"Cross our hearts and hope to die," the writer said cheerfully. Harry shook his head and started for the door. "Come on, Van. Contact Dispatch for our Twenty when you two want to catch up, Mik-san."
Fowler waited until the door had closed before turning to Garreth. "Right. Now, old son, suppose you tell me what you really have in mind."
4
"The morgue?" Fowler's brows rose as they walked into the reception area of the coroner's office. "Are we interrogating the dead men?"
Garreth gave him a thin smile. "Something like that. This won't take long. Wait for me here." He turned the smile on the receiving clerk. "Morning, Barbara. Where's Dr. Thurlow?"
The clerk stared. "Inspector Mikaelian? I heard you were back. Lord, I hardly recognize you. You got serious about dieting. The old man's in the autopsy room."
The effort needed to walk down the corridor had nothing to do with the drag of daylight. Garreth hated coming here. He always had, even before having to identify Marti's body. Waking up in one of its drawers himself had not endeared it to him, either. The place served the living, but it was a world of death, of tile and stainless steel . . . shining, cold, hard.
Pushing through the door of the autopsy room, though, he realized that oddly enough, he disliked this room the least. Perhaps because here corpses ceased to be people. Lying with bellies and chests spread open, scalps pulled inside out down over their faces, they no longer looked quite human.
Down the long line of tables the light shone on a stylish mane of silver hair. Garreth made his way toward it through the flood of smells . . . disinfectants, dead blood, diseased blood, putrefying flesh, the acrid stench of intestinal contents, and in sparse, tantalizing whiffs almost lost among the other odors, the warm saltiness of living blood.
The murmur of voices filled the room, pathologists talking to assistants and dictating into microphones dangling from overhead, sentences punctuated by occasional laughter and the sharp whine of a bone saw slicing through a skull. Light gleamed on instruments and clay-gray flesh. Water hissed, running down the tables to carry away the blood. More water swirled rosy in sinks at the end of the tables, where floating organs waited to be sliced open for further examination.
"Dr. Thurlow?"
The chief medical examiner looked up from studying lungs as red as the liver lying on the table beside them. He peered at Garreth over the top of half glasses. "Morning, Mikaelian."
Garreth blinked. "You recognize me?"
"I remember all my patients who recover and go home." Thurlow's knife sliced through the lung in quick, sure strokes, sectioning it like a loaf of bread, then scraped across several of the exposed internal surfaces. "What can I do for you, Mikaelian?"
"I'm interested in your Martians."
Gray eyes peered keenly at him over the half glasses. "You, too? This is the most attention the poor bastards have had in ten years. Mitch Welton has all the autopsy reports in his office."
Were going to ask for them would make the entire staff of the coroner's office aware that he had asked about the Martians? No. "If you know the names offhand, that's all I need." Garreth kept his voice casual.
Thurlow snorted. "After the recent chance to refresh my memory, the facts are graven in my offhand, Inspector." He sliced off several pieces of lung and dropped them in a specimen jar an assistant held out, then picked up the liver. "December 15, 1975, Christopher Parke Stroda, suicide. A jumper. Number whatever from the bridge."
In the middle of grabbing for his notebook, Garreth caught his breath. Suicide! "The fall broke his neck?"
"It broke almost everything," Thurlow replied dryly. His knife sliced expertly through the liver. "Thomas Washington Bodenhausen. October 11, 1979, construction accident. Decapitation."
Garreth stared. "Construction? He had a day job?" The words were out before he thought.
He could only curse himself silently as Thurlow's brows went up. "What's so strange about that? But this happened at night, if I remember right. Last Martian: Corinne Lucasta Barlow, July 20, 1981. Traffic fatality. Another broken neck. Multiple fractured vertebrae, in fact. Also fractures of assorted long bones, plus ruptures of liver, spleen, and kidneys. Heart impaled by a broken rib." He paused. "Corinne Lucasta. Unusual name. Old fashioned."
Maybe not when Corinne Lucasta had been born. "Thanks, doc." Garreth headed for the door.
