Fatal Care

by Leonard Goldberg

  “She knew what was in that shoe box all along,” Joanna said.

  Jake tried to follow Joanna’s logic, but couldn’t. “What do you base that on?”

  “A number of things,” Joanna told him. “First, this obviously wasn’t a run-of-the-mill robbery. She looked like Beverly Hills and he looked like a ditchdigger. So she wasn’t after his money. Second, and most important, she removed the bottle from the shoe box and took it with her. Remember, that shoe box was open at the crime scene, and we never found the bottle it contained.”

  “Maybe she threw the bottle into the pit after she pushed the Russian in,” Jake suggested.

  Joanna shook her head. “All the bottles in the pit were buried or half-buried. She knew what was in the box, and that’s why she followed him and killed him. She wanted what was in that shoe box. Otherwise we would have found it at the crime scene.”

  Jake thought through Joanna’s line of reasoning. All of the pieces fit except for one. “But why kill him if you don’t have to? Why not just conk him over the head and take the box? Keep in mind, she had the gun.”

  Joanna shrugged and gestured with opened palms. “That I don’t know.”

  Jake paced the floor again, thinking through the story from start to finish. The guy was on a quiet, deserted street with poor lighting. It was a perfect place for a robbery. But why bother to shoot him twice and take the chance that somebody would hear the shots? That didn’t make sense. Everything up to that point had been planned so—

  Suddenly the answer came to Jake. He stopped in his tracks and spun around to face Joanna. “I’ll be a son of a bitch!”

  “What?”

  “It was a hit,” Jake said hoarsely. “A well-planned hit. She set the poor bastard up perfectly. She comes on to him in the bar, even offering him money for a bang. He can’t believe his good luck. He’s going to get laid and get paid for it. He arranges to meet her later, maybe after he does his burial business. And he ends up getting iced for his trouble.”

  Joanna sipped her beer slowly, her eyes fixed on the fire. “This blonde sounds like a pro, a real pro.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jake said, and lit another cigarette. “She had everything planned down to the minute.”

  “Professional hitters cost,” Joanna went on. “Now, who would be willing to pay big bucks to hit some Russian immigrant?”

  “Somebody who wanted to stop him from planting babies,” Jake replied at once.

  “Or somebody who wanted to stop him from taking babies to plant,” Joanna added. She thought again about all the evidence at hand, including the cut-up fetuses. “There’s some very gruesome business going on here. And we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg now.”

  “Are you talking about the guy’s murder?”

  “I’m talking about fetuses that have been cut open and eviscerated.”

  “What!” Jake came over to Joanna and sat beside her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The babies in the bottles have all been split open and their internal organs removed,” Joanna said quietly.

  “Jesus!” Jake hissed under his breath. “What’s this all about?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea,” Joanna answered. “But somebody removed every organ, including their brains.”

  “Why would somebody do that?” Jake asked, feeling way out of his depth.

  Joanna shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Cui bono?” Jake asked. “Who would benefit from it?”

  “No one that I can think of.”

  “Can the organs be used?” Jake probed.

  Joanna considered the question at length. “The brains maybe. In some medical centers they are now implanting fetal brain cells into the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Some think it does,” Joanna said ambiguously.

  “What about the heart and liver and things like that?”

  “They have no use that I know of.”

  “So you couldn’t transplant them into kids or adults?”

  “No way.”

  “Could they be used in some type of experiment?”

  Joanna thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. In this country, experiments on fetal tissues are closely monitored. And even if they weren’t, I don’t know what you’d do with a fetal heart or liver. You can’t keep the organs alive for very long.”

  “How long are we talking?”

  “Hours.”

  “Well, somebody sure as hell wanted those organs.”

  Jake was back on his feet, pacing. “Where did those fetuses come from? That’s the key here.”

  “We’re going to check out all the local hospitals and abortion clinics, but chances are we’ll come up with a big nothing.”

  “You figure the people responsible would cover their trail pretty good, huh?”

  Joanna nodded. “You can lose track of tissue specimens real easy, particularly in a clinic setting.”

  Jake continued to pace the floor. “Where the hell did those fetuses come from?”

  “I’ll bet the blond hitter could lead us to it.”

  “And so could the Russian,” Jake said. “But he’s dead and she’s disappeared.”

  “You’ve got to find her, Jake.”

  “Tell me about it,” he growled. “We scoured every bar and motel in a five-mile radius, thinking she was just some well-heeled housewife looking for some action. And of course, we found nothing because she’s not some damn housewife. She’s a professional hitter.” Jake ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “Who the hell could have ever guessed that?”

  “Not the Russian,” Joanna commented. “That’s for sure.”

  “And we’re running into dead ends with him, too,” Jake said sourly. “Nobody in the neighborhood knows who he is or where he lives. And on the occasions he went into some store, he always paid in cash. If the guy had a credit card, he never used it.”

