Exhume (Dr. Schwartzman Series Book 1)

by Danielle Girard

  Hal also had to locate Schwartzman’s ex-husband. He couldn’t imagine that any man would seek out a woman who looked like his ex-wife, kill her, and pose her with flowers and a necklace, all in the name of rattling his ex. If he wanted to scare the crap out of Schwartzman, why not break into her place? Or at the very least attack someone she knew. Other than looking similar and being from neighboring towns that were across the country, there was no obvious connection between Victoria Stein and Schwartzman.

  Yellow flowers and the necklace.

  Not enough.

  The two bouquets could hardly be considered compelling evidence. As for the pendants, it wasn’t impossible to imagine that two of those existed. So Schwartzman thought her dad had designed it for her mom. That was a nice, romantic story. Didn’t make it true.

  And yet the pendant stuck with him. The design was unique, the two pendants identical. He couldn’t believe that the fact that the victim had one identical to Schwartzman’s was a coincidence.

  Roger loaded his tools into his ActionPacker. “I got the pendant from Hailey. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got any information.”

  “Let’s check the pendants as soon as possible,” Hal said. “I’d like to identify where they were made.” Before anything else, he wanted to rule out the possibility that the two were made by the same person. If they were, this thing had to lead back to Schwartzman’s ex. He hoped like hell it didn’t. Because if it did, it meant that she had been married to one scary bastard.

  “Yes,” Roger agreed. “I’ve marked those priority.”

  Hal gave him a pat on the back. “Thanks, Roger. Get some sleep, man.”

  “You, too.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try.” But Hal wasn’t going to do much sleeping. Schwartzman had him worried.

  If Schwartzman’s ex wanted to play with her, why make the truth so obvious?

  More than that, he felt the wrongness in his teeth. It was an aching electricity that settled into the roots of his molars when he ate too much sugar or when he wanted to deny something on a case.

  Was it really just some sort of game for this guy? And if he was playing some sick game, then what was coming next?

  5

  San Francisco, California

  Schwartzman shivered in the warm apartment and tightened the belt on her thick wool sweater. The thermostat on the wall read seventy. Still seventy. She had checked it three times. But it felt so much colder than seventy. In the kitchen, she dumped her tea in the sink, poured another mug from the steaming kettle. Pressing her fingertips into the porcelain until they burned.

  Why had she chosen to do this here? She might have gone down to the station and taken care of it there. But now Hailey and Hal were coming to her home. To make things easier for her, in consideration of her position.

  In her home.

  The box sat on the coffee table. A Nike shoe box, the orange dirty from handling, faded. Every bit of evidence she had.

  She jumped at the sound of the bell.

  “Dr. Schwartzman, it’s Alan at the front desk. Inspectors Harris and Wyatt are here to see you.”

  The police were at her door. What would the front desk think? What rumors would start now?

  What did she care? These were strangers, a whole building of them. “Thank you, Alan. Send them up, please.”

  Waiting for Hal and Hailey, Schwartzman crossed to the antique buffet table in the living room, where the bottle of Evan Williams bourbon sat beside two crystal glasses. Her father’s glasses. She tried to find some sense of him there with her. God, how she would have loved to have him with her now. She drank from the mug of tea until the bell rang.

  She opened the door and stood, feeling awkward. They had never been to her home, and this was not a social call.

  She invited them in, offered them tea, which both declined.

  It was midnight. The hour had taken its toll on them as much as her. Hailey’s dark curls were pulled into a makeshift bun, strands falling loose around her face. She wore no makeup, but her cheeks were rosy, as though she had recently scrubbed her face. Beneath her eyes were hollow half-moons. Hal’s face showed a shadow far later than five o’clock, salt as well as pepper in the growth. She led them to the living room, sat against the arm of the couch, and tucked her feet up and the sweater around them.

  “Sorry to come so late,” Hailey said.

