Tomorrow was visiting day.
Kelly was accustomed to the smell of hospitals, but she never got used to the cloying aroma in the hallways of the Peninsula Oaks Healthcare facility. The parent company in Dayton had done extensive consumer research regarding every aspect of the facility’s décor, including the fragrance of the freshener they used. They concluded that the smell of ylang-ylang was the most soothing, but Kelly always associated it with this place, and in turn with her sister’s bleak condition. To her, ylang-ylang was annoying as hell.
It was Sunday; the day when family members came to visit out of love, guilt or a combination of both. Most of the visitors chose to come after lunch, since the mornings were busy with physicians doing their rounds and patients being readied to be put on display. Kelly came early so she could spend some quiet time with Jess, and because she had an appointment in the afternoon that she couldn’t be late for.
As Kelly grabbed hold of the door handle to her sister’s room, she took a moment to brace herself. It was never easy to see Jessica in her condition, but Kelly made it a point to always greet her with a reassuring smile. When she entered the room, her smile quickly faded and turned to alarm. Jessica’s bed was empty.
Kelly ducked out of the room and looked down the hallway to see a man with dark, slick-backed hair pushing her sister in a wheelchair. It took her a moment to realize that the man was Tommy Moretti!
She yelled for him to stop, but the man paid no attention. If anything, he seemed to speed up, heading directly for the exit door at the end of the hall.
“STOP!” Kelly raced down the hallway. Benedetto had been right. Moretti had targeted her helpless sister. Kelly’s worst nightmare was playing out right in front of her eyes.
She caught up to him just before he could roll Jessica outside. Kelly roughly grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.
It wasn’t Moretti, and the woman in the wheelchair wasn’t Jessica.
The man pulled out his ear buds and loud rap music blared forth. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
An embarrassed flush crept across Kelly’s face. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I thought you were someone else.”
Ms Spiro had come around the corner in time to witness the incident. “Is there a problem here?”
Kelly sputtered, “No… I… uh…”
Ms Spiro pasted on her patented meaningless smile. “Dr Harper, this is Frank Pace, our new physical therapist. He specializes in neurological PT. Frank, this is…”
“Jessica’s sister. I can see the resemblance. Nice to meet you, doctor.”
Kelly apologized again and asked Ms Spiro the whereabouts of her sister. As if in response, a freshly bathed Jessica was wheeled around the corner by a buxom, jovial Filipino nurse named Cookie.
Kelly reentered Jessica’s room as Cookie was propping her up in bed. “Her hair looks nice,” Kelly said. Even though Jessica was only thirty-six-years-old, she had streaks of dull gray in her otherwise brown hair, which was common among bedridden patients.
Cookie smiled at the compliment. “I wash it every Sunday morning after her physical therapy,” she said with her usual enthusiasm. “I’m thinking of bringing in a coloring kit and getting rid of that gray.”
Kelly shook her head. “We’ll wait until she gets out and then go to a salon. It’ll give us both something to look forward to.” She turned to her sister. “Won’t it? Hair color, cut, a mani/pedi. It’ll be a whole new you.”
Jessica stared at a point on the far wall, completely oblivious.
Cookie told Kelly to buzz her if she needed anything and then departed, closing the door behind her.
Kelly waited a moment, then went to the door and cracked it open. She peeked out to make sure no one was lurking and then crossed back to the chair beside Jessica’s bed.
“How you doing today, Jess? It looks like you’ve been spending time outside. You’ve got some color in your cheeks.” Kelly gently stroked her sister’s face.
“Remember I told you that I got a job offer at St Francis? I spoke to the head of Emergency Services and explained how I needed more time to consider the position. He said they’d hold the job open for two weeks, which was very kind of him. You remember St Francis Hospital, right? It’s where Daddy used to work.” Kelly smiled with the recollection of an old, happy memory. “We used to sneak into the break room and blow up the surgical gloves, then draw faces on them.” A tear formed at the corner of Kelly’s eye.
A strand of Jessica’s hair came free and gently bisected her broad forehead. Kelly reached out and tucked the tress back into place.
“I met a man the other day that was a friend of Daddy’s,” she said in low tones. “He told me some stories… some incredible stories.”
She looked over at the closed door, then glanced around the room. For the first time in all of the years she’d been coming here, she wondered if there were hidden surveillance cameras. It was possible that the facility installed audio/video to monitor the patients and/or the nursing staff. Kelly knew she was being paranoid, but she needed to be constantly aware not to say anything that could accidently expose her father’s past.
Despite Kelly’s desire to share her recent revelations with someone, now wasn’t the time and this wasn’t the place. “You know what? I’ll save the stories for next time.”
The same strand of hair had worked itself loose and again lay across Jessica’s face. Kelly reached behind her sister’s head and undid the loose bun, allowing her wavy locks to flow freely.
Jessica’s lips curved up slightly. Whenever her sister’s physical actions coincided with appropriate emotional responses, it reinvigorated Kelly’s hope.
