Home Sweet Murder

by James Patterson

  “Four of the five victims were stabbed in the neck and the knives left there,” Mois said as he used a pointer to indicate Tom, Shirlee, and the Brumbacks. “The fifth—Joy Blanchard—had two knives stuck into her head. We remain unsure if this killing is related. There are differences in the attack. Foremost, the stabbings seem random, not focused on the throat. And, Ms. Blanchard was probably already dead when the knives entered her skull. In the other cases, the killer seemed to be searching for the carotid arteries and jugular veins. The killer knew what he—or she—was doing. It’s the kind of thing a doctor or medical student would know how to do.”

  Mois nodded for the next slide. A new photograph flashed on the screen: William Hunter standing with Roger Brumback, their arms slung over one another’s shoulders at some kind of professional function. Big, happy smiles from both men.

  “Two doctors from the pathology department at the Creighton School of Medicine. Colleagues who are also linked by these murders. Why?”

  With a wave of his hand, Mois signaled two officers standing at the doorway to enter. They wheeled in a cart containing stacks of large banker’s boxes labeled CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY PERSONNEL. The men began lining the boxes up on a table directly in front of the podium.

  “We’ve requisitioned all of the university’s personnel files from the mid-eighties to present day,” Mois said. “Yeah, there’s a lot of them—and we have more documents that exist in digital form only. But we need to comb through every file and read every single page—from staff evaluations to recommendation letters to disciplinary actions. We need to find someone with a grudge against Dr. William Hunter and Dr. Roger Brumback.”

  Another murmur rippled through the assembled task force. The scale of the project seemed immense, even with the considerable manpower on hand.

  Mois gave his audience a sympathetic smile. “This is going to be tedious, it’s going to be boring, it’s going to be extremely time-consuming. This isn’t the glamour part of police work. But it’s absolutely essential.”

  He paused for a moment then nodded back at Alex. The screen went back to the original image of the five victims.

  “Your efforts will help lead us to this killer,” Mois said. “He’s somewhere in one of these boxes. So, let’s dig in. Let’s find the justice that these five people deserve.”

  Chapter 22

  Life and death—and every possible issue in between, from major to minor to downright petty.

  That’s all Mois could think after a full day of plowing through the Creighton files. Pay raises, pay disputes, maternity leave, insubordination, promotions, demotions—the different types of paperwork that had to be processed were endless. Mois stared at the document in front of him: an employee complaint to HR stating that she was lactose intolerant and unable to eat the ice cream cake that had been served at an office birthday party. If she’s not psycho enough to hold a murderous grudge, I don’t know who is, Mois thought.

  He looked up tiredly and saw through the windows that ran the length of the room that night had fallen without his even noticing. After over eight hours of working, the team was only about a third of the way through the file boxes that lined the front table. Most of the staff had left for the day.

  Mois glanced over at Negron, who was seated next to him and examining a sheaf of papers. She looked bleary-eyed but intent.

  “Whaddaya got?” he asked.

  “An expense report from an obstetrician,” Negron said. “He tried to pass off a $242.00 bar charge as a client meeting. Wouldn’t his clients be pregnant women? And he was getting them drunk?”

  “Sounds like he was trying to engage in some ‘fertility research’ to me,” Mois laughed. “Let’s shut down for the night. I’m gonna be seeing payroll analysis reports in my sleep.”

  With a sigh, he checked how many documents there were left in the May 2001 file that was open in front of him. Since there were only five or six remaining, he forced himself to do a quick scan. After going through several, he read the front of a two-page letter. He then turned the page.

  What he saw made him stand up from his chair.

  “Alex!” he said to the IT wizard who was wearily scrolling through some of Creighton’s digital files. “Run a PD check on a guy named Anthony Garcia.”

  Alex gave a limp mock salute and, showily yawning, launched a search.

  “Whadda you got?” Negron asked, curious at Mois’s apparent excitement.

