The Girl In the Morgue

by D. D. VanDyke

  It struck Cal again how young Ortiz was. Like most ER doctors, she was no doubt paying her post-graduation medical dues as an intern and getting a bloody hands-on education in the ugliness of humanity.

  “What do you want?” Ortiz said without preamble. “I was just about to grab a nap.”

  “I’ll be quick. I’m investigating the incident Mr. Roubicek was involved in. I wanted to know about his wounds.”

  “Stabs and slashes,” Ortiz said with a shrug.

  “Serious?”

  “Only if left untreated. Thirty-two stitches among five distinct wounds. Two stabs, one each arm, approximately two centimeters deep. Three shallow slashes, all on the left arm, five to ten centimeters long each.”

  “Nothing on the hands?”

  “No.”

  “The blade?”

  “Sharp, straight. Not serrated. A boning knife, maybe, or a chef.”

  “What about the angles on the stabs?”

  “Straight in, both of them. Center of the meaty part of the forearms.”

  Cal shrugged her blazer off and rolled up the sleeves on her blouse. She held her hands up, palms out and eye level, as if fending someone off. “Like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the slashes?”

  Ortiz’s brow furrowed as she looked at Cal’s forearms. “Put them down, palms up. The way I treated them.”

  Cal complied, holding out her hands as if to receive a low ten from a teammate. Ortiz snatched a marker from off the nearby nurses’ station desk and drew lines on Cal’s skin. “There. And the stabs too.”

  Cal lifted her arms, turning them this way and that to get a sense of the incoming blade’s trajectory. “Thank you, Doctor. That’s very helpful.”

  “You’re welcome.” Ortiz cocked her head. “What did you say your name was, detective?”

  Cal smiled, for something made her feel sympathetic to this overworked healer. “I didn’t.” Fishing out a business card, she handed it to Ortiz. “Cal Corwin Investigations.”

  The doctor scowled. “Private investigator. I assumed you were a cop.”

  Cal shrugged. “I was hired to find out more about a death…and a killer.”

  “Who was killed?”

  Cal wanted to stay in Ortiz’s good graces, in case she needed to ask more questions in the future. “Your patient’s girlfriend was killed. More, I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Ortiz flipped the card with her fingers. “I’ll keep this.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course. Call me if you think of anything else.”

  “Count on it.”

  Back in Molly’s driver’s seat, Cal pulled back her sleeves and stared at the wound patterns Ortiz had drawn. They seemed very neat and superficial, not what would be inflicted by a healthy, fit person, stabbing in desperate fear of her life.

  What, then? An undefined possibility hovered just out of Cal’s mental vision, a hole formed out of cop sense and intuition.

  Cal pulled out her phone and gazed at it a moment. She wanted to call Lieutenant Jay Allsop, her old partner at Homicide, but she didn’t know whether he was on shift. If he wasn’t, waking him at what was still the middle of the night wasn’t the best prelude to asking if he could get her back into Jenna’s and Randy’s apartment.

  Instead of calling Allsop, she texted Tanner Brody, Allsop’s partner, laboriously keying in the letters on the standard number pad. She probably should get one of the new phones with a tiny keyboard on it. Texting was becoming all the rage. Pretty soon people wouldn’t be talking to each other at all.

  Cal here. U up?

  Yes.

  Cal speed-dialed him.

  “Yo.”

  “Hey Tanner, it’s Cal.”

  “Duh.”

  “Right, I said that. So, you and Jay on shift?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is he in a good mood?”

  “Is he ever?”

  Cal gave an irritated growl. “For him, I mean. I need to ask a favor.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it. But we’re just wrapping up and we’ll be hitting Orphan Andy’s. You know Jay. Give him food, he’s almost human.”

  “Great. I’ll meet you there.”

  A short drive took Cal to Andy’s near Market and Castro, a classic diner that had been around since the seventies. She found a parking space nearby and quickly made her way in out of the chill.

  Like many restaurants in San Francisco, Orphan Andy’s was unique. Red vinyl, wood and retro chrome blended with iconic framed posters—photos of local landmarks, vintage ads, original comic panels—while Tiffany-style lampshades hovered like flying saucers amid hanging beads. Above it all, a selection of colorful suspended butterflies and dragon kites completed the picture.

