Justification for Murder (29 page)

“T
he next one will go through your heart,” the man had told her after the bullet passed a foot away from her head.

Saffron had stopped, then walked back toward the house and into the basement. She now sat on the same chair, hands and feet tied, and mouth taped again. She wondered what time it was. Her stomach rumbled. The woman with the blond bob looked at her, and Saffron blushed, ashamed for feeling hungry, given their dire circumstances.

At least an hour went by with nothing happening. They couldn’t talk to each other, they couldn’t move, but at least the light was still on. She had looked back at the man on the floor a few times to see if he moved at all, but he hadn’t.

The door opened. A man in his late forties walked down the stairs but stopped midway when he saw the rest of them there.

“Keep moving,” Tyler said, walking behind him with the gun pointing at the man’s back. “Sit there.”

He sat on the chair Julia had brought down earlier. His shirt was wet around the neck and below his armpits and large man boobs. He breathed with difficulty, as if he’d just run a marathon. Beads of sweat dripped down his face onto his large stomach.

He had to wiggle to fit his body between the armrests, but he finally managed. Tyler tied his feet first. Saffron wondered if he would be brave enough to punch him before his hands were also bound but figured he wouldn’t.

When Tyler stood to work on the arms, the man said, “Please don’t. I’m asthmatic, and I need my inhaler. If you tie me, I won’t be able to use it.”

Tyler passed his hand over his gelled hair and looked down to the floor, thinking about his options, then asked, “Where is it?”

“In my pocket.”

Tyler pulled out the inhaler and placed it on his lap.

“I’m going to believe you, but I want you to know that if you try to free yourself, or anybody else here, I will kill you. If you don’t believe me, ask that one over there.” He pointed to Saffron.

Saffron and the new man exchanged glances. Her first thought was to give him an expression that said
He’s telling the truth
. But then she thought she should better try one that said
He’s just talk
in hopes that once they were alone, he would help everybody escape. At the end, the expression that came out was one of utter confusion.

“Thank you,” the newcomer said to the man who had just kidnapped and tied him to a chair in a moldy basement.

Tyler nodded and headed toward the stairs, then paused for a second, as if these two words of kindness had gotten through to him. Before he continued up, he said, “You’re welcome.”

“Can you tell us why we are here? I’m not rich, so it can’t be for ransom.” His voice was low and level, even though he had to breathe between the words.

“For the greater good,” Tyler said and walked up the stairs two at a time.

The door to the basement closed, and silence inundated the room. Saffron watched the man. He first inspected the hellhole they were in. Breathing in the mold caused him to wheeze, and he rapidly grabbed his inhaler and used it a few times. Feeling better, he checked every one of the people who were there with him, nodding sadly to each of them. He finally said, “My name’s Keith.”

Everybody else had tape over their mouths, so nobody could respond in kind. Saffron inched a little toward him and moaned, trying to tell him to at least take the tape off of her mouth. He looked at her. “I can’t. He said he will kill me.”

She said
He’s going to kill us all
with her eyes, but saw that he didn’t want to understand her.

He looked away and used his arm to scratch his right boob discretely. After a few moments, he used his fingers. Saffron saw his hand move up and down and side to side. Keith was averting her stare intentionally, probably embarrassed by what he was doing but seemingly unable to stop.

Saffron watched him, still hoping to get his attention back. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was now using the inhaler to scratch his breast, leaving creases on the cotton T-shirt with each pass. She wondered if it was a tic, something he did when he was nervous, because he seemed to be completely absorbed by what he was doing. His eyes were lost, his brow lined. He stopped the rubbing for a second and started working on the tape that tied his other hand. He focused his eyes now on it and looked for the edge so he could peel it off.

Saffron exhaled through her nose, a shred of hope filling her chest.

He scratched his boob again, then worked on the tape, then scratched again. The movements became monotonous, almost as if dictated by some silent metronome in his head. The switch from one to the other quickened, as if he couldn’t keep his hand from scratching his breast long enough to work on the tape. He finally got enough peeled off so he could grab it between his fingers, and pulled on it. The ripping noise filled the quiet basement.

Saffron watched the other two women, who were now looking at him too. The blond wailed harder. The one with short hair moved her body forward and stretched her neck to see the progress. Their eyes met. For the first time, they shared a little optimism.

