by Daniel Kalla
She jumped off the bed and rushed to the door. “I’m coming,” she called.
She opened the door. Two Vancouver policemen in body armor held their guns at eye level, trained on us. “Hands up and stand back from the door!” the taller one barked.
Alex raised her hands and back-pedaled toward the bed. Slowly, I brought my hands over my head aware of the ache in my chest as I did so. The two cops burst into the room with guns still drawn. Once they had a quick look through the hotel room and a glance into the bathroom, they lowered their weapons and the one with the moustache called over his shoulder, “We’re clear.”
A plainclothes officer walked into the room followed by Helen and Rick. The wiry white-haired detective, who looked otherwise not much older than me, spoke first. “Dr. Benjamin Dafoe?” He turned to Alex. “And Dr. Alex Lindquist, correct?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I am Detective Scott Vance with the Vancouver Police Department,” he said stiffly in his flat Canadian accent. “You may lower your arms providing you keep them where we can see them.”
I lowered my hands to my lap, while Alex dropped hers to her side.
“I believe you know Sergeant Riddell and Detective Sutcliffe.” Vance pointed from Helen to Rick and then turned back to us. “You are hereby under arrest, pending an extradition hearing on behalf of the United States government. Do you understand?”
We nodded in unison.
“Thanks, Detective Vance,” Helen said. “Do you mind if we have a word with your prisoners?”
Vance held out a palm to us in a be-my-guest gesture.
Hands on her wide hips, Helen shook her head slowly. “Ben, it didn’t have to be this difficult.” She sounded like a disappointed aunt.
“How did you find us?” I asked.
Arms folded over his thousand-dollar sports jacket, Rick flashed me a smile so wide that my chest ached at the sight of his perfect teeth. He nodded to Alex. “You can thank Dr. Lindquist.”
I turned to Alex who looked back at me with a bewildered shake of her head.
“She didn’t know,” Rick said affably. “We’ve suspected Dr. Lindquist was helping you for a while now. Probably relaying those calls from your cell phone, right?” When I didn’t answer, Rick turned to Alex. “We’ve been tracing your cell phone for the past three or four days. Thank you for leading us to him.”
Alex’s head whipped over to face me. “Ben, I’m sorry.”
I reached out and touched her arm. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
Rick clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “That remains to be seen. People who abet an accused murderer after the fact can still be charged with second-degree murder.”
I felt my anger boiling, but before I could say a word Helen turned to her partner and said, “Rick, how about you dial it down a notch?”
Alex was unfazed by Rick’s menacing words. “When do we get to see our lawyers?”
“As soon we have processed you at lockup,” Vance replied.
Alex held out her hands, inviting handcuffs. “So process us.”
Vance looked to Helen, who shrugged. Then he nodded to the uniformed officers. They approached us with their handcuffs in front of them.
I stood awkwardly from the bed, wobbly after my emergency surgery. Alex jumped beside me and slipped an arm under mine to support me. “Ben?”
“Just a little dizzy. I’m fine.”
Moving closer, Helen chewed her lip and frowned. “What’s wrong, Benjamin?”
I lifted up my loosely hanging shirt to expose the bandages and the tube protruding from my chest.
Helen did a double take. “What is that?”
“A chest tube,” Alex said.
“What do you need that for?” she asked.
“To save his life,” Alex said. “After someone shattered his ribs and collapsed his lung.”
“Who?”
Alex put her hands on her hips and squinted intently at Helen. “One of the people who was actually involved in these murders,” she snapped. “Drew Isaacs.”
In handcuffs, I was taken across the street to St. Paul’s Hospital. The veteran ER doctor who examined me was more than a little surprised to see me arrive with a tube already sticking out of my chest. Chest X-rays confirmed that Isaacs’s blows had fractured two ribs on the right and one on the left, but with the aid of Alex’s well-placed chest tube, my lung had fully reexpanded. Leaving the tube in, the physician discharged me with the same painkillers Joe had given me earlier.
