Authors: Bobbie Cole
“You have no idea just how expensive,” Charlie told him. “I pumped Murrieta for information about both of your surgeons, then phoned the office while I was waiting for you, and Julio got back to me with a brief profile on your chief surgeon, the California guy. He’s one of those doctors to the stars, everything from breast implants to nose jobs, and he doesn’t come cheaply.”
“We’re missing something,” Seth murmured. “How do we prove I’m not Aldridge if I was the one on the operating table?”
Charlie had a thought. “You mentioned having a fit of sorts in your closet. How new are the clothes?”
“All of them brand new, some still with tags. Why?” Then he brightened. “Pink, my butler, told me that before I came home, Dorinda and Doug went through that closet and tossed everything in it and ordered new clothing. Pink said he just thought it strange.”
“When did he tell you this?” Charlie asked in surprise.
“Not long after we’d arrived in Houston. He was setting out clothes for me to wear one day, and I commented on how nothing looked familiar. He said one reason was because everything had been replaced.”
“As if they’d bought clothes for a guy who couldn’t wear the ones that were in the closet, someone who didn’t live in that house,” Charlie said.
“Exactly!” He scoffed. “That still makes no sense. Why not simply hire someone to impersonate him?”
“It makes sense if they’ve killed Aldridge,” she told him. “Think about it. An accident, a man in a nearby room with no memory who has just come out of a coma, and he has no identification, no face, no memory. The perfect solution would be to convince him he’s someone he’s not rather than hire a third party, one who might talk later and maybe blackmail them.”
“Pardon my ego for being offended that anyone could brainwash me. Besides. That’s pretty thin,” said Seth.
“Yeah, but ‘thin’ is my middle name. Not surprising according to my new partner who thinks I have terrible eating habits.”
Seth frowned. “Which reminds me, we haven’t eaten since we left Houston.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make you pay for starving me.” She winked. “Right now, we need to get Marjorie Lawson’s autopsy report—my captain has already spoken with the chief of police in Jalisco, so we should get out of here within minutes.”
She was right. The state’s medical examiner wasn’t in, but his staff was quick to hand them the documents they wished for, almost as if getting them out of the hospital was more imperative than arguing with them. The documents were already copied and ready to hand over upon Charlie’s signature. It was too clean, too quick and aroused Charlie’s suspicions.
“You don’t think someone tampered with the records, do you?” Seth asked after they’d left the office.
“I would hate to think so, but stranger things have happened.” She stuffed the papers they’d just received into the folder with the others they’d collected in medical records. “The only things left to do are visit the hotel where Lawson stayed the night before she was killed and visit with your plastic surgeon, or the assistant, as the nurse called him. You up for it?”
“I’d rather grab a bite to eat,” Seth said. “I already feel bad enough for keeping you out this late without lunch. I say we save the doctor for tomorrow and stop by the hotel on the way home tonight.”
“Good. My stomach thinks my throat has been cut.” Charlie winced, thinking of the George Martin case in Houston. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”
Seth seemed to have noticed her demeanor. “I speak fluent hunger, no problem. Why the grimace, though? Thinking of a case?”
“One that has had me baffled for some time,” she admitted. “And I’m tempted to have Julio, my partner, send me some things on it so I can look him up here. The man was on his way to Mexico when he died, according to the one witness I have who knew him. I’d like to know what his business was here. I just think it’s strange that he dies en route, you almost die once you get here, and none of the information I’ve gotten supports a damned thing as far as motive for any of it. Does the name George Martin name ring a bell?”
“Nope. But both are common names, no?” Seth rolled his head from side to side, popping his neck. He groaned. “Hell, I don’t know. Not like I’ve read books on the subject.”
“If that’s even his name.” She rubbed her temples. “I’m starting to think that your family and his should go bowling, maybe come up with some believable scenarios as to why it is there is so little information on either of you and how Mexico figures into it.”
“One more thing.” He paused. “Where were you going with the conversation when you asked about the clothes in my closet?”
“Ah, yes.” Charlie tapped her forehead. “If you had any of Aldridge’s old clothes, his toothbrush, a comb, something with his DNA, we could compare it to yours. If that’s out of the question, we could always do a comparison of yours to Dorinda’s.”
Seth gave her a quick hug. “For that little gem of detective know-how, I’ll even spring for dessert. C’mon.”
“Do you have any of those things we can test?” she asked worriedly.
