Acquired Motives (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 2)

by Sarah Lovett

  Matt acknowledged Begay, "I owe you one. What about an estimated time of death?"

  Begay shook her head, sighed, and set both hands on her hips. "I'll give you a range. Since he was involved in the Las Cruces warehouse explosion, the Blowout, he was alive two months ago."

  Matt gestured impatiently. "Right, now tell me something I don't know."

  With her little finger Lee Begay tugged on her ear, poker-faced. "He's been dead at least two weeks. Possibly a lot longer."

  "Two weeks?" Matt and Sylvia stood in stunned silence.

  Matt said, "But there's no decomposition—"

  "No decay," Sylvia protested.

  Lee Begay said, "Right. I've never frozen a body, but he weighed in at about one-eighty. Considering a time-to-weight ratio, I'd allow a week to freeze him to the bone. And probably close to that to defrost him. Your corpse was one huge ice cube. He's defrosting externally—his skin is pliable—but his organs are frozen."

  Matt kept his eyes on Lee. "Then he didn't kill Anthony Randall or Jesse Montoya?"

  "And he didn't attack me in the trailer." Sylvia pivoted, pressed her face against the glass, and studied Dupont White's corpse again. "Where would you freeze a body this size?"

  Begay said, "In a meat freezer after you move out the venison. He's got freezing artifact—marks, redness—where he was crammed into a tight space."

  Matt addressed the M.I.: "What was the cause of death?"

  Begay made a face. "I'm guessing. The bullet wound in his left shoulder. But that didn't kill him right away."

  "After he was shot, how long did it take him to die?"

  Begay shrugged. "You can't see from here, but the skin around the wound is sloughed off. It's puffy and black. That's infection. Sepsis. Gas gangrene. A clostridial organism."

  Matt tipped his head impatiently. He was thinking about Chaney's assertion that he had managed to hit Dupont White with one round at the warehouse. He said, "To die from gangrene, would it take days, weeks?"

  Begay frowned in consideration. "Several days."

  Sylvia pressed the M.I. "Could he have driven from Las Cruces to Santa Fe with a wound like that?"

  Begay's face was impassive, and her response was slow as she considered the facts and the probabilities. "It's not impossible. But I can't answer that question without more information. And I won't have more information, thanks to the feds."

  A door slammed across the room, and loud footsteps sounded. Sylvia, Matt, and Lee Begay all looked up in expectation of the federal agents' arrival.

  It wasn't who they expected.

  Dan Chaney didn't look as though he'd just driven over from F.B.I. headquarters. Sylvia sucked in her breath when she saw his face. Although he had made some effort to pull himself together, the fluorescent lights lent his skin a sickly greenish cast. Still, his hair was combed and he was clean-shaven.

  Chaney approached Matt and demanded, "Where's the body?"

  Matt took Chaney by one shoulder. "Dan, the Bureau's got agents on the way. They'll be here any minute—"

  Chaney pulled away, drawn to the window of the special autopsy room. He looked in, saw Dupont White's body, and spun around toward the door.

  Lee Begay stepped forward to stop Chaney from entering the chamber, but the federal agent moved too quickly. He jerked open the door, a gust of stinking air escaped, and then he was inside.

  The others followed: Lee Begay and Matt, to make sure he didn't compromise the remains; Sylvia, to watch his reactions.

  In the claustrophobic chamber, Dan Chaney came face-to-face with the man he had obsessively pursued for months. He stared down at his enemy. His voice was hollow when he said, "That's him." He glanced at the bullet wound in Dupont's shoulder. "I knew I hit him. Did I kill him?"

  Matt said, "Yeah, Dan. You got him."

  Chaney nodded, then he whirled around and exited the chamber as abruptly as he had entered.

  Sylvia followed Chaney out, and collided with him when he stopped outside the main refrigerator.

  A woman, an assistant pathologist, was wheeling a gurney through the wide refrigerator door. The corpse had purple toes; a white number tag fluttered from the largest digit. The woman looked surprised to see two strangers in her work area.

  "Dan, please." Sylvia took the big man by the arm. She managed to move him a few inches toward the exit door. Any minute, federal agents would appear. Sylvia didn't know what would happen to Dan Chaney if he encountered his fellow agents. Maybe they would leave him alone, but she didn't think so. She thought there would be a confrontation. And she feared Chaney would lose the last shred of control he had. She had a panicky feeling that he might end up dead.

