No Place to Die

by James L. Thane

  Her captor had loosened her clothes, pushed them out of his way, and raped her three times during the course of the night, slamming himself into her with an intense anger that he refused to explain. Obviously he knew who she was and expected that she should know him. But he didn’t look at all familiar to Beverly, and he refused to tell her his name or to explain why he had kidnapped her and murdered her husband.

  She had cried through most of the night—harder during his assaults—but it failed to move him at all. If anything, the man seemed to take a grim satisfaction in her pain, and in response to her tears, he drove himself into her even harder.

  At around four in the morning, he had finally stopped. He unlocked the handcuff that bound her left wrist to the wall at the head of the bed and removed the rope that restrained her left leg. Then he pulled a cheap thin blanket over the two of them and fell asleep on the bed beside her. After that he left her alone.

  The bedroom door was cracked open, and she could hear him now, moving around in one of the other rooms. She heard what sounded like a cupboard door closing and the sound of dishes clinking against each other. A minute or so later, she heard footsteps moving back toward the bedroom. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, pretending to be asleep, and praying that the man would not assault her again.

  He came into the room and she heard him set two items on the small nightstand next to the bed. Then he sat down on the bed and grabbed Beverly roughly by the shoulder. “Wake up, princess,” he said. “Time to rise and shine.”

  She turned to look at him, feigning that he had awakened her. He waited until she appeared to be fully awake, then said, “Okay, sweetheart, I’ve got places to go and people to see. You’ll have to live without me for a while.” Pointing to the nightstand, he said, “Your breakfast is served.”

  Beverly glanced over and saw a bowl of what appeared to be granola mixed with almonds and raisins, floating in milk; a spoon; a paper towel folded in half, apparently to be used as a napkin; a large glass of orange juice; and two bottles of water. She looked back at her abductor, who was taking a ring of keys from the pocket of his jeans. Stretching over her, he unlocked the handcuff from her right wrist. Then he took her by the hand and pulled her slowly to her feet.

  “Time for a quick tour,” he said.

  Beverly was now tethered only by a cable made of braided wire that had been sheathed in plastic and bolted to the cuff that gripped her right ankle. The cable looked to be about fifteen feet long, and the other end was anchored into the floor near the foot of the bed.

  With her free hand, Beverly quickly buttoned the top two buttons on her blouse and pulled her skirt back down, covering herself as best she could while the man led her across the bedroom and into a small bathroom, the cable dragging across the floor behind her. The bathroom, like the bedroom, had been completely insulated, and a piece of plywood had been nailed over what was apparently a small window above the dingy toilet.

  The cable was long enough to allow Beverly to reach the toilet and the small stained sink next to it. A washcloth and a bath towel, both of which might once have been white but which were now frayed and gray, had been draped carelessly over a towel bar next to the sink.

  Beverly’s captor was dressed this morning in a pair of clean blue Levi’s and a sleeveless green T-shirt imprinted with the logo of a local gym. As she surveyed the bathroom, he spun her around and grabbed her hard by the shoulders. Once sure that he had her full attention, he said in a harsh voice, “Okay, Beverly, you listen to me now like your life depended on it, because believe me, it does. While I’m gone, you need to be a good girl. Stay calm and quiet, and don’t do anything that might attract attention to yourself.”

  Gesturing at the insulation, he said, “Even if you were to shout yourself hoarse, no one would be able to hear you, besides which, this house is in the middle of one of the city’s highest-crime neighborhoods. On the off chance that anybody did hear you, the odds are very good that it wouldn’t be somebody whose acquaintance you’d want to make, if you get my drift. And even if you were lucky enough to attract the attention of somebody who might call the cops, you wouldn’t want that to happen either.”

  Pointing back to the bedroom door, he continued, “If you haven’t already noticed, that door is the only way in and out of here. What you can’t see from the inside of the room is that the door is wired with explosives. I’m going to arm it when I leave. If the cops or anyone else opens that door, this house—and you and them along with it—will be blown to hell and back.

  “So believe me when I say that it’s in your own best interests for you to just sit here quietly and mind your manners while I’m out. You can reach the john and the sink. There’s enough water there to get you through the day, and that should be all you need. We’ll have a late lunch when I get back, and then maybe we can think of some way to amuse ourselves through the afternoon.”

  Tearing up again, Beverly tried to shrink away from him. “Who are you?” she pleaded again. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  The man shook his head. “You know, Beverly, my feelings are starting to be hurt real bad. I was sure you would have recognized me by now, but I think I’ll let the mystery build a little longer. Perhaps it’ll come to you.”

  Still gripping her shoulders, he pulled her close again and forced a hard kiss on her. Releasing her, he stepped back and shook his head. “Jesus, babe, you’ve got a serious case of morning mouth there. I didn’t even think about getting you a toothbrush and some toothpaste. I’ll pick some up on the way home.”

  With that, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing in the bathroom. She watched as he crossed the bedroom to the door. He gave her a small wave, then closed the door behind him. Beverly heard him lock the dead bolt from the other side, and a couple of seconds later, she heard a small metallic click that sounded as if it came from somewhere near the top of the door. Then everything was quiet.

