“President Thornton and I were on our way to a foundation luncheon.” Wells shared his smile with Mort and Jimmy. “She was just telling me your people re-classified Bastian’s death as a murder. We saw the police cruisers and Meredith suggested we stop to see if there’s anything new to be learned.”
The tumblers in Mort’s mind turned and reminded him who this woman was. Meredith Thornton, University President. He produced his best civil servant smile.
“We’re in the very early stages of our investigation. All leads are being followed. We’ll keep the public informed as necessary.”
The Lady in White nodded. She held her smile as her eyes bored into Mort. “I am more than the public and Professor Bastian was more than a colleague, Detective Grant. I’d appreciate it if you’d save your canned responses for the media.” She nodded to the dead and dried poinsettia. “I sent him those to wish him a happy holiday. It pleases me he knew I was thinking of him just before he…”. Her voice caught and she glanced away. “Just before he died.” She returned her gaze to Mort. “Fred Bastian was one of ours, Detective. You have the full resources and cooperation of every university employee in your efforts to unravel this tragedy.”
Carl Snelling chimed in. “I’d be happy to make myself available should…” His efforts were cut short by Thornton’s wave. She reached a manicured hand deep into her coat pocket and extracted a small leather folder. “Here’s my direct number. Call me with any new developments. I don’t care how small you think they may be. The university needs to be prepared.” She took a slow look around and Mort wondered what memories were preying on her. She turned and stepped toward the same door she’d entered.
“We’re late, Brad. Come along, Carl.” Meredith Thornton stopped and looked at Jimmy, who shook himself to attention and opened the door for her. She turned and gave them each a goodbye nod. Snelling trailed behind her, eyeing the watchful German Shepherd holding guard on the deck.
Wells stepped to Mort, then Jimmy to shake their hands. He handed each his own card. “Call if I can help.” He smiled apologetically. “This business has her upset. I’m sure she didn’t mean to come off so abruptly.” Bradley Wells nodded toward Bruiser. “Magnificent animal. Seems to be beautifully trained.”
“His bite is worse than his bark.” Jimmy’s voice was sharper than Mort thought it needed to be.
Wells stepped though the door and Jimmy closed it behind him.
“Wait til I tell Micki,” he said. “Think she’d let me buy her a drink to share the details?”
“Only if you could guarantee Wells would be joining you. And you might want to be a hair more diplomatic with the Man with the Golden Touch.” Mort zipped his parka and took one last look around.
“He rubbed me the wrong way.” Jimmy pulled his gloves out of his pocket.
“Guy like Wells buys and sells folks like us every day of the week, Jimmy. Don’t take it personally.” Mort shook his head. “But the lady president. Remember how Edie used to say some people gave her pause?”
Jimmy smiled. “She had a way with a phrase, that Edie.”
“She did indeed.” Mort missed Edie’s way with lots of things. “Let’s just say Meredith Thornton gave me pause.”
“How’s that?”
“All that stuff about Bastian being one of theirs. How glad she was that he knew she was thinking of him.” Mort headed for the door. “Doesn’t it seem curious that she didn’t ask how her friend was murdered?”
Lydia had to accept Mort’s invitation. Savannah’s suicide devastated her and the pressure to kill Cameron Williams was ratcheting higher. Her only hope for a way out was finding Private Number. For that she needed Mort Grant and a way to stay close to his investigation.
She walked into the bar of The Olympia Oyster House at 3:00 sharp. When Mort looked up and waved her over to a booth in the far corner, she was surprised the smile she put on wasn’t completely forced.
“Thanks for meeting me.” Mort’s face bore the lines of fatigue and frustration. “We need to talk.”
“About the case?” She slid into the booth and slipped off her parka. “How can I help?”
The waiter came before he could answer. Mort ordered a latte. She asked the waiter to bring her the same.
“You look as beat as I feel,” he said. “You’re off duty, I hope.”
“I’m fine.” She liked the way he was with her. Relaxed. Not afraid to show his weariness. “What are we talking about?”
“You.” He leaned back against the leather upholstery. “I didn’t want to do it over the phone.” He rubbed his hand over his face and Lydia’s pulse quickened. “When you came to my office, wanting to get involved with the Buchner investigation, my radar went off.” He looked her hard in the eye. “I knew you were lying. I just didn’t know why.”
