Blood Ties

by Nicholas Guild

  “I don’t think he’ll try anything like that.” Tregear smiled at her. “He’ll want to talk, and that will give me some time. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  25

  Ellen spent a restless night in her own apartment and at 4:00 A.M., by which time she was convinced that sleep was an empty promise, she was in her living room with a cup of coffee and Gwendolyn asleep in her lap, watching a 1940s doctor movie featuring not a single actor whose face she recognized. She had missed the first half, so she had no idea what the story was about.

  Steve probably would have been able to fill it in for her. Steve loved movies, particularly if they were old and low budget. But Steve wasn’t around.

  Steve had banished her.

  “I don’t want you anywhere near me,” he had said. “Until this thing is over, I don’t even want to talk to you on the phone.”

  She understood that he was trying to protect her, that he didn’t want her caught in the cross fire between him and his father, but after all she was a cop with a nine-millimeter automatic strapped to her belt, and he was the one who needed protecting. Aside from the M-16 the Navy had taught him how to use in boot camp, Steve, as it turned out, had never fired a gun in his life.

  “I’ve got the Shore Patrol to keep me safe,” he had told her. “Walter doesn’t know anything about you, and that’s the way it has to stay.”

  So now she was back to sleeping alone. Except that she wasn’t sleeping.

  “Well, that didn’t last very long,” Mindy had announced, as if the discovery should be headlined in the Chronicle.

  “We didn’t break up,” Ellen told her. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  After which it became necessary, for more than one reason, to explain the whole situation to Mindy. Perhaps, it crossed Ellen’s mind, having laid it all out for Mindy, she might even begin to understand it herself.

  “You heard about the body they found in a car trunk down on Skyline? That seems to have done it. Our killer seems to have decided on some sort of blood feud, and Steve is being noble. The problem is, I don’t particularly want him being noble.”

  “Maybe not, but under the circumstances what else could you expect him to do?”

  Mindy’s expression became oddly speculative.

  “When you’ve got this beast in a cage,” she said at last, “I want the case, and I don’t care if I have to seduce the DA to get it. The book rights will finance my retirement.”

  Somehow this struck Ellen as immensely funny, and it wasn’t very long before they were both laughing.

  “But I don’t think it’ll go down that way,” Ellen said finally, when she could keep a straight face. “I don’t think this one will ever allow himself to be taken alive.”

  “Well, isn’t that just a fucking shame.”

  And then they both started laughing all over again.

  Fortunately, tonight Mindy was all tucked up with Whatever His Name Was, so Ellen could sit on the couch with Gwendolyn, watching a commercial for aluminum siding.

  When the movie came back on, the Old Doctor, the Young Doctor’s mentor and father figure, was talking into a Dictaphone. His voice sounded endlessly sincere and compassionate and it was all very quaint.

  She was about to switch to another channel when suddenly she found herself staring at the image of an elderly actor holding a clumsy-looking microphone. How, exactly, would that process work? she asked herself. The doctor’s voice was going onto a cylinder, and then a secretary would put the cylinder on another machine and listen to it through headphones as she typed the notes. Then the notes would go in a file folder.

  What did they do these days?

  Ellen’s father was a doctor, so she knew the answer. Doctors usually didn’t know how to type—certainly her father didn’t—so they still used dictation machines of one kind or another, and the tape cassettes or memory chips were sent to a transcription service.

  But what came back? Maybe a paper printout, maybe a computer file on a CD. Maybe by now they just e-mailed them back.

  So if Walter had lifted the file folder, which would have contained a printout of a file on one of the front office computers, there was probably still a backup.

  Had the San Mateo cops gone through the hard drives? Were Walter’s records still there?

  The clock on her cable box said four forty-five. Sam’s dachshunds wouldn’t get him up until five-thirty. She might as well go take a shower.

  By five forty-five she was at her desk in the duty room, but she exercised restraint and didn’t call Sam until six.

  Millie answered. Sam was out emptying the dogs. No, he wasn’t carrying his cell phone. It was still on his night table.

  “Can you have him call me as soon as he gets back? I’m at work.”

  Millie promised.

  Twenty minutes later, Sam called.

  “Your friend the San Mateo cop—what was his name?”

  “Pete Castaldi.”

  “Can you phone and find out if they’ve gone through Dr. Fairburn’s computers? I think Walter’s records might be there.”

  “Okay.”

  It was almost seven-thirty by the time Sam called back.

  “They looked through the files, but they didn’t find anything for Walter Stride,” he said. “They think Fairburn was killed by a mugger. His wallet was missing.”

  “Can you get us into that office?”

  “They won’t like it, Ellie.”

  “Then you’ll just have to be especially charming about it. Can you meet me there?”

  “Oh, I suppose.”

  By a quarter after eight she was in the parking lot of the medical building in San Mateo. There was a patrol car waiting for her, and when she showed her badge the uniform took her in to Fairburn’s office and used his key.

  “I don’t have to tell you to lock up after yourself, do I?”

  “No. You don’t.”

