The Dirty Secrets Club

by Meg Gardiner

  Standard procedure was to dive under a table, or plant yourself in a doorway. Don't run outside, where falling masonry might kill you. But there were no bricks here, nothing to come down on top of them.

  "Claustrophobia. I count on it as a self-preservation instinct," she said. "Experience."

  "You'll have to tell me about your experience sometime."

  Her experience was that catastrophe can happen, and to you. Reacting immediately when it hits puts you halfway to getting out alive.

  "You can let go of my arm any time you want," he said.

  "Oh." She forced her fingers to release him.

  He took out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial number. Jo brushed her hair off her face. Adrenaline had flooded her system. She seemed to feel each air molecule that brushed her skin. And seemed to feel Gabe's arm around her shoulder, warm and solid, though he had stepped away.

  He left a message on the phone. "Sophie, I'm okay. Just making sure you are. Text me," he said. "Love you. See you at home." He hung up. "Listen, I should head back to Moffett in case they need me.

  "Of course." Why didn't she like hearing that? Why did her face feel so hot?

  He stilled, looking at her with concern, and put a hand on her arm. "You all right?"

  "I'm rockin'. Stick a quarter in the jukebox and let's shake, rattle, and roll." She smiled ruefully. "I'm fine. But before you go—are you sure about the word you saw burning on the deck of the boat?"

  "Sure as God made Sikorsky helicopters. P-r-a-y. I study the subject, so I'm positive."

  "Excuse me?"

  "I'm in the doctoral program at USE Theology."

  "You?"

  His mouth skewed to one side. "You mean, a killer like me? Hombre jumps out of planes with an M16 strapped to his back?"

  "No. I mean—" Crap. What did she mean?

  He smiled. "My daughter's living with me. It's just the two of us, so I want to be in town and on the ground." He got out his wallet and handed Jo a snapshot. "Sophie."

  She was about nine years old, with hair the color of Hershey's Kisses and a smile that showed missing teeth. Her eyes were bright but shy.

  "She's awesome." She handed the photo back. "I didn't know you had a daughter."

  He slipped it into his wallet. "Like I didn't know you were going to go into forensic work." He paused, and his voice quieted. "You miss working in the ER?"

  That's not what I miss.

  The words were close enough to taste, and she bit them back. "No. This is what I want to be doing."

  He put on his sunglasses and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He paused another long moment.

  "How are you?" he said.

  In the crisp October sunlight, his black shirt seemed a hot void in front of her. She watched the rise and fall of his chest. For an overwhelming moment, she wanted to lay her head against his shoulder and whisper the truth. What did she miss? Waking up every morning next to a man she loved.

  But her husband was dead, and neither prayer nor the firepower of the Air National Guard could bring him back.

  "I'm good. I just miss Daniel like hell."

  She smiled and waved good-bye.

  The network is busy; try again later. The phone lines had gone schizo. Like always—shake the ground, people panic. The dial tone turns into circuits freaking.

  Irked, Perry snapped the tiny phone shut and glanced at the walls. He saw no damage. Nothing on his desk had spilled or broken. The bay was a few yards away, but he didn't hear waves lapping. Nobody was going to surf a tsunami through the building and sweep them all away.

  The door was closed. Voices passed along the corridor outside. He eyed the door tensely, willing them to move out of earshot. He had only a five-minute window to contact Skunk. The voices faded and he flipped the phone open again. Redialed.

  Ringing, finally.

  "Boss?" Skunk said.

  Perry pressed the voice synthesizer to his throat. He kept the volume low, so that the flat buzz wouldn't carry.

  "The names. Did Harding give them up?"

  He was owed. Harding and her playmates owed him. But he would never get what was due to him unless he discovered all their names. Harding had known—he was convinced of it—but she played things close to the vest. Prosecutors held on to information like it was gold—evidence, witnesses, everything.

  "Skunk?" he said.

  The line crackled. "We got a problem. Harding took out two people in the airport shuttle van, but Angelika Meyer's alive."

  He closed his eyes and sat down. "How did that happen?"

