The Medical Examiner Read online

  Cindy put down her burger and pointed a French fry at her friend before she dipped it into a puddle of ketchup. “If you met her and talked with her, you’d believe her, Yuki.”

  “I’m a human lie detector,” Yuki said sweetly. “I’ll bet if I met her, I still wouldn’t believe her. I’m pretty sure she’s a very charming and skillful liar.”

  Claire sighed, looked down at her watch, and said, “I have time for a quick coffee if you do.”

  When she glanced back up at Cindy’s face, she could tell that her friend had disappeared down a road of deep thought.

  No doubt she was working on a story headlined “Dead Woman Walking.”

  Chapter 18

  Rich Conklin was at his desk in the squad room. He was doing a background check on the deceased, since he now had his name.

  Samuel J. Alton had a negligible record. Twenty years before, when he was seventeen, he had been busted for selling pot at a beach party in LA. He’d pled guilty to the misdemeanor, got six months’ probation, and paid a fine. It seemed he’d learned his lesson, though, because after that he hadn’t gotten so much as a parking ticket.

  But Sam Alton wasn’t exactly a model citizen, because once a month he came to town, stayed at the Warwick, and apparently spent time with a very wealthy woman who had a home in an exclusive part of town. That woman always booked a room for the two of them. She also happened to have a husband. And he’d had a wife and kids.

  Had last weekend’s tryst gotten Sam Alton killed?

  If so, by whom? How did the killer gain access to the room?

  And if his death wasn’t caused by a scorned spouse, what was the motive for the shooting?

  Conklin opened a file of photos. Dr. H. had taken some at the scene, while Claire had taken the others. In Claire’s pictures of the victim, he was resting on a metal table in her lab. She’d also included close-ups of the labels. Seeing Claire’s careful, meticulous work made Conklin smile. She was very good at her job.

  There was a second zip file containing photographs of Sam Alton’s clothing that had been stowed away at the hotel.

  The attached note from Dr. H. read:

  See Joan Murphy’s clothes as they were found in the room. No GSR on them. Same deal with John Doe’s apparel. The clothing was neatly folded on a chair, jacket hung in the closet. Also no GSR. The lab has it all now and is processing for trace. We’ll get who did this.

  Rich stared at the pictures for a while. What the neatly hung and folded clothing told him was that these two people knew each other well. He saw no violence, but he didn’t see any uncontrollable passion, either. It felt to him as though Joan and Samuel had been a couple for a while. He thought about the way Joan had stared at Alton’s dead body.

  What had she said? “I’ve never seen this man before.”

  And she had seemed indignant.

  Her voice had been hard. Cold. Had it been full of guilty knowledge? Had she set Alton up to be killed? Or had she suffered brain damage that had resulted in memory loss while she was in that cataleptic state? Did she truly not remember her lover?

  Conklin’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Robert Murphy.

  Rich answered the phone by simply saying his name, and Joan’s husband replied, “This is Robert Murphy. Have you heard from Joan?”

  “Not today. Why do you ask?”

  “She’s missing, Inspector. She slept in her bed last night, but both she and her car are gone now.”

  “Can you please give me the plate number?”

  Murphy recited the numbers.

  Conklin asked, “Is there a tracking device on her phone?”

  “You’ve got me there. I don’t have the slightest idea. Inspector, I’m worried about her. Especially in light of recent events.”

  Rich said, “I’ll put out a lookout on her car and will let you know if I hear anything. If you hear from her in the meantime, please call me.”

  “I will.”

  Conklin hung up and then played the conversation back in his mind. Had Murphy been straight with him or was he acting? It seemed strange that he would be worried that Joan was missing for a few hours, even though he hadn’t been ruffled when she’d been missing for almost twenty-four hours.

  The alarm bells were going off in Conklin’s head. Something just didn’t add up.

  What had happened to Joan?

  Had she collapsed somewhere and gone into another cataleptic state? Had her husband killed her? Or perhaps she’d just gone somewhere to grieve for her dead lover because the memories from the shooting came back.