Keith managed to free his hand, but instead of using it to work on the tape on his feet, he now had both hands on the inhaler, pushing it with force against his body, moving it in erratic motions over his breast. The woman with the short hair looked back at Saffron. Saffron shrugged. They both stared back at Keith.

He tried standing up, but the chair moved with him. He sat back down. Then he pushed the armrest toward the floor with one hand and pulled his body out, while the other hand continued to scratch his chest. He finally stood and, with his feet still tied to the chair, he started moving around, a few inches with each step, dragging the chair with him.

Saffron made some guttural noises to grab his attention, but Keith ignored her. His eyes focused on the room, which was pretty bare. He walked toward a pile of wood, knelt down and grabbed a log. He tried using one end to scratch that itch that wouldn’t go away, but it was too large and heavy, so he discarded it. Saffron flinched at the noise of the wood falling flat on the cement floor.

Keith kept moving, following the perimeter of the basement, looking for something that would help him with the itch. He kept scratching and scratching, each time a little harder. He walked to the man on the floor. When he reached him, he stopped and looked at him for a few moments, then he bent over and started going through the man’s pockets with one hand, still scratching with the other. He found a switchblade.

Saffron smiled underneath the tape. There was hope for them.

Keith stared at the knife in his hand. He opened it. The blade was smooth and shiny. He turned the knife a few times, as if he were inspecting the craftsmanship. Sometimes the light hit the blade in a way that projected a ray across the room. It was almost mesmerizing. Then Keith stopped rotating the knife and stopped scratching his breast. With his free hand, he grabbed his man boob, pulled on it and with a rushed movement, he cut through the flesh with the knife.

The three women pushed their chairs backwards at the same time in horror and squealed, but Keith didn’t stop.

A gush of blood sprayed the wall in front of him. He still pulled on his breast, blood filling his hands, soaking his T-shirt, and continued slashing until it came loose from his body. He stared at the flesh in his hand, then at the knife. Without a need for it anymore, he let the knife slip through his fingers, and fell on the man on the floor with a soft thud. He then lowered his other hand, letting the loose flesh also fall in front of him. He stared at his bloody hands and for the first time his face showed recognition of what he had just done. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he lost consciousness, collapsing on top of the man, with the chair up in the air, still tied to his ankles.

D
arcy called Elena while they drove south toward Saratoga. She was going to go lead a group, covering for somebody who had called in sick, but she could meet them at the diner after the session. The detectives decided to grab some food while they waited for her.

They both ordered a burger. Sorensen asked for it well done, no lettuce or tomato, but extra cheese. Darcy added avocado and asked for it rare. When the food came, Sorensen bathed the French fries in ketchup.

“Anything new from Jon?” Darcy asked.

Sorensen looked at his phone. “Nope.”

“Maybe we should call him?”

“Don’t be needy,” Sorensen teased.

“I’m getting desperate.”

Without realizing it, he pulled his own phone out and checked for anything from Saffron. There was nothing. He washed away another pang of dejection with a big bite of burger.

After a few seconds of silence, feeling better with something in his stomach, Darcy turned one of the paper placemats over and asked the waitress for a pen. He wrote down Dr. Leavenworth’s name and circled it. Then he added Curarent Tech and Harper Johnson’s name, circling each. Then he wrote “Murder victims,” and separately he wrote “Suicide victims.” He paused and took another bite of his burger. He saw Sorensen’s eyes dart between the circles on the paper.

Without a word of explanation, Darcy pulled his phone and called Jon.

“Hey, can you check something on Harper Johnson’s ME report?”

“Sure, give me a sec.” Jon put the line on hold.

Darcy set the phone on the table and put it on speaker.

“What am I looking for?”

“Check for cancer.”

“Shouldn’t you talk to Madison directly?” Sorensen asked.

“I thought about it, but it’s Saturday and I would never hear the end of it if I interrupt his game of golf.”

“Good point.”

“I got it,” Jon said. “Yes, liver cancer, stage three, apparently.”

“In English?” Sorensen asked.

“Give me a sec. I’ll look it up.”

They could hear the keyboard as he typed.

“I found this website that says that Stage Three is when the tumor has spread to the fatty tissue around the kidney, and maybe, but not necessarily, into a large vein leading from the kidney to the heart, but it hasn’t reached the lymph nodes or other organs yet.”

They all felt silent. Sorensen finished his food and took a big gulp of his Coke.

“One more thing. Can you check Dr. Leavenworth’s phone records and see if she’s had any contact with anybody from Curarent Tech?”