  Mois handed her the paper. “In 2001, a resident named Anthony Garcia was fired. Here’s his termination letter.”

  Negron took it and quickly skimmed the letter aloud: “‘Dr. Garcia is very passive/aggressive…He has repeatedly shown a marked lack of initiative and interest…Dr. Garcia takes no responsibility for his cases…His knowledge is very poor.’ Geez, not exactly Employee of the Month material.”

  “Turn the page. Look who signed it.”

  Negron did a startled double-take. “Dr. Roger Brumback—and Dr. William Hunter!”

  Mois took the letter back and began pacing as he ran over the implications. “This is pretty damning stuff, could be basis for a grudge. But the date…This was written so long ago—seven years before the Hunter-Sherman murders. Why wait so long if the killings were payback for getting fired?”

  Just then Alex gave a low grunt.

  “Found only one Anthony Garcia, and he’s a real piece of work,” he said. “Multiple DUIs. Nuisance calls to the police. Disturbance complaints from his neighbors.”

  “Anything violent?” Mois asked.

  “Doesn’t look like it. But he’s a definite ‘sooner or later’ case, if ya ask me,” Alex replied with another yawn.

  “Keep digging,” Mois said as he checked his watch. “I wonder if it’s too late to call Dr. Hunter about this guy?”

  “Hold on, let’s check something else,” Negron said as she quickly tapped into her laptop. “Alex, see if there’s a Creighton employee photo for Garcia. If not, do a DMV check on that name.”

  Now aware that something important might be going down, Alex shook his head to fully wake himself and grabbed one of the back-up drives that the university had provided. He entered a search for Anthony Garcia. A dizzying row of results came up; Alex narrowed the field to “jpeg” and after a few seconds a color head shot popped up.

  “Bingo!” Alex exclaimed. “Damn, that was fast—even by my standards. Looks like this is the photo used for his staff badge.”

  Mois looked over at the monitor and slapped the table top.

  “Bingo is an understatement!” he said excitedly. “Negron, I’m thinkin’ this guy looks just like—”

  “The original artist’s sketch,” Negron said as she turned her laptop around to display the five-year-old drawing of a dark-haired, dark-eyed suspect.

  It was a nearly exact rendering of the man who stared back from the Creighton University School of Medicine ID badge—right down to the small, beady, cruel eyes.

  Chapter 23

  “It’s the same killer, isn’t it?”

  Dr. Hunter asked the question with eyes full of both hope and fear.

  Mois hadn’t even crossed the threshold of the doctor’s office door before Hunter spoke. Of course, it would already have occurred to him, Mois realized. That the person who killed his son might also have killed his colleague. Hunter must have spent the past five years with Tom’s murder always at the forefront of his mind. Every crime reported in every news story was a possible link to the person responsible for his child’s death. But Mois was sure Hunter had never before imagined that another crime would touch him so closely, so horribly.

  “It’s a definite possibility,” Mois said in a measured tone as he came into the room. The office was brightly lit, unlike the last time he’d been there; sunshine streamed in from an east-facing window. The sunniness made Mois feel slightly uneasy, as though his presence brought in a dark reminder of past pain.

  “There are some strong similarities in the killings of your son, Shirlee She
rman, and the Brumbacks,” Mois confirmed. “And we’re looking at a potential suspect. Do you remember a doctor here named Anthony Garcia?”

  Hunter gave a start and sat forward. “Yes, sure. He was a resident. But we let him go from our program, years ago—at least eight or nine. In fact—”

  With a businesslike pivot, Hunter picked up his glasses from the desk and turned to his computer keyboard. He began methodically searching his files. “Let’s see…Yes, Anthony Garcia. Fired in 2001 for trying to sabotage a colleague’s medical exam. Oh lord, that was a mess…I remember his attitude was very poor. He had a history of treating staff members with rudeness and aggression.”

  He turned to look questioningly back at Mois.

