Garza shifted uncomfortably in his chair, saying finally, “It’s a term used to describe those few seconds before you die. You know that death is impending. You know there’s no way to avoid it.”
O’Mara linked her hands behind her back, said, “Doctor, an example of psychic horror is what that American journalist felt before he was beheaded by terrorists, isn’t that right?”
“If you say so.”
“Wouldn’t you agree that when Jessie Falk’s heartbeat tripled, she was scared out of her mind? That during those two to three minutes of horrific pain and terror, she experienced psychic horror?”
“She may have.”
“Only two to three minutes of horrific pain and terror?”
O’Mara paused. A rather long, uncomfortable pause.
Yuki watched the hands of the clock move slowly, knowing what O’Mara was doing. She was making sure everyone in the room felt how long it had taken for Jessie Falk to die.
Chapter 72
CINDY WAS THERE in the courtroom’s press row, her fingers scrambling over her keyboard, getting down most of O’Mara’s cross-examination. It was sharp, incisive, fat-free, and merciless. One of the best interrogations she’d ever witnessed. This girl is good, every bit as talented as Larry Kramer.
“Doctor, you’ve told us that the death of Jessie Falk was a mistake. Now tell us this. How did this mistake happen?”
“I really don’t know how the epinephrine got into her IV bag. It wasn’t ordered, but look,” the doctor said, leaning forward in the witness chair, exasperation coloring his face, “doctors and nurses are human. Mistakes happen. People die. Sometimes a bad wind blows.”
There was a gasp throughout the courtroom. Cindy’s nimble fingers paused on the keys. What had he just said? A bad wind blows?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
The collective gasp faded, and the room became as silent as a desert at noon. No one coughed, crossed their legs, or crumpled a candy wrapper.
O’Mara asked almost casually, “Did you have anything to do with this ‘bad wind,’ Doctor?”
Lawrence Kramer shot to his feet. “Objection! Counsel is badgering the witness. This has to stop.”
“Overruled. Sit down, Mr. Kramer.”
“What are you accusing me of?” Garza asked.
“You don’t get to ask the questions, Dr. Garza,” said O’Mara. “Fourteen of the twenty people whose families I represent were treated by you or died on your watch —”
Garza snarled, “How dare you?”
“Your Honor, please instruct the witness to answer.”
“Dr. Garza, answer the question.”
“I’ll ask again,” O’Mara said, her voice level, constrained. “Did you have anything to do with the deaths of those people?”
Garza drew himself up in the witness seat and stared hard at O’Mara. Cindy was thinking, He would shoot her if he could.
“I take the Fifth,” said Garza.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, I stand on the Fifth Amendment.”
Shock froze the faces of the jury; then the room seemed to explode with voices. Judge Bevins banged his gavel over and over.
“Thank you,” said O’Mara, a fleeting smile crossing her face. She even snuck a look at Larry Kramer. “I have nothing further for this witness.”
“What I meant to say . . .”
“That’s all, Dr. Garza.”
“The witness may step down. Court is in recess until nine tomorrow morning,” said the judge, slamming down the gavel one final time.
Cindy saved her file and stuffed her computer into her bag. Garza’s stunning statements were still repeating in her mind as she was swept along with the crowd moving out into the hallway.
Sometimes a bad wind blows.
I stand on the Fifth Amendment.
The doc had just written his own headlines.
And they were about to go nationwide.
Yuki was waiting for Cindy at the door. Her eyes were huge. It was as if she had just won this case herself.
“Cindy, do you believe what he said?”
“I sure heard it. That fool refused to answer on the grounds that he might incriminate himself!”
“He just admitted it,” Yuki said, her voice cracking. “That bastard is guilty, guilty, guilty.”
Chapter 73
THE SMELL OF FRIED STEAK and onion and ripe plantains greeted me as I pushed open the door to Susie’s. My friends were already in deep conversation when I got to the table.
I bumped Claire down the banquette and ordered a beer.
