Wearing nothing, she studied the angry-looking scars, ran her fingers across the place where the line ended over the rib cage that protected her heart.
She would gladly take these scars . . .
If it meant she was done with cancer.
And Spencer. Some part of her had thought that the mastectomy would keep him away, that he wouldn’t want a woman without breasts. That his vanity would cause him to reject her.
Would it?
Now she wasn’t so sure.
She reached into the shower and turned the hot water on full blast, waited for the steam to fill the room, erase her from the mirror. She tried to think about Ken. Gentle, kind Ken. She deserved a good man. She relaxed into the water and forced away the concerns—that there would be more wounds to come.
That Spencer wasn’t done with her yet.
20
Seated at the office Monday morning, Hal stared down at the greasy film on the surface of the department coffee that filled his mug. Along with the slick oil-spill sheen, the fake creamer gave the coffee a gray tint. The combination was not appealing.
The Greenville DA’s office had been his first call. Given the time difference, it was after nine there when he’d called them. He’d spoken to one of the ADAs and been told that someone would call him back.
It was almost ten thirty. No word.
He took another swig of the lukewarm coffee swill. Hard to believe he used to drink department coffee black. Now he could hardly stand the taste of it with cream and sugar. He missed the giant Starbucks mocha and hated that he’d become one of those people. He couldn’t be buying coffee every day. For one, he couldn’t afford it. And there was something about the coffee culture. Too yuppie, too hip. He was neither.
He checked the volume on his cell phone again. Nothing. He was starting to suspect that the DA’s office wouldn’t return his phone call. Hal had left a message with Harper, too, but he didn’t know what more she could offer on the necklace. She’d seemed as surprised by the picture of Lucy wearing the turtle pendant as he and Schwartzman were. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Schwartzman at the bar, wondering what it was that she had wanted him to know. Or had he imagined that?
No, he hadn’t. Schwartzman knew something. She wasn’t going to tell him, so he was going to have to figure it out before MacDonald used it as a way to get out of prison . . .
Spencer MacDonald.
Just the name stirred up intense rage, anger like he hadn’t felt since his father’s death. When the Oakland PD had announced his father was on the take. They couldn’t hurt his father, so they’d hurt him and his mother, his sisters. At least his father hadn’t lived through the humiliation. Wherever his dad was, he wasn’t hurting.
But Schwartzman wasn’t done hurting.
Spencer was always one half step off her mind. Always looming. And if he got out of prison . . . Hal wouldn’t let himself consider it. There had to be a way to keep Spencer behind bars.
If only Hal knew what Spencer was planning.
He finished the dregs of his coffee and returned to the information in front of him. No surprise, he’d been officially assigned the lead on Ben Gustafson’s murder, if it was a murder. The family was pressing the police to release the remains—especially since they could find no real signs of foul play, but they had allowed Schwartzman an extra day. Friday, she’d gone back to the body to examine it for any other evidence. Then she’d swabbed the droplets that remained on his face and got Roger to promise to run the material through his new toy today.
The cable company had faxed over Gustafson’s schedule for the day he’d died. He was last seen at the home of a Doug and Christine Smith, where he’d installed two new devices. Hal had already spoken to Mrs. Smith. According to her, Gustafson was gone before noon. She’d worked in her daughter’s kindergarten class from twelve thirty until school let out at three twenty. Thirty five-year-olds could vouch for her. Her husband had been at work the entire day. Hal put a call into Doug’s workplace, but he knew the husband’s alibi would hold, too.
Neither Doug nor Christine had any connection to the cancer center, Todd Posner, or Norman Fraser. Hal had checked Fraser’s alibi and learned that he had been in the clinic seeing patients without so much as a break for lunch during the afternoon that Gustafson was killed. Which gave him an airtight alibi. Unless he had an accomplice, Fraser was not their guy.
Hal had gone back to the afternoon Gustafson died to look for additional clues. He’d had three more appointments in his calendar. He was due to arrive to those locations between one and five, but he’d never shown up. No GPS tracking on the van. Cell phone records would take weeks and, even then, learning which towers he’d been close to wouldn’t offer enough insight, not in a place as dense as San Francisco.
Which meant Hal was at a dead end on Gustafson.
He called the cancer center to get a list of who was involved with Sandy’s treatment at the hospital during her stem cell transplant and left a message. Next he called the Finlay Foundation to arrange a time to meet with the director. Left another voicemail.
Tense and frustrated, he carried the coffee mug to the tiny room that housed both the copier equipment and the coffeemaker, rinsed the mug, and returned to his desk. But he couldn’t sit. He remained standing and leaned over, sorting piles of paperwork, half to organize the papers he’d been ignoring the past few days and half to have something to do with his hands. Movement, motion. He wanted to do something.
Caught under a catalog for high-end bulletproof vests and tactical gear was the envelope Schwartzman had found on her windshield. He caught his breath. He should have had the letter and the envelope checked for prints already.
In the chaos of dealing with Norman Fraser in the parking lot and then Sandy Coleman and the link between Posner and Gustafson, the death certificate had slipped his mind. He took the envelope by its corner and shook the folded page out onto his desk. Then he put the envelope inside an empty manila folder and, touching the page by only its corner, took the letter and made a photocopy. He added the original page to the folder and sat back at his desk.
