18
“W HAT TH ’ FUCK YOU MEAN I can’t have another beer? I paid for my ticket.” The man’s voice was loud and deep, his words slurred. In the aft cabin, two flightcrew members talked to the unruly passenger.
The elderly woman across the aisle from Granz leaned over and wiggled her finger. “Psst.”
Granz leaned into the aisle toward her and caught a whiff of alcohol on her breath. “Yes, ma’am?”
“My name’s Priscilla.” She pointed at Simmons. “What’d he do?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, Priscilla.”
She nodded conspiratorially. “Official police business. I understand.”
“I told you to get me a beer!”
“My husband Nigel always drank too muchwhen he flew, too, God rest his soul,” Priscilla whispered. “Maybe they shouldn’t serve liquor on airplanes.”
“No, ma’am.”
She opened her purse enough to show him her tiny flask. “I always carry my own.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Granz sat back up.
The flight attendant’s name tag said andrea . She waited for Granz and Priscilla’s conversation to end, then pushed her cart past them, stopped it between seats 8C and 8D, and locked the wheels. “What would you like to drink?” she asked Mackay.
“Diet Coke, please.”
A loud crash from the aft cabin was followed by a stream of obscenities.
Andrea checked her watch, then scooped ice into the plastic cup and filled it with Diet Coke. “Less than an hour to San Francisco. He started acting up about an hour ago when the steward told him he’d had enough alcohol.” She handed the cup to Granz. “Lately it seems we don’t make a transatlantic flight without at least one obnoxious drunk.”
Granz passed the drink to Mackay, lowered the tray on the back of the middle seat for Simmons, then did the same for himself.
“I don’t want nothin’ to eat, I want a beer.”
Simmons smiled at the stewardess. “I don’t think I want a Diet Coke, Andrea. I’ll have whatever that guy’s drinking.” He tried to point toward the commotion with his right hand, but the handcuff attached to the armrest kept it from moving more than a few inches.
“We’ll stick with Diet Cokes,” Granz told her.
“I’ll get my own beer!”
Andrea poured two more cups of Diet Coke. Before she could hand one to Simmons, a huge, shaggy-haired man with a bushy black beard, florid cheeks, and a huge beer belly hanging out of his black T-shirt charged up the aisle. He staggered around the cart, grabbed a handful of plastic straws and two cans of Coors, popped a tab, and downed half a beer in a single gulp, then spilled the rest on Priscilla. He handed her a wad of napkins. “ ’Scuse me.”
Andrea set the cups on the cart and reached for the drunk’s beer, but he pushed her away. Granz stood up, grabbed at the drunk, but missed.
The drunk flipped Granz the finger. “Mind yer own bizness, asshole.” Then he ran up the aisle, smashed into the partition between coach and first class, stumbled into the forward lavatory, and locked the door.
Granz ran forward and pressed his ear against the lavatory wall. He heard a beer-can tab snap open, and banged on the door.
No answer.
He knocked again.
“Get . . .” He heard the man burp, retch, and throw, then the toilet flush. “Get lost.”
Granz heard a beer can fall to the deck and waited several minutes, then rapped on the door again.
No answer.
Andrea peered cautiously over Granz’ shoulder. He raised his voice. “Police! Open the door.”
No answer.
Andrea tapped Granz on the shoulder. “Officer?” She was holding the service phone. “Should I call the cockpit?”
“Not yet. Let’s see if I can handle this without any further trouble. Can you check the manifest and tell me the man’s name?”
“I did, as soon as he started acting up. Jeremiah Randall.”
Granz nodded and knocked on the door. “Mr. Randall?”
No answer.
Granz heard a crash. He knocked again, harder. “Randall, open the door so we can talk.”
No answer.
“You can open this door from the outside, right?”
Andrea handed him a key. Granz inserted it slowly and silently, listened, then twisted. When the lock snicked open, he cracked the door and looked inside, then motioned for the flight attendant. “Give me a hand, please, Andrea.”
Randall had passed out, wedged in the corner of the tiny room, his head resting on the commode. Vomit stained the front of his T-shirt and dripped from his beard, and a smelly stain spread from the crotch of his Levi’s. Two empty beer cans rolled around on the deck between his legs.
Granz, Andrea, and a steward dragged him to an empty row in first class, laid him across the seats, and snugged the seat belt over his waist.
Granz handcuffed him to the armrest and returned to the bathroom, picked up the empty beer cans and dumped them in the trash. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.He locked the door and told Andrea, “Don’t let anyone use the lavatory.”
“Kathryn, can you come with me for a minute?” Granz called out. “And bring your camera.”
She pulled her tiny Elph from her purse. When she stepped over Simmons, he reached up with his unshackled left hand and touched her crotch.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“You used to like it.”
In the lavatory, Granz showed her a neat line of white powder about a quarter-inch wide by an inch long and a razor blade on the vanity.
“Cocaine,” Mackay said. “He was snorting.”
“Looks like he passed out before he could snort the other line. Shoot a few photos before I secure this as a crime scene.”
“Done.”
When she finished, he swung the lavatory door closed. “I’ll have the flight crew radio ahead to arrange for FAA investigators to meet the plane in San Francisco.”
