Peggy Sue Got Murdered

by Tess Gerritsen

  "Dr. Novak," he said. "Is this urgent? Or can it wait till some other time?"

  "I think it's urgent."

  "More questions?" he asked.

  "And another body."

  She watched for his reaction and was not at all surprised to see his face blanch. After a pause he said, "Whose?"

  "A woman. They found her not too far from where they found the first one. In a stairwell off South Lexington. It looks like another drug OD."

  He still looked stunned. "Do you… want me to come down and look at her?"

  "Not necessarily. But maybe you'll know the name. She had her purse with her. The driver's license said Xenia Vargas. I assume it's hers because the photo matched the corpse. Does that name ring a bell?"

  He let out a breath. She wondered if it was a sigh of relief.

  "No," he said. "I don't know that name."

  "What about the name Nicos Biagi?"

  "I don't know that name either. Why?"

  "Just curious."

  Adam reacted with a snort of disbelief. "You show up at my door and assault me with the names of corpses, just to see how I react. And all because you're curious?"

  "Who said Nicos Biagi was a corpse?"

  "I don't know who the hell he is! I just assumed. Everyone else you mention seems to be a corpse!" His voice seemed to echo off the terazzo floor and bounce around the far reaches of the vast entrance hall. At once he regained his composure, his face settling into an expression of cool unreadability. "So," he said. "Who is Nicos Biagi? And is he or is he not a corpse?"

  "Nicos happens to be alive-barely," she said. "He's a patient at Hancock General. A drug OD. We're worried about the drug. It seems to be something new, and it's already killed Jane Doe and Xenia Vargas. It's left Nicos Biagi critically ill. I wondered if you knew something about it."

  "Why would I?"

  "A hunch."

  To her annoyance, he laughed. "I hope this isn't the way the ME's office usually conducts business. Because if it is, our criminal justice system is in big trouble."

  The side door opened again. A woman appeared, looking quizzical. And gorgeous. Her evening dress, shot through with gold thread, seemed to glitter in the chandelier light. Her hair, an equally brilliant gold, fell in ripples to her shoulders. She glanced at Adam's visitor, a look that

  M. J. recognized at once for what it was: a feminine sizing up, then a careless dismissal. "Adam?" she asked. "Is something wrong?"

  "No," he said, his gaze still fixed on M. J. "It's just- business."

  "Oh." The woman smiled sweetly. "Pearl just brought out the soup. And we didn't want to start without you."

  "Sorry, Isabel. Why don't you all just go ahead with supper? Dr. Novak and I aren't finished yet."

  "If that's what you wish." Again, her gaze shifted to M. J. "We can set another place, if you'd like. For your visitor."

  There was an awkward silence, as though Adam were hunting for a graceful way to avoid inviting this unwelcome guest.

  "That won't be necessary," said M. J., and thought she saw a look of relief cross Adam's face. "I'll be leaving, as soon as we're done with our… business."

  Isabel smiled again, as though equally relieved. "Join us when you can, Adam," she said, and withdrew into the side room.

  Adam and M. J. regarded each other for a moment.

  "Let's talk in the study," he said, and abruptly turned and opened another door. She followed him inside.

  It was a characteristically masculine space, dark and clubby, with a fireplace and wood paneling, the sort of room in which one smoked pipes and drank cognac. She sat on the leather couch. He didn't sit at all, but paced in front of the fireplace. The longer she watched him, the more annoyed she felt. It was irrational, of course, but she was insulted that he hadn't offered her a place at the supper table. She would have turned it down, of course; you didn't just drop into a formal supper, and judging from Isabel's evening gown, this was no potluck they were serving. But at least she would have had the privilege of turning him down. It was a matter of pride.

  "So what's the basis for this hunch of yours?" he demanded. "Why do you think I know anything about it?"

  "Because of that matchbook."

  "Not much of a reason."

  "Because this is a new drug, never seen before."

  He shrugged. "So?"

  "And because you're president of Cygnus Pharmaceuticals. A company known for its R and D in painkillers. A company that just released a new class of opiates."

  "We also make drugs for athlete's foot."

