“Oh my,” Desi says, now sounding amused rather than worried. “Speaking of being related, that’s the other part of my news I wanted to share with you. I met my father . . . our father . . . yesterday. He just showed up on my doorstep, though it was the back door, not the front one.”
“Really? Did you let him in?”
“I did. We had a very nice chat, in fact. And he met both Erika and Ethan. Erika wasn’t particularly impressed, but Ethan really took to him. Go figure. That kid doesn’t relate well to many people.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Mostly about the past, when he left Mom, and how he didn’t know she was pregnant with me. He discovered she’d had another child eventually, but he always assumed, as we did, that I was the daughter of her second husband.”
“Did he explain to you why he left?”
“He did, though it was in vague terms. He didn’t offer any specifics, just said that he got mixed up in something dangerous and had to enter the Witness Protection Program. He also said that he’d like to keep in touch, get to know me and the kids a little better, but that he still had to keep a low profile.”
“Yeah, that’s basically true,” I say. “You’re better off keeping your distance from him, Desi.”
There is a brief silence, and I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing myself. I can sense what’s coming. To further brace myself, I shove the rest of my sandwich in my mouth.
“About that,” Desi says, sounding apologetic. “I told him he was welcome to come back any time, or that we could meet somewhere else if necessary. He seemed agreeable to that. He was really very sweet, and he seemed genuinely upset that he didn’t know he had a second daughter all these years, not to mention two more grandchildren.”
I start to swallow my sandwich, but what Desi says next makes it stick in my throat.
“So I invited him to come to my birthday party tomorrow.”
I want to yell at my sister, to chastise her and tell her she’s crazy, but I can’t speak because I have a doughy mass of sandwich stuck in my throat.
“Mattie?”
“Hmph,” I manage before I’m able to swallow.
“Are you mad at me?” Desi asks.
“No, not mad, just a little upset.”
“Look, I know you have mixed feelings about the man, and you spent most of your life thinking he had abandoned you. But it’s obvious that he really cares about you, about us. His eyes teared up several times when we were talking, and he sounded sincere when he said he wished he hadn’t missed out on our lives, all the little accomplishments and celebrations. I think we need to give him a chance.”
“Desi,” I whine, “this isn’t just about him missing out on things, or trying to make up for lost time. This thing that made him disappear years ago is still a danger. He’s a danger. And he’s not sharing what he knows about it so that we can get to the bottom of it.”
“Yeah, he said that you were angry with him and that all he was trying to do was protect you.”
“That’s a load of crap,” I say. I have reached the entrance to the underground parking garage behind our office, which is also where the funeral home brings in our bodies. I know the area is a dead zone for cell signals as much as it is for bodies, so I stop, wiping my hand on my slacks to remove a few sandwich remnants lingering there. “If he really wanted to put an end to this, he’d tell me and Hurley what he knows. But he’s being stubborn and controlling.”
“Yeah, he said you likely thought that about him,” Desi says. “Tell me you’ll still come, even though he might be there.”
“Yes,” I say, resigned. “I’ll be there. I doubt he’ll show up anyway. Do you need me to bring something?”
“No, I’ve got it covered,” Desi says, and while her answer makes me feel a little guilty, it also makes me feel a lot relieved.
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I disconnect the call and enter the garage, feeling a host of conflicting emotions. Tomorrow I need to go to a party I haven’t the time or energy to enjoy, to be with my sister whom I love and adore. But I might also have to spend time with my father, a man I want to trust but can’t, a man I never want to see again and desperately want to have in my life, a man I both loathe and love.
Life is full of curveballs.
CHAPTER 23
By the time I make it into the office and change into my scrubs, Otto already has John Lansing on the autopsy table, ready to go.
“Perfect timing,” he says as I enter the autopsy suite. “I got our friend here checked in, weighed, and x-rayed, and I’m just about to begin.”
“Sorry if I’m late,” I say. “I needed to grab a quick lunch, and then I got accosted by the press.”