Lydia glanced around the room and located the three nearest exits. “I told you. My reasons for wanting to be involved are my own. I hope you can respect that.”
He held her gaze. “It’s time to stop the bullshit, Lydia.” His voice was a notch above whisper. “You’re not Nancy Drew. You’re not Lois Lane.” He shook his head. “And Lord knows I’m not Superman. But right now I’m all you got.”
The arrival of their coffee allowed her a moment’s distraction. Mort waited for the server to leave before asking his next question.
“You think Savannah killed Buchner, don’t you?”
Lydia checked his face for deception and saw none. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s more bullshit.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “I’m a cop, Lydia. I’m investigating a murder. The time for secrets is long gone. Tell me what you know about Savannah’s role in all this.”
She kept her eyes away from his, ran a hand over the heavy linen tablecloth, and calculated her next move.
“Lydia, this thing with Buchner is bigger than you know and I’m afraid if you go it alone you’re going to end up hurt. Maybe worse.” Mort crossed his arms on the table and leaned toward her. “Here’s how it looks on my end. Tell me where I’m wrong.” Mort shifted in his seat. “Buchner’s murdered. You come to me out of the blue wanting to help. Next thing I learn is Buchner’s been mapquesting directions to your house and office.”
Lydia took in a sharp breath.
“You didn’t know that, did you? So much for those keen observational powers of yours.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So I ask myself, ‘What’s going on here?’ and I run a little background on you.”
Lydia shot a look to the nearest door and calculated the distance.
“All I come up with is a law-abiding citizen. And yet I’m still stuck with the link between you and Buchner.” Mort leaned back against the booth. “Which leads me to the next thing you don’t know. Buchner’s murder is tied to another one. Did Savannah ever mention the name Fred Bastian to you?”
She snapped her head up. He’d made the connection. She forced her hands and her eyes back to her lap.
“I see she has.” He drew in a long breath and took his time exhaling. “Imagine my surprise, when I find myself questioning Childress about the Bastian murder, you walk right into the interview. I learn Bastian’s right hand man has a fiancé and you’re her shrink. I mix that information with some other stuff I’ve got and I come up with only one answer.”
“What’s that?” she whispered.
Mort’s eyes softened. She wondered if he could sense her fear.
“We know about Savannah’s involvement with the politics over at Neuroscience. Her fiancé told us and we’ve verified his story with the professors who hired her.” He shook his head. “Interesting line of work she’s in.”
Lydia didn’t respond.
“Buchner was in possession of a recording of someone putting out a hit on Bastian,” he said.
Lydia forced herself to keep her eyes down despite her rising panic. Mort had Private Number’s synthesized voice from that night in the warehouse. What else did he know?
“Let’s say this someone’s hired gun was seeing a shrink down in Olympia,” Mort continued. “Said someone finds out, starts wondering what gets disclosed during all those confidential sessions, and decides to check you out.”
“Sounds like quite a story, Mort.” She did her best to keep her face passive.
She could feel Mort’s gaze. “The way I see it, Savannah kills Bastian. It might have ended there, but like the song says, she fooled around and fell in love. She wants to stay in Seattle and build a life with Childress, who, I’m sure, doesn’t have the faintest notion about his fiancé’s murdering ways. But there’s a bump in her road. Buchner could put an end to her happily-ever-after fantasy with one phone call to us about what’s on his recorder. So she decides to close the loop and shoots his face off.” Mort leaned forward. “I think Savannah let enough drop in your sessions that you started to wonder if your patient was a killer. And that’s when you decided to come see me and find out what was what.”
Lydia sat still as stone. “I don’t know what it is you want me to say.”
He waited a few moments before he scooted closer. His voice was soft, apologetic. “Maybe it’s time for me to put my cards on the table. Lydia, I know who you are. I know it all.”
Her bowels rumbled and she felt the bile rise in the back of her throat. Her breath left her as she frantically scanned the bar. No uniformed officers. No obvious back-up.
“What do you mean? Of course you know who I am.” She hoped her voice sounded steadier than she felt.
