A gruff sigh was the only sign that the man was still on the line. “What? She owe you money?”
“No, sir. It’s not that,” Charles said, though he didn’t answer the question.
“What then?”
“Could I leave you my number? If it comes up again, I mean,” Charles said.
“If what comes up? You won’t even tell me why she contacted you.”
Charles was quiet on the line. Across the desk, he shifted in his seat, turning back to face them, his gaze on the recorder as though he might be as surprised as Schwartzman and Hal at what they were about to hear.
“She asked me to deliver a death certificate,” Charles began, the whisper of the recording slightly louder than on the earlier call.
“Whose death certificate?” Buckley asked.
Again there was a hesitation. Charles trying to decide how much he ought to tell. “Joseph Strom.”
“I should’ve known,” Buckley muttered.
“Can you explain that, Mr. Buckley?”
“All hell,” he said again. “Joe’s death hit her hard. Hell, it’s been thirteen, fourteen years now.”
“Who was Mr. Strom?”
“Her boss. He owned a big development company—mixed-used stuff—one of the first to incorporate residential and commercial in planned communities down here. Margaret was his assistant for ten, fifteen years. Before he died.”
“Why would she send his death certificate—” Charles halted midsentence as if realizing he was about to give away more than he’d intended.
“Margaret was convinced he was murdered.”
“He died in a car accident,” Charles said.
“That’s right. They ruled it an accident, said he swerved to avoid hitting a deer, but Margaret said no way. She thinks he was run off the road.” A short pause. “Anyway, it’s bothered her for years. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that she was digging it all up again. Alzheimer’s does all sorts of awful things—I’ll tell you. I’m sure thinking about old Joe Strom again is part of this. Who knows what will be next,” he added, sounding defeated and exhausted. “Listen, thanks for the call. Sorry for the bother she caused.”
“Can I ask one more thing?” Charles said, speaking quickly as if he expected Tom Buckley to ring off before he finished.
“Okay,” Buckley said slowly.
“Is the name Schwartzman familiar to you?”
“Schwartzman, you say?”
“Yes. Annabelle Schwartzman.”
Schwartzman stiffened in her seat.
“Why do you ask?” Buckley countered.
“Margaret asked me to deliver the death certificate to her. To Dr. Schwartzman. She’s a medical examiner.”
Tom Buckley remained quiet another moment. “There was a Schwartzman here,” he said slowly. “Not a doctor though. He was at the law firm that Margaret’s company—well, Strom’s company—worked with. I believe his name was Samuel Schwartzman. He was involved in the lawsuit.”
Schwartzman felt the contents of her stomach turn over. Samuel Schwartzman. Her father. “What lawsuit?”
Both men looked up at her. Charles paused the recording.
“Sorry,” she said, nodding to the recorder.
Charles started the recording again. “Can you tell me more about the lawsuit?” Charles asked Tom Buckley.
“I don’t recall all the details. It’s been a long time. Joe—Strom, that is—had the land under contract. He’d done a few of these developments already. Margaret said he was using a new bank, different financing or something. Anyway, the deal was set to close. In the last days, the landowner broke the contract. Turned out Joe’s own banker had paid the owner to sell to him instead.”
Schwartzman’s fingers found the arms of her chair and clenched. Banker. Strom’s banker.
“Guy was hardly more than a kid.”
“The banker, you mean?” Charles asked Tom Buckley.
“Right. Twenties or something.”
Hal’s hand rested on her shoulder, and Schwartzman squeezed her eyes closed against what she knew was coming. What it had to be. Otherwise, why her? Why would she be here?
“The lawyer—Schwartzman—filed the suit, and Joe had a good case. But Joe died about a week before they were set to go to trial,” Buckley continued. “Whole thing fell apart after that.” The voice sounded as though it was filtered through a dense fog, coming to her in staccato bits that she had to struggle to piece together.
“I think the lawyer died a few months later. Can’t remember how, but Margaret was upset about that, too.”
