Moonbird Boy (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Four)

by Abigail Padgett

  "Here what is?" Bo said.

  "The house I'm going to buy."

  Bo squinted into the darkness. "Ah," she said. "For the harpsichord. Which one?"

  He pointed, as she had known he would, to the right. "Wait till you see it!" he began, handing Molly to her and digging a flashlight from the Jaguar's glove box. "Come on. I've got the key."

  Bo found the prospect less than appealing. "Andy." She smiled dramatically. "I've been out of a psych rehab program, near which my friend was incidentally murdered, for less than a week, and somebody's chasing me around in the fog trying to scare me back in. The only relative I can find for my friend's son is a grandmother whose career sounds like a science-fiction thriller of dubious taste, and I've just made a serious commitment I'm not ready for to a new dog, not to mention you. Now you want me to prowl around what looks like the Bates Motel in the dark with only a flashlight that's sure to go dead the second we hear the creaking door slam shut, followed by low, malevolent laughter. Let me sum it up this way: hell will freeze before I leave this car."

  "Oh," he said, jaundiced by the streetlight. "Well, of course. We'll come back tomorrow and see it in daylight. I didn't realize it would look this disreputable at night. I quite agree with you, Bo. This is ill-advised." Masterfully contained disappointment throbbed in every word.

  In Bo's lap Molly circled restlessly, then clambered to the floor. "I think she needs to go out," Bo sighed. "And I didn't bring her harness and leash."

  Andrew quickly unbuckled his belt, pulled it from his jeans, and leaned to loop it over the dog's head. "Emergency collar," he said. "I just had the car detailed, including the carpets. Be right back." In seconds he was following the little dog onto a path through the weeds, leaning to hold the end of his belt.

  "Hell just froze," Bo told the Jaguar's black floor mats, and climbed out into the dark. "Wait for me!" she called, feeling like the heroine of a bodice-ripper. The incredibly stupid heroine who, in hoop skirt and thirty crinolines, dashes after the hero into thickets of briar and poison ivy because the swash of his buckle increases her heart rate.

  "Success!" Andrew called happily from beneath a large Torrey pine. Molly, flinging pine needles behind her with abandon, wagged expectantly as Bo approached.

  "Good girl," Bo told her. "Good dog. Now can we get out of here before the guy with the prosthetic hook shows up?"

  "Of course," Andrew said, not moving.

  Away from the obscuring glare of the streetlight the house was more visible, less ominous. A two-story mock Tudor, someone had nonetheless wrapped a wide porch around the three sides from which ocean views were possible through the pines. Bo couldn't help envisioning a rope hammock slung in one corner. Lemonade set out on a wicker table. Adirondack chairs on the lawn.

  "Oh, Andy," she said admiringly, "that porch reminds me of my family's summer place on Cape Cod."

  "It reminded me of the Garden District in New Orleans where I grew up," he nodded. "And look at this." Strolling casually through pine needles toward a driveway on the house's north side, he pointed to a detached two-car garage, also mock Tudor. "A previous owner converted the garage loft to a small apartment for the rental income. A granny flat, they call them here. I'm going to install a skylight," he said, inhaling the salty, pine-scented air as if he'd just arrived from the Sahara and didn't live two miles down the same coast, "in case an artist friend of mine would care to rent the apartment as a studio."

  The word "bribe" formed itself nastily in the back of Bo's throat and sat there, while a warring part of her brain said, "Must you translate everything he offers you into a threat? Relax."

  "Of course the renovations will take months," Andrew went on, ignoring her unease, "and whether you decide you'd like to live with me here, or live in the apartment, or use the apartment as a studio from time to time, or none of the above, I hope you'll at least agree to help me with decisions about fixing the place up. I'm not very good at that sort of thing, and you are. No strings, Bo." He was all business, a veritable model of detachment.

  No strings, he said. Bo looked at Molly sniffing warily at a hole in the ground, Andrew proud and nervous about a major decision, the soft lights of nearby houses in which people were linked, wrapped, woven, and tied to each other and to still other people in a huge web that could either support or strangle any individual at any time. There were strings. There was no escaping strings. The trick, Bo thought, was to pick the right ones and cut away the rest.

