‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ he said, running his hand through his hair again. ‘Just-so, that was his name wasn’t it?’
A quick snort of laughter slipped through her teeth before she could stop it.
‘I see you forgot the lipstick this morning. In a hurry?’
Luckily for him the server hadn’t had time to put new flatware in front of them. She decided to cut him with something a lot more vicious. Her tongue.
‘I think he’s nice.’
‘Nice! He’s a slimeball. You must feel like a giant slug slithered across you after he touches you.’
‘He’s got a brand-new Porsche.’
‘It’s a toy, not a real car.’
Her grin told him he’d walked into a trap.
‘Maybe you should get one. Way you drive, the Corvette’s wasted on you.’
The counterman interrupted to take their orders. If he’d been listening in, he’d have brought them two saucers of milk.
‘You want to keep doing this?’ she said. ‘Or you want to see if you can at least start the day acting like a grown-up? See if you can make it to lunchtime?’
He sucked in air through his teeth, said he’d give it a go, no promises. Then he told her what he’d discovered from Arturo the night before.
‘Sounds like he’s going to get in trouble for telling tales out of school,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘What’s your next step?’
‘I want you . . . I need to find out more about this guy Valentine Waits and also about the mother, Kristina Kincade. See if there’s anything suspicious about the car crash she was killed in. Given the way her daughter supposedly died.’
‘You got it right the first time,’ she said, acceptance of the inevitable in her voice. She pulled a notebook out of her pocket. ‘You want me to do it. I’ll see what I can find out.’
He waited while she wrote the names in her notebook and then their breakfasts arrived. Eggs, bacon, link sausages and home fries for him, something healthy and unappetizing for her. The sort of thing that meant you had to be on the lookout in case a rabbit tried to steal it off your plate.
‘What are you going to be doing while I’m doing all your work?’ she said.
He had his mouth full and didn’t answer immediately. She wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t see him chewing. She misinterpreted the pause as a guilty silence. He was aware of flatware hitting the counter top, a burning sensation on the side of his face.
‘I hope you’re not going running back to Adamson with your tail between your legs.’
‘No.’
‘Glad to hear it. The guy’s jerking you around.’
The heat on the side of his face reduced in its intensity as she resumed eating. He enjoyed it while it lasted, the calm before the storm.
‘I saw him yesterday.’
He shifted nervously in his seat, aware that the flatware hadn’t been slammed back on the counter this time. It had stayed firmly in her grip, just held slightly differently. The way you would when you were preparing to stab somebody.
‘Say what?’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said and told her how Crow had set the whole thing up and what Adamson wanted in payment for his story.
She didn’t say anything, but if she kept on chewing the way she was now, she was going to crack a tooth.
‘Tell me you’re not thinking about it.’
‘Crow’s looking into exactly when Robbie Clayton disappeared. Then we can see if Adamson’s got an alibi that stands up.’
‘Right. And if he has, you assume because that much is true, everything he says is gospel. And then you give him whatever he wants.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, finish your breakfast before some hungry rabbit steals it.’
If he thought he was going to get off the hook that easily, he was mistaken. She pushed her plate away, turned on him. He needed to do something to get her off the subject. Quickly.
‘You ever been to Baltimore?’
She looked at him as if he asked a different question altogether, a difficult one.
‘Baltimore? Never. Why?’
‘You wanna go?’
She jabbed at a piece of sausage on his plate with her fork, held it up between them.
‘You need to go easy on this processed meat garbage. They put a ton of chemicals and other crap in them. It’s starting to affect your brain. The hormones they pump the pigs full of get in your bloodstream too. Eat too many of these things and you’ll end up wearing a bra.’
She was talking nonsense for the sake of it, to cover up her surprise. Her mouth twitched like it wanted to break into a smile but she wouldn’t let it come. Then her eyes narrowed.
‘Is this because of last night?’
‘Because of Just-so? Are you serious. You think it’s a competition?’
