Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) (36 page)

In the dim light of the parking lot, she could barely discern the outline of a homeless man curled up, fast asleep on the ground near one of the large recycling bins. Otherwise, the area appeared deserted. Considering whether to wake the poor man and invite him into the station for shelter, she decided she might as well let him be.

It was almost dawn. Knowing Jim, he’d make sure in the morning that the man had a hot meal and a couple of bucks to start the day. The stench carried on a draft of wind as Sammy rushed past to her car, made her think Jim ought to offer the KPCF shower facilities to the poor guy as well. Just to be sure, she’d call him when she got home.

Sammy reached her car, and slipped her key into the lock, quietly opening the door. Turning to sit in the driver’s seat, someone leapt out of the gloom and pulled her back up. Startled, it took her a second to recognize the homeless man, his fetid breath reeking of alcohol, just inches from her face. With a force that belied his slim build, he held his arms around her, pinning her against the car.

Not again. Terrified, Sammy flashed back to the day five years ago when she’d been attacked on the streets of a New York slum. She refused to be easy prey this time. Struggling against the malodorous man, she tried slipping from his grasp. Cries of “Help!” were forming in her mouth when a female voice ordered her to “Shut up, I won’t hurt you!”

Staring directly into the face of her assailant, Sammy realized that the smooth skin and delicate features of her assailant belonged to a woman. And, once the shades and ski cap were removed, Sammy knew which woman. Courtney Phillips!

“Are you meshuga? You scared the hell out of me!” She stepped back a foot and brushed her clothes with her hands. “And yanked my chain earlier today.”

“Hey, sweetie, you’re the one that screwed me,” Courtney said, keeping her voice low. “I said no cops and you brought the fucking cavalry.”

“I wasn’t the one who called the—” Sammy started to protest.

“I don’t have time to chat,” Courtney interrupted. “I’m not here for me. I’m here for Ana Pappajohn. She’s alive.”

Sammy felt her pulse race. “How do you know Ana?”

“Long story. We were in rehab together a few years back.” Courtney did a one-eighty glance around the lot. “Listen, the girl’s in trouble.” She quickly explained how Sylvie had grabbed Ana’s purse with ID at the party, that she’d gone into hiding. “Ana needs to talk to her father.”

Sammy shook her head. “You’ve already sent us on one wild-goose chase. I’m not setting up Gus Pappajohn for another disappointment.”

“He’s in L.A.?”

Sammy nodded.

Courtney fished in her pocket and pulled out a shiny object. “Then show him this.” She handed Sammy the necklace with the gold cross. “And tell him to check his e-mail.”

Sammy gazed at the pendant, glistening in the dim light, trying to remember. Hadn’t Pappajohn mentioned something about Ana’s cross missing among the personal effects from the morgue? Maybe, this was hers.

“Then what?” Sammy palmed the necklace and slipped it in her own pocket.

“We meet somewhere, you and Ana’s dad. No other cops. I’ll arrange for a reunion.”

Not entirely convinced, Sammy still agreed. “Nate’s Deli, Beverly Hills, at noon. Lots of crowds, we can stay under the radar.”

“Twelve it is.”

“How’d you get mixed up in this?” Sammy asked Courtney just as the station door cracked open.

“You all right?”

Sammy stepped away from the car and turned to see Jim standing in the doorway. “Yeah, just giving a donation,” she shouted. “Everything’s fine.”

“Okay,” Jim said. “Saw the car still here and wanted to check.”

Sammy smiled. Nice to have someone watching your back. She waved at Jim, then swiveled around expecting to finish her conversation, but somehow Courtney had managed to slip away without a sound.

Manipulating the joystick to scan the electron microscopy display, Reed was concentrating on the fractured patterns of chromosome 11 on the video monitor, when the door to the lab quietly opened.

“What in God’s name are you doing in the genetics lab at four a.m.?”

Reed spun around, nearly falling off his stool. “Michelle? How did you find me?”

“Lucky I did and not Bishop,” she said, coming over to where he sat. “If the chief knew you were hogging the EM, he’d have your head.”

Reed’s grin reflected sheepishness. “Can it be our secret?”

“So this isn’t a work-related project?” She frowned as she eyed the DNA analyses on the screen.

“As a matter of fact, it has to do with Ana Pappajohn.”