  "Oh, and one more thing."

  "Yes?" When he tilted his head his blond hair caught the glow of the table lamp.

  "Until you saw the body, you thought Jane Doe was someone you might know."

  At once he fell silent, all trace of mockery gone from his face. He sat down, his gaze avoiding hers.

  "Who did you think she was, Quantrell?"

  "Someone… close to me."

  "What's the secret here? Why can't you just say who you thought she was?"

  "These are things I don't wish to discuss. Not with a stranger."

  "Then can you discuss the drug? It's something new. A narcotic with a biphasic peak on gas chromatography. Could it be something that leaked out of Cygnus? Something you're developing?"

  "I wouldn't want to speculate."

  Of course he wouldn't. Because then he'd be vulnerable to all sorts of accusations. The manufacture of lethal drugs. The slaughter of junkies.

  Slowly he looked up. "You said you had another body in the morgue. A woman."

  "Xenia Vargas."

  "Is she… young?"

  "About twenty."

  "Describe her for me."

  "You think you might know her?"

  "Please. Just tell me what she looks like."

  Something about the tone of his voice, the stifled note of anxiety, made her feel sorry for him. "She's about five foot four, on the thin side. Dark brown hair-"

  "Could it be dyed?"

  M. J. paused. "It's possible, I guess."

  "What about her eyes? What color?"

  "Hazel."

  Another silence. Then, with sudden agitation, he rose to his feet. "I think I'd better see her," he said.

  "You mean-now?"

  "If we could." He met her gaze. "If you'd be so kind."

  How could she possibly turn that request down? she wondered, looking into those blue-gray eyes. You're losing it, Novak. You're letting this latter-day Gatsby call the shots. What was the quote again? "The rich are different from you and me?"

  Hell yes they were different. They had gorgeous eyes and perfect hair and they said, "if you would be so kind," in a way that actually sounded conversational.

  She too stood up and followed him into the main hall. "What about your dinner guests?"

  "They can feed themselves. Would you excuse me a moment, while I gracefully duck out?"

  He went through the side door, but this time he left it open. M. J. caught a glimpse of a formal dining room and a half-dozen guests seated around the table. Some of them glanced curiously in M. J.'s direction. She heard Isabel ask, "Should I wait for you, Adam?"

  "Please don't," he said. "I don't know how long I'll be."

  "This is really quite naughty of you, you know."

  "It can't be helped. Good night, everyone! You're free to have a go at my wine cellar, but leave me a few bottles, will you?" He clapped one of the men on the shoulder, waved farewell, and came back into the hall, shutting the door behind him.

  "That's done," he said to M. J. "Now. Let's go."

  4

  The morgue elevator slid open. Here we go again, she thought.

  The basement seemed calm tonight. The only noise was the morgue attendant's radio, playing in a side office. Something mean and gritty and tuneless. She and Adam passed the open door, where they could see the attendant sitting with his feet propped up on the desk, his gaze focused on a Naked Babes Magazine.

 
"Hey, Willie," said M. J.

  "Hey, Doc," he said, grinning at her over the cover. "Not much action coming down tonight."

  "I can tell."

  "Y'mean this?" He waved the magazine and laughed. "Man, I get tired of lookin' at dead chicks. I like mine live and sassy."

  "We're going into the cold room, okay?"

  "Need any help?"

  "No. You just stay with your sassy chicks."

  She and Adam walked on down the hall, beneath the bank of fluorescent lights. The bulb that had been flickering earlier that day was now dead; it left a patch of shadow on the linoleum floor.

  They entered the storage room. She flicked on the wall switch and blinked at the painful blast of light on her retinas. The refrigerated drawers faced them from the opposite wall.

  She moved to the drawer labeled Vargas, Xenia, and slid it open. Covered by the shroud, the body seemed shapeless, like a lump of clay still to be molded. She glanced up at Adam in silent inquiry.

  He nodded.

  She removed the shroud.

  The corpse looked like a mannequin, not real at all, but plastic. Adam took one good look at Xenia Vargas, and all the tension seemed to escape his body in a single sigh.

