“McGowan?”
“Yes. McGowan. I told him it was just a temporary hold. That I would get inside dope from police sources if I just let the cops do their job without warning off the shooters.”
“Right thing to say and do,” said Rich.
“And because Lindsay asked me to, I sat on it. The story leaked. The connection between the hits was the story. Somehow I was scooped.”
“I hear you, Cindy.”
“That’s McGowan. A snake. A traitor.”
“Okay,” said Rich. “I’m going to ask you some questions.”
She sighed loudly.
“How do you know it was McGowan who squealed?”
“Because, Richie, a writer who used to be at the LA Sun Times broke the story. McGowan worked there until a couple months ago.”
“Speculation. What else?”
“No one connected Roccio to the Barons. Or Jennings and Peavey, for that matter.”
“You sure? Because I spoke with the primary on the Roccio case this morning, and Lindsay and I linked up the timing of the shootings for him.”
“You did?” she said tersely. “Why?”
“Seriously? We’re working a double homicide. We talk to other cops. Here’s my point. You have a suspicion, but you don’t have proof.”
“Oh, crap.”
“We’ll try to make it up to you, Cin. Go sit at the table. Take your beer.”
Cindy was relieved that she hadn’t told Tyler that McGowan had leaked her story. Richie was right. She didn’t have actual evidence.
Still, she had a gut feeling that she was right about McGowan. And she was going to harbor that feeling, massage it, and polish it until she could prove it.
CHAPTER 28
JOE WALKED ALONGSIDE Dave, who was pushing his wheelchair through rows of grapevines.
“I work in these fields,” Dave Channing told Joe.
“Really? I thought you were Mr. Inside.”
“I’m multitalented,” Dave said, forcing a smile. Joe recognized that smile, same as when he broke his wrist at practice, same as when Carolyn Kinney broke up with him and he said, “It’s not the end of the world.”
“I do the books, but I also prune, tie up the vines, harvest the grapes. See the clouds? Mare’s tails and mackerel scales. It’s going to rain tomorrow. We need the rain.”
Joe felt as though his coat were weighed down with stones. Did Dave’s belief that Ray had been murdered make any sense at all? Or was that his grief talking? He didn’t know how or if he could help his friend.
The two men stopped at the top of the field and looked down at the two stone houses and the winery across a country road from the vineyard.
“Stick with me,” said Dave, taking the lead, setting a downhill course for a stone patio outside the winery. Joe took a seat on a bench with a view, and when both he and Dave were settled, Joe said, “Tell me all of it.”
Dave took a deep breath and said, “We lived next door to each other for the last twenty-five years. Started our day together with morning coffee and ended with dinner in the restaurant kitchen when we were done for the day. I never got tired of being with my father. He had a big personality, you know? A lot of love.”
Joe nodded and said, “Tell me again what happened.”
“He fell down, just dropped in the restaurant. I called the ambulance and I rode with him to the hospital. His friend Dr. Alex Murray said, ‘Don’t worry. He’s stable, but I want to keep him for a few days.’ Joe, you saw him after we had lunch on Friday. He had spunk, remember?”
“I sure do.”
“So then on Saturday they put Dad on the list for a scan on Monday, but Murray said Dad needed to be monitored. His aneurysm could rupture, but worst case it was treatable by open-chest surgery. Then Monday morning my father was dead. His heart stopped. Why?”
“What did Dr. Murray say?”
“He said he was sorry. This happens.”
Dave dropped his head into his hands and said, “Oh, God.”
Joe put his hand on his friend’s arm.
“I’m so sorry, Dave.”
A long moment passed before Dave could speak again.
“Thanks, Joe, but I have to tell you, I’m furious. Dad was strong. He lifted cases of wine. He could work all day.
“And here’s the thing, Joe. Dad wasn’t the first of Murray’s patients to die suddenly. From what I could find out just from reading obituaries, he was the third of Murray’s patients to die suddenly this year.”
“The deaths were all suspicious?”
“Yes. Mild heart attack in one case, and two were complications from aneurysms, like Dad.”
Joe nodded, thought about Ray. He’d been seventy-two, a vigorous seventy-two, but still, an age where heart attacks and strokes were not uncommon.
Dave gently shook Joe’s arm, bringing him back to the moment.
“Will you help me, Joe? He never got that MRI, and maybe that scan would have given Murray a clue. But he didn’t get it. I don’t know if my father’s death was due to gross malpractice, or if Murray gets off on snuffing his patients. But I do know this: my father died inexplicably under Alex Murray’s care, and that needs to be investigated.”
“What about going to the police, Dave?”
“I don’t want to stir up the hospital’s lawyers. Not until I have something solid to go on. Joe. Will you help me? I can’t let him get away with this.”
CHAPTER 29
FRIDAY MORNING, CONKLIN and I were hunched over our computers, fleshing out backgrounds of the people on the Barons’ guest list from their recent movie premiere party, building a database of their friends and contacts.
As we worked, we texted notes of interest to each other, and there were tidbits aplenty: affairs, snubs, slights, and fist-fights, parts in movies, book and record sales numbers. We found nothing criminal.
We took a break when Judy Bernard, head of Narcotics and Organized Crime, joined us. We showed her our list, and after a long couple of minutes she said, “I know some of these folks, of course. But I don’t see any wholesale drug honchos here.”
My phone rang. It was Brady.
“I’ve got something,” he said.
I turned toward the rear of the squad room and saw that Brady was down from his office on the fifth floor. He waved to us from his glassed-in cubicle.
I thanked Bernard for the consult. She said, “No problem. Keep the faith.”
A minute later my partner and I dropped into the chairs across the desk from Lieutenant Jackson Brady, friend and chief.
He got right into it.
“A Mr. Alan Newton lives right behind the Baron house. His property faces south. He was walking his dogs with his wife a few days ago and took some neighborhood pics to send to his daughter in Amarillo. Then when he looked at his photos, this shot raised his hackles.”
Brady opened a manila folder, took out a photo, and passed it over.
Conklin and I looked at the photo of a woman posing with two dachshunds.
“What are we looking at?”
Conklin stabbed the photo. Behind the dogs was a car pulled over to the curb and a man leaning on the frame of his open car door. He was wearing a camo jacket and a knit cap, and he was holding a short tube up to his eye.