only one of the foursome who didn't mind the bib was Amanda. One of the pluses of working with corpses was that they didn't care if she looked tough or competent. They were past caring at all.
As they ate, Steve recounted his meeting with ADA Karen Cross and her unwillingness to pursue the case against Duren and Guyot on the basis of the existing evidence they'd gathered.
"The gutless bitch," Tanis hissed.
That was pretty close to Steve's first reaction, too. But once he cooled down and was able to look at the situation objectively, he couldn't blame Karen for her reluctance, considering what he had brought her and the misery he'd inflicted on her in the past.
He recounted that, too.
"You're saying you think she's right?" Amanda asked incredulously. She didn't like the idea that all her research counted for nothing with the DA.
"I believe Wendy Duren and Paul Guyot killed ten people and will kill more if we don't stop them," Steve said. "But what I believe and what we can prove are two different things."
"We did prove it,"
Jesse said. "We found all the connections."
"All we're missing are signed confessions," Tanis said.
"We have no proof that any of those ten people were murdered. We have no physical evidence linking either Duren or Guyot to their deaths," Steve said. "All we have are statistics and a pattern of events that seem to suggest these two might be involved in the deaths. It's all circumstantial at best."
"My God, Cross really brainwashed you," Tanis said. "Are you two sleeping together now or what?"
Steve gave Tanis a sharp look. "We need solid, irrefutable evidence of their guilt. Karen is right. We don't have it yet."
"It's Karen now?" Tanis said.
"If we can't get a court order to exhume the bodies and test their tissues for the presence of drugs," Amanda said, "and if we can't get warrants to search the two nurses' homes, offices, and cars to find the drugs and syringes they've stolen, how are we supposed to prove our case any better than we already have?"
"We'll have to catch them in the act," Steve said.
"You mean walk in on them murdering somebody," Jesse said.
"Yes," Steve said. "Preferably before they actually get to the murdering part."
"How do you propose we do that?" Tanis said. "We don't have the resources or manpower to follow them twenty-four/seven and watch them everywhere they go."
"Which is why we have to know ahead of time where they are going to be," Steve said. "And who they are planning to kill."
"Have you developed amazing psychic powers we don't know about?" Amanda said.
"There's this cable TV cop show about an FBI agent who was hit by lightning and now has visions of missing persons," Jesse said. "She can find people just by taking a nap."
"A nap?" Tanis said. "That's one exciting show."
"It's on Lifetime," Jesse said. "Napping is a big part of its viewers' lives."
"I'm afraid it's going to take more than a good nap to take these killers down," Steve said. "Though we may all need one by the time this is over."
"I haven't been hit by lightning lately," Amanda said, "but I sense you're going to ask us to do a lot of tedious research for you."
"We call it detecting," Steve said.
"You keep saying that," Amanda said. "As if it makes the work somehow more glamorous and thrilling."
"We need to find out why these ten people are dead," Steve said. "How are Duren and Guyot picking their victims? Is it by age, race, medical condition, or who they voted for in the last election? Is it based on where they live, what they eat, or what they do for a living? Or is it entirely random? How often are the murders occurring? Where are the murders being committed? What time are they happening? Somewhere there's a pattern or a motive, and we have to find it."
"Good luck," Jesse said, sliding out of the booth and reaching for his cane, which was propped against the wall. "Where are you going?" Steve said.
"Back to work," Jesse said. "My shift is about to start. But in between patients, I'll look into the hospital records on those ten victims and see what medical commonalities I can find."
"I'll give you a ride," Amanda said.
"Where are you going?" Steve said.
"If I don't do a few more autopsies this afternoon, the bodies are going to start stacking up in the hallway, which is bad for business in a hospital. I'll try to dig up the death certificates on the victims and see what I can determine about how they were killed. Of course, that's all going to be guesswork, since all the victims were in poor health to start with, didn't appear to die of suspicious causes, and weren't autopsied."
"I'll appreciate whatever you can tell me," Steve said to Amanda, then turned to Jesse. "Check in on Dad and let me know how he's doing, okay?"
"Of course," Jesse said and hobbled out with Amanda. Steve sighed and glanced across the table at Tanis. "I guess that leaves just the two of us on this case."
"You mean the two actual police officers," Tanis said. "I wonder if we can protect and serve without a couple of doctors to help us."
"We'll just have to try and muddle through."
"It's my professional opinion as a law enforcement officer that we're going to need a slice of pecan pie to fortify us for this endeavor."
"I think you're right," Steve said and motioned to the waitress.
