“I thought I’d just look in on her.”
“Her time is coming soon, isn’t it?”
“With or without the respirator,” the doctor said, quickly scanning the girl’s chart. “Is it the seizures?”
Logan flipped the metal file closed, the metallic ting echoing in the tiled corridor. “Seizures are inherent with patients who suffer from Aicardi syndrome,” he explained. “The strychnine caused them to become more violent. Her body isn’t strong enough.”
The sister’s voice was soft, consoling. “Perhaps God is calling her home.”
“If God wanted to call someone home,” Logan said bitterly, “why didn’t he call the bastard who poisoned her?”
Instead of blistering at his use of profanity, her voice took on an even lighter tone. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Logan headed down the corridor, slipped into the darkened hospital room, and stood quietly beside Betsy Middleton’s crib. After two years in the seminary, he had quit and entered medical school, believing he could serve God better saving lives than souls. After four years as a physician, however, he knew his faith was once again being tested. Signing a death certificate for a child who had only briefly tasted life left a wound so deep that it took months to heal. Lately, he found it almost impossible to worship a creator who allowed innocent children to suffer. In the beginning he had carried his pain to the altar. For a while his prayers and his belief in a higher power had provided him with the strength and acceptance to carry on. Similar to ingesting too many antibiotics, he had built up an immunity to the stock answers like Sister Mary Luke had just made. The Lord might work in mysterious ways, he told himself, but human beings performed untold evils. From his perspective, the Lord wasn’t doing enough to stop them. It was bad enough to see a child die from illness. To watch them waste away due to an intentional act committed by the person who parented them was beyond comprehension.
He walked over and placed his hand on the respirator that kept Betsy Middleton alive, looking down at her gaunt face, her gaping mouth, her unseeing eyes. Several places on her body were badly bruised from today’s seizure. A few months back the convulsions had been so severe and her bones so brittle, she had suffered hairline fractures in both her left arm and ankle. He had to resist the urge to scoop her up in his arms and carry her out of the hospital, maybe take her home and rock her in his arms until the sun came up and her body became still and silent, her soul finally released from its dark prison.
He didn’t know Henry Middleton that well, certainly not enough to classify him as a killer. Before his arrest Betsy’s father had visited her several times a week during the evening hours. On the occasions when he had spoken to him regarding her condition, the man had merely nodded and listened. But Carolyn was different. Even though she came to the hospital almost every day, there was something about her that disturbed him. She went through the motions, but he didn’t get the sense that she was a genuinely compassionate person. He had seen this type of detachment with other parents, though, even among other members of the medical profession. When people were faced with an ongoing problem, they sometimes had to suppress their emotions in order to perform their duties as caretakers. Carolyn’s demeanor was more along the lines of restless indifference, almost as if she was eager to wash her hands of anything related to her daughter.
He was not here to judge, he reminded himself. His role was to heal. The problem was, he no longer felt like a healer. He didn’t know if Betsy was somehow drifting in a world he knew nothing about, a world that defied medical description, or if she was trapped in a place of unfathomable terror. Brain waves or no brain waves, he wondered if she longed to be held, to feel the sun on her face, to taste food, to feel particles of sand beneath her feet on a warm beach. Had her spirit already disconnected from her body? Was he looking at only the remains of a short and tragic life?
He started to leave when a more profound question passed through his mind. Did Betsy know the true identity of the person who had poisoned her? Such thoughts were moot, because no matter what she knew, she had no means of telling him.
Adjusting her covers and checking her IV, another thought surfaced. To his knowledge, Betsy had never experienced a seizure when her father was in the room, even in the early stages when her coma was nowhere near the level it was today. Removing his penlight from his pocket, he opened her chart and flipped through the thick stack of papers, noting a pattern that might or might not be significant. Over the past year Betsy Middleton had stolen his heart. He knew the time would come when he would sign her death certificate, just as he had for the two children who had died only hours apart that very day. His attempt to discover the person responsible would be his gift to her, he decided, however modest his findings might turn out to be. Of course, there was an additional reason he wanted to become more involved in the criminal case—the opportunity to get to know Lily Forrester.
