by Lee Goldberg
"You found the drug in her system," Steve said. "Sounds open and shut to me."
Amanda let out a deep breath. "In the final moments before death, your body releases large amounts of epinephrine from the adrenal glands in a last-ditch effort to survive. Think of it as your internal cardiologist trying to jolt you back to life. So finding high levels of epinephrine in the blood after death isn't unusual. That's what makes epinephrine poisoning very difficult to prove."
"Even if the level of epinephrine in her blood is higher than normal?"
"That's the problem. Unless the level of epinephrine is outrageously high, it's hard to know how much of it is endogenous, from within the body, and how much was introduced exogenously, from outside the body," Amanda said. "It's a subjective determination. I'm saying that based on my experience, Vivian Hemphill's epinephrine level was too high. Another ME might disagree."
And Steve was sure that whoever defended Guyot and Duren in court would find at least one expert witness who would convincingly dispute Amanda's findings.
Steve swore to himself.
Guyot and Duren weren't simply thrill killers. They were careful thrill killers. It took cunning to choose a drug that the body produces naturally and inject just enough into the victims to kill them but not enough to clearly indicate murder.
"She wasn't on an IV," Steve said. "So if she was injected with epinephrine, there must be a puncture mark somewhere on her body."
"There was," Amanda said.
Steve smiled to himself. Even the most clever killers have to make a mistake sometime. "Well, isn't that all the proof we need that she was injected with epinephrine?"
"It would be, except—"
He interrupted her. "Oh no, please don't say 'except.' I don't want to hear 'except.'"
"Vivian Hemphill saw her doctor the morning of her death and was given a blood test. The puncture wound could be from that."
Guyot knew she'd gone in to John Muir for an exam. He planned the murder to coincide with her visit. And he gave her the deadly injection in the same spot where the doctor had drawn blood.
Oh, they're clever all right, Steve thought.
"If we were to exhume the other victims," he asked, "would you be able to detect if they also had high levels of epinephrine in their tissues?"
"If the bodies are still mostly intact, probably," she said. "But if the bodies are severely decayed, embalmed, or only skeletal remains exist, no."
Steve slammed his fist against the dashboard in fury. "So we're back where we started."
"Not quite," Amanda said. "I'm saying that Vivian Hemphill was murdered. That makes this an official homicide investigation now."
"But I still can't arrest Guyot or Duren," Steve said. "I don't have anything "
"Now you have a corpse," Amanda said.
"No," Steve said grimly. "Now I have eleven of them. This is just the only one that hasn't been buried yet."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Steve met Tanis in her car, which was parked up the street from Guyot's house. Her laptop was open on the passenger seat. Her cell phone was plugged into the computer, giving ner an Internet connection. On the screen, she had the four surveillance feeds up and running.
"You're really multitasking," Steve said.
"I figure if Guyot or Duren were to slip past me, which is entirely possible given how tired I am, I'd better keep an eye on our targets, too."
"You just want to see if Vincent Kunz has sex."
"I've got twenty bucks riding on that bet," she said. "The old man is going to get lucky. You'll see."
"I don't want to see," Steve said. "Go home. I'll take over watching Wendy Duren. Get some sleep and a shower. Especially a shower."
"Who is going to watch Guyot?"
"Jesse will follow him until you've rested up," Steve said. "Guyot is working in the hospital all day anyway. He won't make his move, if he's going to make one, until nightfall."
"Are you willing to gamble one of their lives on that?" Tanis said, gesturing to the live feeds on the laptop. The four targets all seemed to have forgotten the cameras were there; they were going about their business without so much as a glance at the lens.
"I may not have to for much longer" Steve said. "Amanda says that Vivian Hemphill was murdered. We can get some more detectives on this stakeout detail."
"Based on what?" Tanis said. "Until you've got real evidence that can link Guyot and Duren to her death, the captain will never okay the overtime for surveillance."
"Since when are you the voice of reason?"
