Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense

by Lee Goldberg

  It was midafternoon by the time we cleared the emergency room of serious trauma patients and were left with only the typical walk-ins with minor injuries and simple ailments. Once the adrenaline wore off, I realized how hungry and tired I was. I told Alice she could find me in the doctors' lounge if any more emergencies came in.

  I was starving, but too weary to go to the cafeteria, so I settled for a cold, soggy sandwich from a vending machine, then stretched out on the hard couch to take a nap.

  This time sleep came easily.

  I awoke three hours later, stiff and groggy and not the least bit recharged. I actually felt worse than I had before the nap. There was fresh coffee in the pot, so I got up, poured myself a cup, and sat down at one of the tables, waiting for the caffeine to kick in and revive me.

  The lounge was our sanctuary, and the doctors were responsible for taking care of it. So, naturally, it was a mess. A week's worth of newspapers were scattered over the tables and chairs. Dirty cups and plates filled the sink.

  The garbage can was overflowing. I figured it was my turn to clean up.

  I started to gather up the newspapers and was about to throw them out when a tiny news item caught my eye. It was on the back page of the Metro section. The story didn't amount to more than three paragraphs. It was about a car accident on Mulholland Highway, which wasn't really a highway at all but rather a narrow road that wound around the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. According to the article, Muriel Thayer, age nineteen, of Hollywood, died when she lost control of her car on the narrow, winding, rain-slick road.

  I felt that tickle, the same mental shiver I'd gotten when I smelled the bath oil on Sally Pruitt's corpse.

  I began organizing the newspapers on the couch by day, beginning with the morning the storms rolled in a week ago. Once I had the old newspapers laid out in chronological order, I began going through the news sections column by column, paying particular attention to reports about the storm and people injured by the downpour. I took careful notes as I went along.

  When I was done, I had a list of two dozen names. I circled the victims who were alone when they were killed, and then I organized those names by sex and age. Among those half dozen names were two single women in their late teens. One died in a fall down a flight of stairs. Another was electrocuted.

  There was nothing in the articles to indicate that either woman's death was anything but an accident. Neither article mentioned whether they were nursing students or not.

  I wondered again about Muriel Thayer's death.

  Was I jumping to conclusions?

  All my fears were based on the similarities between Muriel and Sally and the fact that both of their deaths appeared to be accidents related to the storm.

  I hadn't stopped to find out if there actually was anything suspicious about Muriel's accident beyond my own feeling that something wasn't right.

  There was one person I could ask—Dr. Jay Barbette, the county medical examiner. But how could I do it with out revealing to him that I was investigating Sally Pruitt's murder?

  Then again, it was Dr. Barbette who'd called me a born detective. Would he be any more surprised by what I was doing than Katherine was?

  Probably not.

  But that didn't mean he would approve of what I was doing. If I called him, he might tell Harry Trumble about it, and then I'd be in big trouble.

  It was a risk I had to take, especially if there was a killer out there who'd already struck twice and might murder again.

  I gave Dr. Barbette a call from the doctors' lounge, but he wasn't in. His assistant told me he was out at a crime scene. I said I'd call back later and didn't leave a message. I didn't want to take a chance that Harry Trumble would hear that I'd called.

  I put my investigation aside and went back to work in the ER.

  Alice Blevins assisted me as I put a plaster cast on a man's broken leg. The man had fallen off his roof while trying to plug a leak during a brief lull in the rain.

  "Do you do any teaching in the nursing program?" I asked her casually as we worked.

  "I'm not on the faculty, if that's what you mean," she said. "But I'm frequently asked to answer questions for the students or tell war stories about my tour of duty in Korea."

  "The morale must be pretty low over there," I said.

  "Why?" she asked.

  "I heard a couple students died in accidents over the last week or so," I said.

  "I only know of one. She drove off a cliff or something. Poor girl. I didn't realize there had been others."

