Murder on Potrero Hill (Peyton Brooks' Series Book 1)

by Hamilton, M. L.

  She dropped the file on the table and leaned on it. “So let’s go back to the beginning, okay?”

  Ryder raised his head and stared at her through his fingers. His brown hair was mussed and a couple days growth of beard shadowed his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “The truth.” She took a seat in the other chair and opened the file. “You say you found Zoë in the bathroom. She was unconscious, so you called 911.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did you do while you waited for the ambulance?”

  “I tried to get Zoë to respond.”

  “How? Did you shake her? Yell at her?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Where was Zoë earlier that day? Was she working at the coffee house?”

  “No, she had the day off, so she went with her mother to visit Blake.”

  Peyton looked down at the file and turned a page. “Let’s talk about Blake.”

  Ryder frowned. “Blake?”

  “You used to visit him with Zoë when he first had his stroke, then you stopped. Why?”

  Ryder rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t see the point. The doctors all agreed he wasn’t responding to treatment. He wasn’t coming back.”

  “Did this cause trouble between you and Zoë?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. She couldn’t accept that he was gone. As long as he was in that hospital, she held out hope.” He sighed. “I think they should have…” His voice trailed off.

  Peyton leaned forward. “You think they should have what?”

  He looked up at the mirror. “Nothing.”

  Peyton flattened her hand on the file. “I want to help you, Jake. I do, but I can’t help you if you won’t be honest with me.”

  Ryder stared at her for a moment, then exhaled. “You don’t want to help me. You just want to close this case and it doesn’t matter what the truth is. You just want a person to blame and that’s it.”

  “I’m giving you a chance to tell your side. We’ve got enough to hold you on now, Jake, so I don’t really need to talk to you, but I thought you might like an opportunity to explain things to me. What did you start to say about Blake?”

  “I think they should have taken him off life support. It would have been kinder to him and kinder to his family. They could have mourned his loss, then moved on with their lives. As it was, Zoë never did.”

  “I guess that was a point of contention for you, wasn’t it?”

  Ryder wrapped a hand around his chin. “No, not contention. It made me feel helpless. I wanted to make things right for Zoë, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t make it better.”

  Peyton looked at the file. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. She’d given him an opening to complain about his wife, but he didn’t take it. She needed to upset the balance between them if she was going to get him to confess, but she didn’t want to give away her biggest point of leverage.

  “So, did you take the pills from the nursing home when you visited Blake?”

  He dropped his hand to the table and his frown deepened. “Pills?”

  “The warfarin. It’s stroke medication, you know? Did you sneak them off Blake’s bedside table or something?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said, then he gave her a level look. “Besides, they don’t leave medications lying around like that in hospitals or nursing homes.” He leaned forward. “I didn’t have anything to do with my wife’s death and no matter how you phrase things, I’m not going to confess to something I didn’t do.”

  She rose to her feet and moved to the end of the table, closer to him. “Let’s talk about the baby.”

  Jake looked away.

  “A lot of men get scared, knowing there’s a baby on the way. They worry it will change their lives.”

  “I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

  “That’s right. Dr. Singh was impressed with that performance. He genuinely believed you didn’t know.”

  Jake swiveled his head and looked up at her. “If you really want to find out what happened to Zoë, you’d start there. I’ll bet you they gave her the wrong medication and are trying to cover it up.”

  “We were talking about the baby.”

  “Of course. You don’t even want to consider there might be another possibility to Zoë’s death. You just want to put me away for something I didn’t do.”

  “Explain to me how a husband doesn’t know his wife is pregnant. Three months go by and you don’t question why she doesn’t have a period, you don’t question why she keeps getting morning sickness?”

  Jake opened his hands, palms up. “I didn’t know. I don’t know why, but I didn’t.”

  “And you don’t think it’s strange she didn’t tell you? I mean that’s a pretty big secret. You’ve got to wonder why she would keep it and…” She leaned closer to him. “What else she might have hid.”

  Jake’s gaze snapped to her face. “Every moment of every day. It’s driving me insane.”

  “I’ll bet. It’s got to hurt. Being lied to, being deceived. It would make anyone angry. Hell, I’d be downright furious about it. I’d feel betrayed on so many levels.”

  Jake just stared at her.

  “Here you work your ass off to provide for her, while she pisses around in a coffee shop and mopes about her dad. You do everything in your power to make her happy and she withholds the most important information from you. It would make even the most reasonable person want revenge.”

  Ryder looked at the mirror. “Just charge me with whatever you want and let me go home. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  Peyton ignored him. She reached for the file. “Let’s go back again, okay?”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his palms against his temples.

  “The paramedics come and they try to find a pulse. They can’t, so they begin CPR and start an IV. They transport you to the hospital and the only thing you know is her blood pressure is too low. They don’t tell you anything else.”

  Ryder continued to ignore her.

  “You arrive at the hospital where Dr. Singh takes over. At some point he comes out and tells you Zoë needs a transfusion.”

  Ryder lowered his hands and opened his eyes, staring at the table. Still he didn’t answer.

  “You volunteer to give blood, right?”