He knew he’d slipped up as soon as he said it.
‘I don’t.’ She tapped herself on the breastbone, then pointed at him. ‘I think you do.’
‘Are you deliberately avoiding answering the question?’
‘Why Baltimore?’
He’d made up his mind the previous night. What Arturo told him about Lauren’s family background confirmed that everyone had been lying to him about everything. It was time to meet with Lauren. He’d called Levi when he got home and told him to send the email.
He explained it all to her now, feeling with every word more and more like a man digging his own grave. It was a feeling he knew well, had calluses on his hands to prove it.
‘So—’
Nothing good ever followed a so like that.
‘—it’s not actually an invite to spend a romantic couple of days away in historic Baltimore, it’s more like recruiting me to cover your back in case the bad guys show up.’
He couldn’t win. He peered into the hole he’d dug for himself, decided it could do with being a little deeper.
‘You ever heard of killing two birds with one stone?’
She tilted her head to the side, put a sweet smile on her face.
‘Ah. Mr Silver Tongue. How could a girl resist an offer put like that?’
He waited patiently. There was still a bump in the road to get over. A change in her eyes, an increase in the mischief quotient, signalled its arrival.
‘What about Gina?’
‘She’s busy.’
‘And—’
‘Destiny? Her too.’
‘So I’m number three. Not bad going, I suppose.’
‘Hey, nobody gets straight to the number one spot. You gotta pay your dues, you know that.’
She was quiet a long time, not catching his eye. Was she thinking about whether it fitted in with her work schedule, or was she trying to decide if she wanted to go, period? How difficult a decision could it be?
‘Hey, Kate.’
She looked up and he kissed her full on the lips.
That sure surprised the hell out of her. Him too. The counterman saw him do it. He looked like if he didn’t have his hands full of dirty dishes he was going to start clapping and whooping.
It took her a moment to recover from the surprise. She opened her mouth but nothing came out at first. For a second, he thought it was an invitation to kiss her again, properly this time. Not with the counterman watching.
‘What was that for?’
‘To get your attention. Focus your mind.’
She laughed, the deep throaty laugh that he loved, even though it normally meant he was the source of the amusement.
‘What? As in, play your cards right, girl, and there’s plenty more where that came from. Isn’t this where you wink at me?’
‘Yes or no?’
‘When?’ she said, the word riding out on a soft chuckle.
‘Probably the day after tomorrow, Thursday. It could change. She might not even see the email or reply.’
She nodded to herself.
‘I can do Thursday . . .’
‘Get Donut to do some work for a change.’
&
nbsp; She pretended she hadn’t heard.
‘Yeah. Thursday and Friday are good. Tomorrow I can’t do. I’ve got all that work to do for you as well, of course.’
‘You need to give Just-so a call, see if it’s okay for you to go?’
She looked at him a long time. He didn’t know why because it doesn’t take very long to think of what she had to say next.
‘You are such as ass. Did I ever mention that?’
He stuck out his bottom lip, rocked his head side to side.
‘Once or twice, maybe. It’s why you like me.’
‘He’s gay.’
‘No way. Not with a handshake like that.’
Despite his protestations, he saw from her expression that she was telling the truth. It was still hard to believe.
‘I’ve known him for years,’ she said. ‘And his partner.’
Evan shook his head in disbelief.
‘He was all over you.’
‘You mean he was attentive? That’s why you didn’t recognize it. You saw what you wanted to see.’
He wasn’t sure about the wanted part, but he couldn’t deny he saw what he expected to see. It was time to go before he dug himself into a hole he couldn’t get out of. He told her he had a retired Medical Examiner to see—the ME didn’t know it yet—about a case of mistaken death. He wasn’t going to take Oops, silly me as an answer either. He slid off the seat, started to move away.
‘Hey, Buckley?’
He looked at her, sure she was about to make some crack about getting so jealous over her gay friend. But he’d underestimated her. She held out her hand. He took it in his.
