Justification for Murder (16 page)

Friday

D
arcy woke up to the sound of the alarm clock but soon realized it wasn’t the alarm at all.

“What the hell are you doing?” said an intense female voice over the phone.

“I love you too, Kate,” he responded, combing his short hair with his hand.

“Do you know how hard it was to get you into that desk job you wanted so much?”

“And I’ll owe you forever.”

“Quit the sarcasm. It doesn’t suit you. All I want to know is why you’re fucking it up.”

“Oh wait, I got another call. It’s work. I’ll drop by later and we can discuss then, okay?”

Without waiting for a response, he hung up and went for a long swim. The cold water woke him up, but he still felt like shit. While he swam, he thought about his sister. Kate was almost ten years older than he was. He’d always known that he was “The accident” child, as his parents weren’t expecting, nor really wanted, more children. She had always taken special care of him. When she moved to Washington DC to go to law school, he’d been devastated. She never made it back to Seattle. Kate met Mr. Perfect, and they both moved to the Bay Area.

Now, almost twenty years later, she was an important figure in Bay Area society—if there was such a thing in Northern California. She was one of the most successful divorce attorneys in Silicon Valley and was married to the deputy sheriff of Santa Clara County. Damon hadn’t had to pull many strings to get him the desk job but liked to make sure Darcy thought he had. Kate only rode his ass when her husband was being whiny.

An hour later, he waited on the corner of Younger Avenue and North First Street with two cups of coffee. Both black. It was hot even though it was early, and he was burning his hands holding the scalding drinks. Finally Sorensen came down.

He put the phone on the bedside table and went to take a shower.

“I’d have invited you to more interviews if I knew you would bring coffee,” he said, taking one of the cups.

“Meadows had the same freaking doctor,” he said, ignoring his snooty comment.

“Your hit-and-run victim?”

“Yeah. The same one who let Hughes borrow her car the night she was killed.”

Sorensen stopped walking three feet from the shade of the building. Darcy took shelter and then turned to face him.

“All of these women are connected somehow through this doctor. But what’s the story?” Sorensen asked without moving but was now covered in glossy sweat.

“Can we go over and find out?” Darcy said, wanting to get moving.

They both got into Sorensen’s Jeep and headed toward Good Samaritan Hospital complex.

The reception area of the building was empty. They checked the directory and found that Dr. Leavenworth’s office was on the second floor. They took the elevator, closed their jackets to conceal their weapons and found the office, which had large glass doors and a pink horizontal band painted across them.

The receptionist pointed at a clipboard, put out a pen with a large flower on one end and said, “Please sign in. First time?”

Sorensen blushed and Darcy grinned. He decided to let him do all the talking.

“No. We’re here to see Dr. Leavenworth.”

“You need to sign in,” she insisted.

Sorensen’s brow tightened. He seemed confused. Darcy took a step back so Sorensen couldn’t see how much he was enjoying this.

Sorensen took the pen and looked at the sign-in sheet, but right before he started writing, the receptionist said, “What time was your appointment?”

Her eyes were focused on the computer screen. She was probably checking the names of the patients and not finding anybody male was as confused as Sorensen.

“We don’t have an appointment. We need to talk to Dr. Leavenworth.”

The woman lifted her black eyes, a full mouth with red lipstick opened, and with a sour tone she said, “I’m sorry, but she’s booked all day. You need to make an appointment.”

“This is police business,” Darcy said, showing his badge, having enjoyed enough of the show.

Her expression changed and her lips became two very thin red lines. “What is this regarding?”

“We need to talk to the doctor, and now would be a good time.” Sorensen had regained his composure.

“One moment.”

She left the front desk and exited through a door at the back. Darcy turned. The office was warm, with earthy and burgundy tones, and paintings of women in flowery dresses. There was a coffee carafe at the corner and paper cups. He walked toward it, opened the lid of his empty cup and refilled it. A woman sitting a few chairs away watched his every move, even though she pretended to read a fashion magazine.

The door opened and a petite woman with long, wavy black hair appeared.

“Good morning. I’m Dr. Leavenworth. How can I help you?”

“We would like to ask you a few questions. Can we go somewhere where we can talk in private?”

Darcy saw the fashion magazine slip from the woman’s hand. In a reflex, she slapped it to stop it from reaching the floor. The noise filled the otherwise quiet room, and all eyes fell on her. She turned beet red. Darcy spotted a large headline about
Ten things you can do to drive your man wild
and met her eyes with a mischievous smile.

“My office,” the doctor said.