Using the criminal database, he searched for Joseph Strom, date of birth August 9, 1947. No record found. He tried the national driver registry, but Strom wasn’t there either, which meant Strom had never had his license suspended or revoked.
Impatient, Hal logged out of the system and walked out of the department with the manila folder and the photocopy of the letter. His first stop was to Records, where he requested a full search on Strom. Last address, next of kin, business—he wanted anything they could find on him. It would take a few days, they told him. If he had a chance to talk to Harper, he would ask her to look into it, too. Maybe she’d have a way to access the information more quickly.
He thought of her voice on the phone. Rattled. The sharp tone of her husband’s voice in the background. “Tell them,” he’d said. The defense was making noise about the evidence. God, what a nightmare.
He reminded himself Harper would contact them if she heard anything else. He would have liked to call her right then and there, but she was shaken. Scared. He needed to give her time to take care of herself and her family.
Since the mention of the evidence against Spencer—or, more accurately, the questions about the evidence against Spencer—every request, every call felt more urgent. He needed answers now.
He took the manila folder down to the lab, hoping to find Roger in the corner playing with his new toy. What had he named the machine? But Roger wasn’t there.
“He’s at a scene,” Naomi said, spotting Hal from where she stood next to what looked like a large terrarium. She was fingerprinting. On one end of the terrarium was water, a compact heater, and the small metal container the lab used to heat the superglue to fume for fingerprints. On the other side, a long, thin blade—the kind of knife a hunter might use—was held by a C-clamp.
“What case?” Hal asked. He didn’t recognize the blade.
>
“New evidence in last month’s stabbing off Cesar Chavez.”
He shook his head. “I don’t remember that one.”
“Vic didn’t die.”
Hal’s phone rang. It was the department’s prefix but not a number he recognized.
“Harris,” he answered, walking away from Naomi.
“We got a hit on Norman Fraser.”
Hal froze. “What kind of hit?”
“An assault and battery charge, back in 2010,” the clerk said. “Never went anywhere, but Fraser was arrested for beating up a seventeen-year-old kid from his son’s school.”
“What happened?”
“Fraser allegedly attacked the kid as he was coming home after a party. Caught him outside his house and pummeled him. Broke his nose, fractured his jaw. There was some internal bleeding.”
“What happened to the charges?” Hal asked.
“The kid was too drunk to make an ironclad identification, but he swore it was Fraser. Kid said Fraser was angry because he was teasing Fraser’s son about being a ‘fag.’ Kid’s word, not mine,” the clerk added. “No witnesses, no surveillance cameras. Kid was drunk—and underage—so he wasn’t going to make a great witness. DA ended up dropping the charges. Fraser being an upstanding citizen in the community, a doctor, no priors . . .”
“Anything else?” Hal asked.
“That’s all I could find.”
“Thanks.” Hal ended the call. If Fraser beat up a high school kid for calling his son a fag, what would he do to someone who had threatened to release photographs that might keep him out of medical school?
Fraser had acted genuinely surprised by the photos. He was a different man than he’d been in the office when Hal had interviewed him. Was that really an act? And he had an airtight alibi for Gustafson’s murder. Was there an accomplice? His son? But if one of them had been in Posner’s house, why not take the computer? Posner was tortured. He would have given up the photographs long before he died. Wouldn’t he?
“Everything okay?” Naomi asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
He handed her the manila envelope. “I’ve got something I need printed, too.”
Naomi glanced at it. “For Posner?”
“Not exactly. It’s not for a case. Well, not yet,” he added.
Naomi nodded. “I can run it after this. Should be about twenty minutes.”
Hal didn’t move. He thought over the pieces of the puzzle that were still outstanding. Tamara Long had confirmed that she was unable to locate anyone at the cancer center who owned horses. No one with a vet spouse or boyfriend. Hal figured the office was small enough that if there was a horse enthusiast in the office, someone would have known about it. There were plenty of subjects that people avoided talking about in an office, but a love of horses wasn’t one. And he recalled how personal the spaces in the cancer center had been. The staff’s desks were decorated with family pictures, little inspirational signs on small wood boxes or ceramic plates. People tended to share interests and hobbies in a workplace like that.
He’d been disappointed when Tamara gave him the news. Bordering on desperate, Hal had asked Tamara Long if anyone had any horse pictures or figurines—even a mouse pad or a screen saver.
He might have pushed too far then. Not to mention the question placed a bias toward the women in the office. Men did not generally keep figurines and trinkets on their desks—horse or otherwise.
“I haven’t seen a single horse anywhere in the office,” Long had told him.
That had been his last lead. Everything else was an absolute dead end—the note with Sandy’s name, the clay found in Posner’s mouth, the wipes, and the wipe residue found at both Gustafson’s death and Posner’s. Even the sex toys and bondage equipment Roger had found.
