Prayers for the Dead (11 page)

“It’s absurd.”

“So is finding that card in Sparks’s car.”

“Unless it isn’t his. Could belong to one of his kids.”

“Ace sounds like Azor to me.”

Decker rolled his tongue in his mouth. As of this moment, he didn’t have squat. What would it hurt to look at this through every possible lens. He pocketed the business card. “I’ll look into it.”

“It’s stupid, but what the hey.” Gaynor rubbed his shoulders, massaged his neck. “Cold out here.”

“Call it a night, Farrell.” Decker took off the gloves and blew on his hands. “I’ll wait for impound. You go back to the station house and finish up the paperwork. Tomorrow, start the paper trail on Sparks. His bank accounts, his credit cards, brokerage accounts if he has any. And I’m sure he does because his kid is a stockbroker.”

“That doesn’t mean he invested with him.”

“Find out. If he didn’t, that says something. Tomorrow, you also begin a paper trail on his children, starting with son Paul. He owed his dad some bucks. And so did Sparks’s daughter, Eva Shapiro. Those are the only two who fessed up to being in arrears with Dad. But I want you to check
all
of them out.”

“You going home after impound, Loo?”

“No, I’m going by Myron Berger’s house. Something’s way off with that.”

“Be careful.”

“Always am.”

“See you, Loo.”

“See you.” Decker rubbed his hands, then his arms, watching Gaynor totter back to his car. The man had two more years before he’d be forced to hang up his shield. Forty-five years of police service: thirty-five of them as a detective third grade, fifteen of those as a Homicide detective in brutal gang territory. And yet the guy was always neat, clean, punctual. As dependable as Big Ben and still had a bounce in his step at twelve-thirty in the morning.

Way to go, Farrell.

Something Marge could
never understand: why someone would buy a house abutting the foothills. A bad month of rain and, lo and behold, a thousand-pound avalanche of mud occupied space that once was the living room. Yet, Pete’s house sat at the edge of the mountain. So did the home belonging to Dr. Elizabeth Fulton. For her domicile, she had chosen a sprawling one-story ranch thing made out of wood siding. A big piece of property. At least a couple of acres separated her from her nearest neighbor.

Unlatching the metal gate, Oliver said, “Guess the doctor isn’t a bug on landscaping.”

Marge nodded. The lot was fenced with chain-link, the lawn a scratch pad of scrub grass. No flowers, no shrubs, no bushes, no plants that hadn’t come from airborne seeds. In the background, behind the house, Marge could see several rows of tall citrus. She could smell them too, blossoms giving off a tart, sweet scent. They walked up to the front entrance. The doctor answered the door before they knocked, her complexion mottled gray and dappled with perspiration.

No wonder, Marge thought. The doctor was wearing sweats
and
a sweater. Internal chill. Her face appeared childlike, probably because of her eyes. The size of beach balls, they seemed to take up half her face. Big, brown irises, red-rimmed at the moment. Between the orbs sat a button nose spangled with freckles. Her mouth was wide with lush lips. Woolly henna hair was pulled back into a ponytail. At a quick glance, she looked to be barely twenty. But with smile lines apparent and ripples in her neck, Marge figured her age closer to forty.

“Dr. Fulton.” Oliver took out his badge and ID. Fulton gave it a cursory glance, then motioned them across the doorway. “Please, come in.”

The living room had been decorated pseudo-country. Cheerful floral prints covered a traditional sofa and two matching chairs. A wall-sized bay window was topped with a pleated valance and the tiebacks were sewn from the same flowered fabric. The actual window curtains were drawn, made from lace that allowed light to pass through. At one in the morning, the outside view was a screen of still shadows. In the middle of the bay stood a polished pine rocker resting on bleached oak flooring that had been pegged and grooved. The fireplace was going full blast. It was
hot
, and Marge could feel wet circles under her armpits. The hearth was masoned from bouquet canyon stone, the plaster mantel hosted a half-dozen photographs of a chubby toddler boy.

“Sit wherever you’d like,” Fulton whispered.

Oliver chose a chair, Marge took the sofa. The doctor stood next to the fireplace screen and rubbed her hands together. “I shouldn’t be here. I should be there… at the hospital… helping.” She brought her hands to her face and cried into them.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit?” Oliver asked.

“No.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers, folded her arms across her chest. “What
happened
?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Marge said.

