Jamison caught the subtle sideways glance between the two parents. He interposed himself slowly, softly saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Garrett, sometimes you never know what’s important and people often don’t talk to us about things they may think won’t be helpful.” Jamison glanced over at O’Hara to see if he was taking the right lead. O’Hara nodded almost imperceptibly, acknowledging that they needed to give these people an opening that would minimize any hesitation on their part. Although it never made any sense to Jamison, he had learned early on that people often didn’t disclose facts, either because they didn’t think they were important or they were afraid of what the investigator might think. “We spoke to Cheryl and she said that when Elizabeth was about sixteen something happened. She didn’t know much but she said that a young man was involved with your daughter—that she left with him for a brief period of time. We were unsure of the circumstances.”
Jamison said nothing about the possibility that this man had reappeared in Elizabeth’s life. There was no point in terrifying them. He would see what he got from them first.
Mike Garrett straightened in the chair; his words snapped with rising emotion. “Elizabeth was young. He was older, a man already, and we would never have allowed her to see him. He took her and thank God we found her, but after that she wouldn’t talk about it. He claimed she went willingly with him. But she wouldn’t have done that. I pressed charges—she was underage—but she just would not talk about it. The police treated it like the two of them ran off together. I tried to explain that she wouldn’t have done that but nobody paid any attention. That was a long time ago.”
Jamison kept his expression neutral as he realized the implications that whatever happened had involved the police and therefore left some record. He said nothing, certain that the detectives caught the same thing.
Ann Garrett’s eyes were locked in a vacant stare as her husband’s anger rose. Jamison could see the tears track across her cheeks as she silently listened.
Garrett raised his voice, and folded his arms against his chest. “I don’t want anybody to think Elizabeth would just take off. She wouldn’t. This isn’t the same. Not the same at all . . . it was ten years ago. We don’t want you to think . . .”
Jamison held up his hand, trying to slow the rush of words and emotion. “Mr. Garrett, we aren’t saying it’s the same situation. But what we need to know now is who this man is. We need to look at everything. Sometimes— well, like I said, you never know what might be important. You said, ‘he took her’?”
Ann Garrett remained quiet as she seemed to regain her composure. Leaning forward, she turned her eyes away from her husband. Jamison sensed that she was about to say something she had never intended to disclose.
She looked over at Jamison. “Mr. Jamison? What my husband is trying to say is that when Elizabeth was fifteen she became involved with a young man who was a few years older. But at that age a few years make a big difference. It went on for at least two years before we found out. Of course we were deeply upset and wouldn’t allow the relationship to continue. She told me that she had broken it off with him, told him that she couldn’t see him anymore.”
She reached over, taking her husband’s hand. “I’m sorry, Mike.” Her hands twisting the hem of her dress, her pale complexion suddenly flushed. She inhaled deeply before speaking. “Elizabeth was in her senior year in high school. We thought it was over between them, at least that’s what she said. But she didn’t tell us that he was still coming around, trying to restart the relationship. Then he showed up after school one day. He carried on—how much he loved her, missed her, and to please meet with him one last time.
“And so she got in his car with him and let him talk while he drove. But he just kept driving and eventually they were someplace in Los Angeles. He took her to a motel. She would only tell me that she was frightened.”
Mrs. Garrett paused, her trembling hand reached for a glass of water. Her husband looked away as she continued speaking.
“Elizabeth has never told us exactly what happened except that the next day when he stopped the car at a red light, she jumped out. She ran to a house and told a woman who answered the door that she had been kidnapped. She called the Los Angeles police and we came and got her.
“After she came home she just withdrew. She wouldn’t talk to us about it. She refused to see a therapist, and would not help the police either. When they arrested him, he told the police that she had gone with him willingly. They told us that without her they had no case. The charges were dropped and we haven’t seen him since.”
The words had come out in a rush, like a long-awaited unburdening, Jamison thought. Mike Garrett sat in stony silence, his face still turned away.
O’Hara gently addressed Ann Garrett. “What was this man’s name?”
Mike Garrett spit it out. “Alex St. Claire.” Suddenly he jerked his head around to face them, anger boiling over. “That was his name, the bastard. And if I ever see him again, you better get to him before I do. He ruined our daughter. She was never the same after that.”
Exhausted, Mike Garrett slumped in his chair, his hands so tightly clasped together that Jamison could see the whites of his knuckles straining against the gnarled fingers.
“Alex St. Claire?” Jamison’s head snapped up. He repeated the name with evident surprise in his voice that betrayed some measure of familiarity. Jamison immediately regretted his lapse.
Mike Garrett’s eyes opened wide and then narrowed as his face darkened with the memory. “Do you know that name?” It was an accusation, as if Jamison had revealed some secret that betrayed his trustworthiness.
Jamison caught the slight movement of O’Hara’s head, his eyes cautioning the young prosecutor, the expression on his face trying to conceal that he didn’t know why Jamison abruptly reacted to the mention of the name.
For a moment, Jamison held his breath, and then he spoke, measuring his words. “I might know who that is, but I need to be sure we’re talking about the same person.”