Chris Logan was single and lonely, and the prosecutor was a beautiful, intelligent woman. As a young man he had bypassed the pleasures of a relationship with the opposite sex due to his decision to enter the priesthood. Then after leaving the seminary, medical school had consumed him, leaving him time for no more than an occasional date. His shyness and youthful appearance were deceptive. Three months back he had turned forty. Recently he had started to fantasize about getting married. It wasn’t children he yearned for, as his patients more than filled that need. And he wasn’t completely naive when it came to women. He’d had a number of love affairs over the years, but they had been awkward and unsatisfying. His past involvement with the church made it seemingly impossible for him to develop a lasting relationship with a woman. He not only thought Lily was attractive physically, he found her desirable in many ways.
Leaving the room, Logan handed Betsy’s chart back to Sister Mary Luke. “Have someone copy her file for me, please. I want to work on some aspects of Betsy’s case in my spare time.”
“Don’t you have enough work without taking things home with you?” she asked, writing a note and affixing it to the file for the morning shift to handle.
“There might be something there,” he said, smiling spontaneously. “You know, something I’ve failed to see before related to the criminal side of the case.”
“Humph,” she said, her modest laughter rippling down the silent corridor. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with that pretty redheaded attorney, would it?”
Dr. Logan’s face flushed. “You never fail to amaze me. Can’t a man have any secrets around this place?” He started to leave, then stopped and glanced back over his shoulder, a puzzled look on his face. “Were you on duty when Lily Forrester came to the hospital yesterday? I don’t recall seeing you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We call it being one with God. Surely you remember a few things from your seminary days.”
Logan held up a hand, chuckling under his breath as he took a few steps down the hallway. “You can call it anything you want,” he said, “but I call it gossip.” He playfully shook his finger at her. “That’s a sin, you know, almost as bad as those occasional cigarettes you smoke.”
Her hand flew to her chest. “I don’t smoke. Why would you accuse me of such a thing?”
“Well, someone does,” he replied smugly. “Every time I pass the house down below, I get a whiff of cigarette smoke. Who’s the culprit?”
“My lips are sealed,” Sister Mary Luke said, dropping her head to return to her paperwork.
15
Seated in an interview room at the Burbank Police Department, Shana Forrester was pale and drawn. Being in a police station brought back memories of the rape, and she found the big detective with the rugged face and stoic demeanor frightening. “Can I have a glass of water?” she asked the female detective, her throat parched.
Hope placed a hand on the girl’s slender shoulder. “How about a soda?” she asked. “We have a vending machine in the building. Are you hungry? Would you like me to get you a candy bar or something
else to eat?”
“Water is fine,” Shana told her, linking eyes with her mother across the table. Mark Osborne hadn’t said a word since they had entered the room. As he leaned against the back wall, the detective’s gaze shifted back and forth from Lily to Shana, amazed at the uncanny resemblance between the two women.
“May we proceed?” Lily asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
Osborne circled the table as he spoke. “Just so we don’t get confused, do you mind if I call you Shana?”
“No,” she answered.
“Do you know a young man by the name of Antonio Vasquez?”
“The name doesn’t sound familiar,” Shana said. “Am I supposed to know him? What does this have to do with the accident?”
“Well,” Osborne said, grabbing onto the back of a chair, “Vasquez attended UCLA.”
“So do thousands of other people,” she told him, tracking him with her eyes as he walked around inside the small room. “My classes are so large, I don’t even know the names of half of the people who are in them.”
“Where were you between eight and ten o’clock last night?”
“At home.” She chewed on a ragged cuticle, then added, “Aren’t you going to tell me who this Vasquez person is?”