Seth thought a moment. “There’s a pair of shoes they missed in the back of one of the closets. I wasn’t sure whose they were and why they were there. Sort of forgot about it until now. There are watches and ties that would have fit either of us. Maybe those aren’t new?”
“Worth a shot.” Charlie chewed her bottom lip, thinking. “There has to be something else.”
Seth snapped his fingers. “Of course—tams, fedoras, golf caps. I don’t wear hats, at least I don’t think I do. But there are several on the top shelves of the closets—I put them up there when I saw them, because…like I said…not my thing. Surely Aldridge wore at least one of them. There has to be DNA in there that we could use.”
She thought a moment. “You said golf hats—that means…” Her eyes widened.
“Golf clubs!” they cried in unison.
“Yep, more fingerprints.” Then Charlie halted him. “We have to go back to the hospital and pull Dorinda’s medical files to get her information. It won’t be easy, considering what we went through to get yours.”
“Call your captain and have him get started on it,” Seth suggested. “We’ll eat, come back here, look up the assistant plastic surgeon, then check Marjorie Lawson’s hotel on the way back to our own.”
“You owe me a B&B when this is all over,” Charlie told him on the way back to their car. “A major bourbon and backrub.”
She stopped walking and faced him. “By the way, why is it you never drive? Not even before the accident?”
He frowned. “I have no clue. Maybe I’m a gigolo who enjoys being pampered.”
Charlie snorted. “As reticent as you are to initiate intimacy?”
He looked surprised and then hurt. “I wasn’t aware you wanted…”
“Skip it. Sorry.” Flustered, she did her best to change the subject.
When did this happen? You’re on a job—this isn’t a personal mission.
Once they’d eaten, securing Dorinda Wilkerson’s information was more difficult than they’d imagined. The hospital contacted the police, and their chief had to be placated by Houston PD and reassured that nothing the Mexican department had done was suspect, that the Texans were simply working a case involving possible deception on the part of an American citizen living there.
Charlie’s crime lab already had Seth’s DNA on file, so the results would be ready before the two of them landed in Texas after their weekend in Mexico.
“I must admit something,” she said on their way to the distressed area of Guadalajara where Rodrigo Martínez devoted his time helping inner city children. “People complain about their jobs all the time—I like mine, but I’m even more thankful that I work in Houston instead of here.”
She surveyed the crowded, graffiti-decorated streets as they passed through, conscious of the wary looks everyone between the ages of six and seventy gave them, staring, not only as if they distrusted them but as if they were contemplating pulling a weapon and taking their car. Even the kids looked capable enough to pull off such an act.
“I don’t think they see too many gringos in this neighborhood,” Seth said quietly. “You sure you want to get out? I could go in by myself.”
“Not a chance.” She tapped the gun at her side lightly. “I’m your detail, remember? You aren’t carrying a gun.”
“Maybe I know how to protect myself without bullets,” he said.
“And maybe you’re just full of it. I’m going inside with you. Our driver can lock his doors and call the zero-whatever number for emergency if he’s scared.” She snorted indelicately. “Might not be a bad idea to hand him the number to the American consulate in case we don’t come back in a timely manner.”
Their driver, whose name she hadn’t gotten, evidently spoke English. He’d been silent during their entire trip with him, but now he looked into the rearview mirror, his straightforward gaze catching her attention, and he spoke in perfect English. “We have concealed carry laws in Mexico.” Then he pulled out a massive pistol from beneath his seat, quickly and smoothly enough that Charlie instinctively grabbed her own gun. The look he shot her was humorous as he returned the gun to where he’d had it. “I have permits.”
Charlie and Seth exchanged surprised looks. The small, unobtrusive man who’d been driving them carried a firearm that looked as if it could put a basketball-sized hole in a tank.
“Where did you find him?” she asked quietly from the corner of her mouth, settling her Glock back into its holster.
Seth never took his eyes from their chauffer but shrugged. “Phonebook?”
“I thought it was impossible to get one of those,” Charlie ventured, speaking to their driver.
He grinned. “Not if you have the right lawyer. The size of the pistola is what can be questionable, but I belong to a sportsman’s club, so I have permission to carry this one and my
escopetas
… You say shotguns.”
“Ah.” She returned his smile, unnerved but unwilling to let him know. Yeah, the guy would be able to take care of himself and their car.
He stopped the sedan before a sickly-looking pink building that said Dispensario and announced that they were at the free clinic. Barefoot children ran, laughing, back and forth in front of the building, cocking their fingers like guns and pulling imaginary triggers. Shoving and pushing one another playfully until they spotted the adults sitting in the car.