  Chapter Eight

  Greater Phoenix stretches some forty-five miles from north to south and sixty miles from east to west, in a valley originally settled by the Hohokam Indians about three hundred years before the birth of Christ. For reasons not entirely clear—perhaps because fourteenth-century air-conditioning units were so notoriously difficult to service and maintain—the Hohokam abandoned the valley early in the fifteenth century, and it then remained largely empty of population until the first white people settled here in the 1860s.

  The metro area now includes a couple dozen incorporated cities and towns, Phoenix principal among them, and a number of unincorporated communities. These cities, towns, and villages originated as discrete entities, but over time they’ve grown and have been fused together into one sprawling urban region that the chamber of commerce markets as the Valley of the Sun.

  Maggie and I were on our way to Scottsdale, which lies directly east of Phoenix and which, in the north, is separated from its sister city only by the four- to six-lane concrete expanse of Scottsdale Road. Traffic was surprisingly light for that time of the morning, and thirty minutes after leaving the department, we pulled into the parking lot of a large medical complex near Shea and Ninety-second, where David Thompson’s office was located.

  Thompson’s office manager was a woman named Alice Ballentine. By even a charitable estimate, the woman was probably a hundred pounds overweight, and she’d stuffed herself into a pair of capri pants that she’d apparently purchased at least twenty pounds ago. Her short blonde hair was curled tightly to a perfectly round head, and she was sporting about twice as much makeup and three times as much cloying perfume as a woman twice her size would have needed. Like the receptionist, she’d obviously been crying, and her eyes were red and raw.

  Maggie and I introduced ourselves, and Ballentine escorted us back to a small office. She squeezed herself into a chair behind the desk and invited us to take the two guest chairs in front of her. Grabbing a couple of Kleenex from a box on the desk, she blew her nose and dropped the tissues into th
e wastebasket.

  “This is just so unbelievable,” she said. “Why would someone have done it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to determine, Ms. Ballentine,” Maggie said in a sympathetic voice. “Do you know of anyone who was upset with Dr. Thompson—anyone who might have threatened him for some reason?”

  Ballentine shook her head vigorously. “No, no one. I’ve been with Doctor for eleven years, and in all that time I never heard him have a cross word with anyone—and I mean that literally. He was an absolutely excellent man to work with—extremely competent, very professional, very personable.

  “So many doctors, particularly specialists like Dr. Thompson, have huge egos and very little time and patience for other people. But Doctor wasn’t like that at all. He took a genuine interest in his patients and in his staff. He always had time for others and gave very generously of himself.” She paused long enough to blow her nose again and to swipe at her eyes with the tissues.

  “I gather that the doctor had a very successful practice?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Doctor was very much in demand. He frequently had to turn down new patients because there simply wasn’t room in his schedule.”

  “And none of his patients was unhappy in any way?” Maggie asked. “Or perhaps was there a relative of a patient who might have been upset because he or she felt that Dr. Thompson had not done enough to help someone?”

  “No, of course not,” Ballentine insisted. “Unfortunately, like any other cardiologist, Dr. Thompson occasionally encountered a patient who was simply beyond help. It was always a very difficult situation for him, but he always did everything humanly possible on that patient’s behalf. Doctor worked very closely with the families of his patients and was always very honest with them and very supportive of them. None of them ever blamed him for things that were obviously beyond his control.”

  “What about in the doctor’s private life?” I asked. “Do you know of anyone who might have been upset with him for something that had nothing to do with his medical practice?”

  Again she shook her head. “No, at least not that I’m aware of. Certainly he never indicated anything like that.”

  “I gather that, as Dr. Thompson’s office manager, you were responsible for the financial end of his practice?” I said.

  “Yes, I am,” she answered tentatively.

  “Was the doctor in any difficulty financially?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “Oh, Lord no. The practice was very successful, and Doctor was fairly conservative financially. He’d owned his home for a number of years. He invested wisely, and he didn’t spend lavishly on anything. Of course I wasn’t privy to the details of his personal finances, but I know you’ll discover that there were no problems in that regard.”

  “How well do you know Mrs. Thompson?” Maggie asked.

  Ballentine stiffened a bit. “A little,” she replied. “In the time that she and Doctor have been married, Mrs. Thompson has been in the office a few times. She’s attended a couple of Christmas parties and other staff functions. But we don’t socialize, if that’s what you mean. She’s quite busy with her own life. I know her mostly through listening to Doctor talk about her.”

  “And were she and Dr. Thompson a happy couple?” Maggie asked.

  “I guess so,” Ballentine conceded. “Of course they’d only been married for a little over two years, but Doctor still seemed very attracted to her. After he married her, he devoted somewhat less time to his practice than he had in the years before so that he would have more free time to spend with her. I guess if he hadn’t been happy it would have been the other way around, wouldn’t it?”