“Was he kidnapped? Carjacked? I mean no one would have hurt him if they had known who he was, right?”

Oliver took out his notepad. “You sure you don’t want to sit, Doctor?”

“Positive.” She shook her head. “I mean…
why
?”

Oliver said, “If you could help us with the why, you’d be doing everyone a service. When was the last time you saw him, Doctor?”

“Last night. At our research meeting.”

“The Curedon meeting,” Oliver clarified.

“Yes. How did you — You’ve spoken to Dr. Decameron, then.”

“Yes.” Marge took out her pad. “You have regularly scheduled meetings?”

“Yes and no. Dr. Sparks sends us a memo when we’re to meet. It works out to about once or twice a week.”

“You don’t mind that?” Marge asked.

“Mind what?”

“That he sends you a memo at his… discretion?”

Fulton threw Marge an impatient look. “He’s a very busy man. Of course, we work around his schedule.”

“When was the last time you actually saw him?” Oliver repeated.

“Oh gosh! He cut our research meeting short. It must have ended around seven-thirty, maybe quarter to eight.”

“Why did he cut the meeting short?” Marge asked.

Fulton said, “Well, he really didn’t cut it short, per se. He just summed things up rather quickly after he took the phone call from his son. He gave no reason for hurrying things along.”

“Did he seem upset after the phone call?”

“He was upset when he took the call. He was angry at—” She stopped short.

Oliver said, “Dr. Decameron told us he had an argument with Dr. Sparks.”

“It wasn’t an
argument
. Dr. Sparks just became a little irritated shall we say.”

“Irritated at Decameron.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Her eyes grew suspicious. “Dr. Decameron didn’t tell you?”

“We’d like your opinion,” Marge said.

She stared at Marge, appeared to be weighing her words. “Dr. Decameron read some of Dr. Sparks’s faxes. The latest Curedon trial results. Of course, Reggie apologized right away. He was just excited about the data. You see, there had been some slowdown of Curedon’s efficacy rate. The newest numbers however were very encouraging.”

“Yeah, Dr. Decameron told us something about that,” Oliver said. “How you’ve been getting a lot more deaths lately.”

She bristled. “Not a lot. Just some… Dr. Decameron seems to feel it might be a lab or computer processing error.”

Oliver said, “Maybe he’s making excuses because he’s anxious to bring Curedon to market.”

Marge said, “Big boost in his career as an academician, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Maybe he’s even been promised a piece of the profits,” Oliver suggested.

“No, no, no,” Liz protested. “That’s entirely false. The only one who would gain anything monetarily is… was Azor. You’re way off base.”

“You’re sure about that,” Marge said.

“Sure I’m… at least to my knowledge.”

“Let’s go back to the meeting,” Marge said. “It ended around seven-thirty maybe quarter to eight?”

“About that time, yes. Then Dr. Sparks and Dr. Decameron walked out together. Maybe that was ten minutes later.”

“Did Dr. Sparks seem in a hurry?”

“Well, he did push the meeting. But no… he didn’t seem as if he was rushing to get somewhere. Of course, that wasn’t Dr. Sparks’s manner… to hurry things.”

Marge said, “Did Dr. Decameron and Dr. Sparks often have arguments?”

Fulton gave a mysterious smile. “One doesn’t argue with Azor — with Dr. Sparks. Yes, we do have some academic exchange of ideas. But you try not to displease him. If you do, then you figure out what you’ve done and make amends. You either play his game or you’re not on the team.”

“That doesn’t make you feel… hemmed in?” Oliver asked.

“Hemmed in?” Fulton gave him an incredulous look. “Sir, that’s just a given when you work with someone of his stature. That’s how it is with medical academia. Dr. Sparks owns
everything
that comes from his lab, even if he’s only worked tangentially on the project.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Marge stated.

“That’s research science,” Liz said. “Get on Azor’s good side, you might get some credit. And you need credit if you want to advance. You must publish the right material under the right people. Someone with
clout
. For that privilege, you have to eat… you know.”

“Sparks make you eat a lot of… you know?” Marge asked.

“Well, he was graceful about it. He could afford to be because he knew who he was. I’ve worked for him for the last four years. It’s nice to have a boss who’s a benevolent tyrant. Because I’ve worked under the other kind, too.”

“Benevolent tyrant,” Marge repeated.

