Beyond a Doubt

by Nancy Cole Silverman

  “That’s ridiculous. It couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t do that.”

  “Then what is it? Because you’re right, I don’t think you killed Gabi. But right now the police do, and if Gabi doesn’t reappear, real soon, or you don’t do something to convince them you’re not involved, things aren’t going to go well for you. You’re going to be spending a fortune in attorney fees, and you can forget about your position here at the hospital, because by the time the police, and unfortunately the press, are done with this story, nobody’s going to want a doctor who was suspected of killing his beautiful, blonde girlfriend. It won’t matter what I think, or that the police couldn’t prove it, because you’ll be guilty in the eyes of the public.”

  He hung his head and bit his lip. I noticed his hands, smooth like a surgeon’s, grip his coffee cup. “If I tell you, and you say anything, or tell the police, they’ll kill her.”

  “Kill her? Who would kill her?”

  I listened as Miles explained that he’d been deeply in debt. His mother had become unexpectedly ill and he had maxed out his credit cards, paying for flights back and forth across the country, until she died. After that there had been funeral expenses and later, the move-in with Gabi had cost more than expected. The money problems had compounded and so had his relationship. Gabi wanted to help, but she had her own financial problems, and he had refused.

  “Finally, she suggested I see someone. She had a client who she said could help. He made all kinds of loans; I think she’d taken a personal loan from him to consolidate some credit cards, and she knew he’d be able to figure something out. So I went to see him.”

  “Tony Domingo with Financial Futures?”

  He nodded.

  “At first it seemed pretty cut and dry. He asked me to fill out a few forms. Pretty standard stuff, and while I’m doing that, he asks what it is I do for a living. When I explained I was a surgical resident at UCLA, he suddenly got real interested. Came out from behind his computer, took his glasses off, and he started to talk to me like a real person, not just some cash-strapped financial applicant. All of a sudden, he’s asking all kinds of questions. Wants to know more about what I was doing at the hospital, what kind of medicine I was interested in. That kind of thing. It seemed a little odd, but I figured he was just interested because of his relationship to Gabi. And then, he mentioned he had a friend, a doctor, he wanted me to talk to.”

  “Dr. Diamond?” I tried to mask my excitement.

  “Yes. Dr. D. The mad Dr. Diamond.”

  Mad? I raised my brows. “And exactly what did Dr. Diamond want?”

  “Well, to start with, he’s not a doctor. Not a medical doctor, anyway. He’s a PhD. Or so he claims. But I couldn’t tell you from where or even if it’s for real. He mentioned half a dozen different colleges and universities. His degree is in finance or international business, or maybe nothing at all. To tell you the truth, I think he’s a scammer, but you have to understand, right then, I really didn’t really care who he was. I was desperate. I just wanted to sign whatever paperwork he needed, get the money, and get out of there.”

  “Out of where?”

  Miles exhaled deeply, as though he couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

  “A strip club. We were meeting inside a strip club near the airport. Tony had set it up. He said Dr. Diamond was on his way to catch a flight and we should meet there. That he frequented places like that and not to let it bother me.” He looked away and shook his head. “Truth is, I think he owned it or at least he acted like he owned the girls who worked there. He even offered to have one his girls—you know—visit with me.”

  I tried to hide the surprise on my face. I nodded like I heard this type of thing every day. I didn’t want the fact that I was shocked to cause him to stop and rethink what he was saying.

  “Understand, at the time, I didn’t have any idea what this was all about. All I knew is Tony had told me Dr. Diamond was interested in helping me. That he liked to help young doctors. He said he wanted to know if I’d be interested in changing my surgical residency and joining the transplant team at UCLA. I couldn’t believe it. The man had just offered me a hooker and now he’s talking about the transplant team? I figured the guy was nuts. A residency position like that can take years to get. And he was offering to pull strings to make it happen.”

  I reached into my bag for my notepad and started to take notes.

  “So, Dr. Diamond arranges for you to join the transplant team, that’s prestigious, I’m sure, but how’s that help you financially? I mean you’re still a surgical resident, working long hours and for not much money, right?”

  “Except he says in exchange for my agreeing to work with the transplant team, he’ll start paying down my college loans. He promises to funnel a stipend into my checking account every month from an offshore betting agency that won’t raise any eyebrows. He’ll arrange it so it looks like I’m winning a little at the track now and again. He said it’d give me enough to live on without being crazy. The idea was that when I completed my residency I’d be debt free and have a little money in the bank.”

  “Okay, so what’s in it for Diamond? What is it he wanted you to do to in exchange for agreeing to work in the transplant unit?”

  “He wanted somebody on the inside of the hospital working with the transplant unit.” He paused and looked at me. “Because he’s selling organs.”

  I dropped my pencil. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “He’s been matching organ recipients with donors.”

  “Are you telling me, you think Dr. Diamond is somehow involved in the buying and selling of human organs?” This was beyond anything I’d imagined. Diamond really was a madman.

  “No. I don’t think he’s buying. What I think is that Dr. Diamond is using the bodies of the young women who work for him as donors. I think he’s selling.”

