Bad Medicine (14 page)

"Well," she said instead, "at least I'm not the investigator on. I don't think I can be very objective about this one."

Maybe she shouldn't have said that after all, because suddenly Jones pulled his book back out and Martin edged forward on his chair.

"I'll go out and talk to the other witnesses," the homicide guy said, rising.

"We'll be right here for a while," Martin said with some meaning.

Molly almost groaned. She wasn't in the mood for this. Especially if Kevin had thought it important enough to warn her. She shot Sasha a pleading glance, but Sasha picked that moment to feel absolved and grin.

"They're coming down for Mary Mother of God. Any messages?"

Molly sighed and fought the urge to ask for her own cigarette. "Yeah. Tell 'em I want some of whatever she has."

"We all do, honey," she said, and swung on out the door.

Molly was left behind with the two intelligence guys, who had obviously never learned that a good cop begins an interrogation with a little small talk.

"You were the investigator on when Pearl Johnson came in," Detective Martin asked in his most official voice. "Correct?"

"I guess this means we're not talking about Mustaffa anymore, huh?"

"That's right," Detective Jones said.

Molly ripped open the cellophane on the Ding Dong and settled back in the couch. "In that case, buy me a drink, big boy, and I'll tell you everything I know."

* * *

Two hours later, Molly was still waiting for that drink. She was also waiting for the cops to figure out that she'd already told them everything she knew, twice, with color commentary as a bonus. She supposed she should be glad the detectives had shown up, because they'd ended up saving her life. Then they'd proceeded to screw it up, yet again.

"Could you have been mistaken about the note?" Detective Martin asked again and again, his face passive, his eyes opaque.

"No," Molly said. "I saw it. That's what it said. End of story."

"And you didn't know anything about the gambling issue when you saw the note."

"I did. I just didn't know who William T. Peterson was. Is he who I heard he was?"

"Do you invest, Ms. Burke?"

"Invest'" she responded, tired, anxious, still quivering with the aftereffects of seeing a muzzle flash five feet away. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Jones said, scratching his neck as if the question were a confusion instead of an important issue, "you know those riverboat gaming stocks have been pretty hot lately."

He could have given Colombo lessons in how to look innocent, Molly thought.
I don't know, ma'am. I just have a little problem here I need to clear up. Maybe you can help...

"All you have to do is take a look at my bank statement," she retorted, not at all happy with the turn of the conversation. "It will show you just how much money I have available to invest in anything but lunchmeat and gas."

Martin's one eyebrow went up. A sure sign he smelled blood. "You needed money, did you?"

As if she'd already received it. Lots of it. As in, I fake this suicide note for you, you pay off my legal fees.

Molly laughed. "Get a real suspect, Martin. I'm just the death investigator who had the misfortune to lose a suicide note. You don't believe me, fine. But don't take me off a busy work lane just to feed me crap like that. Now, are we finished?"

The smile she got out of Jones was one of surprise. "Did we sound like we were after you? We're sorry, Ms. Burke. Really."

Molly got to her feet and smiled back. "I know you are. Now, unless you can start an IV or do a cardiac assessment, I have things I have to do."

Martin never looked up. "Did you know that there were other city employees involved in a possibly illegal connection to the gambling?"

For a minute Molly stared. Then she laughed again. "What's your point?"

That was like saying that Madonna might have had sex. Pearl had surprised Molly. Disappointed her. But Molly had lived in St. Louis too long to be amazed or disconcerted by the news that one or two of her elected officials might be realizing a financial gain from a big political move. Hell, she would have been surprised if this gambling issue had gotten through without half the state legislature turning up as the landowners, bond holders, or gambling licensees for the complex they'd taken bids on and voted for.

Martin lifted his attention to her as if he still didn't believe her. "We know you were friends with Ms. Johnson. So was the medical examiner, wasn't she?"

This time Molly couldn't even gather the breath or the coherence to answer. Winnie Harrison was many things. Arrogant, self-centered, driven, slave-driving, sarcastic. She was also completely and totally focused on her work. One had to have a passion for advancement or position or money to be seduced by graft. Winnie was interested in none of those things. She was interested in science. In forensics. In answers. She didn't even know where the money came from to fund her work. In fact, the only time she realized that her office came with its own administrator was when she didn't get equipment and he had to explain that it wasn't budgeted yet.

"Anybody else on your list?" Molly asked. "Santa Claus? St. Christopher?"

"We're just doing our job, Ms. Burke."

"Uh-huh. Read my report, guys. It's all in there. Now, I have to get back."

"One more thing, Ms. Burke."

Molly stopped one more time. "Yes."

"If Pearl Johnson's death was murder and we don't find out who was involved, there could be other incidents."

Incidents. Molly sighed. "There was a note. There was excellent reason to suspect suicide. I'm sorry it's not more interesting than that, but it isn't."

"We'll see."

And that was all she got from them. So she thanked them again for saving her life and then left them to the bad furniture and old mildew smells and lame suspicions.

Chapter 7

"You're all right?"

Preoccupied with gathering her work gear off the front seat of her car, Molly squinted into the early morning sun. "Sam, what are you doing out this early?"