“Did you give them any information?”
“No information, just an entertaining picture, I’m afraid, one that might embarrass me and everyone in the office.” I explain to him what happened, but if I’m expecting any sympathy from Otto, I’m disappointed. He lets out a belly laugh that only enhances his resemblance to Santa Claus.
“That should prove to be a classic if they actually publish it,” he says once he has his laughter under control.
“Yeah, well unfortunately, I have a few of those in my repertoire already.”
As we get to work, I tell Otto about Alison Miller, about my quicksilver relationship with her over the years, and about some of the photos of me she had published in the past, including two in which I was in a state of undress. Otto is amused, and I find his attitude both cheering and a smidge annoying.
John Lansing’s autopsy is straightforward. We don’t find any indications of diseases, disorders, or injuries that could have killed him; he was a healthy man in his thirties with the rest of his life ahead of him. That leaves us with the tox screen, which is relatively straightforward as well, given that we know what drug to look for.
Arnie runs the specimens we give him—gastric contents, vitreous fluid, urine, and some bits of liver—through his various machinery, and he finds a high content of the sleeping pill that had been in the prescription bottle present in all four specimens. But when he does a routine drug screen, he finds something else, too. John had some sort of benzodiazepine in his blood. The sleeping pill was not this type of drug, so this means John was further sedated by some sort of tranquilizer. Identifying the specific one will take more time, but it makes sense to me when I finally recall the nag that had bothered me back at the apartment.
“I knew there was something about that scene that didn’t seem right to me,” I tell Otto. “Those sleeping pills have a strong, bitter taste to them. I know because I remember patients who took them complaining about it, and I took one myself once right after my split from David. If someone was going to try to spike a drink, even something as potent as vodka, that bitterness would be bound to come through and make whoever was drinking it suspect it was tainted. I’m guessing John was sedated with something else first. But disguising the taste of the pills in food like the pasta and red sauce we found in the stomachs of Craig and Meredith would be easier, especially since the amounts might have been smaller. The goal with Craig and Meredith was sedation, even though Craig’s amount proved fatal.”
“Makes sense,” Otto says.
The brain nudge comes again—something about the prescription bottle. But I can’t figure out what it is. I thought the bitterness thing might’ve been what was bothering me, but now I sense it’s something else.
“Do you want to close him up?” Otto asks.
“Sure. I just need to give Hurley a call to see if he can pick up Matthew for me. I’ll inform him of our findings.” I strip off my gloves and grab my phone from a side table. I call Hurley and get his voice mail, so I leave him a message with our autopsy findings and a reminder that I need him to pick Matthew up and call Dom if he’s going to be overly late. With that done, I re-glove and spend the next hour sewing up the incisions we made in John Lansing’s body. When I’m do
ne, I return him to the storage cooler, do the necessary paperwork, and then head for the shower. Normally, I would put on my street clothes at this point, but today I don a pair of fresh scrubs instead. Then I head upstairs to Arnie’s lab, where I find him with his eye glued to a microscope.
“What are you up to?” I ask him.
He waves me in without lifting his face from the lens. “Come on in. I’ve got something to show you.”
I walk over to him and wait a moment while he adjusts the focus on the scope. Finally, he lifts his head and points to the eyepiece. “Have a look,” he says.
I put my eye to the lens. It takes me a moment to focus, and when I do, I see some shiny gold fibers on the slide. “What is this?” I ask.
“They’re threads from that piece of cloth we found with the bones out at your place,” Arnie says. “It’s some sort of metallic material.”
I lift my head and look at him. “You’re not going to start in on the space suit theory again, are you?”
He looks disappointed and shakes his head. “No, sadly, these threads are very earthly in their origin. It’s a gold thread like the kind used in lamé. It was used in clothing a lot in the sixties and seventies, though it was more commonly seen in costumes.”
“So do you think the aliens made use of our gold thread here on earth for their uniforms?” I say with a sardonic smile.