"Fatigue makes me reasonable. I lose the energy to delude myself," Tanis said, punctuating her comment with a yawn. "How's your dad?"
"Mad," Steve said. "He thinks he's being excluded from the investigation."
"He is."
"The man should be in a hospital," Steve said irritably. "He's in no shape to be involved."
"Is that the reason?"
"Yeah," Steve said. "What the hell else do you think it is?"
"Why don't you the hell tell me?" she said.
"Sweet dreams." Steve got out, slammed the door, and marched back to his own car.
"Gee," Tanis said to herself. "I wonder if I touched a nerve."
Jesse stopped by the beach house on his way to John Muir Hospital. He was going to take Malibu Canyon into the Valley, thus avoiding the gridlock and misery of the northbound San Diego Freeway.
"What are you going to the Valley for?" Mark asked while Jesse changed his bandages and examined the burr hole in his skull.
"Steve didn't tell you?"
"I'm out of the loop," Mark said.
Jesse hesitated. "I'm following Paul Guyot while Tanis rests up."
"I'd like to tag along," Mark said casually.
"This is a twist," Jesse said. "Usually I'm the one begging to be included."
"Now you finally have the chance to return the favor."
"I wish I could."
"You can," Mark said.
"You shouldn't even be home, much less sitting in a car on a stakeout."
"I'll just be sitting in your car instead of on this couch," Mark said. "Plus I'll be under a physician's observation at all times."
"I can't," Jesse said. "I'm saying that as your doctor and as your friend."
"If you were my friend, you'd bring me along."
"You're not really missing anything, anyway. The case is all but over."
"What did Amanda find in her autopsy on Vivian Hemphill?"
Jesse told him.
Mark raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It's how they made the deaths look like natural causes," Jesse said.
"Not Grover Dawson, not Joyce Kling, not Chadwick Saxelid," Mark said. "The MO isn't consistent."
"Maybe because they weren't murdered."
Mark looked Jesse in the eye. "You're doubting me now, too?"
Jesse shifted his gaze. "No, it's just that—"
"What?" Mark prodded. "Say it."
"You did your investigation in a coma. Are you really surprised that what you discovered doesn't fit perfectly with the real-world investigation?"
"I didn't dream up the facts," Mark said.
"Epinephrine could have been used to kill the patients at Beckman Hospital, couldn't it?"
"Yes," Mark said.
"And those murders didn't spell 'Game Over,' did they?"
"No."
"And those deaths didn't appear to be accidents or fatal drug interactions, did they?"
"No."
"So the only cases that aren't consistent with epinephrine poisoning are the ones you pulled out of your dream."
Jesse had never challenged Mark like this before. Mark didn't particularly like it. The defiance especially irritated him since he knew that Jesse wouldn't be challenging him unless the young doctor felt he had a strong argument and his mentor was obviously in the wrong.
"Those were the cases I was investigating before I hit my head," Mark said. "I
didn't imagine them."
"Do you think Paul Guyot and Wendy Duren are killers?"
"Yes," Mark said.
"Do you believe that between them they've killed at least eleven people?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you arguing with Steve?"
Mark sighed. "Because something doesn't fit. We're missing something."
"All the pieces will fall into place after those two nurses are arrested."
"And if they don't?"
"At least two killers will be off the street and in prison." Jesse finished bandaging Mark's head and admired his handiwork. "I'd like to schedule the bone graft for early next week."
Mark shrugged. "You're the doctor."
"You have to be very careful. The risk of infection is high. And if you were to trip and fall, your head could crack open like an egg."
"I won't wear my roller skates today."
"Good idea. I'll see you tomorrow."
Jesse smiled and hurried off to play detective, leaving Mark alone and on the sidelines of the investigation.
But the more Mark thought about it, the less angry he became. So what if he wasn't on the street? So what if he wasn't included in the briefings? If he could solve most of the mystery while in a coma in a hospital bed, he could certainly figure out the rest while conscious in his living room.
