Fatal Hearts (11 page)

“I hope that’s what happened,” she said, hearing the tremor in her voice. “It’s bad enough thinking Josh might have died from natural causes. If someone killed him . . .”

Boyd swore softly. “I’ve upset you again. I shouldn’t have brought that stuff up, especially just before bedtime.”

“It’s okay.” She shook her head. “I mean, if someone killed him—”

“If someone killed him, I’ll see them brought to justice. You can bet on it.”

Looking at him just then, Hayden was inclined to believe him.

“Good night, Hayden. Try to think of more pleasant things.”

“I’ll try.”

He held out his hand. Hayden automatically extended her own hand and it was swallowed in his larger one. He shook it once, then released it. She knew it was more than a good night. It was a promise. If someone were responsible for Josh’s death, he’d find them.

“Good night, Boyd.”

Fifteen minutes later, with her apartment tidied, face washed, and teeth brushed and flossed, she was ready to crawl into bed. Then her phone buzzed. Picking it up off the charger pad, she looked at it.

It was a text message from Boyd. And it read,
Home safe
.

She laughed out loud and texted back a
Thx!

CHAPTER 9

“Thanks, Morgan. Meet you there in twenty.”

As Boyd terminated the call and put his phone down on the polished walnut table, Dr. Sylvia Stratton came up by his right elbow. “Orange juice?”

“Please. That fresh-squeezed stuff is amazing. But you don’t have to wait on me. I can serve myself.”

“No problem. I was getting a refill myself.” After filling his juice glass, she topped up her own, then sat. “Did you enjoy the eggs?”

“I did, ma’am. And you might be onto something with the free-range thing. Much tastier.”

“No surprise that a healthy free-range hen produces a superior egg.” She slipped on her reading glasses and picked up the newspaper, although she made no move to go back to reading it. “And it’s not just tastier, but more nutrient rich and antibiotic-free. Same with grass-fed beef. The beef is actually much richer in omega-3 fatty acids than its grain-fed counterpart.”

“What about free-range pork?” he said hopefully, although he already knew there was no bacon, ham, or sausage available. Dr. Stratton probably frowned on those things. “Is that superior too?”

She lowered her head to slant him a reproving glance over the black-framed reading glasses. “No doubt, but I don’t serve smoked or cured meats, Mr. McBride. The nitrates are very bad for one’s health.”

“Of course.”

“Have you tried the fish? It really is excellent, and the punch of omega-3 gets you off to a good start.”

He managed to suppress a grimace. “I haven’t quite developed a taste for fish at breakfast yet.”

“Yes, it’s a bit of an acquired taste,” she allowed. “Your brother wasn’t much of a fan of it either.”

Boyd went back to eating his breakfast, but he noticed Dr. Stratton still hadn’t gone back to her paper.

“So, how’s it going? Your . . . investigation, for lack of a better word, of your brother’s last days?”

“Fine.” He tossed back the orange juice, then reached for his coffee. If he was going to meet Morgan on time, he’d have to haul ass. “I’m getting to know his friends and coworkers. And you, of course. This house. Sort of reconstructing his time here.”

“And was the Morgan you were arranging to meet just now Detective Morgan?”

He looked up, surprised. “Yes.” He put his coffee cup back down. “I guess he interviewed you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did. He seems a very respectable sort.”

She didn’t add, “For a policeman,” but Boyd heard it just the same. And he could see where she’d be favorably impressed by Morgan’s hundred-dollar haircut and tailored suits. And something told Boyd that Morgan could turn on the charm when he chose.

“Yes, he seems to be a good man,” Boyd said. He thought about telling her what they were going to do this morning, then reeled himself back in. The fewer people who knew, the better. According to Ray Morgan, even the employees at the park had only been told it was a routine training exercise for the K-9. No point getting people stirred up. “He’s indulging me by going over Josh’s file again.”

She smiled. “Well, don’t let me keep you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He swallowed the last of his coffee and stood to go.

“Detective?”

He turned back to the table.

“Would you care to take coffee to your meeting? I have takeaway cups, and I do seem to recall Detective Morgan was partial to my organic coffee with almond milk.”

Ha!
He was right. The lofty Dr. Stratton might be devoted to her ailing husband, but she’d obviously taken a shine to Pretty Boy Morgan. Not that he could blame her. Plenty of women went in for that refined, urbane look.

He grinned. “Are you kidding me? He’d love that.”

“Then go get ready. I’ll put on fresh coffee and dig out a pair of take-out cups.”

“Could you stretch it to three?” he asked. “I think one of Morgan’s colleagues will be there.”

“Of course.”