  I shrugged and told her I didn't know anything more, I was just repeating the scuttlebutt I'd heard around the hospital. What I didn't say was that I was disappointed that she couldn't give me any more details than I already had.

  We finished up with the roofer and, as I was coming out of the exam room, I bumped into Bart Spicer. I thanked him again for letting us share a babysitter with him.

  "Joanna is terrific, isn't she?" he asked.

  I wondered if he knew, or suspected, what had happened between her and me. I wondered if it had happened to him, and if it had, if he'd pushed her away.

  "How did you find her?" I asked.

  "Word of mouth," Bart said. "Chet or Dan or Phil or one of the other doctors. Are you thinking about using her again?"

  "We might," I said. "Have you ever hired any of the other nursing students to babysit? Joanna mentioned something about a list."

  "There was one," he said. "I don't know what I did with my copy. Check the bulletin boards around the hospital."

  I took his advice and set off down the halls, searching out bulletin boards in the coffee lounges, locker rooms, cafeterias, and anywhere else the hospital staff might congregate.

  I couldn't find any copies of the list. And by the time I got to the bulletin board in the pathology lab, I was losing hope.

  If I didn't find the list, there were a few other options. I could approach the other doctors and their wives to see if any of them still had a copy.

  The easiest way, of course, would be to see Joanna Pate. She might know who the other nurses were. But the thought of seeing her again made me nervous. She was a very desirable young woman. I was afraid of what she might do and how I might react. I was thinking about that when one of the lab technicians tapped me on the shoulder, startling me. His skin and hair were almost as white as his lab coat.

  "Weren't you here when the medical examiner picked up that lady who drowned?" he asked.

  "Her name was Sally Pruitt," I said. "Yes, I was here. Why do you ask?"

  "I'm glad I ran into you," he said, going to his desk. "The guys from Dr. Barbette's office left something behind the other day."

  He brought me a plastic bag. Inside the bag was Sally Pruitt's rabbit-foot keychain and the single shiny key.

  "Are you going to be seeing Dr. Barbette anytime soon?" the technician asked.

  I would now that I had an excuse, I thought.

  "Yes," I said, taking the bag and putting it in the pocket of my lab coat. "I'll be sure that he gets it."

  I didn't know when I'd have an opportunity to go down to the county morgue, but I had a sinking feeling it would be sooner rather than later.

  A strong wind beat the rain against the windows of the hospital, but despite the storm's fury the ER was surprisingly quiet. I spent the last hour of my shift catching up on all the paperwork generated by the chaos that had started my day thirty-six hours earlier.

  I was on my way out to go home when I saw a woman in the waiting area, reading the evening edition of the newspaper. The headline was in big, bold type and immediately grabbed my full attention.

  BABYSITTER MISSING, FOUL PLAY FEARED

  It was the word "babysitter" that got me. Had The Storm Killer struck again?

  There was another copy of the newspaper abandoned on an empty seat. I snatched it up and quickly read the article.

  Tess Vigland, eighteen, disappeared from a home in Chatsworth last night while baby
sitting the two children of a single mother. When the mother, who'd been out on a date, returned a little after one a.m., she discovered the front door ajar, her children asleep in their beds, and the babysitter gone. The mother immediately called the police.

  According to the article, a neighbor reported seeing Tess outside around eleven thirty p.m., talking to a man inside a large, dark sedan parked in front of the house. The witness didn't see the man's face and couldn't identify the make or model of his car.

  Police told reporters that Tess left her shoes, purse, and wallet behind in the house, which indicated she wasn't planning on leaving and suggested foul play. Yet there were no signs of a struggle, leading police to believe she may have been abducted by someone she knew.

  I tossed the paper aside. The Storm Killer. Good God, what was I thinking?

  I'd worked myself up into believing there was some killer out there, stalking babysitters and using the storm to hide his crimes. I had absolutely no basis for leaping to that assumption.

