The cameras started popping the second he stepped out of his car. Someone stuck a microphone in his face.
“Do you think the latest murder is the work of the serial killer known as the Avenger?”
“There’s no conclusive proof of anything at this time.”
“Is it true that Bernie Brusco had connections with organized crime?”
Max kept walking. “No comment at this time.”
“Will you form a serial killer task force?”
Yeah, and he was it. “Bernie Brusco’s murder will be fully investigated using every resource we have.”
“Do you think the killer could be a Courage Bay police officer?”
“It could be anyone,” Max said. “That’s it for now.”
“Will you be holding a press conference?”
“Should ordinary citizens be afraid?”
“Do you have suspects?”
The questions kept flying at him as he ducked inside the building, but he waved them off. The reporters would soon fall away, heading back to their newspaper desks and TV stations with the little they knew. A Sunday afternoon murder in the prestigious neighborhood of Jacaranda Heights would be the lead story in all the media. The Avenger would no doubt get a great deal of satisfaction from the attention.
Max dropped to the chair behind his desk, one of the reporters’ questions sticking in his mind like a gearshift that wouldn’t budge. Did he think the perp could be a cop? Not that the question surprised him. Lawmen were obvious candidates for avenger-type murders. There wasn’t a cop out there who at some point didn’t get sick and tired of putting his or her life on the line while the legal system passed more and more laws to protect the guilty and the justice system kept releasing the criminals and throwing them back on the streets.
Max knew and trusted his force down to a person. Still, knowing the facts about avenger-type killings made his choice clear. He’d go this investigation alone, and he’d be as objective as was humanly possible when it came to evidence. No one, positively no one, would be off-limits as a suspect if the evidence pointed to them. But he was definitely not buying into the mind set that this had to be a cop.
Avenger-type killings took a certain type of individual, one who could plan and carry out an execution with a sense of purpose and duty. One who accepted the role of judge and jury and had no qualms about issuing a death sentence. Historically these killers weren’t coldhearted or evil the way most murderers were.
They weren’t psychopaths, either. If anything, they were usually oversensitive to right and wrong—saw everything in black and white with no shades of gray in the mix. A lot of people with no connection to law enforcement fit that profile.
The sun was setting, and elongated shadows crawled across the room as Max walked into his office and dropped into his chair. He pulled out his notes and started the gruesome task of dissecting every detail that he’d collected at the crime scene. There was very little to go on.
Bernie lived at the highest point of Jacaranda Heights, and had a much steeper drop-off than most of the other residents. Even if the bullet hadn’t killed him, the fall would have.
There had been no exit wound, so it was a safe bet that they’d find the bullet somewhere inside the skull. Forensics would be able to narrow down the type of weapon and possibly an estimate of the distance it had traveled before making contact.
Weary now, Max got up and walked over to the file cabinet, where he pulled the four files of the previous murders. He’d go through them one by one, immerse himself in the facts surrounding each case, review them day and night until some pattern emerged.
No murder was perfect. The evidence was always there. The challenge was in finding and recognizing it.
First file, first murder—Hollywood producer Dylan Deeb. The killer obviously found Deeb’s sexual exploitation of underage actresses repugnant enough to assign Deeb a death sentence.
Max’s cell phone rang. He checked the number on the ID. Callie Baker. He stupidly raked his fingers through his hair as if she could see him, before he cleared his throat and took the call.
“Hello, Callie.”
“Max, I was hoping I could catch you.”
Her words sizzled along his nerve endings, and he wondered how a mere voice could produce that sensation. But then it wasn’t a mere voice. It was Callie’s.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“I just turned on my TV for the evening news. They said Bernie Brusco was murdered.”
Damn. He could have let her know since Brusco had been her patient. “I’m sorry, Callie. I should have called you and told you about the murder.”
“Then someone did intentionally try to kill him at Mary’s party.”
“We don’t have proof of that.”
“But it makes sense. The excessive amounts of ephedra didn’t work, so someone shot him and pushed him over the cliff behind his house to damage the evidence.”
“You looking to give up medicine and become a detective, Callie?”
“No, I figure I can do both.”
She was teasing, but that didn’t make her interest in being involved in this case go down any easier. “Didn’t we have this conversation at lunch yesterday and decide that you should stay out of the investigation?”
“We did, but that was when Bernie was alive, and attempted murder was only speculation.”
The sizzle along his nerve endings cooled to caustic apprehension. “The investigation is police business, Callie. I can’t bring you into it any more than you’d have me come in and write prescriptions for your patients or dispense medical advice.”
“But you could administer first aid in an emergency if you were on the spot. That’s all I’m proposing.”
“Define your version of first aid.”
“I’ll write out a list of everyone I remember seeing at the party Friday night just before or after Bernie collapsed. I know you said it could have been one of the hired staff instead of a guest, but at least this would give you a place to start.”
“I can get the guest list from Mary Hancock.”
