There was no doubt these killings were bizarre. But they pointed to something other than poisoning. Given the situation, Cat may well have missed the finding herself. But she had suspicions.
Mrs. Garrett was teary eyed, red faced. “Thank you for finding our little girl. Melanie’s been gone awhile. I never thought I’d find her. Then sometimes I knew we would, but I never thought it would be like this.” She wept openly.
“I know it’s hard, Mrs. Garrett.” Cat took her hand, squeezing it. “It’s always difficult at a time like this. But even in death, Melanie is a brave girl. She is showing us things we would not have known. She is a guide to her killer, a roadmap…”
“I hope you find the sonofabitch and he fries,” Mr. Garrett said, his anger pouring out.
“If we catch him, you can be damn sure he will,” Cat reassured him with her eyes as much as her words, then turned her attention back to his wife. “Melanie’s showed us how brave she can be.” She squeezed the woman’s hand again. “Now, I need something from both of you. I need for you to be strong for Melanie, for me.” Cat implored them with her eyes, and they understood.
“I’ll take you then.” Cat led them down to the morgue where Melanie Garrett waited to say goodbye to her parents. McGregor followed just in case the sight was too much for either of them. “Melanie did not die a pretty death.” It was a stupid thing to say, but Cat couldn’t think of anything else more appropriate as she led them down a dark cold hallway. Entering a brightly lit room, she walked to a row of stainless steel doors, each door holding death’s minion. The Garretts knew what they were going to see. McGregor positioned himself behind the couple, square in between them, in case either should fall.
Cat opened the vault and pulled the stainless-steel slab out.
“Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” Carlton Garrett said. He started to swoon but then locked his knees and held himself firm. For Mrs. Garrett, the horror was far less perceptible. She simply stood. After a few minutes, the Garretts moved closer to their daughter’s body. Mrs. Garrett touched her girl’s hair tenderly, as if she were still alive. “My baby,” she muttered over and over.
Melanie’s dad took a closer look at the sternum. “It’s her,” he said, walking away in disgust. He couldn’t bear the sight any longer.
“Dammit, can’t they give us more?” McGregor cried, a vein popping out of his forehead.
“They haven’t seen her in over nine months. She’s a runaway. Don’t you get it,” Gray said angrily. “They don’t know where she’s been and they don’t know who with.”
McGregor whirled on his heels, crushing a cigarette into the floor. “They must know something! Sonofabitch, how come he gets away so clean?”
“He’s smart and cunning. Stays far away from anyone who can possibly ID him. To those he knows he appears normal. And if you see the other side of him…”
“What?” McGregor shouted.
“Then you’re already dead.”
“Christ. They got to know something. Maybe there’s something they overlooked. A doctor, pastor maybe, that took a special liking to the girl.”
Gray shoved McGregor into a chair. “What the hell are you talking about?” He tried to remain calm, although he was getting steamed.
“There’s got to be some aspect we’re missing. A boyfriend, something…”
“Get it through your thick skull. This is another random killing. Random victim number three,” Gray shouted.
McGregor was in Gray’s face suddenly. “She’s not number three, she’s their kid.” He looked at the Garretts, visible through glass in another room. “She’s not a toe tag number, not a Jane Doe, not a runaway. She’s Melanie Garrett, seventeen years old, senior at Grover High School, home of the Indians…” McGregor felt hot tears on his cheeks. “Someone from her community. A man, maybe took a liking to her…” He realized how pathetic he sounded but would not back down.
Gray was suddenly angrier. “So what’s the angle you want me to take? You want me to sit her parents down and interrogate them? And what should I ask? Was your daughter a whore? Was she a slut? Did she screw around with older men in town? She doing drugs? Maybe a little prostitution on the side? Is that what you want me to ask them?”
“I do.”
“Think about it, make real sure. What else should I ask them? Any incest in the household? Dad, you ever get your rocks off watching Melanie undress?” Gray spoke from years of experience investigating these types of crime. He knew runaways were abused, usually in more ways than one. “You want me to ask, ‘Mom, you been negligent all these years pretending nothing was going on?’” He looked across the room. “What do you want me to ask them, McGregor?”
McGregor’s head was in his hands.
“You want me to ask Pop if he ever screwed her? You want me to get details? How many times? You sodomize her too?”
McGregor exploded off the chair, fists swinging.
“Shut up, Gray. Shut up.” Words came through tears.
Gray grabbed the bull of a man and held him for a second. McGregor pulled away.
“Don’t ask them nothin’, man. Just let it go.”
Arrangements were made for Melanie Garrett to receive a decent burial that day. Her corpse had been out of the water now for three days. Her family wanted to put the whole thing behind them as soon as possible. Take time to rebuild their lives. Move on with things. Cat knew in her soul that they never would.
No family ever “recovered” from something like this.
SIXTEEN
Open not thine heart to every man, Lest he requite thee with a shrewd turn.
—Ecclesiastes 8:9 (KJV)
Fifty miles to the south, in a hospital cafeteria at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, he stood waiting for a bacon omelet and toast. What was offered to him was overcooked, the toast burnt on one side. He took it, sipping steaming coffee as he paid.
