Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense Read online

  The rain had stopped, but it was just an intermission while the scenery changed in the meteorological show. Dark, heavy clouds were lumbering up to their marks onstage.

  "Normally the currents run north to south," Cork explained as they bounced along the deserted beach in the bright yellow pickup, surfboards and rescue floats strapped to the bed. "But if there's a southern swell, like with the storm we've had the last couple of days, the current runs the opposite way."

  After leaving his father's house, Steve had contacted the county lifeguards, hoping someone over there could use tide tables and currents to help him pinpoint where the dead woman might have been dumped into the sea by her killer. Cork had volunteered for the job.

  "So you're guessing the body was dumped south of where it was found on Broad Beach," Steve said.

  "There's no guesswork involved. I've been doing this job twenty years," Cork said. "I can feel how the currents are moving just by looking at the water."

  "So if we know the direction the currents were moving, then it's just a matter of calculating the speed and working backward from her approximate time of death."

  "The lateral current runs about a quarter knot per hour," Cork said. "That's about the equivalent of one mile per hour. But then you got to figure in the wind speed, which is going to have a much bigger impact on how far, how fast, and in what direction the body floated."

  "How fast was the wind blowing?"

  "Fifteen, twenty miles per hour," Cork said. "But you've also got to factor in the tide and lots of other variables. For instance, when there's a southern swell, the current moves a little faster. Plus the wind speed isn't constant; it tends to change based on the time of day. The wind also changes direction depending on what corner of Santa Monica Bay you're talking about."

  "This is starting to sound like one of those tricky math questions we used to get in grade school," Steve said. "I flunked math."

  "Me too," Cork said.

  "Great," Steve said. "You happen to have a calculator in this truck?"

  "I don't rely on numbers anyway," Cork said. "I prefer instinct."

  Cork stopped the truck at the southernmost edge of sand, where the beach gave way to large, jagged boulders that spilled out into the sea, creating a natural breakwater. They got out of the vehicle and trudged a few feet to the shoreline, close enough to feel the ocean spray as the waves crashed against the rocks.

  "Where we're standing, the wind runs west to east," Cork said. "My instincts tell me the girl had to be dumped here."

  "If the wind blows east," Steve said, "wouldn't that drive the body right back to the beach?"

  "You'd think so," Cork said. "But the bay curves in the same direction, so the wind actually runs parallel to the coastline, which, given the factors at play twelve hours ago, would have carried the body north."

  Steve wasn't sure he understood Cork's thinking, but his instincts told him this was the right place.

  It was a great spot to dispose of a body. There was a public parking lot that ran most of the length of the beach, which would have been pitch-black and empty last night, particularly in the midst of a storm. The location provided easy access and good cover, with the added benefit that the wind, the rain, and the tide would probably wash away any evidence the killer inadvertently left behind.

  Steve glanced at the waves, churning and frothing against the boulders. It wasn't just his instincts, or tide tables, or lateral currents that made this spot feel right to him. The location fit with Amanda's theory that the victim's postmortem abrasions came from being dumped along a rocky shoreline.

  Still, it was only his gut feeling. He didn't have any proof that this was actually the place where the woman's body had been tossed into the sea.

  He looked back at the parking lot. It was about a hundred yards from the lot to the rocks. Either she had walked out to the rocks and then was killed or she was dragged or carried across the sand. If she was dragged, there was a slim chance that some evidence might have been left behind that hadn't been washed away, particularly higher up the beach away from the surf.

  That was when Steve noticed the man moving methodically along the beach, waving a metal detector over the sand in front of him, stopping every so often to dig with his sifter for whatever treasure was registering on his earphones.

  Steve looked at Cork, then gestured towards the beach comber. "You know that guy?"

  "No, but guys like him always come out after daybreak, particularly after a hot weekend or a major storm," Cork said. "They're looking for things like diamond rings lost by sunbathers or gold doubloons washed up from sunken Spanish galleons."