* * *
After they had successfully fortified themselves, Steve asked Tanis to find out everything she could about Duren and Guyot. Where did they come from? How did they meet? Were they friends? lovers? competitors? members of some bizarre cult? How often did they see each other now? When and where did they get together?
"That's going to require some serious surveillance," Tanis said.
"I know," Steve said. "We'll start tonight. I'll take him, you take her."
"The two of 'em could be a cell of some international terrorist group experimenting with germ warfare," Tanis said as they headed for the door of Barbeque Bob's.
Steve raised an eyebrow. "You think the ten people they killed were guinea pigs for some kind of terrorist attack using a deadly virus?"
She shrugged. "It makes as much sense as any other theory."
"We don't have any other theories," he said, chewing on a toothpick.
"Now we have one," she said.
"A stupid one."
"But one that makes sense if anyone I work for asks me why I'm using my Patriot Act powers to invade privacy and civil rights to find information on two nurses for you."
"Since you put it that way, I think you may be onto something with this germ warfare thing."
They stepped out of Barbeque Bob's into the bright sunlight of a perfect LA afternoon. She took a couple of steps towards her unmarked Crown Vic sedan, then stopped and turned to him.
"You've done an amazing job delegating all your dreary legwork to Amanda, Jesse, and me and leaving nothing for yourself to do."
"That's not true," Steve said. "I'm going to be doing the heavy lifting."
"You better not be referring to lifting the beer from the ice chest to the recliner while you watch ESPN all afternoon."
"I'm going to be thinking deep thoughts," he said.
"Like what?"
"Like trying to find the pattern behind these killings," Steve said.
"Where are you going to look?"
"My house," Steve said. "We've already found the answer. We just don't know it yet. It's somewhere on those dry-erase boards."
She nodded. "If I come up with anything, I'll join you. We can think deep together."
When he got home, he brought in a map of Los Angeles County from his car, spread it out on the kitchen table, and began the process of marking where each of the ten deaths took place.
As he worked, he was reminded of an afternoon several years ago when his father took on a similar task, charting each of the bombings committed by the Sunny View Bomber. Mark saw something that no one else had seen. He literally connected the dots and discovered the bomber was actually writing his name across Los Angeles.
Steve doubted these two psychopaths were doing the same thing, but he wasn't ruling out any possibilities. The only way to find out how the victims were being picked was to examine the killings from every angle.
The locations of the murders were spread out all over Los Angeles. The only thing they had in common was that the deaths all occurred in the victims' homes.
Where they lived alone.
No roommates. No family. No full-time caretakers.
Well, he thought, there was something. But it wasn't exactly a big revelation. It made sense that Duren and Guyot would pick people who were alone and vulnerable. It meant fewer witnesses and no one to come to the victims' rescue.
When Steve was done charting the geography of the filings, he taped the marked-up map to the wall, took a few steps back, and squinted at it, connecting the dots, trying to discern any kind of pattern.
There were no names or dates etched across the landscape. No Satanic symbols. No incomplete geometric shapes. No caricatures of
political figures. Not even a big X to mark the spot.
All Steve managed to do with his squinting was give himself a headache.
He went to the kitchen, got two Advils and dry-swallowed them, then reluctantly returned to face the dry-erase boards and his map again.
In that instant, he was overwhelmed by an emotion so strong he had to take a seat to ride it out.
It was a deep, crippling sadness.
No, that wasn't quite right. It was grief.
He missed his father.
Sure, everyone kept telling him his father was going to be fine, that being unconscious for days was no biggie. That having a hole drilled into his skull was perfectly normal.
There's nothing to worry about, Steve. That's what they all said. But sitting there in that house, his father's house, staring at an impenetrable mystery, he was worried.
The puzzle in front of him filled him with dread. But it was the kind of thing Mark Sloan lived for. His father thrived on the challenge and loved sorting through the morass of information until he found the truth. The best part was doing it with his son.
Steve enjoyed those times, too. Not so much for the task itself but for the opportunity to be with his father, to see Mark work his deductive magic.
But now in the empty house, facing the boards and all the facts in the case, Steve felt alone in a way he never had before.
He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again, he tried to pretend that his father was with him now, not lying in his bed unconscious with a hole in his skull.
What would Dad do? What would Dad say?
Bring order to disorder and the truth will reveal itself.
His father would keep going over and over and over the information in front of him until that magic moment when all the disparate facts fell into place in his mind.
Fine, Steve told himself. That's what I will do.
He got up, grabbed a dry-erase marker, and went to the last board, the one that listed all the victims.
Okay, now what?
He looked at the names on the board and, for lack of a better idea, began with the simplest task: listing the victims in chronological order according to when they died. He wrote their names in two columns, side by side, under the name of the nurse who killed them.