At eight-thirty in the morning, remnants of the overnight shift were done, going home, a fresh batch of faces coming on. He was one of those going.
He surveyed the tables, choosing an empty one in the corner.
A dark-haired young man wearing a white lab coat stood nearby studying the specials. Their eyes met and the young man walked in his direction, sat down at the table.
He kept eating, never picking up his knife.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you a problem back there.”
“It’s quite all right,” he said.
The young man smoothed his hair, leaned closer. “Look, it’s just that I thought it was a bad judgment call, that’s all.”
“You and I both know she was dead when she came in.”
“What the hell are you talking about? She was doped up, but we could have saved her.”
“Are you questioning my judgment?” He clenched his napkin in one hand below the table.
“You were pursuing her treatment aggressively, then you…didn’t.”
“That’s when I realized she was gone,” he said, matter-of-factly.
The young intern would hear nothing of it. “You should have kept on though. When you got there, she had a respiration rate of six.”
“And pinpoint pupils. We checked the arms and legs for needle tracks.”
“I know that,” the intern snapped.
“I’ve had cases like hers before. The respiration rate didn’t mean anything. Her vitals were erratic. All over the place.” He kept eating, wondering why he was explaining himself to this boy. “Look, I started an IV, ordered a thousand cc’s DELR, 150 cc’s an hour.”
He glanced up. The intern’s face was redder. “Yes, but you didn’t order Narcan. You did nothing to counteract the morphine. Shit, you wanted me on your team… and now I’m standing by as you’re killing people.”
Putting down his fork, he stood, walked around, and sat on the other side of the table next to the young man. He tried to put his arm around the intern, wanting him to understand. He spoke in a whisper. “She’d had such a massive dose,
there was little…”
“Don’t give me that bullshit!” the intern snapped, pushing away, standing over him. “You didn’t follow protocol.”
“Will you sit down with me?” He patted the bench. “I have something to tell you.”
“What?” the intern said, exasperated.
“Come on now, sit down for a minute. There’s something I should tell you.”
The young man looked around and realized people were staring. He sat, straddling the bench. “What?”
“I’m sorry about her death. She should have had more time, you know. But I wasn’t stupid; I did what I could. I didn’t mean for her to die.” He whispered, “She would have gone anyway. The amount of morphine in her system would bring down an elephant.”
“But…”
“Let me ask you something, son.” He looked straight into the young man’s eyes, his face showing no emotion.
“Go ahead.”
“How long have you been in residency?”
The young man considered the question for some time. “This is my first year.”
“And how long have I been practicing medicine?” he said coolly.
“I don’t know.” The intern glanced at the doctor, sizing up his age. “Fifteen, twenty years maybe.”
“Twenty-two years.” His voice did not waver. He kept the same monotone diatribe he used when speaking at medical symposiums. “And how many morphine deaths have you witnessed over your one year of residency?”
“Well, we don’t get many in Newport. About three, I’d say.”
“Now let me ask you another question,” he whispered. “How many do you think I’ve seen in twenty-two years?” He let the words float with their own authority, adding none to his voice.
Normal color began to return to the intern’s face. The glare in his eyes was gone. “Mmm-hmm.” He seemed to consider the words. “You really think she wouldn’t have made it?”
“Yes. With all that trauma, she wouldn’t have lived longer than another ten minutes,” he said, his voice calming, palm supporting his chin.
“But with oxygen and one amp of Narcan, we could have saved her.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we. I should have taken over. Jesus, why didn’t you let me?”
He caught a quick breath. “You are an intern, my boy. What makes you think her outcome would have been any different?”
“I don’t know,” the young man said, his voice muffled, one hand over his mouth. “The medical texts say…”
“What?” His voice rose for the first time.
“The texts say…”
“I don’t really care what they say. I’ve seen ones like her before. She wouldn’t have made it. Real-life medicine and what you read in books are two different things. Trust me.”
The intern started to relax, the grimace on his face giving way to a look of sheer exhaustion.
He lowered his voice again. “I know sometimes these things upset us. I know. I can tell you’re upset. Why didn’t you do something more for her? I know the feeling.” He raised his head and stared at the young man. “Let it go.”
“Huh?”
“Like I have. I simply let it go.”
The intern seemed to understand what he was saying. Sometimes the line between life and death got blurred. Sometimes people died for all the wrong reasons. Rising, the young man barely brushed his forearm. The touch registered. “Thanks, I’m glad we talked.”
“I am too, Craig.”
He watched the young doctor walk away.
He got to the club at about eleven o’clock. The Irvine Sports Cub provided his sole daily interaction with people outside of the hospital. It stood at the end of a paved road that ran though the high-rises south of Costa Mesa. The club’s owners took care of it. Gleaming heavyweights waited for the willing. Now, in late August, mustiness from sweating bodies hung in the weight room. There weren’t many people here in the daytime.
