by Lee Goldberg
"Our camera doesn't record," she said. "We use it to see who is ringing the buzzer. No one gets in who doesn't belong."
So whoever killed Vivian Hemphill was someone she either knew or was expecting. Like a nurse she'd met at the hospital, coming to check on how she was doing.
"Isn't that an incredible view?" Mabel held both her lands up to the window, as if she was one of those models presenting the showcase prizes on The Price Is Right. She was a little old even for Bob Barker.
Steve looked out at the other apartment buildings on White Oak Boulevard, the traffic on the Ventura Freeway, and the open dumpsters behind Valu-Rite Oil and Lube.
"Charming," he said.
"There's more. We have a potluck dinner the last Friday of every month down by the pool," she said. "You haven't lived until you've tasted my marshmallow salad. I know you'd be very happy here."
"I don't think we're old enough," Tanis said.
"To be honest," Mabel said conspiratorially, "we're trying to attract a younger demographic."
Steve met Norman Hemphill, the late Vivian Hemphill's forty-seven-year-old son, at the mortuary in Burbank and asked for permission to have his mother moved to the morgue for an autopsy. Tanis was in the car on the phone, arranging for the transfer of the body on the assumption that Norman would agree.
Norman Hemphill was turnip-shaped, with the basset-hound face of a man continually suffering all of life's woes.
"I don't understand," he whined. "Dr. Endicott said she died of natural causes. She was done in by old age, a weak ticker, and a pack-a-day cigarette habit."
"We have reason to believe that she met with foul play," Steve said.
"What reason?" Norman asked.
"I wish I could tell you, but I can't, not without jeopardizing an ongoing homicide investigation."
"But I already invited everyone to the funeral," Norman said.
"I'm sure they will understand."
Norman frowned. "Will this cost me extra?"
"Excuse me?" Steve asked.
"Am I going to have to pay for the autopsy?"
"No," Steve said.
"Will there be any associated costs related to the autopsy?" Norman said. "You know, in terms of making her presentable for an open-casket funeral."
"I don't think so, but if there are, we'll work something out with the mortuary."
"If she was murdered, does that mean I don't have to pay for the funeral?"
"No," Steve said. "You still have to pay for it."
"Shouldn't the murderer have to pay the bill, since it's his fault she's dead?"
"You'd think so," Steve said. "But sadly, that isn't the case."
"Then what good will it do me to have her autopsied?"
Steve stared at him. "Because if she was murdered, the autopsy will help us gather the evidence we need to put whoever did it behind bars for life."
"And if she wasn't murdered?"
"Then no harm done," Steve said.
Norman considered it for a moment and then nodded his head with a world-weary, life-weary, and all-around-weary sigh.
"I can't imagine who would want to kill her," Norman said. "It's not like there was anything to inherit."
"I guess that rules you out, then," Steve said.
* * *
After several hours of going through the medical files with Susan, Mark was no closer to understanding what was going on than he was before.
The one thing that became clear very quickly was that his son was right about the "game over" pattern and that the deaths Mark was investigating had occurred before, and during,the time frame of those ten murders.
Mark was trying to determine if the deaths that he found suspicious were actually moves in another game, one that was being played at the same time but under a different set at rules.
If so, what were those rules?
He made a list of the victims he'd identified so far:
Grover Dawson
Sandy Sechrest
Hammond McNutchin
Joyce Kling
Leila Pevney
Chadwick Saxelid
There were probably others, Mark feared, but these were the only names he had at the moment. He organized the victims alphabetically by first and last names, and then chronologically by date of death as well as date of birth, trying to see if another word was spelled out by the first letters of their given names or their surnames.
There wasn't.
Susan ran the names through several anagram programs that she'd found on the Web, to see if the names alone or in pairs or all together spelled anything interesting.
They didn't.
Mark tried integrating his list of names with those of the other ten victims, rearranging them alphabetically and chronologically again. Still, nothing came of it. The anagram program gave them hundreds of awkward sentences.
So Mark and Susan examined the causes of death.
The ten cases that Steve investigated all seemed to be deaths by natural causes.
The six deaths that Mark was examining appeared, at least on the surface, to be a mix of natural causes, fatal drug interactions, and tragic accidents. Joyce Kling was a lupus patient who died of respiratory failure. Chadwick Saxelid took his nitro tablets when he shouldn't have. Leila Pevney succumbed to an overdose of sinus medication. Sandy Sechrest was electrocuted when her hair dryer fell in the bathtub. And so it went.
What those six victims had in common was that they had all survived previous brushes with death, they were all missing personal items, and they all got their prescriptions filled by Kemper-Carlson.
What about the other ten victims?
Only two of the ten were covered by insurance companies that required them to use Kemper-Carlson to deliver their medications. Unfortunately, there was no way for Mark and Susan to determine if the victims were missing anything unless they went out and interviewed their next of kin or close friends.