  Jay Allsop and Tanner Brody already occupied a booth, facing each other. She slid in next to Tanner, smiling. “You guys already order?”

  “Yep,” said Allsop. “We’re off duty and we’re eating, so make it fast.”

  “Why Jay! I’d have thought you’d be more polite to the woman buying you a meal.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “In that case…” He waved a hand and called to the cook, “Johnny, gimme an add-on. Slap the biggest steak you got on the grill. Rare. Box it up to go for me.”

  Classy move, and all Jay. Aloud, Cal said, “Hey, no problem.”

  “What’s this about?” Tanner asked, giving her his trademark grin. Under the table, he brushed a warm hand against her thigh, a question and a promise. Cal’s skin goose-bumped, and she strove to hide her reaction from Allsop. She didn’t shake the hand off.

  “Homicide,” she reported. “Young female. Macey and Raymer caught it. The shooter turned himself in claiming self-defense. But…”

  “Who you asking for?” said Allsop.

  Cal didn’t see the harm in telling. “The victim’s boss.”

  “Was he banging her?”

  Sergei and Jenna? “No, don’t think so.”

  “Then why’s he paying your rates?”

  “Because he wants to know who really did it. Your people are taking the easy road.” Cal held up a forestalling hand. “Which I totally get. The guy confessed. But no CSU means a catch-22. No suspicion, no need to look for evidence. No evidence, no need to be suspicious.”

  “Whattaya want from me, Cal? I’m not going to interfere in another case.”

  Cal interlaced her fingers. “There’s no case if they close it. I want another look at the scene; with you two present, of course. If we find something, you can decide what to do with it. If not, then I’ll at least have done my best for my client.”

  The food arrived. Tanner removed his hand from Cal’s leg to eat. Cal waited for Allsop to get something in his stomach before proceeding. A boost in his blood sugar would mellow him out. “So…what do you think, Jay?”

  Allsop belched, stretched, and looked at his watch. “It’s too late in my shift now. I should already be in bed. How about we meet for lunch at noon, then go to the scene?”

  “Lunch where?” Cal said suspiciously. “You already have a steak.”

  “That can be breakfast. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Hog Island.”

  Cal gritted her teeth and forced a smile. Hog Island Oyster Bar at the Embarcadero was a pricey little place, and Jay could eat three or four dozen at a sitting. “Fine. See you there at noon.” She slapped the table and stood. “Nice to see you again, Tanner.”

  “You too, Cal.” He gave her a wink.

  Cal paid the bill on her way out, from Sergei’s cash, and kept the receipt.

  Molly was still warm when Cal got back in. She drove the short way home and parked behind her office. The air hung damp and chilly as she walked the block home in the fog.

  “It’s me, Mom,” Cal called as she opened the door with her key. That notification was another new thing. If she didn’t call out, Starlight was likely to come out of her bedroom with a tennis racquet in hand. As if some assailant was going to be deterred by ten ounces of
aluminum. Even so, Cal wasn’t begging for a black eye.

  Back in her bedroom, Cal closed her window tight, but left the curtains open. She curled up with a purring Snowflake and didn’t bother to set her alarm. The light would wake her gently. Or more likely, the cat would.

  Chapter Five

  Lunch at noon cost about what Cal had expected—close to a hundred and fifty bucks for three people—but she didn’t feel too bad, as expensing it to Sergei was perfectly fair. While Allsop would never take an outright bribe, he was old-school enough to call this a mere trade of favors.

  And Jay held up his end. An hour later, he rousted the building manager and had him open the apartment. They ducked under the yellow tape.

  Nothing appeared to have been disturbed. Cal pulled on blue nitrile gloves, the kind people still called “latex.” The two detectives did the same. “I’m interested in this rug,” she said, pointing out the spent lead slug. “See that?”

  The two men stared down at it.

  “Odd place for it to land. And a lot of blood,” observed Allsop.

  Cal reached, and then paused, hand hovering over it, awaiting permission.