The lawsuits were another dead end, and Hal had completed his background check on the list of girlfriends that Tamara Long had supplied. None of the women raised any red flags. Posner’s recent relationships had been almost entirely one-night encounters—from his perspective as well as theirs. Most of the women Hal talked with told him that one night with Todd Posner was plenty. The others were either noncommittal themselves or had gone with it, knowing Posner was not the marrying type, at least not again and so soon. There wasn’t a single spurned woman among them.
That left him with the impression Schwartzman had found on Posner’s calf and yet another dead end. Roger’s team had searched every corner of Posner’s house for something to match the narrow imprint on his leg. There was nothing.
Nothing. His thoughts returned to Norman Fraser. He would have to talk to the good doctor again.
He glanced at his phone. Two minutes had passed.
How was he going to waste the next eighteen minutes? A walk. Clear his head. He pictured one of those damn Starbucks mochas. “I could use a coffee,” he said to Naomi, who had returned her attention to her work. “You want one?”
“I can’t leave now, I’m afraid,” she said, pushing the hair off her face with the back of her hand.
“Oh, no. Sorry. I meant I could get us some,” Hal said, cutting her off before she said anything she’d regret. He hadn’t meant it as an invitation. Naomi was attractive, beautiful even. But she was in her midtwenties, and he was a decade older. He’d been through a divorce and more than ten years of this work. She felt too young . . . his mind was already making up excuses for why he didn’t want to go out with her. What was wrong with him?
“Sure, I’ll take a coffee,” she said, appearing not to pick up on his awkwardness. “Where you going?”
“Starbucks,” he admitted sheepishly.
With Naomi’s order in hand, Hal walked the two blocks to the nearest Starbucks. On the way, he called the number he had in his notebook for Patrick Fraser, Norman Fraser’s son. The call went to voicemail, and Hal left a message, requesting Patrick return his call. Entering the coffee shop, Hal found the line stretched all the way to the door. He considered turning around, but then he’d be in the lab waiting. Naomi said it would take twenty minutes to run the prints. He could be through this line twice in twenty minutes.
He settled into line and resisted the urge to pull out his phone, which was what everyone else had done. Instead he let his mind drift. Of its own volition, his brain steered him right back to the case. Unless the prints on the envelope or the death certificate led him somewhere, he’d have to return to his desk and consider next steps.
The Finlay Foundation was the only rock he had yet to turn over. Well, the only rock he knew about. There had to be others, but damn if he could find them.
As he waited in line, the pressure built in his lungs, and the muscles in his legs tensed. They were on day seven. Tomorrow would be a full week since Posner was discovered dead in his home, a chemical burn scarring his face. That was not a random crime. That was a crime of passion. That was rage.
Hal clenched and unclenched his fists and took a deep breath as someone nudged him from behind. He whipped around, ready to bark. Behind him was an older Asian lady, maybe half his size. Without a word, she pointed to the register, where a barista was waving for the next customer. Him.
He gave the lady an apologetic smile and ordered a Venti Mocha for himself and an almond milk latte for Naomi. He felt oddly self-conscious saying the words almond milk aloud. Who drank almond milk? What was wrong with cow’s milk? Strong teeth and bones. When had all that changed? He forked over twelve bucks, refusing to let his brain figure out what it cost a year to come in here daily or even once a week, and stood against the far wall, waiting for them to call his name.
Since this Starbucks attracted a lot of the department employees, he recognized some of the officers and a few of the faces from the DA’s office. Through the window, a dark head on the street caught his attention. She faced the other direction, but he got a glimpse of her wavy, shoulder-length hair and the way she bent into her gait, as though she were moving through heavy wind. Black slacks, a gray sweater. Schwartzman.
; “Hal.”
The barista called his name, and he picked up the two coffees.
“You need a carrier?” she asked, sticking small green plastic plugs into the spouts. All the fuss always made him slightly embarrassed.
“No, thanks.”
He headed for the door as Schwartzman was coming in.
She halted inches from running into him, startled. “You scared me.”
“You almost ran me down.”
Her eyes wide, she seemed to need a moment to calm herself. Then she smiled. “I hardly think I could’ve accomplished that.”
The coffee cups were burning his fingers, so he shifted them, stacking both on the palm of one hand. “I’ll wait with you.”
“That’s okay.”
“I don’t mind. I’m waiting for some prints, so I’ve got some time to kill.”
“Posner?” she asked, stepping into the line.
“Nah. Something else,” he said. As soon as the words were out, he wondered why he hadn’t told her. It was her business. He wanted answers. That was why. He didn’t want her to think about it until he could offer her something concrete. He hoped to hell there were some prints on that thing.
She shivered and glanced over her shoulder as the door opened again. Two patrol officers entered, followed by a single man.
Hal had to step into Schwartzman’s space to let the man pass. When they reached the cashier, Hal went again to the end of the counter to wait while she ordered. Shifting the coffees in his hands again, he thought the twenty minutes had probably almost passed, and the realization made him slightly anxious. He’d feel a hell of a lot better if they got a lead on something.
As he scanned the room, he noticed the man at a table in the corner. He was blond and thin, holding a newspaper spread in his hands, the pages draped across the table. No coffee. And his attention was not on the page. Hal followed his gaze. He was looking at Schwartzman. Hal tried to read his expression. Did they know each other?
Excise (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 2) Page 16