  “Right.”

  Peyton pushed the file in front of Ryder and leaned on the edge of the table, bringing herself closer to him. “Here’s what I learned the other day. In order to do a transfusion, they first have to type the person receiving it, so they don’t give them the wrong blood. You know what Zoë’s type was?”

  “No.”

  “O negative. You know what your type is?”

  Ryder leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “O something.”

  “That’s right. O positive.”

  “What the hell does this have to do with anything?”

  Peyton lifted her brows at him. “A lot.” She pointed to the file with her index finger. “Your baby was typed as B negative. B negative?”

  Ryder’s face went slack.

  “Now as I understand it – in order for the baby to have B negative, one of his parents had to have it as well, which means, Jake…” She leaned toward him, crowding his personal space. “Which means you weren’t the father.”

  Ryder fixed his eyes on hers and a shudder went through his body. She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed convulsively.

  She leaned back. “My dad was a cop. He always said a case was like a stool, built on three legs. First you’ve got your suspect, second you have your evidence, and third you have your motive.” She tapped the file with her finger. “That, Jake,that is what we call motive.”

  Ryder’s brown eyes searched her face. She wasn’t sure what he was looking to find.

  “Tell me, Jake, did she confess? Is that what happened? She told you she’d been having
an affair and you…what? Did you snap? A little warfarin in her dinner, some in her morning cup of coffee? Maybe you thought she’d miscarry? Maybe that’s all you wanted, but it killed her instead? I can understand that, Jake. I can understand wanting to get rid of the baby. It was tearing your relationship apart, destroying your life.” She closed the file and crossed her arms also. “Let’s face it, Jake. Zoë’s concern over her father wasn’t affecting your marriage, but her pregnancy was, her affair was. Did you find out who it was? Someone at work, someone she met on-line?”

  “I want to go home.” His voice was flat, brittle. His gaze shifted to the mirror. “I want to go home.”

  “Come on, Jake. Just tell me the truth. Tell me what happened. I understand. It must have felt so horrible to know she was cheating on you, using you that way. God, what man can stand the thought of his wife carrying another man’s child.”

  Ryder moved so suddenly, Peyton wasn’t prepared. He slammed his fists onto the table and rose to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process. Peyton stumbled back off the table and scrambled to her feet as the inner door slammed open. Marco loomed in the entrance with his gun drawn.

  Peyton held out her hands. “It’s all right!” she said. “It’s all right!”

  Ryder stared at both of them, his chest heaving, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I want to go home,” he said. “I just want to go home.”

  Marco slipped the gun back in his holster. “Sit down, Ryder!” he commanded.

  Ryder sank into his chair again, his hands hanging by his sides. He looked so lost, so forlorn. Peyton watched him in surprise. He didn’t look like a man ready to confess.

  Marco touched her arm and the two of them backed from the room. They returned to the observation room where the captain and Devan waited.

  Peyton met Devan’s dark eyes. “We don’t have enough for arraignment, do we?”

  “You don’t have enough to hold him,” said Devan.

  “We’re just gonna let him go?” she asked in frustration. God, Marco was right. This case was a bitch.

  “We can hold him for 24 hours on the breaking and entering. Maybe a night in jail will make him ready to confess,” offered the captain.

  Peyton looked to Devan for confirmation. He was studying Ryder where he sat at the table, staring at the floor without expression. “You can do that, but if he doesn’t confess, you’ll have to let him go. The breaking and entering without theft is at most a misdemeanor.”

  “He’s not gonna break after a night in jail. He hasn’t broken yet no matter what we’ve done. What the hell are we supposed to do?” she said, holding up her empty hands.

  Devan turned to her. “You don’t have a murder weapon, you don’t have a confession, and your motive seems a bit hinky seeing his reaction to it.” He reached out and wrapped a curl around his index finger. “You’re a good cop, Peyton. You’ll think of something. Maybe you need to go at it in a different direction.” He rubbed the curl with his thumb, then released it. “Call me if you get anything.”

  He moved past her and disappeared out the door. Peyton was left facing the captain and Marco, who both looked at her with raised brows.

  “What the hell was that?” asked the captain.

  Peyton dropped her gaze. “I had something in my hair.”

  “Yeah, his fingers,” drawled Marco, earning him a glare.

  * * *

  Peyton stared at the white board she’d dragged out of storage. She had written as much information on it as she could, but looking at it this way only emphasized what they didn’t know. She’d traced Dr. Singh like Ryder suggested, but that had quickly led to a dead end.

  First of all, she couldn’t find a single complaint about the doctor, even through the Medical Board. Second, Zoë had been hemorrhaging when the paramedics showed up at the flat. Something had caused her loss of blood and that something was the warfarin that she’d been given before the medics arrived.

  Marco handed her a paper cup. “Chocolate,” he said, studying her white board.

  She took it and set it down on the desk.

  He shifted and gave her a concerned look. “You don’t want it?”

  “Of course I do,” she said, “but this case is making me insane. What the hell are we missing, Marco?”

  He leaned against the desk with her and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “A lot. Obviously, Dr. Singh is a dead-end.”