  "Does that happen often?"

  "About as often as you find dead mermaids," Cork said. Steve thanked Cork for his help, asked him to stick around for the evidence collection team, and then marched over to the man with the metal detector.

  The beachcomber had a deep tan, a scraggly beard, and long, matted hair that looked like a bird's nest. He wore four filthy shirts on top of one another and an oversized peacoat that hung from his wiry shoulders like a cape. His dirt-encrusted Top-Siders were held together with silver duct tape. His socks were mismatched, one black and one brown. He was totally focused on his task, his eyes locked on the dial of his detector, the sounds of the out side world dampened by his headphones. He didn't notice Steve until he swept his detector over the detective's feet.

  The beachcomber looked up, startled, as if rudely awakened from a deep sleep.

  Steve flashed his badge and motioned for the man to remove his headphones.

  "Lieutenant Steve Sloan, LAPD. Have you been out here long?"

  "Every morning," the man said in a voice that sounded like it was filtered through broken glass.

  "I meant today."

  "Since dawn," the man said. "Why?"

  "I'm going to need to confiscate whatever you've found."

  "It's mine," the man said, straightening up and puffing out his chest. "The Supreme Court ruled in Benjamin v. Spruce that property is deemed lost when it is unintentionally separated from the dominion of its owners. When items are accidentally dropped in any public place or thoroughfare, or anyplace where the inference can be made that such item was left there unknowingly, it is considered lost in a legal sense."

  "You're a lawyer?" Steve asked incredulously.

  "I spent fourteen years in the Disney legal affairs department before I was disbarred," the man said. He spit on the sand, then continued, "Furthermore title to such items belongs to the finder against all the world except the true owner."

  "So in other words," Steve said, "finders keepers, losers weepers."

  "In a crude sense, yes," the man said.

  "What does the Supreme Court say about taking evidence from the scene of a murder?"

  The man frowned, reached into his jacket, and pulled out a crumpled and damp paper bag.

  "I want an itemized receipt," he grumbled, shoving the bag into Steve's hands. "And I want everything back that isn't pertinent to your investigation and first dibs on any thing that goes unclaimed after the trial."

  "What about the paper bag? Would you like that back, too?"

  Steve opened the bag and peered inside. Amidst the sand and loose change, there was a Hot Wheels car, a charm bracelet, a watch, an earring, a fork, a Saint Christopher medal, a fingernail clipper, a cell phone, a keychain, a fishing lure, a pen, a class ring, and a stick of gum still in its foil wrapping.

  "What do you do with this stuff?" Steve asked.

  "What any sane person would do." The beachcomber scratched at his soiled armpit. "I put it all on eBay."

  * * *

  Finding a corpse on the beach didn't slow Mark Sloan down. He still made it to Community General Hospital on time for his first appointment. Not that he'd been in any hurry to get there. It was a meeting he'd been dreading.

  His patient was Dr. Dan Marlowe, a cardiologist at Community General. They'd done their internal medicine residencies together and were even ne
ighbors for a while, back when their children were in diapers and their wives were still alive.

  Dan was a big, gregarious, round-cheeked man whose hearty laugh, ready smile, and perpetual good cheer made him the natural choice at Christmas to play Santa Claus in the children's ward. He'd gladly donned the Santa suit and passed out gifts to the sick kids for nearly forty years.

  Lately, Dan spoke with a hoarse voice that he blamed on too much laughter and lingering laryngitis. But being a doctor himself, he naturally put off seeing one. Mark finally nagged him into it, arguing it was probably a simple sinus or throat infection that could be quickly cured with the right antibiotics.

  But it wasn't. Instead, Mark discovered something unexpected and much worse. The laryngitis was an alarm bell, one that rang far too late in Dan's case. The scratchy voice was caused by a tumor on the upper left lobe of his lung that had invaded his recurrent laryngeal nerve. Dan showed no other obvious symptoms of his dire affliction.

