by Ken Casper
When he finally showed up at two o’clock, his list was shorter than the one Derek had furnished.
“The M.E. has only handled three hundred cases in the past fifteen months?” she asked.
“These are the cases the medical examiner’s office had to testify at.”
“I asked for everything, Paul, not just those that went to trial. How many others are there?”
Radke sucked in his cheeks before answering. “About twice that number.”
“I need all of them. These three hundred are ones the M.E. may have screwed up in court. We need to find out how many cases didn’t get that far because the lab botched them.”
“You’re not considering reopening the whole lot?”
“Not officially. But we have to at least review them to determine if there might be justification for further investigation.”
Forensic pathology was capable of things no one had even dreamed of a decade or two earlier, but it still started with careful initial observation and analysis. A gunshot wound was hard to miss, though there were documented cases of it happening. Bruises sustained in a fall might mask those resulting from a beating. Murder could be passed off as a drug overdose. Drowning could be seen as accidental or a suicide rather than homicide. And a man could die of an apparent heart attack, when he was actually poisoned.
“That’ll take forever.” Radke was shaking his head. “We haven’t got the resources or the budget—”
“We’ll have to get them.” She shuffled through the papers, noted Jordan’s name wasn’t on the list, but decided not to mention it. “This is all on computer. It shouldn’t be that difficult to expand the parameters of the search. I want a complete list by eight tomorrow morning.”
Her deputy didn’t appreciate being treated like a clerk. Until recently she’d considered him one of the good guys.
“Bring me the list personally, will you, Paul?” she said, when he turned and was moving toward the door. “I’d like to keep this under wraps for the time being.”
He froze in mid-stride, then continued out the door.
THE FORTY-MILE TRIP to Lake Conroe took a little over an hour and a half with traffic moving at a steady clip, no accidents jamming things up or foul weather slowing them down. Assuming Tyrone had a heavy foot in his shiny black Lotus, he could make the trip in less than an hour under ideal conditions, assuming he wasn’t stopped for speeding. Jeff would have Derek check to see if he had been issued any tickets.
The cozy town of Conroe was a favorite tourist spot, especially in the spring when bluebonnets were in bloom. Jeff found the gas station where Tyrone had filled up. It came as no surprise that the middle-aged woman who ran the place knew the six-foot-six black man or that she had only positive things to say about him. A true gentleman.
“We went to school together,” Jeff lied. “I have a getaway place of my own just up the road in Willis, so he stops by sometimes on weekends when he’s in this neck of the woods. Now that I think about it, the last time he dropped by must have been over a year ago—time sure flies—when his niece was at their cabin studying for her exams.”
“Kelsey. Yeah, sweet girl. Pretty, too. Always fills up here on her way to the family compound. Too bad about that fall she had. Do you know if she recovered all right?”
“She’s fine,” Jeff said, and wondered what fall she was referring to. Neither Derek nor Catherine had mentioned her getting injured.
“I guess it turned her off of the place, though,” the woman said. “I don’t think I’ve seen her since.”
“What exactly happened, anyway?” Jeff asked, as he snagged a tin of mints from the wire rack by the cash register. “I never did get the full story.”
“Tripped on a tree root while she was out hiking and took a tumble down an embankment. Got bruised real bad. Called her uncle who was visiting someone near here—” She looked up at Jeff. “I guess that was you.”
He smiled without actually confirming her assumption.
“Mr. Tanner came right over and wanted to take her to the hospital, but she refused. I reckon she just needed someone to talk to. Poor dear. She sure was moving painful when she stopped by to get some Tylenol on her way home the next day.”
“Did her uncle stay with her?”
“He was there a few hours is all, said she insisted on getting back to her books. As miserable as she was, though, I don’t see how she could have concentrated.”
Jeff thanked the woman, paid his bill and left.
He was home by midafternoon and found a message from Catherine inviting him to her house that evening at nine. Derek would also be there.
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
CATHERINE FELT a long-overdue jolt of confidence that she might be closing in on the ring of corruption that had plagued her administration and the one before it. She knew now Paul Radke was part of it, but she felt equally certain he wasn’t the man in charge, the mastermind. In spite of the ambition that had gotten him to the position of deputy chief, he was essentially an unimaginative man, a person who took advantage of opportunities rather than someone who created them. A cog in the wheel, one Catherine could use to get to the hub and to the spider who was pulling all the strings.
She worked in her office till six, then drove straight home. She’d asked Jeff and Derek to meet her there at nine. After changing into more comfortable clothes, she made a couple of telephone calls, threw together a sandwich, though her mouth was watering for one of Jeff’s omelets, and sat down with the phone logs Derek had given her. She focused on the dates surrounding Jordan’s death. She already knew about Rialto’s calls to Tyrone and his racquetball buddy the morning of Jordan’s death. What else did these contacts tell her? Beyond the fact that Tyrone and Rialto were more than casual acquaintances, not much.
She expanded her review and checked out the most frequently called numbers, tracing their identities online. Mostly businesses and a few people associated with the newspaper.
