by Daniel Kalla
She grinned. “I had a male roommate for a year in med school. I survived.”
I chuckled. “Did he?”
“Barely.” She looked away. “But I married his best friend.”
The reference to her husband tensed my spine. “Is Marcus still asking about me?” I said, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Didn’t mention you when he picked Talie up on Saturday,” she said. “Anyway, I think he’s preoccupied. He was out of town on business most of last week.”
I wondered whether his business involved following me to Vancouver, but I kept the thought to myself. Anxious to change subjects, I said, “I need to make a phone call.”
“Want me to leave?”
“No. You just have to stay quiet.”
Alex flashed her perfect teeth in the warmest smile I’d seen in weeks. “Not my forte, but I’ll give it a whirl.”
I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and plopped down on the side of the bed. Still standing across from me, Alex watched as I dialed Michael Prince’s number collect. Janelle transferred me through. “Benjamin, how are you?” Prince said.
“I’ve had better weeks,” I said coolly.
“How can I help?”
“Michael, I’ve been mulling over your attitude toward the attorney-client privilege.” I waited for some response but he didn’t comment. “I thought you told me it applied uniformly to all clients.”
“It does.”
“Yet it didn’t prevent you from discussing the details of my case freely with my cousin Kyle.”
“I didn’t discuss a single detail of your case with him.” He sounded as unfazed as ever.
“Is that right?” My grip tightened as I felt my heat rising. “I heard you were his source for all kinds of details about Maglio and the Whistler development.”
“Depends on your perspective.”
“I don’t have time for your goddamn legal doublespeak!” I snapped.
Alex fired me a cautionary glance.
“Listen, Ben,” Prince said calmly. “Kyle and your brother were potential investors in the NorWesPac development. As, we’ve established, was I. Under the circumstances, Kyle has the right to know certain details about the project and its subsequent unraveling. This is very different than disclosing sensitive information about one client to another.” He paused. “Are you following?”
“I get it.” I exhaled heavily, involuntarily swayed by his rationale. “You’re saying you found a legal loophole, through my cousin, to supply me information I needed without compromising the privilege of another client.”
“You can read into it what you want.” Prince’s tone suggested he agreed with my assessment. “I merely gave your cousin details he was entitled to anyway, primarily by validating what he already knew to be the case.”
“Is that right?” I said, unable to remember which details Kyle had known before and after his conversation with Prince.
“It is.”
“Well, Michael, would you help me validate something that I’ve heard to be the case?”
“Depends what it concerns.”
“Your client, Philip Maglio.”
“You know that I, I cannot—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said. “But I also know that you told me there was no way that Emily could have infected Maglio. And yet, by all accounts they were an item for almost a year.”
Prince said nothing.
“In which case, there are only two possible explanations. One, Maglio already had HIV. Or two, he’s gay and Emily was his beard.”
“Beard?”
“The woman who provides a cover story, like when a gay Hollywood star gets married to quell rumors.”
“I am not privy to Mr. Maglio’s medical history,” Prince said. “However, I will say that in his business, appearances can be very important.”
I took the evasive comment as confirmation of Maglio’s homosexuality.
“I understand the police are now looking for you in Vancouver,” Prince said.
“You understand right.”
“So you haven’t found your brother yet?”
“No,” I said quietly.
“Perhaps it’s time to return to Seattle to let me deal with the charges?”
I looked away from Alex. “I don’t think so.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I don’t trust you, Michael.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been as forthcoming with you as I can, under the circumstances.”
“Then answer me one more question.”
“If I can.”
“Just exactly how involved are you in Emily’s murder and the cover-up that has happened since?”
“Benjamin,” he said in his father-knows-best tone. “Trust me when I tell you that I have your best interests at heart.”
“Bye, Michael.” I hung up the phone.
Arms folded across her chest, Alex stared at me. “Well?”
“If Maglio killed Emily, it had nothing to do with her exposing him to HIV.”
“So he’s not your prime suspect anymore?”
“He still ties the victims together. One dealt drugs for him, and the other helped to screw up an important business venture.”
“But?” Alex demanded.
“There are others who deserve a very long look.”
“Like?”
Your estranged husband, I wanted to say, but I merely shrugged in response. I didn’t know how to break it to Alex that I suspected Talie’s father was involved in the murders.
Chapter 31
Alex insisted I stay in the room while she went out to pick up food, declaring that she wasn’t prepared to “live on room service from now on.”
As soon as she left, I tried the number Joe had given me for Malcolm Davies. Malcolm answered on the second ring.
“Malcolm, it’s…um…Dr. Horvath,” I stammered, uncertain how best to approach him.
“Doctor who?” he said, seemingly oblivious.
“Dr. Peter Horvath,” I said, relaxing slightly. “We met at Dr. Janacek’s clinic.”
“Oh, yeah. How are you doing, Doc?”
Either Malcolm was a hell of a good actor or he hadn’t seen the news reports on me yet. I assumed the latter. “I’m doing well, thanks. And you?”