  “Garcia was a terrible employee but…why would you think he’s responsible for the—the killings?” Hunter asked, cautiously—as though he wasn’t sure he was fully prepared for the answer.

  “It’s possible that Garcia might hold some sort of grudge against you. But it’s just a possibility,” Mois emphasized. “Do you remember anything about this guy that might suggest he’d be capable of violence?”

  Closing his eyes, Hunter rubbed his forehead for a moment; this out-of-the-blue possibility had clearly shaken him. But after a moment, he briskly turned back to his computer and flicked through more files.

  “We’ve had so many residents since then. Let me just go through his history,” Hunter said while reading from a document onscreen. “Okay, yes, there was another incident: Garcia mishandled an autopsy case, the body of an obese woman. He left her in the refrigerated chamber lying facedown. The poor woman’s body became horribly disfigured—the family was unable to have an open-casket funeral. An inexcusable mistake. That’s something a first-day medical student would know not to do!”

  Mois nodded sympathetically, in a way he hoped would hide the frustration he was feeling. So far, it was a stretch to connect a lousy employee to a vicious murderer.

  “I see. It sounds like—well—like these are all examples of poor performance or judgment, but they don’t really suggest a violent or vengeful person.”

  Hunter shrugged helplessly. “I just don’t know. But he could certainly hold a grudge. He took everything very personally. Except his duties. He once got into a screaming match with Chandra—Dr. Chandra Bewtra. He refused to apologize and after that would never directly address her. It was very childish.”

  “Did he ever threaten that doctor or anyone else?” Mois asked intently. “Has he ever come back here?”

  The doctor was beginning to seem overwhelmed by trying to recall his past associations with Garcia.

  “Ah, I don’t know of any threats. I’m sorry. And I don’t know why he would ever have come back here. No one liked him,” Hunter said as he continued clicking through files, a little desperately now. “Oh, there was this: Garcia failed his residency. Which, of course, we had to report.”

  “What does that mean?” Mois asked, his interest piqued.

  Hunter again rubbed his forehead. Mois noticed that his hands were shaking, and feared the questions and the disturbing possibilities they were raising were torture to the doctor.

  “In order to issue a medical license,” Hunter said carefully, as though trying to connect the dots he was presenting. “The state board has to verify a doctor’s training. It’s routine. But Garcia failed his, miserably.”

  Hunter continued clicking through files—more quickly and with growing frustration.

  “I know I have some correspondence here. I’m sure I kept it,” the doctor said as he squinted over an email chain. “Here! Garcia protested the result of his test…Then Dr. Brumback responded to a board inquiry in September of 2007 and then I—”

  The doctor froze. He then slowly turned to Mois with an ashen face.

  “I responded to another inquiry in February of 2008.”

  The meaning behind that date became instantly clear to both men.

  “The month before Tom was killed,” Mois said.

  “Do you think that’s it?” Hunter gasped, looking flabbergasted. “Garcia blames us for keeping him from being a doctor?”

  Mois raised his hands, trying to calm the now thoroughly shaken man across the desk from him. “Maybe. But this does suggest a motive—a motive a very sick individual might act upon.”

  Hunter collapsed forward, his hands covering his face as sobs racked his body. Mois realized he had brought much more into this room than a dark reminder of the past; he’d brought in a dark present, a new living hell.

  “Dear God,” Hunter cried, choked with reborn grief. “Why didn’t the bastard just kill me?”

  Chapter 24

  “Okay—admittedly, I did make the mistake of saying this once before,” Negron excitedly said to Mois as he entered the task force room. “But, this Garcia guy checks all the boxes!”

  The conference room was buzzing with staff. About twelve personnel were working the phones, doing online searches, or continuing to plow through the Creighton files—in some cases, all three simultaneously. Mois noted that a large map of the Midwest had been tacked up on the back wall. He gave Negron a nod as he took his seat at the front table.

  “Actually, I don’t think you’re jumping the gun this time, Terry,” Mois said as he booted up his laptop. “Looks very much like Garcia is our guy.”