“Antonio Vasquez is the young man who was killed.”
Shana straightened up in her seat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe if you show me a picture of him, I could tell you if I’ve seen him around campus. He’s not one of my friends, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Let’s go back to your whereabouts at the time of the accident,” Osborne stated, knowing they could check with the school to verify if Shana Forrester and Antonio Vasquez had attended any of the same classes. “When you say you were at home, are you referring to the duplex on Maplewood Drive?”
“Yeah,” Shana said, a hint of her mother’s temper surfacing. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where I live. The police have been to my place three times in the past twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t be sitting here if my mother hadn’t called you guys again.”
Feisty girl, Osborne thought, rubbing his finger across his chin and feeling the stubble. He’d always considered it a cliché when people described redheads as temperamental. From what John Forrester had revealed about Lily, though, and now discovering that her daughter had the balls to smart off to him during an interview, he decided the color of a person’s hair might actually have some bearing on their disposition. Even though they had no intention of confronting Lily regarding the old homicide, it had been worth dragging his ass out of bed to see both her and her daughter and to attempt to get a handle on the overall situation. The two women’s history was mind-boggling: both of them had been raped, the former husband was accusing his wife of killing a hardened gangster and somehow managing to get away with it, and now the father and daughter were linked to the death of an innocent young man. As he saw it, when the body count started adding up, it was time to put the entire family under the microscope. “Where was your Mustang during the time period I just mentioned?”
“My father had it,” Shana told him, her blue eyes unflinching. “He drove it to the store to get ice cream. He got rid of his car a few months ago, so I’ve been letting him use mine.”
“What time was this?”
“Before nine.”
“Can you be more precise?”
Shana probed her memory. “We were worried that Baskin-Robbins might be closed,” she told him. “I’m almost certain Dad left around eight-fifty. It might have been a few minutes earlier, though. Every clock in our house is different. The only clock that’s fairly accurate is my watch. I wasn’t wearing it last night because I was writing a paper. I don’t like things on my wrists when I’m working at my computer.”
“Don’t you have a record of the time I called the police last night?” Lily interjected, hoping they could eliminate any possibility that Shana was behind the wheel of the car at the time of the accident. What better alibi could her daughter have than the police themselves?
Detective Osborne picked up a file folder off the table, opening it and checking the computer printout listing the times the officers had arrived and left Shana and John Forrester’s residence on the prowler call. “The coroner hasn’t officially set the time of death,” he said, looking up as Hope Carruthers returned and placed a glass of water next to Shana. “Right now he’s speculating that the victim’s injuries were incurred somewhere between 9:00 and 9:20. The call you placed on behalf of your daughter from Santa Barbara, Mrs. Forrester, was recorded at 9:38. This would have given Shana more than enough time to drive back to the duplex from the location where the accident occurred, then call you claiming someone was lurking around outside of her house.”
“But the car wasn’t there when the police came,” Shana protested. “Doesn’t that prove I wasn’t driving?”
“According to the patrol officers who responded,” Osborne continued, “they saw a white Mustang pull into the driveway just as they were leaving at 10:03. Did you hit that boy, drive home, then send your father back to take care of it for you?”
“No way,” Shana shouted, leaping to her feet. “I would never do something like that. And I resent the fact that you’re accusing me of lying.”
“Either you or your father killed that boy,” the detective said, wanting to take advantage of the fact that he had unnerved her. “The crime lab found pieces of the victim’s flesh trapped in the undercarriage of the Mustang.”
The area around Shana’s mouth turned white, and for a few moments she leaned forward as if she were about to vomit. Lily sprang to her feet. “This interview is over,” she said, shoving her chair back to the table. “I brought my daughter down here to be questioned, not interrogated. You’ve already arraigned her father. I know because I posted his bail. I won’t stand by and have you bully a young woman who’s doing her best to cooperate. You’re out of line, Osborne. Keep it up and I’ll have your badge.”
