Triple Homicide_Thrillers Page 11

  “What have we got, Doctor?” asked an EMT. The name W. Watson was appliqued on his shirt.

  Claire said to Watson, “This is Mrs. Murphy.”

  “Hello,” Joan said. “The rumors of my demise have been wildly exaggerated.”

  Watson cracked a smile.

  “She was brought in just after midnight,” Claire continued. “She has a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a bullet graze on her hip. She revived on her own fifteen minutes ago and needs emergency care ASAP.”

  Watson said, “You’re not kidding.”

  Mallory went to Mrs. Murphy and patted her hand.

  “I left a message for your husband,” she said. “I told him you were on the way to Saint Francis Memorial Hospital.”

  “How ya doing, Mrs. Murphy?” EMT Watson asked. “We’re going to give you a nice smooth ride. And we’ll get there faster than a speeding bullet.” Then the EMTs helped the gunshot victim onto their gurney and wheeled her out to the ambulance.

  The doors closed behind them and the wail of sirens sounded down the road as Bunny entered the autopsy suite holding a brown paper bag that was sealed with red tape. “Dr. Washburn, I opened this to see what it was. I think the handbag inside belongs to Mrs. Murphy.”

  Only fifteen minutes had passed since the patient formerly assumed to be a corpse had called out to Claire’s team for help.

  “Leave the bag here,” Claire said. “Right now, I’m calling the cops.”

  As Bunny did as she was told, Claire saw Cindy eyeing the large paper bag on the stretcher recently vacated by Mrs. Murphy.

  Without any discernible hesitation, Cindy opened it up and peered inside. Then she pulled out a handsome red leather handbag, opened it, and began laying its contents on the stretcher.

  Claire said, “Cindy. What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m just taking a quick peek. It’s in my nature. I’m an investigative reporter, remember?”

  Claire said, “Thanks for the news flash. Listen to me. I disavow all knowledge of what you’re doing. You know full well the contents of that bag are off-limits and off the record. By tampering with them, you could mess up a case against the shooter. Do you hear me?”

  But Cindy took Claire’s disavowal as a yellow light, not a red one. She listed the contents of the bag out loud as she emptied the capacious interior and the many pockets. “Here’s her wallet, Claire. The driver’s license belongs to our not-actually-departed Joan, and the picture matches the woman we just met. She lives on El Camino Del Mar in Seacliff. She has five credit cards in here and a buncha receipts.

  “Wow. Look at her makeup kit, Claire. I’ve seen ads for this stuff. The makeup is infused with stem cells tailored to your own DNA. Well, so they say, anyway. I, on the other hand, say it’s expensive. Lots of brushes and sponges, and okay, enough with the makeup.

  “She’s also got a photo in the glassine sleeve behind the driver’s license. It’s a picture of Joan and a man who could be her husband.”

  Cindy let out a low whistle. “This man is handsome.”

  Then she flipped the plastic sleeve over and read the inscription, “Robert and me, Cannes, second honeymoon, 2016.”

  Robert appeared to be ten years younger than Joan, at least. He was very good-looking. Dark hair, tall and built, a definite ten. He looked like Tom Selleck when he was Magnum, PI.

  Cindy said, “Claire, look at this picture of Joan and her husband, Robert.”

  “Nope. You’re going to get us in trouble with the law.”

  Cindy said, “I’m wearing gloves. Look.” She wiggled her fingers.

  “No harm done, Claire. Okay, I’ve been through everything, every pocket and every secret zippered section. A woman with a four-thousand-dollar handbag would have jewelry, but Joan wasn’t wearing any jewelry and there wasn’t a single piece in her bag, either. But look at what she’s wearing in the photo. Diamonds on her fingers, encircling both wrists, and draped around her throat. That pendant alone has to be eight carats. Maybe even bigger.”

  “Hey, Girl Reporter,” Claire said, “put it all back like you found it. Seal the paper bag. I’m going to wash my hands. Be back in two minutes.”

  “Got it.”