She flashed back to childhood images of Jessica before she fell ill: a seven-year-old Jessica dressing up a four-year-old Kelly like she was a living doll; ten-year-old Jessica and seven-year-old Kelly leaning over the pier at Lake Tahoe, using kite string and bacon to catch crawdads; teenagers sitting around a campfire with their parents, young and innocent enough to be enthralled by their father as he spun scary stories about ghosts and goblins. The sweet memories triggered a flow of tears.
At that moment, Kelly knew she’d do anything to protect her sister. Her beautiful, defenseless sister was not going to fall victim to a killer… even if it meant Kelly taking matters into her own hands.
Just like her father.
38
For the past few years Kelly routinely did an early morning run that started on the Embarcadero and took her along Fisherman’s Wharf, past the barking sea lions at Pier 39, then transitioned onto Jefferson, turned left at the Argonaut Hotel, past the Buena Vista, then around Ghirardelli Square, where the finest domestic chocolate was still being made. After passing these tourist landmarks, she’d loop back toward her condo. The run was two and a half miles and Kelly averaged it in about twenty minutes.
As a result of everything that had recently happened, she’d forgone the run and opted for additional sleep… that was, when sleep came. After seven days of feeling mentally and physically out of sorts, she decided to reinstate her jogging regimen, if for no other reason than to have some time to clear her head.
When she returned from her visit with Jessica, Kelly slipped out of her jeans and sweater and slipped into her sweats and road-scuffed teal and orange New Balance runners.
She put in her ear buds, dialed in her “morning mix” and hit the streets. Two blocks later, she passed a black Suburban, the engine idling. The windows were tinted, but she could make out two people inside. She didn’t think much about it at the time. San Francisco was constantly packed with humans, residents and visitors, and a couple of folks sitting in a car, probably trying to figure out how to maneuver the clogged traffic in the city, didn’t raise alarms.
In fact, she forgot all about it… until she swung past Ghirardelli and saw the same SUV again. This time it was slowly moving down the street. Either looking for a place to park, or following her.
Kelly’s pace picked up,
along with her heartbeat, and she suddenly veered down an alley, cut through a parking lot, and reemerged two streets over. The Suburban was nowhere in sight. She slowed her pace back to normal, hoping her pulse would follow. Was she being overly suspicious? Yes. Did she have every right to be? Hell, yes.
She completed her loop and started her cool down, a brisk quarter-mile walk around the block. As she strode past the beautiful old Victorians, she kept her eyes peeled for the Suburban, but her mind was totally consumed with thoughts about Tommy Moretti. One moment she was convinced it would be best to tell Pete everything and let him take it from there. But, and it was a significant “but”, how could Pete ignore the fact that David Harper had been a hit man with eighteen notches on his belt?
She considered a different scenario with equal weight. Putting the events of the last ten days, including her father’s death, in the past and simply getting on with her life. Tying everything up with a neat bow and attempt to expunge her recent memory. This option presented myriad issues. Unless she underwent hypnosis or deep psychotherapy, she’d never be able to forget the things she’d learned in the past few days. Plus, there was the issue of her and Jess’s lives being in jeopardy. If that threat was real, she couldn’t ignore it. And to top it off, she hated leaving things undone. She lived for closure.
Which meant option three… confirming whether or not Tommy Moretti had killed her father. If he had, well then… what? Eliminate him? Who was she kidding? Killing Moretti was a pipedream. A violent, self-gratifying fantasy. Maybe her father could justify murder, but not Kelly. She was a life-long, dyed-in-the-wool pacifist.
Which brought her back to the original conundrum: what could she do with the information she had?
Kelly rounded the corner and saw a shiny new Mediterranean Blue BMW 540i parked in front of her condo. She assumed it belonged to one of the freshly minted tech millionaires that flooded the city. She was headed toward the front door of her building when she heard someone call her name. She turned to see Alexa getting out of the car, holding two bags from La Boulangerie.
Kelly glanced at her watch as she crossed to meet Alexa. “Nice car.”
Alexa shrugged. “The lease on the old one was up.”
“By ‘old one’ you mean the green Jag that had, what, three thousand miles on it?”
“The company sets the rules. What’s a girl to do?” Alexa raised up the butter-stained bags. “I brought brunch. Can I interest you in an almond croissant? Maybe a Kouign-amann?” she asked. “I had Jamie make a lowfat latte with a pinch of cinnamon. He knew exactly who it was for and he said to give you his best.”
Kelly took the coffee with a smile and nod of thanks, but didn’t have time for her best friend and favorite baked goods. Not today. “Lex, you know I love you, almost as much as I love the Boulangerie, but I’ve got to be somewhere at one.”
“Pete can wait.”
“It’s not Pete.”
Alexa flashed a sly grin. “Really? Something you’re not telling me?”
“No,” Kelly lied. There was a world of things she wasn’t telling Alexa. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but sometimes people get together in non-sexual ways,” she said with a smile.
“I deserved that.” Alexa dropped her smile and turned serious. “I’m worried about you, Kel. Between your Dad and the clinic and the job offer at St Francis, you’ve got way too much on your plate.”
Kelly wondered how Alexa would react if she knew what was actually piled on that plate. “I’m trying to sort things out.”