He turned toward Ann Garrett, certain that she would be more likely to know the details. “Mrs. Garrett, would you happen to know anything about what happened to this St. Claire? I mean, do you know what he was studying and might be doing now or where he went to school—anything that might help us locate him?”
Ann Garrett looked up at the ceiling and then lowered her head to stare at her hands in her lap. “At the time all of that happened I remember Elizabeth said that he planned to become a doctor, that he was going to go to medical school. Elizabeth said he had taken his medical entrance exams and that he had very high scores. He was supposed to be brilliant.” A rueful, bitter expression crossed her face like a shadow. “But he wasn’t smart enough to stay away from a high school girl.”
Her voice broke. She was on the edge of tears, her breath coming in shallow gulps of air. “I only met him once before all that happened. Mike told him to stay away from Elizabeth and we never saw him again except after what happened. We saw him at court.”
Interrupting, Mike Garrett blurted out, “I remember that son of a bitch standing there with his lawyer. He looked back at me and smiled. I should have just killed him right there.” Again, Ann laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Mike Garrett lowered his voice. “He enjoyed seeing our pain. That’s what I remember about him—he enjoyed seeing our pain.”
Jamison kept his eyes fixed on the Garretts, listening carefully, looking for any sign of concealment, but he had seen none. He and the investigators needed to rush back to the office, but he wanted to get the last detail he could squeeze from them. “Mrs. Garrett, is there anything else?
Ann Garrett’s eyes revealed her bitterness. “She told me he forced her. Other than that she wouldn’t talk about it. She never would have gone voluntarily. She told me later that she had been seeing him without telling us, but no, there’s no way she would ever have run off with him. I know my daughter. She wouldn’t have done that.”
Jamison nodded, thinkin
g maybe she would and maybe she wouldn’t. People were always shocked at things their children did and would insist that they would never do such a thing, until they were forced to confront reality, and even then they would rationalize. Right now he was less concerned with whether Elizabeth had a teenage wild streak that got her involved with Alex St. Claire than he was with the confluence of the man who had been present at the autopsies of the murder victims as well as a key figure in the life of a woman who was now missing under similar circumstances.
Jamison turned to the investigators to see if they had any more questions. O’Hara, Ernie, and Pooch shook their heads. “Thank you both. As soon as we know anything, we’ll be in touch,” he told the Garretts as he got up from his seat. “The district attorney, Mr. Gage, has said that we’re to give your daughter’s case the highest priority. We can find our way out.”
As the four men rushed to their cars, Pooch, O’Hara, and Ernie simultaneously asked, “Alex St. who?”
“Alex St. Claire” Jamison answered. “At the start of the Ventana autopsy a doctor named Alex St. Claire walked in while it was going on and gave Dr. Gupta a little help. I didn’t remember him until he introduced himself to me at the Symes autopsy. Remember, Bill? You were there. He’s an anesthesiologist who also does work with the effects of anesthesia on animals. I remember that he said he was interested in the effects of heroin and barbiturates on the victims. It’s too big a coincidence, St. Claire and Elizabeth Garrett! And then he shows up at the autopsies, just looking around? We need to find this guy and I mean now.”
O’Hara sucked his mustache into his mouth, and then he suddenly cried out, “Son of a bitch,” recalling St. Claire at the autopsy. “Son of a bitch! Okay, we go to the hospital and see if St. Claire’s there,” he continued, not waiting for Jamison to reply. “It sounds like he’s our boy but we have no basis for an arrest, and if he has her we need to find out where she is before he lawyers up. Look, I don’t want to tell the hospital operator that we’re looking for St. Claire if he’s there. They’ll just tell him we’re looking for him.”
He turned to Pooch and Ernie. “Can you go see what records there are on this guy? We’ll head to the hospital. If St. Claire’s at the hospital we can control the situation and size him up. If he’s our man and we show up with a bunch of people he may run, and then we’ll never know where she is.” O’Hara paused before stating the alternative. “If he’s not there, then we’re going to have to find out where his snake hole is for the night and move as fast as we can if we want to find this girl alive.”
O’Hara slapped the steering wheel as he rapidly pulled out of the driveway. The car was moving well past seventy when he expressed his thoughts about St. Claire out loud. “Once an asshole, always an asshole.”
Chapter 10
Ernie and Pooch were checking for any file or arrest report on St. Claire and running a Department of Motor Vehicles check for an address. Both men had been told to keep their information to themselves because of the possibility of press leaks. The sheriff’s office was like a sieve of information for reporters. For the moment they would assume that Garrett’s St. Claire and Dr. Alex St. Claire were one and the same but they had to be cautious about making an accusation when they had virtually no hard evidence to back it up, and if St. Claire had taken Garrett they needed to get the location out of him. In that regard their suspect held the cards and they didn’t have any read on him as to how he would react to questioning. But the circumstances had sent O’Hara’s instincts into overdrive. If St. Claire was their man, then he knew the type and it wasn’t going to be easy.
Dr. Gupta was in his office going over autopsy reports and dictating when Jamison and O’Hara knocked on his door. “Ah, Detective O’Hara, Mr. Jamison, what may I do for you?” Gupta smiled as he looked up at the sound of the knock on the door. “Do you have a question?”