By nightfall, both he and Susan were exhausted and their efforts had accomplished nothing. But he was glad to have had the opportunity to spend the day working with her. She was conscientious, thorough, and single-minded. And yet, there was never a moment during the day when Mark wasn't aware of her keeping a watchful eye on him, attuned to the slightest change in his comfort or level of energy.
She brought him food, coffee, and medication before he was even aware he needed or wanted it. There was a reason she was such a good nurse.
The affection that Mark felt for Susan was undoubtedly heightened by the memory of nearly losing her. Although it was just a bad dream, he still felt the lingering sadness and fear. He wanted her to know how much he appreciated her, especially since he'd obviously been remiss in showing it before.
He felt as if he'd lived his own personal version of It's a Wonderful Life and now had a chance to recognize the wrongs he'd done and right them before it was too late.
Mark thanked her for coming and made a point of telling her how much he'd enjoyed their time together, even though much of it was spent hunched over files and laptop computer screens.
"I enjoyed it, too, Dr. Sloan," she said, then added, "I mean, Mark."
Susan had to go home and get some sleep before her next shift, but she didn't leave until she'd changed Mark's bandages and got him to promise he'd call her if he needed anything at all.
Mark kept working on the files for a while after she left, looking for that elusive pattern, but it didn't emerge—and even if it had, he would have been too tired to see it.
It was there, though, right in front of his face. He was convinced of it.
He trudged off to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Susan was alive but dead.
Mark knew it was her even though her head injuries were so bad it looked as if her face had been attacked with a machete.
Her body was laid out on a bed in the ICU. She wasn't a human being anymore. She was an incubator. All kinds of tubes ran between her and the life-support equipment, sustaining her body so that th
e unborn child in her swollen belly might live. But the machines were covered with dust and cobwebs, dragged out of the hospital basement, where they had apparently been rotting for at least twenty-five years. It was amazing that they still worked
Susan was wearing a bloodstained wedding dress, which was bizarre, since she wasn't wearing it when she had her accident. But that wasn't the only weird thing about it. She was wearing Emily Noble's wedding dress, the one Emily had worn when she married Mark.
Emily was standing right there beside the bed, but she didn't seem to care about the wedding dress or the woefully outdated equipment. She looked over to Mark.
"There isn't going to be a problem keeping her alive until the baby comes to term," Emily said.
"What will happen to the baby after that?" Mark asked, much to his own surprise. There were lots of other, more pressing questions on his mind. He wasn't exactly sure what those questions were, but he knew they had to be a lot more important than the one he'd asked.
"That's for social services to decide," Emily said. "I'm sure she'll go to a good family."
"She?"
"It's a girl," Emily said.
Mark awoke with a jolt, instantly alert, the bizarre dream still fresh in his mind. He was in his bed at the beach house, the morning light leaking between the closed slats of the shutters on his windows.
He reviewed the dream. Once again, he'd been married to Emily Noble and Susan was brain-dead and pregnant.
What was the meaning of Susan's tragic fate? Why was Susan wearing Emily's wedding dress? Why was it bloody? Why was all the life-support equipment so old? Why was Mark married to Emily Noble and what did she represent?
As weird as the dream was, there was something unsettlingly familiar about it.
Was it because it harked back to the dreams he had had while he was at Community General? Or was there something else about it that was tugging at his memory?
What the hell was his subconscious trying to tell him?
He wouldn't find out by lying in bed.
Mark threw off his sheets, put on his bathrobe, and using his walker for support, went down the hall to the living room. He was still weak and light-headed, but his strength was returning fast. With luck, he would be able to ditch the walker and rely on a cane for support before the day was out.
He found Steve, already dressed for work, adding another name to the list of Guyot's victims on the dry-erase board. Steve wasn't telling Mark about it; he was just adding a note to a board, as if the information wasn't worth sharing. It felt to Mark like a betrayal.
"There was another murder?" Mark said, trying hard to mask his feelings.
Steve turned to his father. "Not that we can prove yet. But yes, there was another one. How are you feeling this morning?"
"Like someone drilled a hole in my head." And stabbed me in the back, Mark thought. He read the name on the board: Vivian Hemphill. "How did you find out about her death?"
"She was one of the names on the list," Steve said. "We just didn't get to her in time."
"What list?" Mark said. There was no disguising the edge in his voice anymore.
Steve grimaced. This was clearly a conversation he wanted to avoid, at least for now.
So why did Steve add the name to the list at all? Mark wondered. It certainly wasn't for Mark's benefit.
Steve had done it for himself, so he could get a clear picture of the crime, to see if actually looking at the facts in front of him jogged any new conclusions.
"A list of potential victims," Steve said. "People with first or last names that begin with V. Amanda and Jesse put it together for us yesterday."
Mark felt his face flushing with anger, but he tried to keep his voice steady. Steve would get sullen and defensive in response to anger, and Mark knew he would get more attitude and even less information from him if that happened.
"Why wasn't I told about this list?" Mark asked.
"Because it didn't involve you."
"They tried to kill me. I had to have a hole drilled in my skull to save my life," Mark said evenly. "That makes me involved."
"You were in no condition to go down to the morgue for a briefing."