“Promise me you’ll call. We can grab a bottle of wine and have a slumber party, like old times.”
Regardless of what happened in the next week or two, Kelly’s life had taken an irrevocable turn, and the “old times” may be a thing of the past. Still, she managed a smile. “Sounds good. Talk later.”
After a quick exchange of cheek kisses, Kelly peeled off and headed inside. Alexa knew something was eating away at her friend. Something deeper than the death of her father and the money problems at the clinic. There was something just under the surface that Kelly was struggling with, and Alexa worried that whatever it was could send her childhood friend hurtling down a dark and potentially dangerous path.
An hour later, Kelly sat on a bench in Golden Gate park and watched the carousel rotate to the strains of Oom-Pah music from the German band organ nestled in the middle of the glossy herd of lions, tigers, camels and dragons. She wistfully thought back on the lowfat cinnamon latte as she nursed a cup of harsh coffee from the park refreshment stand.
Two little girls with pigtails merrily squealed as they rode atop twin giraffes. They looked to be about three years apart. Kelly smiled, filled with the memory of her and Jessica riding this same carousel many years ago. Happier times.
Matthew Benedetto arrived at precisely one o’clock and sat down beside her.
“Odd place to meet,” Kelly said, watching the little girls slide off the giraffes and climb aboard two colorful unicorns with flowing fiberglass manes.
“I find the music strangely soothing, and the clamor of children provides excellent sound cover.”
“My father used to bring me and Jess here.”
“I know.”
She turned to face him. “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”
“Over the years your father and I became quite close. He desperately needed someone to talk to after his assignments; someone with whom he could share his feelings and his many misgivings. The emotional impact of the job was too overwhelming to keep bottled up. For obvious reasons, I was the only person he could confide in.”
Kelly shook her head. “It makes me sad that he couldn’t confide in me.”
“He felt terrible about keeping secrets from you. But there are secrets, and then there are secrets. He would’ve loved to talk to you about it, but it was too much of a burden to lay on someone else… especially his daughter.”
The two little girls let out joyous shrieks as they clambered down their horned steeds and got atop a pair of roaring tigers.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Benedetto asked.
“The police have no leads, so they won’t get onto Moretti without a push, but I have no idea how to go about that. I have no idea how to go about any of this.”
“As you consider the options, keep this in mind,” Benedetto said, sounding every bit the experienced lawyer. “If Moretti’s arrested, he’d most likely try to plea bargain by giving them information about your father.”
“Does he have any proof?”
“I don’t know, but in this day of rushing to judgment, your father’s reputation would suffer irreparable harm, which would also taint you and Jessica.”
Kelly glanced over to the merry-go-round. The sisters were done with the carousel and made a dash for the swings, their laughing mother not far behind. The image of a happy, loving family. It was her life, pre-Musselwhite. Kelly wondered why she’d been dealt a crappy hand from a stacked deck and feared if she stayed at the table, she’d be playing a game she had no chance of winning.
She looked back at Benedetto. “You’re saying the only way out of this is to…”
He stopped her from completing the sentence. “Don’t misconstrue my comments. The only thing I’m saying is, through no fault of your own, you’ve found yourself in an untenable situation. If you want my opinion, destroy the journal and forget everything we’ve talked about.”
“What about the threat of more violence from Moretti?”
“That’s purely conjecture on my part. If Moretti was responsible for your father’s death, he’s already gotten his revenge. He’d be taking a huge risk to kill two more people.”
“But he might.”
Benedetto nodded. “Growing up in a crime family makes him unpredictable.” Benedetto pulled a thick envelope from inside his coat and handed it to Kelly. “It’s a surveillance report on Tommy Moretti. It will give you additional insight into who you’re dealing with.”<
br />
Kelly’s stomach churned. Was it the stale coffee or nerves? “If I did decide to… to take matters into my own hands, is there some kind of procedure to follow? Some kind of protocol?”
Benedetto felt terrible for this young woman who was faced with a no-win situation, and he was well aware that he was responsible for getting this ball rolling many years ago.
“There are no procedures, no organization, no one who comes in after you and cleans things up. Everything you do needs to be meticulously planned before you move forward. This isn’t something you can enter into lightly on any level, since it would require tremendous effort; physically, mentally and emotionally.
“Let me be clear,” he continued, “if you’re considering taking another person’s life and you’re caught, there’s no safety net. If you succeed…”
Kelly completed Benedetto’s dire thought, “My life will be forever changed.”
39
It was 7pm, and Pete was at his desk, digging through incident reports. Sunday nights were usually quiet in homicide, as most fatal incidents took place on Friday or Saturday. One homicide team was on the street and the other two didn’t punch in until tomorrow morning, so Pete was able to focus on reviewing the reports in the Harper murder book, hoping to find something he’d overlooked. The case was growing colder by the day, but he was taught to never give in to defeat, regardless of how slim the odds of success.
He hoped for an epiphany… that “aha” moment when the facts of the case suddenly lined up and pointed at the killer with a flashing neon arrow. Unfortunately, police work almost never panned out like that and most cases were solved by hard work, luck, and, as his partner often told him, the sheer stupidity of the perpetrators.
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