The Medical Examiner, Page 6

  Chapter 22

  That night Cindy and Rich got into bed before ten. It was an early night for them and that was a kind of blessing.

  It was good to be home. Their apartment on Kirkham Street was small and cozy. They’d decorated it together so that it fit them like a hug.

  Richie’s arm was around Cindy, and she was wrapped around him with her cheek pressed to his chest. Streetlights sliced through the blinds, striping the walls and ceiling. Their alarm clocks were set. They each had glasses of water on their nightstands, and she had the extra blanket. Rich had the king-sized pillow behind his back.

  And they had the luxury of these quiet hours to talk about their days. She loved listening to the sound of his voice.

  Rich was telling her about Arthur O’Brien, the shooter who’d killed Samuel J. Alton and wounded Joan Murphy. He explained how Arthur had been the one to steal her jewelry, expose her affair, and then step off stage into the shadow of death.

  “And after all this craziness about whodunnit and why,” said Rich, “he keeps all the evidence in his backpack and leaves it for us to find.”

  “Careless,” said Cindy. “It’s basic hit man 101. The first thing you do is get rid of the gun.”

  “That’s the thing, Cin. He was not a pro. Not even semi. Still, he got a key card, got an unregistered gun, shot two people, and ditched with the jewels. He got out of the hotel just like that. Shazam.”

  “It seems too neat,” said Cindy. “How did a drug addict and occasional film extra get onto Joan and her jewels? Someone had to have put him up to it. If I had to guess, someone gave him a playbook.”

  “You’re right. We downloaded the call log on his phone. We found a lot of stuff there, but at first look, nothing was incriminating. He called his mother regularly. He had a few friends, none of whom connected him to Alton or the Murphys. But then we found several calls to a burner phone in his call history. If he was given instructions, I bet it went through that phone. I’m thinking that if O’Brien was the shooter, he was supposed to cash in the jewels. But he flamed out before he could collect his check.”

  Cindy asked, “What’s your next move?”

  “Wait for the lab reports. Sam Alton’s widow wants justice. The Murphys are out of it. Joan is alive. She has the jewelry plus a great story for all of her dinner parties, and a couple of decorative scars.

  “I don’t understand her,” Rich continued. “I’d expect her to want me to catch the person who did this and killed Sam.”

  “That might be the snag,” said Cindy. “Maybe she doesn’t want to admit to having an affair with Sam.”

  “Sure. Maybe that would torpedo her marriage. But do you think that Robert doesn’t know? Is he really so clueless? Or is he grilling her when the cops aren’t there? Is that what’s making her stick to her story? ‘I was drugged and kidnapped and shot and I don’t know who that hairy fat guy was who was found naked on top of me.’”

  Cindy laughed and Rich joined her.

  It was all so crazy.

  But it was just the kind of mystery Cindy loved to solve.

  Chapter 23

  The next morning, Cindy and Rich said good-bye on the street and got into their cars. Rich headed to the Hall, and Cindy set her course toward Seacliff.

  She didn’t tell Rich where she was going. She knew what he would say. “You’re poking into a police investigation. It’s dangerous.” Or words to that effect. Either way, it wouldn’t be something she’d want to hear.

  If she listened to Rich and some of her well-meaning friends, she’d be writing a fashion column. Or maybe pieces about local politics.

  But she was a crime writer. Crime was not just her beat at the Chronicle, it was her passion. She’d written a bestselling true-crime book, sold two hundred fifty thousand copies in paperback, and had a standing offer from her publisher that he’d entertain any book ideas she might have. So, yeah.

  And then she laughed out loud at the realization that she was justifying her job to herself.

  She drove from her apartment through Golden Gate Park on Crossover Drive and then continued into the Richmond District toward Seacliff. She checked the house numbers on El Camino Del Mar, a street populated with mansions and set back from the road. She slowed the car and took in the gateposts bracketing a stucco wall. This was the house. The iron gates were closed.

