Charlie clapped him on the back. “Veronica wants a cutting from those weeds you call a garden. Can she come by tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Jason wished he was working in his garden tonight, behind his small house on Trinity Bay. He longed for the feel of dirt on his hands and the smell of the sea. Those “weeds” had been his haven since his sister’s death, his escape from his own conscience.
But he wasn’t sure there were enough miracles in the soil beneath them to help him now. He squared his shoulders. What was important was whether or not Emma St. Clair survived and, if she did, what she could tell him about Brian’s killer. And if she didn’t survive…
She has to. Jason watched the elevator doors slide shut. Damn it, she has to!
Chapter Two
Nine weeks later…
Emma pressed a palm to her upper abs as the elevator stopped on the third floor of the Clear Harbor Medical Examiner’s facility. But the butterflies that invaded her stomach that morning wouldn’t stop fluttering.
Her cast was off, she’d given up prescription painkillers and as long as she maintained good posture her ribs didn’t feel as if they were grinding corn between each other. Physically, she felt all right.
But as she stepped off the elevator and turned right, the butterflies veered in the other direction, reminding her that her job required more than physical recovery.
“Back in the saddle,” she murmured and carried her lively butterflies on down the brightly lit hall.
“Emma!” Hailey Newman, secretary to the Chief Medical Examiner, jumped up as Emma entered their boss’s outer office. She hurried around her desk, arms extended, the smile in her voice matching the warmth in her brown eyes. “Welcome back!”
Returning the older woman’s hug, Emma inhaled the soothing scent of vanilla shampoo. “Thanks, Hailey.”
Stepping back, Hailey assessed her. “Wow, that Wyoming air sure put some color in your cheeks. You look terrific.”
“Thanks.” Emma knew the pretty middle-aged blonde was just being nice. The color came from an extra layer of blush she’d applied to hide a paleness brought on by her nerves.
“Here are your messages.” Plucking a blue folder off her desk, Hailey handed it to Emma. “Most of them are from Jason MacKenzie.”
“MacKenzie?”
“He’s the detective assigned to your case.” Hailey lifted one shoulder apologetically. “After six voicemails I called him back and told him you were recuperating out of state.”
“Oh, yes. I talked to him before I left the hospital.” Emma’s head ached as she remembered the barrage of questions he’d fired at her over the phone. “I told him I couldn’t remember much that happened. I still don’t.”
“I know MacKenzie. He doesn’t give up.”
“I believe it. Somehow he got my parents’ unlisted phone number in Jackson.”
Hailey’s eyes widened. “Nervy.”
“Mom gave him an earful about disturbing invalids. He left me alone after she promised I’d call him when I got back to Clear Harbor.” Emma clasped the folder to her chest. “I’m not avoiding him. I want to help but I really don’t remember much about what happened.”
Hailey stroked Emma’s back. “You call him when you’re ready. In the meantime, shall I keep answering your phone?”
“Maybe just today, thanks.” Emma tucked the folder under her arm. “Is Edgar available?”
“He’s waiting for you. Go on in.”
“Thanks.” Crossing the small outer office, Emma opened the door marked Chief Medical Examiner.
Edgar Powell stood at a wide window, his attention focused on the scene outside. Through the glass, Emma saw sailboats and barges dotting the gray waters of Trinity Bay on the upper Texas coast. Sunlight shimmered through an early morning haze to bounce off the tin-roofed warehouses and trendy restaurants that lined the shore.
She drew her gaze inside to a setting almost as tranquil. Seascapes adorned walls the color of heavy cream above a carpet of deep ocean blue. “Hello, Edgar,” she said.
Turning, Edgar smiled a welcome but not before Emma saw the weariness that etched his middle-aged face. The bright yellow feathers of a fishing lure fluttered in his tense grip.
Guilt bit Emma hard. Losing her services for nine weeks had put a lot of pressure on him.
“Emma.” Putting down the lure, Edgar came around the desk, both hands reaching for her. “You look wonderful.”
