“Yeah … ?” Maxi prompted.
“One o’clock in the morning on the twenty-sixth. That would be Christmas night. After the Eleven. I wasn’t here on Christmas night. That I know for sure.”
“Hmm. I was. I had Christmas dinner at Debra’s, then I came back and did a recut for the Eleven. And no, you weren’t here. I remember Julie Takuda produced the Eleven.”
“Was Sunday here on Christmas night?”
“You know, I don’t remember. She could have been.”
Q
uarter to nine
A.M.
on Thursday. Traffic was on the light side for morning rush hour on the usually jammed L.A freeways. Why did they call it rush hour anyway, Maxi wondered idly, when drivers were bumper-to-bumper and no one was rushing anywhere? Well, not so bad today, at least, because half the city was sitting out these last two days of the week after New Year’s Day, squeezing the last ounce of juice out of the holiday season.
She exited the Golden State Freeway and maneuvered onto North Mission Road to the County of Los Angeles Department of the Coroner, the squat complex that housed the overcrowded morgue facilities for “bodies with questions”—unidentified, cause of death pending, possible homicides, and the rest.
A story that the station had aired late last year delineating a myriad of problems within the department came to mind. This morgue, sandwiched between the first floor and the basement on what was called the “service” floor, was designed for three hundred and eighty bodies, but there were usually eight or nine hundred doubled and tripled up on tables in the three large refrigerated rooms and overflowing into the outside storage bin they’d thrown refrigeration into and purloined for fifty or so more bodies. Now it was a year later and there was still no funding, still no plans to expand.
Maxi had a nine-o’clock appointment with Dr. Elizabeth Riker, poison specialist. And if she thought
she
was pooped every morning, what about Dr. Riker, who was already six hours into her shift?
The adjacent parking lot was half filled with white emergency-response vehicles displaying the red, black, and gold seal of the L.A. County Coroner’s Office and the big white-and-blue coroner’s vans, the so-called death wagons that transported the unlucky from the county’s crime scenes. Maxi found a parking spot, locked up, entered the industrial sand-colored building, and walked through the double glass doors—where the air immediately changed to the smell of Formalin. Or maybe the smell was just her imagination in overdrive.
In the reception area, she signed in at the desk, then took a seat to wait for Dr. Riker to come out to get her. Instead, Charlie Strand bounded into the reception area.
“Yo, Max. Heard you were coming. Cool shoes,” he said.
Maxi glanced down at her nothing-special J. Crew strappy brown wedge-heeled sandals. “Oh yeah? Why cool? I need to know what kids think is cool.”
“I’m not a kid, which you’d know if you let me show you, and they’re cool because I’m looking at painted toenails in January. Very sexy. I love L.A. But you need a toe ring.”
“I need to see Dr. Riker. She in?”
“Yeah, she’s here. She’s got her nose up the abdomen of a heroin overdose. Ughh. Hate that skin tone—the crud-blue thing. Not a good look.”
“Mmm. Do you know when she’ll be available?”
A side door swung open and a tall, handsome woman in an open white lab coat and latex gloves came into the foyer. “Hello, Ms. Poole. I’m Elizabeth Riker.”
“Wow! The two sexiest babes in L.A. in the same room.” Charlie beamed enthusiastically.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” Dr. Riker said. “Back to your kennel, boy.” Charlie grinned, said, “Catch you later, Max,” and scooted out the same door Dr. Riker had come through.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Poole,” the doctor said, extending her hand. Then she noticed she still had the gloves on. “Whoops,” she said, and pulled them off. “Latex gloves, the way of the world today. We think they’ll actually protect us from the monster.”
“What monster?” Maxi asked.
“Whatever monster you’re dealing with at the moment.” Maxi smiled. She liked this woman immediately. “Call me Maxi,” she said. “We already have something in common. Charlie Strand’s blatant sexism.”
“And thank God for it,” the doctor said with a grin. “Sometimes a lascivious comment from Charlie is exactly what I need for rejuvenation at the end of a hoary day.”
Riker looked to be fortyish, with broad bones and an open face, very little makeup, her clear skin glowing with health, her shiny, chestnut-colored wavy hair cut short and stylish, her lively hazel eyes crinkling mischievously when she spoke—this was a woman who laughed a lot, Maxi could see. “Come on back,” she said, holding the door open for Maxi.