Her smile never faltered, but he sensed she wasn’t pleased he didn’t offer more explanation. Or maybe she wanted an explanation of who the third party was. Too bad for her.

“Almond milk for Detective Morgan, cream for you . . . And how shall I make the third one?”

Boyd suppressed a smile. Yep, she was dying to know who the other party was. Had Morgan brought someone else with him when he’d interviewed her? Well, someone other than a uniformed cop? Sylvia Stratton would never take notice of a mere patrolman. Maybe it was Morgan’s sergeant, John Quigley. And if she had met Quigley, she’d have formed an entirely different impression about him than she had for Morgan. The sergeant’s suits weren’t just off-the-rack, they looked like they’d been trampled
under
the rack.

When Boyd came back downstairs seven minutes later, she had three coffees in cardboard cups with tight-fitting covers. In lieu of a take-out tray, she’d stood them in a tall plastic storage container, the kind Boyd used to store plastic lids in until he got so frustrated by never being able to find the right lid that he threw them all away and started again with new containers.

“Be careful with that,” she admonished. “That’s a lot of hot liquid.”

Had Dr. Stratton fussed this way over Josh? And how had he received it? Graciously, no doubt. Boyd would make an effort to do the same. “Yes, ma’am.”

Fifteen minutes later, he rolled into the parking lot at Odell Park. The K-9 unit, a big Ford Expedition, sat idling in the lot, air conditioner running for the dog, while Ray Morgan and a tall, lean woman in summer uniform stood several feet away in the shade.

“You’re late,” Morgan said.

“Yeah, but you’ll forgive the five extra minutes when you see what I brought.”

His eyes lit up. “Starbucks?”

“Better.” Boyd opened the rented Altima’s back door and retrieved the container with the coffees from where he’d propped them behind the driver’s seat. “Sylvia Stratton sends her regards.”

“Organic custom grind,” he breathed reverently. “With organic almond milk?”

“Yeah, she remembered.” Boyd handed Ray the cup with the lid marked
A
for almond. “You must have made an impression on her.”

He shrugged. “She just appreciates people who appreciate quality.”

“Quite,” he mimicked Dr. Stratton’s voice.

Morgan laughed. “That’s a pretty good imitation of her.” Then he turned to the officer at his side. “Anders, this is Detective Boyd McBride of the Toronto Police Service Homicide Squad. McBride, this is Constable Lori Anders, our K-9 handler.”

She nodded at him. “Sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” He shook the hand she extended to him. Her grip was firm, lacking any bullshit. He liked her right away. “How do you feel about black coffee, Anders?”

“Only way to drink it. Especially if it’s as good as he seems to think.” She nodded her head toward Ray Morgan.

“Oh, it is.” Boyd handed her the unmarked cup and took the last one, which Sylvia had helpfully marked
C
for cream.

“I’ll just leave this for after,” she said, parking the cup on the roof of the Expedition. “We should get right to this in case I get another call.”

“Are you the only K-9 handler on duty?” he asked.

“I’m the only K-9 handler
on staff
,” she replied.

Boyd’s jaw dropped. “The only one?” Police Dog Services in Toronto was its own department with more than twenty handlers.

“Yup. But Max and I like being busy.” She opened the door, clipped the dog to its leash, and let him jump out.

Boyd liked dogs but knew better than to touch this one while it was on duty. It needed to stay focused. This was a Belgian Malinois, he noted, not the classic German shepherd.

“What do you do for vacation?” Boyd asked, still astonished that there could be only one K-9 team.

“The RCMP K-9 unit covers for me,” she said. “We do a lot of training together, back each other up.” The dog looked up at her expectantly, and she scratched his ears. “So we’re just going to do an article search. You’re familiar with what that is?”

Boyd nodded. The dog would be directed to search a specified area and would alert on anything and everything that didn’t belong. In a natural environment like this, that usually meant finding a lot of gum wrappers, discarded Tim Hortons cups, McDonald’s wrappers, and the like. It was a task they drilled for endlessly, no doubt, so that the canine would find that knife dropped by a fleeing assailant, or a gun, or spent shell casings, or a discarded burner phone, or, in this case, a stolen journal.

Boyd and Ray stood back while Lori Anders put her dog to work. Over the next forty minutes, dog and handler had covered the most probable spots for a thief to have jettisoned the journal. Each time Max alerted on something, she praised him lavishly, but Boyd knew the “finds” were not what they’d been hoping for. When they finished, the handler congratulated the dog and rewarded him by tossing him a Kong. The dog snatched it up, gleeful as a puppy.

The handler joined them, handing Morgan a clear plastic bag full of mainly trash. Boyd’s slim hopes faded.