  “My kingdom for a credit card,” Joanna muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Joanna got to her feet and went into the kitchen to check on the chicken pot pies in the oven. She opened another bottle of beer, still thinking about credit cards and how valuable they were in tracking down an individual. A credit card yields a person’s name, address, place of employment, income, bank, and work history. It detailed what a person bought and where he bought it, what his tastes were, where he traveled, and in some instances it would tell you all about a person’s habits and vices. Credit cards had tracked down more criminals than fingerprints ever would.

  But the Russian didn’t have one. He was just a poor working stiff. The expensively dressed blonde, on the other hand, would have a purse full of cards. And Joanna had an idea where the blonde might use them. She hurried back into the living room and handed Jake a fresh beer.

  “Let’s talk about the blond hitter,” Joanna said.

  “Okay.” Jake carefully poured beer into his mug and sipped it. “What aspect?”

  “Where she’d be most likely to use her credit cards.”

  Jake looked up quickly. “How do you know she had any?”

  “Oh, I think the odds are pretty good that a well-dressed woman would have credit cards. Don’t you?”

  Jake nodded, wondering where Joanna was headed. “Okay. Let’s assume she had them.”

  “So, where would she use them?”

  “Not in that goddamn neighborhood,” Jake said. “You don’t use credit cards in cheap bars and doughnut shops. And last I looked, there weren’t any Neiman Marcus stores in south Santa Monica.”

  “But there are gas stations.”

  Jake blinked rapidly as the pieces suddenly fell into place. “Like you said, she was really well dressed, which means she wasn’t a local. She drove in from Beverly Hills or the west Valley. And she did it at least two or three times a week, so she could track the guy and learn his routine.”

  “She might have gassed up in thi
s area,” Joanna opined. “She wouldn’t want to run out of gas on the freeway on her drive back.”

  “Or run out of gas following the Russian,” Jake added. “Hell, she didn’t know where he was going at first. He could have led her to the next county.” Jake nodded firmly. “She gassed up nearby. And maybe, just maybe, one of the service station guys will remember her. They don’t see many expensively dressed blondes in this area. She’d stand out.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Joanna told him. “And it’s also a ton of work. There are dozens of gas stations in that area.”

  “But at least it’s a possible trail to follow, and who knows what might turn up.” Jake looked over at Joanna and gave her a big wink. “That gas station idea was damn good. You’re pretty sharp after a roll in the hay, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve had a chance to turn my brain back on now,” Joanna said demurely.

  Jake grinned. “I hate quick women.”

  “How about quick women who make great chicken pot pies?”

  “Those I can’t live without.”

  Joanna went into the kitchen and removed the well-done chicken pot pies from the oven. She placed them on a tray and reached for napkins and forks and fresh beers. Life was going so good, she thought contentedly. Joanna came back into the living room and placed the tray on the lower ledge of the brick fireplace. She used a fork to break the crusts of the pies. Small puffs of steam seeped out, carrying a wonderful aroma with it.

  “Want to talk a little more crime while we wait for these to cool a bit?” Joanna asked.

  “Sure,” Jake said as he stirred the crust into the steaming pie. “What do you have?”

  “I finished the autopsy on the drowning victim.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t think it was accidental.”

  Jake smiled thinly. “I knew it. I just knew it. What’d you find?”

  Joanna told him about the skull fracture and the large subdural hematoma beneath it. “I think somebody conked him on the head and pushed him overboard.”

  “Would it stand up in a court of law?”

  “Probably not,” Joanna had to admit. “The findings are suspicious, but suspicions don’t prove a damn thing.”

  “His wife did it,” Jake said with certainty. “The young brunette with the big boobs and the cute ass either iced him or had him iced. I’d bet on it.”

  “Is she a lot younger than he?”

  “Try thirty years.” Jake tasted a small piece of the chicken pot pie. It was still too hot. “And it wasn’t only the age difference. There were other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the way she tried to act sad when she wasn’t,” Jake answered, remembering. “And there were her eyes. She tried to look straight at me and Farelli, but her gaze kept drifting to the young studs passing by in the marina. She just couldn’t control it. She’s got hot pants, and she’ll be ready to ride as soon as they bury her ex.”

  “And she’s going to have a ton of money to ride with,” Joanna said. “What do you think she’ll be worth?”

  Jake hesitated. “It’s hard to determine exactly how much because his will is so complicated. Apparently he was into a dozen different ventures. Most of them go to his two sons from a prior marriage. Some go to family charities and some to Miss Hot Pants. Then there are all sorts of options on who can buy out who and what they’ll have to pay for it.”

  “Roughly, what does she stand to inherit?”

  “Somewhere in the vicinity of twenty million dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of reasons to murder someone.”

  “And don’t forget the two-million-dollar life insurance policy she gets.”

  “That gives her even more reasons.”

  “And chances are the little bitch will walk,” Jake said sourly. “With twenty-two million tax-free dollars.”

  “We might get lucky,” Joanna said with little optimism. “I still haven’t looked at the microscopic slides. Maybe they’ll turn up something.”

  “She’s going to walk,” Jake said again.

