Lena tried not to show her disappointment. She had been hoping for more.
“I need to look at that file,” she said.
The doctor hesitated. “I’ve never been through anything like this before. She signed a privacy agreement.”
“I understand, but I need to see the file. She’s not a suspect, Doctor. She was the victim. She’s dead.”
The doctor thought it over for a moment, then slid the file across the desk.
“Thanks,” Lena said.
She leafed through the pages quickly, skipping over McBride’s brief medical history. Instead, she wanted to look at the personal information forms the victim would have filled out before her first appointment. The names and phone numbers she would have listed in case of an emergency. When she found them, she pulled the murder book out of her briefcase and located the rental agreement McBride had submitted for the apartment on Navy Street.
The information forms were two pages long and exactly what Lena expected-a mirrored copy of the rental agreement the victim had given Jones. Her social security number was here, along with her mother’s name, address, and phone number. Everything she had stolen from the real Jennifer McBride, the girl who had been murdered in a bank robbery two years ago.
Lena made a second pass, comparing the two documents side by side. Nothing she saw pointed to the woman’s real identity. Jane Doe No. 99 hadn’t left a lifeline.
“Is there a problem?” Dr. Ryan asked.
“Not really.”
“But you were looking for something and it’s not there. You’re disappointed.”
Lena met the doctor’s eyes, then noticed that the murder book was distracting the woman. A crime scene photograph taken of the victim in the alley was partially visible. She closed the binder and casually returned it to her briefcase.
“I was just wondering about the medication you prescribed.”
“Synthroid.”
“I found the script in her apartment.”
Dr. Ryan leaned back in her chair. “Jennifer had an underactive thyroid gland.”
“I understand that. But why not the generic? When I looked it up on the Internet, the generic was prescribed more often than the original.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “Most of my patients use the generic. Let me see the file.”
Lena passed it over, watching the doctor turn directly to her notes. After a moment, the woman found what she was searching for.
“Jennifer said that she didn’t want the generic. It was a specific request.”
“Any reason why?” Lena asked.
“None that I can think of. The only difference is cost.”
“But I noticed that she didn’t list an insurance company. That would mean that she had to pay for everything herself.”
The doctor glanced back at her notes and started reading. “She told us she just changed jobs. She was supposed to call in and update her records, but I can see that she didn’t.”
“She seems so young,” Lena said. “Is this condition common for someone in their early twenties?”
“It’s not as uncommon as you might think. For someone in her situation, you’d be surprised.”
“What situation?”
Dr. Ryan lowered the file to her desk and looked at her. “Her thyroid problems began with a pregnancy.”
It hung there, in the silence between breaths. Lena didn’t say anything as the doctor continued.
“I guess I should be more precise. Jennifer didn’t realize that she had a thyroid problem until after her pregnancy. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the two. Fatigue and weight gain are symptomatic of both.”
“Do you know when she had the child?”
The doctor shook her head. “I’m not even certain that she carried it to term. If I had to guess, I’d say that she didn’t.”
“You mean she aborted it.”
“Or lost it. She wasn’t my patient at the time. She came to me with these symptoms. After a blood test, the results were obvious. She was due for a more thorough exam next month. All I have are my notes from her first visit.”
“Then why are you so certain that she didn’t see the pregnancy through?”
“Because she didn’t want to talk about it. What new mother doesn’t want to talk about having a child? I’ve been seeing patients for fifteen years. I haven’t met one yet.”
Lena sank back in the chair as the doctor went on. But she wasn’t really listening anymore. She was thinking about Justin Tremell and the many reasons why he wanted to keep his relationship with Jennifer McBride hidden. She was thinking about why he claimed that he didn’t even know her. But even more, she was thinking about the fifty thousand dollars they found in McBride’s bank account, and a pregnancy that may have come to an untimely end.
28
She didn’t want to get too jazzed. Didn’t want to run out too much line or acknowledge that given what she knew and had just learned, things were beginning to make sense.
It was 9:30 a.m. Lena sat in her car, working the phone from the parking garage at the doctor’s office. According to Justin Tremell’s assistant, he never arrived at work before eleven. According to Lieutenant Barrera, Tremell lived just ten minutes away in Pacific Palisades-a neighborhood Lena was familiar with just off Sunset and Brooktree Road. She jotted down the address in her notebook, thanked Barrera, and closed her phone. Then she slipped the personal information forms Dr. Ryan had given her into the murder book and pulled out of the garage.
She had walked out of the doctor’s office with the originals, not photocopies. The actual forms that Jennifer McBride had handled and spent time filling out. Documents that Lena could take back to the lab because she thought she’d noticed something.
Sue Ryan, MD, didn’t have to be that nice, but she was. Nor did Barrera, who knew Lena had been ordered to cross Justin Tremell off the list, but never mentioned it as he looked up Tremell’s home address and gave it to her.
She blew through the first traffic light. For a split second she thought about her meeting with the chief yesterday. Just long enough to push it back and bring the car up to speed. The road coiled through the hills like a warped spring. As she slid into the curves, she tried to keep an open mind and not connect the dots-even though the dots seemed to be connecting themselves. Within ten minutes she found Brooktree, made a left and coasted down the hill. When she crossed the stream at the base of the canyon, she made another left, saw Tremell’s house, and started down the private drive.
The house had been set in a meadow that stretched across two or three acres of open land in a city that wasn’t supposed to have any open land. She could see the stream winding through the tall grass and a barn with two horses beside a small pond. When the drive split, she spotted a pickup truck and several cars in a parking area and stayed to the left.
There was something idyllic about the property. Something remote and unreal. The house was smaller than she would have guessed, but just right for the setting. It was an eclectic mix of stone, wood, and glass with a vaulted roof line and a modern feel that took advantage of the views without overpowering the landscape. As she pulled beside the pickup and got out, she noticed the ladders leaning against the back of the house. A handful of day laborers were taking a break in the warm sun beside three palates of roof shingles. She caught the laughter in their eyes. Someone was whispering in Spanish while another giggled with his head down. Lena looked for the contractor that went with the pickup, but didn’t see him around.
She crossed the gravel lot and stepped onto the rear porch. The door was open. Cupping her hands, she gazed through the screen into the kitchen and saw an older couple sitting at the breakfast table. And the infant was here, too. Tremell’s new son, Dean Jr. The woman was cradling the baby in her arms, patting his back, and still holding the empty bottle of formula in her free hand.