Back in the reception area he found Fowler leaning on the receiving desk flirting with the clerk. The writer abandoned his conquest abruptly as Garreth appeared. "Have a nice chat?"
"We'll see. Come on."
"Ta," Fowler called back to the clerk.
In the breezeway outside, Garreth sucked in a deep breath of relief, and laughed inwardly at himself. Even open daylight was preferable to the morgue? Hierarchies.
"Where now?" Fowler asked.
"Records."
He picked a clerk there he knew, but she just looked at him across the counter. "Do you have authorization to pull these files?"
Garreth frowned. She was not going to be as accommodating as Thurlow. "Authorization?"
"Of course. We can't hand records over to just anyone."
Cursing inwardly, he put on a mask of indignation. "What? Belflower, that's a crock. You know me."
"I know you don't work here anymore." Then she smiled. "I tell you what, though. You're riding along with Harry Takananda, right? I'll call him or Lieutenant Serruto for the authorization." She reached for the phone on the counter.
Self-control kept him from grabbing her wrist. That would only attract attention. "Belflower." Garreth pushed his glasses up on his head and caught her gaze. "That isn't-" He broke off. Was this a stupid thing to do with Fowler watching?
In the moment of inattention, she broke away from him, but before her hand touched the phone, Fowler finished, ". . . going to help. The lieutenant doesn't know anything about the lead and Sergeant Takananda is out of the building. I'm sure he would have given us a note or something, but he didn't think there would be this flap." He leaned on the counter and smiled at the clerk. "Look, love, we're just helping out the sergeant, Mikaelian as a favor to an ex-partner, and me tagging along gathering material for my book."
Her eyes widened. "You're Graham Fowler!"
He grinned. "Guilty, I'm afraid. Now . . . what do you say?"
She frowned. "Well . . ."
"I don't need to take the files out," Garreth said hastily. "A quick look here will give me everything necessary."
"I'd be most grateful," Fowler said.
Belflower smiled at him. "All right."
She hurried off.
Pulling his glasses back in place, Garreth breathed in relief. "Good show."
Fowler smiled dryly. "Well, we can't have the investigation bogging down in red tape, can we."
Belflower reappeared shortly with three folders. Garreth scanned the reports in each, looking for names, addresses, and telephone numbers of people connected to the victims. It did not surprise him to find very few.
Discovering Bodenhausen was black raised his brows, though on consideration he wondered why it should, any more than finding the names of parents and siblings for Christopher Stroda. The Stroda file also included a transcript of a tape recording left on the Golden Gate bridge with his coat, shoes, and sunglasses. The text whispered its despair in Garreth's head long after he went on to the next file.
"Anything I can do to help?" Fowler asked.
"Thanks, no."
"Do you mind if I have a look anyway?"
Was there more harm in letting him, or in piquing the writer's curiosity by refusing? "Go ahead."
Fowler paged through the folders. "I wonder if I might ask who these people are? They're all old cases, none of them murders. What's their relevance to our murderous Miss Barber?"
The inevitable question. Could he bluff his way out of answering? "Maybe none. It's just a hunch. Don't ask me to explain right now."
Fowler's brows skipped but he did not press the subj
ect.
Garreth grinned inwardly in satisfaction. Moments later, though, satisfaction exploded into a shriek of alarm. The report on Corinne Barlow's accident gave the Philos Foundation as her employer.
Holle drove a car with personalized plates: PHILOS.
The Philos Foundation! The name reverberated in Garreth's head. He could kick himself for not thinking of it when he first saw Holle's tags. The non-profit organization kept a low profile but its storefront blood collection centers dotted the city, and every hospital in the city kept its two numbers handy, 555-LIFE for the bloodbank and 1-800-555-STAT to reach the organ transplant hotline at the central offices in Chicago. He had seen the card numerous times at the receiving desk in San Francisco General's trauma center when he dropped by to visit Marti at work. And 555-LIFE, he confirmed by taking a peek at the telephone on the counter, translated into 555-5433, the same pattern of numbers Holle's housekeeper had called.
"Find something interesting?" Fowler asked.
Garreth thought fast. "I was thinking about transportation. My car's in Harry's driveway. Do you have one?"