“Go ahead and mock me,” Arnie says, pouting. “Just because this isn’t otherworldly doesn’t mean that the bones aren’t, or that aliens didn’t visit our planet at one time or another. And I’m still holding out hope on those bones. We’ll just have to wait and see what the DNA tests come up with.”
“Good luck with that,” I say. “Personally, while I’m open to the possibility of alien visitation, I hope those bones are plain old human ones. Otherwise I may never get my new house built.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says, managing to look genuinely sympathetic.
“Me too. Listen, I’m here because I need a favor, Arnie. I need to get in touch with Joey Dewhurst.”
“Joey? Why?”
“It’s best if you don’t know why,” I say cryptically. Of course, this just piques Arnie’s interest even more.
He narrows his eyes at me. “What are you up to, Mattie?”
“I have a little project I need to do, and I need Joey’s help to do it.”
“Is this related to our current case?”
Since the Prince case is still open, technically it’s a current one. But I’m fairly certain Arnie is referring to the Knowlton /Lansing case. “It has nothing to do with the motel murders,” I say, saving myself from an out-and-out lie. “It’s personal.”
Arnie shrugs and grabs a pen and paper. “Okay, here’s a number where you can reach him.” He scribbles the information down and hands it to me.
“Thanks, Arnie. I owe you one.”
I can feel his eyes watching me as I leave, and I can almost feel his suspicion as a palpable heaviness in the air. His curiosity is likely killing him about now.
I head downstairs, check out of the office, and make my way to the underground garage. For once, I’m not happy to be driving the hearse because it makes it hard to be incognito. That’s when I remember that my hearse is parked in the police lot. I start to walk that way, but as I leave the garage area and emerge into the early-evening light, a car pulls up beside me. I look over and see Cletus behind the wheel.
“Is that body you brought in this afternoon the husband of the woman victim in that murder-suicide thing?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss anything with you regarding that case, Cletus,” I say.
“Oh, come on,” Cletus pleads. “Give me something.”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to wait for the official announcement.” I continue walking toward the police station, worried that Cletus will follow me. When I get in my car, I pull out of the police lot and then drive a serpentine route up and down side streets, pulling through an alleyway and circling around a time or two. Once I’m sure I don’t have anyone on my tail, I make a beeline for the local hospital and pull into the back lot behind the building, out of sight from the road. At least here the hearse won’t look so out of place, since this is also where the funeral homes park when they come to pick up bodies. After turning off the engine, I take out my cell phone and call Joey’s number. At first, I’m afraid he isn’t going to answer; the phone rings six times. But then I hear the deep, slow rumble of Joey’s voice. “Who is this?”
“Hey, Joey, it’s Mattie Winston. Remember me?”
“Of course, silly,” Joey says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “I always remember pretty girls.”
“Hey, you better watch yourself, Joey,” I tease. “You have a girlfriend now, don’t you? Rhonda, I think you said her name was. You don’t want to make her jealous.”
“Okay. Don’t tell.”
There is a moment of silence, and I can’t help but smile at Joey’s childlike response. Joey is mentally challenged, and I suspect he’s also autistic to a certain degree, albeit high-functioning. But I don’t need him for his clever conversation, social abilities, or intelligence. I need him because he’s a computer savant. I need HackerMan.
“I won’t tell,” I promise him. “I have something I need you to help me with. Any chance you’re free this evening?”
“I just finished a job,” he says. Joey does consulting work as a freelancer for a number of individuals and companies, both in and out of town, troubleshooting their computer hardware and software problems. Despite his intellectual limitations and superhero quirkiness, he is very good at what he does. Word of his abilities spread quickly around town and grew from there. “I’m eating my dinner. Then I’m going to watch TV.”
“That sounds like fun,” I say. “Can you take a break from your TV for a little while to help me?”
“Okay.”
“Can I pick you up in about an hour?”
“Okay.” Joey isn’t big on conversation.