  Claire went into the kitchenette and picked up the notes from last night’s intake that Dr. H. had left her. She ran her finger down the list of deceased. There were the three car-crash victims. Two on the list were checked off with appended death certificates. Dr. H. had also listed the two who came in after them.

  Female, Joan Murphy. Male, John Doe.

  Two people had been brought in by the van at the same time. John Doe was in the drawer next to Joan Murphy.

  Dr. H. had done a cursory external exam and had written notes:

  White female, 45, Joan Murphy, non-fatal gunshot to right shoulder. Flesh wound on hip. COD, pending. John Doe, white male, approx. age 35-40, two shots to the back and one to the left arm. COD, gunshot to the heart. MOD, homicide.

  Claire closed the folder and dropped it off in her office. Then she returned to the autopsy suite where Cindy was replacing the tape on the bag of Joan Murphy’s possessions.

  Claire said, “Cin, as much as I love you, you really have to go. I’ve got work to do, and honestly, you can’t know any of this until next of kin is notified and we’ve got a green light for speaking to the press.”

  “I understand. I’m outta here,” Cindy said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Claire was about to open John Doe’s drawer when Greg, the receptionist, called out to her from the front desk.

  “Dr. Washburn. Inspector Richard Conklin called. He said to tell you that he wants to see the John Doe.”

  “Call him back and tell him that now is fine.”

  CHAPTER 7

  WHEN RICH CONKLIN woke up earlier that morning, he reached for Cindy—but her side of the bed was empty. And it wasn’t even warm anymore.

  It took him a few minutes to remember that she was dog-sitting for Lindsay. He smiled. It had been sweet of her not to wake him up.

  Rich got moving. He showered, dressed, ate buttered toast over the sink, and washed it down with a Yoo-hoo. He started up his old Bronco on the first try and then made the drive to the Hall of Justice, where he worked in the Southern Station, Homicide Division. He was parking his car a block away from the Hall on Harriet Street when he got a call from Claire. She filled him in on the bizarre happenings in her office.

  “I’ll punch in at work and get back to you,” he said.

  It was eight thirty when Conklin entered the squad room. Lieutenant Jackson Brady was inside his office, which was located at the back corner of the bullpen. Conklin crossed the room and knocked on the glass office door. Brady waved him in.

  Brady was a veteran of Miami vice and homicide, and had taken over the command of this squad when Warren Jacobi moved up to chief. Conklin thought that in some ways, it was a waste of talent to keep Brady behind the desk, but he was an excellent CO. He was direct, smart, and unafraid. Brady was also Rich’s friend, but during work hours, he was all business.

  Conklin took a chair opposite Brady and said, “Lieu, I got a call from the ME. Two bodies came in last night. Both had gunshot wounds. One of them is a John Doe. The other is a female who resumed breathing and started talking while she was inside the body bag.”

  “Christ. What did you just say? The female victim wasn’t really dead? Did I hear that correctly?”

  “Yup. Her name is Joan Murphy and she’s on the way to Saint Francis. I’d like to be on the case.”

  Brady said, “Let me see who caught it last night.”

  Conklin looked out the window, watching the traffic on the freeway as Brady’s fingers tapped on the keyboard.

  “Okay. Okay,” Brady said. “Summing it up here, it seems like it was a madhouse in the morgue last night. There was a car crash with three fatalities. Then, this case came in. It started with a 911 call from the Warwick Hotel. A housekeeper went into room 321 to turn down the bed and
found two dead bodies in it.”

  Conklin muttered, “Holy shit.”

  Brady continued his summary.

  “Sergeant Chi got a search warrant and met Detectives Sackowitz and Linden at the hotel. Room three twenty-one was registered to Joan Murphy, who lives locally, over in Seacliff. Murphy’s body was completely naked on the bed. She had a gunshot wound to the right shoulder and another that had grazed her hip. She was covered with blood and had no detectable vital signs. Hear that, Conklin? Not breathing. No heartbeat.”

  “Unreal,” said Conklin. “Keep going.”

  Brady said, “Continuing. The male victim is in the morgue and isn’t talking or breathing. He’s white, in his thirties, and was also found naked and lying on top of the female. There was no wallet, no ID to be found. He was wearing a wedding band. The male vic took three shots, two to the back, one in the left arm. The murder weapon wasn’t found.”