  Ellen started with the computer on the receptionist’s desk. There were lots of patient records, raw transcriptions in Word format, but a search on “Stride” turned up nothing. A search on “Walter” yielded three records, all related to an eighteen-year-old being treated for the clap.

  Had their Walter gotten here ahead of her? It didn’t seem likely. Ellen had looked in the Recycle Bin and it still held files dated from before Fairburn’s murder, so Walter hadn’t emptied it.

  At eight forty-five Sam showed up.

  “Any luck?” he asked. He didn’t make the question sound hopeful.

  “Not yet, but the morning is young.”

  He sat down on the couch in the waiting room, took off his hat and set it on the seat beside him. He was obviously prepared to be very bored.

  “If my expertise is required, just let me know,” he said, then leaned back into the couch, folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.

  In desperation, Ellen had begun searching the records by date when the door opened and a woman in her forties, dressed in a red T-shirt and gray cropped pants, stepped inside and froze, staring at Sam in amazement.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Sam opened one eye and fumbled for his badge.

  “Cops. Go away.”

  “Wait a minute!” Ellen stood up and came out into the waiting room. “Do you work here?” she asked the woman.

  “Yeah. I’m the receptionist.” She had dark hair with streaks of blond in it. She looked like she would have been exactly Walter’s type. She shrugged. “At least, I was. Now they’re just keeping me on for a few weeks to tidy up.”

  Ellen gestured with her hand. “Come with me.”

  They sat down together on the two chairs in front of the late Dr. Fairburn’s desk.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carol.” The ex-receptionist shrugged again. It seemed to be her habitual response to life. “Carol Brush.”

  “Do you want some coffee, Carol?”

  “Hell, no. The coffee here is foul. Doctors are all cheap
sons of bitches.”

  “Do you remember a patient named Walter Stride?”

  Yes, Carol remembered. You could read it in her eyes.

  “He was nice,” she said, then smiled at the recollection.

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know—pain. Just pain.”

  “Did you do the filing around here?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed. “I was it. I was the whole staff.”

  “And you didn’t see his file?”

  “No. The first and only time he had an appointment was just four days before…”

  “I understand.”

  Within about five minutes Ellen really did understand. She understood that Dr. Fairburn had paid his overworked receptionist less per week than his wife might spend on an umbrella, that the doctor’s widow only came in to sign the checks and begrudged every nickel, that there wasn’t going to be a severance bonus, that Carol Brush was lonely and poor and resentful.

  She also understood how the office was run, that the doctor, like Ellen’s father, dictated his notes and employed a transcription service, and that the notes were mailed back on a CD.

  “What have you been doing with the mail?”

  “I sort out the checks and the bills and leave them for Mrs. Fairburn.” Carol pointed to the small pile of envelopes on the doctor’s desk. The rest I dump in an empty filing cabinet.”

  “What time does the mail usually come?”

  “Just after lunch. The postman pushes it through the slot in the door.”

  Ellen smiled. “Why don’t you take the day off,” she said. “Right now there’s nothing for you to do here, and we’re going to need the place to ourselves.”

  “Don’t tell Mrs. Fairburn if she comes.” Carol shook her head vigorously. “Say I’m out running an errand, or she’ll dock me for it.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  Carol Brush left, tiptoeing over the linoleum floor of the waiting room and closing the office door as quietly as possible so as not to awaken Sam, who had fallen asleep on the couch.

  Ellen instantly went to the filing cabinet Carol had pointed out to her and started going through the old mail. She found two padded mailing envelopes from Pacific Transcriptions. The second contained Dr. Fairburn’s notes on Walter Stride.

  “Moderate to severe lower abdominal pain, radiating up the back to necessitate sleeping in a chair. Condition worsening over previous 4 months. Rx Percocet 650mg. Scan. Blood work. Possible pancreatic involvement.”

  A quick search of the receptionist’s phone directory indicated a radiology practice and a lab, both in the building. Since both offices would know Carol Brush’s voice, it would be necessary to walk down the hall and flash a badge.

  When she went out to the waiting room, Ellen discovered that Sam was awake.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked, pushing back his hair with his left hand.

  “Yes, I did. And now I want you to wander down to Suite two thirty-three and check if they have Walter’s X-rays. Then I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “You got a deal. Are we done here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll meet you at the cars.”

  Ellen herself went to the lab in the basement, where she was told that, yes, Walter Stride had had an appointment to have blood drawn, but he never showed up. A minute or two after she got out to the parking lot, Sam joined her and reported that the radiologists didn’t have any film on Walter because he had missed his appointment.

  There was a diner two blocks away. Ellen, who hadn’t had breakfast, ordered an omelet, and Sam decided to risk all on their crab cake.

  “So what’s the matter with Walter?” he asked while carefully inspecting his spoon. “I trust it’s nothing serious.”

  Ellen showed him a printout of Dr. Fairburn’s notes. Sam took out his reading glasses.

  “‘Pancreatic involvement’—sounds ominous.” Sam raised his eyebrows speculatively. “You don’t suppose he’ll go and die on us, do you?”

  Their orders came. Ellen tested her omelet with a fork. It had a consistency like India rubber.

