Blood Lies

by Daniel Kalla

  I nodded along, swayed by his articulateness. “You honestly believe you can win at trial?”

  He smiled. “I promise you I can.”

  “But will you?”

  “Yes.” The hesitation in his pale blue eyes lasted only a nanosecond, but was long enough to deflate my hope. “I have to go back to Seattle tonight, but you’ll be seeing a lot of me once you’re brought back.” He stood to leave.

  “Michael, you did know Aaron, didn’t you?”

  The question stopped him. “Yes.”

  “You were his lawyer, too?”

  “I really shouldn’t comment, Benjamin.”

  I held his gaze. “Please.”

  “Only once and for very briefly,” he said. “A drug-related charge. It never went to trial.”

  “Why was that?”

  “The evidence—marijuana and other drugs—was mishandled at the scene. The prosecution couldn’t prove that it had not been tampered with.”

  I was going to leave it at that, but I suddenly had a glimmer of insight. “Who was the arresting officer?”

  He thought a moment. “Detective Rick Sutcliffe.”

  Chapter 36

  My next two days in jail crawled past. Though I didn’t miss the constant sense of being hunted, the loss of autonomy wore on me. My fate was in everyone’s hands but my own. And I had the growing worry that despite coming tantalizingly close to the truth, I might rot away in jail without ever knowing what happened to Emily or Aaron. The thought sickened me.

  But the progress of my physical recovery surprised even me. On the third day of imprisonment, the prison doctor pulled the tube out of my chest. Afterward, I needed only aspirin to take the edge off the dull ache of the broken ribs. I could breathe and move (provided the motion wasn’t impulsive) free of pain. And I knew I was well on the road to recovery when the longing for my bike resurfaced. My sense of confinement compounded my hunger to fly down a road or pound through a bike trail.

  On the fourth day, the prison barber visited. With my hair trimmed short and beard shaved off, my reflection looked more familiar in the mirror, but I still shuddered at the image of me in the blue jumpsuit. The idea of growing old in that jumpsuit—or its Washington state equivalent—blackened my mood.

  Shortly after the barber left, Murray Hlinka met me in the visitation room. I sat across from the middle-aged lawyer with the basset-hound eyes and mop of thick graying hair.

  ‘Ben, there’s little more I can do for you.” Murray fidgeted in his seat. “The judge has signed the extradition papers.”

  “When do they take me?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Events had played out exactly as Prince had predicted, so I wasn’t the least surprised, but that didn’t lessen the crushing sense of finality.

  Murray eyed me solemnly. “I am sorry, Ben.”

  I shrugged off my disappointment. “You did everything you could, Murray. What about Alex?”

  His eyelids rose slightly. “Much better news. The state of Washington dropped the charges. She was released last night.”

  My mood brightened. “Good.”

  “There is one condition, though.” He cleared his throat. “Alex is not allowed to visit you. She was very upset, but there was nothing I could do. The Canadian officials already escorted her onto her flight last night.”

  I’ll never see her again. I rubbed my eyes, as I swallowed away the lump in my throat. “Are we allowed to e-mail or speak on the phone?”

  Murray nodded. He rose to his feet and extended his hand to me. “Joe thinks you’re going to come out of this okay, you know?” He smiled stiffly. “And Joe is hardly ever wrong.”

  I shook his hand. “Thanks, Murray.”

  Though I barely knew him, as I watched him go I felt like one more door had just slammed in my face.

  Standing between Hank and Ali, the two likable pillars of muscle who had been my guards for the past three days, I trudged back to my cell in silence.

  Inside, I lay on the mattress staring at the white ceiling. Wanting to give her time to catch up with her daughter and adjust to freedom, I tried to resist the urge to call Alex. My restraint didn’t last more than an hour. Desperate to hear her voice, I asked Hank for the phone.

  I reached her on her cell phone. “Ben!” Alex cried. “I wanted to come see you.”

  I warmed at the sound of her voice. “Murray told me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “You did a great job, Doctor. Chest tube is gone. Ribs are healing well.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “I’m okay, Alex,” I said. “They’re going to move me to Seattle tomorrow. Prince says it’s for the best. He thinks he can poke holes in the state’s case.”

  “Prince,” she snorted. “Do you trust him?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m sure he knows more than he’s telling me. But I also believe he’s the best defense attorney in King County and that he’ll fight tooth and nail for me.”

  “He’d better!”

  I chuckled. “How’s Talie?”

  “She’s still with her father.” Her voice faltered.

  “What is it, Alex?”

  “Marcus came to meet me at the airport last night. We went together for dinner. ‘A family dinner,’ he called it. He was already putting the pressure on.”

  The acid shot up my throat. “To win you back?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Ben, I see Marcus for what he is, but Talie was so happy. For the first time in months, she seemed totally at ease.”

  I squeezed the receiver until my hand ached and my fingers went numb. Marcus is a narcissist and a sociopath who might also be a double murderer! For God’s sake don’t let him near you or Talie!

  “Ben?” she prompted.