‘I know how you get confused when you have more than one thing to think about at once. It’s not your fault. You’re a man, that’s all. So I want to make it clear. Just because we’re going away to Baltimore together, doesn’t mean you have to drop what you’re doing, trying to find out what happened to Sarah. I’m a big girl. I understand your pathological desire to beat yourself up over it, how you can’t help yourself. I hope you manage to work through it in your own way until you’re satisfied. And if you ever do find her, then I’ll take my chances. It’s not only men who treat it as a competition.’
He thought she’d finished, hoped she had, or he might cry. She hadn’t.
‘I’ll bet you didn’t get a speech like that from Gina.’
He shook his head seeing as he couldn’t find any words that were adequate. He went to pull his hand away, was reminded once again of her strength as she increased her grip, not letting go of his hand. He knew then she’d saved the best part until last.
‘You know, I think I’m going to call you Teardrop.’
He heard the small but unmistakeable break in her voice, swallowed a lump in his throat as big as if half his breakfast was caught there.
She’d told him one time, after he’d kept something hidden from her that could have ended up getting him killed, about her little brother, also called Teardrop. She hadn’t ever explained where the name came from but she’d told him how he was pig-headed and wouldn’t listen to reason, however much she tried. Evan had accepted the accusation that he was the same because he couldn’t find a way to deny it. Her brother had died, and died badly, as a direct result of the way he was. And she blamed herself as if it was her fault.
He didn’t know what he was meant to take away from it all, but he still had that damn lump in his throat halfway down the block.
Chapter 38
‘YOU’RE IN EARLY.’ Tom Jacobson's large voice boomed across the parking lot as he climbed out of his Volvo. Evan had come back to the office in the hope of catching him before he headed off to accuse Ivanovsky of malpractice. Jacobson was a dentist who also happened to own the office block that housed Evan's own office.
‘Lots to do. You ever do any work for the Medical Examiner's office?’
Evan followed him into the office block and then into Jacobson's own suite. Jacobson called to the receptionist outside for some coffee. Evan said he’d pass. He didn’t think he’d get it past the lump that was still in his throat after leaving Guillory.
‘Not actually for them,’ Jacobson said, ‘you need to be a forensic dentist for that. But I’ve had dealings with them. Most dentists who’ve been in practice a while have.’
‘How does it work if they need to identify a body by the dental records?’
‘It’s simple enough. They take an x-ray of the stiff’s teeth. Then they contact the family to get details of the latest dentist. I send them x-rays and dental charts and their forensic guy compares them. They look for missing teeth, fillings, other dental work like crowns and bridges. A lot of the time they’re ruling out possible matches. If the corpse has got a tooth where the charts show there shouldn’t be one, you haven’t got a match. Teeth don’t grow back. But if there’s a tooth on the chart that isn’t in the corpse’s mouth, that doesn’t prove anything. It might have got knocked out in whatever trauma killed them.’
‘It’s not possible to make a mistake?’
‘No. Worst case would be inconclusive. Then you’d have to try some other method. Of course, to get the dental records in the first place, you have to have a good idea who the dead person is. If some drifter dies in an alley, they wouldn’t know where to go for the records in the first place.’
The mention of an unidentified drifter made one more piece of the puzzle fall into place in Evan’s mind. He pushed himself off the desk and wandered over to the window as he worked it through in his mind.
‘What happens to the bodies they can’t identify?’
‘They get incinerated. Sorry, cremated. Is this something you’re working on?’
Evan nodded distractedly.
‘Yeah. It involves a body that was burned too badly to be identified by facial recognition. I’m trying to get a feel for how easy it would be to make a mistake. Or, looking at it the other way, what would be involved in deliberately falsifying the autopsy report. And also get an idea who would need to be involved.’
Jacobson looked horrified at the suggestion, as if there had never been a case of medical malpractice.
‘You’d get sent to prison for that.’
‘It’s happened before. It’s no different from the police planting evidence. You’re worried the perp is going to walk, so you write up the autopsy report to make sure they don’t. Call an accident homicide.’