  Had they met beforehand? Was that why they’d needed additional time? She tried to read the partners, but they didn’t look at each other. Both sat facing her. Schwartzman shook her head. “It’s fine. I wasn’t asleep.”

  “You doing okay?” Hal asked, leaning forward in the chair, elbows on his knees. The oversize chair was dwarfed by his stature.

  She didn’t want to exchange pleasantries. She wanted to know what they knew, share the case as colleagues. She was antsy, picking at the blanket that covered her legs. She wanted to ask the questions.

  “Schwartzman,” Hal prompted.

  “I’m fine. As well as expected,” she said. A company line. She had a lot of those. But, no. She was not doing okay. Not even close. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “What can you tell us about him?” Hailey asked.

  Schwartzman set her tea on the table. There was no comfort in the conversation they were about to have. There was no comfort when it came to Spencer.

  “You’re one of us, Schwartzman,” Hal said.

  How she wanted to believe that this time would be different. That being one of them made a difference.

  “We’re on your side. This isn’t an interview. This is us asking for anything you can offer to help us nail this guy.”

  “You won’t link this to him,” Schwartzman said. “No one has ever linked him to any of the things he’s done.”

  “Let us worry about that.”

  Could she do that? Give Spencer over to someone else to handle?

  No one had ever asked her to.

  How she would love to pass off that burden, or even share it. But she was terrified, too. What if she told them, and they didn’t believe her? What if the evidence pointed to something else? How could she work with them day in, day out, after sharing the darkest piece of her history?

  Of her life?

  “Tell us how you met him, how it started,” Hailey probed.

  Rip the Band-Aid off. Be done with it. “I was twenty-three, just finishing my third year of medical school.”

  “You were twenty-three at the end of your third year?” Hal repeated.

  As a young college student, her every focus had been on getting through school. Undergraduate in three years, med school in three years. People did it. She could do it. The sooner she was through, the sooner she could practice. Her whole life had been preparation. She had wanted to launch herself from the South, start a life somewhere real. “I was in an accelerated program.” Two of them actually.

  “Was he in school with you?” Hailey asked.

  “No. He was working in Greenville when I was at Duke. He was only three years older but already very well established in the bank.”

  He had told her they were meant for each other. Think of how smart our children will be. How appealing that sounded.

  “Go on,” Hal said. Softly, coaxing.

  Get it out. Tell them and be done with it. “My father died May of that year. Suddenly.” The words were like weight on her chest. She would never have married Spencer if her father was alive. How could she impress on them the weight of that loss? What her father had meant to her. Did it matter? The familiar ache of loss was in her chest again. Press forward. “I stayed with my mother. She was—” How to describe her? Schwartzman hadn’t thought her mother even cared much for her father. She was so standoffish and short with him. But she broke in his absence. “It was very difficult for her.”

  And for me. Her father was her idol, her closest friend. It was devastating.

  “My mother ran into Spencer in the bank, when she was dealing with my father’s accounts. Som
ehow Spencer ended up at the house one evening. Our house.” Her mother insisted she dress up to receive one of her father’s banking colleagues. That was what her mother had called him. Schwartzman hadn’t argued. She argued with so little that her mother asked in those days. Arguing meant an onslaught of emotion from her mother that left Schwartzman exhausted. “We went out for the first time the next week.”

  “What was he like?” Hailey asked.

  A monster.

  Talking about him was like pulling on a strip of skin and exposing the dermis below. Raw and red, the truth burned when exposed.

  “Charming,” she admitted. “So charming. To everyone. People stopped at the table constantly, and he engaged with them. Then he would ask them to excuse him so he could get back to his date. It was so flattering.” Images of the club, of her navy button-down dress. “He invited me back to his house and raped me.”

  “Oh, God,” Hailey whispered.

  Hal rubbed his face. “Jesus, Schwartzman.”

  She drew a shaky breath, clenched the blanket in her fist.

  “Did you report it?” Hailey asked.

