Originality was obviously not the goal here.
On the drive over, Blackburn had considered the information he now had. There were two possible connections between Hastert, Janovic, and Tolan — the first being Soren, and the second being Jane Doe herself. She’d worked for Abby Tolan as a model and, in turn, may have known her husband. Was it possible they were having an affair? Was that why Tolan had reacted the way he did when he saw her?
Unless Blackburn could get either Soren or Jane to admit to the connection, his chances of proving anything against Tolan were slim. And considering Jane’s condition, it was doubtful he’d get anything from her anytime soon.
So Soren was his man.
Blackburn didn’t bother with the formality of checking in at the country club guest desk. Instead, he trudged up the embankment and went straight into the bar.
The tables were packed, mostly with men sporting deep tans and dressed in the standard-issue golfer uniform: polo shirts and slacks of various nauseating colors. A good 80 percent of them were already half in the bag, while the other 20 were borderline comatose. Blackburn didn’t even want to think about what the parking lot would look like in a couple hours.
Although he had managed to change into a new suit shortly after leaving the Hastert crime scene, his lack of appropriately casual attire and the lovely bandage adorning his forehead got him quite a few drunken stares as he approached the bartender.
The noise level was just a few decibels below deafening. Leaning in close, Blackburn showed the guy his badge and said, “Dr. Ned Soren.”
The bartender’s gaze zeroed in on Blackburn’s forehead, then quickly shifted, scanning the room. He pointed. “Table six. The one with the black stripe.”
Blackburn turned in the direction of the finger. Across the room, four boisterous men sat hammering back what looked like Scotch ale, the one on the farthest side of the table wearing a badly sunburned nose and a tasteful gray knit polo with a fat black stripe across the chest.
Blackburn nodded thanks and headed over, showing his badge again when he reached the table. “Dr. Soren?”
Soren looked up in surprise, his gaze shifting from the badge to Blackburn’s forehead, Blackburn beginning to understand how it might feel to be a top-heavy female.
“Yes?” Soren said.
“I need to talk to you about a patient of yours.”
“A patient? Is something wrong?”
“You mind if we step outside?”
Soren frowned now. He was fairly well lit, but still had enough presence of mind to be protective of his clientele. “If you’re here to ask me questions about a patient, Officer, I’m not sure I can be of much help. Patient-doctor privilege and all that.”
The other guys around the table started nodding. Apparently they were doctors as well.
“Does that extend to the dead ones?”
There was a momentary trace of alarm on Soren’s face, but it quickly passed. “Yes, I’m afraid it does.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Blackburn said. “Why don’t we step outside and if my questions get too invasive you can slap me down. But at least give me the courtesy of letting me ask them first.”
Soren looked around the table at his buddies. One of them, an old geezer with a bright pink bald spot, said, “Careful, Ned, he sounds like a tricky bastard.”
This must have been funny in the world of the marginally sober, because they all laughed. Blackburn was still trying to figure out where the joke was when Soren scraped back his chair and got to his feet. “I’m all yours, Officer. I need a smoke anyway.”
Blackburn gestured toward the door. “After you.”
43
Once she had assessed the situation, Lisa immediately went into mop-up mode.
Tolan had seen it a million times in the years they’d known each other, whenever she was faced with any kind of crisis. At home. At the hospital. There’d be that initial moment of shock, then she’d put on her game face and go to work, her focus so narrow that it seemed as if everything else around her had ceased to exist.
He’d once asked her about it and she’d said that she’d always had the ability to remove herself from the emotion of a situation. To concentrate solely on the task that needed to be done and save the nervous breakdowns for later.
But what lay before her this time wasn’t a simple task.
There was a dead woman in her shower. A dead woman with her guts ripped open. A dead woman missing her left ear.
The full weight of that fact had not completely hit Tolan. He knew he was in shock himself and it would take awhile for the numbness now creeping through his entire body to wear off. He figured it was the same for Lisa. And his only concern at that moment was convincing her he wasn’t a killer.
“I didn’t do this,” he said. “This wasn’t me.”
Lisa ignored the comment and stepped past him into the bathroom. Reaching into the shower, she shut off the spigot, then turned to Tolan, her expression fixed and emotionless.
“Get the comforter off the bed,” she said.
Tolan hesitated. “We need to call the police. Call Blackburn.”
She glanced at his shirt. “If we call the police, you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“I didn’t do this.”
“I hate to break it to you, Michael, but that’s not how it looks. Now get the comforter.”
Tolan didn’t argue. As he moved to the bed and stripped off its lavender cover, he heard Lisa banging around in the medicine cabinet. When he got back to the bathroom, she was wearing a pair of latex gloves. She took the comforter from him and handed him a pair.
“Put these on.”
As he did, she lay the comforter on the bathroom tile and spread it out. Then, reaching into the shower again, she carefully retrieved Sue Carmody’s lower intestine from the drain and did her best to pack it back into the abdominal cavity.
Tolan felt a wave of nausea wash over him again. He had a medical degree, yes, and had seen some pretty horrific things in his time, but something about the matter-of-fact way in which Lisa handled those intestines made him want to puke.
He looked into Sue Carmody’s lifeless eyes, and couldn’t help thinking about how excited she’d been only hours before, after he’d told them about Vincent’s phone calls. An intense sadness overcame him and he struggled to contain it.
Lisa, however, was all business.
“Grab her legs,” she said.
“Lisa, we can’t do this.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Why would you want to risk your life, your career—”
“For godsakes, Michael, we’ve known each other for fifteen years and you still haven’t figured me out? This is what I do. I take care of things. I take care of you. I always have and I always will. Now shut up and grab her legs.”
“This is the road to hell,” he said.
“Better than the road to prison.”
Despite his protests, Tolan knew she was right. Nobody would believe this wasn’t his doing. He had a feeling even Lisa didn’t believe it.
He bent down and grabbed hold of Sue Carmody’s ankles, which were wet with shower water.
Trying not to stare at the gaping wound in her abdomen, he waited while Lisa grabbed her wrists, then helped her hoist the body onto the blanket.
“I need you to know this, Lisa. I need you to understand I didn’t kill her.”
“That isn’t how it’ll look to the police.”
“Maybe not, but this wasn’t me. It was Vincent. The body, the blood on my shirt. He’s setting me up.”
She dropped Sue Carmody’s arms and looked at him. “Vincent? What are you talking about?”