Fowler arched a brow. "Yes, of course. One is crippled in America without one. I take it you intend visiting the people on your list there?"
"Give the man a cookie." Garreth shoved the files back across the counter. "Thanks, Belflower. I'm through. I owe you one."
5
Stroda's parents still lived in Marin County. Garreth almost wished they did not, that he had been unable to find them.
The mention of her son brought raw pain to Sarah Stroda's face. "You want to talk about Christopher?"
Only moments before Garreth had been admiring her youthfulness and the humor glinting in her eyes as she handed back Garreth's identification, accepting his story of being temporarily attached to the San Francisco Police through a continuing education program for small town officers. Now the humor had gone, while years etched themselves into her face.
"No." She shook her head. "Let's not talk about him. I've read your books, Mr. Fowler, and except for the way your protagonists treat people as disposable tools, enjoyed them, but I don't want my son in one of your books."
"He won't be," Garreth said. "This doesn't have anything to do with your son himself, just people he might have known."
Mrs. Stroda bit her lip. "Come in, then." She stepped back inside the neo-Spanish house, opening the carved door wide though her expression said she longed to close it in their faces. "I think I'd like fresh air." She led the way through to a deck looking out over the bay, where she stood at the railing with her back to them, fingers white on the wrought iron.
Garreth sat down in a redwood chair. "I'm sorry to be bothering you. I wouldn't if it weren't important."
Without looking at him she said, "It's been ten years. You'd think I'd have gotten over it by now, or at least come to terms with it. Instead-it's like it happened yesterday, and I still don't understand why! He was twenty-four, with everything to live for, and he-" She turned abruptly. "What do you want to know?"
He hated himself for opening old wounds. "I need the names of people he saw regularly before he died."
She groped for a chair and sat down. "I don't know who his friends were. The last two years Christopher became a total stranger."
Protest rose in his throat. She had to know something more, anything, even a single name! He forced his voice to remain soothing and patient. "Think very carefully."
He doubted she heard him. Her fingers twined tightly together. "I wish I could find that woman and ask her what she did to him."
The hair rose on Garreth's neck. From the corner of his eye he watched Fowler's eyes narrow. "What woman?"
She shook her head. "Someone he met in Europe the summer between college graduation and medical school. That's when he changed."
"Do you know her name?"
"No. He never talked about her. We just happened to learn from friends of friends that he'd been in a serious car accident in Italy and would have died except that this woman he was traveling with gave blood for him and saved his life. We asked him about it but he kept saying it was nothing and he didn't want to talk about it." She drew in a shaking breath. "Over the months he had less and less to say to us. He dropped out of medical school, and stopped seeing his friends . . . withdrawing, slipping farther away each day, until-" She turned away abruptly.
Garreth fought to keep his face expressionless. Until the widening gulf between Stroda and humanity became unbearable. Going off the bridge was certainly one solution to the pain.
"We thought it was drugs," Mrs. Stroda said, "though he always denied it. I guess it wasn't. The autopsy didn't find any." She turned back. "Who are these people you're looking for? Could they responsible for what happened to him?"
If only he could tell her. Except that could cause far more anguish than it cured. "I can't tell you much about them, but no, they didn't cause your son's death."
She let out her breath. "Good. So I don't have to feel guilty about not being able to help you."
"Perhaps one of your daughters knew something," Fowler suggested.
Mrs. Stroda stiffened. "No! I won't have them hurt again! Allison was only fifteen at the time. How could she know his friends?"
"Mrs. Stroda, it's very important that we find these people," Garreth said.
Fowler nodded. "Lives depend on it . . . sons and daughters of other mothers."
Mrs. Stroda flung up her head, catching her breath.
"Fowler!" Garreth snapped.
But Mrs. Stroda shook her head. "No, he's right. I'll give you the girls' addresses and phone numbers." She stood and disappeared into the house.
Garreth turned on Fowler. "That was a cheap shot!"
The writer smiled. "But effective."
"The end justifies the means?" Garreth said acidly.