  Skunk paused, almost like he had fumbled his voice, maybe along with his balls, into the backseat of that outrageous Cadillac. Having Skunk frightened of him was a good thing. Having Skunk cringe like a small mammal was not. Perry needed information and he couldn't linger on the phone. Time was short.

  "All I can think," Skunk said, "is that Harding was trying to protect the club. Hush-hush, keep these people out of the limelight—"

  "But we're going to find them."

  "I know we are. I tried, boss; I did. I got to the scene of the crash quick."

  Perry just breathed. The robotic drone of the voice synthesizer stripped most emotion from his words. "In the Cadillac?"

  "Course not. I parked it out of sight and got down to the street on foot. I was the first one there." Skunk's voice got stronger. "I played Good Samaritan. Like I was the one willing to get up on that mess and check whether people were alive."

  "That was a risk."

  "Harding was no question dead. Couple guys in the airport van were moaning. Meyer was barely there."

  Perry stood up. "Did she talk? Did you get anything from her?"

  "I tried, but she just looked at me."

  He said nothing. Skunk didn't get it. "So she saw you."

  Skunk hesitated, and then his voice had a splinter in it. "I tried to fix that. I got the gun. I almost had time . . ." He exhaled. "Cop came running up the street, looking freaked out and asking if anybody was alive. Man in the airport van started screaming. So I told him the women in the BMW were dead."

  "Did you think you were casting a spell? Telling him didn't make it happen."

  "The cop was right beside me, calling for doctors and backup and shit. I couldn't fucking shoot her in front of him."

  "That's good. We want Meyer alive."

  "Alive—why?"

  Briefly his anger jumped up. Skunk didn't need to know everything. "Alive for now. She might be useful. Leave it at that."

  "It wouldn't have worked anyway. The cop was totally freaked out, took a half-second look into the Beemer before he ran to the van. By then other people were coming. It was too late."

  Perry pinched the bridge of his nose. "The first cop on the scene saw you?"

  "It was one a.m. and pitch-dark. I had on a hat. Nobody could recognize me. I melted back into the crowd."

  "Then?"

  "It was a chain reaction. The paramedics showed up. The cop waved them to the van, and Meyer was still just lying there."

  "And you hoped she would simply die without attention?"

  "It was bedlam, man. It almost worked, too. Then this other woman came, and out of the blue ran to the wreck going apeshit, calling the paramedics, fucking everything up."

  Perry thought about it. His gut was tight, but things might be all right. "What's Meyer's condition?"

  "I'll find out."

  "Do that. And listen to me. I don't want her to die."

  She was vital. Meyer worked in Harding's office. She was a bright spark, the do-gooder law student, all eyes and ears, eager to learn everything Callie Harding had to teach her.

  "She may have the information we need," he said.

  He stopped in front of his desk. His Scrabble board was set up. He picked up a handful of tiles, thinking.

  "Boss. I understand how important this is. We're going to find them. No question. We're going to make things right."

  Despite the tightness in h
is gut, Perry smiled. This was why he employed Skunk. The man could be stupid, but he was brutal and utterly reliable. Not just because of his greed, either. Skunk was outright loyal. He even believed in honor among thieves.

  "They'll pay, boss. In full," he said.

  "Yes, they will."

  Object lesson. That's what they had called Perry Ames when they finished with him. They dropped the chain, threw down the crowbar, took everything, and left him choking in his own blood. They laughed as they walked away. They were still laughing at him today, and they thought they were safe.

  Honor? They couldn't spell the word if he shoved Scrabble tiles up their asses with a cattle prod. Yes, they were going to pay. If they all had to die. If the whole city of San Francisco had to die.

  "I'll be downtown tomorrow afternoon. The Civic Center," Perry said.

  "Tomorrow's Halloween."

  His anger ignited so fast and hot that the room seemed to flare white. "Is that a crack about me?"

  "What?"

  He rubbed the lumpy trail of scar tissue that ran around his neck. "You calling me Frankenstein?"

  "No, Jesus, no—I just thought, Halloween, maybe it's a holiday."