  Whatever the reason, Rich wasn’t going to chance it. He called Joan’s number and left a message. “Joan, it’s Rich Conklin,” he said. “Please call me. I’m concerned for your safety.”

  Chapter 19

  Rich was at his desk when John Sackowitz dropped by and sat down in Lindsay’s chair. Sac was a big man and was wearing a gray jacket, jeans, white shirt, and a weird pink tie.

  Sac moved the desk lamp out of his way so he could look Conklin directly in the eye. Then he said, “Sam Alton’s betrayed widow, Rachel, is in shock. It’s nightmare city over at her house. God, I hate notifications. Did you get a chance to speak to Joan?”

  “She’s gone missing. That’s according to her husband anyway. I’m heading out to Seacliff to tour the house and grounds. I’ll call you later.”

  Sac stood up and said, “I’ve got some paperwork to do.” He lumbered over to his desk across the room and began typing up his report.

  Conklin turned off his desktop and waved good-bye to Sac.

  A few minutes later, he was in his car and driving out to Seacliff when Brady called.

  “Conklin, a dead body was found in an apartment building in West Portal. Welky was the first one on the scene, and an ADA just brought him a search warrant. Welky found two IDs in the room and a wallet that belongs to Samuel J. Alton.”

  Seriously? There was no way Samuel J. Alton had died twice.

  So who was this dead man with his wallet?

  Conklin made the excruciatingly slow drive to the middle-class, family-oriented neighborhood. He got stuck at the lights at both the entrance and exit of a three-block shopping district, and then, once he’d gotten free of that, he hit another traffic snarl on a block filled with homey bars and restaurants. Twenty minutes after leaving the Hall, he parked in front of an apartment building on West Portal Avenue, between a cruiser and the coroner’s van. He hopped out of his car and headed toward the crime scene.

  The building was a classic midcentury San Francisco–style home with five stories of gray stucco, arched windows, and a view of the West Portal Muni. A half dozen trees out front softened the lines of the building under a clear sky overhead. A light-rail car rattled by as Conklin entered the building. If he hadn’t been summoned there on police duty, he would have never guessed that there had been a murder inside.

  The old man behind the front desk pointed to the elevator behind him, then raised four fingers.

  Fourth floor. Got it.

  Conklin was met upstairs by the two beat cops who’d arrived on the scene first. Their names were Officers Calvin Welky and Mike Brown. Conklin signed the log, put on booties and gloves, and then walked into a clean, bright three-room apartment.

  Welky said, “The manager, Mr. Wayne Murdock, said the apartment belongs to one Arthur O’Brien, an actor and probably a junkie. Murdock got a call from O’Brien’s mother. She hadn’t heard from her son in a couple of days. She said he wasn’t returning her calls. Murdock went to the young man’s residence, found his body here, and called it in.”

  Conklin looked around the living room. It was dominated by a fifty-two-inch TV. Across the room from it sat a nondescript brown couch. A set of weights took up one corner of the space. It looked to Conklin like this was a single man’s apartment. There were no knickknacks or sentimental items breaking up the uniform brown color palette. But the most telling detail of all was the drug para
phernalia that was scattered across the coffee table.

  Conklin noticed a stubby candle, a scorched spoon, a box of matches, and a flock of opaque glassine envelopes that were coated with white powder.

  Conklin walked to the bedroom, stood in the doorway, and nodded to the two CSIs who were photographing the dead man. His body was lying in the center of the unmade bed.

  Conklin said hello to Claire and Bunny, and then he took in the whole of the room. There were movie posters on the walls, a laundry bag by the window, a desk with an open laptop computer, and a knapsack up against the wall. His eyes went back to the dead man lying in a relaxed fetal position.

  If you squinted, you could almost imagine that Arthur O’Brien was sleeping.

  Conklin wished that he could shake the man to ask him some questions.

  Who are you, bud? Why do you have Sam Alton’s wallet?

  Chapter 20

  Claire Washburn photographed the deceased from every angle with her old Minolta camera while she and Bunny waited for Rich Conklin to arrive.

