Diagnosis Murder: The Death Merchant (19 page)

Terry glanced at his watch. "Right about now."

Mark changed out of his borrowed scrubs and drove out with Terry to the Greene's rustic A-frame, nestled among tall, snow-covered pines. The house was surrounded by FBI and police vehicles, bathing the house and the snowscape in multicolored flashes from their swirling dome lights.

Inside the house, FBI agents in parkas were searching every room for anything that might tell them something about Stella Greene's past. Terry went straight to the kitchen to talk with Chester, who Mark glimpsed briefly at the dining table, hands covering his face, his body convulsing with sobs. Mark decided to hold off on meeting the grieving husband for a few minutes, and instead headed for the master bedroom.

Being a doctor, Mark went immediately to the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom. He believed there was no better way to get a quick assessment of a person than to look at their medications.

Stella and her husband shared a sink. The medicine cabinet turned out to be a medicine drawer, secured with a firm child-safety latch. He lined up the meds on the counter and grouped them by whom they were prescribed for. Stella was taking Ambien for trouble sleeping, Xanax for anxiety, and Vicodin for pain, most likely from some kind of skiing injury.

With the dark secrets Stella had, Mark wasn't surprised she was riddled with anxiety and had problems sleeping at night. It probably got much worse once she had kids of her own and could imagine one of them enduring what she'd help do to Connie Standiford.

Her husband, Chester, was taking desmopressin acetate as a nasal spray, once a day, which meant he suffered from fatigue and dehydration from a pituitary insufficiency. Chester probably drank water by the gallon and knew where to find every bathroom in Keystone.

The kids had both been prescribed amoxicillin and Tylenol liquid, so Mark knew they'd each suffered ear or throat infections recently, just like millions of other normal, healthy kids their age. That was about to change. Soon they would learn that their mother was dead, and that she was a murderer. He could only imagine what damage that news would do to them emotionally and how it would shape the rest of their lives.

That was the legacy of violent crime. It was never an isolated, contained event. The consequences of murder could often be felt for decades after the act.

The rippling echoes of the Standiford kidnapping and murder were now profoundly affecting the lives of people who weren't even born when it happened. That, to Mark, was the greatest tragedy of all.

With that in mind, Mark went to the kitchen to meet another victim, someone who'd not only suffered a profound loss but was about to discover his life was built on a care fully constructed foundation of lies.

Mark tried to drift unobtrusively into the kitchen so as not to interrupt the flow of Terry Riordan's interview with Chester Greene.

Terry and Chester sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Chester's eyes were bloodshot and his face tear-streaked, but he was no longer sobbing. He was in shock, his voice calm, his eyes staring past Terry into some unfathomable distance.

Mark stood behind Chester and glanced at the magnets, notes, drawings, and school lunch menus stuck on the refrigerator.

"Why would anyone want to murder Stella?" Chester asked, his face drawn in anguish and disbelief.

"Your wife wasn't the person you thought she was," Terry said. "She had another life before she met you."

"Of course she did," Chester said. "Everybody has a life before they get married."

"Not everybody's includes kidnapping and murder," Terry said.

Mark gave Terry a look, surprised at the harshness of the agent's comment. Then again, it may have been the only way to knock Chester out of his shocked daze. If that was Terry's intention, it worked. Chester's eyes focused on Terry with a look of pure loathing.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Chester said.

"We think her murder was an act of revenge."

"My wife wouldn't hurt anyone. She's a gentle, loving person. She didn't have a single enemy. Not one."

"Were you aware that your wife had extensive plastic surgery?"

"She was in a bad car accident when she was a teenager," Chester said. "She was nearly killed." His voice caught, and he almost didn't finish the sentence.

Terry shook his head. "Forensics show the surgery was recent, that it was done within the last five years."

Mark hadn't told Terry that, but it was true. The agent was clearly basing his assumptions on Stuart Appleby's autopsy.

"So what?" Chester said.

"Your wife lied to you," Terry says. "Doesn't that mean anything?"