“My burns and scars still ache, but that’s life, right?” His tone turned inquisitive. “How come you’re calling me?”
“Going over your chart, I wondered if I’d prescribed you enough painkillers,” I said, fabricating on the fly.
His voice brightened, as if he’d just won a door prize. “Now that you mention it, I’ve been going through them two or three at a time. I definitely could use more.”
“No problem,” I said. “Are you still living on…”
“Powell Street,” he finished the sentence, as I’d hoped he would.
“I am not allowed to phone in prescriptions for narcotics, but Powell is basically on my way to the hospital. Why don’t I drop a prescription off this afternoon?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“Give me your address and I’ll come by around two-ish.”
Malcolm reeled off his address, and I jotted it down. “Do you mind slipping the prescription under the door?” he asked.
“Why do I need to do that?” I said, trying to keep my frustration out of my tone.
“Because I won’t be home today.”
I punched the pillow beside me. “Malcolm, I make it a policy that I only give narcotic prescriptions in person.” I scrambled to salvage the situation.
“Too bad,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Then it’s going to have to wait until Thursday. I’m out of town for the next couple days.”
I don’t have until Thursday. “Okay, why don’t I call you Thursday morning?”
“Sounds good, Doc.”
“Oh, one other thing,” I said. “You used to date Jennifer Ayott, didn’t you?”
“Jenny…yeah.” His tone took on an e
dge. “Why do you ask?”
“Bizarre coincidence, but when I first met her, she mistook me for another person, the same as you did. She thought I looked just like an ex of hers, Aaron Dafoe.”
“Aaron Dafoe,” he repeated slowly.
I waited, hoping Malcolm might elaborate, but he didn’t. “The irony is that Aaron is actually my cousin. We grew together up in Seattle. Small world, huh?”
“Very,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know if you heard, but Aaron disappeared about two years back,” I said.
“I heard.”
“His dad—my uncle—has never gotten over it. Just destroyed him. He spends all his time and money searching for Aaron.”
“He’s wasting his time.”
I went cold. “What do you mean?”
“Listen, Doc, I gotta go.”
“Come on, Malcolm,” I said. “You can’t leave it like that. All my uncle lives for now is closure on his missing son.”
He hesitated. “Are you also Kyle’s cousin?”
“Yeah, same side,” I said impatiently. “Malcolm, what happened to Aaron?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you know something. Please, Malcolm. Anything.”
He was quiet for so long that I wondered if he was still on the line. “Listen,” he finally said. “My meth lab blew up the same week Aaron disappeared. Just about killed me. Right?”
“Right…” I remembered the roadmap on his chest and belly but I didn’t see the relevance.
“In a meth lab, you have so many unstable gases. So many flammable and incendiary molecules,” he said, sounding more like my old chemistry prof than someone who cooked street drugs. “I was a very, very careful chemist. I’d been doing it for almost ten years, and I never had an accident before. I didn’t make mistakes.”
“Wait a minute.” I sat up straighter. “Are you saying someone booby-trapped your lab?”
“Bingo.”
“Aaron?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Word was that the same person who rigged my lab also got to Aaron, if you know what I mean.”
“Got to him?” I asked. “Who?”
“How does that matter to your uncle?”
I ignored the question. “Was it Philip Maglio?”
“No, closer to home than—” He stopped abruptly in midsentence. “Hey! How do you know about Maglio?”
“Okay, I admit I’ve done a bit of research into this—”
“No. No. No. I’ve already said way too much.” His voice was panicky. “Forget that prescription, Doc.”
I only squeezed out “Malcolm” before the line clicked dead.
I was still staring at the pad with Malcolm’s address when Alex burst into the room. She closed the door with a foot and dropped her grocery bags on the floor. She rushed up and grabbed my hands in hers. “Ben, I think I’m on to something.” Her cheeks glowed, and her eyes burned.
Her eagerness bumped the thoughts of Malcolm from the forefront of my mind. I squeezed her hands tighter. “What, Alex?”
“Say Aaron is HIV-positive.”
“Okay.”
“And say it’s his blood on Emily’s wall.”
“Yeah…” My heart sped up; her excitement was contagious.
“Even in a dried blood sample, any sophisticated lab could test the sample—”
It suddenly clicked. “For the presence of HIV!” I threw my arms around her. “Alex, you’re a genius!” Without thinking, I kissed her on the lips.
She kissed back, her wet lips sliding over mine, but after a moment she broke it off. She stared into my eyes. “But if you’re wrong about Aaron being HIV-positive.”
“Then I’m still no worse off than I was two minutes ago.” I reached out and stroked her warm cheek. “But if the blood is HIV-positive, then it will clear my name.”
Flooded with hope, I hopped off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to call Helen.”
Alex followed after. “But if you call her from Vancouver, she’ll know you’re here.”
“Believe me, she already knows.”
