“If you say so,” she said.
The detective looked at her in surprise. “No more theories?”
“I think I’m all theory-ed out for now. I’ll let you get on with your,” she waved her hand around, encompassing the crime scene, “investigating.”
“Why did that sound like an insult?”
Her eyes widened. He was too perceptive by far. “I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really?” he stared at her for a moment before his face relaxed. “Fine. Have it your way,” he said mildly. Apparently, he was going to let it go. “Before you leave, though,” he said, stopping her mid-turn, “did you happen to find anything else?”
She turned back to him, her temperature starting to rise. “If I had, I would have told you,” she snapped.
“Really?” he said again. The way he drew that damned word out ratcheted her temperature up yet another few degrees.
“Really,” she said.
“So, you’re absolutely sure you haven’t found anything else and you don’t know anything more about this…situation.”
Blood roared in her ears. Her jaw was clenched so tight she was pretty sure she’d have trouble opening her mouth. Her eyelid twitched. Her hands curled into fists by her sides. She took a deep breath. She. Would. Not. Explode. “Well?” That demanding tone and the suspicious look erased all her good intentions as if they had never existed.
“You pompous ass!” she shouted.
“What did you say?” He stared at her, his eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe the words that had left her mouth.
“You heard me. You are a pompous, ungrateful ass. All I’ve done is try to help you, and what do I get in return? I apparently end up at the top of your list of suspects. And hell, I wouldn’t have cared. It’s not as if it’s the first time this has happened. But where I draw the line is having my integrity questioned.” She was shouting. She knew she shouldn’t be. But she had expected more from him.
“Stop shouting, you insane woman.” He wasn’t quite shouting himself, but he wasn’t far off. “What do you expect from me? You seem to know so much about what’s going on, yet you claim no involvement. You find things that apparently the forensics team missed, and your damned conclusions are as good as any detective that’s been on the job for more than a decade. But you claim to be a magazine editor. So, what the heck am I supposed to believe?”
“Maybe that I have more than two neurons and know how to use them? For goodness sake! You’re a detective! Use your brain! If I really were involved, why the hell would I give you all this information? Wouldn’t it be logical for me to completely derail your investigation instead of helping you?”
“How do I know you’re helping me? Maybe you’re trying to slow me down while your accomplices clean up the real crime scene. Maybe by this time tomorrow, you’ll be in the Cayman Islands, sunning yourself on the beach, enjoying the proceeds from your organ trafficking ring.”
Diana’s mouth fell open. “Organ trafficking?” She paled. She didn’t know what shocked her more. The fact that there was an organ trafficking ring active in Vancouver or that the detective thought her capable of something as heinous as being involved with one.
“Damn! I shouldn’t have told you that.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who got foot-in-mouth disease.
“You actually think I’m capable of doing something like that?”
He looked at her defiantly. She could see the indecision on his face. “I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “I’ve seen a lot of things. I’m not surprised by much anymore…” he trailed off.
Though the look on his face tugged at her heartstrings, she steeled herself. “Well, that’s your problem, not mine.” Her tone was glacial. She didn’t have to put up with his crap. “You know what? Get on with your investigation. Pretend you never met me. I hope, for your sake, that you catch these people before we’re knee-deep in bodies missing organs.” She turned on her heel and marched away.
Diana didn’t look back. She stalked over to her building. Only once she was safely in the elevator did she crumble. Tears fell. For some reason, she had expected him to be different. But he was just like everyone else. A judgmental bonehead.
She let herself into her apartment and slammed the door behind her so hard that Max woke up and started barking like crazy. When he realized it was only her, he quieted down and launched himself at her. She smiled softly and sat on the floor cuddling him.
“You love me, right Max? You’ll always love me. And you’ll never think me capable of killing someone to steal their organs, right?” Max whined and licked her face. Diana giggled. Then she sighed. Could she really let it all go? She shook her head at her own stupidity but the fact was that she couldn’t. A man had died. If she could help in some small way to bring him justice, then she had to do it.
So, she got to her feet and walked out onto her balcony. She glanced down at the crime scene to see that the detective hadn’t left yet. Apparently, he’d decided to do some more investigating. He searched the area for at least another fifteen minutes but didn’t appear to find anything else. She watched him as he sat on his haunches in the area where she’d found the blood on the tree. He pulled a knife out of his back pocket along with an evidence bag and cut a piece of bark off. He bagged it. So, he was going to get it analyzed. Good call. He got to his feet and walked away. He never once looked up.
Before she turned to go back inside, Diana noticed the woman from earlier still sitting on the bench, reading her magazine. Diana really hoped she hadn’t heard too much of their argument. She didn’t want the neighbors to think she was crazy. She shrugged. It wasn’t as if it mattered, anyway. She’d likely never see the woman again. She walked back into her apartment, forgetting all about her.
* * *
After a quick shower to get rid of the film of dust that had settled on her skin after her foray around “the tree”, as she’d come to think of it, Diana grabbed another cup of coffee. She eyed the chocolate bar that she kept for emergencies but decided against it. This wasn’t a chocolate situation. At least not yet.