  Cindy cruised past the house, slowing as she saw another break in the wall. This gate was also made of wrought iron, but it wasn’t as wide. Only one car could fit through it at a time.

  Cindy saw that there was a driveway beyond the gate. It seemed to be a service entrance, and it looked to her as though the gate had been left open.

  Cindy drove farther down the road, parked her Acura on the verge, and got out. Since it was eight thirty in the morning, she had the street to herself, though she could hear the distant sound of a power tool up the road. It was either a chainsaw or blower. When one car came toward her, a Lexus with tinted windows, she busied herself on her phone until the car passed by.

  Then, she crossed the road and walked directly to the service entrance gate.

  Cindy pulled on the handle and the gate swung open. She slipped inside and carefully closed the gate behind her. She stopped in her tracks, looking around at the grassy lawns beyond the drive. There was a barnlike machine or tool shed to her left and beyond that a pathway of beckoning stone steps cut into a steep upward slope in the lawn.

  Right now, she was “snooping,” as it was called in the trade. But once she’d climbed those steps, it would no longer be fun and games. She’d have no believable excuse. It would be trespassing, plain and simple.

  She stopped for a moment and put her game face on. Then she climbed up every one of those thirty steps. Technically, she wasn’t breaking in. She was looking for someone to interview about a pretty interesting story that centered around a murder and the robbery of an impressive jewelry collection. If she got lucky, she’d run into Joan while she was wandering around the premises. And if she got really lucky, Joan would remember her from Claire’s office.

  She set out toward the pool house. It was a darling cottage with French doors that faced the pool.

  Cindy reflected on what she knew about Joan. Joan had always been rich. She had owned this magnificent house before she met and married Robert Murphy, who, after all, might actually love her. And maybe she loves him, too. But anyone could make a case that something had gone horribly wrong in their marriage. That something may have caused two people to die.

  Who’d done what to whom and why?

  If the answer to those questions didn’t make a good story, Cindy didn’t know what would.

  She was about to check on the pool house when a door on the side of the house opened and a man came striding toward her. He was wearing his glasses on a cord around his neck, and they bounced against his bare chest with every step he took. He wore cargo shorts, but he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

  And he was carrying a rifle.

  A rifle that was pointed directly at Cindy’s chest.

  He barked, “What do you want?”

  She put up her hands with her palms facing out and said, “Hold on, okay? I’m with the Chronicle. Joan knows me. I’m just gathering some background material on a story about the murder. Look. I have identification.”

  The guy looked crazy. She had opened her bag and started searching for her press pass when she heard the crack of a gunshot. Pieces of marble flew from the last stone steps in the pathway, and then with another crack, a sphere exploded at the top of a post.

  Fear spiked through Cindy. She knew that words weren’t going to help with this guy. He wasn’t hearing her. He didn’t care that she was unarmed and no threat to him. Keeping an eye on the bare-chested gunman, Cindy backed away, careful not to lose her footing on the steps below her.

  But then he raised his gun and fired twice more.

  Holy shit. This could not be happening. He was going to kill her, or at least give it his ver
y best try.

  Cindy knew from her experiences shooting a gun that it’s a lot harder to hit a moving target than it seems on TV or in the movies. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t get shot.

  As she ducked into a crouch and kept backing down the steps, her ankle turned—hard. She reached for something, anything, but she lost her balance. She made a last wild grab for another stone post, but it was too late.

  Gravity was winning. She fell backward and wasn’t able to break her fall with her hands. Her head slammed against a step and her body kept rolling down, hitting stone tread after tread.

  And as she completely lost consciousness before she stopped rolling on the ground, the shadow of the crazy man loomed over her.

  Chapter 24

  When Claire answered the phone early that morning at the morgue, she immediately recognized the voice on the other end of the line. She asked, “Where are you, Joan?”

  “About three minutes from your office, depending on the rush hour traffic. I stayed at the Intercontinental for a night. I just needed to be alone with my thoughts. Claire, I have an idea. Actually, can we talk about this in person? I’d like to invite you to breakfast at my house.”