“Oh, really,” he said, locking eyes with her.
“Why don’t we all calm down,” Hope said, the only person still seated at the table. “We’re only attempting to get to the truth, Mrs. Forrester. You’re a district attorney. Surely you must understand the seriousness of this situation, the terrible crime that’s been committed.”
Shana shook her head in defiance. “When can I get my car back?”
“Let’s go,” Lily said, grabbing her handbag and Shana’s backpack. “Your car is the last thing we need to be concerned about right now.”
IN STEAD OF coming home early as he had promised, Richard Fowler had called Joyce from his office and asked her to meet him at the Anamaagh Indian restaurant on the corner of Collins Road in Ventura. Several emergencies had developed, however, and Joyce had been left waiting for almost an hour. Sitting alone in a red plastic upholstered booth, she had consumed four beers on an empty stomach and was clearly intoxicated.
“You’re the one who insists everyone has to be on time,” she told him, her speech slurred from the alcohol. “I guess it’s okay for you to be late, though. You’re an important attorney. Who am I, huh? Just a stupid woman trying to keep her business from going under.”
“I had no intention of being late,” Richard said, asking the waiter to bring him a glass of the house merlot. “Why didn’t you order an appetizer or something?”
Joyce leaned forward, her breasts pressing against the table, angry and combative. “I should have left. That’s what I should have done, okay? You know how foolish I felt sitting here by myself? I called your office seven times.”
“You know I don’t answer the phones after hours.”
“Where were you?” she said, her voice booming out over the restaurant. “You were with another woman, weren’t you? Why don’t you tell me the truth? You haven’t slept with me in over a week. You’ve got to be getting it somewhere.”
Richard picked up the menu, ignoring her accusations. As soon as the waiter returned with his
wine, he ordered several of Joyce’s favorite dishes, then placed his napkin in his lap. The way she was acting, he decided this was as good a place as any to end their relationship. “It’s obvious that you’re not happy with me, Joyce,” he said softly. “You’re a wonderful woman, but perhaps it’s time we went our separate ways.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” she asked, flopping back in her seat in shock. “You have the gall to make me wait over an hour just so you can tell me you don’t want to be with me anymore.”
Richard felt his armpits dampen with perspiration. He felt as if the temperature inside the restaurant had risen at least twenty degrees in the past five minutes. Pulling his collar away from his neck, he continued, “We can still see each other if you want. I just think it might be better if we don’t live together anymore. I’m under a lot of pressure at the office.”
“You contemptible piece of shit!” Joyce shouted, red-faced and furious. “I sold my house. Where am I supposed to go? You can’t waltz in here and tell me to move out. I’ve lived with you for three years.”
“It’s not like you’re going to be out on the street,” Richard told her, realizing the breakup was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined. “You invested the equity from your house in the stock market. Your business might not be earning as much as it did in the past, but your investments have skyrocketed in the past year or so. If you don’t want to buy another house right away, you can always lease something. I need my space right now, Joyce. I can’t give you the kind of attention you want. Be reasonable.”
“Reasonable, sure, right,” she said, sniffing back tears. “I thought you loved me, that we were going to get married, start a family. I wasted three years of my life on you. By the time I find someone else, I might be too old to have children. What you’re doing to me isn’t fair. You used me, and now you’re throwing me out like I’m some kind of garbage.”
Richard imagined another brick falling into his guilt basket. “I never said I wanted to get married,” he told her, scowling. The waiter, dark and small in stature, unobtrusively placed the platters of food he had ordered on the table, then quickly disappeared. “One of our biggest problems is that you’ve never listened,” he continued, toying with the stem of his wineglass. “I don’t want to have another child. A few years from now Greg will get married and start a family of his own. Then I’ll have grandchildren. If you wanted a more serious relationship, you should have moved on a long time ago. You knew where I stood on these issues. I’ve never deceived you.”
Buried Evidence Page 15