She walked back into the living room and fired up her computer. It was time to do some work. But first… She opened up a file marked DB_Royal_Bay, ignoring the lengthy list of other files in the folder that all started with DB but featured different locations and dates. She read through the file, made a few more pertinent notes and closed it. She’d discovered that allowing information to percolate in her subconscious for a while helped her gain a better understanding of what was going on. It let her “see” connections that she may have otherwise overlooked.
Diana navigated to another folder and opened up an article she had been editing. It wasn’t long before she was engrossed in her task. An hour later, she saved the changes she had made and stretched with a satisfied smile. Now, she could relax for a while and then turn her attention back to the body by the beach. She checked the time. Time for lunch.
As she was staring into her fridge trying to decide what to eat, her doorbell rang. She didn’t have to wonder who it was for long. By the way Max started to yip and scratch at the door in excitement, it could only be one person. She was not in the mood for another argument. She could pretend she wasn’t home.
Peter started banging on the door. “Diana, I know you’re home. Open up!”
She was Diana now? And how did he know she was home? She decided to keep quiet. “Diana, I know you’re in there.” He kept banging on the door. Diana realized that she was going to have to talk to him or all her neighbors would find out she was involved in a murder case.
She walked over to the door. “Go away! I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.
“Please, open up,” he said, more gently this time.
“I’d rather not, thank you very much.”
“We need to talk.” He hesitated for a moment. “I need your help.”
Diana snorted. Though
her curiosity was like a fire in her stomach, she wasn’t ready to back down just yet. “You should have thought of that before insulting me.”
“Look, this is ridiculous. Just let me in so we can talk.” Diana was intent on getting him to grovel some more when he suddenly said the magic words. “I went to the hotel and found the scene of the crime.”
CHAPTER FOUR
DIANA YANKED THE door open so fast, Peter nearly fell into her apartment. She tried to hide her grin at the very ungraceful way he caught himself on her doorjamb. That should teach him not to lean against people’s doors in future. She closed it behind him.
Max, ever the traitor, made a beeline for the detective. “Max, no. Bed!”
Peter shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said with a smile. He lowered himself and gave Max a good scratch. Her dog was in heaven. And that’s when Diana realized she was starting to hate Peter Hopkinson. One moment, she was arguing with him, ready to kill him, or at the very least, rearrange his face. The next moment, he was so gentle and cute. Ugh! He was driving her nuts.
She leaned against the door, watching him. He made such an unusual picture. He was a big man. And she had a small dog. He could easily pick Max up with one hand. But he was being so sweet. She felt her heart soften.
“I was just going to grab some lunch.” Her voice was not supposed to come out like that. Husky. She cleared her throat. “Do you want something?”
He looked up at her warily. It struck her that he resembled a wild animal in that moment, his eyes assessing and calculating. Was she being serious with her offer of food? Or was she going to go supernova on him again? It was written all over his face.
She huffed in irritation. “I’m not going to poison you,” she said, thinking back to her cyanide joke. “It’s just an offer of food.”
He smiled at her sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m just not sure where I stand with you.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “At the moment, you don’t stand anywhere. I’m just offering you some food. Now, do you want something or not?”
“Sure, that would be great,” he replied with a cautious smile.
“Smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches with salad.” She pulled shut a door that was slightly ajar and sailed into the kitchen.
“Sounds amazing.”
He followed her and took a seat on one of the bar stools surrounding the island. “So, tell me how I can help you, Detective Hopkinson.” She opened her fridge and pulled out the ingredients she needed.
“You know, I’ve never done this before, and I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing talking to you now. I’m used to following the rules. I’m a military man. Following the rules is in my blood. But this case…” he paused for a moment and looked up at her. “I need a fresh perspective.”
Diana nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” she said. She busied herself making the sandwiches, giving him the time and space he needed to get over the fact that he was going to break the rules. He was clearly uncomfortable with the idea, but he was affected by this case. It had disturbed him enough that he was willing to go against some very ingrained principles.
He watched her as she started chopping vegetables for the salad. “Those are some serious knife skills you’ve got there,” he said. Diana looked up in surprise at the comment.
“I like to cook,” she said by way of explanation.
He cocked an eyebrow in disbelief. She was still chopping away while staring straight at him. Most other people would have chopped off a finger by now. He let it slide, though, clearly more interested in solving his case than her ability to slice raw onion into transparent slivers while looking elsewhere. She breathed a small sigh of relief.
“So, you said you went to the hotel?” she prompted him.
“Yeah, and found our crime scene.”
She raised her knife, pointing the tip at him. “Hang on a second. Before I get back on this merry-go-round, we need to get one thing straight. If you accuse me of being behind all this one more time, even if it’s just with a suspicious look, I swear I’ll show you precisely how deadly a frying pan can be when I hit you upside the head with it.”
He let out a bark of laughter. “I promise, no funny looks or accusations. Though seeing you wield a frying pan might just be worth the risk.”
She smiled and shook her head, going back to her task. “So, I’m assuming the crime scene was a hotel room?”