Jacobson shook his head, still not wanting to believe it of his profession.
‘In theory the pathologist could be the only guilty party. The dentist supplies the charts in good faith and the pathologist says they match the corpse even if they don’t. I still can’t see it. Why would he risk his job, risk going to prison, to falsify—hang on, how do you know the autopsy report was falsified in the first place?’
‘Because I’ve got a picture of the supposedly dead woman on my phone, looking very much alive.’
‘Ah. Who’s the ME involved?’
‘George Ivanovsky. He’s retired now.’
‘No, never came across him. Glad to see he kept his name even if he is a disgrace to his profession.’
Before Evan could ask him what he meant, the receptionist stuck her head in the doorway.
‘Your first appointment has arrived Mr Jacobson.’
He waved his hand in acknowledgement and pushed himself off the desk.
‘It’s all very interesting, Evan, but I must get on.’
For reasons he couldn’t explain, Evan had the feeling of something being just out of reach, something important that was eluding him. Jacobson hung his jacket on a hook and slipped on a dental tunic, a look of puzzlement on his face as he noticed Evan was still there.
‘What did you mean by glad to see he kept his name?’
Jacobson glanced at his watch.
‘I haven’t got time, Evan.’
‘Tom! I think it might be important.’
Evan’s tone of voice made Jacobson look up sharply. He looked at his watch again. The phone
buzzed on his desk. He stared at it as if to say not you as well. He picked it up and Evan heard the receptionist tell him Mr Reaves was still waiting. He dropped the phone back in the cradle and turned back to Evan.
‘I’ve never been seen on time at the dentist in my life,’ Evan said to head off any more excuses.
‘I don’t like it when people anglicize their names, that’s all. Maybe not so much these days, but back in the day the first thing immigrants did was anglicize their name, as if they were ashamed of their heritage. As if people couldn’t tell they were foreigners by the fact that they couldn’t speak English. I’m proud of my name. It’s a patronymic name meaning son of Jacob originating in Scandinavia. Ivanovsky is the same. It’s a Russian name that means son of Ivan. I’m sure even you know that Ivan is the Russian form of John.’
Evan felt the answer building substance, materializing out of the ether, as Jacobson spoke, knew he’d been right to push him.
‘A lot of people arriving here with the name Ivanovsky would have immediately changed it to the much more American Johnson. Now I really must go.’
Evan was aware of Jacobson’s large hand on his back, propelling him towards the door as his feet skipped across the carpet, but his mind was elsewhere. Everything was connected.
Eva Rivera’s maiden name was Johnson. So was her sister, Kristina’s. And he didn’t believe in coincidences like that.
Chapter 39
EVAN WENT BACK OUTSIDE to his car rather than go upstairs to his office. He needed some fresh air. Jacobson’s office always made him feel that way, with its posters of before and after dental work and memories of been dragged bodily as a child to the nasty man with the buzzy drill and the creepy smile. The car’s seats were more comfortable than the ones in his office too.
It was a mistake, a bad one. Not one that would cost him his life, because that price would be paid by someone else. But it would leave yet another scar on his conscience. Or his soul, if you believe in such things.
But, for the moment, the sun had broken through the clouds and it was pleasantly warm. He sat in the driver’s seat with the windows down, the gentle breeze blowing straight through the car, and tried to think things through.
Unless it was a coincidence, and he knew it wasn’t, Ivanovsky, Eva Rivera and Kristina Kincade were brother and sisters. And when Kristina Kincade’s daughter Lauren had supposedly driven her car off the road in a fatal accident, it had been her uncle who had certified her dead and performed an autopsy. At the sham of her funeral, a man called Valentine Waits, who turned out to be her mother’s first husband, turned up uninvited and tried to speak to her grieving husband. Her uncle, Arturo Rivera, had stopped him from doing so and his little finger was mutilated for his trouble. Yet nobody remembered his name.
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