After all, the missing pieces were right here, hidden in the patient files and in the images in his dreams.
All he had to do was figure it out.
How hard could it be?
Mark sat himself down with the files again and went to work. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he hoped he'd know it when he saw it.
Paul Guyot left the house first, bouncing to the beat of whatever he was listening to on his iPod. Steve called ahead to Jesse, who was just arriving in front of the John Muir Hospital parking structure. He told Jesse to call him the moment Guyot showed up.
Ten minutes after Guyot drove off, Wendy Duren emerged from the house in her Appleby nurse's uniform, her hair still wet from her shower. She got into her car and drove to the Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard. Steve was tempted to follow her inside, if only to get himself a fresh coffee.
She emerged carrying a cup of coffee and a paper bag, got into her car, and drove east on Ventura Boulevard. He stayed a couple of car lengths behind her as she took the on-ramp and merged onto the eastbound Ventura Freeway.
Duren stayed in the far right lane. Steve moved one lane over, and as the traffic ebbed and flowed, he found himself at times either a car length or two in front of her or behind her.
Steve didn't dare glance at her when he passed her car for fear of catching her eye. They were transitioning to the southbound San Diego Freeway when Jesse called Steve to report that Guyot had arrived at John Muir Hospital.
"Stay on him until Tanis shows up," Steve said. "If he leaves, call me right away."
"You got it," Jesse said excitedly. "This is fun."
"Let's see how fun you think it is after you've been sitting there for a few hours, you back is aching, your legs are stiff, and your bladder is about to burst."
"I've got my laptop tuned in to the four possible targets."
"See anything?"
"Vincent Kunz is picking his nose and reading the sports section."
"Detective work doesn't get much more exciting than that," Steve said and hung up.
Wendy Duren took the westbound Santa Monica Boulevard exit off the San Diego Freeway. On a hunch, Steve dialed Appleby Nursing Services and got the receptionist.
"Hello, my name is Phil Bevnic. I'm Wendy Duren's brother-in-law," Steve said. "Her sister has had a little accident. Nothing too serious, just a broken arm, but I thought she should know. I called over to Clara Corn's place, but they said she wasn't working there today."
"She was there yesterday," the receptionist said. "Have you tried her cell?"
"Yeah," Steve said. "I couldn't reach her. She must be in a bad zone. The Sepulveda Pass or one of the canyons."
"Do you have Roberta Karsch's phone number?"
"Is she the one in Santa Monica?"
"No, Mrs. Karsch lives in North Hollywood," the receptionist said. "Wendy should be there around noon. You could try her there."
The receptionist gave Steve the number, but he didn't pay any attention to it. His heart was pounding so hard the sound of it drowned out her words. He thanked her and ended the call.
It looked like Wendy Duren might be in a big hurry to catch up with her lover by scoring a kill and a V of her own.
The endgame could be coming sooner than Steve had thought.
He had a pretty good idea where Duren was going.
Steve broke off his tail, made a hard left off the boulevard, and took a shortcut, putting his bubble light on the top of his truck as soon as he was out of Duren's sight. He weaved at high speed around cars and roared through intersections to gain time on his adversary.
He was parked in front of Alan Vernon's house, with his laptop powered up and already streaming the live audio and visual feed when Wendy Duren drove past him and disappeared around the corner.
Steve wasn't worried about losing her. He figured she was parking away from the house so no one would take note of her car and license plate.
Sure enough, she appeared on foot a few moments later, carrying her Starbucks bag and with her nursing uniform unbuttoned just enough to show a tantalizing hint of cleavage.
As she walked up to Vernon's front door, Steve opened his glove box, took out a handheld TV that was about the size of an iPod, and tuned it to the short-range signal emitted from the surveillance cameras.
He got the earpiece in place just as Vernon opened the front door. The sound and picture were crisp and clear on the tiny screen.