“Sure you can, and I know you will, but that won’t narrow down the guests who were still there when Bernie had his attack. I’ve thought about it, and I can identify a lot of the people who were standing around both before and after I went to Bernie’s aid. Besides, if you ask Mary about the whereabouts of guests at specific times, she may feel as if she’s incriminating them. It’s my guess she’ll be hesitant to do that. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about supplying you with information. And I know about Jerry Hawkins.”
“Who’s Jerry Hawkins?”
“A guest at the party who I have reason to believe is a suspect—and the reason you should talk to me.”
Damn. She was speaking his language, and there was no way he could turn down her offer for information. There should be no risk involved with that—not as long as she spoke only to him and didn’t let anyone else know that she was giving him the inside scoop.
No risk for her.
Being with Callie was always a risk for him. Tough to have a heart too stupid to know when it didn’t have a chance. Fortunately Max had a brain that did. He was meat and potatoes. Callie was caviar.
Besides, even if they got past that, he was lousy at dating, and his brief dive into the pool of matrimonial bliss had been a disaster. Things got too tangled when he tried to fit his life with someone else’s, and he hated tangles that didn’t end with an arrest.
His marriage had been years ago, when he was fresh out of college and a rookie on the force. It had lasted all of eight weeks, not even past what most would consider the honeymoon stage. She’d left him, claimed he was married to his job and had no time for a wife. He hadn’t fought the breakup since he figured she just might be right.
“We have to talk, Max,” Callie insisted.
“Yeah. I could meet with you sometime tomorrow,” he said, resigning himself to the fact that he’d have to face this like a man.
Then again, that was the problem.
“I have an incredibly full day. What about tomorrow evening? Dinner at my place?”
He swallowed a groan. Dinner at Callie’s would mean a half dozen forks laid out like a puzzle, crystal stems that he’d probably knock over and break, and something he’d have to choke down like that raw fish wrapped in seaweed that was so popular these days. Worse, it would mean trying to digest food while his insides did weird things every time she smiled or made eye contact.
“Nothing fancy,” she said. “Come as you are.”
Sure, with a loaded gun on his hip and another in his trousers that could get him into real trouble. “What time?”
“Sevenish.”
“Cops don’t have sevenish on their watches. Seven-ten, seven-twenty, seven twenty-two, but not sevenish.”
“Seven-ten,” she said. “See you then?”
“I’ll be there. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone about the fact that you’re providing me with information.”
“I hadn’t planned to spread it around, but surely I can mention it to Mikki?”
“No one. Not even Mikki.”
He sat staring at the open file in front of him after he broke the connection. He didn’t want to frighten Callie unnecessarily, but the Avenger was getting bolder by the murder. Who knew when he’d cross his own line, decide that his work was so important that it didn’t matter who he had to kill to protect himself and his mission? Max planned to make damn sure the threat didn’t extend to Callie.
Then as always when Max’s thoughts centered on Callie, the old memory started burning inside him. One night, eight long years ago. His breath caught as he remembered the pressure of her breasts pressed against him, the feel of her hot tears on his neck. The sweet, salty taste of her lips.
Now he was having dinner with her at her place. He had to be out of his mind.
IT WAS SURPRISING and somewhat alarming to Callie that she was getting such a high from her sideline involvement in a murder case. Not that she wasn’t extremely upset that Bernie had been killed. She was.
But solving a murder case was a whole lot different from puzzling over a medical case.
Both involved life and death and a lot of hypothesis, but the killer in Bernie’s case was a calculating human instead of a disease. That changed the game plan considerably. She’d started on her guest list immediately after her conversation with Max last night, and the task had so consumed her that she hadn’t fallen asleep until after midnight.
Worse, the case had crept back into her mind between every patient this morning and during the last twenty minutes while Matilda Golena had gone on and on describing every ache and pain she’d felt since the last visit. At eighty-nine, Matilda had lots of aches and pains.
Callie glanced at her watch as Matilda walked out of her office with a clean bill of health in spite of her age and complaints. Twelve twenty-five. If Callie hurried, she could grab a salad from the hospital cafeteria and have another thirty minutes to make notes about people on her list before she met with the head of nurses to discuss new staff requirements in the outpatient surgery center.
She took the elevator down to the cafeteria, chose her salad and was paying for it when she noticed Abby Hawkins sitting by herself at a table a few feet away. Callie felt a surge of adrenaline. She’d promised Max she wouldn’t discuss the fact that she was cooperating with him in the murder investigation, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to friends, even one whose son was at the very top of Callie’s list. And if some tidbit of valuable information happened to fall in her lap, that was just good fortune.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, stopping at Abby’s table.
“Please do.”
Callie took the food from her tray and set it opposite Abby’s. “Did you volunteer in the addiction unit again this morning?”
“Yes. Every Monday and Wednesday. I teach painting classes to the patients who are interested. Some of them are quite talented, but even the ones who aren’t seem to benefit from the release of splashing colors on a blank canvas.”