Then she spied another pattern. Every Tuesday evening Tyrone called the same number in Houston. She traced it. A woman who ran an escort service. At eleven o’clock on Wednesday mornings he made another call, each week to a different, unlisted number. Catherine ran a trace on three of them. Two came up with only initials for first names. The third belonged to a woman. Using her special access. Catherine researched the name. It belonged to an eighteen-year-old who had been picked up half a dozen times for soliciting.
Catherine leaned back in her chair. Now she knew what her brother-in-law did on Wednesday afternoons. Jeff was reviewing Tyrone’s credit card charges. Maybe they would tell her where he was taking his “escorts.”
She copied down the dates and the telephone numbers of the women he called. There were over forty. If she could coax statements from a few of them, she would have leverage against Tyrone.
The doorbell rang.
Since it was ten minutes to nine, Catherine assumed it was Derek. Her heart did a somersault when she found Jeff standing on her doorstep. In his eyes she saw the desire she felt.
“You’re early,” she said, as he came in.
“I wanted to see you alone for a few minutes.” When the door was closed, he asked, “Have you talked to Kelsey?”
Rather than give him the chance to touch her—she didn’t think she’d be able to hold out against the emotional power of feeling his arms around her—Catherine started for the living room, then altered her course and went to the kitchen. Because of the time they’d spent there—quality time—it had become the focal point of her house. That and the bedroom.
“No.” She opened the refrigerator, only to realize the pitcher of lemonade she’d planned to serve was nearly empty. Digging into the freezer, she removed a can. Jeff snagged a pot from the rack over the butcher block island and filled it with warm water. Catherine concentrated on his hands as he worked. Good hands. Awareness of what they were capable of prickled her skin.
“She hasn’t called me and I haven’t tried
to call her,” she said. “I need to give her time. I guess I need some, too.”
He plunged the can into the pot in the sink to defrost it while she got out three glasses.
“I came across information today I need to talk to you about,” he said. “In private.”
Her movements slowed. Was this an excuse for him to be alone with her? No, he wouldn’t play that kind of game. She just wished he’d take her in his arms and hold her. She needed to feel the warmth of human contact, have a shoulder to cry on. His shoulder. He’d promised she could use it whenever she wanted.
But she’d made up her mind. She couldn’t keep him in her life—or bed. Regardless of what she felt for him, her first obligation was to her daughter. Kelsey was very fragile right now, and that was Catherine’s fault. Her little girl was an adult. She had the right to make her own decisions, her own choices, but a mother has an obligation to guide by good example, and Catherine hadn’t done that.
“Stay after Derek leaves.” She began filling the glasses with ice from the freezer door. “We can talk then.”
He pulled the tab on the lemonade can and squeezed the cardboard cylinder, forcing the still frosty contents into the glass pitcher she had given him. He added water. She stirred while he disposed of the empty container. The two of them sidestepped each other with the choreography of assembly line workers who’d been on the job for years.
Jeff was carrying the pitcher to the breakfast-nook table when Catherine went to answer the door a second time. She returned a minute later with Derek. He greeted Jeff with a silent nod. They all sat down.
Catherine explained that Captain Radke had given her a short list of M.E. cases that would need review, and that she had requested an expanded list for the morning. She turned to Derek.
“We have the legal right to monitor telephone calls and computer usage in the workplace. See who he’s been contacting outside the department, either by phone or e-mail. If you come up with anyone suspicious, like Rialto, I can get a court order to put a tap on his office and home lines.”
Derek nodded.
“You mean you never checked who in the department was talking to whom?” Jeff asked.
“Of course I did,” she answered, more annoyed with herself than at his question. “My mistake was using in-house resources to do it. I made an assumption the people in Internal Affairs were clean. Radke and his people have been very supportive . . . or seemed to be until now.”
“If he’s your man, he’s probably purged the files of incriminating evidence.”
Derek spoke up. “That’s not as easy as it sounds. When the new system was installed two years ago, a backup, read-only folder was created on a second, remote server. Data can be deleted from the working files, but not from the backup.”
“How soon can you get me the logs?” Catherine asked.
“I’ll have them here by six tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t need them that fast,” she protested. “Get some sleep. You look bushed.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to sleep later.”
Catherine sensed frustration in his reply. At her for overloading him? She didn’t think so. More likely at his encounter the day before with Kelsey.
“Thanks for coming,” she told him. “I know I’m putting a lot on you—”
“No problem, ma’am. Glad to do it. See you in the morning.” He rose to leave.
Catherine was very conscious of Jeff watching her as she showed Derek out They’d both agreed to end their personal relationship, but making the decision and living with it were two different matters. How could she be in his presence and not be affected by him?
“Now what it is you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked upon her return to the kitchen. She felt him start to put his arm around her, then pull back. She should have been pleased by his self-control. With a sigh she shook off her regret and disappointment.
“I was having trouble sleeping last night,” he said, “and decided to go over Tyrone’s personal bills. Among them were gasoline charges. I discovered he uses a filling station in Conroe every Wednesday. Why do you suppose he would go all the way to Conroe in the middle of the week?”
