Impressive. Did you try for the Olympics?
Yeah, but I never really had a chance to make the team. There were three or four girls who could kick my butt on my best day. To tell you the truth, I was burnt out by my senior year. I didn't swim at all when I was at law school. I' m just getting back to it now.
Where did you go to law school?
NYU. The last two years I had a clerkship at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. You went to Colgate, right?
Only for a year. My dad died and it hit me hard. Tony's eyes grew moist, and he looked down at the table.
Now Amanda remembered. Dominic Fiori had been Frank's law partner. He was raising Tony after a bitter divorce. During winter break of Amanda's sophomore year in high school, Dominic had died in a fire. The sudden death of a parent was bound to be traumatic.
Anyway, I dropped out for a while and bummed around Europe and South America for a year after that, he continued in a subdued tone. Then I was a ski instructor in Colorado for a while before I got my act together and went back to school at Boulder. My grades weren't good enough for an American medical school, so I ended up in Peru. I took some tests when I graduated and was accepted at St. Francis for my residency.
That's a tough road.
Tony shrugged. I guess, he answered, looking a little embarrassed. So you were interviewing Justine for your case? he asked, changing the subject.
How did you know?
I have amazing psychic powers. Also, I read the papers. Your father and Cardoni have been all over the news since they found those heads. Tony was suddenly serious. You know, I was there when Cardoni had his run-in with Sandowski.
No, I didn' t.
Did he really decapitate her?
Amanda's legal training reared its head. I can't really talk about that.
Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy. It's just ... I knew ' em both. He shook himself, as if trying to clear away an unpleasant image.
Amanda hesitated, then made a decision. I guess I can tell you. It'll come out at the trial anyway. There's a videotape of Mary Sandowski being killed. Whoever did it operated on her while she was conscious. She shivered. You're probably used to seeing people in pain, but I've never seen anything like that.
I haven't seen anything like that either, Amanda. A doctor tries to ease suffering. I' d have been just as upset as you.
Tony glanced up at the clock on the wall. I' m going to have to get back. He hesitated. Uh, look, he asked nervously, do you want to get together sometime? You know, dinner, a movie?
Amanda flashed a reassuring smile. Sure. I' d like that.
Tony grinned. Great. Give me your number.
Amanda took out a business card and wrote her home number on the back. Tony stood up.
Don't rush off, he told her. Finish your latte. I'll call soon.
Amanda watched Tony duck into the rain and jog back toward the hospital. She wondered if he' d really call. It would be tough giving up an evening in the library to go to dinner with a drop-dead gorgeous doctor, but Amanda believed she was woman enough to make the sacrifice.
And she sent us on our way, Herb Cross told Frank Jaffe as he concluded his account of the Justine Castle interview.
What was your opinion of her? Frank asked. Cross slouched in the client chair in Frank's office and stared at the West Hills through the window at Frank's back while he gathered his thoughts.
She's very bright and very dangerous. She hates our client and will do everything she can to put him on death row if she's called as a witness.
Cardoni thinks she set him up.
Cross looked surprised. He thinks Castle is a serial killer?
That's what he says. She's a surgeon, she knew Grant.
Cross looked skeptical.
I don't buy it either, Frank said, but we have to worry about Castle. I need to know if there's some way to get to her if she testifies. Go to the jail. Talk to our client. Get as much background on her as you can, then go after her.
Chapter 18
Bobby Vasquez found Sean McCarthy neck deep in paperwork when he walked into the squad room and pulled up a chair to the detective's desk.
Hey, Bobby, McCarthy said. What have you got?
A lot, he answered, opening a file he was carrying. Cardoni grew up outside of Seattle. His parents were divorced and Cardoni started getting in trouble soon after the split. He was a star wrestler in high school, excellent grades, but he was also arrested for assault. The case never came to trial. I don't know why it was dismissed.
After high school Cardoni went to Penn State on a wrestling scholarship, but he lost it in his sophomore year when he was arrested for assault.
Any specifics?
I got the police report on that one. It was a bar fight. He really fucked up the other guy. Cardoni went into the army as part of a plea bargain. Charges were dismissed.
How' d he do in the army?
No trouble I could find. He qualified for the wrestling team and trained during his hitch. He also excelled at unarmed combat. After the army, Cardoni went to Hearst College, in Idaho. Good grades, NCAA Division Two nationals as a junior and a senior, then medical school in Wisconsin and a residency at New Hope Hospital in Denver.
Any trouble in Idaho, Wisconsin or Colorado?
Cardoni was the defendant in a malpractice suit in Colorado. The insurance company settled it. I've got rumors of cocaine use, and there were a couple of sexual harassment complaints that went nowhere. After Cardoni finished his residency, he moved to Portland.
Where does Cardoni's money come from? McCarthy asked.
Some of it comes from an inheritance. His folks are dead. I also hear that he's invested wisely.
McCarthy leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together thoughtfully.
If Cardoni is a serial killer, he may have cut his teeth before moving to Portland. Find out if a killing field like the one near the cabin was ever found in Washington, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Wisconsin, Colorado or any other place Cardoni lived.
Okay.
And while we're on the subject, did you have any luck tracing the ownership of the Milton County property?
None. I went to the banks that cut the cashier's checks, but there was no record of the purchases because they were under ten thousand dollars. Is there anything new on your end?
A little. I' m certain that the Milton County cabin is the place where the illegal organs were harvested. Remember those jars in the refrigerator?
The ones with Viaspan written on them?
Right. Viaspan is a cardiac preservation fluid. Before you cut the heart out of a donor's body, you inject Viaspan into it. It replaces the blood, fills up the vessels and preserves the heart so the metabolic processes don't continue when the heart stops beating. After you remove the heart, you place it in a plastic bag filled with Viaspan. Viaspan would also be used when transplanting other organs.
Like a kidney?
Exactly. We've also identified several of the victims. The decapitated woman without the heart is Jane Scott, a runaway. One of the victims is Kim Bowers, a prostitute who disappeared a year and a half ago, and another is Louise Pierre.
The Lewis and Clark student who went missing in June?