  “You’re probably right,” Joanna agreed. “But let’s touch all the bases. Can you arrange for me to take a look at Edmond Rabb’s yacht?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Jake chewed on a hot piece of crust and washed it down with beer. “What are you going to be looking for?”

  “I want to see if I can find some mechanism to explain how Edmond Rabb tripped at the back of his yacht, cracked his head open, and still managed to fall overboard.”

  “And even if you can’t, do you think that would stand up in court?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Like I said, she’s going to walk.”

  The cell phone in Jake’s coat chirped. He reached for it and spoke briefly. Then he switched it off. He stared into the fire for a full thirty seconds, his face expressionless, his mind obviously somewhere else. Slowly he pushed himself up from the fireplace and began gathering his clothes. “I’ve got to go.”

  “What’s wrong, Jake?”

  “Billy Cunningham just died.”

  12

  The desert wind gusted strongly, blowing sand and loose sagebrush across the highway. Joanna leaned over the steering wheel of her car and tried to see the center dividing line. All she saw was brown. Everything was brown. The sky, the air, the ground. A sudden blast of wind shoved her car sideways, and she had to fight to control it. Joanna slowed down more and hoped no one would crash into her from behind. The visibility was less than twenty-five feet.

  Joanna concentrated on the road ahead, looking for the Bio-Med facility. The person who had given her directions said she couldn’t miss it. Just follow the highway out of Lancaster, turn left at the big intersection, and drive until she came to the plant that was surrounded by a big chain-link fence. She couldn’t miss it. But in a sandstorm like this, Joanna thought miserably, she could miss the Empire State Building.

  Up ahead the air seemed clearer, but all Joanna could see was desert. And more desert. Again she wondered why Bio-Med had built their facility in such an isolated location. Eric Brennerman had told her that the land was cheap and security easy to maintain. But still, why come way out to the edge of the Mojave Desert? There were other places in Los Angeles County they could have used. She considered the possibility that the dry climate was somehow important to genetic research. No, she quickly decided. It was easy to control the temperature and humidity inside a research laboratory. One didn’t have to come out to the desert for that.

  Suddenly the wind died and the sky cleared. The desert was colored a light tan, the sky a deep blue. Off to her right, Joanna saw the chain-link fence. Atop the fence were large coils of barbed wire. Maybe security was the reason for the plant’s locale, Joanna thought again, remembering that the science of genetic engineering had become a multibillion-dollar business. And with the human genome about to be deciphered—in essence, the product of every human gene determined—the genetic industry would be worth trillions. The money involved was staggering. Just isolating the gene that produced human insulin had already generated billions of dollars in the marketplace.

  Ahead Joanna saw a tall metal gate with a kiosk adjacent to it. She slowed, turning to the right, and lowered her window.

  “I’m Dr. Blalock, here to see Dr. Brennerman,” Joanna told the uniformed guard.

  “I’ll need a photo ID,” the guard said.

  Joanna handed him her driver’s license and noticed that he was armed. Inside the guard’s kiosk was a panel of electronic switches and buttons, and above that a bank of small television monitors.

  The guard handed her license back and pushed a button. The metal gate slowly opened. “Follow the road straight in. You can park in the VIP spaces next to the front entrance.”

  Joanna drove in slowly on a narrow asphalt road that was still covered with sand from the windstorm. In the rearview mirror, she saw the gate closing and the guard in the kiosk talking on the phone.

  Joanna
brought her attention back to the grounds around the plant. Everything was barren with no grass or trees or any attempt at landscaping. Off to her left was a paved parking lot, but the rest of the ground was covered with a gravel-like material.

  She pulled into a parking space in front of a huge building that looked like a storage shed. Its walls were made of corrugated metal with no wood or trimming of any kind. There were no windows.

  Joanna left her car and entered the building. She went through one set of glass doors and then passed another set before coming to an empty reception area. The room was small, with no furniture or decorations. On the white plaster wall in front of her was the blue logo for Bio-Med. It was a globe of the world surrounded by the words Bio and Med.

  A side door opened and an armed guard came over. He handed her a visitor’s card and watched her pin it on. “Please wear that at all times.”

  She followed him through the door and down a narrow corridor with no side doors or windows. Overhead she hear a soft whirring sound and looked up. A surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling was following her. At the end of the corridor they came to a panel on the wall. The guard punched numbers into the panel and stepped back as the door opened automatically.

  Joanna entered an enormous laboratory that was an exact replica of Eric Brennerman’s lab at the Biogenetics Institute, except that it was at least three times larger. Joanna scanned the spacious glass cubicles that lined the walls. The colors of the plants and vegetables growing inside the cubicles were so bright they were almost blinding.

  “Hey, Joanna,” Brennerman called out as he walked over. “Welcome to Bio-Med.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” Joanna apologized. “I got caught in a sandstorm.”

  “We get them all the time,” Brennerman said. “They come and go pretty fast.”

  “Does the sand ever seep into the labs?”

  Brennerman shook his head. “It can’t get through two layers of corrugated steel. And the skylights are made of Plexiglas that is sealed into the metal roof.”