Alex drove me out to Burnaby, the suburb immediately east of Vancouver, where we cased several pay phones until she chose one at a gas station with the right combination of remoteness and ease of escape.
Alex sat in the still idling car beside the phone booth where I stood. I laid out a pocketful of change on the stand and then dialed Helen’s direct line. After several rings, a woman answered in a New England drawl. “Seattle Police Department, Homicide. Carol speaking.”
“Can I speak to Sergeant Helen Riddell?” I asked.
“She’s out of the office today,” the receptionist said. “Can I take a message?”
“It’s Benjamin Dafoe calling.”
“Oh,” she said as if she’d just swallowed something foul. “I see.”
“I need you to track Helen down on her cell phone.”
“Hold on a moment.”
“That won’t work,” I said. “I’ll call you back in two minutes. If you don’t have Helen on the other line, I’m gone.” I hung up without waiting for her response.
As soon as I phoned back, my call was immediately forwarded to Helen.
“Helen, I’ve got news.”
“So do I,” she said, sounding subdued.
“Me first,” I said. “Look, I’m not sure if Emily did infect Maglio with HIV—”
“Because girls aren’t Phil’s bag?”
“That’s right,” I said without hiding my surprise.
“See, Ben, we do check leads out.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “Now there’s one more lead you better check out.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“You have to test the blood on Emily’s wall for HIV.”
“Nobody doubts that Emily was infected.”
“Not Emily’s!” I said. “The blood streak that you think is mine.”
“You don’t have HIV, do you?”
“Exactly. But I have reason to believe that my brother Aaron might.”
“That’s not necessary, Ben.”
“It is!” I snapped. “If that blood is HIV-positive then you’ll know for sure it came from Aaron and not me.”
“It’s not Aaron’s blood,” she said with quiet certainty.
“You can’t know that without testing it.”
“Yes, I can.”
“How?”
“We found Aaron.”
I froze in midbreath. “Where? When?”
“A few days ago, though we only heard confirmation this morning.”
My stomach fell. My hands began to tremble. “Confirmation?” I croaked.
“Off a trail at Mount Rainier, a hiker and his dog found a human bone. From there, it was easy to find the shallow grave in the woods. With DNA and dental records, the lab established beyond a doubt that the remains belong to your brother.”
A wave of nausea ripped through me. I gagged back lunch. “Aaron…”
“The forensics experts say that the remains date back at least eighteen months but probably longer, which makes sense considering we found his burned-out car over two years ago.”
The sky spun. I gripped the edges of the booth to support myself.
“Ben,” Helen said gently. “It’s time to come in.”
Chapter 32
I have little recollection of the drive back to the hotel. Aside from telling Alex that the Seattle P.D. had found Aaron’s body, I don’t think I said another word.
The shock lasted less than an hour. Sitting in the chair in the corner of the hotel room, I missed the numbness as soon as it dissipated. The combined senses of loss and hopelessness were as smothering as a log across my chest. I eyed the window with a half a view to leaping from it.
Alex sat on the bed, respecting my silence. Staring into her understanding eyes, I realized I was going to miss her more than anything else once the po
lice caught up with me. “My dad doesn’t recognize me anymore,” I finally said.
Alex frowned. “Pardon?”
“My mom and my brother are dead,” I muttered. “The only family I have is my dad, and his brain is so pickled from alcohol abuse that he doesn’t recognize me anymore.”
Alex swallowed. “Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“I went through this already,” I said dropping my gaze to the carpet. “I mourned Aaron’s death once. I had accepted it. And then after Emily died, I convinced myself that maybe it wasn’t so. That somehow, Aaron had made a Houdini-like escape.”
“Ben…”
I laughed bitterly. “Even more pathetic, I deluded myself into thinking that somehow my brother—the addict—was going to ride into town and rescue me at the very last moment. One big happy Dafoe twins’ reunion.”
Alex rose to her feet. “Ben!” she said more forcefully.
“Helen is right. It is time to turn myself in.”
Alex stepped toward me. She knelt down and brought her head so close that our faces were only inches apart. “Did you kill Emily?”
“What does it matter?”
“Did you?” she snapped.
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.
She grabbed me by my shoulders. “Then there must be another explanation.” She shook me with surprising force. “And if we don’t find it soon, you’re going to rot in jail and Emily’s killer will just walk away, scot-free.”
Her words cut through my despair. Anger pushed away the shroud of defeat. I shrugged off Alex’s hands and rose to my feet. “You’re right,” I said.
“They haven’t found you yet. There is still time to figure this out.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“And what if the answer is not what you want to hear?”
She tilted her head. “What does that mean?”
“I mean, what if Marcus is involved.”
Alex’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Marcus?”
“He’s a hematologist who owns a company that stores blood indefinitely.”
“So?” she said, her eyes still wide as quarters. “Why would he have any reason to kill Emily?”
“They had an affair.”
“They did, huh?” The shock left her face. I thought I glimpsed a trace of hurt in her eyes, but it was gone in a flash. “When was this?” she asked evenly.