  "At the courthouse? I'm dealing with the law, Levon—it never takes a holiday; you know that. It's always after your ass."

  "Fuckin' A, boss."

  His anger subsided. He thought for a moment. "We're at a tipping point. We need to move faster. A prosecutor's death, so public—it's going to bring a huge law-enforcement response."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Talk to the wide receiver again."

  "Southern? He's a walking disaster zone. He can't cope."

  "Give him one more chance. Let him know it's now or never. He gives us the information or that's it. He'll either be our source, or be an example to the others."

  "An object lesson," Skunk said.

  "Precisely."

  "You got it, boss. What are you going to do?"

  Perry placed the tiles on the board.

  "Pray?" Skunk said.

  "I don't do that anymore. No, I'm going to work out. Then meet with the lawyers. Then I think I'll play Scrabble."

  He moved tiles around. Carjack, that worked. And—yeah, add letters here, triple word score. Exsanguination.

  "Scrabble?" Skunk said.

  It was time to cut off the call. Lingering on the phone any longer would be risky. Besides, this much talk was more than his throat could bear. Perry pressed the voice synthesizer one final time to his ruined larynx.

  "Yes, Levon. I wish the rules let me turn cocktail into Molotov cocktail, but they don't." He dropped the rest of the tiles on the board. "That's up to you."

  The U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park is measuring the earthquake at 4.1 on the Richter scale. We have reports of minor damage in the South Bay, so let's go to our traffic chopper—"

  Jo punched the radio dial. She was ten miles up the freeway heading back to San Francisco, window open, hair batting in the breeze. A new station came in.

  "... My cats sensed the quake coming, and they freaked out. If the Big One hits, I tell you, I'll know it beforehand—" Punch.

  "... Some experts think this swarm of tremors is a sign of the coming apocalypse predicted in the ancient Mayan calendar—" Punch to the stereo.

  Music poured out, a trancelike Sahara track in an odd key. Sunlight sparkled on the bay. She stared at the road and tried to stop thinking about Gabe Quintana. His cool, his warmth, his self-assured presence. His concern for her.

  Her phone beeped. It was a text message from Lieutenant Tang. At Harding's autopsy. Important you come.

  She was forty minutes from the medical examiner's office. She replied K, and sped up. The music was hypnotic and insistent. It was Cheb Mami, the singer who had recorded "Desert Rose" with Sting. She had started listening to this music after Daniel died. Back then, melody had become a minefield. Classical music choked her up in ten seconds flat. Rock reminded her of climbing trips and sleeping with

  Daniel under the stars. And country music made her want to kill herself. It made her want to buy a gun so she could blow away any radio playing a song with slide guitar.

  But this music carried her off, because it carried no memories. Nothing tied it to Daniel. And yet it caught her imagination and pulled her in, but somewhere exotic and safe. Childhood memory. All she needed was a magic carpet to take her away.

  She touched her necklace, rubbing her fingers over her white-gold wedding ring.

  Rock music had been playing on that last morning with him. She could still hear it clearly. The Police, "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." That ascending baseline in a minor key. Seven thirty a.m. and Daniel had turned it up.

  It was his day off. He worked sixty hours a week as a trauma physician at UCSF Medical Center, but he had that day free, and so did she—a rarity. She was in the middle of her forensic psych residency, and moonlighting in the ER. A single day off didn't give them time to drive to Yosemite, so they planned to hit the climbing gym. She heard him on the phone from the other side of the bed, early, talking to the Air Ambulance service.

  Sure, if they got any emergency calls he'd go, no problem. Page him if anything happened. Moonlighting, no better way to spend a day off.

  He rolled back beneath the covers and ran his arm across her belly. He smiled at her. Morning, mutt.

  Morning, dawg. She smiled back. No better way to spend a day off? If you think that, you're suffering a severe failure of imagination.