“Tyrant is too strong a word.”

“Dictator?” Oliver tried.

“Put it this way. After a while, you know when to suggest something and when to keep your mouth shut.”

“Does Decameron know the rules as well?”

“Reggie is an individualist. More forceful than I am, certainly. More than once at our meetings, he played devil’s advocate. But he knew when to stop. The man is no fool.”

“Dr. Sparks was deeply religious,” Marge said.

“Yes.”

“How’d he feel about Dr. Decameron being homosexual?”

“I don’t know. It never came up in any of our conversations.”

“Never talked about ‘those’ kinds of people?” Oliver said.

“Not to me.”

“A passing derogatory phrase never slipped from his lips?”

Fulton smiled. “Nothing
slips
from Dr. Sparks’s lips. If he ‘utters’ something, it’s for a reason.”

“Dr. Decameron said that one of Sparks’s sons is gay. You know anything about that?”

“Which one?”

“The priest.”

She waved Oliver off. “That’s ridiculous. I mean I don’t know if Bram is or isn’t. But I don’t know why Dr. Decameron would know, either. Unless he’s indulging in wishful thinking. Bram’s a nice-looking man.”

Marge said, “I take it you never detected Sparks having a problem with Dr. Myron Berger being Jewish.”

“Dr. Berger and Dr. Sparks have known each other for thirty-plus years. They attended Harvard Medical School together.”

“So they’re… peers.”

“Yes,” Fulton said.

“Being his peer,” Oliver said, “is Dr. Berger just as… respectful of Dr. Sparks’s rules? Or does he have more independence than either you or Dr. Decameron?”

“We all had
independence
,” Fulton said testily. “We aren’t chattel.”

Oliver said, “You know what I’m getting at.”

“Frankly, I don’t,” Fulton said.

“Was Sparks Berger’s boss?” Marge asked.

“Of course.”

“And that didn’t create resentment?” Marge asked. “Two of them going to medical school together, and now Sparks is above him?”

Fulton rubbed her shoulder. “If Dr. Berger felt resentful, he certainly had the skills, the experience, and the publications to move on. Being as he hadn’t, I’m assuming he’s comfortable with the relationship he has… had with Azor… with Dr. Sparks.”

“What kind of relationship did Dr. Sparks have with his family?” Marge asked.

“They adored him.”

“Did they ask him for money?” Oliver said.

“I don’t know,” Fulton said. “He didn’t divulge things like that.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

“Dr. Decameron seemed sure that his children asked him for money. Where did he get his information from?”

“I don’t know where Reggie digs up his gossip.”

“His son Paul called Dr. Sparks tonight,” Marge said. “Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what it was about?”

“No.”

“Did Dr. Sparks say he was cutting the meeting short to meet his son?”

“No. He didn’t say anything.”

“Did his kids call him often?”

“I didn’t monitor his calls. Ask Heather.”

“From your perception, Doctor,” Oliver said. “Did they call him often?”

“I can’t tell you yes or no because I don’t know how you’re defining often. Yes, they called him. Yes, his wife, Dolly, called him, too.”

“In the middle of meetings?”

“Sometimes. And if they did, the doctor usually interrupted himself to take their calls. He loved his family. And they loved him.”

Marge said, “Did his wife or any of them ever visit Dr. Sparks at work in the hospital?”

Oliver said, “Maybe they’d drop in to say hello or have a cup of coffee with Dad?”

“You don’t
drop in
on someone like Dr. Sparks.”

“Did you ever meet his wife and children?”

“Occasionally, I would see one of his kids visiting with him at the hospital.”

“What about his wife?”

Liz thought a moment. “She’d come to the holiday parties.”

“What’s she like?” Marge asked.

“Reserved, religious like him. But very, very proud of her husband and family. Beams when she talks about them. An old-fashioned woman. Her family is her life.”

Oliver said, “And you observed all this by her presence at a Christmas party?”

Liz shook her head no. “Once Azor was gracious enough to invite us to the house for Sunday dinner. Dolly… Mrs. Sparks must have spent most of the time in the kitchen, serving the food, happy to do it… to play hostess. We told her to sit, but she just laughed. Said she only sat for dinner on her birthday. What a feast! A mound of food. All of Azor’s children and grandchildren were there. Sunday was a big day in his life. Like I said, Azor was very religious.”