“What’d I miss?” I asked.
“I wish to God you could have been in court today, Lindsay,” Yuki said, her face animated, truly alive for the first time since her mother had died. “Garza blew himself up,” she said. “Spectacularly.”
“I want to hear everything. Don’t skip a word.”
Yuki had been drinking, for sure. She took me literally, impersonating both O’Mara and Garza, repeating their words verbatim.
Cindy jumped in, the two overtalking each other, until Claire and I simply cracked up.
Cindy plowed ahead. “Thing is—no, really, you guys! All he had to say was ‘Nooooo. I had nothing to do with those patients’ deaths.’”
“Instead, he takes the Fifth!” said Yuki, slapping the table. She was glowering but elated. “What a jerk, stepping on his dick like that.”
“If you ask me, his conscience made him do it,” Cindy added. “The more I dig into Garza’s past, the more I find out what kinda bum he is.”
“More on that,” I said, holding up my empty glass. Loretta winked, returned with a refill. She also dropped laminated menus in front of us.
“For instance,” said Cindy, “he left several of his jobs under a dark cloud. Not exactly ‘You’re fired,’ but definitely ‘Here’s your hat. There’s the exit.’ At least once, he ducked a sexual harassment suit.”
“Why am I not surprised that Garza’s a skirt hound?” Yuki said. “Arrogant bastard. Totally in love with himself.”
Cindy nodded vigorously. “And more to the point, too many ‘accidents’ happened to his patients. If I hadn’t heard about other cases like his, I’d say it was unbelievable.”
“See, this is what gives me the willies,” Claire said. “Only about one out of ten hospital mistakes ever get reported. Most of the time the mistakes aren’t fatal—so, no problem. The patient survives and goes home.
“But even when patients die under totally hinky circumstances, people think doctors are so Godlike, they just accept whatever they’re told. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Not me. I don’t feel that way anymore,” said Yuki, her smile clouding over. It was like watching an eclipse of the moon. “I don’t think Dennis Garza is a god. Quite the opposite. I know he’s e-vil!”
Chapter 74
YUKI LAY ON HER BACK IN BED, watching passing headlights splash patterns on her ceiling.
She’d woken up so many times during the night, she wasn’t even sure that she’d slept. Now, at a few minutes to 6:00 a.m., she was as awake as if a fire alarm had gone off under her pillow.
She threw back her blankets and went to her desk, where she booted up her computer. Three harplike notes rang out as she connected to the Internet.
She located his address on the first try. He lived less than a couple of miles away.
And he was e-vil.
Yuki threw her Burberry over her blue satin pajamas and took the elevator down to the parking garage, unlocked her Acura, and strapped herself in.
She felt exhilarated and reckless—as if she were about to step out onto the ledge of a tall building in a high wind in order to see the view. Gunning her engine, she dropped the car onto the steep downhill chute of Jones Street. Nothing ventured, right?
She braked at Washington, watched the cable car rattle along the rails, tapped her nails against the steering wheel. She anxiously waited another long minute behind
a school bus making a pickup before turning left onto Pacific.
Then Yuki picked up speed, thinking she hadn’t felt this crazed when her dad had died. She’d loved him. She’d grieved and she’d never, ever forget her love for him.
But her mother’s death was different. It was a wound to her soul, a gross violation as well as a loss. She would never get over Keiko.
The fog parted as she turned onto Filbert. She frisked the house numbers on the pricey block with her eyes, finding 908 halfway down the street.
The house was very tall, three stories of pale yellow stucco frosted with a white trim.
Yuki sat parked in her car across the street watching the morning brighten in a conventional way. She stayed there a long time, hours; she was starting to feel like a madwoman.
The FedEx man picked up a package. A Mexican nanny pushed twins in a stroller, a terrier on a leash trailed behind, ordinary activities that were now tinged with her own sadness.
Then the garage door of the yellow house opened. A black Mercedes backed out.
There he was. Creepy bastard.