“And this banker. Do you remember his name?” Charles’s voice filled the air.
Buzzing filled Schwartzman’s head, as if Charles were shouting.
There was a pause on the line. Schwartzman felt the silence like an electrical current running down the center of her bones. It couldn’t be. He’d never known her father. They’d never met. Had they?
“MacDonald. Can’t remember the first name.”
There were more words on the recording, but Schwartzman didn’t hear them. She didn’t move. It was a shock to realize that her heart was beating, her hypothalamus forcing her lungs to draw breaths, her body moving forward despite the terror that was like a seizure to her every cell.
Spencer would have faced her father in court. Did that mean they’d met? And was it really possible that Spencer had something to do with Joseph Strom’s death?
The man who had died three months before her father.
And if that was the case . . .
“Damn,” the sound had come from Hal.
She wasn’t capable of speaking.
29
Hal watched Schwartzman from the corner of his eye as he drove back to the department. She’d been completely silent since saying good-bye to Jake Charles. And he couldn’t find anything comforting to say. Spencer had known her father, and her father had died not long after. Spencer had known Joseph Strom, and Margaret Buckley had suspected someone had killed him. Run off the road and his death made to look like an accident. With everything Spencer had accomplished, Hal had no doubt that Spencer had that kind of evil in him.
Fourteen years ago. Two months before Samuel Schwartzman died. Hal didn’t know the circumstances of her father’s death, but he bet she was thinking about it now. Her father’s death had been sudden, unexpected. A stroke? A heart attack? He had imagined it was something like that.
But those things could be faked. Spencer could have made it look like a natural death. The idea that Spencer could have had something to do with the loss that defined who she had become, a loss that pushed her into Spencer MacDonald’s life . . . there were no words for what that realization meant.
How many questions the possibility opened up. If Spencer was behind Samuel Schwartzman’s death, did that mean he had known about Samuel’s beautiful young daughter before Spencer had killed him? Or had she simply been a bonus after her father was dead?
More than fourteen years she’d been under that man’s thumb, even before their first date—the night he had . . . Hal wouldn’t think it. He knew what Spencer had done. And then the victim had turned against herself. Spencer made her think she was to blame, that her aggressor was her savior. As fucked-up a situation as could exist.
Hal stared at his knuckles, whitened on the steering wheel, and pried them loose, searching for something to say.
Beside him Schwartzman looked stunned, her focus on a fixed point through the windshield, unmoving. But she wasn’t seeing anything. Or she was seeing everything, everything from back then. Remembering every comment Spencer might have made about her father—questions he would have asked, ways he would have pretended to sympathize.
He opened his mouth to ask, to urge her to talk, but his mobile rang in his pocket.
She glanced over, her gaze tracking his hand as he pulled out his phone, as though she suspected the call to be about her, about Spencer or her father.
“Harris.”
“In
spector Hal Harris?” A man’s voice. No Southern accent. How long before he’d stop associating the South with bad news? The caller was from area code 925. Out east of the city. Concord, Walnut Creek, the areas where it would be ninety degrees even as a real fall settled in the city. Too hot for him.
“Speaking.”
“This is Alvin Pena. I’m with the Martinez Police Department.”
Hal tried to imagine why a police department thirty miles east of the city would be calling him. “How can I help you, Officer Pena?”
“We got a call from a Sarah Washburn. She has reported a friend missing, a woman by the name of Denise Ross. Said she didn’t show up for work Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday of last week. Sent a text Tuesday night that she had a family emergency.”
Denise Ross. Sarah Washburn. The names were vaguely familiar. Then he remembered. They worked in Posner’s office. But he hadn’t talked to either of them. They’d been on Hailey’s list. What now? “How can I help, Officer?”
“When she didn’t show up to work today, Ms. Washburn contacted Denise Ross’s son.”