  “Go ahead,” Jay said.

  Tanner bent over to watch, silent.

  When Cal lifted the rug slowly to the vertical, not one but two slugs, grossly deformed from their transit through flesh, clattered onto the hardwood floor. She hadn’t seen the other one.

  Cal had wondered whether Jenna was shot execution style, while lying on the rug, which would cast serious doubt on Randy’s self-defense claim. Slugs fired like that would almost certainly have punched through the rug. But the rug itself was unmarked, which argued against that theory.

  “What’s that?” said Allsop. “That metal there.”

  Tanner picked up something with his gloved fingertips. “Looks like a piece of wire, like from a coat hanger. About half an inch long, bent, broken.” He pointed. “There’s another…another. Half a dozen.” He looked up at Cal. “Any ideas?”

  Cal shook her head. “Not a clue. Not yet, anyway.” She set the rug down carefully off to the side, letting it fold upon itself.

  Allsop nodded at Tanner, who spoke. “According to the boyfriend’s statement, he and the vic had been drinking. They got in an argument. She picked up a knife and attacked him. He fended her off, then ran for the bedroom where he retrieved the firearm and told her to back off. When she lunged at him again, he shot her.”

  “Eight times.” Cal raised her eyebrows.

  “He said he panicked. He’d been stabbed. That much was true. EMTs bandaged him up and transported him to SF General.”

  Cal nodded. “I know. I spoke to the doc who sewed him up. The wounds were superficial.”

  “You can’t judge that in the middle of an attack. You get slashed, you just react,” said Allsop.

  “Adrenalized, fight-or-flight, okay,” Cal agreed. “I can maybe see four or five shots. But all eight? I don’t know. And what about the location?”

  “What do you mean?” Allsop asked.

  “Jenna’s a tall, strong girl. She’s mad, she has a knife. She stabs or slashes the boyfriend. Is he a big guy?” Cal didn’t want to reveal she’d already spoken to Randy.

  “No. About the same size: five-ten, one-sixty, I think I remember Macey saying.”

  “Okay, so he gets wounded. Superficial, but painful. He runs for the gun. Where was it?”

  “In a quick-open gun safe on the bedside table.”

  Cal walked the route. She had to squeeze past the medieval fight club stuff. A small gun safe sat on the bedside table, open and empty. It had a four-button combo, hinged at the bottom so as soon as it was unlocked, the door would fall open, giving easy access. “So he gets the gun. Jenna is pissed as hell about something. Mad enough to stab her boyfriend. Did he say what they were fighting about?”

  “No.”

  “So, let’s say a love triangle. She thinks he’s cheating on her.”

  “Plausible.”

  Cal went through the motions of retrieving an imaginary pistol from the gun safe. “He gets the gun. He’s in his bedroom. He turns and sees…what?”

  Allsop and Tanner stared at Cal, then glanced to the door and back. “Yeah,” said Allsop. “Something ain’t right.”

  “Damn straight. She’s mad, so she follows him. She’s not going to stand there in the living room waiting. She attacks him right here in the bedroom and he shoots her here. So how did she bleed out in the living room?”

  Tanner shrugged. “He didn’t. He shot her in the living room.”

  “If she’s not right on his heels, why not just shut the bedroom door and call 911? This isn’t Texas. In this state, he has a duty to retreat and use minimum force.”

  Tanner rubbed his neck, frowning. “People don’t act logically under extreme stress. She comes after him. He gets his weapon, turns around. She sees it and backs up into the living room. He shoots her there.”

  “If she’s retreating and not attacking, then it’s not self-defense. It’s manslaughter, maybe murder two,” Cal said.

  “She might have charged him again in the living room, forcing him to fire,” Tanner said.

  “He’s got the gun and she goes after him with a knife?”

  “It happens. These domestics can go back and forth,” Allsop argued. “They escalate, they back off, then someone says the wrong word, and they’re going at it again. That’s why cops hate DVs. They’re volatile and unpredictable.”

  “You really believe that?”

  She could tell Allsop hated to admit it, but he slowly shook his head. “No.”