“Okay. If you’ve got things under control, I’d better get back and keep my eye on Simmons. Who knows what he’s up to.”
When she returned, she sat in Granz’ aisle seat. Simmons was chewing on a piece of ice from an empty cup. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
He reached out for the cup, picked it up, then suddenly dropped it. He collapsed against Mackay, his eyes widened, his face blanched. Then he groaned. Frothy saliva ran from the corners of his mouth. “My . . . pain . . . chest.”
He grabbed his shirt collar, convulsed, then released a deep breath, convulsed again, stiffened, fell face forward against the seat in front of him, and lay still.
Kathryn reached up and punched the flight attendant Call button, groped in her purse, pulled out a small cylindrical key, and unlocked the handcuffs.
Granz heard the commotion and raced back. “He’s having a heart attack,” she told him. “Help me get him on the floor.”
They slid him into the aisle and rolled him onto his back. Granz looked up. “Andrea, find a first-aid kit and get an airway. Fast!”
He pressed his fingers against Simmons’ throat. “No heartbeat.”
Andrea returned and handed him a flat, curved, clear plastic tube. He inserted it into Simmons’ throat and told Mackay, “Start heart compressions while I resuscitate him.” Then he told Andrea, “Find out if there’s a doctor or paramedic on board.”
Minutes later, Andrea leaned over his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she told them. “Flight attendants asked every passenger, and I checked the passenger list. There’s no medical personnel on the plane.”
Simmons’ lifeless face was white, his eyes open, vacant, and glazed. Granz removed the airway and put his hand on Mackay’s arm. “It’s no use, he’s dead.”
“Damn!”
“Help me put him in a seat.”
When Simmons’ body was secured in the firstclass section across the aisle from Randall, Granz ledMackay to the passageway behind the cockpit and hugged her.
&n
bsp; “You okay?”
“Not really.”
“You did everything possible.”
“I guess.”
“I’ll ask the flight crew to radio ahead and have the San Francisco Coroner stand by.”
She pulled back and shook her head. “I want Nelson to do the autopsy.”
“He had a heart attack. Let San Francisco autopsy him and send Nelson the protocol.”
“He was our prisoner.”
“The San Francisco Coroner’s gonna be pissed.”
“Just be one less autopsy they have to do.” She checked her watch. “It’s only four P.M., the courts are still open. If you think they’ll be a problem, I can get a court order before we land.”
He thought it over. “No need. I’ll call my deputy coroner and arrange for him to pick up the body at baggage.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s going to take a while in San Francisco to make all our reports.”
She glanced at Simmons’ corpse. “What’s the hurry? He isn’t going anyplace.”
CHAPTER
* * *
19
“SHIT. ” Lieutenant James “Jazzbo” Miller dragged deep on his filtered Camel and picked up his desk phone. “Miller.”
“This is Deputy Rafael Cruz, Judge Tucker’s bailiff. I need to talk to you.”
Miller ran his fingers through his thick red hair and blew a smoke ring at the No Smoking sign on his office wall, a relic from his boss Dave Granz’ tenure as Sheriff’s Chief of Detectives.
“What’s on your mind, Cruz?”
“I’d rather not talk over the phone. I’m down in the Tombs.” It was an apt nickname for the impregnable bunker beneath the court building, where inmates were held, often for hours, while waiting for their cases to be called on the floor above.
Miller sucked in another lungful of smoke and checked his watch. “It’s almost five o’clock. I was just on my way out. Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
“I don’t think it should.”
“Be there in fifteen minutes.”
Jazzbo Miller was overweight, with a ruddy complexion, a full beard, and a tobacco-yellow smile. The nickname derived from his avocation as a trombonist in a jazz combo.
He punched his ID number into the electronic security panel and swung the door open. Except for a bench around the perimeter, poured as an integral part of the concrete wall’s construction, the vast room was devoid of furnishings or conveniences. Steel rings set into the walls above the bench were used to shackle waiting in-custodies, and two wooden doors accessed tiny cells where violent inmates or those who posed special security risks were segregated. The floor sloped to the middle, and iron grates were bolted over drains every ten feet down the center of the room. A door at the far end, identical to the one through which he had entered, accessed a subterranean tunnel between the Tombs and both the jail and the women’s detention facility across the street.
Rafael Cruz was twenty-six, short, stocky, and looked like he spent all his spare time at World Gym. Even with less than two years on the job, he projected an air of quiet competence. “I think Tucker was having an affair.”
“You think? Just tell me what you know, I’ll sort it out.”
Suddenly, a heavy-duty electrical relay kicked in,an electric motor whined, bogged down under load, then a loud sucking noise was followed by the sound of rushing water.
“What’s that?” Miller asked.
“Sump pump,” Cruz explained. “When they excavated the Tombs, the floor was below groundwater level. Water seeps in and the pump dumps it back into the river through a series of pipes.”
He thought for a moment. “A few months back, Tucker’s husband was calling two or three times a day and if court was in session, she’d call a recess to talk to him. A couple of times I knocked on her door and heard her crying. She seemed upset—you know, like someone having marital problems.”