  “I think it’s interesting that he didn’t show up for his other appointments,” she announced, giving the omelet another jab.

  “And what do you conclude from that?”

  Sam tasted his crab cake, made a face and then reached for the ketchup bottle.

  “I conclude that he only wanted Fairburn to write him a prescription. He wasn’t interested in a diagnosis.”

  Ellen took a bite of her eggs and then set down her fork, thinking she might not need it anymore.

  “If you had so much back pain you had to sleep sitting up in a chair,” she went on, folding her hands together, “wouldn’t you want to know what’s the matter with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then maybe he already knows.”

  Sam, who had been completely absorbed in his lunch, stopped eating and looked up at her. Gradually, he began to smile.

  “Wouldn’t that explain a few things, Sam?”

  “You mean like why he didn’t just disappear after we tossed his house?”

  “Yes. And this last murder—the bloody handprint, leaving his dead wife’s driver’s license for us to find in the victim’s house.”

  Ellen shook her head, as if she were a little disappointed in their suspect.

  “It’s not his style. Walter has a history of committing nearly perfect murders. No fingerprints, no fibers, no evidence. But Harriet Murdock was pure theater, with Walter at center stage. Given how much we know about him, he has to realize that if he hangs around eventually we’ll catch him. But what if he also realizes that he’s going to be dead in a few months? Then all he has to do is beat the clock. He’s taunting us.”

  Sam nodded and then resumed work on his crab cake.

  “It’s a good theory,” he said, without looking up.

  “But you don’t buy it?”

  “Oh, I buy it. With one reservation.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Sam took a sip of his coffee and then set the cup down with elaborate delicacy. He raised his eyes to Ellen’s face and then shrugged.

  “The one reservation is that Walter isn’t playing to us.” He smiled sadly, as if aware that he was demolishing some treasured illusion. “Most of the time you’d be right. These crazies, they get a little press and they start thinking it’s a duel between them and the cops. They write letters, they phone us up. It becomes a game.”

  The smile collapsed.

  “I think, however, we need to be a little humble about Walter,” he said. “I suspect he doesn’t give a damn about us. He probably imagines he can stay ahead of us forever. It’s not us he’s taunting. It’s not us he’s leaving messages for. It’s Tregear.”

  26

  While Ellen and Sam were finishing their lunch, Walter was just getting up. He had slept fitfully for fourteen hours and still felt exhausted. He badly needed a pain pill.

  He had gotten up once during the night to vomit and the bathroom still smelled of it. After washing down the pill with half a glass of tepid water, he looked at himself in the mirror and was not encouraged by what he saw. His face was as yellow as saffron.

  It occurred to him that his slide into oblivion was picking up speed. He found the thought of food nauseating and his clothes were beginning to hang on him.

  As he waited for the Percocet to kick in, he stared out through the venetian blinds of his motel room window. There wasn’t much to see, only a strip of road with a gas station and a liquor store on the other side.

  Out of how many windows had he looked down at some variation of the same scene? Men created for themselves landscapes of dreary horror, places to drag out their pointless, wretched lives. And pristine nature was no different. Only people who had lived all their lives in cities could delude themselves that every forest and field wasn’t crowded with brutal, ugly suffering.

  It was a hateful world and
he would not be sorry to leave it.

  When he started to feel better, he lay down on the bed, on his side to keep the pressure off his back, and picked up the Gideon Bible on his night table. He amused himself by reading the Twenty-second Psalm. When he had finished it he closed his eyes and fell asleep again.

  It was nightfall before he woke up. By then the pain was almost gone. He even felt hungry. He took a quick shower and dressed and then went down to the motel lobby to buy a couple of candy bars and a can of Coke out of the vending machines.

  By the time he had finished the candy bars, Walter was in a much better mood. He was planning his evening entertainment.

  He had finally gotten rid of the van, leaving it in the long-term parking lot at the airport. From there he had stolen an olive-gray Kia, the sort of car no one would pay any attention to. As was his practice when he did not feel rushed, he had switched the Kia’s plates with a pair from another car in the next row and then left the van in a slot some distance away. He figured he might have close to a week before the Kia was even reported stolen.

  He drove it across town to a section of North Beach that seemed to be all restaurants and bars. It was nine o’clock on a weeknight, so the crowds were thin. He parked on the street. He wouldn’t be long.

  Ten years ago Walter had bought an antique bayonet in a secondhand store. It might have dated back to the First World War, or even earlier. The blade was a foot long and took a good edge. Since a quick kill wasn’t nearly as much fun, he had never used it.

  But tonight, because he would have to work out in the open—and because, anyway, the victim was purely incidental—he carried the sheathed bayonet down the inside of his trouser leg, the grip sticking up over his belt and concealed under his jacket.

  He saw a woman walking down the sidewalk alone and fell into step about thirty feet behind her. He had picked her because she was young, no more than thirty, wasn’t wearing a coat and was talking on her cell phone. She had come out of a yuppie bar called La Questa and with any luck at all was heading back to her car. There was something urgent in her stride, which suggested that she had had a disappointing evening.