  Someone had murdered Sally Pruitt and made her death look like an accident, but that didn't mean every woman who died or disappeared in Los Angeles during the storm had been killed.

  Muriel Thayer died in an accident on a rain-slick road. She was a nursing student and she babysat to earn extra money. That was all I really knew. It was hardly enough evidence to assume she was murdered.

  I knew even less about Tess Vigland. She was a babysitter and she was gone. But her disappearance certainly couldn't be blamed on the weather, nor was she dead.

  Yet.

  That little voice in my head just wouldn't leave me alone, making my imagination run wild.

  It was obvious what I needed to do: Go home, see my family, and get some rest. Everything would look different in the morning.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I didn't go home.

  Instead, I called Katherine and told her I had to deliver Sally Pruitt's rabbit-foot key chain to Dr. Barbette right away.

  "I hope you aren't thinking about cheating on me," she said, "because you're lousy at deception."

  My heart dropped into my stomach, the blood drained from my face, and I nearly passed out. It was a good thing I was standing in the emergency room, because I was going to need one soon.

  She knew about the kiss. She knew how it made me feel. She knew I'd kept it from her. How did she find out?

  Was it all over my face?

  Maybe it was. Literally.

  I felt a pang of panic. Had I walked back into our bedroom with another woman's lipstick on my face?

  "I haven't lied to you about anything," I stammered.

  "It's what you didn't say and you might as well have shouted it out," she replied. "The keychain is just an excuse to ask Dr. Barbette some more questions."

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, relieved. This wasn't about Joanna. But it made me realize again just how guilty I felt about the kiss, for enjoying it, for wanting more. I would make it up to Katherine somehow, even though she didn't know she'd been slighted.

  "You don't mind?" I asked.

  "I'll wait up," she said. "I want to know everything."

  "Really?" I said.

  "This is better than an episode of Perry Mason," she said.

  "I love you," I said.

  "Of course you do," she replied, and I could hear the smile on her face. "I'm irresistible."

  If Dr. Barbette was surprised to see me, he didn't show it. He was in middle of conducting an autopsy of a Hispanic man in his twenties with multiple stab wounds in his neck, chest, and stomach.

  "What happened to him?" I asked as I came in. "Horatio Ortega stabbed himself sixteen times with a steak knife," Barbette said. "Or so says the guy who was caught carrying Horatio's watch, wallet, and bloody steak knife."

  The medical examiner peeled off his bloody gloves and shook my hand.

  "What can I do for you, Dr. Sloan?"

  I took the plastic bag out of my pocket and gave it to him. "You left this keychain behind the other day. It be longed to Sally Pruitt."

  Dr. Barbette nodded and tossed the bag on an empty autopsy table. "You didn't make the trip all the way down here just to deliver that key."

  "My wife said the same thing," I said.

  "You want to ask me something about Sally Pruitt's murder," he said.

  "My wife said that, too," I said.

  "What else did she say? You could save me the trouble of having this conversation at all."

  I told him what I'd learned so far about Sally Pruitt, how she was living with her parents and babysitting to earn money for tuition in Community General's nursing school.

  "As fascinating as that is," Dr. Barbette said with a sigh, "I'd appreciate it if you got to the point, assuming there is one."

  "Earlier this week, a woman died in a car accident on Mulholland," I said. "Her name was Muriel Thayer."

  Dr. Barbette cocked an eyebrow. "What about her?"

  "She was a nursing student at Community General," I said. "She was also babysitting to earn extra money."

  "You think there's a connection," Barbette said.

  "I was hoping you could tell me," I said. "Are you sure her death was an accident?"

  "Yes," he said. "And no."

  Goose bumps crawled up my back. He led me over to one of the morgue drawers as he spoke.

  "She lost control of her car on one of those hairpin turns," he said. "The car went over the cliff and rolled over several times before reaching the bottom of the canyon."

  "Were there any skid marks on the road?"