  Brady took a slug of coffee and then went on.

  “Sackowitz and Linden waited for the wagon to arrive. ME techs pronounced both victims DOA. Sac and Linden started a canvass in the hotel. They’ll look at surveillance video and do the interviews, et cetera, but I agree with you that they could use help.”

  Conklin said, “Good to hear that. My desk is clean, Brady. Use me.”

  Brady said, “I don’t have anyone free to partner up with you.”

  “It’s just for a few days, Lieu.”

  Brady said, “Should be okay, I’m thinkin’, since Joan Murphy can probably ID the doer. I’m betting the shooter was the wife of the John Doe. Stay on Murphy and get her story.”

  Brady lifted his icy blue eyes from the computer and turned them on Conklin.

  “We’re going to need you to use your famous charm when you interview Miss Murphy, Conklin. This is a sticky situation. We don’t want her to sue the city for taking her to the morgue before her time.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Conklin went back to his desk and downloaded the notes from Sac and Linden. Then he called Claire’s office, leaving a message with her receptionist.

  He said, “Greg, tell Dr. Washburn I’m on the case. I want to see the John Doe, ASAP.”

  CHAPTER 8

  CONKLIN MADE THE short walk from the back exit from the Hall of Justice lobby, along the breezeway to the ME’s office in under two minutes. He was thinking about this murky case of a dead woman who was not actually dead, and a John Doe who was gunned down in flagrante delicto.

  Conklin reviewed Sackowitz’s case notes one more time. He’d written that no weapon had been found at the scene of the crime and that the John Doe’s wallet was missing. He and Linden were still working the hotel angle, trying to get an ID on the dead man.

  If they could figure out who the John Doe was, they might be able to learn why he was shot in the first place.

  Was the John Doe the target? That would make Joan Murphy a victim of circumstance. And why hadn’t the shooter finished off Joan Murphy? She had witnessed the crime, after all. Had the shooter assumed that she was dead?

  Could be.

  According to the reports, she’d been covered with blood, both hers and the John Doe’s. Her muscles had gone rigid. Her breathing and pulse had hardly been there, and were so delicate that they’d become undetectable. Apparently, neither the cops nor the ME techs had ever seen anything like this before, and Murphy’s deathlike state had fooled them all. How scary was that?

  Conklin pulled open the double glass doors to the ME’s office as another question popped into his head. Why hadn’t anyone heard the shots?

  But he shook his head, clearing out his mind. There were several people waiting in the reception area to see Claire: some were cops, others legal aides and administrators who worked at the Hall. He needed to get control of this situation before it got out of hand.

  The receptionist knew Conklin, so as soon as he saw him he said, “She’s waiting for you, Inspector. Go on in.”

  Conklin knew his way around the ME’s office and took the main corridor, which led to the autopsy suite in the back.

  Claire was gowned and masked. Her assistants were backing her up as she worked on the postmortem assessment of a young boy with a visible head injury. She saw Conklin come in and covered the child with a sheet. Then she shucked her gloves and put on a clean pair. She picked up a large brown paper bag from an empty table and said, “Let’s go into my office, Richie.”

  As he stood with her in her office, Conklin watched Claire open the paper bag on her desk and take out the large, blood-red leather handbag with what looked to be expensive stitching and details.

  Claire said, “This purse belongs to Joan. I also have bags of her clothes and those belonging to the John Doe. But let’s look at the contents of her handbag first.”

  She began taking items out of the handbag. There was a nice-looking wallet, a makeup case, keys, and an assortment of other commonplace items.

  “This is a pricey bag,” Claire told Conklin. “It appears that Mrs. Murphy is a woman of means.”

  She handed over the wallet. Conklin opened it and looked through the contents.

  Claire said, “Look at this.”

  She was pointing to a photograph under plastic of a man and woman at a resort, their backs to the ocean. Claire flipped the sleeve over, and Conklin read the inscription. “Robert and Me, Cannes, Second Honeymoon, 2016.”