  Schwartzman laughed. A hard, sharp laugh that stung her ears.

  Hal started at the noise.

  “I was a virgin, stunned. I can’t even recall that I felt angry about it, although I know I told him to stop. I fought him. That is the magical thing about Spencer. He could rape you or beat you and convince you that it was for your own good.”

  “When did you see him again?” Hailey asked.

  “I didn’t hear from him for ten days. My mother was in a panic, sure I’d messed up my chances. Of course, I never told her what he had done. When he finally called, I don’t know who was more relieved—my mother or me.”

  “And how long were you married?” Hailey asked.

  “Just over five years.” She had once known the number of days and months.

  “And did he harm you during your marriage?” Hailey asked.

  She nodded.

  Hal laid his huge hand on hers, effectively covering them completely. The small gesture made her feel safe, protected. “Did you ever call the police?” he asked.

  “Not once.”

  Disappointment in his face. He couldn’t understand what it was like—the pressure to stay. From her mother, from him, and beyond them. She was a Southern woman, carrying his child. It didn’t feel as if she’d had any choice at all.

  “Why did you leave?” he asked.

  “I was pregnant. Four months and—” The hard slab of marble rammed against her belly, the terrific pressure of the baby’s form against her spine. “I lost the baby when he threw me into a bureau.”

  “God, that’s awful,” Hailey said, her eyes glassy. “Did you tell the doctors what caused the miscarriage?”

  “Spencer talked to the doctors. Spencer handled everything. The longer into the marriage we got, the more isolated I became.”

  “Was it the miscarriage that made you realize you had to leave?” Hal asked.

  “Not exactly.” Schwartzman recalled that girl. Kaitlin. Her long, red locks, her fair skin. “Around that same time, there was a family at Spencer’s country club, the kind that looks perfect. The father was in local government; she came from a ton of money and did all sorts of philanthropy work. Two kids: an older son who was on the football team and the basketball team and a younger daughter who competed in dressage and horse jumping. It was within a week of the miscarriage that the girl—Kaitlin—was thrown from the horse. Broke her back.

  “It was all everyone talked about. What was the latest with Kaitlin. The doctors didn’t think there was any chance she would walk again. But someone’s doctor suggested they go down to Georgia for some new experimental surgery. I can’t even remember the details of the procedure—if I ever knew—but it had to do with immobilizing the spine and using stem cells to regenerate the area that had been damaged. The whole town rallied behind the family. They were big in the church, and for weeks part of every Sunday focused on Kaitlin’s recovery.

  “I’ll get to the relevant part,” she said, sensing the bodies shifting across the room from her. “A few weeks after the accident, Kaitlin’s family brought her out. She was in a wheelchair with head support, but she was dressed beautifully—like a doll. Gorgeous dress, her skin and hair. She was truly a remarkable young woman.” Schwartzman reached for the teacup and stopped herself. Get it out. “Spencer became obsessed with her.”

  “With this Kaitlin? And she was how old?” Hal was poised to write.

  She remembered the way he had looked at Kaitlin, the jealousy it had evoked in her. She didn’t want him, and yet that look of longing was so intense; she felt naked that it was aimed at someone else. But his obsession wasn’t with Kaitlin. She soon discovered it was much worse than that.

  “She was early twenties, maybe. Spencer was never inappropriate with her, but he became obsessed with the idea of her—this perfect woman in that chair. It appealed to him that someone had to care for her twenty-four hours a day, that she was totally helpless. I think it was an incredible rush for him. Spencer started to research the condition and the surgery.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hal said. “How does this relate to you?”

  She could imagine how it sounded to him. How bizarre, how unrealistic. She’d come too far now. Maybe they wouldn’t believe her. She searched Hal’s face, but it was intense, unreadable. “For a few weeks, nothing. But then Spencer started to drop hints about the pain I had as a result of the miscarriage. When I fell against the bureau, the baby—” She stopped. “It hurt my back, but Spencer wanted to believe that I had some serious injury.”