Ana Pappajohn? Reed was doing this for Sammy Greene! The redhead might stand only five feet tall and maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet, but she clearly had a stranglehold on Reed’s heart. Michelle found her face growing warm, irritation bubbling up, and she struggled to push it back. As much as she wanted to lash out, to demand why her and not me, she resisted now. Instead, she asked, “You’re still on that case?”

Obviously relieved to avoid another row, Reed told her about the discrepancies between her own ER exam and the autopsy. “Sammy and Pappajohn now feel Ana’s death was no accident.”

“That’s why you wanted the medical examiner’s report.” Her eyes focused on her late patient’s chart that lay open next to Reed’s elbow.

Reed nodded. “Sammy’s using her radio show to track down Sylvie, Ana’s roommate, hoping she’ll tell them what happened, or at least why.”

“Isn’t that a job for the police?”

“You know how busy they’ve been with these fires. Yesterday, Sammy got a call from a cabbie who claimed he drove Sylvie home the night of the fire. Apparently she’d been bleeding—enough to leave a sample on the seat. Pappajohn cut a wedge from the cushion and Sammy asked me to do a DNA analysis. See if I could identify this Sylvie.”

“Did you?”

“Well, that’s just it. Pappajohn cut himself while he was getting the sample,” Reed picked up a ragged cloth with a pair of forceps “A few drops of blood came from a male. Blood type, B negative. Only two percent of the population have it.”

Michelle nodded. “Okay, let’s assume that sample belongs to Pappajohn. What about the other?”

“The other was female and AB negatuve,” Reed said.

“Even rarer, right?”

“Only about one percent,” Reed said. “Now suppose Pappajohn’s wife was type AA or AO.”

“Their child could be AB negative.” Michelle raised her eyebrows. “You trying to say the roommate and Pappajohn are related?”

“It’s medically possible. But, socially, it doesn’t make sense. Unless—unless the roommate is actually Pappajohn’s daughter.”

“Now that doesn’t make sense.” Michelle pointed to the chart. “What’s, uh, Ana’s blood type there?”

“A.”

Michelle nodded. “Her mother could be AA or AO and father BO. That would work, too. What’s her RhD antigen?”

“Positive,” he muttered. “I know, I know, RH positive is dominant and common. But if a recessive allele from Mom was RH negative then the taxi sample—”

“That’s a stretch, Reed.”

“Fine, okay, but how do you explain this?” He tipped his head toward the screen. “The two samples from the taxi. Chromosome 11, what do you see?”

Michelle shrugged. “The elecrophoretic patterns look similar, but this is out of my pay grade. Intern, remember?”

“I’ve only used the Quad technique so far,” Reed explained, referring to a method of analyzing small areas of DNA. “It seems like a close match, but I’ll need to do a more advanced analysis to be sure. That’ll take at least another day. But, both of these samples seem to show a mutation in one of the Beta alleles of the HBB gene. That’s a marker of the trait for beta thalassemia. Otherwise known as Mediterranean anemia.”

“Which is hereditary,” Michelle finished the thought. “My God, you don’t really think Ana Pappajohn might still be alive?”

Reed yawned. “It’s a leap. Tell you the truth, right now I’m so tired, I don’t know what I think.”

“So get some sleep and tomorrow give Ana’s father a call. See if he knows his wife’s blood type.”

Reed sighed. “If only I had a tissue sample from your ER patient to verify that she was or wasn’t his daughter. I’d hate to be the one to get the man’s hopes up, only to—”

Michelle leaned in and caressed his cheek. “Sammy’s a lucky girl. I hope she knows that.”

Reed’s eyes met Michelle’s, mirroring real regret. “I’m so sorry.”

Michelle held up a palm. “I overreacted today. We never made any promises. I had no right to presume anything. Besides, I’ve always believed there’s more than one person out there for all of us. Another bus’ll come down the road soon enough. It’s not terribly romantic, but, then again, maybe it is. Think of all the possibilities we have in life for love. Good things happen when you take a chance.”

“So you’re telling me I need to move to the next bus?” Reed asked, gazing at her intently.

She shook her head. “No. I do.” She gave him a gentle peck on his cheek and added with a rueful smile as she started for the door, “I’m off for a few days. Going to see the folks in Santa Barbara. Clear my head. You have a good New Year.”

“See you after Y2K?”

“Sure. After Y2K,” Michelle repeated without looking back. She didn’t want Reed to see her lips quivering.