  Claire genuinely liked Joan and loved to hear her laugh. She was curious about how her recovery was progressing. Not only that, but Joan was offering Claire an oceanside meal prepared by a gourmet chef plus a round-trip ride in the Bentley—and well, who could turn that down?

  A few minutes later, Joan picked Claire up. As she drove them along Fell Street, she told Claire that she loved Robert.

  Claire couldn’t help thinking that there was going to be a but somewhere in Joan’s story.

  “I was smitten at first sight,” said Joan. “He was bartending at the Redwood Room on Geary when I came in with a girlfriend from the library board. We were organizing a literary lecture series for kids. When Robert asked me to pick my poison, I told him to surprise me.

  “He made me a drink, Claire, and called it a Robertini.” Joan laughed and took a turn onto Stanyan Street. “I still don’t know what was in it. It was layered in many colors and smelled like a garden in the rain. That’s what it tasted like, too, but it had a secret punch at the end.”

  Claire was enjoying the romantic meet-cute story, but she was still waiting for the but.

  “We started dating. He was very demonstrative and funny. He could do impressions, you know. His George W. Bush was hilarious, and his impression of me—my God.” Joan laughed long and hard. “Maybe he’ll do it for you. You won’t believe how spot-on it is.

  “But most important, I could tell Robbie anything and everything. I felt completely comfortable around him. I told him about my first marriage to Jared, and how the man I loved had turned out to be gay. That’s when Robert said, ‘I got news for you, Joanie. I play for that team, too.’”

  Claire exhaled. So that was the but. She said, “And the two of you decided to get married anyway?”

  “It worked for Judy Garland.” Joan laughed. “Look, I love Robbie. He is handsome, don’t you think?”

  “Very.”

  “He’s very talented, too. He can sing and dance. And he can act like that guy on NCIS. Mark Harmon.”

  “Impressive,” said Claire.

  Joan nodded and pulled the large silver Bentley up to the gates to her home. She held the remote out the window with her good arm, pressed the button on it, and the gates swung in. She drove up to the beautiful house and parked next to a Mercedes sedan.

  “I got that for Robbie for our anniversary. The two of us have a good marriage.” Joan turned off the car and faced Claire. “That’s why I know that Robert didn’t try to kill me, Claire. He doesn’t want to be a widower. He’s pretty obsessed with his image, and that title would make him seem old. Besides, he and I have nothing but good times. We don’t fight. We have love and companionship. Honestly, that’s all we need.”

  “And Samuel Alton?”

  “Who? Say, is that coffee and something yummy I smell?”

  Claire opened her car door and Joan reached over to the glove box with her bandaged arm. She took out a pistol.

  Claire said, “Whoa. What’s that for?”

  Joan shrugged and said, “Someone tried to murder me, remember?” Then she grinned and started waving the gun like a rodeo clown as she took Claire around the side of the house and out to the patio.

  Once they sat down at the table, Marjorie came out and said, “Welcome, Dr. Washburn. Would you like a mimosa to start?”

  Claire said, “I’ll have orange juice without the champagne, please. I have to go back to work after breakfast.”

  Joan was standing at the edge of the patio, sighting various objects on the property over the top of her gun, from the statuary to specimen trees to the birds. Each time she aimed her gun at something, she said, “Pytoo, pytoo, pytoo.”

  Claire said, “Joan? Is that thing loaded?”

  Joan called back, “Of course it is. I’ve also got a license, if you’re wondering, and I’ve gone out to the range to practice. You can never be too careful when you were almost murdered.”

  “Come sit down and give me that thing. I’ll give it back after I leave, okay? It’s just for my own safety, get me?”

  “You’re silly,” Joan said, laughing, but she sat down and put the gun on the table. The muzzle was pointing in Claire’s direction. Claire gently spun the gun so it was pointing toward the horizon.

  She let out a small breath, but her heart kept beating wildly in her chest.