Sam had the habits of a vampire, which was one of the reasons he and Molly got along so well. The idea that he was up at sunrise made Molly nervous.

He waved a half-smoked cigarette at her from the other side of her car window. "I worry."

Molly took hold of her paraphernalia and climbed out of her '89 Celica. It had taken more wear and tear than Sam's lungs, but it was fast, handled well, and Molly had been able to afford the payments, which had ended a year earlier.

"Worry about what?" she asked, assessing the state of his health as she joined him outside.

He was a little bluer than usual, but then, Molly wasn't sure that wasn't Sam's usual color in early morning light.

"And just what is that in your hand?"

Molly actually looked down, as if she hadn't seen it before. As if she hadn't been smelling it all the way home from the drive-in window. "Breakfast."

Sam snorted and shook his head. "Some breakfast. Does it have eggs in it?"

Molly didn't bother to tell him that eggs were nothing to get at a drive-in. She thanked her stars for twenty-four-hour drive-ups. Especially the kinds with big, fat, everything-you-can-stuff-inside-them burritos. To each man his breakfast.

Sam waved a hand in front of his nose.
"Feh!
And just what is your cholesterol?"

Molly grinned. "Heart disease does not seem to be a favorite cause of death in the Burke clan," she admitted.

"What is?"

She thought about it a second. "Car accidents. Rebel uprisings. Nongenetic stuff."

"How about gang shootings?" Sam demanded, his eyes suspiciously moist.

Oh, God. It had been such a long night, one asthma patient after another, every female abdominal pain victim in the city, a couple of car accidents. Molly had damn near forgotten that the shooting had only happened twelve or so hours ago.

"Oh, Sam."

"We Jews have a saying, you know."

Molly tried to grin. "Call your mother?"

He wasn't mollified. "Something like that. I heard on the news."

She reached a hand out to the slumped, taut old shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. You can see perfectly well that I'm fine, though. It was just some excitement."

Sam wasn't convinced.
"Chas vesholem,
he was standing right at your desk. There was no glass left! I saw the pictures. Haven't they put in bulletproof glass there yet? What are they thinking?"

He'd obviously been saving up his outrage. Molly patted his shoulder in commiseration. "Tea," she said softly. "My house. We'll talk."

Ten minutes with Sam and she sounded like Yenta.

The old man deflated a little. "Why? Was there any reason for this madness?"

"Who knows, Sam? Who knows?"

"And that poor young policeman who died yesterday," Sam continued, not quite ready to move up the walk yet. "I saw you on the news. You had to see that, too."

He clucked like a mother. Molly smiled. Sam still preferred to believe that she'd served her term in Vietnam in a bubble and come home to give bed-baths to little old ladies. It didn't do for Sam to think about what Molly had seen and done. It didn't do for Molly either on some days.

"They caught the boy who did it," she assured the old man.

"Did they beat him?"

"What?"

"That little
momzer
who shot the policeman."

Molly nodded absently. "Probably."

Sam nodded back. Definite and emphatic. "Good. We have three teeth, now."

And with that non sequitur, he began to head up Molly's walk. "Still crabby?" she asked, knowing perfectly well he was talking about his youngest granddaughter, Rebecca. Sam had four grandchildren, two of whom he saw, two who lived too far away to visit, considering his Myra's health. Molly got updates as if they were NASA shuttles in orbit.

"You ever know a teething baby who wasn't?" he demanded with a rasping laugh.

Molly didn't know why she looked over then. She wasn't sure why she spotted the car. After all, it was on the other side of the gate that kept traffic from turning off Euclid onto her street. But there it slowed, and there it stopped, a square, dark, late model sedan with two solid-looking young men in sunglasses who had decided to wait at a corner. Across from a restaurant. A restaurant that wouldn't be open for six more hours.

An unmarked car.

"See that car, Sam?" she asked.

Sam stopped and looked. Squinted. "Yeah?"

"Good. Just so I'm not hallucinating."

Sam turned his squint on her. "You might not be hallucinating. But you're not making sense, either."

"They're cops. Nobody I know, but definitely cops."

He took another considered look. "How do you know?"

Good question. Molly thought about it. "I hang around with 'em enough, I think I can smell 'em down the block. I wonder if I should go over and ask what they want."

"They want to watch," Sam said. "Or they wouldn't be sitting there."

"Well, what the hell do they want to watch?"

Sam patted. "An old man having tea with a beautiful young woman."

The morning was a pretty one, with the sun striking off the dew and birds chattering in the big oak and maples in the backyards. Molly's lawn was lush and green, its borders perfectly edged, the walks lined in white impatiens, and her porch bracketed by planters spilling over with geraniums and lobelia. A lovely sight, quiet and peaceful and comfortable. As comfortable a lie as Sam's.

But he was right. There was nothing to see, so she wasn't going to be concerned. Even though she couldn't think of a reason plainclothes anybody would want to keep an eye on her.

Unless they suspected her of something.

What a great way to start a day. No wonder she never got up this early.

"One more thing," Sam said, dropping his cigarette to her porch and grinding it beneath a battered black heel. "Later. After you've rested. My Medicare..."