  Claire said, “Notice the necklace Joan is wearing in the photograph. That pendant is a helluva big diamond. There is a similar enormous rock in her engagement ring, and the wedding band is encrusted with other precious stones. Look at all the glittering bangle bracelets. Joan clearly likes her diamonds.”

  “A girl’s best friend, right?”

  “That’s what they say. But, Richie, no jewelry was found on her person or in her bag.”

  “She was robbed.”

  “That’s my first guess.”

  Conklin made notes, then said, “What do you say, Claire? Can you introduce me to Mr. Doe?”

  “I’m dying to meet the man myself,” said Claire.

  They walked back to the autopsy suite and Claire pulled open the drawer next to the one that had been vacated recently by Joan Murphy.

  Conklin found the unknown man to be as described. He was a white male who seemed to be in his thirties. He had a slight paunch and a lot of chest hair. From his conservative haircut and manicure, Conklin guessed that the guy was some sort of businessman. He looked like he could be a sales executive of some sort.

  Conklin told Claire what Sackowitz had put in his case notes. “He was found naked, lying on the naked body of Mrs. Murphy.”

  Claire said, “That seems right. Looks to me like he took the first two shots to his back. Then, he probably turned to face the shooter and that’s when he got this one to the underside of his biceps. It went through the muscle and into the chest. That could have been the slug that stopped his heart forever.”

  Conklin said, “So, who do we think was the shooter? Mrs. Doe? Did she get someone to let her into the room so she could kill her husband? It’s a logical explanation. An obvious one. Or could it have been Mr. Murphy, who killed the man cuckolding him? Is that why his wife was spared?

  “And if the motive was a domestic beef,” Conklin continued, “why take the jewelry? Was it staging, to make the shooting look like a robbery?”

  Claire listened as Conklin continued theorizing out loud. He said, “Or was it, in fact, a robbery? A stranger gets into the room or he was waiting in the room. He gets the loot and John Doe’s wallet. But why didn’t he give Mrs. Murphy a shot to the head so she couldn’t testify? Was he convinced she was dead?”

  Claire cut off his musings, saying, “Here’s my theory. Anyone would have been convinced that that woman, Joan Murphy, died in that hotel room. You see, there’s an unusual condition called ‘catalepsy.’ If this is that condition, it’s my first experience with it. I know that death is a many-part process. Different parts of the body cease at differ
ent times. Skin lives for twenty-four hours after a person dies, for instance.

  “So, catalepsy is a nervous condition that looks like death even though it’s an attenuated slow-down. If Mrs. Murphy had not been refrigerated overnight, she would have suffered brain death and she would have died.”

  “Okay, so what causes catalepsy?”

  “Could be a number of things. Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, cocaine withdrawal. It can be a side effect of an antipsychotic. And one of the most common causes can be traumatic shock.”

  Conklin said, “She had to be pretty traumatized, all right. You think her memory will ever come back?”

  Claire shrugged and said, “It’s possible. Let me know, will you? I can’t really explain it, but I feel somewhat attached to Joan. I want to know what happened to her and why.”

  CHAPTER 9

  CONKLIN CAME THROUGH the gate to the Homicide squad room and went directly to the small island made up of two facing desks—his and Lindsay’s—and a side chair.

  He grabbed his desk phone and called St. Francis Memorial. He was shunted around to various bureaucrats until finally a head nurse told him that Mrs. Murphy was in stable condition and was currently having a CAT scan.

  Conklin said he’d call back. He was glad to have time to do a background check on the miraculous Mrs. Murphy before meeting with her.

  He booted up his computer and began opening the databases that were at his disposal at the police office. He learned that Joan Murphy, nee Tuttle, had been born in New York in 1972. Her mother had been an editor at a high-fashion magazine and her father was CEO of a business machine corporation. Joan had gone to private schools and had capped off her high school diploma with a degree in literature from Berkeley.

  Murphy’s first husband, Jared Knowles, was a well-regarded art director in Hollywood. Her second and current husband, Robert Murphy, was a model and small-time actor who was born in 1986. Conklin did the quick math in his head. That made Robert fourteen years younger than his wife.