He made an inspection tour of his muscles as soon as he sat on the ab machine, floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflecting his veins pumping. There was no wedding ring on his left hand. Any one of these girls would know he lived alone. His eyes met a long-legged beauty on the Stairmaster. Breasts firm and high, certainly a boob job, it was easy to tell. She’d watched him for some time but was too obvious. The beauty of the game had long since evaporated.
Satisfied he had done enough stomach crunches, he moved to the lockers. Changing clothes, he put on gray cotton sweats that felt comforting. He grabbed his racquet and walked down a narrow stairway to the courts.
As he descended, he made an inspection tour of the courts; it was useful to see who would be watching. With a hand towel, he wiped sweat remnants off his grip, looking around.
He liked the bare floors. Dead air. His footsteps echoed.
In this place, people were encased under white bright lights, as if for exhibition. It was a show of strength, perseverance, as much as anything else that made him come here week after week. Being able to display a glimpse of himself, the power, raw courage. What could be better? He needed an audience.
There was a difference between him and Higgins. Higgins came to win, he came to show himself.
Yet any layperson would not know him for what he was.
He saw Higgins twenty yards before he reached him. Higgins was standing alone, waiting on court five, raising a hand through the plexiglass. Even though Higgins weighed over two hundred pounds, clothes hung off the man’s frame, his hair unbrushed.
He smiled at him. He would cut him to pieces today.
The excitement was there, then evaporated.
They had been doing this for two years.
“How you doing, my friend?” Higgins asked, his frame bending at the knees, stretching his leg muscles.
“Fine, you ready?” He just smiled, small teeth barely showing.
Higgins smirked. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m gonna beat you this week.”
“I hope to God not. I’ve got a chance to kick your ass, and you can be damned sure I’m going to take it, as always,” he said, making haste to his favorite starting point, three feet in from the back line. “Just like last Thursday.”
Higgins said nothing, concentrating on his serve, which came with a blast.
He returned the hard ball with a thumping backhand. The screeching of white-top rubber soles on polished wood and the thump of the rebounding ball filled the small space.
Higgins began talking between quick breaths as he always did. “You heard about this Burning Man killer thing?”
“No, not really,” he lied, as he did to Higgins often. Planting his feet, he let go a loaded forearm shot that scored the first point.
Higgins groaned and wiped sweat off his balding head.
He handed over the ball, and a second service followed.
“How come you haven’t heard of him?”
“I’ve been extremely busy. I’ve got a chance to show my stuff right now, you know, for the director’s position.”
Higgins’s words came in short blasts, between heavy breaths. “Yeah, right. Like they’re going to consider you. How do you know you’re being considered?”
“They haven’t asked me. It’s an open position. I don’t think they have many choices. Board won’t start seriously looking for, I don’t know, another month, till Griswold leaves. Four weeks to show my stuff. You still working with Bristol Medical?”
“Yeah, it’s a genuine showplace,” Higgins said sarcastically. “I wish I was this Burning Man chump, getting all the attention.”
“You think he likes it?”
Clapping against the far wall, the ball whizzed by Higgins’s head. He couldn’t manage a return. He wiped the sweat off his brow, wrung his hand in his shirt, crouched, and said, “You want to put money on the game?”
“Sure.”
“Forty bucks says I make a comeback.”
“You’re on.”
Once the ball was in air, they resumed the conversation.
“How do you see the Burning Man?”
Higgins replied, “I don’t know. Might be some kind of a pervert, you know, gets his rocks off. Maybe he’s got a normal girlfriend, a misses, though I don’t think so. I think he can’t make it any other way.”
Higgins kept talking. “Got strange taste in women, that’s for sure.”
“How so?”
Higgins said, “Geez. If you’re gonna be doing that, why not go for upper-class chicks.
A flat cold feeling. “I thought he did.”
“Yeah, I guess two of them were, but I heard he slashed a whore and some farm worker.”
Going inside himself, he missed a shot.
“Gotcha,” Higgins taunted.
“So you think less of him because he killed those two?”
“Yeah. I guess. Don’t make much sense, you know.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, straightening. He could feel the fire rising up in him.
“You know with AIDS and stuff, how careful can the guy be? If it was me, I’d be making it with…” Higgins wiped sweat from his brow and returned a vicious hit. “Newport Beach types.”
He slammed the ball as it came at him. It rocketed to the wall in front, just above the painted line, and flew past Higgins.
“Shoulda brought a bat,” Higgins joked.
“Or more likely a tank,” he said. “So you think he knows them?”
“Huh?”
“You think he knows them? You know, the girls.”
“Well, that could be difficult. What if there were witnesses?” Higgins replied.
“You think he’s dumb enough to leave witnesses?”
“I don’t rightly know. Haven’t been any to come forward. It’d be difficult.”
“Why?”
Crashing against the walls, ceiling, floor, the small blue rubber ball continued to give them a workout.
Higgins grunted, taking a shot. “They’re rich. The first one is that surgeon Marsh’s daughter. You don’t think someone saw them?”
The Burning Man Page 12