Faye Kellerman - Double Homicide

“See, Doc,” McCain said, “I’m thinking that if no one saw anything on all the chest X-rays that Julius took for four years, this aneurysm musta been pretty tiny. Then maybe we can make a solid case for his heart going haywire during the shooting.”

Dorothy said, “I still like the fall on the table. His blood pressure, like you said, nosedived and his heart stopped.”

“Exactly,” McCain said.

Dorothy moved closer to Change’s desk. “He was a goner even before the paramedics got to him.”

Change listened to their routine and smiled faintly. “I couldn’t state any of that as definitive, Detectives.”

“But you couldn’t state that it didn’t happen that way,” said Dorothy. “And with nothing showing up on any X-ray…”

“First you’ve got to get the DA to buy it.”

“You take care of the medical angle,” McCain said. “We’ll worry about the DA.”

“I can’t promise I’ll be able to say what you want.”

“Doc, you do your job and we’ll do ours. I’m sick of letting these thugs get away with a slap on the wrist!”

“Attempted murder isn’t a slap on the wrist,” Change said.

“If we charge premeditated and it’s pled down to attempted murder, I’ll be okay with it,” McCain said. “Otherwise you know what we got? We got attempted murder that’ll be pled down to a misdemeanor discharging a firearm in a public place and inciting panic. Which carries jail time but not what this bastard deserves.”

“That seems a bit pessimistic,” Change said. “The victim was shot.”

“And the bastard will say he didn’t mean to shoot him, he was just horsing around, had a couple drinks too many. I know how it works with thugs, Doc. Especially athletic thugs. The lawyers stack the jury with fans. We need the maximum charge and work down from there.”

Change sat back in his chair. “It’s your call.”

“Damn right!” McCain was working himself up.

Dorothy broke in. “If I get you a recent X-ray, Doc, you’ll read it, right?”

“Of course,” Change said. “Actually, now you’ve got me curious.” He paused. “Getting an X-ray-that’s clever.”

“She’s a clever woman,” McCain said. “That’s why they call her detective and you doctor.”

The product of a merger between Boston Electronic and Technical and Ferris Fine Arts Academy, the college was a solution that had pleased both financially strapped institutions back in the fifties. Pooling dual resources, the new BF board bought a defunct prep school and modeled its hybrid after New York ’s Cooper Union: an Athenian meld of fine arts, practical arts, and science.

But with a twist. Boston Ferris had been chartered to serve the town portion of Boston ’s town and gown dichotomy. The college admissions committee went out of its way to select its own. The academy with a heart.

Athletics hadn’t even been part of the curriculum until the board discovered that many locals, brought up in the streets, clocked beaucoup hours shooting hoops. Soon afterward, Boston Ferris began to actively solicit athletes, and its enrollment ballooned. The school built a state-of-the-art gymnasium, workout room, and pool and sauna and began offering sweetheart majors like Applied Electronics and Practical Waterway Services-a fancy name for plumbing. The subtle switchover didn’t concern Micky McCain and Dorothy Breton. What did matter was that the college’s Human Health Services hadn’t been updated since the merger.

That was never as in never ever .

The place was a morass of bureaucracy rivaled only by the Boston Police Department, and like BPD, every request had to be made in writing. The dogmatic stupidity was driving McCain over a wall. Dorothy wasn’t doing too much better.

“This is a homicide investigation,” she said. “We can’t get the patient’s permission because he’s dead!”

They were talking to Violet Smaltz, a sixty-three-year-old crone with a perpetual scowl and a face like a paper bag. She narrowed her eyes and snorted.

“I know the boy is dead, Detective. And it wouldn’t make a difference if he were alive. If the medical examiner’s office wants the medical records, then let the medical examiner’s office put in a request of transfer for the medical records and send it in with the correct paperwork. Medical documents are transferred from physician to physician.”

“This is bullshit!” McCain blurted.

Violet glared at him. “No need for foul language, Detective McCain.”

“I could get a subpoena-”

“Then get one!” Violet folded her hands across her chest. She was wearing a long gray skirt and a gray cardigan sweater that hung on her bony frame. She looked like a faded scarecrow.

Dorothy gave up. “Well, could you at least get us the correct paperwork?”

Violet didn’t budge. She continued to glare at McCain.

“Please?” Dorothy begged.

Another snort. “One minute.”

As soon as she was gone, Dorothy said, “Getting nasty won’t work, Micky.”

“Yeah, it works. It works for me.”

Smaltz came back a few minutes later. “There are three copies here. Be sure all three are filled out legibly.”

McCain snatched the papers from Violet’s grasp. “I bet I wouldn’t have to go through this rigmarole if I was President McCallum.”

“Well, you’re not President McCallum, are you, now?”

Outside, Dorothy snaked her scarf around her neck. “Very smooth, Micky. As soon as she gets the request, she’ll throw it in the circular file.”

“Not her. That wouldn’t be following accepted procedure. I wish there was some way to stick it to that bitch.”

“She’s probably the only one in Health Services who knows where everything is.”

“Everyone has to die sometime.”

“What am I gonna do with you?”

“You’re gonna congratulate me,” McCain said. “I gave myself an idea. As in President McCallum. How ‘bout we go find him? Maybe he can streamline things.”

“What makes you think he’ll talk to us?”

“Well, we won’t know unless we try.”

Trying took forty-five minutes of badge flashing and passing from one security point to another. Finally, they were escorted up to a suite of penthouse offices atop the five-story Administration Center. President McCallum didn’t have just a secretary, he had a staff. Dorothy counted at least fifteen cubicles, most of them manned by college kids. Probably work-study.

McCain was surprised by the size of the president’s office-much smaller than he had expected. Still, it had all the amenities: glossy walnut-paneled walls, a well-stocked wet bar, carved bookshelves, and a gleaming rosewood desk. And McCallum’s own Christmas tree, high and green in a windowed corner. The view beyond was a New England winter picture postcard.

McCallum was a beefy man with white hair, a complexion more florid than a sea captain’s, a veined potato nose, and watery blue eyes. His sagging face and rumpled suit suggested he hadn’t had much sleep in the last twenty-four hours.

Join the club, McCain thought. He and Dorothy sat opposite the man, with the fancy desk between them. The room was hot as blazes. Dorothy was sweating because she still had her coat on. She took it off, and McCallum motioned to a hardwood hall tree where a black cashmere overcoat hung.

“How are you, Detectives?”

“I’m fine, sir,” McCain answered.

“Well, I’m not,” McCallum said. “It’s been a horrible day, and I’m afraid I’m a bit off my mark. Make yourselves comfortable. I pride myself on being more in tune with working stiffs than with the nabobs of academia. I grew up in this city. My father was a dockworker and my mother slaved in the mills. I went to Boston Ferris myself.”