They'd made love, slept a few hours, made love again.
She'd awakened with the sinking realization that things had careened way beyond her control. She wasn't going to be able to walk away from this one without hurting. To think that the affair had started off as nothing more than a lark, a fantasy. Now she could lack herself for getting into this fix. This addiction. This craving for the touch of him, the sight of him. She was as hooked as any junkie on a drug, as hooked as Nicos Biagi and Xenia Vargas had been.
She loved him.
She was going insane.
M. J. grabbed a file from the stack on her desk, signed her name, and slapped the file shut again. She almost groaned when she heard those tennis shoes come squeaking back down the hall toward her office.
Ratchet reappeared in her doorway. "Hey, M. J.," he said.
"What?"
"What the hell's this supposed to mean?" He read aloud from a lab slip. "'Results of mass and UV spec-trophotometry show following, noriquantitative: Narcotic present, levo-N-cyclobutylmethyl-6, 10-beta-dihydroxy class. Full identification pending.'" He looked up at her. "What is this gobbledygook?"
"You must have one of my slips. The drug's Zestron-L."
"Never heard of it."
"Here, I'll take care of the report."
"But it's got my name on it."
A frightening thought suddenly occurred to M. J. "Who's the subject?"
"Jane Doe."
"Oh." M. J. sighed with relief. "Then that's mine."
"No, it's my Jane Doe." He held the slip out to her. "See? There's my name."
Frowning, M. J. took it. On the line next to authorizing physician was typed the name Bernard Ratchet, M.D. She scanned the Subject ID data. Name: unknown. Sex: female. Race: White. I.DJ: 372-3-27-B. Processing date: 3/27.
A full week before her Jane Doe had rolled in the morgue doors.
"Get me this file," she said.
"Huh?"
"Get me the file."
"Whatever you say, mein Führer." Ratchet stalked away and returned a moment later to slap a folder on her desk. "There it is."
M. J. opened the file. It was, indeed, one of Ratchet's cases. She had seen this file before; she remembered it now. This was the Jane Doe of the glorious red hair, the marble skin. The page from the central ID lab was clipped to the inside front flap, with a notice of a fingerprint match. The corpse's name was Peggy Sue Barnett. She had a police record: shoplifting, prostitution, public drunkenness. She was twenty-three years old.
"Do we still have the body?" asked M. J.
"No. There's the release authorization."
M. J. glanced at the form. It was signed by Wheelock the day before, releasing the body to Greenwood Mortuary.
"I called it a probable barbiturate OD," said Ratchet. "I mean, it seemed reasonable. There was a bottle of Fiorinal next to her."
"Were barbs found in her tox screen?"
"Just a trace."
"No needles found on site? No tourniquet?"
"Just the pills, according to the police report. That's why I assumed it was barbs. I guess I was wrong."
"So was I," she said quietly.
"What?"
She reached for the telephone and dialed the police. It rang five times, then a voice answered, "Beamis, Homicide."
"Lou? M. J. Novak. We've got another one here."
"Another what?"
"Zestron OD. But this one's different."
She heard Beamis sigh. Or was that a yawn? "I'm real interested."
"The victim's name is Peggy Sue Barnett. She was found in Bellemeade-a week before the others. And get this-she was set up to look like a barbiturate OD."
"Are you going to tell me what is going on?" whined Ratchet.
M. J. ignored him. "Lou," she said. "I'm going to stick my neck out on this one." She paused. "I'm calling it murder."
13
Beamis tossed the police file down on his desk and looked across at M. J. "Dead end, Novak. No motive. No witnesses. No signs of violence. Peggy Sue Barnett was a loner. We can't locate even a single relative or friend."
"Someone must have known her."
"No one who'll come forward." Beamis leaned back in his chair. "We're stuck. If it's murder, then someone's committed the perfect crime."
"And chosen the perfect victim," said M. J. She looked at Shradick, who was hunched at his desk, making a ham sandwich disappear. "Vince? You talk to Greenwood Mortuary'?"
"They've had no calls, and the burial's tomorrow. But someone did pay the expenses."
"Who?"
"Anonymous. Envelope stuffed with cash."
M. J. shook her head in disbelief. "And you guys aren't chasing that?"
"Why? Not a crime to pay for a woman's burial."
"It shows that someone knew her. And cared about her. Don't you guys have anything?"
"We know she lived out in Bellemeade," said Beamis. "Had an apartment on Flashner and Grove. We asked around the building, and you know what? No one even knew her name. They'd seen her come and go, but that was it. So much for witnesses."
"How did she get the drug?"
Beamis shrugged. "Maybe she bought it off Esterhaus. Or got a free sample in exchange for, uh, services."
"Prostitution?"
"She'd been busted for it before. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, pardon the double entendre."
"So we're back to blaming Herb Esterhaus?"
"I don't know who else to blame. It's a dead end for us."
For Peggy Sue Barnett as well , thought M. J. She remembered the woman's flame-colored hair, her porcelain beauty, shrouded in the cold mist of the morgue drawer. Not the sort of looks that went unnoticed in this world. Surely there'd been friends, lovers? Men who'd known the pleasures of her company, if only for a night. Where were they now?
A woman dies, and no one seems to notice. She thought about this as she walked through the police station. She thought about herself, wondered how many would notice her death, would come to her funeral. Ratchet, of course. Wheelock, out of duty. But there'd be no husband, no family, no giant mounds of flowers on the grave. We're alike, Peggy Sue and I. Whether by choice or by circumstance, we've made our way alone through life.
She stopped at the elevators and punched the down button. Just as the floor bell rang, she heard a voice say behind her, "Well, speak of the devil."
Turning, she saw her ex-husband emerge from the chiefs office. You wouldn't come to my funeral, either, she thought with a sudden dart of hostility.
"My, what a nice scowl you're wearing today," said Ed.
They both stepped into the elevator and the doors slapped shut. He was looking dapper as usual, not a scuff on his shiny Italian shoes. What had she ever seen in him? she wondered. Then she thought, morosely, What had he ever seen in her?
"I got what you asked for," he said.
"What?"
"The name of the cop who arrested Esterhaus last year. You still want it, don't you?"