"Not officially. We run the jail but the medical staff is contracted through a private company. But it doesn't look good having even a subcontractor get hit in your own jurisdiction."
I could see her head spinning the scene already. Motive and opportunity.
"Shit. We'll be chasing patients the guy's seen for years who are out on the street. They're going to want this one quick."
She came closer and put her hands on my shoulders and bent to kiss me. I was about to say something witty about duty calling when she twisted away.
"I gotta go. Call me," she said, moving to the doors and closing them behind her.
I spent the rest of the morning at Billy's. When I came through the lobby, Murray gave me a few more seconds of eye contact than usual and I thought I could see a slight grin playing at his mouth. I know it's just locker-room humor that people can tell, but how the hell would he know where I'd spent the night?
Billy had long since gone to his office and the apartment was immaculate. He had left a note on top of two large manila envelopes:
Max. This is the Thompson file, including a full dossier and confirmation that she did indeed have a viatical policy through a company other than McCane's and sold it to the same investment group as the others.
The other file is a full dossier on Dr. Harold Marshack, our possible middleman.
Let me know when you get in.
I showered and changed and started a pot of coffee. While I waited I started leafing through the Thompson file. The woman had purchased an inordinately large life insurance policy in 1954 and had been paying loyally for decades. She obviously liked the idea of tucking such death insurance away that in the late '70s, she bought yet another policy that gave her nearly $100,000 in coverage. But four years ago she sold both to the investment group for $40,000. They had required a medical exam, but when they found she had been diagnosed with cancer and had refused surgery, they didn't hesitate.
Different figures, but pretty much the same pattern as the others. I poured myself a cup of coffee and took the other file to the patio. Out on the ocean there were a dozen fishing boats strung out past what I knew was the third reef line. The water was flat and a huge freighter was southbound on the horizon, the visibility so clear I could see the lump of a wave being pushed by the prow of the big vessel. I sat in one of the patio chairs and opened the file on Marshack.
The doctor, who was fifty-two, had taken his degree from a small college in Louisville. The resume listed internships and hospital privileges in both Kentucky and Tennessee. A few years were then unaccounted for, but a license and three different business addresses in North Carolina made me think he must have been struggling to find a steady practice.
It was all pretty undistinguished stuff until I got to the address listing in Moultrie, Georgia. The work address was for the State Penitentiary. His title there had been head of prison psychiatric services. He had worked there for four years. There was another lapse in time before his next official work record for Health and Prison Services of Florida. His current address was in Golden Beaches, just as McCane had said.
What McCane had not said-except to a bartender he was probably trying to hit on at Kim's-was whether he had ever been in Moultrie. I put the file down and stared out at the sun flashes on the small shore break. Coincidence that McCane had worked in the same Georgia prison as the middleman who might be killing Billy's women? Was the old cop chasing down a lead he wasn't filling me in on? How well did these guys know each other?
I was getting more coffee when my cell rang.
"Billy?" I answered.
"Richards," she said, her voice professional and with an edge.
"Hey. What's up? They call you off the homicide?"
"Freeman. Didn't you tell me at Lester's that your partner the insurance investigator was trailing some middleman?
"Yeah, he was doing surveillance on the guy's place and trailed him to the liquor store."
"Said his name was Marshack?
"Yeah. A psychiatrist named…"
"Dr. Harold Marshack," she finished my sentence. "Max, you better get down here."
I called Billy and filled him in on the homicide of Dr. Marshack, McCane's middleman and the county jail psychiatrist. Billy jumped ahead of me.
"And the Moultrie prison psychiatrist. You're thinking they knew each other?"
"Let's get the paperwork before I call McCane," I said, getting up to leave. "Call me."
When I found the address along A1A in Golden Beaches, I again pulled into a lot filled with squad cars and a couple of unmarked units parked alongside. A team of crime scene guys was going over an old-model Caprice in a spot nearby.
As I got out I could see Richards and Diaz, standing next to their boss. Hammonds cut his eyes toward me and then turned back to say something to his detectives before walking away. Richards met me halfway across the lot.
"We've got to quit meeting like this," she said, but the joke had lost some of its humor. "The boss man is hot again."
I nodded, tried to catch the color in her eyes, but gave up when Diaz joined us.
"Hey amigo. Told you we would meet again," he said, the smile undiminished. "You want to tell us again how your private investigation somehow involves the stiff we got upstairs who works for us?"
"Good to see you too, Vince," I said, before running through the case again, only leaving out the Moultrie connection. No use throwing that in the mix until Billy had it nailed down.
"So what'd you tell Hammonds?" I asked when I was through.
"Told him everything we've got," Richards said. "The five naturals. The theory on the insurance scam. Marshack's name coming up as a possible middleman in the deal."
"And?"
She said nothing.
"And she got her ass chewed for not puttin' all that in the report on the killing at the Thompson house," Diaz said.
I looked again at Richards, who was shaking her head like it was no big deal.
"What's passed is passed," she finally said. "You're in, Max. Let's go upstairs and take a look."
"Come on, let's take a look," said Diaz, when I didn't move. "Enlighten us once again, Mr. Philadelphia."
I started to follow them to the entrance door of Marshack's building when Hammonds called out my name. He didn't move. I had to go to him.
He was a thin man, in his late fifties, and he carried the kind of attitude in statement and action that came from years of giving orders. He was in a suit, the knot of his tie cinched up tight against his throat. Our previous encounters had not been genial. He had resented what he considered my interference in his domain.
"Mr. Freeman," he said when I got close. "Bad things seem to happen around you."
No question was asked, so I didn't feel an obligation to respond.
It was an uncomfortable standoff that he finally broke. "If you plan to keep showing yourself around the county, I suggest you at least get a P.I.'s license."
Again, since a question had not been asked, I only nodded my head.
"Go take a look," Hammonds said. "And I'd rather not have you holding back on us this time."
I rejoined Diaz and Richards and shrugged. All three of us turned and continued to the front entrance.
Marshack's two-bedroom condo had been tossed. Badly. Books off the shelves. Cushions and mattress flipped. Drawers emptied and blood on the kitchen floor.
"They come up with a murder weapon?" I asked.
"Sharp end of a broken bottle," Richards said. "Hennessy Cognac."
We traded looks. I thought of McCane's suggestion of getting a warrant and searching the place. When Richards had given me the name I'd paged the insurance investigator to ask if he'd been on surveillance or just drinking last night. He hadn't called me back.
The desk against one wall of the living room had been pried open. The computer monitor was flipped on its side and the keyboard shoved aside. The hard drive was gone.
"Some old lady down the hall called nine-one-one when she heard a ruckus but she stayed behind her own locked door until the first uniform guys got here. Didn't see a thing," Diaz said.