Heroes In Uniform (190 page)

He glanced toward the back door patients used to leave after their sessions so they wouldn’t run into the next patient waiting at the reception, avoiding any awkwardness. Open or locked? Better not touch the knob until it’d been dusted for fingerprints.

The captain straightened. “The coroner will determine time of death, but I’d say he was killed within the last hour or so.”

“Looks like it.” The blood hadn’t coagulated yet. “Office hours are from nine to four. It’s eight thirty now. If he’s been dead for the past hour, that means he was killed around seven thirty.” Joe stepped back to the door to call out to Doris, “Do you know if he had an emergency call to meet a patient before the office opened?”

Doris blew her nose. “That wouldn’t go through me. Some patients have the emergency number that goes straight to him.”

“What patients?”

“People who have a history of suicidal thoughts. Things like that.”

“You have a list?”

She shook her head.

Bing stepped up next to Joe. “We’ll need that. How many active patients did he have?”

“Around a hundred and fifty? I’m not sure. I can check. Some people only see him once every six months for maintenance.”

Bing’s jaw worked silently for a second. “I’m going to put in for a warrant for his patient files. I’d appreciate it if you could get them ready for handing over.”

Doris’s swollen eyes widened. “You think it was a patient?”

“That’s one possibility. Also could have been someone else he knew. Or an act of random violence. You keep any drugs here?”

“No. The pharmaceutical company reps drop off samples now and then, but we take those to the free clinic.”

Bing went back to Philip.

Joe strode to the front door. No sign of forced entry. “Was this door unlocked when you came in?”

Doris stared for a startled second. “I had to unlock it.”

“How about his office door?”

“Closed. I opened it to see if Dr. Brogevich had anything in his Out bin. He stayed to catch up with work yesterday after I left.”

“The back door?”

“I didn’t check. He would have locked it last night before he went home. He always did.”

Bing came back out of the office again, glanced at Doris. “I’m going to need you to cancel today’s appointments, as soon as possible. It’d be better if patients didn’t start showing up. To avoid contaminating the crime scene.”

Then he turned to Joe. “As long as you’re here, why don’t you canvass the neighbors? In case anyone saw or heard anything.”

He checked over the office door, not because he didn’t trust Joe, but because that was the way they did things. They checked and double-checked.

Joe walked out, grabbed some police tape from Bing’s car, and cordoned off a twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot area in front of the entrance, tying the tape to the railings on the new handicap ramps that stretched in front of each suite. He checked the ground. No cigarette butts that they could send to the lab, no garbage. No footprints either, since the entire lot was paved.

He strode over to the pediatrician’s office next door. Still closed. He glanced through the window. Nobody behind the reception desk. The suite on the other side of Philip’s stood empty. The ob-gyn beyond that hadn’t come in yet either, his receptionist just arriving.

The few people Joe found, he questioned, but nobody had seen or heard anything. The offices were soundproofed for privacy. If there’d been an argument or struggle, it probably wouldn’t have been heard even if the murder had happened in the middle of the day.

Jesus, Philip.

Joe went on being a cop, doing the cop thing. But part of him was still catching up to Phil’s death.
Why?
He was going to figure that out, dammit.

People were visibly shocked by the news of murder. They had a million questions and wanted answers. Joe had to put them off as politely as possible. Even if he had information, which he didn’t, he couldn’t discuss the case at this stage.

By the time he strode back to Suite 1025, Detective Harper Finnegan was arriving. A couple of years older than Joe, whiskey-brown hair, square jaw, nose broken in a bar fight—not in the line of duty. He pulled his cruiser up to the captain’s, staring at Joe as he got out. “What happened to your face?”

“Ran into an argumentative phone pole on the four-wheeler.” Since he’d gone undercover to catch a dirty cop, the assignment was strictly confidential. Only one person at each station knew about the undercover op—Captain Bing in Broslin and Chief Gleason in Philadelphia.

Harper looked skeptical, but he didn’t push. He knew that if Joe was evading the question, he had to have a good reason. He ducked under the yellow police tape flitting in the wind. “Dispatch said homicide.”

“Philip Brogevich.” Joe updated him on what little they knew so far as he followed him in.

Doris was still on the phone, crying quietly as they passed by her.

The captain looked up inside the office. “Harper.” He paused for a second. “How is your caseload?”

“Filed all the paperwork on the shoplifting teenagers.”

“I want you to take lead here.”

Joe cleared his throat. “I’d like to be assigned to the case. I can help Harper.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. “The victim was your friend.”

“It’s a small town. Everybody is everybody’s friend.”

“How did the canvassing go?”

“People are still getting in. Nobody has seen or heard anything unusual.”

The captain stepped forward. “I need to get something from the car. Why don’t you walk with me?”

Officer Mike McMorris, another one of Broslin’s finest, pulled up as they stepped outside. Joe and Mike had been hired at the same time, had learned the ropes together, become friends. Like Harper, he stared at Joe’s face as he got out of his cruiser, the morning sun glinting off his cropped, reddish hair.

“Rough date? Hey, I got a joke for you.” When Mike grinned, his Irish freckles danced. “Guy comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man. He shoots the guy, turns to the wife, and asks, ‘What do you have to say about that?’ The wife says…” Mike paused a beat for effect. “’Keep it up and you won’t have any friends left.’”

Joe groaned while the captain shook his head with resignation.

“So who smacked you?” Mike wanted to know, his attention back on the scar. “Losing your touch with the ladies?”

“Never gonna happen.” Joe offered a cocky lift of his chin. “Four-wheeler accident last night.”

The captain popped the trunk of his cruiser. “Glad you’re here, Mike. Why don’t you secure the premises?”

