Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

“We may take you up on that later,” I said. “But right now, we’re just talking. Do you know Marie St. Germaine?”

“No. Who is she?”

“How well do you know Dr. Garza?” Jacobi asked.

“He’s our ER director,” Engstrom said. “We’re both senior staff—”

Jacobi stood, pounded the flat of his hand on her desk. Pens and paper clips jumped.

“Cut the crap, Dr. Engstrom!” he said. “You and Garza are what we call ‘close,’ aren’t you? Intimate, in fact.”

Engstrom’s face blanched.

I was so startled, I thought I might swallow my tongue. What was he talking about?

I remembered Jacobi’s call to me that rainy night when he tailed Garza to the Venticello Ristorante and back to Garza’s house. He’d described a willowy blonde, a babe about forty. As far as I can tell, he’d said, the doctor is guilty of having a girlfriend.

Across the desk, Engstrom’s eyes suddenly welled up with tears.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Oh, God.”

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 122

ENGSTROM WAS MELTING DOWN in front of us, and loud gongs were going off inside my head. Garza and Engstrom. A perfect partnership for killing, everything probably as neat and efficient as her office.

I needed her to talk more — I didn’t want her to shut down on us now.

“Dr. Engstrom, take it easy. This is your chance to get ahead of this horror show. We’ll work with you if you tell us the truth, right now. Maybe Garza was using you. Does he have access to the computer software?”

I saw fear in her eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, Engstrom nodded, yes.

My skin prickled. All the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood up as Engstrom said, “I let him into the computer system a couple of times.”

“A couple of times?”

“Every now and then. But it’s not what you’re thinking! Dennis Garza is an excellent doctor. He’s very conscientious, as am I.

“The unexpected deaths of those patients were driving us crazy. Dennis was checking for inconsistencies between the diagnoses and the prescriptions. Just as I was doing.”

“Did you ever find a correlation?” I asked.

“No. Never. We put the errors down to mistakes made on the floor. Nurses mixing things up on their trays, dispensing medication to the wrong patients after the medication left the pharmacy. That’s the truth.”

“Were you with Dr. Garza every time he — what do you call it? Accessed the computer?” Jacobi asked.

“Of course. My fingerprint was needed — but I didn’t stand over him, if that’s what you mean.”

I saw the alarm come over Engstrom’s face as she realized what Jacobi was getting at. The cords in her neck stood out. She reached out to the desktop and steadied herself.

“Dennis would never, ever harm a patient. He’s a great doctor.”

Jacobi growled, “Yeah, well, sounds like you’re in love with him to me. Are you in love with Dr. Garza?”

“I was in love with him,” she said, a pathetic note sounding in her voice. “But it’s over, believe me. I found out that he was sleeping with somebody else. Dennis was fucking Maureen O’Mara. You know who she is?”

I nodded my head, but I was shocked. Maureen O’Mara had just put the screws to Municipal Hospital. How could it be that she and Garza were lovers?

I wanted to look at Jacobi, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Sonja Engstrom.

“You look surprised, Lieutenant. You didn’t know, did you?” Engstrom said. “It took me a while to figure it out, too. Strange bedfellows, don’t you think?

“Dennis Garza and Maureen O’Mara.” She snorted, a little self-deprecating laugh. “Just imagine the possibilities.”

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 123

AS I LEFT THE HOSPITAL with Jacobi, my mind flashed back and leaped forward.

Garza and Engstrom.

Garza and O’Mara.

Imagine the possibilities.

We got into the car, Jacobi taking the wheel, starting the engine. I was feeling the charge that comes when you’re this close to landing a big one. It’s like listening to a live concert and wanting to take to the stage and sing.

Only this was better.

“Cindy was at the trial when Garza was on the stand,” I told Jacobi. “O’Mara asked Garza if he had anything to do with the plaintiffs’ deaths. And get this, Jacobi. Garza took the Fifth Amendment.”

“That makes no sense,” Jacobi said, turning the car onto Leavenworth. “Garza wasn’t on trial.”

“Right. And Cindy’s reaction was ‘Wow. The guy was protecting himself from something.’ She told me that when he blurted that out, it was the turning point of the trial. He devastated the hospital’s defense.”

“So did O’Mara trip him up? Let him twist in the wind? Or did he do that all by himself?”

“Interesting question, Jacobi. I wonder who is letting who twist in the wind. Both of Garza’s girlfriends were involved in the case against Municipal.”

I grabbed the dash as Jacobi took a hard right onto Filbert Street.

“It’s all here, but I can’t quite see the whole picture. If Garza killed all of those people, where’s the connection?”

Jacobi parked in front of Garza’s creamy-yellow stucco house and turned off the ignition.

“Let’s go ask the doctor,” said Jacobi.

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 124

JACOBI GRUNTED AS HE hauled himself out of the squad car. I joined him on the sidewalk, both of us shielding our eyes against the sun as we stared up at Garza’s spiffy three-story stucco house with a large front porch and cropped lawn on both sides of a flagstone walk.

I was thinking of Garza, wondering if he had some kind of relationship with a Haitian nurse by the name of Marie St. Germaine, when Jacobi stooped along the walkway, saying, “Lookit here, Boxer.”

He pointed out drops of blood on the path, the beginning of a trail speckling the walkway and beading up on the painted floor of the porch. A bloody smear sullied the shining brass doorknob.

“This is fresh,” Jacobi muttered.

Thoughts of interviewing Garza blew out of my mind.

What the hell had happened here?

I pressed the doorbell. At the same time, I took out my gun; so did Jacobi.

Chimes rang out, and the seconds dragged by as we waited for the answering sound of footsteps.

No one came to the door.

I banged on the door with my fist.

“Open up! This is the police.”

“I’m calling this ‘exigent circumstances,’” I said to Jacobi. It was a borderline call. We can only enter a home without a warrant if someone’s life is in danger.

There wasn’t a lot of blood. Maybe someone had cut a finger, but I had an overpowering sense that something was wrong. That we had to get into the house right now.

I unhitched the Nextel from my waistband and called for backup.

Jacobi nodded, looked around the porch, then decided on a concrete planter the size of a pillow. He tipped the geraniums over the railing and, using the planter as a battering ram, smashed in a panel of the oaken front door.

I reached in through the splintered wood, flapped my hand around until I located the lock, and opened the door to Garza’s house.

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 125

I YELLED OUT from the doorway, “This is the police. We’re coming in.”

Again, there was no answer, and the place just felt empty.

Jacobi and I advanced through the foyer into a living room that no longer looked like a photo feature in Town & Country magazine. I ran my eyes over the upended furniture and the vast amount of blood that was absolutely everywhere in the room.