how we're handling things.”
“Really?”
“Something about your having cut them off from what you know; something about having had something analyzed at an independent lab and not sharing the results?”
Lucas shook his head as if he simply could not possibly begin to understand the attitude held by the other two detectives.
“This word comes from Commander Andrew Bryce, who's getting an earful of complaints about me lately…” His lingering glower told Meredyth he was still smarting from her having done the same earlier.
'They've got a nerve,” Meredyth defiantly retaliated. “They haven't got what you cops call jack shit! Nor have they shared a shred of information on the case with Lucas and me, sir.”
“Well, it was their case. And as for jack shit, Doctor, I'm given to understand you got a certain Jack shit killed up at Hempstead. Knifed through the heart.”
Lucas instantly defended her. “Now, hold on, Captain, you can't blame Meredyth for Covey's murder.”
“Commander Bryce turned this case over to us,” she defended herself.
“He didn't turn it over to you. He told you to work with the officers already assigned.”
“We'd be happy to; it's Pardee and Amelford who don't want any part of us, except maybe to bash Lucas over the head.”
“What's that?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Then you have had a run-in with those two?”
“Nothing of consequence, sir.” Lucas glared at her for bringing it up, but she was studying Phil Lawrence's every reaction, to gauge the extent or the lack of surprise in his demeanor, so she paid no attention to Lucas's reaction.
“File your written reports with Sergeant Kelton. See that I have them by the end of the business day,” he told them. “Keep me informed.”
They were dismissed and left the room.
“You were right about the bastard, Lucas.”
“Right? About Lawrence?”
“He hardly budged when we told him about the possible vampire connection. He's playing it all just too cool.”
“Maybe he's had orders and medication from his doctor to keep cool…”
“I tell you, he knows something, and he's keeping it close to his chest.”
“He keeps all his cards there, and I assume he always has.”
“Further evidence he can't be trusted.”
“Do you think he may be covering for someone else?”
“Don't know… I don't know. All I know for sure is that I can't trust him.”
Randy Oglesby, rumbling down the stairwell two steps at a time, shouted, “I need to see you, Dr. Sanger!”
She turned, and with Lucas following, they went to Meredyth's office.
“Do you think it's wise talking here?” asked Lucas, signaling the open window they had found earlier.
“Come on,” she said, leading them into the ladies' room.
There Randy, gulping on air, said, “About the three names I gave you.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“All three went to Texas Christian University.”
“Ahh, odd coincidence?” suggested Lucas.
“Just like Mootry, Little, and Palmer at one time or another,” Randy shot back.
“You're kidding?”
“The web is woven tight,” replied Lucas.
“Damned tight,” agreed Randy. “I'm getting so I don't trust anybody, and I do mean anybody… And the deeper I get in, the more paranoid I'm getting. Meanwhile, my personal life is a wreck. You wouldn't believe what I've done to my good name. My life's… well, I'm living a lie.”
“Living a lie?” she asked.
Lucas looked knowingly across at her.
“I told Darlene that I'm, well, that my name's James Pardee, that I'm a homicide detective with the HPD, and she believed it, and it all started when I went to fetch those crystal goblets you had examined. Darlene works for the lab. Oh, and I had the goblets locked up in a safe deposit box.” He surreptitiously handed the key over to Lucas.
Lucas laughed helplessly and Meredyth joined him, all the while apologizing for laughing at Randy's predicament. Stuttering and stumbling for the words, she told Randy, “You have no idea what we were thinking your big, bad secret might be.”
He only looked perplexed. “Nothing could be worse than this…”
Again Meredyth and Lucas laughed.
Armed now with additional information supplied by Randy Oglesby, Meredyth and Lucas drove across town. They decided to pay a visit to each of the three people on the list supplied them by Randy's computer hacking. They first went to see Mootry's lawyer, Pierce Dalton. The man seemed to have everything a lawyer could find of value: opulent offices, the most expensive suit money could buy, a bevy of secretaries, each more fashionable and gorgeous than the next. He was the head of his own firm, and he handled trial cases for the defense as well as corporate and personal finances, if you could afford him. Apparently, he was extremely successful, which meant there must be many a man walking the streets in his debt, both financially and otherwise.
Dalton was as straightforward as he was tall, telling them that he had already talked to the cops on several occasions and had opened Judge Mootry's books for them.
“Detectives Pardee and Amelford, you mean?” asked Meredyth.
“Yeah, that's them. Apparently, they're some steps ahead of you two.”
“Did you see the judge the night of his death?” asked Lucas.
“As I told the other detectives, I was booked on a flight that night to San Diego. You can check it out if you like.”
“Then you didn't have a drink with him that night?”
“No, I hadn't seen the old gentleman for several days.” Dalton was cool, unperturbed.
“We learned recently that you and the judge went back a long way, back to college days, actually, Texas Christian,” Meredyth said like a well-mannered snake, striking with aplomb.
“That's right. That's why the judge trusted me.”
“You're so much younger than he was, yet you were at the university together, same fraternity.”
“I was a boy wonder. Graduated from high school at eleven. I was much younger than everyone in my fraternity.”
Lucas asked. “Then you're classified a genius?”
“Only by those who need classification and labels.”
They said their good-byes. Once outside, Meredyth said, “He didn't give away a thing. I couldn't read him.”
“He gave away one thing.”
“What's that?”
“He was too damned cool.”
“Personally, I find most genius-types that way. I don't know if there's anything there.”
“Let's go see Dr. Washburn. See if he's as unflappable as Dalton.
” They next ran down Dr. Sterling Washburn at Mercy General Hospital, Houston, half a city away from Dalton's downtown offices. The hospital was in a run-down section of the city, and it appeared to have remained open in order to serve the needy in the dilapidated area in which it was located. Meredyth explained that once it was a very pleasant, upscale neighborhood but gang violence and a series of economic downturns had created a little war zone within the city, and the hospital found itself at the core of the battlefield.
“This Sterling Washburn has to be dedicated to work here,” she said in Lucas's ear as they waited. Sterling
