Killing Hope (Gabe Quinn Thriller) (23 page)

What is the purpose of your stay at the Hollywood Hotel? When did you check in? When are you expecting to check out? Where were you yesterday, on Tuesday afternoon, when the old woman died in the pool area? Did you see anything, anything at all?

It was routine. They had to do it. No choice. Whenever a dead body was found in a public place the police had to canvass the local area for eyewitnesses – even when foul play was not suspected. The hotel management was aware of potential liabilities. Lawsuits. Uncomfortable inquiries into health and safety. Poolside etiquette. They expedited the LAPD’s questioning expedition with free dips in the guest buffet – continental-style – plus as much tarry coffee as they could stomach.

They came and asked everyone the same questions. It was standard procedure. But the one question they didn’t ask was the one question they should have asked.

64

^{___________________________}

Any rational person would have gone home. Taken the rest of the day off. I didn’t. I dropped the Captain back at the Precinct – wordlessly – then drove straight to
Winston’s
. I didn’t know why. I was feeling numb – an oxymoron. Truth was, I didn’t know what to feel. Harry was dead. No fixing that. He’d been on the mend. Now he was gone. I didn’t know what to think – another oxymoron. How could something like this just
happen?

I shouldered through the glass door of the convenience store on Main Street and followed my feet to the bar in back. There were a few regulars here this time of day. Some I recognized. Some I didn’t. I slid onto a stool. Oblivious to their glances.

‘That bad, huh?’

Winston pushed a thimble of whiskey across the counter toward me.

‘On the house.’ He said. ‘Look like you need it.’

I nodded a thanks. Downed the bourbon in one. Waved for a top-up. The whiskey burned. I let it.

I pictured the file folder sitting in the trunk of the car. Containing an assortment of clippings snipped from umpteen publications. All dated a year ago. If my partner had been following my tracks, why hadn’t I noticed? Why hadn’t Harry said something?

I was adding up zeroes and coming up blank.

‘You’re wanted.’ Winston said with a nod.

I turned on the stool. Saw Jamie standing on the carpeted fringe where the store became bar. There was a look in her eyes. A look I recognized. Something like a mother having found her lost child.

Damn.

‘You’re phone’s switched off.’ She said as she came over. ‘I know what happened. I’m sorry.’

‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘Does it matter? I was worried. Are you all right?’

I took a deep breath. ‘You having a drink?’

‘No. I’ll wait in the car.’

‘Sit down, Jamie. Have a drink.’

‘No.’ She repeated, this time more forcefully. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’

65

^{___________________________}

I’ve never been any good at wallowing in grief. Or drowning my sorrows in the late afternoon. I settled my tab and sluggishly followed Jamie outside.

‘I’m really sorry about your partner.’ Jamie repeated as I climbed inside her Chevy. It smelled of bubble-gum. Rosary beads dangled from the interior mirror.

‘Jamie, I’m not good company right now.’

She turned over the engine. Switched on lights. Swung the vehicle out onto the street. I buckled up as we made a right. Then another. Heading west.

‘Where we going?’

‘Your contact at the Coroner’s Office has been trying to reach you.’

‘Jamie ...’

‘The autopsy results are in.’ She said. ‘He wants us there right away.’

I gazed numbly through the window at blurring buildings. The glaring street lamps. Everything looked alien. Like I’d woken up in Tokyo and all the signs were in a foreign tongue. My coordination was off. We drove south on Interstate 5. Same highway. Different State. Seemed back-to-front. Came off at the Mission Road exit.

I didn’t even try explaining.

Deputy Chief Carl Benedict is five feet tall in his heels, with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and Roy Orbison eyewear. Ordinarily, any one of the ME’s assistants could have faxed the results through to the Precinct, but my contact at the Forensic Science Center is thorough to the point of obsessive compulsive.

‘Myocardial infarction.’ He announced as we met him in his ground floor office. The place smelled like one of those haunted houses in amusement parks. It even had pickled organs in bell jars up on the shelves. Magnifying the macabre.

‘Heart attack?’ I murmured.

‘Artificially induced myocardial infarction to be precise.’ He handed over a dog-eared folder. ‘Don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself. I also found discreet traces of chloroform suffused with the bonding agent he used to seal their mouths.’