  Sylvia said, "Listen to me. You've got to get out of here."

  Chaney turned toward her, and his eyes were blurred with tears. He gulped air, then lowered his chin.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway just as Sylvia felt Matt beside her. Then everything happened simultaneously. Matt pushed Chaney into the open refrigerator, two men in dark suits strutted through the STAFF double doors, and Sylvia held out a hand.

  She said, "The chief medical investigator is expecting you." With authority, she pointed toward the other side of the large room.

  The two federal agents looked slightly surprised, and one asked, "And you are?"

  "Dr. Strange."

  The agents crossed the room toward Lee Begay.

  Immediately, Sylvia gestured to Matt, and then the two of them ushered Dan Chaney—anchored between them like a prisoner—through the double doors and out of the autopsy area.

  Outside the building, in the night air, Matt exploded. "Goddammit, Dan. You almost got hauled in! What the hell are you doing?"

  Chaney pushed himself away from the others and swung around. He pressed an envelope into Sylvia's hand. He said, "Nathaniel Howzer was Roland White's attorney from 1970 to 1985. He drew up the papers when White adopted Dupont. And he knew Garret Ellington."

  Chaney was inching backward as he spoke. "The membership of the Gentlemen's Club is still a well-guarded secret, but I found out this much—Devil's Den Ranch was their playground—liquor, drugs, prostitutes, you name it."

  Matt jerked his head toward the building. "You better beat it, Dan. They'll be out any minute."

  Sylvia stepped toward Chaney, folding the envelope in her hand. "What about Dupont's cousin?"

  Chaney nodded, still moving. "Jayne Gladstone. I tracked her through 1989—she was eighteen—and she was sent to a private hospital in Phoenix. The hospital won't release her file without an official written request. But I did find out she'd tried to kill herself enough times, the family had her committed for almost a year. After she came out, I don't know. She died, she vanished, or she became a new person."

  Chaney was moving quickly now. Over his shoulder he said, "I wanted to kill that fucker Dupont with my bare hands. But goddammit, I got him. At least I got him."

  "KILLER IS A woman." Sylvia lifted her martini glass and swirled the last of the vodka gently.

  Albert Kove signaled the waitress for another round. He and his domestic partner, Carlos Giron, had snagged a table in the back corner of El Farol. Thirty years ago the historic adobe had been a rough-and-tumble pool hall. Before that it was probably one of several ranchitos that dotted the countryside around the Santa Fe River.

  Carlos leaned closer to Sylvia and frowned. "Who's a woman?"

  Sylvia turned to her left. "What do you think, Matt? Dupont's dead, and our Killer is a woman." Her words were slightly slurred.

  After leaving the O.M.I.'s office, Matt had driven them up to Santa Fe, to El Farol, for drinks with Kove and Carlos. Sylvia was hyper, but he was exhausted, and the sour smell of liquor, cocktail garnishes, and smoke assailed his nostrils. The long narrow room was dark and close. Murals had been painted on the interior wall years earlier. The thick adobe structure sagged and listed after a century of use. Usually he enjoyed El Farol's funky ambiance; tonight it left him depressed.

 
He rested his hand on Sylvia's arm and said, "Maybe you should lighten up on those—" He nodded toward the martini.

  "Why? I've got a designated driver." She shifted her body free and smiled at Carlos and Kove. She said, "God, I'm glad to see you guys. The last twenty-four hours have been totally insane."

  "We love you, too," Carlos said. He reached out his left arm and gently massaged her shoulder. "You are tense, girlfriend."

  "And hungry." Sylvia looked up as the waitress arrived with a large tray of tapas: red peppers and goat cheese, grilled chicken and garlic, roasted baby potatoes with leeks.

  A waiter set another icy vodka martini in front of Sylvia, who mouthed, "Bless you."

  Matt looked away, but Kove caught his eye and cocked his head quizzically. He kept his voice low and said, "She's letting off steam—and it's about time. Maybe you need a little down time, too."

  Matt shrugged and took the head off his Tecate.

