Mike Lawson - House Divided

“No, and that’s absurd. Paul would never do something like that. He was the most honest person I’ve ever known.”

“So no one-family members, drugstores, doctors-ever complained of drugs being missing or having to refill prescriptions too often?”

“I just told you, no. It’s offensive that you’d even suggest such a thing.”

“I’m not suggesting anything; the FBI’s the one who’s saying that. But what I can’t figure out is why he was at the Iwo Jima Memorial at one in the morning and got shot. And, as much as I hate to say it, dealing drugs is a possibility.”

“No. It’s. Not.”

“Then why do you think he was there at that time of night? I heard once that the park near the memorial was a gay pickup place. Do you think he could have been-I don’t know-sneaking around, trying to meet a lover there?”

“Paul wasn’t in the closet; he didn’t need to sneak around. He wouldn’t have snuck around.”

“Well, maybe he hooked up with some married gay guy and then decided to tell the guy’s wife, and the married guy whacked him to keep him from telling.”

“I think you should leave.”

“Hey, I was just thinking out loud,” DeMarco said defensively. “And I believe you when you say he was a good guy. So who would want to kill him?”

“I don’t know,” Jane said, “but something was bothering him last week. He was spending a lot of time with one particular patient and when I stopped by to see how things were going, he was… I don’t know. Different. Subdued. Nervous, like he was worried about something. He was always so upbeat I was surprised.”

“Did he tell you what was bothering him?”

“No.”

“Who was this patient he was taking care of?” DeMarco asked.

Claire stood in front of the mirror in the ladies’ room-and shook her head in dismay.

Her mother had an expression, some nonsensical thing she’d probably read in Ann Landers or heard on Oprah: You make the face you get. Silly, irrational saying-but maybe it was true.

Claire had been a pretty young woman: a nice slim body, long blonde hair, a perfect nose, light blue eyes. She once had that healthy All-American girl look you see in leggy models who advertise sportswear for upscale clothing stores. At thirty-eight, she still had the long blonde hair and the slim build-but in the last ten years she’d become downright gaunt. Her face had become narrow, almost predatory, her arms muscular yet stringy. She had the look of a person who burned calories standing still.

She was still undeniably feminine-it wasn’t as if she’d become mannish looking-but there wasn’t anything soft about her anymore. That day, the day it happened, the softness just began to fade away-and, along with it, any sense of playfulness she once had. She now looked like… well, like the person she was: driven, relentless, perpetually restless. Her eyes had become cold and lifeless; her lips thin and bloodless; and those lines etched into her cheeks, bracketing her mouth… Where the hell had those come from?

She couldn’t help but wonder: Would she have this face if he had lived?

Enough, she said. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. Get back to work.

Gilbert was not in his cubicle, so Claire had to walk all around the damn room until she spotted him, talking to Irwin, another one of her techs. As she walked up behind him, she heard Gilbert say, “Jessica Biel, man, she’s way fuckin’ finer than Jessica Simpson.”

That was just what she needed to hear.

She cleared her throat and both techs looked at her, deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces, embarrassed to have been caught bullshitting instead of working.

“Bring me what you have on Russo and Hopper,” she said to Gilbert, and walked away without waiting for an answer.

As Gilbert stood anxiously in front of her desk, eating his fingernails, she ignored him and read the printouts. Regarding Russo, the guy sounded like some sort of gay angel: hospice worker, didn’t cheat on his taxes, gave to charity like he was Bill Gates. He’d never had a traffic ticket, much less committed a real crime.

“Autopsy report,” she said.

Gilbert handed it to her.

The first thing she noticed was that the autopsy had begun at five A.M. the day Russo died and had been completed at six A.M. No way. Speedy-friggin’-Gonzales couldn’t have chopped the guy up that fast. But the bell ringer was the cause of death: death by gunshot wound to the head at close range and, based on entry and exit wounds, the weapon had most likely used 9mm ammunition. No bullet had been recovered.

Bullshit. Double bullshit.

The report in the Arlington cop’s computer said there had been no exit wound, which there would have been if Russo had been shot at close range with a nine mickey-mike. And she was convinced from the transmission they’d intercepted that Russo had not been shot at close range. He’d been popped from some distance away by a sniper, and if there was no exit wound, the ordnance involved was probably the type the SWAT boys used, the kind of ammo that penetrates the skull and then explodes into a jillion little fragments, instantly shutting off all voluntary motor functions. But a 9mm would fit the story that the nurse had been killed in some drug deal gone bad, such a weapon being gangbanger, drug-dealer, street scum preference.

Claire sat there looking at Gilbert, but she wasn’t really looking at him. She was staring at his chest, his shirt a narrow blue wall for her to focus on.

“Uh, you need me for anything else?” he said.

“Hush,” Claire said.

Hospice worker. Nurse. Drugs. No. Hospice worker. Dying people. Death-bed secrets.

“Get me the names of Russo’s last ten patients,” she said. “Leave the file on Hopper with me. Oh, and do a data dump on this doctor who did the autopsy, this Dr. Lee.”

David Hopper.

Claire reviewed the file Gilbert had compiled on the FBI agent, noticing that he had served in the army before joining the Bureau. She also noticed he was on the take.

Hopper was a GS-14 and thus made a decent salary, but he had two ex-wives and four children and had never been in arrears on either alimony or child support. Not only was he father-of-the year, but based on his credit card statements, he dined at some of the best restaurants in town, purchased his clothes from high-end stores, and owned a pricey and relatively new Mercedes. The supposed source of Hopper’s additional income was a trust fund established by a dead uncle, but a little research-the sort of research Claire’s people could do in their sleep-showed that the uncle had been an alcoholic insurance salesman who had three DUIs in an eight-year period. No way had Uncle Boozer left Nephew David any money.

Turning last to his phone records, she noted no calls to anyone who struck her as unusual. However, at about the same time as Paul Russo’s body was discovered, Hopper had received a call on his cell phone from another cell phone whose owner Gilbert had not identified.

She marched back out to the technician’s desk.

“Who made this call to Hopper?” she said, jabbing her finger at the phone record.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, find out.”

“I’ve tried,” Gilbert whined.

“Try harder. Don’t leave until you get me an answer.”

“Geez, Claire, I was hoping to get out of here on time for once. Can’t someone else-”

“Look at me,” she said.

Gilbert looked at her with the eyes of a martyr. None of her employees knew the demons that drove Claire Whiting. All they knew was that she was fanatical about her job and she would work until she dropped-and she would work you until you dropped. Gilbert also knew of another technician, a man with three kids all younger than eight, who had been transferred to a listening post on the North Korean border because he’d failed to meet Claire Whiting’s expectations.