  "I love your porch, Andy," she sighed. "And I love you. But I can't cope with this right now. Too much is happening; I'm overwhelmed. I just want to take Molly and go home."

  "Of course," he said, pointing the flashlight toward the weed-lined path. "After you."

  At her apartment there was nothing taped to the door, no barks on the answering machine. Molly settled into her box after dragging one of Bo's dirty sweatshirts from the closet floor and stamping around on it in a circle. Bo allowed the puppy to have the sweatshirt in the box, thinking of Mort Wagman as the dog circled again and then curled up to sleep. Ancestral dogs had circled to flatten nests in tall grass, Mort said. Bo imagined prehistoric, saber-toothed dachshunds with woolly coats, circling in prehistoric grass.

  "Bo?" Andrew inquired from the bed where he was unaccountably reading the Sunset guide to container gardening Bo had bought when the idea of a small farm on the deck seemed appealing. "Why are you giggling?"

  "There were no ancient dachshunds," she said, falling into bed beside him.

  "The name is German for badger hound, but I think they were originally bred in France from basset hounds and terriers," he nodded, "although they may have descended from the medieval spit dog, which is said to have originated in ancient Egypt. There's a long, low-slung dog on the statue of an Egyptian king. The dog's name is inscribed as Tekal, and in Germany Teckel is the affectionate name for dachshunds. So it may be that there were ancient dachshunds, you see."

  "Andy," Bo sighed, snuggling against him, "why do you know everything?"

  "I don't know," he answered happily, turning off the light and kissing her with an expertise he hadn't, she was sure, learned from a book.

  Chapter 28

  In the morning Andrew found a manila folder wedged into Bo's apartment door on his way to get the paper. "I'm going to kill this bastard if I ever get my hands on him!" he muttered, crumpling the entire folder in his fist. "I'll dump whatever this is in the trash downstairs. I don't want you to—"

  "Andy," Bo said from the kitchen, "isn't there some rule about doctors not murdering people? And don't throw it away yet. Let me see it first."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's probably something I was expecting. Let me see it."

  "It's from the police," he said after tearing the top from the crumpled folder.

  "Andy!"

  "Well, here. But why would the police...?"

  Bo ran both hands through her short curls and sighed. "I have a job that involves working with the police," she reminded him. "And this report may shed some light on what's happening to Ghost Flower. Could you take Molly down while I make the coffee? Here's a paper towel and a baggie.

  "I'm not sure I can handle this," he groaned, fastening the yellow harness around the gamboling puppy.

  "For crying out loud, Andy, you're a pediatrician. Don't you ever change diapers?"

  "No," he answered without, Bo thought, any real grasp of the issue. "The nurses do that."

  Reality check, Bradley. He may be wonderful, but he's still a man. They assume all women were born with a natural affinity for bodily wastes.

  "Then it's time you had a lesson." She beamed. "Here's the bag."

  After a quick shower Bo toweled her hair and decided she should have cut it years ago. Short, it dried by itself and saved her stretches of morning time better suited to facing a life that at the moment seemed about as orderly as a buffalo stampede.

  "Bo," a feminine voice called through the door, "it's Jane. I came by just in case you
hadn't changed your mind, but I saw Andy downstairs, and ..."

  Bo opened the door. "You knew I'd never make it through the night," she said accusingly. "Would you like some coffee?"

  "Only a heart of anthracite could resist that puppy," Jane agreed, her green eyes betraying not a shred of guilt. "So we sort of set you up. She's perfect for you, Bo. Your hair even matches her fur. And thanks for the offer, but I've got to open the shop. See ya!"

  "Aliens are controlling my life," Bo told Mildred's picture. "But she's a sweet dog, Mil. And I know you wouldn't want me to be alone." It was true, Bo thought, and then wondered if she'd ever be alone again at all. A ring from the phone seemed to suggest that she wouldn't. Nobody called at seven in the morning, ever. Except maybe the creep with the tape.

  "Look, you pathetic jackal," Bo yelled into the phone, "I've about had it with your sick jokes. Who are you, anyway?"

  "This is the child abuse hotline," a puzzled male voice answered. "Is this Bo Bradley?"

  "Uh, yeah. I thought you were somebody else. What's wrong?"