  They began to eat—Sylvia selected peppers and cheese from the tapas plates. While she stuffed herself with food, she remembered childhood dinners at the old El Farol, an incarnation more recent than the pool hall. It had been one of her father's favorites—even with the occasional drunken brawlers. Her mother had preferred more civilized restaurants like the Palace.

  Carlos propped both elbows on the table. He knew about the "Polaroid murders" because Albert kept him informed of details that never made the newspapers. He was also an incurable thriller addict—an aficionado of all things lurid—and he couldn't keep the excitement from his voice. He said, "We know this guy Dupont didn't kill Randall or Montoya. So Kevin Chase did both murders, right?"

  Matt leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  "I'm not going to discuss Kevin." Sylvia drained her martini and started in on the new cocktail. "But it wasn't Dupont because he was dead . . . it had to be someone close to him . . . someone who took on his energy, his mission."

  "Do we get a clue?" Carlos asked.

  Sylvia popped an olive between her lips. "Jayne Gladstone."

  Matt shook his head. "Come on, Sylvia, that's enough."

  Carlos looked stumped. "Who is Jayne Gladstone?"

  Sylvia stared defiantly at Matt. "Jayne Gladstone is Dupont White's missing cousin."

  Albert Kove took off his glasses and rubbed the small of his nose. "Your female killer?"

  Sylvia said, "Dupont White was an exhibitionist with an avenger-destroyer complex. He documented each of his kills. It was his mission to rid the world of sex offenders. But he was also a federal informant—and each time he murdered, he rubbed the feds' nose in shit."

  She tightened her fingers around the base of the martini glass. "After he was wounded in Las Cruces, Dupont drove four hundred miles—he returned to Santa Fe to finish some business."

  "Business with whom?" Kove narrowed his eyes.

  Sylvia said, "Nathaniel Howzer, for one."

  "That's enough, Sylvia." Matt shook his head.

  Carlos popped a chile into his mouth and mumbled, "I can't see the judge stuffing bodies in his freezer."

  Kove said, "Hush, Carlos."

  Sylvia looked like an unruly child. She said, "But Dupont really came to find his cousin, Jayne Gladstone, because—ultimately—she was the person he knew the best. They shared the same family pathology, the same traumatic history—they both suffered the same abuse."

  Matt thought about the photographs of the two children that had been left at the Roadrunner Motel. Dupont White and Jayne Gladstone had not only suffered the same abuse, it had gone on for years. Those photographs hadn't been developed at any commercial lab, and Sylvia found the remains of a darkroom at Devil's Den—

  Sylvia's voice interrupted his train of thought. She was saying, "Jayne Gladstone came out of a psychiatric institution in 1989 or 1990 . . . with a new identity. Imagine she had an obsessive-compulsive overlay that made her outwardly functional."

  "Maybe highly functional,'' Kove interjected.

  Sylvia tapped the table. "But she was imploding internally."

  "And Dupont White appears on her doorstep." Kove nodded.

  Carlos blew air through his lips and said, "Like on The X-Files, when the alien monster jumps from one body to another." He took a drink of beer, and a foam mustache appeared on his upper lip. "Not a pretty sight."

  Kove winked at Carlos and said, "I love you because you have a special mind."

  Sylvia played with the remains of a pasilla pepper on her plate. Her hair was uncombed, her face free of makeup, and she looked like a teenager when she asked, "So why not Jayne Gladstone?"

  Kove took a small bite of mushroom. "A woman's got the best cover in the world."

  Sylvia stretched out her arms. She could feel the vodka relaxing her muscles; it was doing more than that—she was smashed. She stared at Matt as she said, "Any cop will tell you, women can be just as aggressive as men."

  Matt took a sip of his beer. "But they're not running around burning sex offenders—unless that's a new trend I haven't heard about."

  Kove clasped his hands and pointed both index fingers across the table in Sylvia's direction. "What do you typically expect from a male abused in childhood?"

  "Adult abuser: he becomes like his tormentor." Sylvia nodded her head impatiently. "And a female who was abused as a child typically is reabused as an adult. She sets up her own children for abuse. She becomes self-destructive. I know, Albert. I've worked with so many victims—and they all have the same eyes—like a deer caught in someone's headlights."

  "My point exactly. Victims, not perpetrators."