Mort kept his eyes on his coffee. “You were born Peggy Denise Simmons. Your mother abandoned you when you were nearly dead from her neglect and abuse. I’ve read your entire file. I know what you went through.” Mort looked up and Lydia saw compassion in his eyes. “I understand why you’re guarded, but I’m asking you to trust me.”
The cold winter rain of shame washed over her. She started to shiver. Mort reached behind her and pulled her parka up over her shoulders.
“You deserved better than you got,” he whispered. “But that was then and this is now. Let’s work together, Liddy. I’m afraid if you keep going it alone you’re going to find yourself in a heap of hurt.” He smiled. “I don’t want that.”
Lydia blinked her tears out of her eyes.
“Now how about you put your stealth shield down and let’s talk?”
She ran a hand through her hair and stared at the gentle man sitting next to her. A surge of warmth relaxed her core. She bit her lower lip and gave him a slow nod.
“That’s better.” Mort leaned back and took a sip from his mug as though the last few minutes hadn’t happened. As though the ignominy of her childhood had no impact on his view of her. “As soon as she’s able, I have to talk to Savannah. She’ll never know we’ve had this conversation.”
Lydia blinked and tried to find mental footing. “You don’t know? Mort, Savannah’s dead. Never regained consciousness.”
Mort reared back. “No one called me. Of course, why would they?” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small notepad and pen. “I’ll check back with Childress.” He put his hand on her arm. “Liddy, I’m so sorry. I’m sure you helped her all you could.”
She didn’t know what to think about that. All she knew was her patient was dead.
“Talk to me, Liddy. Tell me about Savannah.”
Lydia looked down at her hands and contemplated the gravity of revealing a patient’s confidence. Especially Savannah’s.
“You seem to know a lot about my past, Mort. Did you learn about my time in juvenile hall?”
He set his notepad aside. His voice soft again. “I did. Your record says you took a baseball bat to your foster father.”
“He was raping a six-year-old at the time.” Lydia kept her eyes focused on her lap.
“Yeah. I got that. The judge didn’t believe you.”
She looked up at him. “Do you?”
He met her gaze. “Yes.”
Lydia let her eyes drift across his face and allowed herself a brief fantasy of what life might have been like if she had a father who believed what she said just because she said it. She dropped her gaze back to her lap.
“Savannah was that little girl,” she said. “She tracked me down after all these years because she believed I was the only one who could save her.”
Mort blew out a low sigh. “My God. I can’t imagine what that was like for you. The pressure you must have felt.”
Lydia felt a surge of regret at her need to continue to lie. She told herself if she kept close to the truth her betrayal might be palatable.
“Savannah never actually said she killed anyone. But she told me she did awful things.” Lydia looked down at her hands, ashamed of her disloyalty. “Things where people got hurt, she said. She even said people died.”
“She give you any specifics?” Mort flipped his notepad open.
Lydia shook her head. “I didn’t believe her at first. I thought it was a dramatic ploy some patients use to hook their shrinks. But as our sessions went on, Savannah changed.”
“How?” Mort asked.
“Savannah was breathtakingly gorgeous. Beautifully groomed. Sophisticated in a way we don’t see in Olympia. She insisted there was something wrong with her that she wanted me to fix.”
Mort’s head jerked up. “She said that? She used the word ‘fix’?”
A flutter of fear caught at her throat. “Yes. Is that important?”
“Could be. Go on.” Mort scribbled a line on his pad.
“As time went on she became less fastidious about her appearance. Subtle things at first, but toward the end she was quite disheveled. She became focused on the deaths at the university.”
“When did that start?”
“Fred Bastian was the first one she mentioned. Said she was responsible for his death. I tried to assure her it was a heart attack. That’s how the papers labeled it. But she was beyond comfort.” Lydia’s breathing grew shallow and hurried. “Then when Walter Buchner died she became a complete mess. I worried that she might be experiencing a psychotic break. She kept talking about all the people who were dead because of her.” Lydia bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “But nothing specific. No names.”
“And you came to believe she killed Buchner.” Mort tapped his pen against his notepad.
Lydia could answer that question honestly. “I don’t know what I believed at the time, but she was adamant she was responsible.” She offered a small smile. “That’s when I came to see you.”