  As he started silently typing up his notes, Negron gave him a puzzled look.

  “Wow, keep your excitement level in check,” she said sarcastically. “Remember your nonexistent heart condition.”

  Mois kept typing away without looking up. “I just came back from seeing Hunter. The disciplinary actions he took against Garcia absolutely suggest that this guy holds him and Brumback responsible for torpedoing his career.”

  “That’s great!” Negron exclaimed. “I mean—isn’t it?”

  With a long sigh, Mois indicated for Negron to take a seat next to him.

  “It is great—for us. We finally have our motive. But…you gotta see that it’s devastating for Hunter. His son, housekeeper, close colleague, and the colleague’s wife all may have been murdered because of his interactions with a disgruntled employee.”

  Negron frowned thoughtfully as she took in how shattering this revelation must have been for the doctor.

  “But—he can’t blame himself,” she protested. “Whatever actions he took against Garcia were required of him—he was doing his job! Just like we are.”

  “You know that, I know it,” Mois agreed. “But I’m not sure Dr. Hunter ever will.”

  Just then, Alex came bounding over clutching a printout.

  “Got new intel on Garcia from DMV!” he said, clearly stoked. “In 2001, he registered a vehicle: silver Honda CRV! At this point, I’m thinking case closed! Am I right, people?”

  He held his palm up for a high-five, but the preoccupied Mois and Negron barely looked up and gave brief nods. Alex stood there for a confused moment.

  “Okay, take two: Am. I. Right?” he demanded again, this time with both palms held out. Mois and Negron laughed in spite of themselves and reached over to slap his palms.

  “Good work, Alex,” Mois said. “I’m beginning to think you’d make a pretty good detective.”

  “Which is making me feel really threatened,” Negron teased. “So please get back to your gigabytes or interfacing or whatever.”

  Gratified, Alex grinned widely as he returned to his workstation.

  “Okay, sir,” Negron said decisively. “We still have a lot of work to do to prove our case—against Garcia and for Hunter. The doctor is going to feel a lot differently when we bring this psycho to justice.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Negron gathered individual papers from several files.

  “We’ve traced some of Garcia’s movements after he got fired from Creighton,” she said. “He initially went to live in California—apparently with his parents. Shortly after, he declared bankruptcy…Then he went to Illinois. Records show that he got a license to
prescribe controlled substances there. That has since lapsed…He then went Louisiana, but it doesn’t look like he was there for very long.”

  She put her papers together with brisk efficiency. “I’d say that’s not bad, considering we’ve had less than thirty-six hours. Oh, and I filed a warrant to get his cell phone records to find out where he is now. Murkowski should be receiving them any time.”

  Mois pulled one of the sheets from her pile and looked it over.

  “This all tracks with what I found out,” he said as he compared his own notes. “The HR manager at Creighton was able to pull up a lot of email correspondence relating to Garcia. She told me he applied for medical licenses in all three of those states you mentioned and—incredibly—kept giving Hunter as a reference. But every time the boards contacted the doctor he wouldn’t give a recommendation. Garcia went to Louisiana for a consulting gig in the LSU psych division but he neglected to mention that he’d been fired from Creighton, which came up in a background check. So, they canned him.”

  “And Brumback?” Negron asked. “Was his involvement just cosigning the termination letter?”

  “Dr. Brumback responded to a board inquiry about Garcia somewhere along the line. I’m guessing he probably also refused to give a recommendation.”

  Mois replaced the various documents and drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.

  “I think the revenge plot was festering in Garcia’s mind for years,” Mois said thoughtfully. “He kept running into the same wall every time he tried to get a new job—that termination letter and no recommendations. Hunter was the primary motivator for his revenge plan. And in Garcia’s thinking, he took care of the doctor by killing his son. Shirlee Sherman was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Garcia has continued to face those same exact rejections over the ensuing five years. So, he eventually needed to find another target for his frustrations: Dr. Brumback.”