In silence they followed her through a wide hallway the color of café au lait. She stopped at the last door on the left and opened it, letting them go in first. The office was fairly large, square and lit a little dimmer than Lynch imagined a doctor’s office would be. She took the chair behind a dark wooden desk and leaned back.

Darcy pondered how many people might have sat where he was and heard bad news. How many people cried, and how many partners held their hands, offering their love and support.

“What can I do for you?” Her voice was soft, almost milky, but her eyes were hard, annoyed, steadily moving from Lynch to Sorensen, evaluating them with each stare.

“Do you treat Sheila Rothschild?” Sorensen asked.

“You know I can’t answer that question.”

“Do you treat Jacqueline Pritchard?”

“Detective, you know—”

“Do you treat Taisha Robinson? How about Emma Hughes?”

Dr. Leavenworth shook her head and looked down at her desk.

“And Juliette Davis? Do you treat her?”

“Detective, please, tell me what—”

“How about Saffron Meadows? Do you treat her?”

She shook her head again. “You know I can’t disclose this information.” She crossed her arms. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

“Could you disclose it if these women were dead?”

Darcy felt a pang of fear wondering if Saffron was dead or Sorensen was just saying that to make a point. He knew it was the latter, so he kept his poker face and observed the doctor.

“What are you saying?” she asked, now staring back at them again.

“Because they are. All of them. So, can you now tell us? Were they your patients?”

“Yes, they were,” she said, showing surprise. “How did it happen?”

“Did they all have cancer?”

“No. Not all of them.”

“Right. That’s not true now, is it?” Sorensen pushed.

“I can’t show you my files, but I can tell you that not all of them had cancer. Can you tell me what happened?”

“We need your help to find out what happened to these women,” Lynch jumped in, trying to soften the dialogue.

“Yes, of course. How can I help?” Her voice was sincere, the annoyance now completely gone.

“You can start by telling us who didn’t have cancer,” Sorensen said.

She was silent for a moment, as if she were reviewing her case files in her head. She turned her computer on and clicked on the keyboard several times.

“All of them but Emma Hughes and Saffron Meadows had cancer.”

Darcy sighed with relief.

“Are you sure?” Sorensen asked.

“Positive. Both came in to see me because they had found lumps. We performed a biopsy in both cases, and the results were negative for cancer.”

“Somebody made a mistake,” Sorensen said. “Hughes had stage two cancer.”

Dr. Leavenworth arched her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Is that confirmed?”

“Directly from the ME.”

She shook her head, her long hair dancing as if moved by a slight breeze. “That’s too bad. Lab results are not one hundred percent reliable.”

“The other three victims, were they terminal?”

“No. Only Taisha Robinson.”

Darcy felt his phone vibrate. He excused himself and moved to a corner.

“Yes?” The lab’s number showed in his caller ID.

“Mauricio here. Sorensen told me that you’d taken over the Hughes case…”

Before Darcy could correct him, he went on. His voice was high pitched again, indicating that some news was about to rock Darcy’s world.

“We matched the DNA on the pen we found in the stolen Acura by the crime scene.”

“No shit. To whom?”

“A guy named Harper Johnson.”

D
arcy’s voice was louder than he wanted it to be. Full of excitement and urgency, he spat orders back to Mauricio: “Text me his address and his photo. Give all the information to Jon and ask him to find out everything he can about this guy. Tell him I’ll call to get more details when I’m on my way. ” Then, to Sorensen he said, “Give me your keys.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mauricio found something. I need your car.” Seeing Sorensen’s hesitation, he said, “I’ll come pick you up when I’m done, or I’ll send a car for you. Give me your keys now.”

Sorensen mumbled something that made Dr. Leavenworth smirk but finally handed the keys to Lynch.

By the time he got into Sorensen’s car, he had Harper Johnson’s address and photo on his phone. He tapped the app to get directions to Harper’s place, but before he moved, he stared at the picture to make sure he memorized the suspect’s face. Darcy tried to picture Johnson running away from Saffron’s condo or cutting her seat belt with that hunting knife. He pulled the ATM photo and tried to compare the grainy black-and-white picture with the DMV color headshot.
It could be the same person
, he thought.

The man stared back at him with dark brown eyes. They looked tired, almost a little dead, like the eyes of a fish that has been out of the water for too long and knows the end is near. His crew cut was peppered with gray, but the man still had a full head of hair. Too many weather creases lined his face, but not too many were around his mouth. He seemed the type of man who didn’t have very much to smile about.

As he drove toward Highway 85, Darcy got three texts from Jon. Instead of reading them, he speed-dialed him.

“Tell me everything you’ve found,” he said when Jon picked up.

