Ricochet

by Paula Gosling

  ‘Sure . . . it’s not really very complicated,’ David told him.

  ‘This is getting creepy,’ Dan said. ‘What is it about the Waxman Boys?’

  ‘Our unique qualities are being recognized, that’s all,’ David said, grinning. ‘It’s a small world.’

  ‘I believe someone already said that,’ Dan observed. He considered for a moment, leaning back as the waitress took away their salad plates and put their main courses down before them. The aroma of hot spices percolated upwards, making his mouth water. ‘Maybe this assignment of mine is a cover-up,’ Dan mused. ‘Maybe Sergeant Pinsky thinks I killed Ricky and he wants to see if I come up with anything or not.’

  ‘Come on,’ David said. ‘You’re getting paranoid. Have you come up with anything?’

  ‘Not really. Not yet.’ Dan cut into his enchiladas. ‘The trouble is Ricky was all over the place, always asking questions. That’s why the guys in pathology make me wonder. They are pretty paranoid themselves about their work. Especially the genome stuff. Murphy acts like he’s developing germ warfare for some unnamed country – and he could be, he’s a mercenary type. Even Ivan Sherwin, normally a sweetheart – you’d think he was on the verge of a cure for AIDS. When they see me coming, they actually cover up their notes. Even Forster and Duggan – and I’ve dated both of them – give me the cold shoulder.’

  ‘Maybe because you’ve dated both of them,’ David suggested with a grin.

  Dan shook his head. ‘No. They’re all a little nuts down there next to the morgue. Oncology is serious, paediatrics is jolly, psych is actually quite normal, considering. But path—’ He hummed the theme from Twilight Zone. ‘If it makes me curious, it probably made Ricky curious. But that’s as far as I’ve got.’

  ‘So one of them killed this Ricky kid in order to be the first to publish his findings? He thought Ricky would steal his research?’

  ‘No, that doesn’t make sense. Ricky was just a pre-med student. He was very smart and pretty advanced, but he wouldn’t have known half of what he was seeing. If that.’

  ‘Well, maybe it isn’t medical,’ David suggested thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it’s to do with administration, budget, something like that. Maybe he found something that showed someone was stealing money from the hospital funds.’

  ‘How the hell would he do that?’ Dan asked, amazed. Something like that would never have occurred to him.

  David shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But you see only the medical side. A hospital is run by managers and accountants – plenty of bureaucrats, plenty of opportunities for siphoning off money . . . you should think about it.’

  Dan looked reflective. ‘Barney does all the admin for path grants as well as running the department itself. And he places the orders for equipment, supplies, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And is he the type to have sticky fingers?’

  ‘I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first thing I thought about him, but I suppose it’s possible. Maybe I should tell Pinsky about Barney. They could investigate that – the police have people who specialize in financial crime, don’t they?’

  ‘I think so,’ David said, pushing away his empty plate after spooning up the last drop of sour cream.

  Dan eyed him. ‘How come you come up with stuff like this all the time? You’re supposed to be a musician, head in the clouds, listening to the music of the spheres or whatever the hell it is you listen to.’

  ‘Whatever I do seems to turn into business for someone or other,’ David said. ‘The Internet site, the personal computer idea . . . whether I want to or not, I get to find out about all kinds of financial and commercial crap. People just take ideas and run . . . and then I get all the flak.’

  ‘Some flak,’ Dan said, with slight envy. ‘Money, you mean.’

  ‘Well, yes. And I don’t care about money any more than you do . . . but it keeps coming in.’

  ‘I should be so lucky,’ Dan mourned. ‘You know what I earn.’

  ‘Invent a new surgical instrument,’ David suggested. ‘There’s money in that, isn’t there?’

  ‘It isn’t enough I have to run the ER and play amateur detective, you want me to start being an inventor already?’ Dan asked plaintively.

  ‘Only if you want to make money,’ David answered.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Good,’ David said approvingly. ‘And when you do, I know just the guys to market it.’

  Dan eyed him. ‘You have gone over to the dark side, haven’t you?’

