“Josue Chaca.”
“Yeah, him. Was that the kid that died about the same time you got into the fight with Lloyd Erickson?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
The detective regarded him for a moment. “I interviewed Dr. Barnesdale this morning. He told me about your suspension.”
“So?”
“Well, I understand there’s a question about that boy’s death, something about a delay in treatment. Dr. Barnesdale seems to think you were knocking heads with Erickson when you should’ve been busy saving that boy’s life.”
A surge of anger reached out and grabbed Luke like an unseen riptide.
“Did Barnesdale also happen to tell you that he signed the papers that prevented us from doing an autopsy? If he’s so concerned about why that boy died, ask him why he did that.”
“Ever occur to you that he may not wanna know? Maybe he was saving your ass, and his hospital, from a lawsuit.”
“That’s not why he—”
“Doc, unless you’re ready to tell me that kid was murdered, I don’t really care why or how he died. I conduct homicide investigations; that’s what I do. Whether you screwed up or not with that kid isn’t my concern. Neither is the bad blood that seems to exist between you and Barnesdale. But anything you do that interferes with my investigation is my business.”
O’Reilly glanced at his rearview mirror and then pulled into traffic.
“Doc, you’re playing in the wrong game here. Stay clear of my investigation.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Barnesdale said. “Tell the detective that he couldn’t have the security videos?”
“You could have put him off for a day, called your attorneys, wrung your hands about patient confidentiality — whatever,” the Zenavax CEO said. “At the very least, you should’ve talked to me before handing over those videos.”
Barnesdale wasn’t going to tell the CEO how he had almost heaved his breakfast when security paged him to the lobby, telling him that an LAPD homicide detective was there looking for him.
“What did you give him?” the CEO asked.
“Exactly what he asked for. He wanted recordings from two of our security cameras — the lobby, and a corridor that leads to the E.R. I don’t understand what harm that could do.”
“That’s the problem,” the CEO said. “There are too many things you don’t seem to understand.”
After Barnesdale hung up the phone, several seconds passed before the realization blew through him like a sudden wind.
His hospital’s security cameras held secrets that had unsettled the CEO.
He had a weapon.
“So where’s her message?” O’Reilly asked.
“I don’t know,” Luke said, “but it was here this morning. I checked.”
They were standing in Luke’s entry hall with the front door still open, staring down at his message machine. There was a 0 showing in the SAVED MESSAGES display. Luke pressed the playback button again.
Nothing happened.
“Did you change tapes?”
“It’s a digital machine. There are no tapes.” He showed the detective a mask of calm, but his temper was flaring. Someone had invaded his home.
“You think, just maybe, you could’ve erased it?” O’Reilly asked the question like a parent leading his stubborn child to the inevitable conclusion.
“That’s not what happened. Somebody else erased it.”
Luke walked the length of his short hallway, peering into the kitchen and then his bedroom before returning to the entry. Anyone with the inclination could easily have broken into the seventy-year-old structure, but a thief would have taken the machine — not erased its messages.
“Any sign of a forced entry?” O’Reilly asked.
“Nothing obvious.”
The cop had undoubtedly noticed that his TV and computer sat undisturbed in the living room.
O’Reilly scratched his head in an exaggerated manner. “I was never very good at riddles, Doc. You wanna let me in on how you think that message disappeared?”
There were only two possible explanations, and both seemed utterly implausible. Erickson’s P.I. could have accidentally erased the message while snooping around Luke’s apartment, but what could the guy have been hoping to find? Given the kind of money that Erickson could afford to pay, it didn’t seem likely that he’d hire an investigator who was both reckless and stupid.
The other possibility brought back the disquiet that had visited him several times in the past few days.
But how could anyone have even known about her voicemail? And why would anyone, even Kate’s killer, risk burglarizing his apartment to erase a message that contained little more than a passing mention of some e-mail that never got to its recipient?
Neither explanation made any sense, and Luke’s credibility with O’Reilly was already stretched to the point that it probably would not withstand the shock of another bizarre-sounding theory.
“I don’t have an answer to your question, Detective. But there’s one thing I’m certain of — when I left here this morning, Kate’s message was still on that machine.”
O’Reilly blew out a long, slow breath while staring at the voicemail recorder. “You mind if I borrow this thing for a few days?”
“Go ahead.”
Luke figured his machine was going to spend the next few days on a lab bench where forensic technicians would try to recover the erased file containing Kate’s message.
As soon as the detective left, Luke was going to engage in his own search and retrieval mission. Whoever erased Kate’s phone message did so without leaving any conspicuous signs of a break-in. People with those kinds of skills could also tap a phone line or plant a listening device.
22
The microbiology lab had always reminded Ben of a temple — its rows of lab benches lined up like pews, butane flames burning like candles, techs wearing hairnets in place of skullcaps. Invariably, though, the sanctified atmosphere would dissipate as he reached the far end of the lab, where its would-be high priest, Elmer McKenna, resided.
Ben knocked on the door frame as he entered the older man’s office.
“Be with you in a minute,” Elmer said, his back to Ben, his tone a swirl of distraction. He was bent over his credenza, peeling away layers of paper from a sloping mound of documents, searching for something.
From the looks of things, whatever he was hunting for might take hours to find. Waist-high piles of computer printouts formed a battlement along the walls of his office, and his desktop — covered with medical journals, stacks of unopened mail, and a half-eaten crumb roll — looked like the termination point of a landslide.
“I’ll come back later,” Ben said.
Elmer turned suddenly. “Oh, Ben. No, no, have a seat.”
Ben lifted a pile of medical charts off a chair and sat. “What are you looking for?”
Instead of answering, Elmer pulled a Post-it note from his computer monitor and read it. “Uh-oh. I forgot to call Medical Records.”
“I’m sure they’re as shocked as I am,” Ben said. “Listen, I need to ask you about Kate Tartaglia.”
“Oh.” Elmer’s eyes suddenly came into focus. “What a horrible thing that was, what a tragedy.”
“Yep.” Ben allowed a moment, then said, “Actually, Luke wanted to come himself and talk to you about this, but he managed to get his keister booted out of the hospital. So I’m here in his place.”
Luke hadn’t given him an explicit instruction to visit Elmer, but that’s how Ben interpreted his friend’s remark when, as Luke was walking away with the detective, he called back: “Say hi to my dad when you see him.”