  The dead man’s real name was Arthur O’Brien. He was white and in his thirties, but since that’s where his similarities to Samuel J. Alton ended, it was a wonder that he was in possession of Alton’s identification.

  Arthur O’Brien didn’t have a double chin or love handles. He was as thin as a rail, and had spiky blond hair and a square diamond earring in one ear. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved blue knit shirt. One of his sleeves was rolled up, almost to the shoulder, revealing a length of rubber tubing knotted around his left biceps. The track marks that ran down his arm showed that this had not been his first time at the rodeo. The syringe was lying on the sheets about three inches from his right hand, and there was a puddle of vomit on a pillow.

  Probable cause of death: suicide, most likely unintended.

  Conklin came through the door. He pushed his hair out of his eyes, then checked out the room and the body. Then he said to her, “Don’t commit yourself, but what are your thoughts?”

  She said, “I’ll send out the blood sample in the morning and do the post, but he’s cold. On the face of it, he OD’d and I’d say he’s been dead at least twenty-four hours.”

  Claire lifted up the dead man’s shirt and pushed a thermometer into the skin above his liver. Then she waited a minute before reading it.

  She said, “I’d estimate that this man’s death occurred more than thirty hours ago. That means it happened early Monday morning.”

  “The wallet’s over there,” Welky told Conklin, pointing toward the dresser opposite the bed. Conklin walked over, picked it up, and took a look at its contents. Claire had already seen the wallet. It was good quality and was made from tan-colored calf’s skin. The initials SJA were embossed in one corner.

  Inside was Samuel Alton’s driver’s license. The photo on the identification card matched the face of the man who had been found dead in Joan Murphy’s embrace.

  “One twenty in cash in the billfold,” said Welky, “along with four credit cards and a dozen business cards. Everything seems to belong to Samuel Alton, Avantra Insurance, San Bernardino. Inspector, there’s also a backpack you’ll want to see here.”

  Brown picked up the backpack that had been leaning against the wall and set it down on the desk. Claire left the deceased and went over to watch Conklin go through the contents of the bag.

  He hefted it, undid the zipper, and said, “Call me crazy, but I’m feeling lucky.”

  Conklin put his hand into the backpack and removed the first item: a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson, small, what was known as a .38 Special. It held six bullets. He showed Claire the chamber. There was only one bullet left inside.

  She thought, The first three went into Alton’s back and arm, and the last two went into Joan Murphy’s shoulder and hip. That adds up.

  Conklin handed the weapon off to a CSI, saying, “That goes to ballistics right away, Boyd. It looks like it could be evidence in an active homicide case.”

  A few more items came out of the backpack, including a bag of chocolate chip cookies and an empty liter-sized Coke bottle with a hole in the bottom. Conklin held up the plastic bottle. He knew that on the street, this sort of thing was used as a suppressor. If a killer screwed the gun into the mouth of the bottle and fired, the bottle would silence the gunshot.

  The next item in the bag was a gray T-shirt. Richie sniffed it and said, “Gunpowder.”

  He handed the shirt and the bottle off to Boyd. Then he put both hands into the bag and took out a red-patterned kerchief that was neatly folded into a bundle. He said, “This is so heavy, it almost feels like it’s alive.”

  Claire saw that the object inside that kerchief was jointed and pointy. Maybe it wasn’t one item, but a number of many small pieces wrapped up together. Conklin set the makeshift package down on the desk and turned to Wallace, the CSI who was holding the camera, saying, “Please shoot the hell out of this.”

  Rich opened the kerchief one fold at a time, exposing a pair of very sparkly earrings, two chunky rings, three diamond-encrusted cuff-style bracelets, and a twenty-two-inch white metal chain necklace with a large diamond pendant.

  He stared at the glittering array for a long moment. Maybe he was dazzled, thought Claire. Because it was dazzling.

  “What do you think of this?” he said to her. “Is it a million dollars’ worth of diamonds?”

