Fatal Care

by Leonard Goldberg

  Murdock felt his world crumbling around him. Quickly he gathered himself. The first thing to do was to keep the investigation quiet and in-house.

  “The NIH will almost surely ask you to form a committee to investigate,” Joanna said, as if she were reading his mind.

  “I’m certain they will,” Murdock said, now seeing his opening. “And I would like you to head that committee.”

  “Whoa!” Joanna blurted out. “This is not my area of expertise.”

  “But you’re a very good scientist,” Murdock countered, and meant it. Joanna had headed similar committees for Murdock in the past. She was bright and incisive and, most important, she knew how to be discreet. “You’ll chair the committee. And you can include Dr. Green here, since you say he’s such a fine oncology pathologist.”

  Dennis Green groaned to himself. The last thing he needed was to sit on another committee, particularly one that would be so time consuming. But he had no choice other than to gracefully accept, if he wanted to stay on Murdock’s good side. “I’d be glad to help.”

  “Do you know anything about the method they use to clean out the arteries?” Joanna asked Green.

  He shrugged. “Damn little. But I think they remove the blockage with a laser, then add an enzyme to clean the fatty deposits of the artery walls.”

  “What type of enzyme?”

  Green shrugged again. “I think it’s a lipolytic enzyme which is produced by gene splicing.”

  Joanna sighed deeply. She had no laboratory experience with gene splicing. None. It was a subject she’d only read about. From what she could recall, the technique consisted of isolating a segment of a human chromosome that contained the gene responsible for the production of a given protein. The chromosome segment was then inserted into E. coli bacteria and became incorporated into the microorganism’s DNA. The bacteria would then begin producing the human protein in quantity. Human insulin was now being made this way and was commercially available.

  Joanna sighed again, unhappy with the position she’d been placed in. Her knowledge of gene splicing was little more than rudimentary. “I’m really not qualified to head this committee, Simon.”

  “Yes, you are,” Murdock insisted. “And I know you’ll do a fine job for us. Now, I want you to pick your people carefully and keep the committee small. I want everything kept under wraps until the findings are in.”

  Joanna sighed once more and gave in. “I’ll need an expert in tumor induction and another in biogenetics.”

  “Fine,” Murdock said agreeably. “But I want them to be from Memorial, and I want to talk with both before you give them any details.”

  “You won’t be able to keep this quiet, Simon,” Joanna told him. “Sooner or later the news will surely leak out.”

  “We’ll see,” Murdock said, and hurried for the door.

  7

  Jake and Lou Farelli entered the mini mart in south Santa Monica. The store was empty except for the cashier behind the counter. Jake opened his notepad and studied it. The cashier’s name was Freddie Foster. He had been on duty the night the Russian was murdered.

  Farelli leaned over to Jake and said in a low voice, “The cashier looks like death warmed over.”

  “The flu will do that to you,” Jake commented.

  “Let’s hope it didn’t affect his brain.”

  They walked over to the counter and flashed their badges. Up close, Freddie Foster looked even sicker. His face was pale, and he was sweating through the front of his Santa Monica College T-shirt.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Jake asked the young cashier.

  “I’ll be okay,” Freddie said. “But I’d sure like to get rid of this virus.”

  “Bad, huh?”

  Freddie coughed and swallowed back phlegm. “I couldn’t even walk across the bedroom. I swear to God, it was like a truck hit me.”

  Jake began flipping through pages in his notepad. “Freddie, we’ve been trying to reach you for the past couple of days, but you weren’t at your apartment. Most sick people stay home.”

  “I did,” Freddie said at once. “I went to my mom’s house in the Valley.”

  Jake nodded and briefly studied the young cashier. The kid was thin, in his early twenties, with long brown hair and silver earrings. “You work here every night?”

  Freddie nodded back. “From four to eleven.”

  “And you were here Monday?”

  “Right.”

  Jake showed the cashier a Polaroid photograph of the dead man found at the bottom of the excavation site. “Do you recognize him?”

  Freddie peered at the photograph. “The top of his head looks funny.”

  “That happens when somebody puts two slugs into it.”

  Freddie continued to stare at the picture. “His face is kind of familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  The front door swung open, and two Hispanic gangbangers walked in. They were heavily muscled and wore tight-fitting white T-shirts. Their arms and necks were covered with tattoos. “Hey,” the older one yelled out. “Where’s your beer?”

  Lou Farelli turned to the pair. “He’s busy. You’re going to have to wait.”

  “Yeah? For how long?”

  Farelli gave the pair an icy stare. “It might be best for you two assholes to come back later.”

  It took the gangbangers a moment to realize they were facing a cop. “Yeah, yeah,” the older one muttered. “We’ll be back later.”

  Farelli watched the pair leave and then turned back to the cashier. “You get that kind in here a lot?”

  “All the time,” Freddie said.

  “Do they pay in cash or credit cards?”

  “Always in cash,” Freddie answered. “They don’t buy that much. Usually beer and chips and stuff like that.”

  “If they start using credit cards, particularly ones that have funny-sounding European names, you let us know.”