Charlie popped Seth lightly on the leg, encouraging him to exit so she could get out. The sooner they completed their business in this part of the city the better, especially since it would soon be dark. The atmosphere was ominous enough with the impending thunderstorms. She’d heard the sky rumbling off and on for several minutes, and the swirling clouds overhead indicated a major storm, unless she missed her guess.
On their way from the car to the medical facility, fat raindrops fell on them and splattered near their feet. Charlie shook her hair once inside the door and shivered. Between the weather and that driver holding a gun that could fell a buffalo, she had gooseflesh. She rubbed her arms to take away some of the chill.
Seth chuckled. “Never underestimate the quiet ones. He’s probably got shoulder-fired rocket launchers, grenades and Belgian assault rifles in his car trunk.”
Charlie lifted an eyebrow. “You are definitely a Fed. I have yet to see you fingering fabrics or playing with a color chart, so the idea that you may be an interior decorator is moot.”
He opened the door for her. “Thank God. If it takes me several months to figure out I don’t have denim in the house, imagine how lousy I’d be at coordinating anything else.”
The inside of the building was even worse than the outside, with pockets of flooring ripped up and dirt where cement or boards should be. Charlie would be surprised if there was running water or electricity. The only thing she took comfort in was that there didn’t appear to be pestilence. Whoever cared for the building seemed to have made certain that as many precautions as possible had been taken to ensure the best health care for those who showed up, despite the impoverished conditions.
They walked in the general direction of voices that could be heard echoing down the empty corridors. The building seemed to be an abandoned school because there were small chairs and tables here and there, stacked in corners of empty rooms. Dusty bookcases stood sentry just within rooms where doors had once hung on hinges but where now only bolts jutted from broken, jagged frames.
She sniffed indelicately, her nostrils smelling and tongue tasting a weird mixture of antiseptic and old, cold dirt.
Seth touched her arm and pointed at an open door. Beyond the entrance, in a room lit only by natural light through dirty windows, was a man in a white lab coat and three people who looked to be a mother and two children, both boys.
Out of respect for the mother, Charlie held up a hand, silently requesting Seth to wait before entering. They waited, watching, as the doctor finished his examination and in hushed tones gave the woman verbal instructions and pressed something into her hands. Probably medicine for the boy.
The Mexican woman shepherded her children single file past the two Americans and averted her eyes while the doctor stared warily from inside the sparse room.
Charlie held out her hand and introduced herself. Seth did the same.
Dr. Martínez seemed frightened at first, then angry. He held up his hands. “I received a phone call from the state’s coroner yesterday, telling me you would be here.”
“And?” Charlie looked from him to Seth then back to the doctor. Were they already conspiring to hide evidence?
“There’s no need for your concern as to why you received the surgeries—you would have been disfigured, unable to go anywhere without causing a stir. Perhaps some of it was unnecessary, such as breaking your jaw when it was fine, but the skin grafts and such… We had to do this. As for who suggested your operations and who paid for them, I don’t believe there should be secrecy,” the doctor explained. “I am a good man. An honest man.” He looked at Seth. “I helped give you a better quality of life than you’d have had without the surgeries on your face.”
Charlie assured him that she and Seth never had any doubts of that. “We’re just here to find out who signed the paperwork for his surgeries, how you were brought into this, and why he was told his name was Mason Aldridge when it’s not.”
“The American woman insisted, and who were we to disagree?” Martínez asked. “She offered money, lots of it, if we would just perform the surgeries and not ask any questions.” He looked at Seth and took a deep breath. “I am sorry if this has hurt you, but you received the best medical treatment possible. We worked many hours—there were so many broken bones and the torn skin. We felt grateful to have been able to make you look as you do.”
He seemed to be examining his work as he spoke to Seth, lifting a hand to touch Seth’s face and turn it this way and that, slowly, like he was studying a fine sculpture. “You healed nicely.”
“Thanks.” Seth sounded as if he meant it, but Charlie wondered if she detected a note of hostility. Not that she’d blame him.
“You say this American woman offered you money?” Charlie asked.
“What she paid your chief surgeon, I have no idea—it is none of my business. As for me? Two hundred fifty thousand for a new clinic. We’ve started building but were shut down because of the rains last month,” explained Martínez. “The new structure is two blocks to the north.” He added, as if qualifying once again his part in the deception, “A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money in Mexico, especially for this community.”
“We don’t want to cause you any problems, Dr. Martínez,” Charlie told him. “We’re just looking for the truth so we can clear up some things back in Houston.”