  ‘Only on Wednesdays,’ David explained. ‘I only think commercially on Wednesdays. Otherwise I’d go nuts. And today is Wednesday.’

  Dan glanced at his watch. ‘Which means I’m due in the ER in twenty minutes.’

  ‘It also means I get stuck with the bill – again,’ David grumbled good-naturedly.

  ‘I am but a poor struggling hospital doctor still burdened by academic debt,’ Dan said. ‘My head is awhirl with possibilities, problems and patients. You, on the other hand, are a Wednesday Man when it comes to finance. Pay the bill.’

  David laughed. ‘OK . . . but tell you what. If I do find out who this phone caller is, you have to get him some psychiatric help or something.’

  ‘I’ll think about that too.’ Dan waved and dashed out of the door. David sat at the table a bit longer, musing about the coincidence. It seemed as if – whether they wanted to or not – the Waxman Boys were getting tangled up in murder and wrongdoing. It was interesting. Very interesting. Despite himself he realized he was enjoying his contact with crime. Which was wrong. Wasn’t it?

  ‘It’s just a coincidence,’ Stryker said. Neilson had handed him Ricky’s class schedule, which Pinsky had left for him at the desk downstairs along with a note asking him to show it to Stryker and argue his case for him. He said he didn’t trust himself not to kick Stryker or Fineman in the ass.

  ‘Biology, physiology, chemistry, German, English, physics and this anthropology course with Professor Mayhew. It’s pretty tenuous – it’s a big university. That Ricky might be taking a class from a murdered professor is unusual—’

  ‘Especially when he was murdered himself,’ Neilson pointed out.

  ‘Yeees,’ Stryker said slowly. ‘I know – it bothers me too. Maybe we should keep it in the back of our minds as we go along. Have you talked to Ned recently?’

  ‘He’s never home.’

  Stryker stared at the papers on his desk. ‘And we know why.’

  ‘What if Fineman finds out about what he’s doing?’ Neilson asked.

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t find out. Ned obviously needs to work out his guilt somehow. If running around and bothering people is going to do it, fair enough. He’s pretty safe – unless somebody complains.’

  ‘Oh shit – I never thought of that,’ Neilson said.

  ‘Look, our focus is still Professor Mayhew,’ Stryker reminded him. ‘Not Ricky Sanchez and not Ned Pinsky. I know he’s your partner, but our primary problem is the Mayhew homicide. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Neilson said in a low voice. ‘But if he calls me . . .’

  ‘You can’t control who calls you,’ Stryker told him. ‘Straight choice – hang up or listen.’

  ‘I guess so.’ Neilson smiled.

  Stryker was not happy. He was being pulled in two directions and he was a little angry at Pinsky for putting him in that situation. There was some merit in Pinsky’s theory and he had admitted that to himself from the beginning. He respected Ned and Ned’s instincts. But the captain had spoken and the Sanchez case had been left aside – more or less. It would be looked at, of course – detectives in the squad working on other things would be aware of its unsolved nature, would be alert for connections. But that was the best they could do. There were so many street homicides, mostly to do with drugs, and so many on French Street.

 
Sometimes Stryker wished he were back in uniform, where things were black and white, and decisions and problems like this belonged to someone above him. Someone who would probably handle them better than he did. Someone who knew what he was doing.

  He never really felt that kind of steady confidence. Just that he was going along in the half-dark with a weak flashlight, dealing with things as they came into view, not knowing what was best and expecting to be exposed as a failure at any minute. How do you reconcile sensitive and tough? he asked himself. You don’t.

  You just do the best you can.

  And then there was Kate, pulling him in yet another direction. She had suddenly become a stranger, short-tempered, fretful. He had thought it was just PMT and ignored it, but when he considered it he realized it had been going on for longer than that. He didn’t keep track of her menstrual cycle, but he was sure it was more than that.

  The previous night he’d asked her, not for the first time, if anything was wrong. She said things were going badly in one of her classes. Maybe he should give her a ring. He glanced at his watch. He knew her class schedule for this term. She would be in her office about now.

  But there was no reply.