  Marjorie brought out the breakfast. It was a mushroom and fines herbes frittata that smelled delicious and was paired with a side of oven-fresh warm bread. Claire’s stomach rumbled, so she unfurled her napkin and placed it in her lap. She was just lifting her fork when she heard what sounded like a gunshot.

  “What’s that?” Claire asked.

  Two more shots were fired.

  “It’s coming from the pool house. Damn it to hell!”

  Then Joan grabbed the pistol and started to run.

  Chapter 25

  Claire stood up fast. She knocked over a chair, hit the table with her hip, and scattered the contents of the dishes and the juice in the wineglasses. She started moving, doing her best to catch up to Joan. The woman was her age but slimmer, and even with her clipped wing, Joan was faster and more athletic than Claire.

  She called out to her, “Joan, wait up!”

  But Joan was not listening.

  Claire huffed behind her, crossing the lawn. She saw a cottage to her left, a swimming pool, and a set of meandering stone stairs. There was a man standing at the top of it with a rifle. He had the gun sight up to his eye as he pointed it down the steps.

  Joan yelled, “Peter! Peter, stop what you’re doing! Right now!”

  The man whom Joan called Peter was fit and bare-chested. A pair of glasses was hanging from the cord around his neck, and he was wearing a pair of khaki shorts. When he heard Joan calling him, he turned toward her, but only slightly. He hardly lowered the gun at all, maybe just a few degrees. And he certainly didn’t drop it.

  Joan was still holding her pistol. And she raised it and pointed it at Peter.

  It was a standoff. But how long would it last?

  Claire pictured the horrible scene that was about to happen in front of her.

  But then she had an idea, albeit untested. She called out, using the most authoritative voice she had.

  “Everyone freeze.”

  She heard a groaning noise coming from the edge of the steps, where Peter had pointed his rifle and had likely fired the three shots. It sounded almost human. Had he shot someone? Was that person lying down there?

  “Peter,” Joan called out from forty feet away. “You’d better put that gun down. I figured out what you did. I know that it was you all along. And if you drop that gun, we can talk about it.”

  Again, Peter lifted the gun sight to his eye. This time, he was aiming his rifle directly at Joan. But before he could squeeze
off a shot, Joan fired.

  Not once, but three times.

  And the sound of the gun was not pytoo, pytoo, pytoo.

  It was BAM, BAM, BAM.

  The sound was deafening, and the aftershocks echoed off the exterior walls of the tiny cottage. Peter yelped, grabbed his gut, and went down to the ground. His body curled into a ball.

  At that moment, a man came galloping across the lawn from the direction of the main house.

  And he was screaming, “Peter, Peter! Oh, my God, Joan! You shot Peter!”

  Chapter 26

  Claire had left her handbag at the breakfast table, which meant that she didn’t have a phone on her.

  Holy shit, she didn’t have a phone.

  She ran past Joan over to the man called Peter, who was on his back on the grass. The other man, whom Claire took to be Robert Murphy, was cradling Peter’s head and pleading with him, asking him not to die.

  A quick visual exam told Claire that Peter had taken a shot under his rib cage. The man was probably bleeding internally. He’d taken another bullet to his left thigh, which was spouting blood like a small fire hose.

  Peter was conscious, and he seemed to be in excruciating pain. In between moans, he was gasping to Robert, “It had to be done. I had to do it.”

  What was he talking about?

  Claire directed Robert to take off his belt so he could make a tourniquet above the bullet hole in Peter’s thigh.

  “Robert, cinch it and hold it tight. Good. I’m going to make sure an ambulance is on the way. Do not let him move. Do you hear me?”

  Robert nodded. Tears were running down his cheeks. “He has PTSD. From a stint he did in Afghanistan.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He freaks out sometimes. Jesus Christ. Peter.”

  Claire told Robert to try to keep Peter calm. Then she stood up to look for Joan.

  And she saw her. Joan was walking back toward the house at a leisurely pace. She was still holding the gun at her side. She’d simply turned her back on the bloody, awful scene that had blown up in her own backyard. All because of the gunshots she’d fired.