  “So is everything else.”

  A man in his early thirties approached them. He was of average height and thin with glasses and curly brown hair that perpetually looked mussed. He wore his button down shirt tucked into his jeans and his sneakers were scuffed at the toe.

  “Hey, Stan,” said Peyton, giving him a smile. “You got something for me.”

  Stan pursed his lips. “I finished that tablet you brought me.”

  “And?” Peyton reached for the milkshake and took a sip. The beautifully smooth, cold flow of chocolate crossed her tongue.

  “I found a search for warfarin.”

  Peyton sat up straighter. “That is the best news I’ve had all day.”

  “Well, hold on a minute. It was done this morning about 3:00AM.”

  Peyton felt herself wilt. “You’re sure about that?”

  Stan looked offended. “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Nothing else?” asked Marco.

  “A bunch of stock quotes, interest rates, but nothing else. Mostly this guy used his tablet for work.”

  “Thanks, Stan,” said Peyton.

  “No problem,” he said and walked away.

  Peyton looked up at Marco. “We have nothing.”

  “We have less than nothing. Your boyfriend’s right. This case is hinky.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” said Peyton, chewing on the end of her straw. “You know what really bothers me?”

  Marco exhaled. “A lot bothers me, but tell me anyway.”

  “He didn’t know the baby wasn’t his. You can’t fake that reaction. He was stunned…stunned and devastated.”

  “I know, which blows our motive to hell and gone.” He drummed his fingers on his crossed arm. “You know what bugs me?”

  “What?”

  “He hasn’t lawyered. Why? Why hasn’t he asked for a lawyer, Brooks? You get any two bit criminal in here and the first thing they’re screaming for is a lawyer. Not Ryder. Why?”

  “I don’t know. You aren’t suggesting that you think he’s innocent, are you?”

  “No. It’s always the husband. I know that, but I just wish this case wasn’t so slippery.”

  “Noted and reported. Now what?”

  “Let’s do what Adams said. Let’s go at it from a different angle.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Marco rose and picked up the eraser, wiping Dr. Singh off the board. “We know it wasn’t him.”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s focus on the murder weapon. Where could someone have gotten this warfarin stuff? It would have had to be prescribed by a doctor, but what doctor?”

  Peyton shook her head, sipping at the milkshake. “If we’ve eliminated Dr. Singh, the only other doctor on that board is Zoë’s father, Blake.” She set the milkshake down on the desk. “He’s in a coma, D’Angelo. He couldn’t have done this. Besides he’s her father.” She searched the board for another link, but her eyes kept coming back to Blake. “Right?”

  “What if the motive isn’t the baby, but something else? If we find the murder weapon, we might find the motive. I don’t know where else to start looking, but the only person who would have had access to prescription medications is Blake Harper.”

  “So you’re saying we need to go see Blake?”

  “I’m saying we need to go see Blake.”

  * * *

  They led him to a room and made him remove his clothes, then they gave him an orange jumpsuit and a pair of shoes with no laces. He didn’t even realize what they’d done until he automatically sat down to tie them.
>
  He stared at the shoes and a frantic laugh escaped him. No laces. No suicide. Why? So they could keep playing cat and mouse with him.

  An officer with coffee-dark skin and a bald head led him down a corridor with cells on either side. Jake glanced into the cells, feeling his heart pick up speed. This was real. They were going to lock him in.

  The officer stopped at a cell and spoke into his shoulder receiver. Jake wasn’t sure what he said, but the cell door slid open and the officer motioned him inside. “Dinner’s at 5:00PM,” he said.

  Jake walked into the middle of the cell and stood there. No one was on either side of him, a mercy that he didn’t want to think about too hard. Besides a cot, a thin mattress, one blanket, a sink, and a toilet, there was nothing else in the cell. Three walls were bars, the back one cinderblock, the floor cement with a drain in the center. He had a hysterical vision of them hosing down the cell after he left, like they do with animals in a zoo.

  When the cell door clanged behind him, he looked around dazedly. A cell. A freakin’ jail cell. Panic edged his awareness and he clenched his fists in the jumpsuit. A jail cell. He was locked in and there was no getting out.

  He whipped around, but the officer was walking away. Across from him, he could see a bearded jaw and two bloodshot eyes staring at him, nothing else. He backed up until he bumped into the cot, then he sat down hard, his hands dangling between his knees. A jail cell. Oh, God.

  He put his head in his hands and tried to slow his breathing. If he didn’t get control, he’d start kicking things or screaming. That would only give them ammunition against him. He searched the ceiling, looking for cameras. He spotted one turning lazily in the corridor beyond the cell.

  Okay, he could reason his way through this. They hadn’t told him what they were charging him with…or maybe they had. After Peyton told him about Zoë and the blood typing, he didn’t really hear much else.

  Think, he commanded himself. What did they say when they fingerprinted you and took your picture? Picture – oh God, no, a mug shot. A mug shot. He was now in their system with a mug shot. For murdering a woman he loved more than anything. A woman he would have done anything to save. A woman who betrayed him. He closed his eyes. This wasn’t helping.