  He stared at me as I processed what he had said and took a long sip of his coffee before he spoke again.

  “It all makes a nice little package. Don’t you think? He’s got these girls, he uses them, and then when they’re no longer useful to him or maybe giving him too much trouble, he retires them. But he can’t get rid of them. There’d be too many repercussions. How’s a police commissioner explain he’s involved in the skin trade? So he repurposes them. Kills them or has them killed. I don’t know how and I don’t want to.”

  “But how does he get the organs?” I picked up my pencil. “He’d still have to harvest them, and like you say, he’s not a doctor.”

  “That’s just it, he doesn’t have to. All Dr. Diamond had to do was make certain the girl had the same blood and tissue type as his client and a donor card on her when she arrived—near dead—at the hospital. After that, it’s a done deal.”

  Miles explained that with organ transplants there were designated hospitals around the country, regional centers where if a patient died and had a donor card on them, their organs could easily be harvested. The centers were hooked into a national database and had information concerning persons waiting for an organ transplant. If a patient in Los Angeles needed a heart transplant and the donor died at one of the regional centers—usually within two hours of the recipient’s hospital—the donor organs were harvested and loaded on one of Diamond’s emergency helicopter transports.

  “But what about next of kin and notification? Certainly somebody had to be notified.”

  “There are no next of kin. These girls all have fake names. None of them would have had a real ID. Cases like these, the hospital would have tried, but if there’s no family available, the instructions on the card are implicit. It’s a legally binding document. And time, in situations like this, is of the essence.”

  This was so beyond the scope of what I had imagined it took me a minute to process. I stared at the yellow pad in front of me, trying to piece together the framework of the mad
doctor’s menagerie of players.

  “So this had to have happened more than once for you to get suspicious.”

  He nodded.

  “At first I had no idea. Dr. Diamond called and said he had a friend whose wife was in the transplant ward waiting for a heart. He was all very casual about it and friendly. Said she’d come in from Hawaii and had suffered a devastating heart attack. Her own doctor had told her it was hopeless, that without a heart transplant she was living on borrowed time. But the husband wasn’t giving up. He insisted the family doc try to make arrangements for a heart transplant. The nearest place for that was Los Angeles and before you know it, she’s making arrangements to come to LA and she’s on the waiting list. Problem is, there’s no shortage of patients needing hearts, but there is a shortage of available organs. So what I think happened is that her husband, a very wealthy businessman, learns that Dr. Diamond has this black market thing going. First I hear about it is when Diamond calls me and says he’d appreciate if I’d keep an eye on her. Make certain she stays healthy and is in good spirits. I didn’t think that was anything out of the ordinary, just a friend looking after a friend’s wife. Then this heart arrives a couple days later from Arizona. That’s not unusual. Like I said, most of our organs come from either California, Arizona or Nevada. But I remember this particular case because the donor’s heart was from a young female, and the match was unusually good.”

  “And after that?”

  “The next couple of cases were all similar. Dr. Diamond would call and say he had a friend and ask if I would I look in on them. But what caught my attention was that the organs we received were all coming from young, female donors. Three in a row and just for his patients, none of the others in the unit.” He paused and looked at me. “Just what are the odds of that?” He gestured, both hands, up to the ceiling. “It just wasn’t possible. And then I started to wonder if maybe these organs might be coming from some of the women—girls really—like those I’d seen working in the strip club when I first met Dr. Diamond.”

  “And you shared this with Gabi?”

  “I told her what I suspected and we agreed we’d go and talk to Tony. That’s who we were going to meet with the night we went out, only Diamond was there and things got ugly. He said we better both keep quiet, or bad things could happen, and then he left. Tony got real uncomfortable and said Diamond had a bad side to him and warned us we better forget we ever said anything. But Gabi got irate and threatened she’d go to the press if he didn’t do something. Next thing I know, Gabi’s missing and I get a call on my cellphone from someone I’m pretty sure is Dr. Diamond. He warns me if I ever want to see Gabi again I better keep my mouth shut. So I make up this story that she and I have been arguing and that she took off.”

  CHAPTER 22

  My cellphone had been quietly vibrating the entire time I was talking to Miles. I’d turned it off during our conversation so we wouldn’t be disturbed, but as I hurried back to my car I pulled it from my bag and noticed I had three messages. The first was from Agent Delfino. And boy, did I want to talk to him. He’d gotten my voicemail and apologized for playing phone tag and would try back again soon.

  The second message was from Tanya, or rather her assistant, telling me she’d be happy to talk about the rescue center, but her schedule was busy. Please call back. And the third was from Cupid. He sounded excited. He had an idea. Something to do with the Red Hatted Ladies and a station promotion he wanted to put together, Saturday Night on Hollywood Boulevard. He couldn’t wait to see me. I was just about to call Agent Delfino back when the phone rang in my hand. I knew without looking it would be Sheri.

  “So how’s our investigation going?” Sheri sounded breathless. I could hear the rustling of paper bags and the ringing of a cash register in the background.

  “Where are you? And what do you mean our investigation?”

