Milo’s badge turned her anger to reluctant civility. “How may I help you, Officer?”
“By buzzing us in.”
“Sir, we’re extremely busy—”
“So are we.”
“Sir, I’ll need authorization—”
“From your boss? Unfortunately, she’s not here.” Milo leaned in closer, lowered his voice just above whisper. Four heads behind us craned. “And how do I know that?”
The pudding-faced woman stared.
As he leaned forward, the quartet did the same. He whispered: “Matter of fact, we’re here about your boss.”
“Dr. Connie? I don’t—”
He showed her his card again, tapped his finger near Homicide. She gasped and slapped a hand over one breast and said, “Omigod. No!”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Oh, my God!”
The older black man said, “Look like someone up and tight.”
The pudding-faced woman said, “Everyone leave, your appointments are canceled.”
Face-Pierce said, “Hey, what the fuck?”
Pudding glared at her. “You heard me. We’ll call you to reschedule.”
The muscular black man said, “In case you don’t realize it, some of us work.”
Pudding shouted, “Go! Leave! Out!”
The waiting room emptied amid a chorus of curses. Face-Pierce was the last to exit and she gave the door a kick that caused it to rattle.
The pudding-faced woman—E. Broadbent, per her tag — jabbed the rim of her desk and set off a hiss. The internal door swung open.
Con-Bio’s nerve center was puny: Broadbent’s desk and a smaller workstation, unoccupied. A hallway that led to a door marked Laboratory and tagged with a hazardous material sticker. A metal chair and table were positioned against the corridor’s left wall. Atop the table sat a metal bin holding a phlebotomy kit: disposable syringes, amber rubber tourniquets, cotton swabs, bandages. Directly across from the puncture station was a door marked Lavatory/Urine and Stool Depository.
E. Broadbent said, “Now what are you trying to tell me?”
Milo said, “Unfortunately, Dr. Sykes is deceased.”
“Murdered?”
“Afraid so.”
“Dear God. When?”
“Last night. When did you last speak to her?”
“Yesterday. It was just another working day. I left at six, she was still here.”
“Were you curious when she didn’t show up this morning?”
“No,” said E. Broadbent. “That wasn’t unusual. Dr. Connie doesn’t see patients. We don’t have patients — do you understand what we’re about?”
I said, “You analyze biologic samples.”
“We test for diseases, including conditions other labs can’t handle. Exotic tropical things. Uncommon toxins. As well as sexually transmitted diseases.”
“If they’re not patients, what are they?”
“We refer to them as sample donors.”
Milo said, “Stains on a slide.”
“Well …”
“So Dr. Sykes’s hours were irregular.”
“Not really,” said E. Broadbent. “It’s not like she was gallivanting, for the most part she was here and she’s almost always the last to leave. What I’m trying to get at is she had her own schedule so if she didn’t come in it wasn’t something anyone would question.” She exhaled. “I can’t believe this. What happened?”
“How about we talk in her office? We’d like to see it, anyway.”
“There is no office.”
“Where does she do her thing?”
Frowning, she marched up the hall and unlocked the lab door.
That revealed the bulk of the building’s floor space, a wide, windowless area filled with stainless-steel tables, microscopes, centrifuges, a mass of things that bubbled and whirred and flashed digital readouts.
One person working, a white-coated, safety-goggled Indian man twirling dials in between gazes into a binocular microscope. Our presence didn’t stop him.
E. Broadbent said, “Sajit?”
He waved, continued analyzing.
She pointed to the nearest table. Cleared of medical gizmos, it bore a laptop and a pair of reading glasses.
“That’s where she works.”
I said, “She conducted all her business there?”
“You bet. Dr. Connie is — was—” She paused to suck in air. “This is so … I forgot what I was saying …”
“Dr. Connie was …”
“Okay, yes, she was efficient. There was no need for frills — who did this to her?”
Milo said, “We don’t know.”
“Well,” said E. Broadbent, “maybe I do. But you can’t use my name on any report, I refuse to be connected to any more of it.”
Milo said, “Any more of what?”
“I’m serious, sir. I will not get involved.”
“Fair enough,” he lied. “Who do you suspect?”
She looked at Sajit. “Let’s go outside.”
We followed her through the waiting room out to the parking area. A glance at Connie Sykes’s unoccupied parking space caused tears to flow down her cheeks. Brushing them away, she quickened her pace, stopped at the high wall that backed the lot.
Removing a pack of Virginia Slims from her uniform pocket, she lit up, inhaled greedily. “I mean it, you can’t quote me.” Another deep intake of carcinogens. “Okay … God, this is so … Dr. Connie was embroiled in a legal matter with her sister. Who just happens to be a nutcase and a drug addict. So it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Milo said, “What kind of legal matter?”
“Custody. Dr. Connie’s niece. The sister’s the mother but in name only. She has no sense of personal responsibility — she’s also a criminal, I’m talking lowlife. The one smart thing she did was the child — a girl, her name is Rambla, she’s just a baby, really — she gave her to Dr. Connie when she went traipsing all over the country with some drug-addict musicians. Dr. Connie raised her like she was her own and the poor little thing finally had a chance at a decent life.”
Smoking some more, she squared her shoulders. “Everything was going along fine. Dr. Connie had a space set up next to my desk. She provided the best for her. Top-quality baby food, organic milk, you name it. She’d bring her in and that child would sleep peacefully in that crib, just loving her life. We’d give her toys and love and she’d giggle and then Dr. Connie would come out and play with her in between samples, sometimes she’d take her for a stroller walk. She was a well-behaved baby, Dr. Connie was talking about finding the best preschool, a really first-rate place, this baby had it made in the shade and then what happens? She comes back. All of a sudden, she’s changed her mind, is taking the baby back. She thinks she can do that, after Dr. Connie invested all that energy. Like sure, I’m just your babysitter, feel free to waltz in and out.”
I said, “So what happened?”
“What happened? A scene happened.”
“A scene here?”
“Oh, yes, you bet. The baby’s napping away and she comes and barges her way in and disrupts everything.”
“The baby’s mother.”
“In name only,” said E. Broadbent. “It should be about character not just dropping them out the chute. There’s a license to drive, why not for that?”
I said, “Something to certify fitness.”
“You bet. If I had kids, I’d want to make sure I was qualified.”
“How’d the sister barge her way in?”
“By being sneaky,” she said. “She lurked to the side where we couldn’t see her then waited until we buzzed in a sample donor and ran in. And mind you, she went straight for the baby, didn’t care that the baby was fast asleep. Just ran past me and snatched that little thing up and tried to make her escape. Not quite. I stood there and blocked her but then the look on her face, sirs — I’m talking crazy. For the life of me I thought she’d … do something. With the baby in her hands. I didn’t want any problems so I stepped aside and meanwhile Dr. Connie came out of the lab and the two of them had a to-do.”