Playing Dead

she’s not going to give. But maybe-”

“I get you. Maybe when I leave, she’ll vent to you.”

“Exactly.”

Steve started the car and shook his head. “Damn, Mitch, she’s going to hate you.”

“I know.”

“What are we going to do about Isleton?”

Mitch wanted nothing more than to go to Isleton and see if anyone remembered Maddox. But right now, the more pressing case was Tom O’Brien’s whereabouts. “Like Meg said, two separate cases. If we can’t get down to Isleton tonight, we go down tomorrow.”

Claire spent the entire drive home from Bill’s house talking on her cell phone.

First Dave called. “Hey, I saw you driving away from Dad’s. Why the rush?”

“I have plans.” The truth. Sort of. She didn’t want to cancel on Mitch, but she desperately wanted to go to Isleton and talk to Tip Barney, Frank Lowe’s former employer and the owner of the ill-fated Tip’s Blarney.

“I really need to talk to you.”

“About what? Oh, I got the autopsy information from Phin, so if that’s it-”

“No. What if I stop by tonight?”

“Can’t you tell me over the phone?”

“Not really.”

“Tonight is bad. I have to follow up on a Rogan-Caruso-related investigation.” The lies were flowing easier now, and Claire shifted uncomfortably as she merged into heavy traffic on Highway 99. “Tomorrow?”

“I’m on duty.”

“Call me when you’re getting off and we’ll meet up someplace, okay?”

“All right. Is everything okay?”

“Yes. I should ask you the same thing. You sound so serious.”

“After our conversation last night-did you get the answers you needed from Dad?”

“Some of them. Dave, call me tomorrow, okay?”

She hung up and dialed information for the number of Janice Krause, Taverton’s sister. Unlisted. She then called Jayne Morgan on her mobile for the phone number. Again, fibbing to Jayne about why she wanted it. Jayne didn’t seem to care, and rattled off both a cell phone and home phone after a few moments.

“So I saw you were on the database this afternoon,” Jayne said.

“I didn’t see you, why didn’t you say hi?”

“Saw is a relative term. I was monitoring the network from home. Who’s Frank Lowe?”

“Some guy who died in a fire. I was just doing research.”

“Hmm. Whatever. Need anything else?”

“Nope, thanks.” She hung up. Odd. She dismissed her worry. She hadn’t done anything illegal, and if the company got mad that she’d used their resources for personal business, she’d apologize and hope they didn’t think it was egregious enough to fire her over.

Employment security was the last thing on her mind, however.

She was about to dial Mrs. Janice Krause when her cell rang. Caller ID read Phineas Ward and his cell number.

“Hi, Phin,” she answered. “You work fast.”

“Not fast enough.”

“What?”

“There is no coroner’s report on those homicides.”

“What?” She sounded like a parrot.

“It’s gone.”

“How?”

“Good question. There’s no way it can just disappear. If someone requests the report, we make a copy. It’s kept in a digital file. It’s easy to print a certified copy. The original backup reports are also digital, and a paper copy is kept off-site. The digital file is the easiest to access, and it’s not there. I checked our internal records to make sure the case numbers matched. There’s a gap in the numerical file. They were erased, or they were never archived electronically.”

“How is that possible?”

“Hell if I know. I’m not a computer nerd. But I’ve never once heard of a missing report. Then I called the warehouse and asked them to pull up the original paper copies. Lied through my teeth, saying they were needed ASAP for an appeal case.”

“And?”

“They’re not there.”

“Could they have been misfiled?”

“I’m having the archive supervisor research it personally, but I swear, Claire, I’ve never encountered a problem like this. Both the digital and the paper files missing? It’s like they never existed. What did you want to know about the bodies anyway?”

Claire was still absorbing the information. Missing coroner’s reports on both her mother and Taverton. “Bullet trajectory. I wanted to see at what angle and distance the bullets were fired.”

“Why?”

“Information. I don’t know exactly why, but because they were missing from the case files, I became curious. Now I’m more curious.”

“You and me both. I’ll let you know what I find out, but don’t hold your breath.”

“Thanks, Phin.”

She hung up and dialed Janice Krause. It was no coincidence that both her mother’s and Chase Taverton’s autopsy reports were gone. What was in them that didn’t come out at the trial? How could they disappear with no one being the wiser?

“Hello?”

Claire had almost forgotten she’d called Taverton’s sister. “Mrs. Krause?”

“Yes? Who’s this?”

“Claire O’Brien, with Rogan-Caruso Protective Services. I’m an investigator looking into the death of a law student from UC Davis.” She spoke fast, hoping Mrs. Krause wasn’t taking good notes.

“I don’t understand.”

“According to my interviews, Oliver Maddox, the deceased, had met with you earlier this year-in December or early January-regarding the personal calendar of your late brother, Chase Taverton.”

There was a long pause. “What does-I’m confused. Are you saying Mr. Maddox died?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry. He was a nice young man. But what does this have to do with my brother? Chase was killed fifteen years ago.”

“According to Mr. Maddox’s notes, he retrieved Mr. Taverton’s calendar from you. Correct?”

“I gave him a copy, yes. I didn’t even know I had it, but when he called and asked if I had any of Chase’s personal effects, I recalled several boxes my mother had in her possession before she died in 2001. He came to my house and went through them.”

“You made him a copy of the journal? Do you still have the original?”

“No.”

“No?” Claire repeated, stunned.

“A couple months ago, someone from the district attorney’s office called and said they needed the boxes.”

“The D.A.? Do you remember who you spoke with?”

“No.”

Claire’s heart fell.

“Hold on a minute.” Claire heard the phone being put down. Then a long minute later, Mrs. Krause came back