Yuki decided to follow him, so quickly it felt more like an instinct than a decision.
The two cars headed south in tandem, down Leavenworth, flying through twists and turns, steep climbs, and drops until the sight of Municipal Hospital filled her windshield.
Yuki signaled to follow the Mercedes into the parking lot, when she saw a police cruiser in her rearview mirror. She gripped the wheel and tapped the brakes.
Had she been speeding?
She glided into an empty space at the curb, her eyes straight ahead as the cop car sailed past her.
With a shaking hand, she turned off the ignition and waited for her heartbeat to slow.
Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.
Her pj’s were soaked with sweat, the satin collar and cuffs peeking out from her raincoat. My God. If the cop had questioned her, what would she have told him?
She’d been stalking Garza!
Pedestrians crossed at the red light in front of her. Office workers with briefcases and steaming coffee cups. Nurses and doctors, their coats buttoned over their scrubs, feet in soft-soled shoes.
Everyone going to their jobs.
Yuki reached two weeks back into her memory, recalling going to her high-rise office, being an associate in a top law firm, being a young, fast-track litigator.
She’d loved her work. Now she couldn’t picture going to the office. All she was good for was obsessing about Dennis Garza. Thinking how in some way that monstrous man had killed her mother.
Chapter 75
I SAW THE DUSKY-BROWN ENVELOPE lurking inside the tower of mail in my in-box. I fished it out and slit the flap with the shiv I kept in my top drawer.
I read the report. Read it again to make sure I was right. Latent had pulled fifty million smudged partials from the caduceus buttons.
There was nothing even remotely usable in the batch.
I got up from my desk, walked over to Jacobi, who was unwrapping an egg salad sandwich, piling coleslaw and garlic pickles onto a plate for his lunch.
“Join me?” he asked, holding up a sandwich half.
“Okay.”
I dragged up a chair, shifted his piles of junk, and made a space for myself.
As we ate, I downloaded my humming mind, filling Jacobi in on Yuki’s charge that her mother had been murdered at one of the city’s most revered hospitals.
I told him the rest of it—my conversation with the nurse at Municipal and about the caduceus buttons I’d scored from Carl Whiteley during our executive-suite fandango.
I kept talking, and Jacobi didn’t stop me. By the time I got to the malpractice suit, he’d broken out the box of Krispy Kremes. Put a chocolate glazed on a napkin in front of me.
“So, what are you thinking, Boxer? You thinking like a lieutenant, or an investigator?”
“The only autopsy report we have is Keiko’s.”
“And how did Claire call it?”
“Without any evidence to the contrary? Pending, until all the facts are in.”
“So, what am I missing here? Where’s the tie-in with Garza? You girls don’t like the way he looks?”
“He’s very handsome, actually.”
I told Jacobi that Keiko, like the patients in the malpractice case against Municipal, had entered the hospital through the ER—Garza’s turf.
This was also true of thousands of patients who survived, checked out, and, for all I knew, lived happily ever after.
“I have to find something in Municipal’s list of doctors, nurses, and maintenance staff that will either explain away my uneasy feelings or solidify them,” I said.
“So, what do you want from me, Boxer?” He crumpled up the rubbish from our lunch, dunked it into the trash can.
“I need you to work overtime.”
“Tonight?”
“Unpaid overtime.”
“Aw, jeez, Lieutenant. I just remembered. I’ve got opera tickets. . . .”
“Because I’ve used up my overtime budget for the month. Because I don’t have a bona fide victim. And because I don’t even know what the hell this is.”
Jacobi caved, knowing I’d do the same for him.
As the day shift stumbled out of the squad room and the graveyard shift trickled in, Jacobi and I ran the names of six hundred Municipal employees through the database.
We uncovered doctors with spotty medical histories and rap sheets on lower-level staffers for domestic violence, assault, armed robbery, drug abuse, and DWIs aplenty.
My DeskJet spat out a summary of the “button” victims.