  “Because he wanted you to be like this woman? In a wheelchair?” Hailey asked. Her voice was a whisper. The words too awful to speak in a normal voice. Beside her, Hal’s mouth was propped open.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it was almost like I could see him working through the problem of how to break my back without killing me. To create his own Kaitlin.”

  “Jesus H,” Hal said.

  “Did he try anything? To hurt you, I mean?” Hailey asked.

  “No.” How did he imagine he would take care of her if she was truly in a wheelchair? But he wouldn’t. He would find someone else to do it. Then what? Would he have tired of her? Would he have expected some surgeon to be able to perform some miracle so that she could walk again? “The true danger of Spencer is that he is so calculating. And patient. He is endlessly patient. After that, he started working on the problem. It was no longer a matter of whether he would do it, just when. I don’t know how far he’d gotten when I got away, but I knew he was planning something.

  “I knew I didn’t have much time. I needed a few hours to escape, and he rarely went that long without checking in on me. One of his colleagues was running a charity event. She asked me to help. I told her I thought I was needed at home. Spencer didn’t like when I made commitments that kept me away from home.”

  “It sounds like prison,” Hailey said.

  “It was. Worse.” She would gladly go to prison before she’d go back to Spencer. His own set of rules, a limitless supply of cruelty—prison would be easy.

  “Of course, she told her husband that it wouldn’t be the same without me, he talked to Spencer, and I was on the list.” That was always the trick with Spencer. If she said no to one of his colleagues, there was a chance it would get back to him. That he would insist she go. It wasn’t foolproof, but it worked that time. “I arrived at the charity location, was assigned a task with a bunch of women I didn’t know, and hid my cell phone in one of the couches so it would trace back to the luncheon if he tracked it. Then I paid cash for a taxi to my aunt Ava’s house in Charleston. I worried he might go there, but she made sure there were people watching the house.” Those days of hiding at Ava’s, as terrified as she had been, had felt like the first moments of joy in years. Ava had ordered food in. They’d stayed up late, searching the Internet for medical schools where she could reen
roll. Ava had saved her life. If not for her father’s sister, she couldn’t have imagined leaving. “I stayed for about ten days to figure out what was next; then Ava and I took a limousine to Atlanta and got on a plane there. I haven’t seen him since. It’s been more than seven years.”

  “And he hasn’t left you alone?” Hailey asked.

  “No. There have been periods where it’s quieter, but it has never stopped. He’s always found me.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Schwartzman.” Hal rubbed his face with his hand. “We’re going to nail this bastard. Whether or not he killed Victoria Stein.” He motioned to the Nike box. “Is this all the stuff he’s left over the years?”

  “Yes, as well as all the records from the private investigator I hired.”

  “You mind if I take it?”

  She thought about how long she’d been carrying this around, adding to it, working it over. Hiring the investigator.

  Hal wanted to take it. He was going to nail Spencer. She had long since stopped believing that was possible. Maybe. Just maybe, she thought as she handed the box to Hal. “It’s all yours.”

  “We’ll get this to Roger,” Hal said.

  “I honestly don’t think there’s anything in there that’s useful. Notes, cards . . . no one is going to believe he went from that to murder.”

  Hal wrapped his free arm around Schwartzman’s shoulder and pulled her in. Her father had not been a big man, but for a moment she imagined he was there, watching her. That he had somehow sent Hal and Hailey. With the solid strength of Hal beside her, she even let herself lean in a little. How long had it been since she’d let herself lean on someone?

  “You’re going to be okay,” Hailey said. In those words, Schwartzman heard her father’s voice. You’ll be okay, sweet girl. How often had he said that?

  How she wanted to believe it. Hal let go, and the three of them walked to the door in silence.

  She wondered about the conversation they’d have in the elevator. Would they ask why she put up with that kind of treatment? Would it make them think differently of her?