The Murder Book

by Lissa Marie Redmond

  I guess it pays to have a five-bedroom, four-bath house that your ex-

  husband gave you in the divorce settlement when you get stabbed, Lauren thought, still trying to wrap her head around the situation. Even my sister is here.

  Mrs. Healy gently took Lauren’s hand in hers, careful of the IV. “The doctors say if your partner hadn’t come when he did and given you first aid until the ambulance showed up, you’d be dead.” Tears welled up in her eyes, threatening to spill over onto her cheeks.

  “How are the girls?” Lauren motioned to her sleeping daughters. Erin gave a half snort and rolled face first into the arm of the chair. She’s nineteen now, but still looks like she’s twelve. Lauren drank in the sight of her baby for a second. It still caused a lump to rise in her throat when she watched her daughters sleep. Raising them as a working single mom had taught her to sneak moments with them whenever she could, especially late at night after a long shift, just watching them dream.

  “Relieved that you’re going to be okay.” Her mom clutched at Lauren’s hand with both of hers and the tears fell freely. “We all are. You’re going to be okay.”

  She bent forward and touched her forehead to Lauren’s shoulder and sobbed. After half a minute, she sucked in her breath and tried to get herself under control. She straightened up and smoothed the hair back from Lauren’s forehead. “You’re going to be okay,” she repeated, as though it were a mantra she’d been chanting to herself all night.

  A nurse popped her head in the door. “Glad to see you awake, my lady. Do you mind if I get some vitals from you?”

  Her red Crocs squeaked as she crossed the room, clipboard in hand. Suddenly Lauren was unmercifully thirsty. “Could I have some water?” she choked out as the young woman slipped a blood pressure cuff around her left bicep.

  “Let me check with your doctor and if he says yes, I’ll bring you some.” She squeezed, squeezed, squeezed the bulb, tightening the cuff.

  Lauren watched with detached fascination as the nurse, her ID clipped to her scrubs proclaiming her as Anna Dunkin, fastened a monitor on her index finger, swiped her forehead with a thermometer, and gently clamped down on her wrist to take her pulse. The nurse was one of those women who were as tall as they were round, including her chubby, cheerful face. This can’t be happening to me, Lauren thought as Anna checked the bandages on her tube. Who would do this to me? But she knew neither the nurse nor her mother was the right person to answer that question.

  “Am I at the Erie County Medical Center?” she asked Anna as she finished writing up her stats.

  “Yes, you are,” she replied in that placating, fake cheerful voice nurses adopt to soothe patients. “And half your co-workers are crammed in the waiting room down the hall. I hope no one has a cat up a tree in the city of Buffalo today.”

  “That’s firefighters,” Lauren replied.

  “See? She still has a sense of humor. Right, Mom?” The nurse gave Lauren’s mother’s arm a little squeeze. “I’ll find the doctor, tell him you’re awake and thirsty, okay?”

  Lauren nodded and watched Anna squeak out of the room. “Is it true? Are there cops here?”

  Her mom sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her arm, like she’d always told Lauren not to do, and said, “It seems like every cop in the city was here when we came in this morning. You were still in the ICU. The mayor was here. Mr. Church, the district attorney too.” She stopped herself for a moment to catch her breath before she went on. “Your commissioner met with your father and I as soon as we came in. What a fantastic lady. She told us, whatever we needed, she’d get. She ordered a policeman to guard your door.”

  Lauren looked toward the door. There was no window in it, only a fire exit diagram taped at eye level. There was sandpaper in her throat when she spoke. “There’s a cop out there now?”

  “It’s a different one every couple of hours.” Her mom leaned over and pulled Lauren’s pillow higher so she could sit up better. Lauren winced at the pain in her side as she tried to adjust herself. “I guess everyone wants to volunteer for the duty, to help. It’s very sweet. Every time I go downstairs for coffee, there’s a new face. It was very comforting while you were still unconscious.”

  The beeping monitor above Lauren’s head picked up steam. “You have to call Reese. Get him back here, now.”

