A squawk from DeLuca’s radio interrupted his thoughts.
“Kurtz is outta here, she says. The kids’ll be at HQ. My take?” D cocked his head toward the body. “This one’s textbook. Domestic. I give it a couple hours. We’ll be booking some sleazeball ex-husband.”
Hearing from DeLuca exactly what he’d been thinking made Jake wince. Cops’ number one mistake, jumping to conclusions. Meant trying to mold the clues to fit the story they’d created instead of waiting for the real story to reveal itself.
“Could be,” Jake said. He yanked the zipper on his jacket, then caught himself in the silly habit. Jane always gave him grief about it. “Or not. Where the hell is the damn ME? We’re screwed until she-”
“Until she what?”
Katharine Bradley McMahan, MD. Jake had only seen photos, but this was definitely her. The puffy black parka, glistening with snow and with MCMAHAN embroidered in red on the chest, looked two sizes too big for her. She lugged a battered square black leather bag, white-stenciled MEDICAL EXAMINER.
Jake had skipped the governor’s welcome reception for the second female ME in Massachusetts, figuring he’d meet her soon enough on the job. The papers had called her predecessor FrankenDoc, and he was now awaiting trial for trafficking in human organs. Scuttlebutt was Dr. McMahan, with her Ivy League degree and hotshot pedigree, had been shipped in from L.A. to erase that grisly image.
“I’m looking for Detective Brogan?” The woman glanced at Jake, then DeLuca, then decided on Jake. Her dark hair was coated with snow, her ears pink with the cold. The dripping leather laces of her snow-stained boots dangled to the floor, untied, tongues flapping open, revealing blue scrub pants tucked into thick wool socks. She stayed on the hallway side of the threshold.
“I’d shake your hand, Detective, but my mittens are soggy. Before I come inside, I’ve got to-you’re Detective DeLuca, right? I’m Doctor McMahan. Call me Kat, okay? Whatcha got?”
“I’m Paul-,” DeLuca began.
“White, female, thirty-something,” Jake said at the same time. How old was McMahan, anyway? Twenty? She barely came up to his shoulder. About to drip all over his crime scene. “Appears to be blunt trauma. No murder weapon yet. You ready to take a look?”
“Let me get this stuff off, my boots at least. We don’t have snow in L.A. How do you guys manage? I’m a disaster.” She put her medical bag on the hallway floor, clicked it open, pulled out a clear plastic ziplock bag, stuffed her mittens inside, and put the plastic bag on the hallway floor. She kicked off her boots, toe to heel, then stood in the doorway, dangling one dripping boot in each hand. “Ah. Situation.”
Jake watched in disbelief as D reached out as if to-take her boots?
“Paul DeLuca,” he said. “Maybe I can-”
“Oh, I’m fine, thank you so much, Detective.” The ME gave him a quick smile, then tucked both boots under one arm, drew out another plastic bag, bigger, and stuffed them inside. She placed the boot bag on the hallway floor next to her mitten bag, pushing it with one toe when it tipped over.
This has to be a joke. DeLuca was shifting his feet, fidgeting as if he’d just met the prom queen. And this bag-toting California Girl was about to pronounce the cause of death? Jane will not believe it.
Jake pointed toward the kitchen. “Dr. McMahan?”
“Kat, remember?” She hung her parka over the newel post and picked up her medical bag. “Bring it on.”
“Bring it on.” Jane pulled down her fleece cap, tucked in her plaid muffler, clicked off her seat belt. So what if the TV stations were here already? Not her problem anymore. She didn’t miss TV. Not at all. “Got my snow boots, got my trusty notebook, got a pencil.”
Alex had sent fotog Hector Underhill, who’d arrived at her apartment almost before she could throw on her thick-soled snow boots and down-filled parka. He’d started complaining before they’d driven half a block. Newer at the paper than she was, “call me Hec” was one of the Register’s new crop of “budget-saving freelancers.” With thirty-two days and counting, he griped, left in his freelance gig.
Jane had not been eager to hear yet another life story from a bitter journalist she barely knew. But she was a team player. “Any big plans for what’s next?”
“Nope. I’ve got some other stuff going, though. Here and down south. With my nephew. I’ll concentrate on that, I guess.” They turned off the main drag, headlights battling the gray afternoon, windshield wipers clacking away the snow. “Sucks to be a freelancer at fifty-five. Sucks to be old.”
They’d hit the jackpot on parking, even found a semilegal spot. Smoky exhaust plumed from three TV live trucks double-parked along Callaberry Street, their rear doors open, news crews huddling inside. Jane remembered those cramped quarters, never enough room, the flickering monitors and squawking radios and snaking cables, empty coffee cups and discarded potato chip bags, the editing panic to crash a story on the air before deadline. She’d always made it. Always.
“You miss video?” Hec slung a battered leather camera case across one shoulder and opened the car door, then turned back to her, brows furrowing under his green Celtics cap. “Hope that’s not stepping on toes.”
“All good,” Jane said. Everyone knew she’d been fired from Channel 11 last year for protecting a source. Truth be told, she wasn’t completely over it. Jerks. But no reason to dwell. She knew how Tuck felt, though, with the rug being pulled out from under her. She hoped Tuck was okay.
She sure didn’t seem okay.
Jane had promised to call her tomorrow. No time to think about that. “It’s all in my rearview. I’m all about the Register. Now I don’t have to worry about my hair, right?”
“I hear ya.” Hec slapped a laminated press placard onto the dashboard and pointed to a gray triple-decker across the street. “I’m betting it’s that house.”
“That’s why you get the big bucks.” Jane dug out her notebook and cell phone, stashed them in her parka pockets. “Leaving my purse in here, okay?”
She checked the digital clock on the dashboard, then joined the media crush on Callaberry Street. Two and a half hours till deadline. Piece of cake.
9
Jane’s voice. Downstairs. Though Jake couldn’t make out the words, he recognized it. Arguing with Hennessey-that much he could make out through the open apartment door, probably trying to convince him to let her upstairs to the crime scene. Which she knew, and Hennessey knew she knew, wouldn’t happen. Though that would never stop Jane from giving it her best shot.
Jake smiled, imagining that tilt of her hips in those ratty jeans she loved, the way she planted her fists on her waist when she was trying to make a point, how she was just the right amount shorter than he was. How terrific she smelled. What was she doing here? He yanked on his jacket zipper, then tried to focus on what Kat McMahan was saying.
“In summary, preliminary findings pending autopsy indicate subdural hematoma, suggesting intracranial bleeding, severe concentric damage to the right occipital cranium originating in a stellate fracture.” McMahan held a tiny silver recorder to her lips. She’d unbuttoned her white lab coat, revealing a black I HEART L.A. T-shirt underneath. “Suspected massive blunt trauma. Severe lacerations to the upper right forehead, evidence of protracted external bleeding. Why? No obvious defensive wounds, fingers are…”