  Dan insisted that Mark conduct all the follow-up tests and exams at another hospital so word wouldn't spread around Community General about his condition.

  So now, rather than meeting in Mark's office or an exam room, they got together over coffee in the Community General cafeteria. They were both wearing their lab coats, stethoscopes slung around their necks, several files open between them. To anyone who saw them, they appeared to be just two doctors conferring on a case. There was nothing unusual about that. But this time the patient happened to be one of the doctors at the table.

  The news Mark had to deliver was far from encouraging. The cancer had metastasized widely throughout Dan's body. Aggressive chemotherapy and surgery were the only options, but the prognosis wasn't good. Both men knew that. Dan was in his late sixties, and his cancer was advanced. At best, the treatment might add a year or two to his life, but not much more. His illness was a death sentence.

  "This is probably sacrilegious for a doctor to say, but I'm not going to do a damn thing about it," Dan said. "It's a quality-of-life issue. What's the point of living another year or so if the extra time is going to be spent in misery?"

  Mark had guessed that would be Dan's decision, and he couldn't really blame him. It was a choice Mark might have made himself had he been in the same position. But still, it saddened him.

  "I understand," Mark said. "But there are still things we can do to relieve some of your discomfort."

  "Nothing invasive and no drugs that are going to turn me into some kind of zombie," Dan said. "I want to continue showing up at this hospital as a doctor instead of a patient for as long as I can."

  "You're going to keep working?"

  "Of course," Dan said.

  "Wouldn't you rather spend the time you have left traveling? Visiting with your grandchildren? Reading all those books you've always meant to get to someday?"

  "Hell no. That would almost be as bad as the chemo," Dan said with one of his robust grins. "I love my job, Mark. I want to do it as long as I'm physically able. But don't worry, old friend. I'll find time to indulge myself and do some of the things that I've put off for too long." It wasn't the first time Mark had told a patient that he was going to die, and the doctor knew it wouldn't be the last. He was continually amazed by the courage and serenity so many of his patients showed when faced with the certainty of their imminent death. Often it seemed to be their loved ones who felt the most fear, anxiety, and sadness over the news. This time Mark was one of them. He was losing an old, dear friend.

  "Don't look so sad, Mark," Dan said. "I'd rather go like this than have a stroke, get hit by a car, or walk into an open manhole."

  "I think I'd prefer the manhole."

  "Nonsense," Dan said. "It's a luxury to know when you're going to die. It gives you a chance to put your life in order, to say all your good-byes."

  "That's the thing," Mark said. "I'm lousy at good-byes." Dan waved Mark's comment away. "Ah, we all have to go sometime. Few of us are privileged to do it on our own terms. I'm a lucky man."

  They sat for a moment in silence, comfortable in each other's company. They had a history together that encompassed most of Mark's personal and professional life.

  Mark knew his sadness wasn't for only Dan, but for all the friends and family he'd lost over the years. He'd reached an age at which more and more of his contemporaries were dying. It was as if his past was fading right before his eyes. Soon Mark would be the only one left who could say that what he'd experienced in his youth actually happened.

  At that moment Mark realized that what troubled him wasn't just the loss of loved ones or the loneliness of be coming the only witness left to much of his own life.

  It was fear.

  Of what? Of surviving? Or of knowing that his own death might not be that far off?

  But looking at Dan now, so clearly at peace, Mark wondered if there wasn't some benefit to knowing the end of your own story. Perhaps true peace came from seeing the whole picture, from being able to look upon the entirety of your life. Perhaps his fear came from the uncertainty about his own fate, of never being able to achieve that clarity.

  "There aren't many of us left," Dan said. "This hospital has changed a lot since we first came in these doors."

  "It's changed completely, thanks to me," Mark said. "I'm the reason a mad bomber blew the place up a few years ago."