The smile thinned. "Don't go casting stones, old son. I've noticed you're not above deceit and manipulation when it suits your purposes."
Garreth opened his mouth . . . and closed it again. What did he think he was going to say, that he acted for a righteous cause, that he tried not to hurt anyone in the process? Rationalizations. No matter how reasonable, they did not change the fact of deceit.
Mrs. Stroda reappeared with a sheet from a memo pad. She held it out to Garreth. "This time of day Janice will be at work. I've included that address, too."
Fowler glanced over Garreth's shoulder at the sheet. "Your daughter Allison is at the Stanford Medical School. Following in her brother's footsteps?"
"Tracking him might be a better description." Years and grief looked out of Mrs. Stroda's eyes. "Allison is studying to become a psychiatrist. Good day, gentlemen."
6
Good was not quite quite how Garreth could describe the day, not when he opened painful old wounds in three people in vain. Neither Allison Stroda nor Janice Stroda Meers, who worked in a crisis center near the University of San Francisco campus, would tell them any more than their mother had. Maybe the situation would be better with Thomas Bodenhausen. The police report had listed no next of kin for him. Bodenhausen had lived comfortably for a night watchman. The apartment building, a solid Victorian structure, offered its tenants a beautiful view of the Marina and the Palace of Fine Arts. The apartment manager, however, offered little, certainly not help. Frowning at Garreth from the open doorway of his apartment, he said skeptically, "Bodenhausen? Six years ago? Officer, you can't expect me to remember a tenant who left that long ago." He eyed the badge case still in Garreth's hands. "Are police interns paid?"
The question caught Garreth off guard. He had never expected anyone to ask for details of his cover story. His mind raced. "Yes . . . living expenses anyway. I think you'll remember this tenant, Mr. Catao. He-"
"Who pays you?"
Impatience stung him. He had no time for this; he had to find Irina! "My department of course. About Mr. Bodenhausen-"
The manager's brows went up. "So the city gets extra officers like you two for f
ree?"
Who was this bastard, a member of the budget council? "No. They profit. My department pays a fee to send me here. Now, may we please talk about Thomas Bodenhausen!"
Catao spread his hands. "I told you, I don't remember him."
Garreth sighed in exasperation. "He died, Mr. Catao. You must remember that . . . a fire and explosion at a construction site? A flying piece of metal decapitated the night watchman?"
"Oh." Recognition bloomed in the manager's face. "Him. Yes, I remember that guy . . . but I still can't tell you much. I didn't know him. He'd been here since before I took over as manager fifteen years ago and he was a good tenant . . . quiet, always paid his rent on time, kept his apartment in good shape. What's this about? I heard that fire and explosion was an accident."
Garreth opened his mouth to reply. Fowler cut in first. "I'm considering making it sabotage for the purpose of my book."
Catao focused on Fowler for the first time, eyes narrowing. "Your book? Aren't you an exchange from Scotland Yard?"
Despite the urgent situation, Garreth had to bite back a grin. Fowler's expression was the epitome of innocent surprise. "Did we give you that impression? I'm terribly sorry. No, I'm a writer. Officer Mikaelian introduced me as Julian Fowler but my full name is Julian Graham Fowler. The San Francisco police are very kindly cooperating in some research I'm doing and they lent me Officer Mikaelian to-"
The manager's eyes went wide. "The Graham Fowler? Who wrote Midnight Brigade and Winter Gambit?"
Fowler rubbed his nose. "Well . . . at the risk of learning you consider them trash, those are two of my efforts, yes."
"Are you kidding?" The manager grinned. "That Dane Winter is great. Have you read the books?" he asked Garreth.
"Not those two." The evasion avoided an admission that he had not read any of Fowler's books.
The manager shook his head. "You ought to. He's this guy who's past fifty and the hotshot kids in British Intelligence keep trying to claim he's over the hill but he can still spy rings around them all. He doesn't go getting himself beat up all the time, either. When you're our age you'll appreciate seeing a hero like that for a change. Hey, why are we standing out here in the hall? Come in, Mr. Fowler." He led the way into his livingroom. It smelled of a sweetly fragrant pipe tobacco.
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