Sammy was glad to find Pappajohn fast asleep on the couch when she entered her apartment at half past four. Since Courtney’s claim that Ana was alive, she’d been mulling over possibilities.What if it was true? What if it was Ana in that cab and not Sylvie? Then who’d the ambulance bring to the ER the night of the fire? The ID belonged to Ana Pappajohn, but the girl was burned so badly. Couldn’t see her face.

Ana and Sylvie looked like twins. The cabbie and the librarian both had trouble telling them apart. Even had the same pink purse. What if Courtney was right and they’d traded IDs? That would explain the e-mail message Pappajohn received from Ana after she was supposed to be dead. In the morning she’d call Reed to see what he’d learned from the DNA. In the meantime, was it wise—or right—to express her suspicions to Pappajohn without being absolutely sure?

Tiptoeing into her bedroom, she pulled out the tape from her purse, and slipped it into the VCR under her TV. She pushed PLAY and lowered the volume, then settled down on her bed to watch. The display that appeared on the screen was dark and grainy and seemed to have been filmed from the erratic perspective of a race car driver’s tour of Los Angeles. Sammy guessed the Channel 2 cameraman had been leaning out the window to get his shots. Every time his vehicle turned to follow the speeding ambulance, the frame shook.

The nighttime darkness was illuminated only by the red strobe of the ambulance and the flashing blinkers and brake lights of the TV station’s van as it tried to follow. Sammy could hear the howling winds and see the blowing ash and dust across the dimly lit path, reminding her of a blinding New England snowstorm.

The camera moved wildly once more as the van swung into the hospital’s emergency room driveway and screeched to a halt. The cameraman jumped out to join the paparazzi filming EMTs unloading a gurney. His close-up zoom identified a disheveled-looking Courtney Phillips whose loud expletives made Sammy lower the volume on the VCR. After a minute or more of tight shots, the cameraman slowly panned the area for a long shot. Sammy saw another ambulance in the ER driveway, along with what appeared to be a high-end Mercedes.

“Don’t find too many of those in my neck of the woods. S600—easily six figures.”

Sammy whipped around. Pappajohn, dressed only in an undershirt and boxers, hovered at her door. She paused the tape. “What are you doing up?”

“Bathroom break. One of the perks of my age.” He pointed to the screen. “That the tape your friend Jim promised?”

“Yeah.”

“See anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Mind if I watch?” Without waiting for permission, he sat down on the bed.

With some reluctance, Sammy restarted the tape. “That fancy car is probably Prescott’s,” she said as she thought she saw the Mercedes’s dome light come on and then extinguish. “Did you see that?” She stopped the tape and rewound a few frames. Again the light was on and—“Look, the car door is opening.” Instead of staying on the Mercedes, the video abruptly cut to a new montage of Courtney before focusing on another patient on a gurney.

  Sammy gasped and put her hand to her lips. It was the burn victim. She turned to see Pappajohn pale as he must have realized the EMTs were working on the girl he assumed was Ana. Sammy reached for his hand while they watched the gurney disappear through the double doors of the ER.

Then the camera and its light shifted away to illuminate some of the gawkers. Most appeared to be Goth/Grunge groupies, costumed as Courtney courtesans. But one young blonde seemed out of place. Though the camera closed in on her stricken face for a mere second or two, it was enough.

“The-ooli mou!” Pappajohn cried out. “That’s Ana!”

Waiting for the elevator, Michelle replayed the scene with Reed. Nothing different she could do. He was still in love with Sammy. She’d have to settle for being friends.

The elevator doors opened and she entered the car, pushing B2 instead of lobby. No reason she couldn’t help a friend. She’d make one stop before heading for the parking lot and home. If Reed needed DNA from the ER patient to compare to the blood samples from the taxi, perhaps she could find a hair or a piece of tissue in the drawer where the body had been stored.

At B2, she stepped out into a dark, deserted hallway. She’d been down in this shadowy subterranean world a few times before at night, but somehow now, with each footstep echoing off the tiled floor, Michelle felt a strange uneasiness. It was as though she was being watched by unseen eyes. She hurried toward her destination without looking back.

Entering the morgue, she heard Salsa music coming from the portable radio on the floor, but saw no sign of the night tech. The sound of running water in the adjacent bathroom suggested he’d emerge soon. Taking advantage of the moment, she quickly flipped through the I and O log, scanning the page for December 24, until she found the name Anastasia Pappajohn written next to drawer number 23. Fortunately, no other body had been signed into that slot in the days since. Less likely that tissue or hair samples she retrieved would be contaminated.