  Claire said, “If it all came from Cartier or Harry Winston, that batch could be worth multiples of that. But I know one thing for sure: those are Joan’s jewels. I recognize most of it from that second honeymoon photo that was in her wallet. I’ll bet she never expected to see these pieces again.”

  Conklin dug around in the main section of the backpack some more but came up empty-handed. Then he opened a zippered pocket in the front and took out a wallet. This one was slim, holding only one credit card and a driver’s license. He showed Claire the photo on the license. It belonged to the man on the bed, Arthur O’Brien.

  Claire said, “There’s another pocket on the side there, Richie.”

  The pocket was tight and the fabric seemed to resist the insertion of his gloved fingers. Conklin persisted. At last, he pulled out a green plastic hotel key card.

  He showed it to Claire and put it down on a corner of the desk. He asked Wallace to take a couple of shots of the card. On the center of the card were the words Warwick Hotel.

  “Beautiful,” he said to Claire. “Assuming the gun in the backpack killed Sam Alton, Arthur O’Brien has tied up all the loose ends and wrapped up the case against himself.”

  Claire nodded curtly as she handed off the pillowcase with the vomit on it. That’s when she found the cell phone in the bedding. She held it up to Rich and said, “He might have even tied up that package with a bow on top,” she said. “I wonder who Mr. O’Brien had been calling in the weeks before he died.”

  Chapter 21

  Conklin made phone calls from his car as Claire supervised the transport of Arthur O’Brien’s body and belongings into her van.

  First he called John Sackowitz, and then he patched Brady into the call and told both of them what he knew.

  He said, “It looks like O’Brien died from an accidental drug overdose. The deceased was in possession of a backpack that was a forensic lab’s dream. There’s a recently fired .38 with one slug left in the six-chamber cylinder and a street suppressor. Also, get this, we found a key card from the Warwick. I’m going to take a wild guess and say it opens room three twenty-one.”

  Sac and Brady were suitably impressed and excited.

  Conklin kept going. He was on a roll.

  “How’d he get the card? This, I don’t know. But we have his cell phone. Maybe his call history will give up the other players in this thing. Oh, and to really seal the deal here,” Conklin said, “Joan Murphy’s diamonds were also in O’Brien’s backpack. All of them, and they were nicely wrapped in a bandana. CSI found O’Brien’s prints on all of it.”

  Brady said, “Good w
ork, Inspector Conklin. Take a bow and the night off.”

  It was a quarter to six, so Conklin called Cindy and said, “I’ll pick up a pizza.” Then he sent her a phone kiss.

  After that, he called Joan Murphy’s phone and left a voice mail. “Joan, this is Rich Conklin. We’ve recovered your jewelry. There are about three pounds of diamonds here, including that pendant that I think belonged to your mother. Call me, please. We’ll need you to identify it.”

  He clicked off and then spoke to the disconnected phone, “And by the way, Joan, I also need to talk to you about Sam Alton and Arthur O’Brien, both of whom are now deceased. You’re starting to look like the center of a category 5 storm to me.”

  His phone buzzed.

  It was Joan.

  It was almost as if she’d heard him.

  She said, “Hi, Richard. I’m doing all right. Keeping it together. I want to remind you that someone tried to murder me. I don’t want to give this person another shot at it. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “Where are you? Everyone’s been worried about you. Robert called you in as a missing person.”

  “Never mind that. Look, Richard, the important thing is that I think I know who was behind all of this.”

  But then the phone went dead in his hand.

  Conklin hit the Return Call button. He listened to the ringtone and got Joan’s outgoing voice mail message.

  “This is Joan. You know what to do.”

  Conklin said, “Call me back, Joan. Call me.”

  He got out of his car and walked over to Claire. She was shutting the back doors to the van.

  “Joan just called me. She won’t tell me where she is, but she said that she’s staying out of harm’s way. Then she hung up on me.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” said Claire.

  “Do you get the feeling,” Rich asked Claire, “that she’s making things harder for us on purpose? Why would she do that?”