"Mr. Vernon?" Duren asked.
"Alan Vernon," he said boldly, as if introducing himself to her and a television audience, which, as it turned out, he was. "What can I do for you, young lady?"
"I'm Wendy Duren from Appleby Nursing Services."
"That would explain the nurse's uniform," he said with a grin. "I wasn't expecting anyone from the agency until this afternoon."
Steve got out of his truck, closed the door quietly, and made his way towards the house, crouching and using the row of parked cars for concealment. He kept his eyes on the tiny TV screen.
"Your doctor called us this morning. He says you need a shot and he didn't want you to have to schlep all the way to his office in your condition, not for the two seconds it will take to get the injection." She held up the Starbucks bag and flashed her best smile. "I have some sweets to make up for the sting."
Steve wondered if she was referring to her pastries or her open shirt or both. Whatever enticements she was offering, they worked. Vernon stepped aside and welcomed death into his home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It was the most gripping drama Jesse had ever seen. One of the killer nurses was in Alan Vernon's house. And, incredibly, Jesse could see and hear it all as he sat in his parked car in the San Fernando Valley. But he wasn't watching a DVD of a TV show or a movie on his laptop. This was real life. There were no immunity idols or tribal councils. The loser of this reality show was going either to prison or to the grave.
From the day they were born, Alan Vernon, Wendy Duren, and Steve Sloan had been following an inexorable trajectory to the next few moments.
This was too compelling to miss. Jesse couldn't have stopped watching even if he'd wanted to.
And he didn't.
So he stared at his screen in stunned fascination as the deadly scene unfolded. Meanwhile, people walked by on the sidewalk outside, completely unaware of him or the violent forces of fate that were converging like three runaway trains on a tiny bungalow in Santa Monica.
Wendy Duren opened the bag of pastries and set them out for Alan Vernon on the living room table, then helped him to his seat, pressing his arm against her side so he could feel her breast against his skin.
"I hope you like cinnamon coffee cake and blueberry muffins, Mr. Vernon."
"I love them," Vernon said, sitting carefully in his seat, facing the front door. "You didn't have to go to all this trouble for me."
"It was the least I could do," she said behind him, opening her purse and pulling out a syringe and a tiny vial.
"Sort of like a last meal?" He chuckled in that boisterous, insincere manner that had been perfected by anchormen, evangelists, and salesmen over the ages.
"You could say that," Duren said lightheartedly as she plunged the needle into the vial and drew out the drug.
"I'm not afraid of shots. I've had so many lately, I don't even feel them anymore." Vernon started rolling up the sleeve over his pale right arm.
"This will be your last shot," Duren said, turning around and approaching him.
"Do you promise?" Vernon asked, propping his arm on the armrest of the chair for her. A big vein pulsed in the crook of his elbow, just under his thin skin. She dabbed his skin with an antiseptic wipe.
"On your life," she said, tossing the wipe on the table and bringing the needle down to his skin, her thumb on the plunger.
"Mine?" he said with another chuckle. "Isn't it supposed to be yours?"
Things were happening too fast. Steve wasn't even at the front door yet. He tossed the TV set on the ground, drew his gun, and charged towards the house.
As he ran, Steve wondered if Vernon had set the dead bolt. He doubted it. Vernon probably hadn't even bothered to lock the door. The only thing holding the door in place would be a weak little doorknob.
Not that it mattered now. Steve was committed to action. There was no stopping, even if it meant breaking bones. He turned his left shoulder to the door, braced himself for the pain, and threw his entire body weight against it, propelled by the momentum of his run.
The door blasted open, splintering the wood of the doorframe, and Steve spun inside, landing in a firing stance, his gun aimed directly at Alan Vernon.
Wendy was behind Vernon, her left arm across his throat, her hand gripping his right shoulder, pinning him in his seat. Her right hand held the syringe, the needle tip already breaking his skin, a rivulet of blood rolling down his arm.