  Dr. Barbette shrugged. "I just cut the bodies, but here's the interesting thing."

  He opened the drawer in front of him, revealing a corpse I presumed to be Muriel Thayer. Beyond the Y-shaped autopsy incision, I noticed she was covered with deep bruises and numerous lacerations. She had a compound fracture of her right leg and a broken nose, and was missing several teeth.

  "She was hurt pretty bad, as you can see," he said. "What you can't see is the collapsed lung, the cracked ribs, and the ruptured spleen."

  "None of those wounds is fatal," I said.

  "You must be a doctor," he said.

  "So what killed her?" I asked.

  "My best guess is a heart attack or heart arrhythmia," he said.

  "Are you sure she wasn't dead before the car went off the cliff?" I asked.

  He glared at me. "I may have been mistaken calling you a doctor. Think a minute."

  I flushed, embarrassed that I'd asked such a stupid question. "If she was dead, she wouldn't have bled or bruised. Sorry, it's been a long day."

  "You aren't used to thinking about death," he said. "You're more experienced in preventing it. If you're serious about investigating murder, you'll have to change the way you look at things."

  I gestured toward the body. "Is she still here because you have some doubts about the circumstances of her death?"

  "I don't have any doubts," he said. "Her parents are coming from Chicago to claim her body. The storm has delayed their arrival."

  He may not have had any doubts, but I did, even though there was no evidence to suggest that she was murdered. Judging from the expression on Dr. Barbette's face, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

  "Many factors can contribute to the sudden loss of life. Not every cause of death can be conclusively determined," he said. "That doesn't make them homicides."

  I nodded, not really believing him.

  "Do you think I'm incompetent, Dr. Sloan?"

  "No, sir," I said, horrified that I might have offended him. "Of course not."

  "I've been doing this a long time, young man. I've probably conducted hundreds of autopsies. If there was any evidence of murder, I would have found it."

  "I'm sure you would," I said, trying desperately to make up for my mistake. "I didn't mean to imply, in any way, shape, or form, that you weren't doing your job. Of course you were. Exceptionally well."

  "Then again," Barbette said, a contemp
lative look on his face, "the killer might not have left any evidence for me to find."

  He gave me a tiny smile and, with it, a little encouragement. I smiled back appreciatively and with great relief.

  "I'm sorryy if I distracted you from your work, Dr. Barbette," I said. "I'd better be going."

  "What's your hurry? As long as you're here, would you like to assist me on another autopsy? It's a dismemberment case. You don't get many of those."

  "I wish I could," I said, "but I should get home to my wife."

  "Very well," he said, sounding a bit disappointed. "Thank you for delivering Miss Pruitt's personal effects."

  A thought occurred to me. "What happened to Muriel's things?"

  "I have them," Barbette said. "They're in a box for her parents."

  "Could I see them?"

  "I don't see why not," Barbette said.

  He led me to a storage room, drew a set of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door. The tiny room was lined floor to ceiling with metal shelves. On each shelf were identical cardboard file boxes labeled with serial numbers and names. Dr. Barbette went to Muriel's box, pulled it off the shelf, and carried it back into the morgue, setting it down on the empty autopsy table.

  "What are you looking for?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I said, lifting the lid off the box. There wasn't much inside. Each item was in its own plastic bag. "I'm just curious."

  Dr. Barbette smiled, amused. "That's how it starts."

  "How what starts?"

  "Every investigation," he said. "You think you're going to find Sally Pruitt's killer in that box?"

  He didn't wait for an answer. He turned his back to me and returned to the corpse with the multiple stab wounds.

  I sorted through Muriel's things. Her bloody, torn clothes had been neatly folded and placed in a bag, as if they might be worn again. Her raincoat, gloves, shoes, jewelry, and purse were each bagged separately, but the contents of her purse were collected together in one bag. I emptied the bag out on the table, the items spilling onto the metal with a loud clang.

  I looked up apologetically at Dr. Barbette.