“You’re as much a liar as Hailey is. But thanks.”
Behind the lenses of his glasses, concern shadowed his brown eyes. “Are you sure you’re up to this? It’s been only a couple of months.”
“I can’t sit around my apartment doing nothing.” Just one night back there had proven as much. “I need to work.”
He eased her into a dark leather chair near his desk. The concern in his careworn face made her eyes sting. Although she’d known him for only the year since she’d returned to Clear Harbor, he’d become more than her boss. Edgar was a friend.
As Brian had been.
She took a deep breath as Edgar sat in the chair next to hers. “I promise not to freak out on my first autopsy,” she said, answering the expected question before he could ask it.
Edgar’s shoulders relaxed. “I just don’t want you taking on more stress. You were having a rough time even before the accident.”
Emma fidgeted with the folder in her lap. “I know I was distracted before and my work was affected. But my divorce is final now and Alan won’t bother me at work again.”
“I don’t care about your ex-husband. I care about you.” He leaned toward her. “You died, Emma.”
His words conjured images from the strange dream she’d had in the ER. She’d decided that was what it was. Brian, the woman with the rose and the distraught man who invaded other dreams even now…they’d all been a subconscious manifestation of her trauma.
Edgar sat back. “Do you remember anything else that happened that night?”
“Brian and I had dinner. I fed a stray cat outside the restaurant. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital with a concussion, three broken ribs and a fractured shin…all healed.” She straightened her left leg gently. “Well, mostly healed.”
He reached out to touch her arm. “Emma. Those broken ribs punctured a lung. You lost a lot of blood and your heart stopped twice.”
“And it started up again both times. Brian…” She took a deep breath. “He caught the brunt of the impact. Dr. Corbett said he died instantly.”
For a long moment, Edgar didn’t reply. Then, drawing his hand back, he said, “He did.”
Emma looked up to see guilt ruddy his face. “Edgar, please tell me you didn’t—”
His gaze slid away. “I had to. Hospital tests found alcohol in your blood.”
Nausea rolled through her. “We had one drink with dinner.”
Rising, Edgar faced the diplomas and fishing awards mounted on the wall above a sleek credenza. He tucked his hands in his pockets. “The DA needed to know if Brian was drunk and maybe partly responsible for what happened. You know…being careless. I could have sent his body to Houston but I wanted to make sure everything got done right. So…I did the procedure myself.”
A chill ran down her spine. If the ER team hadn’t gotten her heart started, Edgar would have autopsied her body too. Only forty-some-odd miles away, the big city of Houston had a first-rate coroner’s office but he wouldn’t have trusted her to strangers. He would have taken a scalpel, laid open her chest—
She gripped the folder of phone messages. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“So am I.” Edgar moved to the chair behind his desk. The leather sighed as he lowered himself into it. Shadows darkened his eyes as he considered her across the expanse of oak. “You think you’re ready to start back to work?”
“I’m ready.”
“Doing post mortems right away might not be the best idea.”
“I have to know I’m capable of doing my job.
Diving right in is the practical way to find out.”
“You shouldn’t be too practical, Emma.”
“I can’t help it. Life has taught me to be that way.”
“You mean your ex-husband taught you.” When she frowned, Edgar went on, “You did mention that your divorce was final.”
“Last week.” She tried to smooth out the finger-sized creases she’d put in the folder. As her friend, Edgar knew most of what she’d been through with Alan. “I didn’t realize it would be so easy to end a marriage. Sign a few papers, change the address on my driver’s license… I kept my own name when we married so that wasn’t even an issue.”
“Have you heard from Alan since your injury?”
“He left some messages with my folks but I didn’t call him back.” She lowered her head. “Oddly enough, I miss him. He was a lousy husband but Alan was also once a very good friend. Losing that friendship is what hurts the most about our divorce.”
“Maybe you should talk to someone.”
“You mean a counselor? No.” She stood and tucked the folder under her arm. “I’ll be fine. I just need to stay busy.”