  Jake grinned to himself. He hadn’t thought of that. The Hispanic gangbangers were probably stupid enough to use a credit card with a Russian-sounding name on it. He looked back at the cashier. “So you can’t place this guy?”

  Freddie studied the photograph again. “I think I served him in here, but I can’t be sure.”

  “What if I told you he had metal teeth and a tattoo of a cross on his forearm?”

  Freddie quickly tapped the photograph with his index finger. “Yeah. That’s him. I served him in here.”

  “When?”

  “At least three or four times.”

  “Do you remember the last time?”

  “Monday night,” Freddie said promptly. “It was late, like after eight.”

  “What’d he buy?”

  Freddie wrinkled his brow, concentrating. “I don’t remember.”

  Farelli asked, “Was he carrying anything?”

  “A shoe box,” Freddie recalled. “He always had a damn shoe box under his arm.”

  “Did you get a look inside the box?”

  “Nah. It had a lid on it.”

  “Did he ever take the lid off?”

  Freddie thought back. “Once, that I can remember. But he did it by the door. And then he did something real strange.”

  “What?” Farelli and Jake asked almost simultaneously.

  “He sprayed some breath freshener into the box,” Freddie told them. “I don’t know what that was all about.”

  I do, Jake was thinking. The guy wanted to cover up the smell of formaldehyde that had leaked out into the shoe box. That’s why Joanna couldn’t detect the formaldehyde right away. It was an odor she would ordinarily have picked up instantly. But it was covered over with some sort of breath spray. “Did the guy always pay in cash?”

  “As far as I remember.”

  “Did he ever use a credit card?”

  Freddie shook his head. “He wasn’t the credit card type.”

  “Was he a loner?”

  “He always came in here alone.”

  “Did he ever mention his name?” />
  “Not to me.”

  “Shit,” Jake growled softly. They still didn’t have a name for the victim, and without a name they’d never identify him. His fingerprints had turned up nothing, and no one had inquired about him at Missing Persons. “Did he ever have other packages under his arm? You know, like things he might have bought in the neighborhood?”

  “I never saw him with anything like that.”

  Jake rubbed at the stubble on his chin, trying to get a handle on the man’s identity. Outside the store, a car was pulling up. An elderly lady was driving. Jake turned back to the cashier. “Did this guy have a car?”

  “I don’t think so,” Freddie said, and then added, “I sure as hell hope he wasn’t driving.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was always loaded when he came in here.”

  Jake leaned forward. “Was he fall-down drunk?”

  “No. But he was pretty boozed up. You know, enough to slur his words and stagger some.”

  “How many bars are in this neighborhood?” Jake asked at once.

  Freddie considered the question at length. “There’s at least a half-dozen. Just about all of them are south of here.”

  “What’s the closest?”

  “A bar called Sully’s.”

  Jake and Farelli left the mini mart. It was seven-thirty, and the night was already pitch-black. Traffic on Lincoln Boulevard was heavy.

  “Do you want to take the car?” Farelli asked.

  “No,” Jake said. “Let’s walk it, the same way the victim did.”

  They headed south, passing a quick-oil-change facility and a used-furniture store. Both were closed. Next they came to a doughnut shop with its door open. A sweet, mouthwatering aroma drifted out to the sidewalk. Inside, customers were lined up. The detectives walked on, coming to a restaurant called Morocco. They peered in the window. The restaurant was small, with all of its cloth-covered tables occupied. Off to the side was an empty bar.

  “What do you think?” Farelli asked.

  Jake shook his head. “A real boozer is not going to come in here. The drinks would be expensive.”

  “Yeah,” Farelli agreed. “But let me check it out, anyway.”

  Jake lit a cigarette and waited outside while Farelli went inside to question the bartender. He blew smoke into the night air, again trying to fit the pieces of this strange puzzle together. A drunk carries around dead babies in bottles so he can bury them. And then he gets his head blown off and his body is dumped into a pit next to the babies. Go figure. It just didn’t make sense.

  Farelli came out of the restaurant. “No luck.”

  Jake and Farelli crossed the street in traffic, ignoring the horns and angry shouts of the passing motorists. They strolled down a half block and came to Sully’s. Its neon sign was blinking intermittently. One of the Ls was dead.

  They entered the bar and quickly scanned the clientele before nodding to each other. This was the sort of bar they were looking for. The customers were all blue-collar workers, most of them standing with drinks in their hands and talking too loud. At the bar were the heavy-drinking regulars.

  Jake led the way over to the bartender and flashed his shield. “We need some information.”

  “About what?” the bartender asked as he continued to dry a glass with a dirty towel.

  Jake showed him the Polaroid snapshot. “You know this guy?”

  The bartender glanced at the photo briefly. “Sure. That’s the Russian.”

  “Did he come in often?”

  The bartender nodded. “Maybe two or three times a week.”

  “Was he a longtime customer?”

  “Nope. He just started coming in about a month ago.”

  Jake did some rapid calculations in his head. Two to three visits a week for a month came to a total of eight to twelve visits. That averaged out to ten visits and that’s how many dead fetuses were found so far. “You know the guy’s name?”

  The bartender shook his head. “He never mentioned it.”