  I nodded. “Ms. Ballentine, one of the problems we’re facing in this investigation is that at the moment, we still don’t know whether Dr. Thompson’s killer might have been targeting him or his wife or perhaps both of them together. Do you know of anyone who might have been angry with Mrs. Thompson? Did the doctor ever hint at anything like that?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “Doctor never suggested anything to that effect. But then she is a lawyer, isn’t she? Wouldn’t she be a much more likely target than a respected surgeon?”

  Ignoring the question, I said, “Can you tell us about the families of Dr. and Mrs. Thompson? We understand that neither of them had any children, but what about parents, siblings, or other relatives?”

  Ballentine shook her head. “Doctor was originally from Cincinnati. I know that he has an older brother who still lives there and their mother is in a nursing home in Ohio. Doctor’s father died a number of years ago. Mrs. Thompson is a Phoenix native, but both of her parents are deceased. She has a brother and a sister, both of whom are older than her. I believe they both moved away from Arizona some years ago, and I don’t know where either of them lives now.”

  I made a note, then said, “One last thing, Ms. Ballentine, and then we’ll let you get back to work. Can you tell us if the doctor ever treated a patient named Alma Fletcher, or perhaps her husband, Robert Fletcher?”

  Ballentine shook her head. “Neither of the names sounds familiar, Detective, but I’ll check.”

  Maggie and I sat quietly while Ballentine worked with the computer on her desk. After a couple of minutes, she looked up from the monitor and said, “No, Detective. According to our records, Doctor never treated a patient with either of those names.”

  We spent another hour and a half interviewing the other members of Thompson’s staff, but none of them was able to give us any more information than we’d gotten from Ballentine. Most of them cried unashamedly during our interviews, but they were at a loss to understand why a killer might have targeted their employer.

  As we settled into my Chevy in the parking lot, Maggie shook her head and said, “Why is it that the people who work in hospitals and doctor’s offices always seem to be in worse physical shape than the people who work in offices anywhere else? Most of them are overweight, and half of them still seem to smoke. Christ, most of the people in Thompson’s office are in worse shape than those slobs in our department who eat three meals a day at the damned Krispy Kreme. What the hell is up with that?”

  “Beats me, Maggs,” I replied. “Maybe they figured that when their hearts gave out prematurely from all that bad behavior, ‘Doctor’ could just build them a new one.”

  “Maybe,” she nodded, buckling her seat belt. “But if it’s all the same to you, after spending thirty minutes with that Ballentine woman, I’m gonna skip lunch today.”

  Chapter Nine

  Judge Walter Beckman left his condominium complex in Scottsdale at ten fifteen A.M. Carl McClain watched as the judge wheeled his three-year-old Buick through the gates of the complex and out to Seventy-sixth street. Thirty minutes later, Beckman left the Piestewa Freeway at the Glendale Avenue exit, obviously headed in the direction of his country club.

  As far as McClain could determine, the retired widower’s entire life revolved around the club. On the second day that he’d trailed the judge there, McClain had been bold enough to follow him into the pro shop at a discreet distance. Feigning interest in a display of golf shirts, he watched as Beckman signed in at the desk and then went out to the cart-staging area to meet the other members of his foursome.

  Figuring that the round of golf would take at least five hours, McClain had checked back at three P.M. The Buick was still where the judge had left it, and McClain found a parking place that would allow him to keep an eye on the car.

  At four forty-five that afternoon, he was still watching the Buick when Beckman finally shuffled back through the parking lot. The judge unlocked the car, settled into the driver’s seat, and sat there for a few minutes, apparently waiting for his head to clear. Then he started the car and drove very slowly and carefully back home. McClain had followed Beckman back to the condo complex, driving ten miles an hour under the speed limit and twenty miles an hour slower than the rest of the traffic. Sober as a judge, my ass, McClain had thought.

  McClain’s pro
blem was that, on all of the occasions that he’d followed the judge thus far, the old bastard had never had an unguarded moment. The parking lot at the country club was too exposed, and there were always people around. In addition, the escape routes from the club left a great deal to be desired. If he were to do Beckman there, the chances of making a clean getaway in the Econoline would be slim at best.

  When not at the club, the judge seemed to spend virtually all of his time in his condominium, which was located within a gated community. McClain figured that ultimately, if all else failed, he could climb the fence late at night, avoiding the guard at the gate and probably slipping by the advertised video surveillance. He could then make his way to the judge’s front door. But that option had drawbacks as well.

  It was possible that a camera might catch him going over the fence and that one of the guards might happen to see it on the monitor. Or perhaps one of the other residents might spot him climbing the fence and call the police. Then too, of course, there was always the chance that even if McClain did make it to the judge’s condo unobserved, the old coot might refuse to answer the door at that hour of the night.

  McClain reasoned that sooner or later Beckman would have to leave himself in a vulnerable position, but watching the judge signal another turn into the country club, he realized that the moment wasn’t going to come this morning. Still, Carl McClain was a patient man who’d already waited a long time for an opportunity to set things straight. Although the clock was now ticking, he could afford to be patient for a more few days. And on the bright side, he now had Beverly Thompson to keep him entertained while he counted down those days.