He nodded, his face serious again. “Exactly. The thing is that Doc Riddle – that’s the M.E. – found that the guy’s kidneys and liver had been removed and he’d been left to bleed out.”
The knife paused for a fraction of a second. “Organ trafficking,” she said with a nod. “I’m not surprised they took the kidneys.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I did a story a few years ago about organ trafficking. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about how the black market for organs works. It’s a very big and very lucrative trade. It’s active all over the world. And kidneys tend to be moved most often because they are the cheapest and easiest to get.”
“Killing someone is easy?” Peter sputtered.
Diana rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. They don’t have to kill anyone. We all have two kidneys and can survive just fine with only one. And a healthy liver will regenerate once part of it is removed and transplanted. Live donors are used all the time, especially when a family member is a match. As I’m sure you know, if there’s no live donor, you go on the transplant list and wait for a match. The third option, if you are rich, unscrupulous, and desperate, is to buy an organ on the black market.”
“Go on.”
“These rings often source organs from places like China and India where they can pay upwards of $500 for something like a kidney. They bring the candidates over here, perform the surgery, and then ship the patient back home, with no one the wiser. They then sell the organs for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“But if they can do it like that without attracting attention to themselves, why kill this guy? Wouldn’t it draw down more heat than necessary on what they’re doing? We may never have learned of them if it hadn’t been for the body showing up practically on your doorstep.”
“The only explanation I can come up with is that Mr. Perez is unique in some way. He must have a very rare combination of blood and HLA typing.”
“What’s HLA typing?”
“It’s a criteria used to match organ donors to recipients, along with blood type.”
“So, what you’re saying is that Perez was the only person to match the buyer. He must have refused to donate willingly so they took the organs by force and killed him?”
Diana nodded as she tipped the vegetables from the cutting board into the bowl. “Or they planned to kill him from the outset. Clearly, compassion for the victim wasn’t their top priority. I’m sure you’ll find that a crazy amount of money changed hands to get hold of those organs. As you said, this is a ridiculous risk for an organ trafficking ring. They’ve basically exposed themselves, so the money must have really been worth it.”
Peter nodded, watching Diana as she dressed the salad and pulled out two plates and two forks. She set the plate of sandwiches and the bowl of salad in the middle of the table, just to his right, and took a seat on the bar stool next to him. “Dig in,” she said, after placing a plate and fork in front of him.
“Thanks.” He reached over and grabbed a sandwich. He took a bite out of it and munched thoughtfully. After he swallowed, he said, “There’s something I don’t get. Doc Riddle said that they didn’t use anesthesia, that Perez was cut open while he was awake.”
Diana’s fork froze halfway to her mouth. “What?”
Peter nodded. “The Doc didn’t find anything in Perez’s blood work or lungs to indicate the presence of anesthetic and the shape of the cut led him to conclude Perez was awake and aware when the procedure started.”
Diana took a bite out of her sandwich, analyzing what she’d ju
st heard. “There’s something very bad going on here.”
“I agree.”
“What did you find in the hotel room?”
“It was almost completely spotless by the time I got there, but they forgot to check one thing.” Diana rolled her eyes. Something so simple, yet so important.
“And so did the maid.” Peter carried on. “I found a piece of blood-soaked gauze under the bed.”
“Bingo! I’m guessing it was Perez’s blood.”
“I think so. I’m still waiting for the DNA results but, unlike what you see on TV, these things can take a few days.”
“In a few days, these guys will have cleared out never to be heard of again,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. And that’s my problem. My hands are tied until I get the results from the lab. My superintendent doesn’t want me going around asking questions until we’re certain that the hotel really is the scene of the crime.”
“So, he’d rather wait and risk these guys escaping?”
Peter nodded. “It’s politics,” he said with a shrug.
“What does politics have to do with a bunch of thugs stealing people’s organs and killing them?”
“I have no idea. All I know is that the super told me to back off until I had proof that the hotel room was the scene of the crime.”
“Very curious. I wonder…” Diana muttered to herself. “What was the name of the hotel again?”
“The Hazeldene Inn.”
She stood but held up her hand when the detective went to follow her. “Stay here. Finish your lunch. I’ll only be a moment.”
Diana sat down at her computer and fired up her browser. She ran a couple of searches online until she found what she was looking for. She printed off an article and took it back into the kitchen.
“Guess who has a controlling interest in the Hazeldene?”
Peter looked up at her and then at the piece of paper she’d slid in front of him. “Oh, great,” he said with a groan.
“Yes, Mr. Barry D. Gutierrez.” Gutierrez was one of the richest men in Vancouver. Though he had a number of legitimate businesses, he was suspected of having ties to every illegal activity in the city, from gun running and prostitution to drug distribution and human trafficking. Unfortunately, no one had ever been able to find any evidence to indict him. On the rare occasion a witness had stepped forward, they would end up disappearing soon after, usually turning up in a lake, face down, on the other side of the country. Unsurprisingly, no one stepped forward to speak against him anymore. It was like he was covered in a film of oil. Nothing ever stuck.
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