In the back of the police cruiser, I rode past Joe’s clinic on my way to the nearby Vancouver Pre-Trial Service Center (the city’s warm and fuzzy euphemism for jail). After being registered in its computer system, I was traded Marcus’s old clothes for a blue jumpsuit and then was taken to a cell in the infirmary area, where the jail’s nurse could monitor me.
My compact cell had a single mattress that rested on a built-in shelf. My chest pain had settled to a dull ache and my breathing was easier. I tried to reclaim my earlier detached calm, but as I paced the cell, my worry for Alex kept growing. Up until the moment they separated us in the hotel lobby, she had maintained her impenetrable poise, showing concern only for me. I knew, though, that she had to be racked with worry for Talie, not knowing how long they would keep her from her daughter. I felt even worse for confiding my suspicions about Marcus to her. Alone in a cell, a hundred miles and a national border away from Talie, she must have had doubts about the man looking after her child.
I was relieved to find out that I was allowed more than one phone call from lockup. After the attendant brought the phone to my cell, the first call I placed was to Joe Janacek’s home. “I’m in jail,” I told him.
“Alex already phoned me.”
I tapped the phone, anxious for news. “How is she?”
“Fine. I like that one. She’s tough.” He sighed. “Listen, Ben, I have spoken to a criminal defense lawyer whom I know and trust. Murray Hlinka.”
“Hlinka?” The laugh aggravated my chest pain. “Czech?”
“Of course,” Joe said. “And good, too. Believe me, you can trust him.”
“As long as he takes good care of Alex.”
“He will.”
After I hung up, I dialed my cousin. Even though it was after two A.M., Kyle sounded wide awake. “Ben, I’m sorry about Aaron,” he said before I could explain my situation. “I’d started to half believe that maybe he was still alive, too. And then when I saw the news tonight, it felt kind of like losing him all over again.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“So where does that leave you now?”
“Prison.”
“Prison? Where?”
I recapped the last two days, from Alex’s arrival to my arrest.
“Wow,” Kyle croaked. “Isaacs, that S.O.B.! He really did this to you?”
“Isaacs set me up from the get-go. He strung me along to make me think Aaron was alive, and then he ambushed me.” I paused to let the flickers of rage die. “Before he took off, he said I should have ‘left it alone.’ Any idea what he meant by that?”
“Not really,” Kyle said distantly. “But I should have warned you about Drew.”
“You did.”
“Not enough. I’d forgotten what a con man he was. Kind of guy who can disarm you with a smile and then stab you in the back when you turn. Aaron never trusted him. One of the reasons he moved up to Vancouver was to keep a closer eye on the operations and Drew.”
“That would have been nice to know.”
“I am sorry.”
“Forget it. It wouldn’t have changed what happened. Besides, I don’t know about Aaron, but I doubt Isaacs could have killed Emily in Seattle while he set me up from Vancouver.”
“He probably knows who did, though.”
“If the cops even bother to look for him.” I sighed. “Kyle, do you know a guy named Marcus Lindquist?”
“Can’t place him.”
“Alex’s estranged husband. A
hematologist who runs a company that stores umbilical cord blood.”
“Whoa! You think this guy was storing Aaron’s blood?”
“His or maybe mine.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“I’ll give you this, cuz. With what you’ve dug up so far, you would make that woman from Murder, She Wrote proud.” Then his tone darkened. “You’re not going to crack this case from jail, though. You need to focus on getting out. Have you spoken to Michael Prince?”
“Not sure I trust him. I’m going talk to a Canadian lawyer first.”
“Your choice, but Prince is the best,” he said. “I’m coming up to Vancouver.”
“There’s no point, Kyle,” I said. “I’ll be back in Seattle sooner than later.”
“Have it your way.” He sighed. “Do you mind if I say a few prayers for you at least?”
“Mind?” I chuckled bitterly. “At this point, prayer might be all I have left.”
Chapter 35
Despite my broken ribs and grim outlook, I slept heavily after my new lawyer, Murray Hlinka, finally left me alone at four A.M.