  "You don't know her?" said M. J.

  "No." He swallowed. "I've never seen her."

  She replaced the shroud and slid the drawer shut. Then she turned and looked at him. "Okay, Quantrell, I think it's time for you to fess up. Who, exactly, are you looking for?"

  He paused. "A woman."

  "I know that. I also know she's got hazel eyes. And the chances are, she's either a blond or a redhead. Now I want to know her name."

  "Maeve," he said softly.

  "Now we're getting somewhere. Maeve who?"

  "Quantrell."

  She frowned. "Wife? Sister?"

  "Daughter. I mean, stepdaughter. She's twenty-three. And you're right. She's blond. Hazel eyes. Five foot five, a hundred fifteen pounds. At least, that's what she was when I saw her last."

  "And when was that?"

  "Six months ago."

  "She's missing?"

  He shrugged one tuxedoed shoulder. "Missing, hiding. Whatever you want to call it. She drops out of sight whenever she feels like it. Whenever she can't face up to life. It's her way of coping."

  "Coping with what?"

  "Everything. Bad grades. Love affairs. Her mother's death. Her lousy stepfather."

  "So you two didn't get along."

  "No." Wearily he raked his fingers through his hair. "I couldn't handle her. I thought I could shape her up. You know, a firm hand, some good old-fashioned discipline. The way my father raised me. I even got her a job, thinking that all she needed was some responsibility. That at a minimum she could show up on time, do the job right, and pay for her own damn groceries." He shook his head. "She went to work one day, two hours late, her hair dyed purple. She had a screaming match with her supervisor. Then she walked off the job." He let out a breath. "She was fired."

  "And that was the last time she was seen?"

  "No. I took her out to lunch. To try to patch things up. Instead, we had an argument. Naturally."

  "Let me guess," said M. J. "You took her to L'Etoile, on Hilton Avenue."

  He nodded. "Maeve showed up in black leather and green hair. She insulted the maitre d'. Lit up a joint in the nonsmoking section. And proceeded to tell me I had sick values. I told her she was sick, period. I also told her I was withdrawing all financial support. That if she shaped up, behaved like a responsible human being, she was welcome to come back to the house. I'd just changed my phone number-I was getting crank calls-so I wrote my new number in a matchbook and gave it to her. Just in case she wanted to get in touch with me. She never did."

  "And the matchbook?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe she passed it around to a friend, and somehow Jane Doe got it. I don't know."

  "You haven't seen her since the restaurant?"

  "No."

  She paused. "Where does Lou Beamis come in?"

  "A private detective I hired told me Maeve was hanging around South Lexington. That's Lieutenant Beamis's beat. I simply asked him to keep an eye out for her. As a favor to me. He thought he spotted her once, but that was it."

  It sounded believable enough, M. J. thought, studying his pose, the elegant cut of his tuxedo. So why do I get the feeling he's still hiding something?

  His gaze was focused elsewhere, as though he was afraid to let her see his eyes.

  "What you're telling me, Mr. Quantrell, isn't exactly earth-shattering. Lots of families have problems with their kids. Why were you afraid to tell me about her? Why hide it from me?"

  "It's a rather… embarrassing state of affairs."

  "Is that all?"

  "Isn't that enough?" He swung around to look at her, the challenge plain in his aristocratic face. She felt trapped by the spell of that gaze. What was it about this guy?

  She gave her head a shake, as though to clear it. "No," she said. "It's not enough. So what if you had told me the truth this morning? I'm just a public servant. You don't get embarrassed in front of your servants, do you?"

  He gave her a tight smile. "You, Dr. Novak, I hardly consider a servant."

  "Is there something else about Maeve you don't want to tell me? Some minor detail you haven't mentioned?"

  "Nothing of any relevance to your job." He turned away, a sure sign that he wasn't telling the whole truth. His gaze focused on one of the body drawers.

  "Then I'd say our business here is finished," she said. "Go on home to your guests. If you hurry, you might be able to make it back in time for brandy."

  "Who is this?" he asked sharply.

  "What?"