As Mike went to station himself at the door, Bing hauled out his crime-scene kit, a large black plastic container that had an orange handle and a million compartments inside to stash all the swabs and bottles of chemicals.

He cast a sideways glance at Joe. “It’s not just about you and the victim being friends. I don’t want you to jump straight into a homicide after last night.”

“I’m fine.”

The captain let a couple of seconds pass as he set the crime-scene kit by his feet. “I didn’t come to your house this morning just to check on you. I came to ask a favor.” He paused. “I need you for protection detail. Woman and child. Nasty ex-boyfriend. She moved. He probably won’t find her. But to be on the safe side.”

Joe thought of Lil’ Gomez. “I don’t think I’m a good bet in the protection-detail department.”

“It’s a personal favor. She’s a friend of Sophie’s. Sophie said you might remember her. Wendy Belle.”

The name hit Joe like a sledgehammer. Everything inside him stilled.
Wendy.

“We’ve met.” He’d run into her at Sophie’s house a while ago when he’d been providing protection detail to Sophie, back before Sophie and Bing had gotten together.

Wendy Belle was a professional model. She had the looks to twist a man into a lust pretzel, lips that begged to be tasted, and those mysterious gray eyes that Joe hadn’t been able to forget since he’d first looked into them.

Being a small-town football hero, then a policeman, he’d had his share of dates. Uniforms were a chick magnet. He’d been raised to be a gentleman, took good care of his dates in and out of bed, kept in shape, put in more time at the police station’s gym than anybody else. He appreciated women, and they appreciated him right back.

More often than not, women walked up to him with their phone numbers.
Not Wendy.
He’d been dazed by the instant, visceral wave of lust at their first meeting, but she hadn’t taken him seriously, not for a second. She’d taken one look at him, and she’d dismissed him.

Which was probably why he’d shown up a month later at a fashion-show fund-raiser she participated in. He’d put big money in the plate—okay, big for his cop salary. His gesture didn’t impress her, as he’d stupidly hoped, but impressed some of the other models, and they’d invited him to the after-party.

He’d caught her sneaking out early. Pouring rain outside, and not a cab to be had. He offered her a lift home. She offered him a cup of coffee for his ride back out to Broslin. Which had turned into—

“It’s a temporary thing,” Bing said.

Joe rubbed his chest with his fist. He didn’t want to be responsible for Wendy, or her toddler son, Justin. He especially didn’t want Wendy to see him like this, all busted up. Not that he was vain.

“Her ex, Keith Kline, has turned threatening, from what Sophie says. I don’t know all the details,” the captain went on. “Wendy and the boy are staying here in Broslin, at Sophie’s place, temporarily. Sophie’s out at the log cabin with me.”

His lips flattened. “The cops in Wilmington aren’t doing anything because the guy hasn’t committed any actual crime yet that can be proven. From what Sophie tells me about him, my gut says he will. Sooner or later he’ll hurt her bad. Point is, Wendy is scared. He knows it, and he’s being an asshole. Keeps pushing her.”

Joe tried to line up that batch of new information in his head, fit it into the picture he’d formed of her. Their first meeting had lasted five minutes, the second an hour and a half. Obviously, there were a lot of gaps.

Yet all that darkness the captain was talking about didn’t seem possible. She’d been nothing but light and perfection both times he’d met her. Still, he knew how abusers manipulated and how hard the abused worked to keep their problems hidden.

The thought of Keith Kline, or any other idiot, laying hands on Wendy didn’t sit well with him. The ex sounded like he could use a little talking to. Joe knew the type. Bullies. They started with threats, then knocked people around when they didn’t get what they wanted.

Bing said, “Sophie figured if Wendy was in Broslin, at least she’d be in my jurisdiction. If the jerk shows up and tries anything, I’m going to come down on him like a ton of bricks.”

“But you can’t give her a protection detail.”

“For one, she won’t ask for it. The bastard has her scared but good.” Bing’s eyes steeled. “She wouldn’t even talk to me about it. But even if she did, I couldn’t justify twenty-four-hour surveillance on a domestic violence complaint that was never substantiated and didn’t take place in my jurisdiction.

“I figured, since you’ll be taking a sick day, maybe you could drive by a couple of times, hang around at the house with her. All friendly like, since you know each other. Nothing official. If you’re on sick leave, you can hang out wherever you please.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her.” Even if he didn’t need time off. He was sore from the crash, but he’d taken beatings ten times worse on the football field.

“I appreciate it. If you can do that today, it’ll give me a chance to figure out what we can do to keep her safe long-term.”

Joe glanced toward Phil’s office, where Mike stood guard at the door. “I’d like to be the one to notify Marie.”

The news was damn tragic no matter who brought it, but she might take it better from someone she knew. Joe had met her a couple of times. She was from Delaware. She and Philip had met at college. “I could drop by on my way to Sophie’s place.”

Bing nodded. “You take my car and drive over. I’ll ride back to the station with Harper when we’re done here. You can drop the cruiser off when you get a chance.”

“About working on the case—”

“I’ll make sure Harper keeps you up to date. Then we’ll see. Right now, focus on getting the rest you need after last night and spending some time with Wendy.” Bing cleared his throat. Flashed Joe a pointed look. “She’s a nice young woman. Vulnerable right now. I don’t want her feelings hurt.”

Not so subtle code for
Don’t hit on her
.

Joe flinched. No worries there. His last encounter with Wendy…. Hell, she’d been the one to hurt
his
feelings.

The best sex of his life, and she’d kicked him out as soon as it was over, told him not to bother with calling because it was strictly a one-time thing. Told him, actually, while he’d still been inside her.

He groaned at the memory as he slipped behind the wheel, turning on the heat the second he had the engine started.

His day was shaping up to be an ass kicker. Which was saying something, considering that the day before included his arrest, a concussion, and a near drowning.