"Someone just killed her," Chester yelled. "Do you think I give a damn right now whether she lied to me about when she had her nose job? Why aren't you out there looking for her killer instead of trying to smear her?"

Mark noticed a tiny plastic file box on the kitchen counter engraved with the word RECIPES. He opened it. It was stuffed with clippings torn out of magazines and recipes written on index cards. He began to sort through the papers.

"Don't you want to know why she was killed?" Terry asked.

"You're not going to find that out talking to me," Chester said. "Or accusing her of a crime she couldn't possibly have committed."

Stuck amid all the other recipes in the menu box, Mark found a postcard folded in half. He unfolded it. There was a color picture of seared swordfish in a roasted macadamia nut—lobster butter sauce on the front, the recipe for the en tree on the back.

It was recipe card from the Royal Hawaiian restaurant. There was no note. Just the address of the restaurant and, in smaller type, of Roswell Imaging, the printer.

"Do the names Stuart Appleby, William Gregson, or Jason Brennan mean anything to you?" Terry asked.

Chester shook his head.

"What about Danny Royal?" Terry asked. "Ever heard of him?"

"No," Chester said. 'What do they have to do with what happened to Stella?"

"Five years ago your wife lived in Las Vegas and her name was Diane Love," Terry said. "She got together with Appleby, Gregson, and Brennan, kidnapped an eighteen- year-old girl, buried her alive, and ran off with a four- million-dollar ransom."

"My wife would never do that," Chester said.

"The crime happened five years ago, about the same time Stella got herself a brand new face," Terry said. "Think about it."

"No, you think about it," Chester said. "Take a look around. Stella's a mother, a terrific mother, with two wonderful kids she loves more than anything. Stella couldn't harm someone's child. Don't you see? She couldn't possibly be the person you're describing."

"You're right. Five years ago she wasn't Stella Greene, loving wife and mother," Terry said. "She was Diane Love, kidnapper and killer."

"You're making a horrible mistake," Chester said, his voice cracking.

"Have you ever met your wife's family?"

"Her parents are both dead," Chester said. "She has no other living relatives."

"Uh-huh," Terry said. "Doesn't that strike you as un usual?"

"That's your evidence?" Chester asked incredulously. 'That she was alone in the world?"

"We have more." Terry said when, in fact, he didn't. At least not yet. Until the forensic anthropologist worked up a rendering of what Stella's face looked like before the surgery, everything they had was strictly circumstantial. But neither Mark nor Terry doubted they had the right woman. Neither did her killer.

"Then let's hear it," Chester said. "Because you haven't said anything yet that makes the slightest bit of sense."

"Have you ever been to Hawaii, Mr. Greene?" Mark asked gently.

Chester twisted around in his seat, noticing Mark for the first time. "No. What does that have to do with anything?"

Mark held up the recipe card to show the picture of the seared swordfish entree. "I was wondering where you got this."

The only one who seemed to react to the card was Terry Riordan, who smiled with satisfaction. The FBI agent now had one more piece of evidence, albeit circumstantial, with which to make his case.

"I don't keep track of where Stella gets her recipes," Chester said, then turned to Terry accusingly. "Now you're investigating what she cooks? What's the matter with you people? Have you gone insane?"

"It came from the Royal Hawaiian restaurant, Mr. Greene," Mark said. "It was owned by Stuart Appleby, one of the other fugitives. Your wife has called him on several occasions."

"It's a coincidence." Chester saw the doubt in Terry's eyes. "You don't understand. She loves experimenting in the kitchen. She likes to try unusual recipes, even though she screws most of them up. I don't mind, but it drives the kids nuts. They'd be happy eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese every day. You know what Kenny told her once? She should ask Mrs. Kraft for recipes, because there's a lady who really knows how to cook."

A dark look passed over Chester's face. He glanced from Mark to Terry, then stared at a point somewhere beyond the kitchen, the house, and the world closing in around him. They were quiet. The only sounds came from the shuffling of FBI agents moving through the house and the steady hum of the refrigerator.

"She can't be dead," Chester said, his eyes glazing over, his voice dropping to a whisper. "This can't be happening to us."

