The Lost Witness

by Robert Ellis

  Lena got inside and closed the door behind her. As she stood in the dark foyer, she took another deep breath and wondered if she had made a mistake by coming here. The place was too quiet. Too black. And the day had started off with an overdose of the abhorrent. Two experiences with two people so foul that she could taste it in her mouth.

  But there was something else here. Something more. As she first entered the apartment, she became aware of the victim’s scent. It only lasted for a split second, dissipating in the air just as she noticed—but it had been there. And it wasn’t the soap the woman had used, or even the perfume that Lena had smelled twice before. It was her person, lingering behind. Her body. Her physical being, six days gone.

  Lena didn’t know whether she could handle this right now. Like maybe the timing was off and five or six shots of tequila with salt and lime would do her good.

  She switched on the lamp and gazed through the French doors into the living room. She had forgotten how barren the place was. Not a single photograph. Not a letter from a friend. Just the basics. One set of sheets and a pair of bath towels. Enough clothing to pack a suitcase. Enough lingerie to fill a duffel bag so that Jennifer McBride could make a buck.

  Lena glanced inside the bedroom, deciding to enter when she spotted the snow globe on the bedside table. She picked it up and gazed at the snow falling over Las Vegas. The Bellagio Hotel and Caesar’s Palace. All the streets painted a bright gold. Although Barrera had managed to get the story on five stations in Nevada, the response from viewers matched the response here in Los Angeles.

  Lena rubbed her thumb over the glass, thinking that its meaning for whoever Jane Doe really was didn’t point to where she came from. It would have been too easy if it had. Instead, the object was probably nothing more than a souvenir from a weekend visit. Or, maybe only a gift from a client or a friend.

  She set the snow globe down and returned to the living room. Moving to the couch, she opened her briefcase and pulled out the murder book. The Field Interview cards Kline had sent with the key to the padlock were in the back. She pulled them out, sorting them on the coffee table. Her sole interest was with the tenants living in the building, not the total number of people contacted when Pacific Division canvassed the neighborhood. Other than Jones and the victim, there were six names, and Kline had told her that he conducted these interviews himself. She trusted the detective. They had gone through the academy together and he had played a role in her last case. She skimmed through the cards, rereading his notes. But every card was exactly the same. Every interview, almost identical. The young woman calling herself Jennifer McBride lived a private life. No one in the building knew her. Over the past year, no one really talked to her. She was attractive, had a great smile, but kept to herself and was always seen alone.

  Lena set the cards down, that story on KFWB resurfacing in her mind. The story about the old man who died in his living room and sat for a year in front of his TV before anyone noticed. The man without a lifeline.

  She lay back on the couch, thinking it over and wondering why this mysterious woman—the woman who cast spells—didn’t have a lifeline, either. No connection between her real identity and the life that she was living under another name. No connection left behind just in case something went wrong.

  The more Lena considered the circumstances, the less sense it made. The victim had obviously been too smart, her theft of Jennifer McBride’s identity too thorough. The life she was living had been too risky to not include some sort of an out pitch, some kind of an insurance policy. A lifeline back to the real world and the people who knew her and loved her.

  She woke up in the dim light, her body flinching as it broke the surface. She turned and looked back at the lamp on the foyer table. Sat up and stared at the fire escape outside the windows. Night had fallen, the marine layer had rolled in—and she was still in Jennifer McBride’s apartment.

  She checked her watch. It was seven-thirty and she’d been asleep for hours. She didn’t understand it. The loss of control worried her.

  Lena got up and crossed the room to the window, sorting through the events of the day she couldn’t seem to face. But as her eyes climbed the brick wall on the other side of the alley, everything came to a sudden stop.

  That man with the wool cap and the binoculars was staring at her through the fog. Staring at her and not looking away.

  She glanced back at the couch, calculating the angle. When she realized that his view included most of the living room, she stopped calculating and drew the curtains. She didn’t really need to do the math. The day was already too rich, too good.

  She stepped into the kitchen, splashing her face with warm water. Her mind was still going, and it felt like a migraine was waving at her from an hour or two down the road. She thought she remembered seeing a bottle of Tylenol when she and Rhodes made their initial search. Switching on the overhead light, she found it in the cabinet beside several bottles of vitamins.

  The Tylenol was new and she picked out the cotton. After filling a glass with tap water, she popped two caplets and noticed a piece of scratch paper on the counter beside the stove.

  It was a grocery list. Lettuce, yogart, bread, and cheese. Four or five basic items the victim had jotted down before her death.

  For some reason she found it hard to look at. She thought about her meeting with the chief again. Her confrontation with Jones in the lobby. The pervert with the wool cap watching her sleep. As the moments faded, her eyes drifted back to that grocery list that had been left behind and was no longer needed. She felt the sting and wondered why it was always the small things about a victim’s life that brought a murder home.

  Lena flipped the paper over in frustration, but froze before she could shake her head. The grocery list hadn’t been scrawled out on a piece of scratch paper. Instead, the victim had used the back of a script from her doctor.

