Grave Matters

She liked the people at Sunny Day, though-the nurses, the other residents, those Gossip Club ladies. She thought of them as friends, and even Doctor Whiting she actually even liked. She just thought he and the other Sunny Day doctors were, as she put it, overrated quacks.'

'Frustration with doctors is common for patients enduring long hospital stays.'

'No argument there. But you should've tried to tell Vivian that.'

Catherine couldn't think of an easy way to ask the next question. 'Pardon me for asking, and this is strictly off the record…but was Vivian's lawsuit frivolous?'

The attorney sat back a little, possibly trying to decide whether to be offended or not. 'I didn't think so or I wouldn't have taken the case. She had back trouble from the accident and that's always a touchy area. She said Whiting had added to her pain and suffering by not listening to what she had to say about her condition.'

'Did he know she was considering suing him?'

'Of course,' Pauline said. 'He thought he was doing the best he could with her. They had a couple of confrontations.'

Catherine wondered why Whiting had neglected to mention this little fact. Trying to cover it up, or just an innocent omission?

'All right,' Vega said. 'Let's move on…. Did she have a will?'

The attorney seemed a little alarmed. 'You think Vivian might have been killed for her money?'

Vega shrugged. 'We're not ruling out anything-not the doctor, not the money, nothing.'

The attorney's eyes glittered now, anger replacing sadness, at least momentarily. 'She was in a full-time care facility. She should have been safe there. What the hell happened?'

'She was murdered,' Vega said.

'You said that before, Sam. How?'

Catherine gave it to her straight: 'Someone gave Vivian a syringe full of air creating-'

'An embolism.' The attorney's exhale had controlled rage in it. 'Yes, I could see how someone thought they might get away with that. And you think Doctor Whiting did it?'

'Please!' Catherine said, holding up a hand. 'We haven't found the killer-we haven't even ascertained a motive yet.'

Best not to trust the lawyer with the theory that they just might be dealing with a serial killer….

'But the potential motive you're exploring,' the attorney said, 'is money?'

Catherine shrugged. 'When people are murdered…unless the killer's insane, the four main motives are money, love, sex, or drugs. Do any of those fit Vivian?'

'I see where you're going,' Pauline Dearden said. She leaned down to withdraw a file folder from the bottom right-hand drawer of her desk, then scanned the folder's contents quickly. 'Vivian did have a will and she changed it recently.'

Catherine and Vega exchanged glances.

The CSI said, 'Changed the beneficiary, you mean?'

The attorney nodded. 'Originally, her estate was going to go to several charities. In the end, she gave it all to something called D.S. Ward Worldwide.'

'Never heard of it,' Catherine said, and Vega nodded the same.

'Neither had I,' she said. 'According to Vivian, it's a charity that feeds children overseas. Possible, I suppose, but I did some digging anyway.'

'What did you find?' Catherine asked.

'Not a thing.'

'Nothing?'

'At all, and when I look, Catherine, I look hard. D.S. Ward Worldwide doesn't even have a damn website.'

Vega said, 'Even scam charities have websites.'

'Exactly,' Pauline said. 'That's what sent my red flags flying.'

Catherine asked, 'Did you discuss this with Vivian?'

'Till I was blue in the face. She refused to listen to reason. I said it before-a nice woman, but stubborn.'

'Did she tell you how she'd come to hear about this D.S. Ward Worldwide?'

'No. And I asked repeatedly.'

'She didn't mention a contact with the charity, who'd approached her?'

'Well, she did tell me a friend had told her about the cause, but she didn't want to elaborate. Someone had prepped her, apparently, that I might give her a bad time. She kept saying she had a right to do what she wanted to with her estate. Which of course she did. And since she had no close surviving relatives, well…'

'Was this advisor a friend at Sunny Day?' Catherine asked.

'I gathered as much, but I can't confirm it. But I do know, this hunger charity talk all started after she landed in that place.'

'What about the disposition of the estate?'

Picking up the file again, Pauline read the top page, then flipped it over and took in the next page quickly. 'Once the house is sold, I'm to cash in the entire estate…roughly a quarter of a million…and, after taking my fee and expenses, I forward the rest in a certified check to D.S. Ward Worldwide.'

Catherine asked, 'How are you supposed to forward the money?'

'Certified check sent to a PO box in Des Moines, Iowa.'

'Can you give me the address?'

Pauline Dearden wrote down the address. 'Think you can get a line on these people?'

'Good chance,' Catherine said. 'I've got a CSI friend in Des Moines. Can you stall the disposition of the estate, at least until we can get a court order to stop it?'

The attorney's scarlet mouth formed a sly smile. 'I'm not in any hurry.'

7

THE DOOR TO KATHY DEAN'S room was closed.

Though she knew the bedroom had been compromised as a crime scene in numerous ways, Sara Sidle slipped on latex gloves before gingerly opening the door onto darkness relieved only by a fraction of afternoon sun filtering in pale blue curtains.

She stepped inside and flipped the light switch, illuminating a blue-and-white room that immediately invoked memories of childhood friends with similar adolescently feminine quarters: a double bed with a floral bedspread and frilly pillows in the midst of which a big brown teddy bear wallowed; a poster, looming over the bed, of Justin Timberlake in concert; and a small white nightstand with half-a-dozen book-ended horror paperbacks (Stephen King mostly), as well as an alarm clock and a remote control for the 13' TV sitting atop a dresser on the wall opposite.

Above the TV and dresser, a UNLV pennant slanted; nearby was the girl's desk, a two-section corner affair whose nearest section-over which loomed a poster of long-distance runner Mary Decker Slaney-was empty but for a plastic file organizer with a dictionary and thesaurus leaning against it. The other section was home to a computer monitor with keyboard, speakers on either side, sub-woofer on the floor, printer on a raised triangular shelf. Farther along that wall was the window and, beyond that, a bookcase crammed with paperbacks and hardbacks.

Although the room appeared spotlessly clean, gaps stood out where the original investigators had taken certain items, and not yet returned them, most obviously the computer tower that went with the monitor/keyboard/speakers/printer.

Judging by the severe angle of the dictionary and thesaurus, Sara surmised the absence of another book. There would be other missing stuff, too, as Conrad Ecklie's dayshift CSIs had already been through this room… meaning ninety-nine and-a-half percent of anything useful would already be in the evidence locker.

Her job would be to find that final half percent; but first, a call to Nick at HQ seemed in order. She got out her cell.

'Stokes,' Nick's voice said, after the second ring.

'It's me…. Listen, I'm in her room, Kathy's room.'