“I knew you volunteered. I never realized you taught painting or that you were an artist yourself, for that matter.”
“I hadn’t painted in years, but started dabbling again after the divorce,” Abby said. “I have a few paintings exhibited in Norton’s Gallery, but hope to do a show next spring.”
“I’m impressed. I’ll have to drop by Norton’s.”
“Don’t expect too much. My talent is minimal.”
“Jack Norton must not think so. Did Elizabeth and Jerry inherit your talent?”
Abby’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, so you met Jerry?”
“Yes. I ran into him as he was leaving Mary Hancock’s party Friday night and he introduced himself. I didn’t know you had a son.”
“He doesn’t visit often, but he’s off work recuperating from an injury, so he’s spending a couple of weeks with me.”
Whatever his injury was, it hadn’t been obvious at the party. “Where does he live?”
“Sacramento.”
“If he needs follow-up care while he’s here, perhaps I could see him or suggest another physician.”
“He’s fine,” Abby answered between bites of her sandwich. “Bored, but fine. That’s the only reason he went to Mary’s party the other night. He normally avoids anything that requires more formal attire than jeans or shorts. But he loves to go boating, and I’ve agreed to go with him this afternoon, so I better run.”
Too bad. Callie would love to hear more, especially how a man from Sacramento knew so much about Bernie Brusco.
More info to share with Max tonight—which brought to mind a few other problems. Like why having an old friend to dinner to discuss a police investigation incited titillating sensations at the edge of her consciousness.
But then she’d never understood her feelings for Max Zirinsky, not since that night she’d boo-hooed in his arms over his pompous, self-centered cousin, whom she’d had the poor judgment to marry.
She was ready to trash what was left of her salad and get back to her office when she heard Mikki’s laughter over the clatter of banging trays and chatter. Mikki spotted her at the same time, smiled and came hurrying over with a heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs and a slice of coconut pie.
“Are you expecting a crowd for lunch?” Callie asked as Mikki started unloading her tray.
“I hope not. I plan to eat every bite of this myself. I missed my midmorning apple and I’m famished.”
“Busy morning?”
“Swimmer’s ear. I think half the population of Courage Bay under fifteen years of age is water-logged. The rest are sunburned or else they’re faking stomachaches so they don’t have to leave their friends and go to summer camp.”
Mikki forked a tangled mass of dangling spaghetti and slid it between her lips.
“And wasn’t that man who was murdered last night the same guy you saw in the emergency room Friday night?” she asked as soon as she’d swallowed.
“One and the same.”
“Did you see the headlines in the morning paper?”
“No.”
“Another one bites the dust. They devoted half a page to talking about the Avenger. They make this killer sound like a cross between Superman and the Terminator.”
“You know how the media loves hype,” Callie said.
“Hype’s one thing. Glorifying a killer is another. What if we all went around killing everyone we wanted dead?” She broke off a bite of her bread and slathered it with butter. “And I caught a bit of the noon news. They showed your friend Max. He’s more than just a nice butt, you know. You really should go after him.”
“Go after him?”
“Yeah, you know, flaunt your stuff the way you did in that red dress Friday night. The poor guy was practically drooling.”
“I didn’t notice his tongue hanging out.”
“Tongues can be tricky. Sometimes you have to go in after them.”
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“That’s as gross as watching you sit here in your size four pants and shovel down what amounts to a month’s calories for the rest of us.”
“Someone has to eat this hospital food. But speaking of calories, your favorite resident at the Keller Center is putting on too many pounds again.”
“You must be speaking of Gail Lodestrum.”
“None other than our emotional wreck who’s carrying not one but two fetuses in her womb.
“Did you go up this weekend?”
“Yesterday. Cortina delivered, and I couldn’t wait a whole week to see the new baby.”
“Boy or girl?”
“A dark-haired boy. Perfectly healthy, and totally adorable.”
“Great. Not good news about Gail, though.”
“No. I tried to talk to her, but she shut me out like always, except to ask when you’d be back. For some reason, you seem to be the only one she trusts.”
“She’s only fifteen,” Callie said. “I probably remind her of her mother.”
“The mother who kicked her out of the house when she found out Gail was pregnant. I seriously doubt it. When are the twins due?”
“Early September, but I think they’ll come early,” Callie said, pushing her salad plate out of the way and propping her elbows on the table. “She clams up every time I ask her about the father, but I have a feeling she hasn’t told him about the babies. If she did, she might get a little support there. Or maybe not.”
“She’ll tell you all before it’s over. They always bare their souls to you, even when they won’t talk to the counselors at the center.”
“Pregnant women and dogs like me.”
“And police chiefs.”
Callie felt a slow burn that she was certain reached her cheeks. One of the surgery residents stopped by the table to hit on Mikki before Callie had time to respond. “Great timing,” she told him without bothering to explain what she meant. She said a quick goodbye and headed back to her office.
She was sure Mikki was wrong about Max. If he was attracted to her, she’d be the first to know.
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