  She whisked the paper off the counter, holding it closer to the light and trying to keep her emotions in check. She saw Jennifer McBride’s name and a drug called Synthroid. The words were barely legible, but they were here. The name of the doctor who prescribed the medication was here as well, along with an office address and phone number, printed neatly at the top.

  Everything about the script looked legit.

  She packed up the murder book, locked the door, and hustled downstairs. Hitting the sidewalk, she saw Jones keeping watch with his ruined eyes from the window. The clouds were tumbling in at street level, the air, pitch black and raw. She knew that he couldn’t see her in the fog, and even if he could, she didn’t care.

  Her car was parked two doors down. As she picked up her pace, she noticed another man exiting the next building. His body was silhouetted in the darkness, but she could see him shouldering a book bag. In spite of the cold, it looked like all he had on were a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He crossed the street, moving away from her into the mist. His gate appeared smooth and easy, like he didn’t know that she was even there. Still, she kept an eye on him and watched as he clicked the remote on his key ring. She heard the alarm chirp and saw the headlights blink. And that’s when she spotted the wool cap.

  “Hey, you,” she shouted.

  He stopped and turned from half a block away, his face lost in the gloom. Lena searched for the patrol car at the end of the street, didn’t see it in the wall of fog, and turned back. Then the man jumped into his car and pulled out.

  Her eyes flicked down to the license plate, but the car seemed new and she didn’t think it was there. She heard the tires screeching on the wet asphalt—watched the car shimmering in and out of the darkness and ghosting as it picked up speed. It was an SRX Crossover. When it rolled beneath a street light, she caught a glimpse of the color before it vanished into the December night. She had seen a similar color on a Lexus SC coupe and liked it. Radiant bronze. At least the perv had taste.

  27

  Doctor Ryan is with a patient,” the nurse said. “She won’t be long. You can wait in here
.”

  Lena followed her into the doctor’s office. When the nurse left, she took a seat in front of the desk and looked out the window. The medical building was on Sunset at the very end of the Strip and she could see the rays of early morning sunlight burning through the mist. She had spent most of the night on her computer, catching up on Justin Tremell’s exploits and researching Synthroid on the Internet.

  The woman living as Jennifer McBride had an underactive thyroid gland, yet at the time of her death was only twenty-plus years old. The medication she was using amounted to hormone replacement therapy. It was a simple fix for a condition that affected both men and women. From what Lena had read, people whose families originated in countries close to the Mediterranean Sea appeared more susceptible to the disease than those who didn’t. But the condition had no real boundaries, a long list of possible causes, and could affect anyone.

  Lena stood up as Dr. Sue Ryan entered, introducing herself and shaking hands. She watched the doctor move around the desk with Jennifer McBride’s file under her arm, a blonde in her mid-forties with gentle eyes and a round figure that seemed to fit her well. Lena could tell from the expression on her face that the nurse had given her the news. There was no reason to explain why she wanted to talk.

  “I’m sorry to hear about Jennifer,” the doctor said. “I’ve been so busy, I didn’t know.”

  “How long was she a patient?”

  “Only about two months. I’m afraid I didn’t even recognize her name. I had to skim through her file before I remembered her.”

  Lena tried not to show her disappointment. She had been hoping for more.

  “I need to look at that file,” she said.

  The doctor hesitated. “I’ve never been through anything like this before. She signed a privacy agreement.”

  “I understand, but I need to see the file. She’s not a suspect, Doctor. She was the victim. She’s dead.”

  The doctor thought it over for a moment, then slid the file across the desk.

  “Thanks,” Lena said.

  She leafed through the pages quickly, skipping over McBride’s brief medical history. Instead, she wanted to look at the personal information forms the victim would have filled out before her first appointment. The names and phone numbers she would have listed in case of an emergency. When she found them, she pulled the murder book out of her briefcase and located the rental agreement McBride had submitted for the apartment on Navy Street.

  The information forms were two pages long and exactly what Lena expected—a mirrored copy of the rental agreement the victim had given Jones. Her social security number was here, along with her mother’s name, address, and phone number. Everything she had stolen from the real Jennifer McBride, the girl who had been murdered in a bank robbery two years ago.

  Lena made a second pass, comparing the two documents side by side. Nothing she saw pointed to the woman’s real identity. Jane Doe No. 99 hadn’t left a lifeline.

  “Is there a problem?” Dr. Ryan asked.

  “Not really.”

  “But you were looking for something and it’s not there. You’re disappointed.”

  Lena met the doctor’s eyes, then noticed that the murder book was distracting the woman. A crime scene photograph taken of the victim in the alley was partially visible. She closed the binder and casually returned it to her briefcase.

  “I was just wondering about the medication you prescribed.”

  “Synthroid.”

  “I found the script in her apartment.”

  Dr. Ryan leaned back in her chair. “Jennifer had an underactive thyroid gland.”

  “I understand that. But why not the generic? When I looked it up on the Internet, the generic was prescribed more often than the original.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “Most of my patients use the generic. Let me see the file.”

  Lena passed it over, watching the doctor turn directly to her notes. After a moment, the woman found what she was searching for.