  He frowned.

  That was odd.

  FIFTEEN

  Chan Mei Mei was a beautiful Chinese girl, but very serious. She, too, wore big glasses, like Lois McKittrick, but on her they seemed rather glamorous, doing little to hide her delicate features or flawless complexion. She wore the usual student costume of loose sweatshirt and jeans, as if to deny her femininity, but her shapely figure was difficult to disguise. If anything, she was a little on the plump side and it occurred to Neilson that she gave fat a good name.

  Neilson and Muller talked to her in her home, which was not the best thing they could have done. Her parents were very suspicious of them and hovered in the background, ready to spring if they tried anything ‘funny’ with their precious girl. The room they were in was obviously the main living room of the family, and it was an exceptionally tasteful combination of Western and Eastern furnishings, with a cream background and many accents of red and gold. There was a large glass-fronted cabinet containing a number of jade figurines and also a very large television set in one corner. The furniture was dark wood, but beautifully upholstered in rich brocade, upright but surprisingly comfortable. They were offered tea, but refused with thanks.

  ‘This is terrible,’ Chan Mei Mei said. ‘She was a good woman and an excellent teacher. We were all very shocked. I thought Lois was going to have an asthma attack right there in the library, she was so upset. Her breathing was terrible and she was shaking.’

  ‘Everyone has only good things to say about Professor Mayhew,’ Muller commented. ‘Is that really how she was?’

  Chan Mei Mei nodded. ‘Truly, really,’ she said. ‘If you had asked me to name people who might be murdered, she would never have occurred to me. Other professors, yes . . . there are a few who are extremely unpopular. Freidman and Torrance in biology, Schaeffer in philosophy, Jenkins in English and maybe also Bloxby in English. Nobody in art, funnily enough.’ She caught their expressions. ‘This is my field of interest,’ she explained. ‘The interaction of teachers and students. The exercise of power and coercion, sexual harassment, intimidation . . . and so on. It was very amusing to Professor Mayhew, who kept teasing me that there was no such thing. But of course there is.’

  ‘By the students or the teachers?’ Neilson asked.

  She gave him an appreciative glance. ‘Avery good point and something I am covering in my thesis.’

  ‘I understand the others gave you a rough time about your thesis on Sunday,’ Neilson said.

  She sighed heavily. ‘Because the subject is so close to them. Some felt I was too biased, others that I was not harsh enough. And I have some trouble with logic.’ She smiled suddenly and the effect was disconcerting. Clearly, in her case brains and beauty were combined, but she seemed to have an unfair advantage over the rest of humanity. Neilson was quite overcome.

  Her parents, standing in the doorway, stirred slightly.

  He cleared his throat and consulted his notebook. ‘Was Professor Mayhew behaving normally at that session?’

  ‘You mean was she in a good humour?’ Chan Mei Mei asked. ‘Yes, she was, although she was a little distracted she still tried to be supportive. I got several hugs in the course of the afternoon. She seemed just fine, but towards the end she said she had a headache and we broke earlier than we had expected. She had been working so very hard, you see. On her book.’

  ‘I understand her husband was present.’

  ‘He was in and out, as always when he was at home,’ Chan Mei Mei said dismissively. ‘He was an annoyance, but she didn’t seem to mind. It’s obvious he was jealous of the time she spent with us. He always seemed to me to be an angry little man, resentful of her brains and position. But that is just a personal opinion you understand. I did not particularly like him.’

  ‘Miss McKittrick seemed to think he was attractive.’

  Chan Mei Mei shrugged. ‘Lois is . . . vulnerable to appearances. She is an odd girl. But her work is first-class, so we overlook her silliness. I think she is a very insecure girl. Poor Garrison can barely stand to be in the same room with her, but then he is not exactly a sensitive man. She makes him nervous, the way a mouse makes an elephant nervous.’

  ‘And Jerry Hauck? What about him?’ Muller asked. He and Neilson had been brought up to speed about the interviews so far. He was very excited to be working on such a complicated case so early in his assignment to the department. He knew Neilson wasn’t happy about working with him and he understood that. Everybody seemed to be worried about Ned Pinsky but nobody said anything aloud. It was very weird.

