we know Buchner just had the plain shitty luck of babysitting this fancy recording thing when the bad guys came looking for it. “
“I’m on it,” she said.
“Jimmy, can you get with the coroner’s office? Find out for sure how Bastian died. Check with Tyler Conner. He’s the best examiner down there. I’ll contact the university and see what I can learn there.”
“I’ll do it.” Mort knew DeVilla’s mind as well as he knew his own. He watched his friend turn toward the door and hesitate before walking through. Jimmy called back to Mort and Micki. “But I’m doing it for Ortoo. Far as I’m concerned, whoever took Bastian out is a fucking-A hero.”
Bruiser followed him. The picture of canine determination.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mort counted it a stroke of luck when he called the Neuroscience Department and learned that Jerry Childress, the acting chairman, was with his fiance at a hospital in Olympia. He walked into the Black Hills ICU around ten-thirty. Mort figured he could ask him a few questions about Bastian and still have plenty of time to meet Lydia at noon. He showed his credentials to the charge nurse and was directed to Bay 13.
The sleeping dog of grief woke up hard and hungry. The chaos of the nurses’ station. The incessant beeping monitors and ringing phones. The stench of antiseptic. Family members standing around like shell-shocked zombies. Each tortured by the same thoughts that paralyzed Mort on Edie’s last day. “What happened?” “What’s next?” He put one foot in front of the other and prayed the snarling mongrel would lie back down.
In Bay 13 a man in need of a shower and shave slouched beside the bed of a woman connected to a tower of equipment. As quiet and pale as death, the patient was still remarkably beautiful. Mort’s eyes dropped to the ventilator tube protruding from her throat, saw the bruises, and didn’t have to ask what happened.
Mort knocked on the doorframe. “Professor Childress?”
The man blinked bloodshot eyes, as though trying to bring Mort into focus. Mort took advantage of Childress’ disorientation and walked into the room.
“I’m Detective Mort Grant, Seattle PD.” He showed his badge and nodded toward the bed. “I’m sorry to bother you at such a sad time, but I have a couple of questions.”
Childress reached for the woman’s hand. “About Savannah?” He sounded like he hadn’t used his voice for awhile. “Why are the Seattle police investigating?”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Childress looked back to the woman. “I wish I knew, Detective. I blame myself.” He bent over and kissed the woman’s chalky forehead. “I always said the department would be the death of me.” He blubbered his next statement. “Instead it may cost me my dear Savannah.”
Mort loved the power of an open-ended question. He had no idea the woman in the bed was connected to Neuroscience. “Is your fiance a faculty member in your department?”
Childress reached for a tissue. “No.” He blew his nose. “She just got caught up in something ugly. Savannah’s much too delicate for the blood sport of academia.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Childress pulled his stiff and ungroomed body as tall as he could manage. “You’ve already asked that, Detective.” His attempt at sovereignty fell flat. “Surely your little report doesn’t require the details of her suicide attempt.”
Mort side-stepped the insult. “I’m not here about your fiance, Professor Childress. Mind if I call you Jerry?” Mort smiled at Childress’ reluctant nod. “I’m actually here about that blood sport you mentioned. Can you tell me more about that?”
Childress’ fatigue disappeared. His eyes darted around the room. Mort wondered if he was looking for support or escape. Childress glanced out to the roiling bedlam of the ICU central desk. He took four quick steps forward and stabbed his index finger in Mort’s direction.
“You have no right questioning me about that.” Mort looked down at the bald spot on Jerry’s head. “You leave that alone. It’s departmental business.” His spit flew. “We did everything by the book.” Jerry spun on his heel and stabbed his finger again. “Which is more than Bastian ever did.”
Bingo. Mort wondered if his current run of luck might extend to a lottery ticket.
“What can you tell me about Bastian, Jerry?” Mort pulled a chair away from the wall and sat. “Sounds like you have no qualms speaking ill of the dead.”
Childress took another look outside the ICU bay before he sat back down beside Savannah. “Is this about the faculty meeting?”
Mort smiled. Childress was making this way too easy for him. “We’ll get back to that. Let’s start with Bastian.”
“He was a monster,” Childress said. “If there’s a hell, Bastian’s one of its newer inhabitants.”
“I’d like to hear some specifics, if you don’t mind.” Mort took a small notepad from the pocket of his parka.
Childress narrowed his eyes. “Are you investigating a sexual harassment charge? Or is it Bastian’s misappropriation of federal funds?”
Mort clicked his pen open. “You paint Bastian with an ugly brush, Jerry.”
“I’m just trying to be of service, Detective.” Mort didn’t buy it for a minute. “Tell me specifically which of Fred Bastian’s mountain of offenses you’re investigating so your time here may be efficiently spent.”
He wanted to tell Childress his arrogance was irritating and ineffective. Out of respect for the circumstances he held his tongue. “I’m a homicide detective, Jerry.”
He watched Childress’ disorientation return.
“Homicide?” He sputtered as he reached out to the sleeping woman. “Why are you asking us about a homicide?” Mort was intrigued by the odd use of pronoun.
“I’m investigating Fred Bastian’s death,” he said.
“Since when does a heart attack warrant a homicide detective?” Childress asked. “Frankly I’m surprised Bastian didn’t have one sooner, the debauched buffoon.” He rubbed his left hand across his cheek. “There’s no mystery, Detective.”
“Maybe so. But since I’m here, I might as well do what the good citizens of Seattle pay me for. Do you know anyone who might have a motive to harm Dr. Bastian?”
Childress barked a hollow laugh. “There aren’t enough investigators in ten police departments to track down every person who wished ill upon Fred Bastian.”
“I’m listening.” Mort leaned back.
Childress began his report of Bastian’s rise through the university ranks. He spared no details of Bastian’s corruption and deceit. Childress painted a portrait of a man who wielded his power without thought to ethics or decency. He also described a hapless faculty brow-beaten into submission.
Childress reached to the nightstand for a cup of water.
Mort decided to see if his luck was holding. “I hear he was involved with animal research. That piss anybody off?”
Childress ran his finger around the cup’s rim. “That may be his darkest dimension.” He looked up and Mort saw the disgust in his eyes. “We humans, we each played a part in our torment. Condoning it in our own hapless way. We kissed Bastian’s feet to get promoted or published or simply to keep our jobs.” He swallowed hard. “But the animals had no input. Their cages weren’t money or prestige or a well-funded pension. Theirs were steel. Triple locked. They had no say into the torture and death Bastian handed them.”
Childress stared at his empty cup. When he looked at Mort his voice was quiet but strong. “Yes, Detective. To use your vernacular, his work with animals pissed a lot of people off.”
Mort saw Childress’ eyes look high and to the left. A brief look of surprise danced over his face.
“Well,” Childress turned to his bed-bound fiance. “It’s a big day for visitors, my dear.”
Mort looked over his right shoulder and snapped his attention back to Childress.
“She’s coming here?” Mort asked. “You know her?”
