Read Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2) Online
Authors: Sarah Lovett
Lee Begay said, "At least there won't be a
P.M
. in my office. Federal agents are on their way."
Sylvia stepped away from the observation window. "The F.B.I, is taking possession of Dupont White's body?"
Lee Begay nodded crisply. "Right."
Matt absorbed this information, and Sylvia could see subtle changes register on his face. He took Lee's arm gently and guided her toward the window and the view of Dupont White. "Talk to me, Lee."
She squinted up at Matt. "You know it's too early to tell you much. We've only had him a few hours." She paused, then said, "It
is
your guy. I like you, Matthew, so we hauled ass and managed to get a fingerprint match from A.F.I.S. I know you realize we did the impossible."
Matt acknowledged Begay, "I owe you one. What about an estimated time of death?"
Begay shook her head, sighed, and set both hands on her hips. "I'll give you a range. Since he was involved in the Las Cruces warehouse explosion, the Blowout, he was alive two months ago."
Matt gestured impatiently. "Right, now tell me something I don't know."
With her little finger Lee Begay tugged on her ear, poker-faced. "He's been dead at least two weeks. Possibly a lot longer."
"Two weeks?" Matt and Sylvia stood in stunned silence.
Matt said, "But there's no decomposition—"
"No decay," Sylvia protested.
Lee Begay said, "Right. I've never frozen a body, but he weighed in at about one-eighty. Considering a time-to-weight ratio, I'd allow a week to freeze him to the bone. And probably close to that to defrost him. Your corpse was one huge ice cube. He's defrosting externally—his skin is pliable—but his organs are frozen."
Matt kept his eyes on Lee. "Then he didn't kill Anthony Randall or Jesse Montoya?"
"And he didn't attack me in the trailer." Sylvia pivoted, pressed her face against the glass, and studied Dupont White's corpse again. "Where would you freeze a body this size?"
Begay said, "In a meat freezer after you move out the venison. He's got freezing artifact—marks, redness—where he was crammed into a tight space."
Matt addressed the M.I.: "What was the cause of death?"
Begay made a face. "I'm guessing. The bullet wound in his left shoulder. But that didn't kill him right away."
"After he was shot, how long did it take him to die?"
Begay shrugged. "You can't see from here, but the skin around the wound is sloughed off. It's puffy and black. That's infection. Sepsis. Gas gangrene. A clostridial organism."
Matt tipped his head impatiently. He was thinking about Chaney's assertion that he had managed to hit Dupont White with one round at the warehouse. He said, "To die from gangrene, would it take days, weeks?"
Begay frowned in consideration. "Several days."
Sylvia pressed the M.I. "Could he have driven from Las Cruces to Santa Fe with a wound like that?"
Begay's face was impassive, and her response was slow as she considered the facts and the probabilities. "It's not impossible. But I can't answer that question without more information. And I won't
have
more information, thanks to the feds."
A door slammed across the room, and loud footsteps sounded. Sylvia, Matt, and Lee Begay all looked up in expectation of the federal agents' arrival.
It wasn't who they expected.
Dan Chaney didn't look as though he'd just driven over from F.B.I. headquarters. Sylvia sucked in her breath when she saw his face. Although he had made some effort to pull himself together, the fluorescent lights lent his skin a sickly greenish cast. Still, his hair was combed and he was clean-shaven.
Chaney approached Matt and demanded, "Where's the body?"
Matt took Chaney by one shoulder. "Dan, the Bureau's got agents on the way. They'll be here any minute—"
Chaney pulled away, drawn to the window of the special autopsy room. He looked in, saw Dupont White's body, and spun around toward the door.
Lee Begay stepped forward to stop Chaney from entering the chamber, but the federal agent moved too quickly. He jerked open the door, a gust of stinking air escaped, and then he was inside.
The others followed: Lee Begay and Matt, to make sure he didn't compromise the remains; Sylvia, to watch his reactions.
In the claustrophobic chamber, Dan Chaney came face-to-face with the man he had obsessively pursued for months. He stared down at his enemy. His voice was hollow when he said, "That's him." He glanced at the bullet wound in Dupont's shoulder. "I knew I hit him. Did I kill him?"
Matt said, "Yeah, Dan. You got him."
Chaney nodded, then he whirled around and exited the chamber as abruptly as he had entered.
Sylvia followed Chaney out, and collided with him when he stopped outside the main refrigerator.
A woman, an assistant pathologist, was wheeling a gurney through the wide refrigerator door. The corpse had purple toes; a white number tag fluttered from the largest digit. The woman looked surprised to see two strangers in her work area.
"Dan, please." Sylvia took the big man by the arm. She managed to move him a few inches toward the exit door. Any minute, federal agents would appear. Sylvia didn't know what would happen to Dan Chaney if he encountered his fellow agents. Maybe they would leave him alone, but she didn't think so. She thought there would be a confrontation. And she feared Chaney would lose the last shred of control he had. She had a panicky feeling that he might end up dead.
Sylvia said, "Listen to me. You've got to get out of here."
Chaney turned toward her, and his eyes were blurred with tears. He gulped air, then lowered his chin.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway just as Sylvia felt Matt beside her. Then everything happened simultaneously. Matt pushed Chaney into the open refrigerator, two men in dark suits strutted through the
STAFF
double doors, and Sylvia held out a hand.
She said, "The chief medical investigator is expecting you." With authority, she pointed toward the other side of the large room.
The two federal agents looked slightly surprised, and one asked, "And you are?"
"Dr. Strange."
The agents crossed the room toward Lee Begay.
Immediately, Sylvia gestured to Matt, and then the two of them ushered Dan Chaney—anchored between them like a prisoner—through the double doors and out of the autopsy area.