  "A Dr. Keith has been calling since six, says she can't wait for the switchboard to open at eight. She wants you to call her at her hotel immediately. Here's the number."

  Bo copied the number secure in the knowledge that her reputation at work for eccentricity had just taken a quantum leap. And she wasn't even crazy. Out of courtesy she pretended not to hear the hotline worker's whispered, "Jeez!" as he hung up. Then with studied calm she carried her coffee into the bathroom, took the cap off a vial of pink pills, and swallowed one. Valproate, marketed under the name Depakote. A common acid that would curb her brain's propensity to grab random stimuli from everywhere. Unfortunately, the pills couldn't do anything to curb the morning's real-life activities.

  "I must see you at once," Ann Lee Keith insisted when Bo called. "It's terribly urgent. I believe the people responsible for my son's murder may also try to hurt Charles. I flew into San Diego last night. I really must see you now."

  Bo remembered an earlier case, another little boy almost assassinated in the same hospital where Bird was probably eating his breakfast while she talked to his grandmother. It could happen. It had.

  "I'll make sure precautions are established to protect Bird, er... Charles," she said. "And I'll be happy to meet you at my office as soon as I can get there."

  "This will sound rather strange," Dr. Keith went on, "but what I have to tell you will take some time, and I have dogs with me. Is there a park or other outdoor area where we could meet?"

  "Dogs?"

  "I told you it would sound strange."

  "You were right," Bo agreed. There was something about the woman's voice she liked. And the attitude. Straightforward and self-effacing at the same time. Also openly eccentric. And she was Mort Wagman's mom.

  "There's a beach for dogs here," Bo told her, giving directions. "I'll meet you there in half an hour."

  Madge would not approve of professional meetings on dog beaches, Bo knew. Madge would erupt in a frenzy of decorum and recite things about the dignity of social work.

  "This is Bo Bradley," Bo told a tape recorder in the CPS message center. "Please tell Madge Aldenhoven I'm meeting the grandmother in the Wagman case for an emergency conference this morning. It should take about two hours. I'll be in after that."

  In a second call she told the security officer at St. Mary's Hospital her name and CPS ID number, and requested a confidential hold on Bird Wagman. In the event that someone phoned or came to the hospital asking about him, neither the switchboard nor the reception desk would give out his room number or even acknowledge that he was there. It wasn't enough, she worried, but she could scarcely request an armed guard on the basis of one sentence from a woman she hadn't yet interviewed.

  Then she dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, sandals, and a baggy white T-shirt. Very professional. When Andrew returned with Molly and the paper, he said, "Aren't you going to work?"

  "I'm meeting Mort's mother at Dog Beach in twenty minutes," Bo sighed. "And I have to read this police report before I go."

  "I won't ask why you're meeting her there," he said, puzzled.

  "I'll tell you when I know why myself. Meanwhile, Andy, I've got to read this report. And thanks for taking Molly down."

  "We managed very well," he said airily, carrying his coffee and paper out to the deck.

  Hopper Mead, the San Diego Police Department concluded in its report, died by "misadventure" when a shark tore off her right leg as she swam in seventy-five feet of water near her anchored yacht off San Diego's landmark peninsula, Point Loma. Because of the deceased's high profile in the community and the possibility of a wrongful death stemming from attempted financial fraud, an exhaustive investigation was conducted, and was still officially open.

  "MEAD was the daughter of MR. and MRS. RANDOLPH MEAD, SR.," the report told Bo in traditional police style, "and heiress to a substantial fortune shared with her brother, RANDOLPH MEAD, JR., 28. Both parents are deceased. MEAD JR. heads a local conservative think tank, Mead Policy Institute. MEAD JR. denies any connection to his sister's death, saying that he was in his offices at the time of the shark attack. An employee of Mead Institute, ANSELM TUCKER, a clerk, confirms this. Further, a review of bank and investment records for HOPPER MEAD and RANDOLPH MEAD, JR. (permission given by MEAD JR.) reveals no financial motive for MEAD JR. to seek profit from his sister's death. Both were bequeathed substantial estates by MEAD SR., and the entirety of HOPPER MEAD's estate went at her death to the corporation founded by MEAD SR., MedNet, with corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.