"So you could have had it here," Mark said. "Or you could have simply called me up and put me on the speaker."
"Why? We know who the killers are. What difference would it have made telling you about the list?" Steve said, the color rising in his face now, too. "Vivian Hemphill would still be dead. Nothing would have changed."
"I could have helped you."
"How?" Steve snapped. "What could you have done that would have made any difference at all?"
"We'll never know now, will we?"
"You're supposed to be in a hospital bed. The last thing you should be doing is trying to help anyone. You need to take care of yourself and leave the police work to me."
Mark glared at him defiantly. "Were there any personal terns missing from the victim? Did she get her drugs from Kemper-Carlson?"
"I don't know. Her name began with a V. That's all that matters right now."
"Did anyone see Guyot or Duren at the scene?"
Steve had a decision to make. He could walk away now and end this conversation for the time being or give his father the answers he wanted and hope that would mollify him rather than provoke him into action.
Mark knew the alternatives his son was weighing and waited for him to decide.
Steve sighed, giving in. When he spoke, the anger was gone from his voice, replaced by weariness. "No. She lived in an apartment building. There's a closed-circuit security camera at the door so residents can see who is ringing their buzzers. But the camera isn't hooked to any recording device. The camera is so old, it probably only records to kinescope anyway."
"What about fingerprints and other forensic evidence in the apartment?"
"Until we have some proof that Vivian Hemphill didn't die of natural causes I can't bring in a CSI unit," Steve said. "Even if I could, I'm pretty certain we wouldn't find anything useful. These nurses are pretty slick about covering their tracks."
"There's always the body."
Steve gave his dad a withering look, as if Mark had reminded him that it was necessary to breathe. "I talked the victim's son into letting Amanda do an autopsy. I'm waiting on the results."
"Let me know when they come in."
"Dad, there is no mystery here," Steve said firmly. "We know who the killers are. All the autopsy will do is confirm what we already know is going on."
Mark moved closer to his son and looked him in the eye. When he spoke, he tried to do so without bitterness. "Why are you shutting me out of this investigation?"
"I'm not," Steve said. "I'm trying to keep you healthy. The investigation is over. All that is left now is the endgame."
"You haven't caught them yet," Mark said. "So where does that leave the other potential victims? What are you doing for them?"
"We have them under constant surveillance."
"I thought you didn't have any manpower besides Tanis Archer," Mark said.
"I don't even have her officially. I have the targets under electronic surveillance."
Steve motioned to a laptop that was open and running on the kitchen table. He explained that the screen was divided into four windows, each showing a wide-angle live video and audio feed from a target's home.
"Meanwhile, we're watching the two psycho nurses the old-fashioned way," Steve continued. "Tanis is parked outside of Paul Guyot's house, which is where Duren spent the night. They're still there. I just came back for a shower and a fresh set of clothes."
Mark glanced at the laptop, then back to his son with a look of disapproval. "You're using those innocent people as bait."
"I didn't pick them," Steve said. "The killers did."
"You could place them all in protective custody," Mark said.
"No, I can't. I don't have the evidence." Steve went to the kitchen table and started packing his laptop and cables into a leather carryin
g case.
"You could warn them," Mark insisted, hobbling after him. "Let them know that Guyot and Duren are dangerous."
"I can't do that either, for the same reason. No evidence."
"Better safe than sorry."
"It's not that simple, Dad. If we warn these people and Guyot or Duren finds out, the two of them could disappear tomorrow, show up somewhere else with new names and start their killing game all over again. Or they could stick around and sue the department for spreading career-damaging lies about them, which would cost me my badge and the city millions of dollars. Or—"
"I get the point," Mark interrupted. "But there has to be a better way."
"When you think of one, let me know." Steve grabbed his laptop case and walked to the door.
"I thought you didn't need my help," Mark said to his back.
Steve stopped, let out a deep breath, then turned back to face Mark. "Please try to rest, Dad. If you have your heart set on solving crimes today, do me and yourself a big favor and watch some Murder, She Wrote reruns instead."
He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Amanda called Steve on his cell phone five minutes after he left the house. He was in his car, heading south on the Pacific Coast Highway and already regretting his argument with his father—not that there was any way he could have avoided it. They would patch things up when the case was closed and Mark was himself again.
"I've just finished the autopsy," Amanda said. "I thought you'd like the headlines before I write up my report."
"Give me the front-page headline," Steve said.
"I'm calling it murder," Amanda said.
Steve thought that was an unusual way of putting it, an equivocation of sorts. "What would someone else call it?"
"Natural causes."
"But you're the medical examiner," Steve said. "It's what you say that counts."
"Until we get into court. Then what counts is whatever the jury believes."
"Tell me what you believe."
"Vivian Hemphill's doctor determined, based on her age, past medical history, and external evidence, that she died from cardiac arrest," Amanda said. "He was right. She did. But I found what I consider to be unusually high levels of epinephrine in her blood. The drug can cause a lethal change in the heart rate, especially for someone her age and with advanced coronary disease."