“Harper Johnson’s prints are in the system, not because he has a criminal record, but because he’s tried to become a cop a bunch of times.”

“Where?”

Jon took a second to respond. Darcy exited Highway 85 and merged into Highway 17. He heard Jon shuffle through his notes.

“Mountain View and Sunnyvale in 1992, then San Jose in ’93, and Fremont and Oakland in ’95. Then he tried for the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office in ’96. He failed the psych test every time due to anger management issues.”

“Any connection to Dr. Leavenworth?”

“Not that I could find but I’ll keep checking.”

“Any connection to cancer?”

“His mother died of liver cancer about three years ago.”

“Any connection to the vics?”

“None yet.”

“What car does he drive?”

“A truck. A Chevy Silverado, light blue, license plates BANANAM.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s registered to his mother.”

“Text me that.”

“Already done,” Jon said.

“Anything else?”

“I couldn’t find if he has a full time job yet, but he does a few hours here and there at a gun range.”

“Of course he does. Send me the details on that too.”

“That’s all I’ve been able to find so far.”

“Great job. Call me as soon as you have more.”

He hung up and checked the map in his phone. He was close to the Summit Road Exit. He merged to the right and slowed down behind a semi. Darcy continued following the directions on his phone, getting deeper into the Santa Cruz Mountains. The high trees covered the road, and the morning sun disappeared over the luxurious leaves.

Lynch slowed down to thirty miles per hour and looked at every private road to see if he could find Lomas Lane. The phone told him it was less than half a mile out, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t miss it.

Finally, he saw the road and took a right turn. It was narrow and wound upward. Each turn was flanked by trees. He was crawling, not knowing what he would find around the next bend. After a few minutes of nothing but trees, a rundown house appeared at the end of the road. It was made of wood, and he could smell the rot even inside the car.

He checked his gun and opened the holster snap. There was no light blue truck in sight, only a rusty 1982 Oldsmobile with no tires and a missing left back door. He stopped the car a few yards from the house and got out. Lynch walked slowly toward the front door, moving his head from left to right, scanning the empty space. He couldn’t hear the road, only birds and leaves swaying in the wind. As he got closer to the porch, a Lab mutt came running from behind the house. The dog didn’t bark, just ran and wagged its tail.

“Come here, buddy,” Darcy said, extending his hand to let the dog smell him before he petted it. “Is anybody home?”

The dog licked his hand but didn’t answer. Darcy could feel each rib, there was nothing but skin and bones.

Darcy continued to move forward. He reached the door and knocked. There was no answer. He could hear no movement coming from within it. He knocked again.

“Mr. Harper?” he called out.

The dog rubbed his body against his legs. Lynch scratched him behind the ears and started to walk around the house. He caught a movement with his good eye, and his hand quickly settled on his holster.

“Who are you?” asked an old man half-hidden by the trees. His right hand held a rifle with its bolt open.

“Santa Clara Deputy Sheriff. Drop your weapon.” Darcy pulled his gun but didn’t point it at him. With the other hand, he pulled out his wallet and showed him his badge.

“I was just hunting squirrels.”

Darcy got close. He could see the weapon was a .22. The old man set it on the ground and put both hands on his knees to help straighten back up.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, almost out of breath.

“Are you Harper Johnson?” He didn’t look like the person in the picture he’d memorized.

“I’m his neighbor. I saw you drive up and was curious. He never gets any visitors.”

“Do you know him well?”

“No. When I first moved here a couple years ago, I ran into him at the bar sometimes, but he was never very social. My property extends all the way to here.” He pointed at the end of the trees. “I like to take walks.”

I’m sure you do
, Darcy thought.

“I’m Alton Lane,” he said, walking toward Lynch, leaving the rifle behind and extending his hand.

Darcy shook it. It was strong and calloused. They walked toward the firearm, and Darcy picked it up for him. The dog came and licked Alton’s hands.

“Yours?” Darcy asked.

“Harper’s. I’d never let a bitch of mine get that skinny. I just made a fresh pot of coffee. You want a cup?”

Darcy nodded, and they both started walking through the trees toward Alton’s house.

“You said Johnson doesn’t have many friends. Girlfriend maybe?”

“I’ve never seen a woman come by. I’ve seen him drive by Sporty’s, so I think that’s where he gets his rocks off.”

Darcy responded with a quizzical look.

“Sporty’s Bikini Bar,” Lane said, as if that explained it all.

Darcy didn’t ask how Lane was acquainted with the titi-bar. He knew a nosy Mr. Lane would shed more light on his neighbor than hours of legwork would ever do.