“Everybody?” Jon asked, a little dread in his voice.

“Start with the
C
letters, but make sure you also cover the lead researcher, Qiang Li,” Darcy said.

“Last name starting with
C
, or first names too?”

Darcy smiled. “CEO, CFO, CTO—you know, your typical Silicon Valley royalty.”

“Got it,” Jon said after an embarrassed cough.

Darcy thanked him and hung up, then dialed Alton Lane to see what he wanted. It went to voice mail directly. “Mr. Lane, Detective Lynch here just returning your call. The connection hasn’t been great, and I couldn’t understand the messages you left. Please call me back with anything important.”

“The neighbor?” Sorensen asked.

“Yeah. I don’t get those messages. Just want to make sure there’s nothing weird going on there.”

He went back to the placemat and wrote, on the top, in big cap letters, “CANCER.”

“All of this is related to cancer. Everything that’s happening,” he said, thinking out loud.

“Okay…” Sorensen said and waited for him to continue.

“We’ve got no proof yet, but we’re pretty sure that the suicide victims were in some kind of research trial,” Darcy said, tapping the circle enclosing the suicide victims and looking at Sorensen for confirmation.

“To do human trials, you need patients,” Sorensen said. “What better place to get them than at the office of a doctor who treats those patients you want to target?” He tapped the doctor’s circle with his finger.

Darcy drew a line between the two circles and continued: “From the little I remember from college biology, when you do trials you need at least two sets of subjects—a group on the medication, and the control group.”

They both felt silent. The waitress refilled their drinks.

“But some of the people Johnson killed didn’t have cancer.”

Sorensen rested his head on his hand, his elbow taking half a table.

“I know,” Darcy said, putting the pen down and finishing his last fry. “I don’t remember Saffron mentioning being on any medication either,” he said after a few seconds. “Let me check.”

He pulled his phone and started dialing.

“As good excuse as any, I guess,” Sorensen said, winking.

“What?” Darcy asked while he waited for the call to go through. When the voice mail picked up, he said, “Saffron, Detective Lynch here.” He felt Sorensen’s eyes on him and masked his annoyance by turning his body away from him. “I have a few more questions regarding your visits to Dr. Leavenworth. Please call me back as soon as you can.”

The waitress came to offer them the best pie in the county. They each took a piece. Darcy went for the mulberry, and Sorensen chose cherry. They both asked for coffee.

“Johnson got almost $80K to kill a group of people,” Darcy refocused the conversation. “All of those people are patients of the doctor.” He drew another line between Leavenworth and the murder victim’s circle. “The only explanation that makes sense is that Curarent Tech paid Johnson to cover up the human trials.”

“But that’s crazy. Why not just stop it?” Sorensen asked, his mouth full of cherry pie.

Elena came into the diner and walked toward them. Darcy grabbed the placemat and folded it a few times until it was small enough to fit in his jacket pocket.

“Thank you for meeting us. This is Detective Sorensen,” Darcy said, and offered the seat next to him. “Would you like some pie?”

“Very nice meeting you.” She hung her purse on the back of the chair. “No, thank you.”

Darcy took out the DMV photo he had of Tyler Warren and showed it to her. “Is this the same Tyler that goes to your sessions?”

“Yes.”

“And have you seen him talking to Harper Johnson a lot?”

“No. Not much at all, actually.” She thanked the waitress for the steaming coffee and continued: “I think the most I’ve seen them talk was when Tyler brought a puppy to the session looking for somebody to take her. Harper did.”

“Tyler gave him the puppy?” Darcy thought about his new dog and how skinny she was and wondered if she’d have been better off with some rich friend of Warren’s.

“Yeah. Tyler asked him about her every once in a while.”

Back in the car, Darcy pulled the placemat out of his pocket and handed it to Sorensen. He opened it on his lap and held both ends tightly so it wouldn’t fly away.

“Does this car have a top, for Chrissakes?”

“Yep. I only use it when it rains.” Darcy glanced at the scribbled paper for a second and then said, “Warren knows Harper from the support group. Then they also have contact at the shooting range…It’s farfetched, but if I were Warren, I would think Johnson was a pretty safe recruit.”

“To kill people?” Sorensen lifted one of his hands in protest and almost lost the place mat. “I guess greed is a powerful motivator,” he said, grabbing the paper again.

“You know what’s a better motivator?” Darcy asked, glancing at him. When Sorensen looked back, he said, “health.”