  "This drawer here. It says Jane Doe."

  M. J. took a closer look at the label: #372-3-27-6. "Another one. Dated seven days ago. Ratchet must have processed this one."

  "Who's Ratchet?"

  "The other assistant ME. He's on vacation right now."

  Adam took a breath. "May I…" He looked up mutely at M. J.

  She nodded. Without a word, she pulled open the drawer.

  Wisps of cold vapor swirled out. M. J. felt her old reluctance to lift the shroud, to reveal the body. This Jane Doe she hadn't laid eyes on. She steeled herself against the worst and slid off the shroud.

  The woman was beautiful. Seven days of stainless steel imprisonment couldn't dull the glow of her hair. It was a rich red, thick and tumbling about her shoulders. Her skin had the luster of white marble, and in life must have seemed flawless. Her eyes, revealed by partly opened, heavily lashed lids, were gray. No injuries marred the upper torso, only a puncture mark in the skin under the clavicle-probably made by Ratchet collecting his blood specimens.

  M. J. looked across at Adam.

  He shook his head. "You can close the drawer," he murmured. "It's not her."

  "I wonder who she is?" said M. J., sliding the drawer shut. "She looks like the kind of woman who'd be missed. Not our usual Jane Doe type."

  "Would you know how she died?" The question was asked softly, but its significance at once struck M. J.

  "Let's pull the file," she said.

  They found it in Ratchet's office. It was buried in a stack on his desk, waiting to be completed. On top were clipped a few loose pages, recent correspondence from the central identification lab.

  "Looks like she's no longer a Jane Doe," said M. J. "They found a fingerprint match. Her name's Peggy Sue Barnett. I guess Ratchet never got around to relabeling the drawer."

  "Why does she have fingerprints on file?"

  M. J. flipped to the next page. "Because she has a police record. Shoplifting. Prostitution. Public drunkenness." M. J. glanced up at Adam. "Guess she wasn't as sweet as she looked."

  "What was the cause of death?"

  M. J. opened the folder and squinted at Ratchet's notes. He must have been in a rush when he wrote it; it was a typical doctor's scrawl, the is undotted, the ts uncrossed. "Subject found 3/27 at 0
2:35 in public restroom at Gilly's bar, off Flashner Avenue." M. J. looked up. "That's in Bellemeade. I live there." She turned to the next page. "No injuries noted… tox screens pending. Police report empty bottle of Fiorinal pills found near body. Conclusion: cardiopulmonary arrest, most likely due to barbiturate overdose. Awaiting tox screen from state lab."

  "Is the report back yet?"

  M. J. went to the courier box and riffled through the stack of pages. "I don't see it here. It's probably still pending." She closed the file. "This case doesn't really fit with the others. Bellemeade's a different neighborhood, with a different class of drug users. Higher priced."

  "The others were all in South Lexington?"

  "Within blocks of each other. Jane Doe was smack in the Projects. So was Xenia Vargas. Nicos Biagi was a little further out, on Richmond Street. Let's see, that'd make it somewhere near the old railroad tracks. But it's still the same neighborhood."

  "You seem to know the area well."

  "Too well." She tossed Peggy Sue Barnett's file on Ratchet's desk. "I grew up there."

  He looked at her in surprise. "You?"

  "Me."

  "How did you…" He paused, as though not certain how to phrase the question with any delicacy.

  "How did I happen to grow up there? Simple. That's where my mom lived. Right up until she died."

  "So you would know the people there."

  "Some of them. But the neighborhood's always changing. People who can get out, get out. It's like this giant pond. Either you float up and crawl out or you sink deeper into the mud."

  "And you floated."

  She shrugged. "I got lucky."

  He studied her with new appreciation, as though he was really seeing her for the first time. "In your case, Novak," he said, "I think luck had nothing to do with it."

  "Not like some of us," she said, looking at his tuxedo and his immaculate shirt.

  He laughed. "Yes, some of us do seem to be rolling in it."

  They rode back up the elevator and walked out of the building. It was chilly outside. The wind blew an empty can down the street; they could trace its progress by the tinny echoes in the darkness.