  Chan Mei Mei flushed, bringing a dusky rose to her cheekbones. ‘Jerry Hauck is an animal,’ she said. ‘He is very smart and he thinks that gives him permission to destroy everyone else. But it does not.’

  ‘He was rough on you on Sunday?’

  ‘Very,’ was the short reply.

  ‘And what was his relationship with Professor Mayhew?’

  ‘She thought he was wonderful,’ Chan Mei Mei said thoughtfully. ‘I have yet to discover why. His manners are atrocious, he doesn’t have good personal hygiene, he is aggressive . . . ’

  ‘But she liked him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think there was a sexual attraction there?’ Neilson wanted to know.

  Again, her parents stirred and glanced at one another in dismay, but Chan Mei Mei was unfazed by the question. ‘I suppose it is possible,’ she said slowly. ‘But I think it was more of an intellectual attraction. He really has a first-class mind,’ she finished wistfully. ‘It seems so unfair that . . .’

  ‘That what?’

  ‘That it is contained in such a third-class human being,’ she said briskly. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘You say that Professor Mayhew was not bothered by her husband’s constant intrusions.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t. I think she was sometimes impatient with him – perhaps because he was not her intellectual equal. It was hard to tell . . . she didn’t call him “darling” or anything like that, but there was obvious affection there. She was an affectionate woman.’

  ‘We were told she was “a toucher, a hugger”.’

  Chan Mei Mei smiled. ‘Yes, she was. After all, she was not so much older than we were – maybe only six or seven years. It felt like a family.’

  ‘Apparently Lois McKittrick said the same thing.’

  Chan Mei Mei gave a delicate snort. ‘She would. She also talks about bunnies and pussycats and bow-wows.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  She giggled. ‘No, but she is nearly as bad. She puts on a tiny voice, uses a simpering manner.’

  ‘She makes you nervous too?’

  �
�No, she makes me sick,’ Chan Mei Mei said. ‘She plays the “girly-girly” card in relationships. I think that is despicable. People should be straight with one another. Man and woman should be equal. The whole “geisha” thing with some women infuriates me. Why should we pander to men? They are no better than we are.’

  Her father looked furious at that, but her mother managed to hide a small smile behind her hand.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us about Professor Mayhew? Did she ever mention any special friends? Was there any gossip in the university about her private life?’

  ‘No,’ Chan Mei Mei said with an air of surprise. ‘Do you know, there wasn’t. Students are great gossips and so are faculty . . . but I never heard anything about Professor Mayhew, good or bad. That’s odd, isn’t it? I mean, you’d think there would be something, even that she was a tough marker or biased in favour of physical anthro, or something. But there wasn’t. I think I would have heard if there was. Truly.’ Her expression was earnest. Neilson decided he was in love. Again.

  ‘Just as a matter of form, can you tell us where you were on Sunday night and Monday morning?’ Neilson enquired.

  ‘Do you mean my alibi?’ Chan Mei Mei asked with a small giggle. She raised a hand in a graceful gesture. ‘I was at home with my parents, of course. We had a little dinner party, and when our guests departed I went to bed and slept the night through. I slept quite late and only learned about Professor Mayhew’s death when Jerry called me the next morning.’

  ‘And do you have any idea who might have killed Professor Mayhew?’

  ‘None at all. I wish I did, I would like to help.’

  They thanked her and left – much to her parents’ obvious relief. Chan Mei Mei seemed unfazed by their visit. Indeed, she was probably unfazed about most things, Neilson thought. Beauty and brains were a formidable barrier against the world. He thought he would like to know her better, but the father also seemed a rather formidable barrier to that idea. He sighed heavily. So many beautiful women, so little time.

  Muller had heard about Neilson. Some of it good, some of it very worrying. Especially Neilson’s habit of falling in love at the least convenient times during an investigation. Therefore, knowing exactly what was in his new partner’s mind, he gave him an indulgent glance. ‘You aren’t Chinese,’ he said.