The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(56)

“I need to see Dr. Alex Murray in handcuffs.”

Dave backed up, made a sharp turn to the fridge, got his hands on a carton of juice—and it slipped from his fingers onto the floor.

Joe grabbed a dish towel, but the juice outran him. He turned his head so he could look up at Dave.

He said, “You’re the same guy who could throw the pigskin in a perfect spiral from the fifty-yard line to the end zone.”

“Yeah, well. That was a lifetime ago.”

While Joe mopped up, Dave went to the sideboard and pulled out dishes and coffee mugs and set the table. Joe watched him do it. His hands were shaking. Why?

Joe finished frying the bacon and cooking the eggs, and when the toast popped, he buttered four slices, set it all up on a pair of blue china plates, and brought breakfast to the table. Dave brought over the coffeepot, and as Joe would have predicted—it slipped from Dave’s hand, dropping from three inches above the tabletop.

Joe steadied the sloshing pot.

He said, “Dave, what the fuck is going on?”

“You mean besides watching a truck drive off with my parents’ stuff that I’ve grown up with my whole life? Besides my upcoming trial? Besides that I’ve lost my father, my best friend? And you, Joe, you look at me like you’d like me to get the electric chair.”

Joe sat down across from Dave and moved all of the plates out of the way. Dave was rolling the chair again, to and fro, to and fro, staring down at the table.

“Look at me,” Joe said.

Dave stared at the table.

Joe said it again, but this time not as a demand. Dave had every right to his feelings. And Joe had every right to his.

“Dave, I’m not the law. I work for you. You’re acting like a man with a bad conscience. I have to know the whole truth in order to help you. Did you have anything to do with Ray’s death?”

Joe braced himself for Dave to flip the table, knock the coffeepot to the floor, and then open his veins with a bread knife.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t do a damned thing to Ray but love him. Let me ask you, Joe. I’ve met your father. He’s a good guy. Could be a bit of a jerk. He had a lot on his hands, all you kids, afraid the money would run out. He said a few rough things to you in front of the coach. In front of me. Did you ever think of killing him?”

“No.”

“No. Under what circumstances would you have done it? If he was hurting someone? If he was a criminal? Not even then, right?”

“Right.”

“Even if he was sick and told you to put him down, you wouldn’t do it.”

The pause lengthened, and then Dave spoke again.

“I swear to you on the memories of my mother, my father, and the love of my life, Rebecca, that I had nothing to do with Dad’s death. Someone did, but it wasn’t me.”

Throughout this speech Dave had fixed a direct and unwavering look into Joe’s eyes.

Joe said it with feeling. “I’m sorry, Dave.”

“Apology accepted. And don’t you dare ask me if I killed Ray ever again.”

Joe got up, walked around the wheelchair, and put his arms around Dave’s chest, hugging him from behind. Dave nodded his head and held Joe’s arms. They stayed this way for a long time, until Joe spoke.

“I’m going to cook up some more eggs, and then let’s go to work.”





CHAPTER 82





DAVE AND JOE moved into the sitting room, where Dave had laid out papers on the coffee table.

“I pulled these from funeral home websites,” he said. “I’ve got five question marks and four suspicious deaths, all of them patients of Doc Murray.”

“Playing devil’s advocate for a minute.”

“Oh, jeez. I thought we were done with that.”

“People die, Dave. Older people with heart conditions die all the time. Murray’s a cardiac surgeon. His patients all have heart disease.”

“Correct, Joe. And their deaths aren’t investigated because of that. Old person is brought into the hospital with heart issues and dies overnight. End of story. What if Murray is ending the story a little early?”

“Humor me, Dave. If it wasn’t Murray, who could be the angel of death? Who had the means, the opportunity, and the motive?”

They kicked it around as cars pulled up to the winery. And they made a list of nurses, aides, orderlies, other doctors, and a couple of laundry workers Dave knew by name.

They quickly, almost arbitrarily, cut the long list of possible killers into a manageable short list: A charge nurse who manned the ICU and cardiac station at night. An EMT who’d brought in 60 percent of the patients who had died. There was Murray’s favorite anesthesiologist, Dr. Quo, who checked in on post-op patients.

But Dave’s opinion didn’t waver. Murray still held the number one spot.

“Ray had a roommate when I was there with you. Abe somebody.”

“Horowitz. Abe Horowitz. He was scheduled for a triple bypass the day after Dad died.”

“You think he has checked out of the hospital?” Joe asked.

“Or did he, you know—check out?”

“Was Murray his doctor?”

“I’m not sure.”

Joe got on his phone, called Saint John’s, and asked to speak with a patient, Abe Horowitz. The front desk put the call through.