“That made you think she was having an affair?”
Cruz shook his head. “A couple of months ago, the calls stopped. About the same time, I noticed Keefe spending a lot of time in Tucker’s chambers.”
“Reginald Keefe?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s not unusual for judges to meet in chambers to discuss a case. How long did their visits last?”
“Long enough, if you catch my drift. And they spent their coffee breaks together almost every day, sometimes in the cafeteria, usually in her chambers. Lunch hours, too.”
“Anything else?”
“The day before she was killed—last Thursday—I went for a run at noon, along the trail by the river. I was just approaching the base of the footbridge that crosses over to the theater when I spot Keefe and Tucker about halfway across, walking close together.I guess they couldn’t see me because of the trees. Anyway, Keefe looks around, probably to be sure nobody’s watching, then puts his hand on Tucker’s shoulder. She slips her arm around his waist and he leans over and kisses her. Just a quick peck on the lips, but then he looks around, kisses her again, then they keep walking like nothing happened.”
“You sure about this?”
“I know what I saw. Tucker and Keefe were having an affair.”
CHAPTER
* * *
20
BEFORE STEPPING OUT of the elevator, Granz took several deep breaths, sucked the last one deep into his lungs, and held it while he hurried down the hall past the empty gurneys and swung open the office door.
Morgan Nelson removed his reading glasses, stood up, and held out his hand. “Congratulations, Dave. Katie called me last night.”
Granz shook the water off his raincoat and draped it over a stack of banker’s boxes filled with old autopsy protocols. “I got lucky.”
Nelson sat back down and motioned Granz to do the same. “You both did.”
Granz studied Nelson’s face, which was even more solemn than usual. “You don’t seem that happy, Doc.”
“Just tired.”
Not much bigger than a walk-in closet, Nelson’s office contained only a desk and chair, an old wooden visitor’s chair, and a metal bookcase full of dog-eared medical references. Floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with diplomas, awards, newspaper clippings, forensic journals, medical paraphernalia, and specimen jars containing human brains and tissue samples preserved in formaldehyde.
“Sorry to ask you to come so early,” Nelson said.
“No problem. When you called at eight, I’d been at my office for over an hour, catching up on the paperwork that didn’t get done while we were in Spain. Besides, it sounded important.”
“It is. Tucker’s rape-kit results came back positive for semen on one of the vaginal swabs.”
“So, she was raped.”
Nelson shook his head. “There were no vaginal tears, lacerations, or abrasions.”
“She had consensual sex before she was killed?”
“Looks like.”
“How long before?”
“DNA tests can’t tell us how old a biological sample is or when it was deposited, but sperm in the semen migrate up the ovarian tract or degrade quickly. If we recover sperm from the vagina, it’s usually not more than twenty-four to forty-eight hours old—seventy-two hours at most.”
Nelson rubbed his bloodshot eyes, then ran a hand over the stubble on his chin, clasped his hands on his desk, and leaned forward.
“There’s more. One of the anal swabs came back positive for semen, as well.”
“From the same sexual encounter?”
“Impossible to tell. There were no tears or abrasions but the swabs also revealed traces of a lubricant, so it was probably consensual anal sex. Until the DNA test results come back, we won’t know if both deposits were left by the same man, two men, or several men. Even then it won’t be much help unless you have someone to compare.”
Granz crossed his right leg over his left, then quickly brought Nelson up to speed on the suspicions Deputy Cruz had related to Miller.
“Sh
e had sex before she was killed,” Granz summed up, “probably with Keefe or Sanchez. I’ll get a search warrant to seize their blood standards for comparison.”
“That won’t tell you whether the man—or men—who deposited the semen murdered her. It’s possible she had sex with Keefe and Sanchez within forty-eight hours of her death, but neither killed her.”
“True. How long before the DNA results come back?”
“Could be twenty-four hours or a couple of months. Depends on whether or not the lab puts it on the back burner.”
“Call Building Forty-six-A, hustle ’em up,” he told him, using cop jargon for the Department of Justice lab at 46A Research Drive.
“I’ll try.”
Granz started to stand, but Nelson motioned himto sit. “One more thing. I autopsied Simmons last night.”
“And?”
“No atherosclerosis.”
“Give it to me in language I understand.”
“No accumulation of plaque deposits in the lining of the arteries—no evidence of coronary heart disease, disorders of the heart valves, or diseases of the heart muscle or pericardium.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
“Judging from what Katie told me, I agree. Tell me exactly what happened on that plane.”
When Granz finished, he asked, “When you chased the drunk into the lavatory, where was Kate?”
“With Simmons.”
“The whole time?”
“Except when I had her bring a camera to take photographs. She went back to her seat while I secured the crime scene.”
“Then what?”
“She yelled for me to help resuscitate Simmons.”
“How long after Kate went back to her seat did Simmons collapse?”
“A few minutes.”
“Had Simmons been eating or drinking anything?”
“The flight attendant poured him a Diet Coke, but he never got it because the drunk crashed into her cart. What’s up with all these questions?”
“Just trying to figure out what happened.”
“Simmons had a heart attack.”
Until the Final Verdict Page 5