Hal tried to find a connection between Todd Posner and Denise Ross. Denise was in admin and occupied a small office with two other women—insurance and billing. Tamara Long’s list of Posner’s recent girlfriends did not include Denise Ross. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t involved with him. “And did she reach the son?” Hal asked.
“Yes, but he hasn’t heard from his mother since Tuesday of last week. He’s called her twice and texted, but she hasn’t responded. He said they always talk over the weekend.”
“You’ve spoken to the son?” Hal asked.
“Not yet. I’ve got a call in to him and am waiting to hear back. Ms. Washburn said to contact you because there was a homicide in her office—a Dr. . . .”
“Todd Posner,” Hal finished when the officer’s voice trailed off.
Schwartzman turned toward him, and he met her gaze.
“Yes,” Officer Pena confirmed.
Was it possible Ross’s disappearance had nothing to do with his case? “Have you gone to Ms. Ross’s residence?”
“We’re there now.”
“And?”
“There are no obvious signs of a crime, but well, it’s going to be hard to tell what happened.”
“Why is that?”
“Denise Ross’s address matches the address of a police call last week.”
“What kind of call?”
“Noise complaint. Police were contacted just after two a.m. last Wednesday morning—late Tuesday night. A patrol car responded to the house. At that time there were about a dozen teenagers in Ms. Ross’s apartment.”
“Her son?”
“No. He is at school in San Diego. And Ms. Ross herself wasn’t present. In fact, when the teenagers were questioned, none of them could recall seeing Ms. Ross that evening.”
“So who were the kids?”
“A couple were from the neighborhood but most were from neighboring towns.”
Hal rubbed his head. “If they weren’t guests of Ross, why the hell were they in her apartment?”
“One of the boys said they were invited by a ‘gentleman.’ He offered the kid one hundred bucks cash and said he wanted to throw a big party for his daughter. Make it look like a big bash to get some kids from the neighborhood.”
“And this guy?”
“Never showed up,” Pena said. “At least, according to the kid.”
“You have contact information for this kid?”
“Yeah. I talked to him already.”
“And?” Hal pushed. He sensed the dead end coming.
“Not sure he’s going to be real helpful,” Pena said.
“Because . . .”
“His father’s an attorney up in Walnut Creek. Midlevel but a big firm. Going to be hard to get the kid in for more questions.”
Someone had to know something. No way this happened without someone seeing something. “What about the responding officers?”
“Yeah. I talked to one of them,” Pena said. “He said the kids were pretty drunk, and the place reeked of marijuana.”
So, nothing.
Hal thought about the man who had paid kids to come to “his daughter’s” party. It was no coincidence. But why send a bunch of kids to her place? The kids drew attention to Ross’s apartment, so bringing them there added to the risk of discovery. Or did he want it discovered that Denise Ross was missing? If so, why not contact Washburn or her son or make an anonymous call to the police?
There had to be another reason for the party. A cover-up? Why would he want a bunch of people in her place? Because he’d left something when he was there? Fingerprints, maybe. Too many to get rid of?
Then where was Denise Ross? Up until now he had killed his victims and left them. All the victims had been men. Was Denise Ross different? “Can the kid describe the man? The one who invited them to the party at Ross’s house?”
“White. Older. Average height and weight.”
No. That description was not going to help them find this guy.
Kidnapping didn’t match with this killer’s MO, but what did match it? The MO had changed with each killing. Was this another shift?
“Was he familiar from the neighborhood?”
“No.”
Damn it. “They see him get into a car?”
Pena sighed. “No.”
“And there’s no sign of Denise Ross?”
“None,” Pena said. “But we found her phone and her purse—emptied of cash—in the bedroom. Along with some blood.”
“How much blood?”
“I can’t say for sure. Doesn’t look like enough, but this is a first for me.”
“Text me the address. I’ll head your way.” Hal ended the call and set the phone on the seat beside him. “I’ve got to go to Martinez. We’ve got a possible scene.”