  “Why? What’s wrong? What’s the matter, honey?” Her mother’s face turned pale at Lauren’s reaction. She reached over Lauren’s head and began hitting the nurse call button.

  “Because it was a cop who did this to me.”

  4

  Lauren was convinced she’d die of thirst before either the doctor or Reese showed up. Erin had woken up and put Chapstick on her cracked lips for her. They were so parched they were beginning to bleed. Even with the Chapstick, she kept licking at them, her tongue rough and dry, until Anna brought in a tan plastic pitcher of water. She would have foregone the whole cup and straw and chugged, but the nurse insisted she sip it slowly as she held the cup for Lauren like she was a baby. By that point she would have lapped at a mud puddle like a dog, the thirst was so powerful.

  Lindsey repositioned her pillow for her while Erin stood by with the lip balm. Their silence underscored the deep anxiety they wore on their faces. It was as if at any moment one of them would say something and both would slip into tears.

  “The doctor is on his way,” Anna told Lauren, refilling the cup. Lauren held the mask away from her face, waiting for more water.

  “How long do I have to keep this tube in?” The sight of the plastic sticking from her side made her want to gag a little. She tried not to think about it, but every time she moved she got a painful reminder. As a cop, she’d seen tubes sticking out of every orifice imaginable, but it was different seeing something like this come out of your own body as opposed to someone else’s.

  “He’ll go over all of that with you.” Anna lifted the cup back to Lauren’s mouth just as Reese burst through the door.

  “Look at you, partner! Sitting up, having a drink.” He gave Lindsey and Erin both quick hugs before making his way to the side of Lauren’s bed. Mrs. Healy put a hand on Reese’s shoulder and mouthed the words thank you to him, making Lauren wonder what everyone had been saying about her the last few days.

  “Reese, we need to talk—” she said and then coughed, which felt like someone was jamming ice picks in her chest, bringing tears to her eyes.

  “Slow down,” Anna admonished gently, pulling the cup away. Lauren wanted to reach out and snatch it back from her hand.

  There was a single knock on the door and the man Lauren took to be her doctor strolled in. He was in his mid-fifties, Asian, with jet black hair graying at the temples, combed straight back off his forehead. He had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his white coat and a stethoscope draped around his neck. “Awake and alert,” he smiled, drifting across the room toward Lauren. He glanced at all of her company. “And the gang’s all here.”

  “Girls, let’s go get some coffee so the doctor has some space,” Mrs. Healy suggested. Erin and Lindsey both brushed past Reese and gave their mom a half hug and kiss before following their grandmother out of the room.

  “How’s the pain?” the doctor asked. He was tall and carried a confident air about him, like having a knifed cop with a chest tube sticking out of her was the least of his worries. His name tag read Dr. Samuel Patel and the only initials she could swear to were “MD.” The rest she would have needed her readers for.

  “It only hurts when I talk or breathe or try to move,” she said to him quietly, trying to lessen the pain.

  He took her chart from Anna with a knowing grin. “You still have your sense of humor. That’s a very good sign.” Apparently losing your sense of humor was a one-way ticket to the morgue, Lauren thought as he flipped through the pages and made a couple of notes.

  Motioning toward Reese, she told the doct
or, “This is my partner, Shane Reese.”

  Dr. Patel clasped the chart behind his back. “Shane and I have gotten to know each other very well over the last couple days. He even promised to take me shooting down at your police range.”

  Pulling the mask way from her face so Reese could get the full effect, she said, “Suck up,” setting off a new round of coughing.

  “Easy, easy,” the doctor said, stepping up with the stethoscope, pressing the cold metal disc to her chest. “Breathe for me.” He moved the disc around. “Again.”

  Lauren dutifully sucked in and out as he pressed his scope all over her chest and back. Finally satisfied that she was indeed breathing, he pulled the ends of the scope from his ears and slung it around his neck. “Everything is sounding better.”

  “This”—she took a stuttering breath—“sounds better?”