I put on readers. Scanned hand-written dictations. Coroner’s notes seldom make the
Barnes and Noble Bestseller’s List
. I saw the aforementioned chloroform. Convenience store superglue. Indecipherable doodles.

‘Second page.’ Benedict said with a sigh. ‘The list of chemicals.
Sodium thiopental. Pancuronium bromide. And p
otassium chloride. See them?’

‘Sure. Isn’t that the formula for lethal injection?’

Benedict nodded. ‘Bingo. And just like lethal injection, your killer administered the drugs hypodermically.’

‘To trigger cardiac arrest?’

‘It’s standard procedure.’

I glanced up.

‘In State executions,’ he added.

I looked at Jamie. She was looking at me. We were both thinking the same horrified thought:

What kind of monster executes a nine-year-old little girl?

 
‘How long before they died?’

‘Seconds. They didn’t suffer, if that’s what you’re thinking. Either of you familiar with the process?’

I didn’t answer; I was too busy trying to get my head around the fact that the killer had killed the child the same way he had her pet dog.

‘No? Okay. So let me enlighten: first the
pancuronium bromide and the
sodium thiopental are injected.’ Benedict mimed the action. ‘These render the victim paralyzed. Sometimes unconscious – depending on the dose. Then the real killer is administered: the
p
otassium chloride. Shuts the heart down in seconds. Bam! Just like that. It’s difficult to detect on a basic tox screen, unless you know where to look.’

Benedict pointed to the Coroner’s notes flapping in my hand.

‘Your killer got everything in the right percentages. There’s a skill to that. You can’t guess the quantities and get the desired effect by chance. My guess is, he’s either in the profession or knows his chemistry inside and out. Want to see the bodies?’

66

^{___________________________}

Jamie levered the notes from my hand. Flicked through them like a homebuyer assessing properties. I caught flashes of nightmarish photographs snapped on the ME’s stainless steel slab. Things a father should never see.

I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. Okay?

‘Who kills like this?’ Jamie asked.

Benedict had a ghoulish grin on his face. ‘We do. The American judicial system has been doing it for years. Want to see the bodies?’

‘Slow down.’ I said. My thoughts were bouncing off the walls of my skull like those numbered balls in a lottery machine. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re saying he copycats State executions?’

‘That’s what the evidence says.’

‘Would he need to be medically trained for that?’

‘No, not necessarily. There are plenty of video tutorials on the Net. Reference books in every library. With the right drugs and the right equipment anyone can perform their own State execution. Or euthanasia for that matter.’

Benedict saw our faces and added:

‘There’s a fine line between the two. Why do you think there’s so much controversy? Both practices use anesthetics to suppress the breathing before the final lethal dose is given. You could say, execution is just State-funded euthanasia.’

‘A monster with a conscience.’ Jamie mused out loud.

‘And here’s another first.’ Benedict continued; far too enthusiastically for my palate. ‘Your killer used the intraperitoneal method to administer the drugs. In other words, he injected them through the peritoneum membrane, straight into the abdominal organs. It’s the same method some veterinarians use to terminate sick animals.’

Silence.

Deafening silence.

I could hear distant bells, but this wasn’t Sunday.

Benedict slipped a photograph out of the file and held it up to the light. It was an eight-by-ten snapshot of Marlene van den Berg’s sunken abdomen. Right between her elongated navel and the pubic hairline I could see a small circle of violet stars surrounding a darker blue bruise in the center.

‘See these faint purple markings on the lower stomach? That’s erythema: blood leaked into the subcutaneous tissue. This is your point of syringe impact.’

‘So who has access to these kinds of drugs?’

‘Aside from hospitals and veterinary surgeries? … Any joker with a credit card and a little savoir-faire could order them over the Internet. I hear you can buy atomic bombs online if you know where to look. Now can we go see the bodies?’

67

^{___________________________}

The house on Valencia Street was in total darkness. Exactly the way I’d left it. No one singing in the kitchen. No one watching TV. No rowdy kids running up and down the stairs. I dropped keys on the table. Automatically deleted the vacuous message left on the answering machine. Thought about going upstairs and trying the door knob leading into the master bedroom. Fumbled my way down into the basement instead. Didn’t switch on lights.