  “I’m here,” I said quietly.

  “Say something.”

  I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but I couldn’t imagine anything more selfish. “Listen, Alex, you have do what is right for Talie and you. I can’t tell you what that is.”

  She sniffed. “God, I wish things were different…”

  “Me, too.”

  I spent the rest of the day in my cell. My behavior bordered on catatonic. I didn’t touch my food. And I ignored every attempt Jane and the guards made to engage me in conversation.

  I felt the will to fight slipping away. And I didn’t even mind seeing it go.

  The thoughts of Alex with Marcus tormented me into the late evening. By daybreak, I wasn’t sure that I had slept a wink, but having done nothing in the past three days, I didn’t feel tired. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I was numb as I sat on the bed waiting for the marshals who would come take me back to Seattle.

  Hank and Ali arrived a few minutes after nine o’clock. Expecting to be loaded directly into a van or cruiser, I was surprised when they led me down the hall to the visitation room. I was equally amazed to see Helen, wearing an iridescent floral blouse, waiting for me at one of the tables.

  “Are you taking me back to Seattle?” I asked even before I’d sat down.

  She flashed a gaping smile. “If that’s what you want.”

  I grunted. “I get a choice? I didn’t realize the Washington state penal system was so accommodating.”

  Her smile stretched right across her face. “Oh, it’s not accommodating at all.”

  “What’s going on, Helen?”

  “I never cancelled that test you told me was going to be a waste of money.”

  I was bewildered for a moment, but then I made the connection. “You’re talking about the blood streak on Emily’s wall?”

  She nodded.

  My heart leaped. “It was HIV-positive?”

  “Apparently.” She chuckled. “Providing you don’t have HIV, our case against you has just crumpled like a cheap tent.”

  My mouth fell open. After a disoriented moment, a wave of euphoria washed over me. “I’m free, Hele
n?” I asked, not daring to raise my voice above a whisper.

  “You will be.”

  Chapter 37

  A certified lab technician drew my blood while Helen watched and two official witnesses notarized all the appropriate paperwork.

  Word of my impending release spread rapidly. Minutes after the entourage left, Jane, Hank, and Ali showed up at my cell with a plate of prison-issue blueberry muffins they had converted into cupcakes with icing and candles. I laughed all the way through their out-of-tune rendition of “For He’s a Jolly Free Fellow.”

  No one, myself included, doubted that my HIV test would come back negative. While I waited, I was allowed access to the phone. I decided that I would break the news to Alex in person, but I felt I owed Kyle a phone call. I tracked him down at home.

  He was quiet for a moment, before uttering a soft laugh. “Remember your words, Ben? You said all you had left was prayer.”

  “I know.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him I never actually resorted to prayer.

  “Sometimes things have a way of working out, huh? Even in your screwed-up family.”

  I laughed. “You’re part of that family.”

  “Keep that to yourself,” he said. “So what’s next?”

  “I’m going to come home.”

  “And play detective here?”

  I hadn’t really considered it before Kyle asked. “I don’t know, Kyle, but this isn’t over yet.”

  “You are a stubborn S.O.B., aren’t you?” he said with a sigh.

  “Thanks for everything, cuz.”

  “I didn’t do much,” he said. “But if you really want to thank me, maybe one day you’ll come check out my church and meet the big hitter I tried to bring in on your behalf.”

  I hung up the phone still considering Kyle’s comments. Maybe I was pathologically stubborn, but there was no way I could walk away from murders of two of the most important people in my life simply because I was cleared of suspicion.

  At 3:05 P.M., I heard the official news, unofficially, through Jane. My HIV test had come back negative. A half hour later, I shook hands with the director of the jail and walked out of the modern facility onto the sunny Vancouver streets a free man.

  But not an anonymous one.

  A throng of reporters, held back by a line of uniformed policemen, shouted questions to me while I followed Helen to an unmarked black police sedan. “How do you feel, Dr. Dafoe?” I heard one reporter call out through the noise.

  I turned and smiled at the reporters and cameraman, reveling in the freedom of not having to hide my face from each pair of eyes. “Relieved!” I ducked my head under the edge of the car’s roof and slid into the seat beside Helen.

  On the way to the airport, I insisted that the driver stop by the East Hastings Clinic. The others waited in the car while I walked inside and up to the reception desk. In the same white uniform as always, Edith viewed me as indifferently as ever. “Ah, Dr. Dafoe,” she said, using the name without any indication I’d ever gone by anything else. “I suppose you want me to get Dr. Janacek for you.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. I was really beginning to admire the woman. “Don’t want to put you out, Edith. I’ll find him myself.”

  I walked into his back office to find Joe in his pressed snow-white lab coat sitting behind a stack of charts. He looked up at me with a slight grin. “What did I tell you? All you needed was a good Czech lawyer.”

  He rose to meet me. I stepped over and gave him a hug. ‘Murray was great, but what I really needed was a good Czech friend. Thank you, Joe.”