Seth surveyed the room and nodded. “You and the people you help deserve a better environment. You won’t have any trouble from us. We won’t be involving the police, here or in the States.”
Martínez breathed what was obviously a sigh of relief. He nodded, and his eyes welled with tears. He choked when trying to speak. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Seth nodded as he spoke. “I do have a favor to ask. I need copies of my medical records, anything you’ve signed describing the procedures, who signed the permission slips, that sort of thing.”
“Of course. I’ll phone my office. It’s open tomorrow until noon if you can be there to pick them up by then. We don’t have a lot of money for postage to send them to the States for you.”
Seth shook the physician’s hand once more, then ushered Charlie out the door and down the hall. “I wonder how our driver is doing,” he commented.
The meeting with Martínez had been more emotional for Charlie than anything she’d encountered in a long while. She was glad Seth had put him at ease, that he hadn’t been upset. Many men and women would have raised hell had someone altered their appearance to the extent Martínez and his California accomplice had done. She could barely drag her thoughts from the medical snafu with Seth to the man waiting for them outside the door.
“As long he’s there and hasn’t left us,” she said. “I don’t know enough Spanish, even having spoken it on the job, to bail us out if we get into trouble here.”
They rounded the corner from the hall they’d taken and opened the door leading outside. To Charlie’s relief, their driver was not only there, he was tossing a ball with some of the children who’d been running in the street when they’d pulled up to the clinic. The rain seemed to have stopped momentarily. The streets were still slick, but the sun was peeking through the clouds.
Their driver said something to the children in Spanish, opened the sedan’s doors and within minutes had them moving out of the inner city and back to the highway they’d taken on their way there.
Charlie felt weak. She’d eaten hurriedly hours earlier, but the day’s events seemed to be taking their toll. She hadn’t had but a short while to assimilate the information they’d collected nor to manage her scattered thoughts on having Seth back. Several cases had drained her physically, but none had slammed her as emotionally as this one. She’d still not asked the police in Mexico about George Martin, whether or not they knew of him.
Nothing that can’t be handled once you’re back in Houston, Charlie.
She settled against the leather seat and tried stilling the thoughts that made her brain ache. Was there a connection between Seth and Martin? If so…what? Had they worked together? Were they both part of the same law enforcement agency, or had one been after the other in a sting operation of some sort? She’d have to ask Gloria, the witness, the woman who had come to her last year, saying she’d been a friend of Martin’s and believed she knew who had killed him.
Whenever Charlie had asked who, the woman had replied that all Martin had told her was that his boss was involved. But the man, Damien Rogers, had claimed Martin had only worked for him, that he knew nothing about his disappearance, much less his death. That had been over a year ago.
Seth reached for her hand and pulled it into his, lacing fingers with her. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering about the cold case I mentioned to you earlier. I haven’t spoken with the Mexican police about Martin, and I need to do that before we leave.”
“Can it wait until tomorrow?”
“It’ll have to.” She was immediately sorry she sounded so short. “It’s more important that we do what we’re doing today. I can always phone them from Houston or ask my captain to intervene.”
When he didn’t respond, she glanced upward. He was staring at what looked like empty space, and he had a faraway look in his eyes, as if he wasn’t there but millions of miles away.
“Seth?” She had to call his name twice before he looked at her.
“Hmm?” he finally responded.
She squeezed his hand. “We can’t handle the hotels and doctors as easily from home as we can while we’re here. I’m just cranky. This case has me baffled.”
He stroked the inside of her wrist slowly. “Sure that’s not all that’s upsetting you?”
An obnoxious thunderclap reverberated like a slap from God, its noise keeping her from answering. The car trembled, and their driver fought to maintain control. Rain seemed to fall in buckets, flooding the streets, slamming the windshield with a force that obliterated their vision. Charlie pitched against Seth, whose arms shot around her protectively.
The sky darkened so quickly that if she had blinked, it wouldn’t have been as fast as the change in the weather. For the first time since stepping onto Mexican soil, Charlie was frightened. Not of the people, the neighborhood from which they’d just come or not understanding the language and customs, but of the forces of nature that seemed angry enough to destroy them all.
She glanced at Seth. The last time he’d been in Mexico there had been a storm. He had to be thinking of that night, because whether or not he recalled the events, he remembered the irrevocable aftermath that changed his life. Maybe that’s why he’d seemed to space out moments earlier.
“Hey!” Seth called to their driver.