“‘I’m On Fire,’ ‘Born to Run,’ and ‘Badlands’-all theme songs of mine at the moment. For that information, I want a T-shirt.”
“See you in the morning, Doc. If my date’s impressed with those titles, you get your shirt.”
CHAPTER 24
“Detective Kristine Zurowski, please. Tell her it’s Detective Moriarity calling.”
Her phone on hands-off, Patty was mired in traffic halfway to Serenity Lane in Dover. The cartons she had taken from Ben Morales’s study rested on the backseat of the Camaro. Although she hadn’t made it through all of Morales’s papers, what she had read and learned from Wendy Morales had her head spinning. Morales had blocked a merger attempt by Boyd Halliday and Excelsius Health. Not long after that, he was murdered. Now it was time to see if she had stumbled onto a pattern. One memo, nearly lost within reams of paper, suggested that the new corporation, which would include Morales’s Premier Care, would also include Cyrill Davenport’s Unity Comprehensive Health.
“Hey, Patty, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Kristine.”
“Someone just told me you got taken off the big case.”
“The rumor mill is really cranking. You heard about it almost as soon as I did.”
“That thug Brasco?”
“He had some help from our CO, but yes. They thought some new blood was needed.”
“Blood with Y chromosomes?”
“Possibly. No, make that probably.”
“You should file a complaint.”
“Maybe someday. Right now I’m complaining the only way I know how, by staying on the case without their knowing it.”
“Yea, Patty.”
“Thanks. So, Kristine, have you guys made any progress?”
“Nada. The going theory is that these are vengeance killings, but what else is new? We have the alphabet letters, but no one’s been able to crack them yet. We hear HQ is putting together a task force to centralize all information. I thought you might actually be involved in that.”
“Only by not being on it. Listen, as far as the letters go, I can make you a hero. Brasco and the cryptographer have come up with Remember Clementine. The code-breaker is ninety-something percent certain that’s it. They think Clementine might be the name of the killer’s mother.”
“You believe that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The killer sure as hell wants us to believe that, so I’m at least a little skeptical.”
“Clementine,” Kristine mused. “You know anyone named Clementine?”
“Only the one who is lost and gone forever.”
“Dreadful sorry. It does sound a little bogus to me.”
“See what I mean? I’m going to ignore Clementine for the time being and keep heading in this direction.”
“You need a buddy?”
“Do yourself and your career a favor and steer clear of me for the time being. If I can ever get out of this one-twenty-eight traffic, I’m on my way over right now to speak with Gloria Davenport. That’s actually why I’m calling you.”
“She know you’re coming?”
“Yes. I wanted to clear my visiting her with you first, though, being as she’s in your bailiwick.”
“Consider it cleared, especially after giving me Remember Clementine.”
“I also want to know anything you’ve got on her.”
“You think she’s got something to do with her husband being blown up?”
“No, but you may be closer than you realize.”
“Well, we’ve interviewed her twice. The first time she was intoxicated, and the second time she was merely drunk. She handles her booze impressively well, though, I’ll give that to her. And she puts up a pretty good front. No one here including me is suspicious of her except for the fact that she is, as of the explosion, one wealthy woman.”
“How wealthy?”
“You saw where they live. I don’t know how much the stock she’s about to inherit is worth, but I can tell you that as of this moment the company is privately owned, and I must believe that a good chunk of those tens of tens of millions once possessed by her husband now belong to her.”
“Interesting.”
“Listen, you’ll keep me up to speed?”
“If I know it, you’ll know it.”
It was nearing six when Patty pulled up the driveway of 3 Serenity Lane. Cocktail time. As she approached the front door, she was thinking, at least in part, of how good a gentle gin and tonic with a wedge of lime would taste, provided she could put her feet up on something at the same time.
The massive colonial showed no sign of the carnage and wreckage that had so recently occurred there-a testimony to the power of money. Gloria Davenport, whom Patty never saw when she was last at Serenity Lane, answered the door herself, although Patty caught a glimpse of a maid scurrying past in the background. The mental image she had formed of a fiftyish, overly rouged bottle blonde wasn’t that far from the truth, but in some ways, perhaps with the help of surgery, Gloria had managed to retain a good deal of femininity in her figure and bearing, as well as her neck, face, and especially her eyes, which were a very soft blue. She didn’t have a drink in her hand, but Patty could tell one had been there not that long ago.
“Why, you’re lovely,” Gloria said, extending her hand and welcoming Patty into a home that was at once elegant and comfortable. “I thought police detectives who looked like you were only found on TV or in the movies.”
“Thank you. I don’t think the people I arrest pay much attention to my looks.”
The sitting room to which Patty was led featured matched satin love seats that might have been centuries old and an array of other antiques. A filled ice bucket and glasses were on the coffee table along with some mints and a half-empty glass of something amber. Patty commented on the room and the house, and confirmed her notion that, in fact, the love seats were Louis Quatorze.
“I know better than to expect you to be drinking while on duty,” Gloria said, after establishing that Patty should address her by her first name, “unless you’re one of those tragic, tortured detectives whose character development they try to compress in the interest of a two-hour movie by simply making them alcoholic.”
“I drink,” Patty said. “Sometimes more than I should. At the moment, though, I have a lot on my mind, and I’ve found that alcohol often makes me not as sharp as I could be. You should certainly go ahead if you wish.”
“And I shall. Well, aren’t you a breath of fresh air. You investigate murders, you know antiques, you give your hostess permission to drink, and, most important of all, you say Louis Quatorze with a decent French accent.”
“Thank you again. My father barely made it past high school, so he pushed education on me and my brother. He used to say that every single day we managed to stay in school translated into ten thousand people in the world we wouldn’t have to take B.S. from in our lives.”
Gloria’s raspy laugh was robust and genuine.
“That’s a very wise observation.”
“Possibly so, but at the moment, with about six years less formal education than I have, he’s my boss.”
Gloria laughed again. If she was in any way intoxicated, Kristine was right: She handled the state well. As if speaking to that point, she refilled her glass and added two ice cubes.
“Gloria, I know you’ve been interviewed more than once regarding your husband’s murder,” Patty said.
“That would be correct.”
“So I’m sure you know that his is just one of what looks like a string of serial killings-four of them now-apparently related to someone trying to avenge the death of a friend or relative.”
“The mother of the killer, one of the policemen told me.”
“We have reason to believe there is more than one killer-possibly a brother and sister.”
“Why would you believe that?”
“The killer has been funneling information piecemeal to us through a physician he keeps calling-a physician with a very public position against managed care. It’s as if he, or they, have chosen the doctor to be their press secretary-someone whose own stature more or less validates them.”