They settled in Riker’s office, a ten-foot-by-ten-foot space jammed with a county-issue dun-colored metal desk and a creaky brown Naugahyde chair, a couple of mismatched wooden straight chairs, a bank of dented metal file cabinets, and a tall black plastic trash can overflowing with papers. Every surface was piled with files, journals, medical books, and divergent flotsam, and stored up on high shelves were jars of various sizes filled with murky liquid and globs of something. It was the jars filled with murky liquid and globs of something that Maxi tried to avoid looking at.
“How can I help you?” the doctor asked pleasantly, seeming both oblivious to and comfortable in her surroundings.
“I’m working on the Gillian Rose story. Her body is still here,” Maxi said, looking around as if she fully expected to see the aforementioned body crammed somewhere among the detritus of pathologist Elizabeth Riker’s cluttered office.
“Yes,” Dr. Riker confirmed. “That body hasn’t been released yet.” She raised her eyebrows quizzically to signal Maxi to continue.
Maxi was still trying to deal with a building full of bodies and an office full of jars of parts of bodies. She straightened and pulled her grisly mental imagery back into line. “Do you know if they tested her for poisons?” she asked.
“It wasn’t my case, but I’m pretty sure they would. Let’s check,” Riker said. She turned from Maxi to a computer terminal on top of her desk and clicked on a succession of files.
“Nothing unusual,” she said finally. “Her husband gave us a list of the prescription drugs, vitamins, supplements, et cetera that she used. Aside from those, she was tested for a panel of common illegal substances—none found. But there’s a note attached to the autopsy report, which means they haven’t finished.”
“What are they testing for now?”
“More standard stuff,” she said, still perusing her computer files. “Because she was young, in apparent good physical shape, and they didn’t find anything in the first go-round. Why do you ask?”
“Because someone was alone with her twelve hours before she died, at two in the morning in her office—they were drinking.”
“Yes, I saw that on the news. Some big-deal eastern businessman. Were they lovers?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“What, then, at two in the morning?”
“They were colleagues. She was demonstrating some new product she was developing.”
“And … ?”
“And … I don’t know. I just wondered if he could have—”
“Poisoned her?” Dr. Riker finished.
“Yeah,” Maxi said sheepishly. “Poisoned her.”
“We could run some lethal specifics,” Riker said matter-of-factly.
“Umm, even if there’s nothing concrete to go on?”
“Sure, if somebody suspects something.”
“If the somebody is me, and I have absolutely no basis—”
“I could go ahead and conduct a panel of specific tests if my talking parrot told me he had a dream about it, if I wanted to.”
“Oh. Well, would you want to?” Riker laughed. “Sure,” she said. “I’d like to nail something down on this case and move her out of here. We need the drawer space.”
Yikes. “What’ll you test for?”
“Well, let’s look at this. If you were the man, and you wanted to poison this woman, how would you do it, and what would you use?” The teacher in her, Maxi noted mentally.
“Um … I’d use something that would not show up in routine toxicology tests. And I’d slip it in her drink when she wasn’t looking.”
“So it needs to be soluble, fairly undetectable in alcohol, not a substance that’s routinely traced, and available to this guy.”
“This guy owns pharmaceutical companies.”
“So ‘available’ is no problem for him.”
“And it would have to be something that would kill her twelve hours later, or thereabouts.”
“That narrows it down. Look, I’ve got an autopsy at ten, but I’ll get on this after lunch.”
Lunch,
Maxi thought.
How the hell do they eat lunch in this place?
“Here’s my card,” Maxi said. “You’ll call me?”
“Of course I’ll call you. You’re my talking parrot.”
O
n her way back to the Channel Six newsroom, Maxi stopped in at Security Operations on the ground floor of her building.
“Maxi Poole, anchorwoman extraordinaire, Happy New Year,” director of security Jim Murphy said. “What brings you to our digs?”
“Hi, Jimbo. I need to ask you some questions about security in the newsroom.”
“Sure. Come in. Sit down. Have a doughnut.”
Maxi slipped through the swinging gate in the front counter and followed Murphy over to a table with a steaming twelve-cup Mr. Coffee machine, a stack of Styrofoam cups, a carton of two percent milk, and a big pink bakery box from Winchell’s. She helped herself to a chocolate doughnut with colored sprinkles on top and a cup of coffee, grabbed a couple of napkins, and sat down next to Murphy’s desk.