  “So what’re you going to do about it?”

  He shook his head again, this time with more apologetic body language. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “This is fishy, but there ain’t enough, Cal,” said Allsop. “We got cases stacked up from here to next year, and this isn’t even ours. Let Macey and Raymer handle it. You keep digging if you want, and if you find something, bring it to them. We gotta make a living doing our jobs. We ain’t millionaires like you.”

  Technically true, but totally unfair. She’d taken what the lawsuit paid and outright bought her mother’s house and her office nearby, which, yes, totaled over a million dollars. That didn’t mean she was rich—especially not in pricey San Francisco. She bit her tongue on a retort. There was no winning this one. Better to let Jay vent his spleen and not make a serious break.

  Allsop gestured toward the door. “Come on. Lunch hour’s over. Real cops gotta work.”

  Chapter Six

  Fifteen minutes after leaving Jenna’s apartment, Cal was in Beachtown. The wan heat of the day was just arriving, but in November, that was as good as the weather got, 65 and breezy at best. On the beach, it was warm enough not to require heavy clothing, and the sand would never burn the most tender child’s feet. The surfers all wore wet suits against the chill Pacific water.

  It was a big area to canvass with only the name “Cruiser” to go by, but Cal had worked harder for less. Wandering the beach talking to surfers wouldn’t be the worst task in the world. She found a lucky spot beside a row of townhouses a couple of blocks in to park Molly legally.

  The pastel-colored beachfront townhouses stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking west toward the ocean. Cal envisioned fantastic sunset views. She’d never lived so close to the beach herself and felt a vague sense of envy for those who did. Many townhouses here easily topped that million dollar number Jay whined about.

  Her boots would do for the sand, and her skin was dark enough she never had to worry much about sunburn, but in the bright afternoon, sunglasses were a must, and she changed from blazer to windbreaker, slipping on a watch cap against the stiff breeze.

  She walked the blocks to the beach and gazed out at the surfers. The waves were good, so there were many spread out along the horizon. Families—locals and tourists of every stripe—sat on blankets and towels watching them or building sand castles. The brave
r ones made believe they were down in sun-drenched San Diego and lay sleeping or reading, trying to tint their pale flesh.

  A male surfer in a black and blue wetsuit walked out of the water up onto the beach and greeted his blonde girlfriend. Cal approached and stood nearby, waiting for them to notice her. The blond noticed Cal with irritation. “What’s your problem, lady? Don’t get cable?”

  Cal ignored her and spoke to the guy. “I’m looking for a surfer. Goes by Cruiser.”

  “Not me.” Black-and-blue turned back to his girlfriend to continue the lesson on mouth-to-mouth.

  “Do you know him?” Cal asked, taking another step closer, edging into his personal space. “Is he here today?”

  “Yeah, I know Cruiser. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Is he here today?” Cal persisted.

  “I don’t know. Probably. He’s here most days.”

  “You seen him? Know where I might find him?”

  The surfer dude shook his head and picked up a bottle from the cooler beside his girlfriend. The girl continued to glare at Cal, but Cal stood her ground. “We’re done, okay?” the surfer told Cal. “I told you. Dunno where he is.”

  Cal stared at him, letting him get more rattled. He looked her over. Cal wasn’t exactly dressed for the beach. It was obvious she was out of place—a place he didn’t seem to want her in.

  “You five-oh?” the dude asked, his eyes sliding toward the couple’s towels and things on the sand. He tipped up his beer to take a drink and attempted to insert himself casually between her and the cooler.

  “What am I going to find if I tip out that cooler?” Cal asked. “You look pretty healthy, so I doubt you have a dope card.” She let a smile grow on her face at his discomfort. “Maybe you could change your attitude and be a little more helpful. Then I wouldn’t have to find out.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” the girlfriend suggested, bending to pick up the cooler, her fake bubble-boobs just about popping out of her tiny bikini top.

  Cal put her foot on top of the cooler to prevent her picking it up.

  “I’m not trying to obstruct you,” the dude protested, his voice going up several notes. “I know who Cruiser is, but he ain’t any particular friend of mine. We don’t hang together.”