“Where?” I have no idea where Joey lives, but he recites his address to me in a robotic voice. “Okay, I’ll see you in about an hour. If it’s going to be any later than that, I’ll call you.” I disconnect and glance at my watch. It’s almost 5:30, a perfect time for what I need to do.
I climb out of the car and make my way around the side of the building to the front entrance. I walk inside like any other employee, and no one pays me any attention. People in scrubs always look like they belong in a hospital, and fortunately, the scrubs we use in my office are the same color as the ones the nurses here at the hospital wear. There are elevators near the entrance, and I take one up to the third floor, a medical-surgical unit. Once there, I look down the first hallway I come to and frown. I don’t see what I’m looking for, so I head down it to the intersection of a second hallway—the unit is shaped like a rectangle, with a nurse’s station at either end—and here I strike pay dirt. Sitting in the hallway outside a patient room is an isolation cart.
After checking the hallway in both directions to make sure no one is watching me, I quickly rummage through the cart, removing a mask, a hair bonnet, and a pair of booties. Stuffing these under my shirt, I head back for the elevator and the first floor.
I’ve donned the mask, cap, and booties by the time I exit the elevator. I do a quick detour past the cafeteria and peek in to see who is taking a dinner break. I’m hoping to see one face in particular, and when I do, I turn and head in the opposite direction.
My next stop is the valet area by the main entrance. No one is there at this hour, and a half dozen wheelchairs are lined up alongside the valet desk. I grab one, and then I also grab a clipboard from the desk, placing it facedown in the seat of the wheelchair. Then I steer the chair down several hallways to the surgical wing.
Access to the operating rooms requires an ID badge. I still have my old one stuffed in a drawer somewhere, but it will no longer work. The badges are deactivated anytime an employee resigns or is
fired. So I perch with the wheelchair just around the corner from the entrance to the surgical suite and wait. I take out my cell phone and hold it at the ready.
I worked in the OR long enough to know the routines. It’s the dinner hour, and while most of the OR staff is gone for the day, there will be a few who are working later. I know this because David is in surgery at the moment, performing a ventral hernia repair. I saw it on his desk calendar when I was meeting with Patty earlier. That means there are not only surgical nurses on duty, but recovery room nurses as well, though these days it’s called the PACU—the Post Anesthesia Care Unit. When they have an evening case, the PACU nurse will typically take a dinner break while the case is in progress. My peek into the cafeteria confirmed this, so now I simply need to wait.
Five minutes later, I hear her coming. I put my phone to my ear and start a conversation with no one, pretending I’m on a call. As the PACU nurse rounds the corner and swipes her badge in front of the reader that gives her access to the OR area, I lean against the wall by my wheelchair, chatting away, my back to the woman. The doors swish open and the nurse enters and immediately turns left toward the PACU. The doors hang open for a moment, and as they begin to close, I grab the wheelchair and dash through them. A quick glance to my left tells me the PACU nurse is in her area and out of the hallway. I go the opposite way, turning right and heading for the staff lounge.
I park the wheelchair in the hallway and open the lounge door, prepared to continue my phone call ruse should anyone be inside, but the room is empty. I hurry toward the locker I know David likes to use, and when I open the door, a huge wave of relief rolls over me when I see his lab coat hanging there. His ID badge is clipped to the pocket where he always has it, and I grab it, stuff it in my pocket, and head back the way I came.
Five minutes later, I’m in my hearse, headed for Joey’s apartment. I’ve never been to Joey’s place before, and I’m surprised by how small it is. Joey is a huge hulk of a man, and I always imagined him living in a comparably huge hulk of a house. But instead he lives in a small studio apartment with a tiny kitchen area that consists of a normal-sized fridge, a two-burner hot plate, a microwave, and a sink. There is a large recliner chair just off the kitchenette facing the far wall, where there is a credenza with a TV on top. Also on top of the credenza are several piles of videos, the computer tower, and a gaming console. Not surprisingly, given Joey’s alter ego of HackerMan, the vast majority of the videos are superhero movies.
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