Allison Brennan - Playing Dead

He took the jar from her, read the label, gave her a half grin. “Naw. It was removed from a grown man three days ago.”

“It’s so small.”

“Yeah, that’s why the neurologist needs to look at it. Abnormal.” He put the jar back. “Okay, what brings you to my neck of the woods? Work or pleasure?”

“Neither. I’m not here about Rogan-Caruso business.”

“And you’re still seeing that Mitch guy?”

“Yeah, but-”

“So I guess you’re not asking me out on a date.” He sat on the edge of the metal-topped desk and crossed his arms, revealing intricate tattoos on his biceps.

“Date?”

“I’m just teasing you. You should have seen your face, though.” Phin grinned. He picked up a jar and absently turned it slowly around in his hands, the preserved organ turning inside. Looked like a kidney, but Claire wasn’t positive. “So why are you here?”

“I need a favor.”

“Ah. The truth comes out.”

“Two favors.”

“What are you going to give me in return?”

She didn’t know what to say. “Kings tickets?”

He laughed. “I’m joking. Damn, you’re serious today. You usually come back with a great retort.”

“I’m preoccupied.”

“Okay, what? Seriously, I’m at your disposal.”

“I need the coroner’s report from two autopsies fifteen years ago.”

“Fifteen years? Those are in archives.”

“But you can get to them a lot faster than I can. When I called, they said it would take weeks. I don’t have weeks. I need them like, um, today.”

“You don’t ask for anything difficult, do you?”

“Is it possible?”

“I’ll get them. Who?”

“Chase Taverton and Lydia O’Brien. They were killed on November 17, 1993.”

“O’Brien. Your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I need to read the reports. They weren’t in the court records.”

He stared at her, wanting more information, but she didn’t say anything else.

“I’ll get them, but I might not have them until tonight.”

“I really appreciate it. Call me on my cell phone and I’ll pick them up wherever.”

“What’s the second favor?”

“There was a guy hauled out of the Sacramento River yesterday. You probably did the autopsy today.”

“I know the body.”

“Did you work on him?”

“No. What do you know about it?”

“I know who he was.”

“He wasn’t identified until this morning when the chief compared dental records. How do you know?”

“Well, I know the owner of the car that the body was recovered in, and Dave-my quasi-brother the cop, you met him at the Monkey Bar last year-told me last night they were nearly certain it was Oliver Maddox.”

“A friend of yours?”

“Not really.” She almost lied, made up a story for Phin, but she didn’t want to lie to a friend, and didn’t see what it would gain her now. “He was a law student researching my father’s trial and conviction. He believed that my dad was innocent.”

“I didn’t think there was a question.” His voice held a hint of compassion. One reason Claire had always liked Phin was because he was straightforward and relatively unemotional. He rolled with the punches and liked to have fun in the process. But just his mild concern had her throat constricting.

“There is. At least now there is.”

“What do you want to know about the body?”

“Was Oliver Maddox murdered?” She could get the information from Dave, but Claire didn’t want to ask. Dave was already suspicious.

“Inconclusive. Molly was the senior pathologist on the case and said there was possible brain damage at the back of the head, consistent with a blow, but the body was badly putrefied. We’re ruling it a possible homicide. Because there are no external injuries that we could find, Molly put the preliminary cause of death as suffocation by drowning. But there’s no way to tell if he was alive when he went into the water.”

“Dave said he’d been there for a few months. He was reported missing the end of January.”

“That sounds right, but it’s nearly impossible to establish time of death after a couple days. He was under for months.”

Possible homicide. Great. That didn’t get her any further than she already was.

“Thanks for your help. And if you’ll call me about the reports, I’d appreciate it.”

“One thing was weird, other than the attention the victim was given.”

“Attention?”

“Yeah-the FBI was here. I can’t think of any other autopsy since I’ve worked here that the Feds came in to witness.”

“That is strange.” Why would the FBI be interested in Oliver Maddox? Were they tracking him because of his connection with her father?

“The other weird thing?”

“When Molly pulled out the organs, which were pretty much Jell-O from decomp, she found a flash drive.”

“A flash drive?” Claire repeated, incredulous.

“Bright pink. The Feds took it with them.”

“Was one of the FBI agents named Steve Donovan?”

“I don’t know, I can check.”

“Did you see them? Blond, six one, midthirties, about a hundred eighty pounds, has a mole on his right cheek.” She pointed to the center of her own cheek.

“Yeah, he was here.”

“Shit.”

“Know him?”

“Yes. I just don’t know what it means.”

Driving from Maddox’s town house to the campus, Mitch reviewed the phone records he’d ordered last night. The student didn’t have a residential phone-more and more people were dropping their landlines for the convenience of a single mobile phone number.

“Last call was made at 9:45 p.m. Sunday, January 20,” Mitch said. “He also made calls at 2:10 p.m., 3:08 p.m., and 4:49 p.m., all to the same number. Then received a phone call from that number at 5:15. It lasted six minutes.”

“Which puts that about the time he was seen leaving his residence,” Steve said.

“He called the same number-an Isleton prefix-at 5:22 and again at 9:45, his last call. The first lasted three minutes. The second call less than a minute. If he was meeting someone in Isleton, it wouldn’t take four and a half hours to get there.”

“I’m not following you.”

“We know he was driving from Isleton when he went into the river. Could be the last person who saw him alive. But we don’t know if this last call was made before or after he left Isleton.”

“So who’s the other number?”

“It matches Professor Collier’s home phone.” “Maddox called him three times, no answer, and then the prof calls him back.”

“Collier said in the missing person report that Maddox was calling to cancel their Monday meeting.”

“Why?” “Oliver allegedly didn’t say why.”

“Why a six-minute conversation? What’d they talk about? The weather?”

“Collier said it was class-related. The Davis cops didn’t know what Maddox was working on. Collier said it was his thesis.”

“A thesis seems innocuous. Who would kill over a college thesis?”

“Maybe it’s not even related. Could be he hadn’t been working on his thesis because of all the time he spent trying to clear O’Brien.”

“Now that makes sense.”

“So he has to cancel the meeting because he doesn’t have anything to show.”

“I follow you,” Steve said. “But one thing I can’t figure out. In all this, why didn’t Maddox go to the police? Or talk to someone? If he honestly believed that O’Brien was innocent-if he had found evidence to that effect-why wouldn’t Maddox have turned it over to the authorities?”

“I-” Mitch didn’t have an answer. “Maybe he didn’t have proof. Or he could have had unsubstantiated theories. Knowing something to be true in your heart and proving it to be fact are completely different.”