I read it to Jacobi.
“All thirty-two patients came through the ER, and half were examined by Garza.
“They were black, white, brown, and every color in between. Ages seventeen to eighty-three and the timing of the deaths over the last three years appears to be random.”
“So, Boxer. What you’re saying is there’s no victim profile. If the thirty-two ‘button’ patients were actually whacked—a big fat if, by the way —”
“You’re right. I’m stumped, pardner. All I’ve got is this weird signature, and it’s the only thing that ties the victims together.”
Jacobi had a coughing fit, his still-healing gunshot wound pinching his lung and giving him hell. He weighed down the stack of papers with a stapler and stood to put on his jacket.
“Just stating the obvious, but nobody is saying homicide except Yuki. What’s she basing it on? She hates the guy?”
“I take your point, Warren. But buttons on the eyes of dead people means something. Talk me out of it if you think I’m crazy. Because I just can’t put this out of my mind.”
Chapter 76
I THOUGHT ABOUT the sick mind that had to be behind those caduceus buttons as I drove home that night. Wondering again if Yuki and I were paranoid or if we were right: a very strange killer was murdering patients at Municipal Hospital.
And no one was stopping him.
No one was even trying.
I arrived at the front door of my apartment barely remembering the drive there. I completed my pit stop in record time, and soon I was back in the Explorer, heading toward the hospital.
The crime scene—the homicide scene?
I parked near the entrance to the ER and went inside, where I hung around the waiting room for a few minutes, flipping through an ancient issue of Field and Stream, blending in with the visitors sitting around me.
Then I took a little stroll.
The corridor was lit with a flat white fluorescence. Patients moved around carefully with their canes and IV poles. The medical staff walked purposefully, eyes straight ahead.
I kept my hands in my pockets, my baseball cap down over my eyes, hoping that the bulge of my Glock wasn’t noticeable under a soft, zippered jacket.
I honestly had no idea what the hell I was looking for.
Maybe if I poked around, something would click, and the deaths
and stats and tantalizing clues would add up to an honest-to-God serial crime, possibly the worst ever in San Francisco.
At the same time, I had no business surveilling the hospital. I was a homicide lieutenant, not a freakin’ PI, and Tracchio would rip into me if he knew I was haunting Municipal on my own.
That’s what I was thinking when I took a corner and slammed into a man in a white coat with medium-long black hair. I knocked a clipboard right out of his hand.
Christ!
“Sorry,” I said.
Then I nearly jumped out of my shoes. I’d thought of him often, but I hadn’t seen Dr. Garza since the day Yuki and I brought Keiko into the emergency room.
The doctor picked up his clipboard and fixed his hard black eyes on mine. It was a challenge, and I felt a nearly overwhelming impulse to throw him against the wall and cuff him.
You’re under arrest for being a supercilious son of a bitch, for giving my friend nightmares, and for being a likely suspect in an unspecified number of suspicious deaths that might or might not be homicides. Do you understand your rights?
Instead, I balled my fists up inside my jacket pockets and stood my ground.
“I know who you are,” Garza said. “Police lieutenant. Friend of Ms. Castellano. She’s a little overanxious, wouldn’t you say? Having a hard time with her mother’s death.”
“My friend is fine,” I told him. “But I’m not so sure about you.”
His face cracked in a crazy grin that left us both in a paralytic standoff that was finally broken by his name blasting over the PA.
“Dr. Garza wanted in the ER.”
We stepped out of each other’s way.
“I have work to do,” he said.
Chapter 77
LAUREN MCKENNA took a quick breath, then knocked on the door. She waited anxiously in the carpeted hallway of the hotel, her stomach churning, thinking she was out of her mind to do this. Absolutely nuts.
She stared down at her gold pumps, the fake croc shoes a witty touch with the silk chiffon skirt, wondering if he’d notice—and then, a split second later, going the other way again, thinking it wasn’t too late to change her mind and get the hell out of there.
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