True to Joe’s word, Hlinka seemed competent and compassionate. He explained that he could do little to prevent my extradition, though, ironically, the death penalty was my one “ace in the hole.” (Not only is capital punishment banned in Canada, but apparently Canadians are loath to extradite anyone to a country where he or she might be executed.) If Washington state wasn’t willing to forgo a shot at the death penalty, it might lead to a lengthy legal battle and a prolonged stay in Canada. “Here’s hoping for the noose,” I toasted with my Dixie cup of water.
At eleven the next morning, I was still lying on the mattress worrying about my predicament and Alex when Jane, the boyishly cute prison nurse, showed up at the cell door. “Dr. Dafoe, you have visitors.”
I looked up into Jane’s kind eyes. “Oh, who?”
She glanced at the clipboard in her hand. “Sergeant Riddell and Detective Sutcliffe.”
Bracing my chest with a hand, I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Can you give Sergeant Riddell a message?”
“Fire away.”
“I’m only willing talk to her, alone.”
She grinned. “I wonder how that’s going to go over with the dapper detective.”
Dapper. The word stuck in my head, reminding me how my YMCA neighbor had used the same word to describe the man who came looking for me. I wondered again if Rick’s involvement went beyond his professional capacity.
Jane returned a minute later with two guards in tow. “Sergeant Riddell’s okay with your stipulation.” She smiled mischievously. “Detective Sutcliffe, not so much.”
The two burly guards, one of whom was surprisingly soft-spoken, led me to the open visitation room where Helen was waiting on the other side of a desk in a bright blue pantsuit. There were no prisoners at any of the other desks, so aside from the guards posted at the room’s corners, we were alone.
Helen smiled and dabbed at her lipstick with her little finger. “You never were too fond of Rick, huh?”
“How do you put up with him?”
“He’s actually a good partner. Reliable. Affable. And one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.” She chuckled and winked. “And a sharp dresser to boot. Even a post-menopausal old bat like me can do with a little eye candy now and again.”
I nodded. “Guess you don’t mind that he does a bit of investigating on his own.”
Her face scrunched. “How so?”
“Apparently, he went to see both Alex Lindquist and Kyle Dafoe without you.”
“He goes to the bank without me, too, sometimes.” Helen heaved her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “It’s a divide-and-conquer thing.”
I thought I detected more concern than she was letting on, but I let it go. “Are you going to stay in Vancouver until they transfer me?”
She shook her head. “We’re on our way back. I wanted a chance to chat before we left.”
“Hoping I might confess?” I asked.
“It would sure make the paperwork easier.” She sighed. “You’re not going to, are you?”
I shook my head.
“I never get the open-and-shut cases.”
I pointed at her. “Helen, tell me something. How did you know about my big fight with J.D. in Emily’s apartment?”
She considered the question a moment and must have decided the answer was innocuous enough to share. “A tip.”
“Anonymous, right?”
She nodded.
“And Aaron’s”—I cleared my throat—“corpse?”
“As I told you, a hiker’s dog found the, um, femur.”
“No coincidence there, huh?” I said. “Two years after he died, a hiker’s dog sniffs out his corpse at the same moment I’m trying to build my case.”
She smiled helplessly. “I’ve never scheduled a random corpse discovery before.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Helen brought her pinkie to her lip again, smoothing another granule of lipstick. “I’m having the lab run that test you suggested on the dried blood.”
“A waste of money.”
She grimaced. “Why?”
“I asked you to do it when I thought my brother might still be alive,” I said. “I think Aaron contracted HIV shortly before he disappeared. All along I assumed the blood on Emily’s wall would be his, and therefore HIV-positive. But if he’s been dead all this time…”
Helen nodded. “My point, Ben, is that I’m keeping my word to you. I followed up on the blood streak. I followed up on Maglio and Emily. And I will continue to chase any lead that points to someone other than you, but so far…” She held up her palms. “All I’ve hit are dead ends.”
“What about Drew Isaacs?”
“Vancouver P.D. is looking for him. For the time being, he’s vanished.”
