Tess Gerritsen - Peggy Sue Got Murdered

"You don't know her?" said M. J.

"No." He swallowed. "I've never seen her."

She replaced the shroud and slid the drawer shut. Then she turned and looked at him. "Okay, Quantrell, I think it's time for you to fess up. Who, exactly, are you looking for?"

He paused. "A woman."

"I know that. I also know she's got hazel eyes. And the chances are, she's either a blond or a redhead. Now I want to know her name."

"Maeve," he said softly.

"Now we're getting somewhere. Maeve who?"

"Quantrell."

She frowned. "Wife? Sister?"

"Daughter. I mean, stepdaughter. She's twenty-three. And you're right. She's blond. Hazel eyes. Five foot five, a hundred fifteen pounds. At least, that's what she was when I saw her last."

"And when was that?"

"Six months ago."

"She's missing?"

He shrugged one tuxedoed shoulder. "Missing, hiding. Whatever you want to call it. She drops out of sight whenever she feels like it. Whenever she can't face up to life. It's her way of coping."

"Coping with what?"

"Everything. Bad grades. Love affairs. Her mother's death. Her lousy stepfather."

"So you two didn't get along."

"No." Wearily he raked his fingers through his hair. "I couldn't handle her. I thought I could shape her up. You know, a firm hand, some good old-fashioned discipline. The way my father raised me. I even got her a job, thinking that all she needed was some responsibility. That at a minimum she could show up on time, do the job right, and pay for her own damn groceries." He shook his head. "She went to work one day, two hours late, her hair dyed purple. She had a screaming match with her supervisor. Then she walked off the job." He let out a breath. "She was fired."

"And that was the last time she was seen?"

"No. I took her out to lunch. To try to patch things up. Instead, we had an argument. Naturally."

"Let me guess," said M. J. "You took her to L'Etoile, on Hilton Avenue."

He nodded. "Maeve showed up in black leather and green hair. She insulted the maitre d'. Lit up a joint in the nonsmoking section. And proceeded to tell me I had sick values. I told her she was sick, period. I also told her I was withdrawing all financial support. That if she shaped up, behaved like a responsible human being, she was welcome to come back to the house. I'd just changed my phone number-I was getting crank calls-so I wrote my new number in a matchbook and gave it to her. Just in case she wanted to get in touch with me. She never did."

"And the matchbook?"

He shrugged. "Maybe she passed it around to a friend, and somehow Jane Doe got it. I don't know."

"You haven't seen her since the restaurant?"

"No."

She paused. "Where does Lou Beamis come in?"

"A private detective I hired told me Maeve was hanging around South Lexington. That's Lieutenant Beamis's beat. I simply asked him to keep an eye out for her. As a favor to me. He thought he spotted her once, but that was it."

It sounded believable enough, M. J. thought, studying his pose, the elegant cut of his tuxedo. So why do I get the feeling he's still hiding something ?

His gaze was focused elsewhere, as though he was afraid to let her see his eyes.

"What you're telling me, Mr. Quantrell, isn't exactly earth-shattering. Lots of families have problems with their kids. Why were you afraid to tell me about her? Why hide it from me?"

"It's a rather… embarrassing state of affairs."

"Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?" He swung around to look at her, the challenge plain in his aristocratic face. She felt trapped by the spell of that gaze. What was it about this guy?

She gave her head a shake, as though to clear it. "No," she said. "It's not enough. So what if you had told me the truth this morning? I'm just a public servant. You don't get embarrassed in front of your servants, do you?"

He gave her a tight smile. "You, Dr. Novak, I hardly consider a servant."

"Is there something else about Maeve you don't want to tell me? Some minor detail you haven't mentioned?"

"Nothing of any relevance to your job." He turned away, a sure sign that he wasn't telling the whole truth. His gaze focused on one of the body drawers.

"Then I'd say our business here is finished," she said. "Go on home to your guests. If you hurry, you might be able to make it back in time for brandy."

"Who is this?" he asked sharply.

"What?"

"This drawer here. It says Jane Doe."

M. J. took a closer look at the label: #372-3-27-6. "Another one. Dated seven days ago. Ratchet must have processed this one."

"Who's Ratchet?"

"The other assistant ME. He's on vacation right now."

Adam took a breath. "May I…" He looked up mutely at M. J.

She nodded. Without a word, she pulled open the drawer.

Wisps of cold vapor swirled out. M. J. felt her old reluctance to lift the shroud, to reveal the body. This Jane Doe she hadn't laid eyes on. She steeled herself against the worst and slid off the shroud.

The woman was beautiful. Seven days of stainless steel imprisonment couldn't dull the glow of her hair. It was a rich red, thick and tumbling about her shoulders. Her skin had the luster of white marble, and in life must have seemed flawless. Her eyes, revealed by partly opened, heavily lashed lids, were gray. No injuries marred the upper torso, only a puncture mark in the skin under the clavicle-probably made by Ratchet collecting his blood specimens.

M. J. looked across at Adam.

He shook his head. "You can close the drawer," he murmured. "It's not her."

"I wonder who she is?" said M. J., sliding the drawer shut. "She looks like the kind of woman who'd be missed. Not our usual Jane Doe type."

"Would you know how she died?" The question was asked softly, but its significance at once struck M. J.

"Let's pull the file," she said.

They found it in Ratchet's office. It was buried in a stack on his desk, waiting to be completed. On top were clipped a few loose pages, recent correspondence from the central identification lab.

"Looks like she's no longer a Jane Doe," said M. J. "They found a fingerprint match. Her name's Peggy Sue Barnett. I guess Ratchet never got around to relabeling the drawer."

"Why does she have fingerprints on file?"

M. J. flipped to the next page. "Because she has a police record. Shoplifting. Prostitution. Public drunkenness." M. J. glanced up at Adam. "Guess she wasn't as sweet as she looked."

"What was the cause of death?"

M. J. opened the folder and squinted at Ratchet's notes. He must have been in a rush when he wrote it; it was a typical doctor's scrawl, the is undotted, the ts uncrossed. "Subject found 3/27 at 02:35 in public restroom at Gilly's bar, off Flashner Avenue." M. J. looked up. "That's in Bellemeade. I live there." She turned to the next page. "No injuries noted… tox screens pending. Police report empty bottle of Fiorinal pills found near body. Conclusion: cardiopulmonary arrest, most likely due to barbiturate overdose. Awaiting tox screen from state lab."

"Is the report back yet?"

M. J. went to the courier box and riffled through the stack of pages. "I don't see it here. It's probably still pending." She closed the file. "This case doesn't really fit with the others. Bellemeade's a different neighborhood, with a different class of drug users. Higher priced."

"The others were all in South Lexington?"

"Within blocks of each other. Jane Doe was smack in the Projects. So was Xenia Vargas. Nicos Biagi was a little further out, on Richmond Street. Let's see, that'd make it somewhere near the old railroad tracks. But it's still the same neighborhood."

"You seem to know the area well."

"Too well." She tossed Peggy Sue Barnett's file on Ratchet's desk. "I grew up there."

He looked at her in surprise. "You?"