Jamison tried to conceal his sense of urgency. “Dr. Gupta, during the Symes autopsy, I recall there was another doctor who came by, a Dr. St. Claire as I recall? Do you remember?”
Gupta put down his dictation microphone and looked up at him with a quizzical expression. “Of course. Dr. St. Claire comes by often during autopsies. I do not recall if he was there during that particular one, but I have notes. Why do you ask?”
During the drive to the hospital, Jamison had arrived at a plausible explanation least likely to arouse suspicion as to why they were asking about St. Claire. “We—I have a question about the handling of the blood samples in the Symes case and I remember he helped take them, and also I thought I might ask him a question about the effects of heroin and barbiturates.”
The pathologist pursed his lips, and frowned at the slightest inference that there might be a problem with the way he handled the blood samples. “I myself signed all the blood tubes.”
The challenge in Gupta’s voice prompted Jamison to quickly try to avoid any kind of insult. “There isn’t any problem, Dr. Gupta. We just need to make sure that everyone who was at the autopsy or handled any evidence is accounted for. You know how defense attorneys challenge everything.”
Gupta nodded thoughtfully, accepting the explanation. “I have not seen Dr. St. Claire today but perhaps he is in his office. It is down the hall near the animal lab. Just turn right out my door and go down to the next hall and turn right again. You should see it.”
O’Hara pressed, “And if he isn’t there, would you happen to know how to find him, an address maybe or a phone number?” Jamison could see that his partner was becoming increasingly edgy. They needed to speed things along.
“I have a phone number that I have used once before, but it goes to a pager service. He called me right back, but I know it was not a home phone. So no, I have never had a reason to call his home. I do not know his home address if that is what you are asking. You should be able to get that from the main office. I do know that he does some work at his home because he has mentioned it. Is there some hurry? He should be in tomorrow.”
“No hurry.” Jamison shook his head. “I just like to get my questions answered as soon as they come up. Otherwise it drives me crazy. Thank you, we’ll fill you in.” As they were about to leave Jamison asked, “Dr. Gupta, does Dr. St. Claire have any family locally that you are aware of?”
“Dr. St. Claire does not speak about his personal life. He seems totally dedicated to his work. I know he went to medical school in England. He mentioned a fatal accident involving his parents, but it was evident that he did not wish to talk about it. As for his family, I have no knowledge about any details.”
They didn’t expect St. Claire to be in his office so Jamison and O’Hara weren’t surprised to find it locked. Even after showing their badges to the manager of the hospital personnel office they were unable to get more than an offer to call Dr. St. Claire to get his permission to give out his personal information, unless they were willing to say it was an emergency. If Dr. St. Claire wanted his phone number and address given out, then he would have to make that decision, and not her.
The last thing O’Hara and Jamison wanted was for anyone to call St. Claire and warn him they were coming. So O’Hara nonchalantly waved his hand and said they would return the next day and see him in his lab, assuring the manager there was no urgency. As they left the hospital O’Hara called Puccinelli.
O’Hara accelerated roughly out of the parking lot, heading toward the address Pooch gave them. Pooch didn’t explain how he got it except to explain that the Department of Motor Vehicles address wasn’t a home address. He would meet them there. Jamison called Ernie and asked him to coordinate information and assistance if they needed it.
As he sat back in the seat, Jamison tried to put together a strategy to handle the situation from a legal perspective. He wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t planning to crash any doors. That kind of thing he left to the uniforms and to his investigators, O’Hara and Ernie. They had to get inside St. Claire’s home and they had to do it in a way that wouldn’t be messy and possibly create a h
ostage situation if Garrett was in there.
The possibility of St. Claire’s involvement was their only real lead so they couldn’t afford to make any missteps that might compromise their investigation or a future case. Jamison knew what O’Hara’s reaction would be, but he asked anyway. “What about a search warrant? We go into St. Claire’s house and take it apart. If Garrett isn’t there at least we have him under control so he can’t do anything if he has Garrett someplace else.”
O’Hara chewed on his unlit cigar. “We haven’t got time to get a search warrant.” He looked at Jamison for a moment to make sure he was being clear. “There’s no time. If we’re wrong let’s know it now, and if we’re right, then you and the rest of the lawyers can justify it later.”
Jamison didn’t respond. He knew what O’Hara was getting at, that they would have to do what they had to do to get in. The girl’s life was in danger and they would push the envelope to get into the house any way they could. O’Hara would do his job, and Jamison would do his, including cleaning up any legal mess.
Whether he stated it or not, he was aware that he was climbing the ladder of legal ambiguity, or maybe descending it, depending on one’s perspective. He had learned that sometimes choices had to be made instantly under pressure and they weren’t made with a law book in one hand and a gun in the other. They were made based on the circumstances and the potential consequences to human lives. The logic of reality and the logic of the law were not always synchronized.
The streets rushed by as O’Hara sped across town. “What about a phone number?” Jamison asked. “Was Pooch able to find anything?”
“There’s a phone number to this address. I don’t know how Pooch got it because he said that it wasn’t listed. Probably somebody he knew at the phone company. I didn’t ask.”
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