Although he didn’t look convinced, he nodded. “All right. We’ve managed to keep up with the autopsies but we’ve got a backlog of paperwork. You can start there and I’ll have Hailey add you to the duty rotation on Wednesday. But you tell me if it’s too much for you.”
“I will.” Those annoying butterflies started tickling her stomach again. Despite her determination to prove her ability, Emma wondered if she really could.
* * * * *
“Damn it, Charlie, why can’t we catch a break?” Jason tilted his chair back on two legs and looked across the desk at his partner. “We buried Brian two months ago and still have no idea who killed him.”
Seated at his own desk in a corner of the big, open detectives’ room, Charlie twirled a ballpoint pen through his brown fingers. “You’re too impatient, my friend. Good police work takes time.”
Jason dropped his chair with a bang against the black-and-white-tiled floor. Ignoring the glances of the other detectives scattered around the bullpen, he slapped a hand against the open folder on his desk. “If we waste any more time looking at the same security tapes and interviewing the same waitresses, the chief will pull us off this case like he pulled us off Ty’s.”
When Charlie didn’t answer, Jason looked down at the file photo, hoping the image of Brian’s eyes might clue him in where to look next. But nothing came to him. Not a damned thing.
Charlie’s shadow fell over the photo as he came around the two desks. His chuckle stirred the warm air. “Brian’s ME ID looks as bad as his driver’s license photo.”
Jason nodded. Brian had had a cockeyed smile, hundreds of freckles and eyes that appeared to cross above a nose that seemed to enter a room before the rest of him.
“A schnozz to be proud of,” he murmured, remembering how he’d ribbed the younger man about his oversized nose. It was a good thing Brian had been good-natured because even Rose had teased him about it.
Jason’s brief humor faded. These past months had stirred painful memories as he’d tried to solve Brian’s hit-and-run before that case went cold too. Memories that recharged his sense of guilt.
He turned to the autopsy report and tried to focus. The report didn’t tell him much. Cause of death had been a sudden blow to the head and the specific weapon remained unidentified.
“The weapon was a windshield,” he muttered. “But whose? What make and model of car? Damn, why can’t we find something?”
“We will. Just as we’ll eventually find the clues we need in our other cases.” Charlie leaned a hip against Jason’s desk. “I hear Emma St. Clair has returned.”
Jason looked up sharply. “She promised to call me as soon as she got back.”
Charlie shrugged. “After so much time away from home, I doubt she put you at the top of her to-do list.”
“She ought to be as anxious to solve this case as we are.”
“You questioned her once—”
“Over the phone,” Jason interrupted and then guilt struck again. He shouldn’t have pushed her so hard when she was in the hospital. But that night had been one of the worst in his life. He hadn’t been in full control of himself even a few days later when he’d been allowed to phone to her. “I want to talk to her in person.”
“You think she’ll remember more by looking in your hypnotic eyes when you question her?” Charlie chuckled again. “You think you have so much power over women?”
“No but I’ll understand more by looking in her eyes when she finally answers my questions.”
“Careful, my friend. ADA Zamora already chewed your butt for pressuring the lady. Remember that Dr. St. Clair is more a victim than a witness.”
Jason’s forehead ached as his frown deepened. “Being an old kindergarten chum of the assistant district attorney carries no weight with me. Dr. St. Clair has information we need. You oughta be as ticked off as I am that she hasn’t called.”
“You choose to be ticked off. And what good has it done? You should channel that energy onto our other cases.”
Jason closed his eyes against a sharp pain. “I know.”
A cloud of perfume surrounded them as an envelope slapped down on the desk. Both men looked up.
“Mail call.” Officer Miranda Dennison winked. “Special delivery for you, Jason.”
As the curvaceous blonde sauntered away, Charlie inclined his head toward her. “Now there goes a nice young woman.”
Jason scowled. “I’m not interested in nice young women.”
“Obviously.” Charlie plucked the envelope off Jason’s desk and looked at the return address. “So who is Clarissa?”