  Jake could sense the eyes of the customers on him. He looked over at them. They quickly looked away. Jake came back to the bartender. “Did he ever drink with the guys?”

  “No,” the bartender said definitely. “He was always at the bar.”

  “Along with his goddamn shoe box,” croaked an old woman with too much makeup on her face.

  Jake turned to the woman. “Did you ever look in the shoe box?”

  “I tried once, but he grabbed my wrist so hard he damn near broke it. I dropped the lid back on the box real quick.”

  “Did you smell it?”

  The woman looked at Jake oddly. “Did I what?”

  Jake rephrased the question. “Did you ever detect a funny smell coming from the box?”

  “No.”

  “I did once,” an old man next to the woman said. “It kind of smelled like bad vinegar.”

  “Did he ever tell you his name?”

  “I never asked,” the old man said, and went back to his drink.

  The old woman said, “I called him Doubles.”

  “Why?” Jake asked.

  “Because that’s what he drank.”

  The old man looked up from his bourbon once again. “You know, once I think he called himself Blahdie. He was getting ready to leave one night, and he said something like, ‘That’s enough for old Blahdie.” ’

  “Spell it for me,” Jake requested.

  The old man shrugged. “Shit! I can hardly say it.”

  Jake made a mental note to return to the bar at an earlier time in the evening when the old man wouldn’t be boozed up. Maybe he’d remember more about the Russian’s name. Blah-dee, Jake thought phonetically, wondering if it was a nickname.

  Jake turned back to the bartender. “When was the last time you saw the Russian?”

  The bartender thought for a moment. “Monday night, I guess.”

  “What time?”

  “His usual time. He came in about seven-thirty and left around nine.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “Nope.”

  “So he just drank and kept pretty much to himself, huh?”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t forget the blonde,” the old woman chimed in.

  Jake quickly looked back and forth between the old woman and the bartender. “What blonde?”

  “Oh, yeah,” the bartender said, nodding, now remembering. “This broad comes in about eight-thirty. Blonde. High class. Looks like money. She sits at the bar and orders a white wine, which she doesn’t drink. Then she makes a play for the Russian. She buys him a couple of rounds. They talk real low, but everybody knows what’s happening.” The bartender picked up an olive from a tray and chewed on it. “She was looking for some action.”

  Jake leaned in closer. “Was she a hooker?”

  “I don’t think so,” the bartender said at once. “She was more like the Beverly Hills type. And besides, hookers don’t buy their johns drinks.”

  “So,” Jake concluded, “you figure she was out looking for some excitement. Maybe a quick bang; then she goes home to her husband.”

  “That’s how I figured it.”

  “Can you describe her?”

  The bartender stared up at the ceiling, thinking back. “Long blond hair. Thin. Attractive, but nothing special.”

  “Anything unusual about her facial features?”

  “Naw. Of course, I was real busy so I didn’t get that good of a look.”

  “Had she ever been in here before?”

  “No.”

  Jake tapped his finger on the bar, digesting and assimilating the new information. “Did the Russian and the blonde leave together?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Jake snapped.

  “It means he left first,” the bartender explained. “A minute later she went to the phone and made a call, all the while peeping out the window. Then she hurries back to the bar, plunks down a twenty
for a twelve-dollar tab, and hauls her little ass out of here.”

  Jake nodded. “You think he was waiting for her outside?”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  “And they left separately for appearance’s sake?”

  “I guess.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  “Sure, I do,” the bartender said, and smiled thinly. “I heard them set the price. A hundred and twenty-five bucks.”

  “But you told me she wasn’t a hooker.”

  “She wasn’t,” the bartender said. “She was going to pay him.”

  “The whole world is fucked up,” the old woman complained. “Now girls are paying guys for it. Jesus Christ!” She held up her glass. “Hit me again.”

  Jake watched the bartender pour and asked, “Which way did they go when they left?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe they went to the doughnut shop across the street,” the old man suggested. “I seen the Russian in there a lot.”

  Jake handed the bartender his card. “If that blonde comes back in, you call me pronto.”

  Outside, the night was becoming misty and colder. Traffic was less heavy on the boulevard. Jake lit a cigarette and tried to fit the pieces of information together. “Assuming the two met after they left, why did the Russian go to the mini mart to buy a candy bar? Remember, he left the bar around nine and bought the candy bar at nine-o-five. A man who’s about to get laid and get paid a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it doesn’t go to buy a candy bar first, does he? And if by chance he does, where the hell is the blonde?”

  “Maybe they were going to meet at the store,” Farelli theorized.

  “Are you saying he first strolled down a dark street, nibbling on a candy bar and heading for an excavation site where he’s going to bury a baby?” Jake asked, shaking his head. “Uh-uh. That doesn’t work. He’d bang her first, get his money, then take care of his other business. Keep in mind, he’s not in any hurry to bury the baby.”

  “And she’s not going to follow him down a dark street like that, either,” Farelli said. “Even if she was in her car.”

  “And he wouldn’t want her to,” Jake picked up the scenario. “He doesn’t want her to see him kick a hole in the fence and go down into the excavation site.” He shook his head in disgust. “None of this shit fits.”