Faye Kellerman - Prayers for the Dead

Berger nodded. “Step out into the hallway.” On his way out, he said, “ Tara, what the hell is going on in 4D?”

Tara looked up from behind the nurse’s desk. “Pardon, Dr. Berger?”

“Where is Mrs. Gooden?”

“She was moved to 6B yesterday.”

“Who moved her? Dr. Sparks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, move her back here. I want all my patients in one wing, okay?”

Tara paused. “You want me to move Mrs. Gooden now?”

Berger barked, “By eight o’clock tomorrow. Unless she’s fibrillating. Then you can leave her until she stabilizes. You might think I’d be allowed to have one division to myself since Dr. Sparks has the other five.”

Tara blinked rapidly. “Yes, sir.”

Berger glanced back at Decker, a blush rising to his cheeks. “This way.”

Decker followed Berger into the hallway.

Berger said, “It may seem petty to you, but it makes my life a hell of a lot easier…to have all my patients together.”

Decker didn’t answer.

Berger rubbed his eyes. “What do you need from me? I told the other detective, Wooster or Werber-”

“Webster.”

“That’s it. Mr. Southern Boy. I told him that my wife and I were at a dinner theater in Tustin. As soon as I heard the news, I came rushing back. What else do you need from me?”

“I’m just trying to get a timetable for Dr. Sparks-”

“I saw Dr. Sparks leave with Dr. Decameron around a quarter to eight. Which means these questions are best directed to Dr. Decameron. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a hospital to run.”

He started to walk away. Decker said, “Lucky for New Chris that they found someone to fill Dr. Sparks’s shoes. And so fast.”

Berger stopped, pivoted around. “Are you being snide?”

“No.” Decker’s face was flat. “Just that everyone keeps saying Sparks is a one-of-a-kind. It’s fortunate that he had you on his team to take over in this crisis.”

Berger’s cheeks turned crimson. “I’m not saying I’m Dr. Sparks, sir. I’m just saying there are patients here and someone has to take care of them.”

“Absolutely,” Decker agreed. “Dr. Decameron said you were a fine surgeon.”

Berger stared at him. “He said that, did he?”

“He did.”

“Well, I’ll have to thank him for the vote of confidence. Now if you’ll excuse-”

“Will you also take over the FDA trials of Curedon, Dr. Berger?”

Berger pursed his lips. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far in advance.”

“I was just wondering if Curedon was more Dr. Decameron’s bailiwick.”

“Not at all-”

“Being as Dr. Decameron…and Dr. Fulton for that matter…are primarily researchers. And you’re primarily a practicing surgeon-”

“You can stop right here, Lieutenant.” Berger held out his palm. “You’ve got some facts turned around and right now, I don’t have time to correct your wrong impressions.”

“When will you have time?” Decker asked. “Don’t want to go around with a wrong impression. Might cause me to jump to wrong conclusions.”

Berger tossed Decker a mean smile. “I’ve got work to do. If you come back…say a half hour before my six o’clock rounds, I’ll talk to you.”

Decker looked at his watch. Three-fifteen A.M. Berger wasn’t the only one with work to do. “Five-thirty, it is.” He slipped on his jacket, bade the doctor a good night.

Bunking down at Devonshire made infinitely more sense than waking up Rina. At his desk, Decker left a message on their answering machine, telling his wife that he loved her and that he’d call in the morning.

He went inside the squad room-empty except for Homicide. The team was filling out thick stacks of forms, mowing through paperwork. Though there were a half-dozen open computer stations, much of the pencil pushing was still done by hand. They needed a break. Decker put on a fresh pot of decaf and called a meeting.

The detectives’ squad room was wide-open space, the perimeter outlined by filing cabinets and shelving units containing hundreds of blue case notebooks. Taped onto the walls were an assignment board, a preprinted poster of procedure rules, lots of Gary Larson pig cartoons, and a dozen street maps of the division’s territory, one of them overlaid with a dartboard outline. The different details-GTA, CAPS, SEX, JUVENILE, BURGLARY-were demarcated by placards hanging from the ceiling. Narcotics and Vice sat upstairs. Homicide took up the back area, cordoned off from the others by a filing cabinet barrier. Like other LAPD units, the detectives’ desks in Devonshire were set up in a capital I configuration. After pouring coffee for everyone, Decker took a seat at the crosshatch. He opened his notebook.

“We’ll start with the basics. Random or not random. Pros. Cons. Marge, you go first.”

She pushed wilted dishwater hair from her tired eyes. “Could be random carjacking, the drop point being the back alley. Why else would Sparks’s car be there? If he had come to Tracadero’s willingly, I think he would have used the parking valets in the front.”

“Maybe he was cheap.” Martinez chewed on his mustache. “Or maybe he didn’t trust the valet to drive his wheels.”

“How about a gang robbery thing?” Webster said. “Tracadero’s attracts rich blood. Not a bad place to hang out if you want to hit someone with cash.”

Martinez said, “He had cash on him, Tom.”

“Maybe something scared off the muggers,” Webster retorted. “Maybe Sparks fought back, they killed him and left.”

“Awful lot of damage for panic-stricken muggers,” Marge said.

“Maybe Sparks made the muggers mad.”

Decker said, “Either way, carjacking or robbery has to be at least a two-person attack.”

“The shooting and stabbing,” Marge said. “Unusual that one perp would use two methods.”

The detectives agreed.

“I had an interesting conversation with one of New Chris’s nurses, maybe a half hour ago.” Decker downed coffee. “Seems that Sparks had a reputation for being a good Samaritan with auto accidents.” He told the group Nurse Tara’s theories.

Marge said, “That supports a carjacking over a restaurant robbery.”

“Weird.” Oliver pulled out a comb and ran it through thick, black hair. “He can’t break out of his doctor mold even when riding home in his own car.”

“I know several lawyers who do that kind of stuff,” Gaynor stated. “Use scanners. But it isn’t for altruistic purposes.”

Webster drawled, “I once arrested a sucker that did that-chased calls from ambulance scanners. Stopped at the accident sites and pretended he was a doctor. Eventually, we did arrest him. But let me tell you, he did a right fine job of patching people.”

“A hero’s complex,” Marge stated. “What some people won’t do to be the star of the show.”

“You’d think Sparks would get enough of that in the operating room.” Oliver pocketed his comb.

Gaynor said, “I guess it’s hard for some people to come down to planet earth.”

“If I were a big shot like Sparks, I wouldn’t be anxious to come down to earth,” Oliver said. “It’s nice getting all that reverence. Having people bow down to you.”

“Like his secretary,” Marge said. “She thought he was God.”

“Exactly.” Oliver turned to Decker. “What about his kids? How’d they view their old man?”

Decker thought a moment. “The younger ones seemed very upset. The others weren’t overly emotional about the death. Probably they were all in shock.”

“It’s hard for kids to live with God as a father,” Oliver said. “No one made a Freudian slip about Dad.”

Decker flipped through his notes. “Two of the brothers-Lucas and Paul-talked about Dad being intimidating…bossy…emasculating-”