Catherine resumed her place across from him at the breakfast table. “That explains the telephone calls. Every Tuesday he calls an escort service here in town. On Wednesday at eleven, he phones another number, always a different one, probably to coordinate picking the women up. I was wondering where he took them. The cabin at the lake. Makes sense. The family only uses it on weekends.”
“Seems like a long way to go just to get laid,” Jeff commented.
“Think of it as a power trip,” Catherine said. “The place is also private.”
“What’s wrong with the guy?” Jeff asked, not bothering to disguise his disdain. “He has a beautiful, intelligent wife. Why does he have to mess around with other women?”
Catherine gave him a wry smile. “You’re a man. You tell me.”
He shot her a wounded expression. “We’re not all like that.”
He was right. She’d been married to a good man. Without thinking, she reached out and put her hand on Jeff’s. “I know that. But a lot of men are.”
He studied her. “I discovered something else last night. Tyrone was up at Conroe on the Saturday of the weekend Kelsey was there studying for her finals.”
It took a moment, then Catherine felt the blood drain from her face, from her heart.
“According to the woman at the gas station,” Jeff continued, “Kelsey fell while out hiking and bruised herself, so she called her uncle. He drove up and wanted to take her to the hospital, but she refused to go. The clerk said Kelsey stopped by on her way out Sunday evening to get some Tylenol. She was moving very stiffly.”
4i No,” Catherine mumbled. “He wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t—” She covered her face.
“Cate, what is it?” Jeff moved around the table and knelt at her side. Hot, scorching tears slipped out from between her fingers. She bit her lips.
“Sweetheart, what is it?”
Taking a deep gulp of air, Catherine straightened, reached for a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and blotted her cheeks. Eyes still unfocused, she continued to take raking breaths for a long minute. Finally, she steeled herself.
“I’m going to tell you something, Jeff, something I’ve never told another soul, not even Jordan. It’s the one thing I held back from him. I need your word that you’ll keep it to yourself, that you’ll allow me to decide if and when it’s ever disclosed to anyone else. Will you do that for me? I’m asking you to keep a secret without even knowing what it is.”
“You can trust me, Cate. I give you my word.”
She started to pour herself more lemonade, but her hand shook so badly, Jeff took the pitcher and refilled her glass for her.
She managed a tiny sip. “Jordan and I had been going together for about six months before I finally got to meet his brother. Tyrone was six years younger than Jordan, which made him three years younger than me. He was a sophomore at Notre Dame at the time, home for the summer. Drop-dead handsome in a boyish sort of way—and he knew it.”
Catherine hadn’t been unaware of his good looks or his charisma. Later she’d asked herself repeatedly if in some way she had led him on, given him the impression she was more fascinated with him than she was. Perhaps that guilty suspicion explained why she’d never told Jordan, or anyone else, about what happened.
“In those days the Tanners owned a thirty-five-foot cabin cruiser that slept six. For me, the notion of sailing in Galveston Bay on a private yacht was like something out of a fable. Jordan was supposed to pick me up at the apartment I shared with a girlfriend at two o’clock that Saturday, but when I opened the door I found Tyrone. Jordan had been sidetracked at the last minute, Ty explained, and had asked him to pick me up.”
It had all seemed so innocent. She’d always felt safe with Jordan. How different could his kid brother be?
“I let him in
to the apartment while I got my stuff. My roommate had already left for the weekend. I was anxious to go, but Ty seemed intent on admiring a couple of watercolors I’d painted and had hung on the wall. I was standing beside him, apologizing for my genuine lack of real talent when he pulled me into his arms and kissed me hard on the month. The move was so quick and unexpected that for a moment I didn’t react, didn’t resist.”
“Which he took for acquiescence,” Jeff supplied.
She nodded. “As soon as the initial shock wore off, I fought him, but he just laughed, claimed he knew I wanted him, that I obviously liked black men, that he was black and all man.”
In truth, his attitude, the gleam in his eyes, the almost sadistic curl of his mouth had frightened her more than anything else in her life.
“He pinned my arms to my sides and pressed himself against me so I could feel his erection. He tried to kiss me again, but this time I was prepared and resisted with all the force I could muster. He laughed and tore my blouse right down the middle. I wasn’t wearing a bra. When he backed off to gape at my breasts, I yanked my knee up and kicked him between the legs as hard as I could. I was terrified. Adrenaline was pumping, and I guess that made me stronger than I realized, because the next thing I knew he was writhing on the floor in agony. He couldn’t get his breath and for a minute I was afraid he was going to die. He lay doubled over for some minutes before be finally recovered. Then he did something I hadn’t expected. He apologized.”
“He apologized?”
“He said he was sorry. He sounded so genuinely regretful. He explained that he must have gotten his signals crossed and asked me to forgive him for being out of line. He promised it would never happen again. He insisted he didn’t mean to hurt me, that he would never hurt a woman.”