  "The executive board of MedNet includes the following: ALEXANDER MORLEY, Chairman; ELLIOT KINES, NEAL BROCKMAN, and ROBERT THOMPSON, members. Shortly before MEAD's death MedNet sustained a punitive judgment for medical fraud in the amount of four hundred and fifty million dollars. Nonetheless, a thorough investigation revealed no connection between anyone associated with MedNet and HOPPER MEAD at any time."

  Here someone had penciled in, "And we thought we could prove these guys hired the shark."

  "Cute," Bo said to the sheaf of paper in her hands, and read on.

  The report continued, documenting every interrogation conducted in relation to Hopper Mead's untimely death. Many of these were phoned interviews with the young

  woman's friends. And several of her friends mentioned that Mead had been seeing someone, "a serious boyfriend" at the time of her death.

  "Hop was pretty secretive about him," a friend named Miko Mulryan told San Diego police, "keeping him under wraps, I guess. I think he's somebody in TV or the movies. Hop was always running up the coast to L.A. on weekends to see him."

  Several of Mead's friends expressed concern and puzzlement at the "boyfriend's" failure to appear at her funeral services. Some suggested that Mead might have terminated the relationship, since in the month prior to her death she had been in San Diego every weekend, attending various social functions alone. Police had followed every lead, the report stated, but so far had not located the young man with whom Mead had been involved.

  An appendix to the report was a document in Spanish typed on Escuela Ciencias Marinas letterhead with an Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, address, signed by Jose Mendez. A handprinted explanation in English was provided at the bottom of the last page.

  "MENDEZ is a graduate student in marine biology who aspires to become a medical examiner," it said. "He was sent by a professor, DR. HECTOR ORTIZ, to dissect a shark cadaver washed up on a beach north of Ensenada. MENDEZ discovered human bones in the shark's stomach, these later proving to be the femur, tibia, fibula, and os calcis, or heel bone, of the deceased, HOPPER MEAD. MENDEZ noted a gouge in the shaft of the femur which he believes could not have been made by the shark. MENDEZ holds the opinion that this gouge in the bone may indicate that MEAD sustained a deep laceration to the lower groin area prior to the shark attack. Such a laceration, MENDEZ states, would have severed the femoral artery. Examinations of the bone by SDPD f
orensic specialists have produced conflicting results. One specialist concurs with MENDEZ, while the second believes the gouge could have been made by a shark tooth during the attack. These forensic reports are on file, and the femur has been retained as evidence by the SDPD, with permission of next-of-kin RANDOLPH MEAD, JR., who will see that it is interred with the remains when released."

  "My God, they kept her thighbone!" Bo muttered as Andrew came in from the deck, folding the newspaper.

  "Take a look at this," he said, handing her the financial pages. "Didn't you tell me MedNet was taking over the Ghost Flower program? Looks like the chair of its board just died."

  Bo glanced at a professional photo of an older man in a business suit whose fierce scowl reminded her of her fifth-grade teacher, a nun named Sister Timothy whose habit always smelled like burnt toast. "MedNet Chair Alexander Morley Succumbs to Heart Attack," said the column head.

  "He died of natural causes," Bo noted without conviction.

  "Apparently he was about to retire. MedNet's PR man, Robert Thompson, says in the article that Morley was going to make the announcement just as soon as MedNet finalized arrangements to franchise 'an innovative new approach to psychiatric care based on Native American traditions.' Thompson then drops the fact that foreign franchises are already being negotiated. MedNet's stock will climb a few points after this; count on it."

  "I know a county clerk who'll be thrilled," Bo replied. "Come on, Molly, we've got an appointment at the beach."

  Bo would have recognized Ann Lee Keith even if she hadn't been ushering three Jack Russell terriers from a rental car in the Dog Beach parking lot. Her ebony hair, artfully streaked with silver, would have been identical to Mort's when she was younger. And she had the same full lips, carefully outlined in lip pencil and filled in with a slightly lighter shade of lipstick. In a crisp red linen blazer over tan slacks and a blouse, she looked like the social director on a cruise ship. But there were deep lines in her face, Bo noticed. And even dark glasses couldn't hide the purplish circles under her eyes. Ann Lee Keith, Bo acknowledged, was grieving the death of her son.