  Looking slightly embarrassed, he shrugged. “Eliska will be happy. Of course, she didn’t have to work with you.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t suppose Dr. Benjamin Dafoe has a Canadian license?”

  “No,” I said, honored by the implication. “I might have to get one, though.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “Now.”

  “Going back to life in the ER, are you?”

  I nodded.

  “And to Alex?”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Do you want my advice?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for my answer. “You ought to marry her, Ben.”

  “She already is married.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Hungarian or not, you are surprisingly short-sighted.”

  I sat beside Helen on the half-hour flight from Vancouver to Seattle. I was staring out the window at the birdlike cloud formation below us when Helen tapped my shoulder. I turned to her. She raised the safety instruction pamphlet in her hand. “I’ve read this three times, but if we drop ten thousand feet into the water, I doubt I’ll remember which string to pull or the right valve to blow into on the life jacket. So if you see me flailing in the surf, lend a hand, will you?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Her smile faded. “Ben, when do you think your brother turned HIV-positive?”

  “I’d guess three or four months before he died. Six at the most.”

  “So that streak of Aaron’s blood on Emily’s wall would have been collected anywhere from twenty-six to thirty-two months before she was killed?”

  “Sounds right.”

  She grimaced. “It’s not easy to store blood for that long, is it?”

  “For four months, you just need a fridge. Anything longer requires sophisticated lab equipment and freezers.”

  “Like they have at Hope Bank Cryogenics?”

  “Yeah.”

  Deep in thought, the skin wrinkled around her eyes. “Okay, let’s say Marcus Lindquist had the means, maybe even the motive to do it.”

  I sat up straighter in my seat. “Yes, let’s.”

  “Who plans two and a half years in advance to frame someone for murder?”

  The same thought had gnawed at me. “Maybe he hadn’t planned to when he originally stored Aaron’s blood.”

  “Then why did he store it?”

  “Maybe he stores lots of people’s blood for research or other purposes. Hell, maybe he has some kind of blood fetish, like those vampire cults.”

  Helen arched an eyebrow at me.

  I knew how lame it sounded. “You have a better idea?” I asked.

  “No. And that’s the problem.” She looked up at the bulkhead, exasperated. “What makes me a decent Homicide detective is that most times I can appreciate the killer’s inner logic. I can see the upside from the perp’s point of view. Even with the sick and twisted sexual predators or serial killers, I can see what’s in it for the killer. Not this time.” She shook her head so hard that her bead necklace shook. “It never made sense for you to have killed Emily. And it doesn’t make much more sense for Marcus Lindquist or anyone else on our list.”

  I wasn’t ready to let Marcus slide that easily. Glancing out the window, I noticed that the clouds were closer as we began our descent. “What about your partner?”

  “Rick? I don’t think he has any better idea than I do.”

  I looked back at Helen. “Do you trust him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the investigating he was doing behind your back?”

  “He was following up on hunches. One of them—tailing Dr. Alex—led us to you.”

  “Did you know that when Rick worked in Narcotics, he once busted my brother?”

  Her expression remained placid. “Go on.”

  After I told her about the drug bust and tampered evidence, she simply shrugged. “I knew he had a case go bad before he switched from Narcotics to Homicide. Guess that was it.”

  “Awfully big coincidence, don’t you think?”

  She grimaced. “Are you suggesting Rick is mixed up in this?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Anything is possible.” Helen groaned. “It’s not a question of what is possible. It’s about what makes sense. And Rick’s involvement doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Revenge?” she echoed. I was pulling at straws, and Helen knew
it. “Are you suggesting that for screwing up a drug bust, Rick got back at Aaron two years after he was already dead by killing Emily and framing you?”

  “Listen, Helen.” My voice was edgier than I’d intended, but a fire was building in my gut. “All I know is, someone murdered my former fiancée and deliberately left my brother’s blood at the scene. Whoever it was had the resources and know-how to do it. What’s more, he had reason to!”

  Helen met my stare. “You leave this to the professionals, all right, Ben? I don’t want you getting yourself killed or screwing up my investigation—not necessarily in that order—by nosing around where you don’t belong. Understand?”

  I nodded and turned away sullenly. Her warning was wasted on me. Despite how much I respected Helen, I knew the official investigation was no closer to nailing whoever killed Aaron and Emily.

  And I wasn’t about to stand back and let that person walk free.

  Chapter 38

  Any hope I had of avoiding a media zoo in Seattle was dashed as soon as I walked through the arrival gates at SeaTac Airport. As in Vancouver, the police were present to hold back the blitz of reporters and cameramen. Though Helen offered me an escape route, I decided to stay and make a statement, publicly thanking friends and family for their support and best wishes. I fielded a few questions and then turned to leave when a female reporter called out, “How do you feel now that it’s all over, Dr. Dafoe?”

  “It’s not over.” I sought her eyes out in the crowd. “Not even close.”

  I trooped away, catching up with Helen in front of the terminal. I got into her waiting car and she drove me home. As we turned onto my street, I was relieved to see that the press had not found my unlisted address. I was happy to arrive home without fanfare.