Outside the building, in the night air, Matt exploded. "Goddammit, Dan. You almost got hauled in! What the hell are you doing?"
Chaney pushed himself away from the others and swung around. He pressed an envelope into Sylvia's hand. He said, "Nathaniel Howzer was Roland White's attorney from 1970 to 1985. He drew up the papers when White adopted Dupont. And he knew Garret Ellington."
Chaney was inching backward as he spoke. "The membership of the Gentlemen's Club is still a well-guarded secret, but I found out this much—Devil's Den Ranch was their playground—liquor, drugs, prostitutes, you name it."
Matt jerked his head toward the building. "You better beat it, Dan. They'll be out any minute."
Sylvia stepped toward Chaney, folding the envelope in her hand. "What about Dupont's cousin?"
Chaney nodded, still moving. "Jayne Gladstone. I tracked her through 1989—she was eighteen—and she was sent to a private hospital in Phoenix. The hospital won't release her file without an official written request. But I did find out she'd tried to kill herself enough times, the family had her committed for almost a year. After she came out, I don't know. She died, she vanished, or she became a new person."
Chaney was moving quickly now. Over his shoulder he said, "I wanted to kill that fucker Dupont with my bare hands. But goddammit, I got him. At least I got him."
"K
ILLER
IS
A
woman." Sylvia lifted her martini glass and swirled the last of the vodka gently.
Albert Kove signaled the waitress for another round. He and his domestic partner, Carlos Giron, had snagged a table in the back corner of El Farol. Thirty years ago the historic adobe had been a rough-and-tumble pool hall. Before that it was probably one of several ranchitos that dotted the countryside around the Santa Fe River.
Carlos leaned closer to Sylvia and frowned. "
Who's
a woman?"
Sylvia turned to her left. "What do you think, Matt? Dupont's dead, and our Killer is a woman." Her words were slightly slurred.
After leaving the O.M.I.'s office, Matt had driven them up to Santa Fe, to El Farol, for drinks with Kove and Carlos. Sylvia was hyper, but he was exhausted, and the sour smell of liquor, cocktail garnishes, and smoke assailed his nostrils. The long narrow room was dark and close. Murals had been painted on the interior wall years earlier. The thick adobe structure sagged and listed after a century of use. Usually he enjoyed El Farol's funky ambiance; tonight it left him depressed.
He rested his hand on Sylvia's arm and said, "Maybe you should lighten up on those—" He nodded toward the martini.
"Why? I've got a designated driver." She shifted her body free and smiled at Carlos and Kove. She said, "God, I'm glad to see you guys. The last twenty-four hours have been totally insane."
"We love you, too," Carlos said. He reached out his left arm and gently massaged her shoulder. "You are tense, girlfriend."
"And hungry." Sylvia looked up as the waitress arrived with a large tray of tapas: red peppers and goat cheese, grilled chicken and garlic, roasted baby potatoes with leeks.
A waiter set another icy vodka martini in front of Sylvia, who mouthed, "Bless you."
Matt looked away, but Kove caught his eye and cocked his head quizzically. He kept his voice low and said, "She's letting off steam—and it's about time. Maybe you need a little down time, too."
Matt shrugged and took the head off his Tecate.
They began to eat—Sylvia selected peppers and cheese from the tapas plates. While she stuffed herself with food, she remembered childhood dinners at the old El Farol, an incarnation more recent than the pool hall. It had been one of her father's favorites—even with the occasional drunken brawlers. Her mother had preferred more civilized restaurants like the Palace.
Carlos propped both elbows on the table. He knew about the "Polaroid murders" because Albert kept him informed of details that never made the newspapers. He was also an incurable thriller addict—an aficionado of all things lurid—and he couldn't keep the excitement from his voice. He said, "We know this guy Dupont didn't kill Randall or Montoya. So Kevin Chase did both murders, right?"
Matt leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
"I'm not going to discuss Kevin." Sylvia drained her martini and started in on the new cocktail. "But it wasn't Dupont because he was dead . . . it had to be someone close to him . . . someone who took on his energy, his mission."
"Do we get a clue?" Carlos asked.
Sylvia popped an olive between her lips. "Jayne Gladstone."
Matt shook his head. "Come on, Sylvia, that's enough."
Carlos looked stumped. "
Who
is Jayne Gladstone?"
Sylvia stared defiantly at Matt. "Jayne Gladstone is Dupont White's missing cousin."
Albert Kove took off his glasses and rubbed the small of his nose. "Your female killer?"
Sylvia said, "Dupont White was an exhibitionist with an avenger-destroyer complex. He documented each of his kills. It was his mission to rid the world of sex offenders. But he was also a federal informant—and each time he murdered, he rubbed the feds' nose in shit."
She tightened her fingers around the base of the martini glass. "After he was wounded in Las Cruces, Dupont drove four hundred miles—he returned to Santa Fe to finish some business."
"Business with whom?" Kove narrowed his eyes.
Sylvia said, "Nathaniel Howzer, for one."
"That's enough, Sylvia." Matt shook his head.
Carlos popped a chile into his mouth and mumbled, "I can't see the judge stuffing bodies in his freezer."
Kove said, "Hush, Carlos."
Sylvia looked like an unruly child. She said, "But Dupont really came to find his cousin, Jayne Gladstone, because—ultimately—she was the person he knew the best. They shared the same family pathology, the same traumatic history—they both suffered the same abuse."
Matt thought about the photographs of the two children that had been left at the Roadrunner Motel. Dupont White and Jayne Gladstone had not only suffered the same abuse, it had gone on for years. Those photographs hadn't been developed at any commercial lab, and Sylvia found the remains of a darkroom at Devil's Den—