  "I don't mean the brick and mortar," Dan said. "I'm talking about the people, the technology, the practice of medicine. Look at us, Mark. We're still here. Imagine if our younger selves could see us now."

  Looking past Dan, across the large cafeteria, Mark could almost see them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mark spent the rest of the morning attending a mind-numbing administrative meeting with the various hospital department heads, which actually wasn't such a bad thing. After finding a corpse on the beach and having an emotional discussion about a friend's imminent death, he needed a little numbing, to give his heart and mind a rest from the depressing events of the day. His eyes were open and he looked attentive, but sitting through the meeting was almost like sleeping, something he hadn't been getting enough of lately anyway.

  Although the meeting felt endless, it did finally break up around noon. Mark headed down to the ER to see if his friend and protégé Dr. Jesse Travis wanted some company for lunch.

  The ER was filled with patients, which was typical in the wake of a storm, when the number of accident-related injuries increased substantially. But the rain wasn't responsible for the crowded conditions. There were at least three dozen patients, some of them firemen and police officers, and they were all covered with hives.

  Dr. Travis was scurrying around to treat the patients who were already there and deal with the steady stream of new arrivals. But if Jesse was overwhelmed, he didn't show it. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself, thriving on the urgency and activity. Jesse's boyish enthusiasm reminded Mark more than a little of himself in his twenties, or more accurately, of what he'd been told he was like by those few people who knew him back then.

  Mark approached Jesse. "What happened?"

  "See those two kids over there?" Jesse cocked his head towards two boys who looked to be about twelve years old, lying on adjacent gurneys, their legs elevated, IVs in their arms. They had red, swollen sores all over their faces, necks, and arms. "They saw a beehive in the eaves of their apartment building and thought it would be a lot of fun to throw rocks at it."

  "Oh no," Mark said.

  "Sixty thousand Africanized honeybees came swarming out," Jesse said. "Those two were stung a few hundred times before they dove into the swimming pool. The swarm killed two dogs, attacked everybody in the building and on the street. They even stung the firefighters and paramedics who showed up. The firefighters doused the bees with fire-retardant foam and cordoned off the street until the exterminators got out there."

  "Anyone seriously hurt?" Mark knew a healthy adult could endure a thousand stings, but just one sting could cause a hypersensitive person
to have a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction.

  "We've have eight patients with massive angioedema but no evidence of cardiovascular problems," Jesse said. "I've got them on diphenyihydramine IV, epinephrine, and oral antihistamines. For everyone else, I've given them Benadryl, ice packs, and a recipe for a skin paste of meat tenderizer with a touch of garlic and seasoned salt."

  "What's the garlic and salt for?"

  "The steaks," Jesse said. "As long as you're going to be making the paste, you might as well marinate some meat for dinner."

  "I'm surprised you didn't just prescribe lunch at Barbeque Bob's," Mark said.

  "That would be a conflict of interest, since Steve and I own the place."

  "Looks like you've had an exciting morning," Mark said.

  "Not as exciting as yours," Jesse replied. "It's not every day you go for a walk on the beach and trip over a dead mermaid."

  "How did you hear about that?"

  Jesse gave him a look. "It would be more amazing if I hadn't heard about it, don't you think? When a woman in a mermaid suit washes up on a beach with her throat slit, it's a big attention-getter. It's probably all over the Internet by now."

  Mark felt a chill. How could he have missed it? He'd been so preoccupied with Dan Marlowe's health problems, he'd put the murder out of his mind for a few hours. But even at the scene, he'd been so caught up in the situation that he'd missed the gruesome point: The murderer wanted the killing to be noticed.

  It was a message.

  But to whom? And what did it mean?

  "Are you okay?" Jesse asked.

  Before Mark could reply, his beeper went off. He glanced at the readout to see who was summoning him. It was the pathology lab, also known as the adjunct county morgue. The answers to some of his questions were waiting for him on a stainless-steel autopsy table.