“Who is it?” Schwartzman asked, her voice scratchy. She hadn’t spoken in a while.
“A woman from Posner’s office,” Hal said. “She’s missing. Hasn’t been seen since last Tuesday.”
“Who?” Schwartzman’s torso was tense, her shoulders stiff, and her hands clasped in her lap.
“Denise Ross.” He let a beat pass. Spencer slithered back into his head. “Do you know her?”
She shook her head. From her purse, she found her cell phone and worked quietly for a minute. When she looked up again, she said, “I’ll come.”
“You sure?”
“I’m off today.”
This was not how Hal would want to spend a day off.
“If Ross died at the scene, it may be related to Posner’s death,” Schwartzman continued when Hal didn’t respond. “I can help the county coroner if we find something.”
Hal didn’t need to be told twice. Unable to find the right words to help Schwartzman, he could at least provide her with a distraction. He flipped on his emergency lights and siren and crossed two lanes of traffic to make a U-turn and head for the freeway.
Even with the lights and siren, it still took every bit of forty minutes to reach Martinez, but it took no time at all to identify which of the identical brown block buildings housed Denise Ross’s apartment. Three patrol cars were parked in front. Two officers stood on the stairs, while a group of neighbors and passersby hovered in clusters, watching and inevitably sharing theories about what was going on. One woman was rocking an infant; the woman next to her had twin toddlers encircling her legs. The two women were huddled close, talking in hushed whispers.
Pulling into a handicapped spot beside the stairs, Hal made a mental note to talk to them once he’d examined the scene. He got out of the car, and Schwartzman joined him as he walked toward the apartment.
A trim patrol officer with sideburns and a goatee approached first, his hand extended. “Inspector Harris?”
“Yes,” Hal confirmed. “Officer Pena?”
The man nodded.
“This is Dr. Schwartzman. Our medical examiner.”
Pena shook Schwartzman’s hand and pointed to the apartment. “It’s up the stairs.”
“I don’t have my kit,” Schwartzman said, as though realizing she wasn’t wearing any clothes.
“Hang on.” Hal returned to the department car and popped the trunk. He grabbed a handful of gloves—size XXL—and shoved them into his pocket. He handed two to Schwartzman. Even before she put them on, they looked like clown gloves in her small hands. They would have to do for now.
Pena led them up the stairs. The main room of Denise Ross’s apartment was trashed. Empty bottles littered the table tops along with half-filled glasses and bags—pretzels, tortilla chips, a half-empty container of salsa precariously tipped at the lip of the coffee table, an open box of some kind of wheat cracker. The couch cushions had been upended, throw pillows scattered on the floor. “How many people did you say were here?”
“When our guys arrived, only about a dozen, but at one point it sounded like thirty, according to the neighbors.”
Which meant there would be thirty sets of prints. Was that the plan? Fill the place with teenagers to hide the evidence of the one person the police were really after?
“The blood we found was in the bedroom,” Pena said.
Hal and Schwartzman followed the officer down a hallway to the bedroom. The bed was half-made. More pillows on the floor. It was impossible to know if Denise Ross had left it this way or if this was the result of a couple of horny teenagers. Damn, what a mess.
As Pena straightened the comforter and pointed to a bloodstain, Hal wondered what else he had touched with his bare hands. Schwartzman stepped forward, pulling on the huge gloves. She studied the bloodstain on the fabric and lifted it to check beneath. The bloodstain was visible on the other side of the comforter, but it hadn’t saturated the bed. She shook her head. “This isn’t enough blood loss to kill her.” She scanned the bedside tables and around the bed. “No obvious sign of what cut her.”
“Or him.”
“Right,” she agreed. “It’s not necessarily Ross’s blood.”
“Let’s take a look around the rest of the place,” Hal said. “Is it just the one story?”
“She’s got a small garage downstairs. Mostly storage. Doesn’t look like she parked there.”
Excise (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 2) Page 23