  “So much better than when you were brought in,” the nurse agreed.

  “Can you excuse us?” Reese asked Anna, giving her his famous thousand-watt smile, but there was tension in his voice.

  She seemed to realize her overstep and became flustered. “Oh, sure. Of course. Lauren, I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.” A flush of red colored her chubby cheeks.

  “Thank you, Anna,” Dr. Patel told her as she rushed out the door.

  Poor kid, Lauren thought, she just wants to help. But this ain’t her party.

  “How am I doing now?” Lauren asked.

  Dr. Patel’s eyebrows knit together. “You were stabbed between your fourth and fifth rib, puncturing your right lung. You were also hit in the head with a blunt object—”

  “Probably a flashlight,” Reese chimed in.

  “Possibly a flashlight.” The doctor gave Reese a look to shut him up. “This caused a slight concussion. We inserted the chest tube to assist you with your breathing. It’s not permanent. You’re very lucky, Lauren. If Shane here hadn’t found you when he did, you probably wouldn’t be here to enjoy my company right now.”

  “I forgot my baseball hat,” Reese explained, his face getting red. “I saw you on the floor, you were turning blue and you weren’t moving. I thought you were dead already.”

  Ignoring the emotion in Reese’s voice, Lauren peeked under the thin green gown down at the chest tube sticking out between her right breast and armpit. “What’s this doing?”

  “Draining fluid. We don’t want liquid to accumulate in the thoracic cavity and cause pressure. Like I said, it’s temporary. Right now we’re mostly concerned with the internal scarring, but we’re watching that closely.”

  “No more bikinis for me.” Lauren turned her face away from the tubing, back to Reese and the doctor.

  “The scar won’t look that bad when you’re all healed up,” Dr. Patel assured her.

  “It looked pretty bad to me when I saw her lying on the floor,” Reese said.

  Dr. Patel reached over and gently felt the lump on the top of her head. “It wasn’t good,” he agreed as he probed. “But I still have to worry about the effects of the concussion as well. Do you know what month it is?”

  Lauren winced and the doctor pulled his hand back. “November.”

  “That’s good. How about the day?”

  Lauren shook her head. “It was November ninth on Friday. I don’t know what day it is now.”

  The doctor nodded and made a note on her chart. “Excellent. It’s Monday the twelfth.”

  “That’s Veteran’s Day,” she said softly, trying to picture the calendar in her head.

  “Yeah, thanks for ruining all my plans,” Reese joked. An Army veteran, he’d seen action in the Gulf. Veteran’s Day is special to him, and here I am, she thought, taking that away from him.

  Seeing the strained look wash over her face, Reese backtracked. “I’m only kidding. I didn’t have any plans, really.”

  Not believing him, Lauren tried to concentrate on the doctor. She’d make it up to Reese somehow. As if her getting attacked was an inconsiderate thing to do to him.

  “Do you remember Friday? What did you have for breakfast?” Sticking a finger up, he started moving it back and forth before she could answer. “Follow my finger with just your eyes.”

  Eyes sliding along with his finger, Lauren replied, “Nothing. I drank coffee until lunch. Then I drank more coffee with a sandwich.”

  The smile crept back over his face. “Good and how about the incident itself? Do you remember anything of that?”

  She shook her head. “I was typing. I heard the door, thought it was Reese. Didn’t bother turning around. Next thing I know, something hit me in the side and then someone was stomping on my head. Sorry, Columbo. No flashlight. The blunt object was a city-issue boot.”

  “A boot? Are you sure?” Reese asked.

  “I saw a black city-issue boot and the hem of our polyester uniform pants. I’m sure.”

  Reese took a deep breath. “This is what we know: someone stole Craig Garcia’s swipe card off his desk sometime Friday during the day when they were handling that homicide. He logged it as missing to our report technician, but she assumed he’d just left it at home again. She told him to look for it when he was done for the day and she’d put a message out in the morning if he couldn’t find it.”