Mark felt terrible for Chester Greene and his family. It was only going to get worse for them before it got better, and even then it wouldn't be much of an improvement. The unspeakable betrayal, the unanswered questions, and the lasting pain would linger with the Greenes forever.

There was no joy for Mark in finding Diane Love. Not now. Not this way.

The crime that Appleby, Gregson, Brennan, and Love committed five years ago had just claimed three new victims.

Mark set the recipe card on the table in front of Terry Riordan and walked out of the house.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Adele Urich, the suspect in Hawaii, voluntarily submitted to an X ray to reveal whether she'd had major plastic surgery done to her face. She hadn't, which ruled her out as their fugitive. It was no surprise to Mark Sloan or anyone at the FBI. They knew Stella Greene was Diane Love. The question now was how to find Jason Brennan and William Greg son before Roger Standiford's hit man did.

The next day moved slowly as evidence was sorted at the FBI's temporary field headquarters, two adjoining rooms at a low-budget motel off the I-70, a few miles from Keystone.

It frustrated Terry that the FBI wouldn't even pop for a decent room at the Keystone resort, but even the cheapest rates were well above the approved daily spending limits. Terry tried to get an "FBI discount" from the desk clerk, who looked at him like he had a third nostril or something. He then appealing to her sense of patriotism and justice, and got back a bunch of drivel about it being "high season" and them being at "full occupancy," which he didn't believe for a second. The clerk and her entire staff could look forward to being audited by the IRS.

Mark Sloan didn't care what their accommodations were. He would have felt cold and frustrated and uncomfortable wherever they were staying. The crime scene unit turned up nothing at the murder scenes. So far, agents hadn't found any anything unusual about the Greene's finances, nor any obvious indications that Stella had been in contact with Gregson or Brennan.

Claire Rossiter arrived the previous night and was hard at work on her computer sculpture of what Stella looked like before her surgery, but there wasn't much suspense surrounding her work. They all knew what the face would look like. The only person Rossiter's rendering would shock was going to be Chester Greene. Once the picture was done and could be compared to pictures of Diane Love, any hope Chester had that the FBI was making a big mistake would be lost.

Agents Flannery and Witten were still in Hawaii. Terry had deftly convinced them there was little they could accomplish in Denver and that there was far more valuable work for them to do on the island. The key clue could still be in the financial paper trail, he told them. You can't go wrong following the money. It works almost every time.

Perhaps it did, but Mark didn't think it would in this case. Then again, he had no idea what would. He'd already used up the one clue he had: the note on the recipe card. When he'd discovered another Royal Hawaiian-recipe card in Stella's kitchen, for an instant he'd felt relief, certain they'd have another anagram to decipher that would lead them to the other fugitives. But when he unfolded the recipe card and saw that there was no note written on it, his heart sank.

They were back to zero.

Still, it bugged him that she had a Royal Hawaiian recipe card. Did she save it for Appleby's phone number and address? If so, why did she only have information on him and not the other fugitives? And if she did have information on how to reach Gregson and Brennan, where was she hiding it?

Those questions in turn raised others in Mark's mind.

Why did Appleby bother to encode and save contact information on Diane Love in his safe-deposit box and not the others? Then again, Appleby might have. The encoded information about how to contact them might have been among the clues lost when the hit man torched Appleby's house and restaurant.

At least Mark could find some solace in the fact they got to Greene's house before the killer could cleanse that home of any clues, too. Not that it was helping them now. If the clues were there, so far Mark had missed them all.

He spent most of the day going through the Greene's family photo albums, hoping to spot something among the people they met and the places they went. There was a nice picture of the Greenes grouped around Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, all smiles. Maybe it was Gregson in the mouse costume. Or Brennan. Or Amelia Earhart.

Mark slogged through more photos, then went through Stella Greene's jewelry, clothing, and books, hoping some thing would jump out at him.

Terry Riordan was obviously hoping that would happen, too. He kept staring at Mark, as if waiting for him to leap up and scream "Eureka!" at any moment.