Morgan took the evidence bag from her, turning it over in his hands. “A china plate and real forks?”

“I’ve seen odder finds.” Anders shrugged. “My guess is some young Romeo was impressing his date, sweetening her up with a piece of cheesecake or something he nabbed from his mother’s fridge, then left everything behind afterward.”

“Afterward?” Boyd asked.

She shrugged again. “Max found a used condom within tossing distance.”

Morgan shook his head. “No respect for fine china. Some woman is probably still looking for that missing plate.”

Despite his disappointment, Boyd couldn’t suppress a smile at Ray Morgan’s doleful expression.

“If there’s nothing more I can do, I’ll take off. There’s some paperwork I have to turn in.”

“We’re good, Lori. Thanks.”

“Yes, thank you, Constable,” Boyd said. “And thank you, Detective.”

Anders said her good-byes, stowed her dog, rescued her coffee from the roof of the vehicle, and drove off.

Morgan turned to face him. “It was a good thought, McBride. Worth a shot. And I’m sorry we didn’t pick up on that rear passenger door lock earlier.”

“It was practically a new car. Who’d have thought?” Boyd rubbed the back of his neck. “It does open the possibility that the phone and the journal were simply stolen. But it also means someone could have slipped into that backseat and been waiting for him. Or maybe they approached just as he got into the car and before he keyed the ignition or activated the locks.”

“And did what?”

“He might have been hit with a stun gun.”

Morgan’s eyebrows soared. “Now there’s a thought. Although the jury’s out on whether those little stun guns do anything more than piss off would-be assailants. They don’t even stop people from struggling like a TASER shot does. From what I’ve read, he might have been just as likely to get out of the car and lay an ass-whooping on his attacker.”

“I don’t know. Dr. Walsh seemed to think it could be fatal if someone had an underlying electrical issue. She also said it might cause a fatal arrhythmia even in someone with a normal heart if they got multiple shocks to the chest area. And if they’d been running in the heat, like Josh, and their electrolytes were out of whack.”

Ray Morgan eyed Boyd. “The problem with that theory is it’s impossible to prove. No eyewitnesses, no camera footage, and no evidence on autopsy.”

Boyd knew that, but his gut still twisted to hear it. “I know. I’ll just have to keep digging. I’ll bring you more.”

“I’ll keep digging too,” Morgan said. “But frankly, if anyone can crack this, it’s probably you. You know your twin like no one else could. Hell, you’ve already uncovered a couple of things we’d never have known. That faulty lock, for instance. And the journal. Nice work.”

“Thanks. By the way, I met your wife yesterday. She’s one observant lady.”

“I know.” His pride in her shone in his face, making him look suddenly younger, almost boyish. “She’s a natural. Don’t tell her I said this, but she might even be better than me.”

Boyd snorted. “I think that ship’s sailed.”

Morgan’s grin only widened.

“So where are you with talking to doctors?”

“Still working my way through the ob-gyns.”

Boyd frowned. “How many can there be in a town this size? A dozen or so?”

“At this moment? Yeah. But you and your brother weren’t bounced out yesterday. We’re talking thirty-five years ago. Doctors come and go, and they die too. Gotta figure out who took over the practice, where the records landed, and all that.”

“And you’re not just asking about twins with the surname Holbrook?”

Morgan cocked his head. “You’re seriously asking me that?”

Boyd held his gaze.

The other man sighed. “Well, since you told me from the get-go that the birth record was probably falsified and Holbrook might or might not be your birth mother’s name, the answer would be yes. I’ve been beating the bushes for anything that looks like it could be a match. All male twins born anywhere near your birth date, under any name, who were whisked away for adoption at birth. Satisfied?”

“Sorry. Just had to make sure.”

“I know. I’m just cranky about my lack of progress.”

“Know that feeling.” Boyd drained the rest of his coffee. “I’m hoping I can get my hands on Josh’s cell phone records any day now. I put in a request as next of kin last week, but you know how it can be.”

Morgan perked up. “Good. You told me you’d do that when you realized the phone was missing.”

“Yeah, took a while to get the paperwork in order with the lawyer back in Ontario, to prove I’m the trustee.”

“Think they’ll give them to you?”

“They have to, eventually. After they make sure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed from a legal standpoint.”

“What’ll they give you for calling detail records in a case like that? Do you know?”

“Yeah, I talked to the privacy ombudsman. The CDRs I’ll get will be limited to only outgoing numbers that Josh dialed, with no incoming phone numbers.”

“So for the incoming stuff, it’ll be basically date, time, and duration of the call?”

“Yup. Unless we can produce a court order, there’s no way to get at an incoming caller’s phone number or identity.”