  “There had to be twenty cops milling around Friday afternoon,” Lauren said.

  “At least. There were three scenes, two suspects, seven witnesses. It was a clusterfuck. They propped the door open and people were popping in and out half the day.” That was common practice since only a Homicide detective’s swipe card worked on the main door into the wing. They’d prop it open with a chair so the street cops could bring witnesses in and out. Then the cops would have to wait around to bring the witnesses home after they’d been interviewed. You’d have officers in the hallway, in the break room, sitting at detectives’ desks playing with their pens; it was chaos.

  “Did you get any kind of look at the suspect?”

  Lauren closed her eyes, tried to concentrate. “He hit me from behind. I went down, and he stomped on me. I think I blacked out for a second or so.” The rug, the legs of the chair, and the thick black laces slowly formed a picture in her mind. She opened her eyes to the blinding light of the window. “It was definitely a man. And he had the Murder Book in his hand. But I couldn’t lift my head to see his face.”

  “As far as I can tell, that’s the only thing missing. Whoever it was attempted to get into the file room. The camera on the door shows a shadow turning the knob, but the window is frosted. He must have gone into the Cold Case office to try to get the key and found you there.”

  “Who the hell would want to steal one of our files? It’s all fair game; even the public can file a Freedom of Information Act form and get a copy.”

  “You know that’s only partly true.” Reese gripped the rails of her hospital bed with both hands. “They’re still active investigations, so they wouldn’t get suspect information, crime scene photos, witness information.”

  She let out a dry breath. “Do you have any leads?”

  “We’re trying to narrow down exactly who was actually in the office, but it’s hard. The swipe card system only keeps records of people who enter, not who leave. And with the doors propped, we can’t even count on that. The department has cameras on the front door of headquarters and on the Cathedral side door, but not the Church Street side. We assume that’s how whoever did this got out.”

  “Through the Church Street door?”

  “Actually, there is a camera in that little hallway because that’s the door the prisoners still use to pick up their property, but it doesn’t show the street. It looks like whoever did this went through the underground parking lot, where the top brass keep their cars, onto Church Street. There aren’t any cameras in there, either.”

  Figures, Lauren thought bitterly, the brass doesn’t want anyone to know
when they’re coming or going. There are a gazillion cameras all over the city, but none pointed at them. And whoever attacked me knew it.

  “Could it have been someone impersonating a police officer?” It was Dr. Patel’s turn to play detective. “Anybody can buy those pants and some black boots at any uniform shop in the city. It’s not illegal.”

  Reese shot that idea down immediately. “Not a chance. You’d have to get into the building, get up into Homicide, steal Garcia’s swipe, and then hang around somewhere in the building, all while avoiding the cameras.”

  “It could be any cop in the department,” Lauren said. “You can’t rule anyone out. Not even the guys sitting outside my door right now.”

  “We have extra security in place,” Dr. Patel assured her. “One of our peace officers is at the nurses’ station, logging in and out everyone who comes to see you, including the officers guarding your door.”

  With a grim smile, Reese moved his Buffalo Bills sweatshirt to the side, showing Lauren his .40-caliber off-duty gun. He let the material fall back into place. “Nothing is going to happen to you while you’re in here.”

  “Who caught the case? Not you.” She knew Reese would be unofficially in control of the investigation because no one would be able to stop him, but the captain would have to assign a detective not as close to Lauren. Someone else had to be in charge on paper.

  “Joy Walsh is the lead detective on your attack. She’ll be here to interview you later today or tomorrow.”

  Lauren nodded. “She’s a good detective. Did she look into Craig Garcia?” It was a joke, of sorts. Everyone knew she and Craig didn’t like each other.

  Laughing, Reese said, “He was the first person to get interviewed and cleared. He was on Hudson Street doing a canvass for the homicide when you got stabbed.”

  Gingerly touching her side, she asked, “How long is this tube going to be in me? Will I be able to go back to work?” Lauren’s blue eyes met the liquid brown of the Indian doctor’s.