Ken Douglas - Gecko

He laughed with her and wondered if he would be laughing as easily with Jane tonight. With the department no longer between them, they might be able to work everything out. He should have realized it sooner, maybe then they wouldn’t have separated, but now everything was going to be okay. They’d be together again.

Then his dreams of family were shattered as he saw Jane, arm and arm with a well dressed man in his late forties or early fifties. They were laughing as they made their way to the exit, talking easily, like two people used to being together, like two people familiar with each other. He had forgotten that this was Jane’s favorite Italian restaurant, too.

He must have scowled, or maybe the pain in his eyes had shown through, because Glenna sensed that his mood had changed and she turned her head to follow his gaze.

“ I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know they’d be here.”

“ I didn’t know she was seeing anybody,” he said, but he should have. Jane was still attractive and they had been separated for a long time. How long did he expect her to wait before he got his act together?

“ Really? It’s not a secret. Everybody knows how serious they are.”

“ I didn’t, but I guess I haven’t been paying much attention lately.”

“ She’s going to ask you for a divorce. They want to be married. He’s very nice and I’m happy for her.”

Her words cut like a straight razor, but he did his best not to let the blood show.

“ I have an idea,” he said. “Can you take a week off work and school?”

“ I guess they’d give it to me and I can make the school work up easily. Why?”

He told her about Walker offering him a job and about how he was going to quit the force. “So,” he continued, “I kind of thought with Walker in the hospital, that maybe I could use a partner on this Jim Monday investigation. It wouldn’t be dangerous and you could get a close up look at how boring an investigation really is. See if this is the kind of work you want to do for the rest of your life.”

“ Oh, Dad, I’d love that, love it, love it, love it.” She scooted out from her chair, came around the table and hugged him. “I’ll go and call in right now,” she said as soon as they broke the embrace.

“ It can wait till after lunch,” he said.

“ Oh, no it can’t. I’m not going to give you a chance to change your mind.”

Forty minutes later-after a lecture about how ninety-five percent of investigative work is research, four percent informants and one percent luck-they were walking up the stairway to her second floor apartment.

“ Hey, before I pack a bag,” Glenna said, “why don’t I do a Google search on our Dr. Kohler?”

“ Why didn’t I think of that?” Washington said, impressed.

“ If I don’t find anything there, I’ll check the index to the L.A. Times.” She booted up her laptop.

“ Paydirt,” she said after only a few minutes. “Look at this obit in the Milestones section. It happened ten years ago, but I think it’s relevant.”

Washington read over her shoulder:

Died. George J. Greenwald, 53, Plastic Surgeon; from injuries received in a hit and run auto accident; in San Diego, California. Dr. Greenwald, known as the plastic surgeon of the stars was a prominent figure in California politics and society. His death follows that of his wife, Lillian and oldest daughter, Margot, only a year ago, in a similar hit and run accident, in Del Mar, California. The gruesome coincidence is nothing more than that, a coincidence, say the police. His surviving daughter, Jill, married to Greenwald’s, assistant Dr. Bernd Kohler, is the only heir to a fortune estimated to be in the millions.

“ Isn’t that curious?” he said. “It seems that our good doctor has been the fortunate beneficiary of an unfortunate hit and run in the past. I wonder what happened to the wife?”

A few minutes later Glenna found out.

She died in a fire, but not before leaving the bulk of the estate that she had inherited from her father to the Foundation for the Junior Blind.

“ Her father isn’t dead a year and his wife goes to bed with a cigarette and burns herself up.”

“ What else?” he asked, a grin on his face.

“ Dr. Kohler didn’t get the money.”

“ And what does that tell you?”

“ That she didn’t want him to have it.”

“ And why not?”

“ Maybe she didn’t love him?”

“ Or?”

“ Maybe she suspected he had something to do with the accident that killed her father?”

“ Why?”

“ Maybe she thought that it was a little fishy, her father dying the same way her mother and sister did.”

“ And maybe he tried to kill Jim Monday the same way,” he said.

“ Then you have him. This is all the proof you need.”

“ Not by a long shot,” he said. “All we have here is tragic coincidence, not proof.”

“ Then what are we going to do?”

“ Get the proof. That’s what an investigator does.” He printed out the story, then said, “I think it’s time we called Walker.”

Washington picked up the phone and called the hospital. He glanced at his watch while the switchboard operator put him through. When he finally got Walker on the line he spoke quickly, telling him what they had learned.

“ Good work.” Walker sounded tired over the phone. “Have you seen the news?”

Washington said he hadn’t and Walker told him about the latest developments. Two new dead men, attributed to Monday. His wife’s twin and a woman, named Edna Lambert, missing. The media calling Monday a serial killer.

“ Find him,” Walker said. “Find him and clear him before someone puts a bullet in him.”

“ I’ll do my level best,” Washington said.

“ And take care,” Walker said before hanging up.

“ What do we do now?” Glenna asked.

“ We drive to Lakewood and pay a visit to Jim Monday’s mother-in-law.”

“ Why?”

“ I’ll fill you in on the way.”

He finished the telling just as he was nosing into the driveway of a quiet house in a quiet residential neighborhood. The front yard was surrounded by a two foot hedge, there was a tire swing hanging from a giant shade tree in the front yard. The house was white, the shutters orange, the color of flames. It was a cheerful looking place and with a park across the street, a good place to bring up children.

He opened the door and got out, wondering, as he always did, how to handle the questioning. Glenna followed as he mounted the front porch. He pushed the bell and a tall patrician looking woman answered. Her blue rinsed hair and no nonsense makeup told him there was only one tack to take with this lady. The truth. She would see through anything else.

He introduced himself as a police officer and showed her his badge. She introduced herself as Jean Barnes and she kept a poker face when he asked if she had seen the news.

“ No, I seldom watch it in the afternoon. A thirty minute dose at 6:30 every night is quite enough, don’t you think?”

“ More than enough. Too much, probably.” He smiled at her, then launched in with his story. “I’m going to be straight with you,” he said, “because I don’t have time to beat around the bush. Right now I’m a police officer. Tomorrow I probably won’t be. And this young lady is my daughter, Glenna.”

“ I don’t understand.”

“ Please let me finish.”

“ I’m all ears.”

“ My partner and I were across the street when David Askew was killed.” He went on to tell her everything he could think of concerning the events of the last two days, including how Walker had employed him to clear Jim Monday.

“ You know,” she said, when he finished, “Jim and I have never been close. A personality conflict, I guess, but I know him well and I’ll tell you one thing. He didn’t do any of what they say he did.”