Jason grabbed the hand-addressed envelope. “Insurance agent. I asked her to work up a new quote on the beach house.”
“Ah. Is she beautiful?”
“Lay off, Garcia. I don’t need a matchmaker.”
Charlie grinned. “You need something, my friend.”
“Listen up.” Chief of Detectives Buck Hosken strode into the big room, manila file folders tucked under his left arm. Right hand shoved in a trouser pocket, fingers fiddling with a bunch of coins, he stopped in the center of the room. Alligator-hide boots creaked around his ankles as he rocked forward and back on his heels and the sweat on top of his bald head caught the light from the fluorescent fixtures overhead.
“Crime is up.” His voice rolled up from his barrel chest. “Don’t know why. Maybe an alignment of planets or some crap like that. But we can beat the bad guys if we work like a team.”
Great, Jason thought, immediately tuning out the man’s voice. Another rah-rah session from the new chief.
Buck Hosken had recently moved to Clear Harbor from nearby Houston where he’d been a police captain for years. Not that his experience meant much to the local guys. Most of the detectives were willing to let the man prove his leadership skills but none of them needed a big city cop telling them how to run their cases even if he did wear boots and talk with a drawl.
“I know you guys can handle the load.” Hosken jingled his coins again. “That’s it.”
As the other detectives returned to work, Jason stood and beckoned to Charlie. “I found three more unlicensed body shops near the docks. Let’s go check ’em out.”
“MacKenzie! Garcia!” Chief Hosken approached them, a file folder clasped in one meaty hand. “You’ve pulled a new case.”
Charlie groaned. “We’re working six homicides already.”
Jason shoved a hand through his hair. “And we’re waist-deep in checking body shops for that hit-and-run.”
“That case is low priority,” Hosken interrupted. “I know somebody got killed but I doubt it was intentional.”
Fury burned Jason’s gut. “That somebody was my friend and the driver who killed him might be a chronic drunk. He needs to be found and taken off the road.”
“And we need to find the son of a bitc
h who’s goin’ around poppin’ old ladies too.” Hosken shoved the file at Jason. “The victim’s name was Amalia Campanero.”
Stepping close, Charlie gently took possession of the folder. “We’ll look into it.”
“I want a report in my hand before five today.” Hosken’s pocket change jingled furiously as he turned and walked away.
Jason scowled at his partner. “How can we wrap up any case when he keeps shuffling our priorities? He took Ty’s case away too. I know he wants to be a hands-on chief, Charlie but look how far he hasn’t gotten in solving it.”
“About as far as you have working it on your own time.” At Jason’s sharp glance, Charlie lifted one eyebrow. “I know you’ve been back to that club to question the staff.”
“Somebody had to do it. Hosken missed two waitresses who were working the club the night Ty was shot.”
“Did they tell you anything?”
“Not a damn thing.”
Charlie clapped a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Let Hosken work it a while. He might eventually see something we missed.”
“Yeah, right. I’m going to check out those body shops. You coming or not?”
Charlie sighed and dropped the new folder on the pile on his desk. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
* * * * *
Emma hesitated in the prep room doorway. She’d been back at work for two days but this was her first time in the autopsy area. The familiar room stretched out before her. Three stainless steel workstations lined the far wall. The first two were dark because the other medical examiners and their technicians were working on lab reports upstairs.
Furthest to the right, at Emma’s station, a task light illuminated the draped form on the slanted table beneath it. The suite was quiet, the cold air laden with the sting of chemicals and cleaners and the scent of sweet, still blood.
“You ready t’get cookin’, Doc?”
Emma jumped at the voice.
“Sorry.” Autopsy technician Skitch Reid leaned over her shoulder. A grin brightened his youthful face. “Did I scare you?”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know you were there.”
As he studied her face, Skitch’s brown eyes widened with real concern. “Dr. Powell said he could assign someone else to this case if you’re not up to it yet.”
Final Words Page 2