  “Jennifer said that she didn’t want the generic. It was a specific request.”

  “Any reason why?” Lena asked.

  “None that I can think of. The only difference is cost.”

  “But I noticed that she didn’t list an insurance company. That would mean that she had to pay for everything herself.”

  The doctor glanced back at her notes and started reading. “She told us she just changed jobs. She was supposed to call in and update her records, but I can see that she didn’t.”

  “She seems so young,” Lena said. “Is this condition common for someone in their early twenties?”

  “It’s not as uncommon as you might think. For someone in her situation, you’d be surprised.”

  “What situation?”

  Dr. Ryan lowered the file to her desk and looked at her. “Her thyroid problems began with a pregnancy.”

  It hung there, in the silence between breaths. Lena didn’t say anything as the doctor continued.

  “I guess I should be more precise. Jennifer didn’t realize that she had a thyroid problem until after her pregnancy. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the two. Fatigue and weight gain are symptomatic of both.”

  “Do you know when she had the child?”

  The doctor shook her head. “I’m not even certain that she carried it to term. If I had to guess, I’d say that she didn’t.”

  “You mean she aborted it.”

  “Or lost it. She wasn’t my patient at the time. She came to me with these symptoms. After a blood test, the results were obvious. She was due for a more thorough exam next month. All I have are my notes from her first visit.”

  “Then why are you so certain that she didn’t see the pregnancy through?”

  “Because she didn’t want to talk about it. What new mother doesn’t want to talk about having a child? I’ve been seeing patients for fifteen years. I haven’t met one yet.”

  Lena sank back in the chair as the doctor went on. But she wasn’t really listening anymore. She was thinking about Justin Tremell and the many reasons why he wanted to keep his relationship with Jennifer McBride hidden. She was thinking about why he claimed that he didn’t even know her. But even more, she was thinking about the fifty thousand dollars they found in McBride’s bank account, and a pregnancy that may have come to an untimely end.

  28

  She didn’t want to get too jazzed. Didn’t want to run out too much line or acknowledge that given what she knew and had just learned, things were beginning to make sense.

  It was 9:30 a.m. Lena sat in her car, working the phone from the parking garage at the doctor’s office. According to Justin Tremell’s assistant, he never arrived at work before eleven. According to Lieutenant Barrera, Tremell lived just ten minutes away in Pacific Palisades—a neighborhood Lena was familiar with just off Sunset and Brooktree Road. She jotted down the address in her notebook, thanked Barrera, and closed her phone. Then she slipped the personal information forms Dr. Ryan had given her into the murder book and pulled out of the garage.

  She had walked out of the doctor’s office with the originals, not photocopies. The actual forms that Jennifer McBride had handled and spent time filling out. Documents that Lena could take back to the lab because she thought she’d noticed something.

  Sue Ryan, MD, didn’t have to be that nice, but she was. Nor did Barrera, who knew Lena had been ordered to cross Justin Tremell off the list, but never mentioned it as he looked up Tremell’s home address and gave it to her.

  She blew through the first traffic light. For a split second she thought about her meeting with the chief yesterday. Just long enough to push it back and bring the car up to speed. The road coiled through the hills like a warped spring. As she slid into the curves, she tried to keep an open mind and not connect the dots—even though the dots seemed to be connecting themselves. Within ten minutes she found Brooktree, made a left and coasted down the hill. When she crossed the stream at the base of the canyon, she made a
nother left, saw Tremell’s house, and started down the private drive.

  The house had been set in a meadow that stretched across two or three acres of open land in a city that wasn’t supposed to have any open land. She could see the stream winding through the tall grass and a barn with two horses beside a small pond. When the drive split, she spotted a pickup truck and several cars in a parking area and stayed to the left.

  There was something idyllic about the property. Something remote and unreal. The house was smaller than she would have guessed, but just right for the setting. It was an eclectic mix of stone, wood, and glass with a vaulted roof line and a modern feel that took advantage of the views without overpowering the landscape. As she pulled beside the pickup and got out, she noticed the ladders leaning against the back of the house. A handful of day laborers were taking a break in the warm sun beside three palates of roof shingles. She caught the laughter in their eyes. Someone was whispering in Spanish while another giggled with his head down. Lena looked for the contractor that went with the pickup, but didn’t see him around.

  She crossed the gravel lot and stepped onto the rear porch. The door was open. Cupping her hands, she gazed through the screen into the kitchen and saw an older couple sitting at the breakfast table. And the infant was here, too. Tremell’s new son, Dean Jr. The woman was cradling the baby in her arms, patting his back, and still holding the empty bottle of formula in her free hand.

  At first glance, the scene inside the kitchen seemed just as pastoral as the trip down the driveway from the road. But after a short time, it struck Lena that the older couple had no intention of acknowledging her presence. They had seen her approach the door, yet they hadn’t moved or said anything. They just sat there, staring back at her.

  She reached for her badge and pressed it against the screen. “I’d like to speak with Justin Tremell.”

  A beat went by before the man finally spoke in a weak voice. “He’s not here.”