“And Malcolm Davies?”
“Old Malcolm had very little to say.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently, you’re not very memorable. He doesn’t even recall ever meeting you.”
“Everyone lies,” I said despondently.
“Welcome to my world!” she chortled.
Filling with the now familiar sense of defeat, I hung my chin and stared at the desk in front of me.
“I still want to help, Ben.” Helen reached over and grabbed my wrist. “But if you didn’t kill Emily, please give me some plausible explanation of how your blood ended up on that wall.”
“Don’t know about plausible, but I do have a theory.”
Helen patted her chest. “Try me.”
“Umbilical cord blood storage.”
“Pardon?”
I gave her the rundown on Marcus Lindquist and Hope Bank Cryogenics.
“And you’re sure Emily and Marcus were getting a little on the side, huh?”
“According to Emily.”
She squinted. “This facility could keep blood intact for a few years?”
“Pretty much forever. That’s what the parents pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for.”
Helen nodded. “Okay, I’ll look into it.” She rose to her feet and cocked an eyebrow. “Anything you want to tell me before I go?”
I showed a tired smile. “One, I didn’t kill Emily. And two, thank you.”
“We have to get you out of that jumpsuit. Blue is my color, not yours.”
With that, she was gone.
I had another brief visit with my lawyer, but spent the rest of the day in my cell. Jane checked in on me every two hours. She assessed my chest tube, which continued to function well, and brought me painkillers on the one occasion I asked for them. The rest of the time I was on my own.
Even before my fugitive days, I’d grown accustomed to being alone, but perhaps because of the sense of confinement I felt lonelier now. Without the threat of capture hanging over me, I had more time to ruminate over Emily and Aaron. They had been the two most important people in my life.
As I sat in my cell, their loss sank in deeper and harder than I’d expected. The grief was as raw as in the days immediately following Mom’s death.
At dinnertime, I was staring uninterestedly at the barely touched macaroni on my tray when Jane showed up. “I’m going off shift, but you have another visitor.”
I pushed the tray away. “I thought there was only one visiting time a day.”
“He demanded to see you,” she said. “Claims he’s your lawyer.”
“Prince?”
“That’s him.”
More out of curiosity than hope, I walked with the burly guards to the visitation room.
His long silver hair sweeping over the collar of his navy jacket, Michael Prince rose from the chair behind the desk. His citrus-tinged cologne reached me before his hand did. He released the handshake and sat down. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Benjamin, but at least now maybe I can start using my experience on your behalf.”
I eased into my chair, wary as ever of the man across from me. “Problem is, Michael, your defense strategy was dug up by a nosy dog on Mount Rainier.”
He broke into a soft laugh. “As you’ve been contending for quite some time, you don’t need a live donor to rig a crime scene. The same killer who let Aaron bleed out in the trunk of his own car could have easily preserved a few test tubes of his blood.”
“Not easily, but possibly.”
“Semantics, Ben.” Prince waved it away with his manicured hand. “‘Easily’ sounds better than ‘possibly’ to a juror, but either establishes reasonable doubt.”
“My local attorney tells me that it could be a long while before I’m extradited.”
Prince shook his head gravely. “For an American citizen charged with a crime committed on American soil? You’ll be in Seattle before the week is out. Sooner, probably.”
“What about the death penalty issue?”
“Not for a respected doctor accused of a crime of passion. The state would never ask for it.”
My stomach sank, but I felt somehow detached, as if watching someone else’s life implode. “What am I supposed to do?”
“My advice? Do not fight the extradition,” Prince said. “It’s essentially a rubber-stamp decision. You’re going to have choose your battles. This one isn’t worth it.” He tapped the desk with a finger, more impassioned than I’d ever seen him. “Once we get you to Seattle, I’ll launch a very aggressive and very public campaign to have the charges dropped. If that fails, I’ll push for early arraignment and a pretrial. Circumstantial evidence aside, the state’s case is shaky. I want to hit them hard and sink their arguments before it even gets to trial.”