  They'd been married three years. And she still felt like she'd rolled double sevens, because her husband was both a colleague and her passion. Danny was serious, capable, a climber with a head of rusty hair that only looked good when he sheared it close. He wasn't handsome—he was intense, with green eyes that always looked ready to cut through her. He not-so-secretly hoped she would switch her specialty to emergency medicine, and she had half a mind to do it. He was a shining example of everything she wanted to be. He had more enthusiasm, more curiosity about the world, than anybody she'd ever known. At work he was so calm that friends joked that he'd been doped with horse tranquilizers. All his storms raged inside, and he let her sense them only at moments of pressure. And when he smiled, when he laughed, it transformed him.

  They made love like wolves wrestling, with an energy edged with hunger. Outside, the weather was already turning blustery.

  The page came at ten a.m., when they were having breakfast at Ti Couz. Child with a ruptured appendix needed a medevac from Bodega Bay, up the coast in Sonoma County. The girl was six, and had underlying medical issues. A surgical team was being assembled at UCSF. The helicopter would go once Daniel got there, if they could round up a second medic—their nurse wasn't answering her pager.

  Daniel looked at Jo.

  She often wondered if things might be different now had she said something else. The wind was beginning to knock rain against the restaurant windows. She could have shaken her head and told him, Don't go.

  But she didn't. She grabbed the car keys and said, "I'll come with you."

  Now the sun blared off the windshield. Her memories were interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She turned down Cheb Mami and answered it.

  It was Amy Tang. "You get my message? I'm at Callie Harding's autopsy. Cohen found something. You should get over here."

  "On my way."

  Tang hung up. No good-bye.

  Kisses to you, too, sunshine. Jo changed lanes and accelerated.

  Jo pushed through the door into the medical examiner's office, hoping Tang wasn't pulling a stunt by calling her here. Cops, like the medical examiner's staff, occasionally goaded psychiatrists into watching autopsies. Hoping for the Quincy reaction—vomiting, fainting, any adverse and entertaining outcome. The front desk was decorated with jack-o'-lanterns. Jo checked in and was directed to the bowels of the building.

  The ME's office was no quieter than a hospital, and equally clinical. The fluorescent lighting gave eve
rything a sterile sheen. The indelible whiff of formaldehyde lurked beneath the paint.

  Autopsies were not her favorite activity. Dissecting a human cadaver in anatomy class hadn't bothered her, perhaps because people who donated their bodies to science had taken years to consider the decision. It was a gift, and their remains became a teaching tool. But autopsies happened to people who weren't expecting to die. Watching a pathologist root around inside a body—with its chest prized open like Sigourney Weaver's worst nightmare—left her emotionally dumbfounded. She hated the thought of it happening to people she loved. And it had.

  Rounding a corner, she found Amy Tang at a drinking fountain. Tang was wearing black clothes and black eye makeup, and her hair looked punk. She practically had to stand on tiptoe to reach the arc of water. Spiky, the Goth Gnome.

  Quit it, Beckett. "Lieutenant."

  Tang touched the back of her hand to her lips. "This way. Cohen's about half finished."

  "What did he find?"

  "Stuff that falls on your side of the fence."

  Tang led Jo into the autopsy suite. Jazz was playing on the boom box, Coltrane from the sound of the sax, cool and melancholy. Blue— the music, the surgical drapes, the mood. Cohen's red beard stood out in contrast. He was well into the dissection.

  Jo slowed her breathing and pulled her emotions back to the quiet room where sights and feelings are muffled. Behind Cohen an assistant was weighing Callie's liver. Tang loitered in the corner, arms crossed, face cross. Jo approached the table.

  Callie's toes were blue. Her runner's tan was dulling to gray. The red letters scrawled on her left thigh seemed to scream. Dirty.

  The word was written with a severe slant, as if a left-hander had scribbled it without looking. Lipstick, no question.

  Jo looked at Callie's face.

  No wonder Gregory Harding had acted like an ass. He had seen this. It must have been like having a live electric cable jammed against the back of his head. Callie's face, a face sculpted by Michelangelo, was crushed.

  "I suspect you may list cranial trauma as cause of death," she said.

  Cohen pointed with his scalpel. "Air bag inflated when the car hit the bridge, and deflated almost instantly. It was useless when they hit the shuttle van. And she was already headed for an up-and-out by then."