  Sylvia popped a green olive in her mouth. "What about Aileen Wuornos? She killed six men."

  Carlos said, "Equality at last."

  Sylvia suddenly felt deflated. She took a drink of her martini just as Kove asked, "What about Kevin's guardian—Jackie Madden?"

  Matt lowered his voice. "She could definitely be protecting Kevin." He thought briefly about the information he had gathered from and about Jackie Madden earlier that day. Because of Sylvia's personal involvement in this case, they had shared information. But he was glad he hadn't talked to her about the possibility that Kevin's guardian had been raped. Sylvia was drunk—talking too much—and this was not the appropriate time or place to discuss Jackie Madden.

  A waiter set a third round of drinks on the table and began to remove plates. Although Sylvia still had vodka in her glass, she switched to the fresh martini. As the waiter left, she bit into a green olive.

  Carlos spoke up: "Maybe your killer is a woman, Sylvia, but a man called you to the motel."

  Sylvia slipped her fingers around the stem of her cocktail glass, and vodka sloshed onto the table. "It sounded like a man. But a voice can be disguised."

  There was an embarrassed silence at the table. Then Matt said, "Sylvia, this Jayne Gladstone theory, it doesn't add up. Like Carlos said, it's like some bullshit from The X-Files—this woman becomes Dupont White?"

  "She doesn't become Dupont White. She becomes an avenging god. But it's not working—and that's why she left those photographs at the motel, that's why she left Dupont's body for the Killers' Doctor." Sylvia waved her arm angrily, and her martini glass flew from the table and shattered against the plaster wall.

  Abruptly, she stood up. "I need oxygen." She stumbled away from the table, her chair fell backward, and she moved quickly to the exit.

  Outside she gulped air. Her face felt hot, flushed by three martinis. A nicotine hunger shivered through her body. She began to walk up Canyon Road surrounded by the sounds and scents of night. In chorus, the elms whispered like tall, thin women. The musty scent of river plants hovered on the breeze. The faint sounds of laughter and applause spilled from a small restaurant where a wooden sign advertised MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

  Warm wind brushed Sylvia's hair from her face, and she was surprised to feel tears streaming down her cheeks. The images flashed through her brain—faces she saw when she could no longer find sleep. Faces of the dead
and faces of killers. Victims and abusers. Flora Escudero. Anthony Randall. Jesse Montoya. Dupont White. They haunted her.

  She whispered, "I can't do this anymore."

  A shadow became two shadows, lovers standing arm in arm next to the road. She felt their eyes as she passed.

  She moved quickly, almost frantically. Jayne was the good child, Dupont was the bad. Black and white. Light and shadow. Total polarity. A splitting off, until Dupont died. His death created a psychic black hole that sucked Jayne inside. There must have been other stressors in her life—pushing her toward the edge. Law and order had already failed her. And she took over Dupont's mission.

  Sylvia cried out when she felt fingers close around her arm. She jerked around and stared into Matt's face.

  He said, "What are you doing out here?"

  "I had to get away."

  "You're drunk."

  "Arrest me." She pulled away from him, exhausted, sick. She knew she sounded ridiculous. Her head was throbbing with pain. She held out both wrists. "I'll help you control this situation. Do your job—cuff me."

  He started to laugh, but the sound caught in his throat.

  She rambled on, "The problem is, I need to figure things out. . . I always need to understand, to evaluate every-fucking-thing and get inside it until I'm crazy." He shook his head impatiently. "Fine—"

  "I know who killed Anthony Randall and Jesse Montoya."

  "Right. Jayne Gladstone. We've been through this."

  "Erin Tulley."

  Matt jerked back as if he'd been punched.

  Sylvia reached out one arm. "Just listen to me. It fits. Jayne Gladstone is Erin Tulley. She's the right age. She's in law enforcement—she's been exposed to violence. State police gave her the structure she needed to contain her rage, until she turned against it—"

  Sylvia knew she was talking too fast. She swayed on her feet, hazy from alcohol. And Matt just stared at her like she was crazy.

  She drew back, stung by his reaction. "Why don't you say something?''

  "I'm thinking.''

  She squared her shoulders, ran a hand over her rumpled shirt. "What?"

  Matt sighed. "I'm trying to decide how much to tell you."