  “I’m shopping. You know, when I get nervous, I shop. And I figured since you didn’t call me back, either Tony turned up or I’d better be getting a safe room ready for us.” She paused as though waiting for a laugh, and when I didn’t say anything, added, “By the way, do you like eggplant?”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  I’m sure there are journalists who don’t talk about their work, but between girlfriends and the fact that Sheri had been with me since I first started working the story, I found it difficult not to share some of what I knew. But not everything, not yet.

  “Sorry to say, I haven’t heard a word from Tony since his call. And no, you don’t need to be prepping a safe room, at least not yet.” I laughed, half joking.

  “So, where is he then?”

  “Hopefully not six feet under. But right now, Tony is the least of my worries. Turns out one of the men we saw with him in front of the City Grill is Dr. Diamond. And, get this, I just found out Diamond’s a member of the police commission.”

  “Ah. So the plot thickens.”

  “He’s also a man whose name keeps coming up with my investigation.” I didn’t want to worry her, so I kept the rest of the gory details concerning the transplants Miles had told me about to myself and switched the conversation back to something more palatable. “So this eggplant? Are you planning on cooking it for dinner tonight?”

  “Could be. That is, if you and Charlie want to come by. I hate to cook a big eggplant lasagna for just Clint and me, and I know your schedule doesn’t allow for anything that’s not cash-and-carry. Particularly right now. Tell you what, I’ll get the boys, and you bring dessert. Make it something sweet and sinful.”

  I agreed I’d bring something of the warm, chocolate gooey variety and told her I’d be by around seven-thirty and hung up the phone. Satisfied at least the part of my life dealing with the day-to-day of meals and family was not only predictable, but in order. I’d almost reached the station when the phone rang again. This time it was Detective Browne.

  “Ms. Childs?” His voice sounded too formal for this to be anything but an official call. “I wasn’t going to call you, but this hits too close to home not to notify you personally. Homicide just called. They found a body.”

  My heart froze. I pulled into the parking lot, gripped the wheel and braced for bad news, praying he wasn’t going to tell me it was Gabi.

  “Another girl?” I asked.

  “No, a man.” I expected him to tell me the body they recovered was Tony Domingo. Instead he said, “Freddie Bleeker. The fella you had on the air yesterday, when Miss Bixby and I were by the studio. The police got a call this morning saying there was a body floating in the pool at the top of the W Hotel and IDed him. Looks like he might have had too much to drink and fell in.”

  Freddie dead? That couldn’t be an accident. “Was he murdered?”

  “Too soon to tell. The coroner will have to determine cause of death. But according to one of the towel boys who worked the pool area last night, he was alone. Came up to the pool around eight p.m. Said he was drinking and told him he was there to meet with someone. Towel boy went home around nine. He said nobody ever came by and Bleeker was still sitting there when he left.”

  I sat silent and tried to process why Freddie would be at the W, particularly at that hour. It made no sense he’d be sitting around a pool when at that hour he should have been down the street working at Hemingway’s.

  I thanked him for the call and was about to hang up when he added, “Oh, by the way, I spoke with Dr. Diamond about your missing client, Tony Domingo. Turns out, you were right, he was with him at the City Grill last night. Says he ran into him at the restaurant bar, and just like I said, he’d been drinking. According to the good doctor, your client had suffered some pretty heavy business losses and had to close the doors. He was belly-up financially and he was in a bad way, nursing his wounds with a little old-fashioned Jim Beam. Diamond says he drove him home. You ask me, your client’s probably like a lot of my missing cases, got in over his head financia
lly, disappeared and doesn’t want to be found. Debt’ll do that.”

  I wasn’t about to challenge Detective Browne on his theory. I had too many questions I needed answers to before I could tell him exactly how much I disagreed with him about “the good doctor.” I thanked him and then asked if he had any news on Gabi.

  There was an awkward silence, then: “Nope, not a word. But far as your client Mr. Domingo goes, I wouldn’t count on him showing up anytime soon. Not until somebody’s made him whole again and he’s ready to reopen his doors. That’s the way it usually goes with guys who go missing like this. They need to heal their wounds first.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Heal their wounds.” I hung up and headed into the station.

  CHAPTER 23

  Tyler was in the studio with Cupid when I came in. In front of them, rather than the bottle of Jim Beam I’d seen with Cupid yesterday, were two Styrofoam cups of hot coffee, still steaming, and more than a dozen sugar packets scattered across the console. I could tell they’d been discussing Hollywood’s Missing Girls. In Tyler’s hand was a copy of the LA Times with pictures of Monica Channing. They looked up at me, startled, their faces prepped with questions, eyes wide and waiting.

  “Where’ve you been?” Tyler asked.

  “Freddie’s dead.” I dropped my reporter’s bag on the floor. “Detective Browne just called with the news. He thought I should know personally.”

  Cupid let out a long, low whistle, then picked up his cup. “You think it’s related to anything he said on the show?”

  “The police don’t know yet how he died, but my bet is the Mad Dr. Diamond didn’t like what he heard yesterday and wanted to make sure Freddie didn’t say anything else. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with it.” I took the stool next to Tyler and told them both I’d just come from meeting with Dr. Ericson.