“How do I go about getting a look at a security tape from the newsroom?”
“You ask me for it.”
Whoa. Twice in one morning she heard yes. So rare. Good omen for the new year. Now if she could just stick to her diet resolution. She took a guilty look at the doughnut in her hand, then took a bite.
“This was Christmas night, Jim, in Wendy Harris’s office.” Everybody on the lot knew Wendy. “From about one in the morning of December twenty-sixth, for the next half hour.”
“What’s up?”
“We think somebody hacked into Wendy’s private computer files.”
“Did you get authorization for the tape from Capra?”
“Not yet. I’m just getting in.”
“Do that. Send me down the paperwork and I’ll put a trace on the tape and have it delivered to the newsroom.”
“Thanks, Jim.”
“Anytime. Have another doughnut.”
“I believe I will. I don’t eat them in the newsroom—too many calories.”
“And that one?” Murphy queried, glancing quizzically at the half-eaten doughnut in her hand.
“This isn’t the newsroom. This is a doughnut in the field. It doesn’t count.”
Kendyl Scott had taken her lunch hour to drive up Wilshire Boulevard to Beverly Hills and have her ring appraised at upscale Harry Winston Jewelers on Rodeo Drive. She couldn’t believe the figure on the document they’d provided. For insurance purposes, she’d said. “Of course,” the salesman had responded with a snotty, knowing smile. “And Happy New Year to you, Ms. Scott,” he’d added.
Thank you, and drop dead, she’d mentally said. And thank you, Carter. As she punched in the code for the express elevator at the Rose building, she glanced again at the dazzling rock on her finger. For about the thousandth time since Carter had given it to her yesterday. It was the absolutely most overwhelming engagement ring on the planet, she was sure. Which, unfortunately, had come with the absolutely most underwhelming marriage proposal. In fact, it wasn’t a marriage proposal at all.
“Don’t wear it on your wedding-ring finger,” Carter had said. Actually, it was too big for her ring finger. She was wearing it on her middle finger.
“And don’t tell anybody it’s from me. It’s too soon,” he’d said. She’d told him she would have it sized later, when he was comfortable with the timing.
“Where shall I say I got it?” she’d asked, giddy with the joy of it.
“Just say it’s fake, a fun ring,” he’d said with a laugh. “So big, it actually looks a little fake, doesn’t it? Nobody’ll want to steal it.” So that’s what she would tell anybody who asked her. Only nobody had asked her yet. She hadn’t even set foot out of her apartment yesterday, on New Year’s Day, and here at work nobody made much small talk since Gillian died and Sandie was shot. What gratified Kendyl was that Carter had bought such a huge, gorgeous ring for her. That he must have had it planned all along. And when she was given the appraisal from Harry Winston’s, she nearly swooned. This was the real deal.
The question was, was she engaged to be married, or was she just newly rich?
55
Maxi put a call in to Schaeffer Pharmacy. Bill Schaeffer picked up and wished her another Happy New Year. “Thanks for coming over on New Year’s Eve—it meant a lot to us,” he said. “And you wouldn’t believe the change in our girl today.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. It’s like a veil has lifted. She’s speaking whole sentences. She’s making sense. It’s like a miracle.”
“Does she remember—?”
“Still not what happened from the time Gillian Rose died until she came out of the coma. But she’s talking about everything else. And Dr. Stevens says he thinks she’ll get there.”
“I’d like to visit her,” Maxi said. “Nothing’s happening on the news front—the holiday blahs. I’ve got some time before the Six. Is the nurse there?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll call home and tell her you’re going to stop by. You seem to be good for Sandie. She watched you on the news yesterday, and she talked about it. About the earthquake in Saugus. She put on lipstick this morning.”
“Okay,” Maxi said. “Tell the nurse I’ll be there in about an hour. Barbara Jean, right?”
“Barbara Jean Martin. B.J. She’s a wonder—don’t know what I’d have done without her through this. I’ll call her now.”
A messenger tapped on her office door, then came in with a package. Maxi glanced at the manila envelope. The tape from Security Operations. Wendy was busy producing the Six, and Maxi wanted to duck out to the Palisades and back before prepping for the show. When they got off the air, they’d view the tape. She dropped the package on her desk, grabbed her purse, fumbled inside for her keys, and headed downstairs to the parking lot.