Cam wanted to punch him, but she steamed ahead, ignoring his last remark. “Did you have another secret? Like sleeping with Deborah? Is that why you gave her Connie’s role in The Crown Prince?”
“No!” He fidgeted with a pen on his desk, then said, his voice sullen, “I saw her audition, realized she was born to play the role. Look, I didn’t pay people to give roles to Connie or Gloria. The truth is, I did get Gloria the audition for the detective role on Hard Line because I know she’s gutsy, savvy, and I know she’ll nail the part, give the show more depth, more complexity. It was in my best interest. She shined at the audition, as I knew she would. She earned that role.”
“And how about the actress who will replace Deborah Connelly in The Crown Prince? Is she currently on standby?”
“Of course not. That’s insulting.”
Cam leaned in. “How many actresses have been special to you, Mr. Markham? Any of the other victims?”
“I appreciate beautiful and talented women. They appreciate my influence. I wouldn’t hurt any of them. It’s that Doc character you should be looking at.”
Daniel said, “Is that why you hired a private investigator, Gus Hampton, to find proof Dr. Mark Richards murdered Deborah Connelly? Because you didn’t believe we would look at him closely? Why are you so convinced Doc murdered Deborah?”
Markham gave them a disgusted look. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a cigar, clipped it, fondled it between his fingers, and finally lit it. “My hiring Hampton wasn’t a secret. I hired him because I concluded that you’re fools. I’ve told you over and over about Doc and what he’s like, but you’ve latched on to me instead.”
Daniel said, “Why do you care so much? Why are you spending so much money to prove Dr. Richards guilty of murdering his girlfriend?”
Markham slashed his hand through the air, sending ashes flying from the cigar. “She might have been his girlfriend, but she was starring in my movie, the movie Connie was going to do. He did it, I know he did, because I saw them together and you didn’t! Connie and Deborah were friends, I told you that, and Doc couldn’t stand Connie because she stood with Deborah against him when he belittled her. He was rabid about her quitting her acting career, I saw it when they were together, and so did Connie.” He was panting, beside himself. “I couldn’t save either of them. They’re both gone because of that monster!”
The room was silent except for his hoarse breathing. Markham drew himself up. “Richards is a monster. There is no doubt in my mind he murdered Deborah. I’ll spend whatever it takes to prove it if you don’t.”
And he turned his back on them.
55
* * *
SANTA MONICA POLICE DEPARTMENT
333 OLYMPIC DRIVE
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
The Santa Monica police station was all modern angles and glass, with a pool and fountain outside, but inside, it was all cop shop, with suspects and victims leaking anger or misery, detectives on their cell phones or computers, their voices in constant conversation. After introducing Cam and Daniel to the police chief, Jacqueline Seabrooks, Arturo stopped by his desk to pick up his laptop, then took them to a conference room on the second floor. They saw through the two-way mirror that the room held a solid new table, a floor of shiny clean linoleum. Even the chairs looked comfortable.
Doc was the only one in the room. He was seated at the middle of the table, staring back at them although they knew he couldn’t see them. He was wearing khakis, a short-sleeve Hawaiian shirt, and Tevas on his long tanned feet. His fingers were beating a light tattoo on the tabletop, clearly a habit he didn’t even realize he was doing. He looked lost, defeated, still deadened with grief. They watched him drop his head into his hands.
Daniel said, “It looks to me like Doc’s at the bottom of a well of grief. I’ve never known anyone good enough to fake that.”
Cam felt the familiar surge of pity for him, closed it down. She fairly itched to run the interview, but remembered Dillon’s words about letting local cops take the lead whenever possible. Let them shine when you can, the FBI will make a friend forever. And since Arturo had been the one to break Doc’s alibi, she sucked it up. “Arturo, I’ve dealt with Doc only as a victim, and this has to be hard-edged. You interview him, and Daniel and I will stay outside and watch.”
He gave her a surprised look, slowly nodded. “If he killed Deborah Connelly, he might also have tried to kill Gloria last night, would have, too, if she wasn’t smarter than he is. Have I ever got a surprise for him. I’ll check the recorder’s on.” Arturo cracked his knuckles, and strode into the conference room, like a bull charging a red cape.
He nodded to Doc, calmly pulled out a chair and sat down. He didn’t say a word, only studied him. Doc slowly raised his head, stared at him out of a face that looked sick and pale, that looked a decade older than when Arturo had seen him the day after Deborah had died. He didn’t look like he cared about anything around him, didn’t care he was sitting in a police station. He was only filling space, waiting. Arturo felt a moment of uncertainty, quashed it. Maybe he was misreading him, maybe what he was seeing was depression and regret for killing Deborah. Facts were facts. The guy had lied, pure and simple, no reason for it unless he’d killed her, sliced her neck open, trying to copy the Serial. He continued to study him.
Finally, Arturo saw a flick of fear on Doc’s face at his continued silence. About time. Good, he was ready to go.
Arturo smiled. “Dr. Richards, thank you for coming to the station. You understand that our conversation today will be recorded? It’s standard policy, for your protection as well as ours.”
Doc waved his hand. There was misery in his voice when he spoke. “Of course, of course, anything to help find Deborah’s murderer. That monster is still out there.”
“Not for much longer,” Arturo said, voice smooth and calm. “Trust me on that.” He leaned forward, saw Doc’s lips were dry and cracked. “Let’s start again with where you were the night Deborah was murdered.”
Doc reared back in his chair. “I already told you I was working at the hospital that night. I’ve told everyone who’s asked me. The little boy I operated on earlier that day—Phoenix Taylor—he needed close attention. His parents were sleeping by the bed, they were upset, and so I spoke to them frequently, reassuring them. I had other duties as well, other patients to look in on.”
Arturo said easily, “I know what you’ve told us, Doctor, but I want you to try to remember all the details. You weren’t with the Taylor boy all night long, were you? Didn’t you take bathroom breaks, get some sleep?”
“Yes, of course I did. Coffee can keep you awake only so long—” He paused, frowned. “You can’t really nap on the floor, with all the machines beeping, all the lights and noise, so I remember now, I did go to the doctors’ on-call room to catch a nap. I was exhausted, so I excused myself. I was gone for less than an hour. No longer, I know that.”
“Sure, I can understand you needed a break, some rest. How do you know you weren’t gone for longer than an hour?”
Doc shrugged. “I’m lucky if I get to sleep that long when I’m on duty. But I wasn’t officially on call Monday night, so I set an alarm.”
“Nice nap, Doctor?”
“Yes. And while I was sleeping . . .” His voice died away. He cleared his throat. “It was only a few hours before I found Deborah.”
Arturo said, “Before we go any further, Doctor, there’s a video you should see.” He punched a key and Nurse Anna Simpson appeared on the screen. “Do you know this woman?”
“Yes, that’s Anna. Why are you—”
“Listen to her statement, Doctor.” Mrs. Anna Simpson looked square in her forties, a seasoned nurse, her voice firm and no-nonsense. She was asked to give her name, her length of service at the hospital, and to say in her own words what happened that night. “Monday was my final night shift for four weeks. I remember it was a little before midnight, a tough time if some of the patients can’t sleep. Not as b
ad as 2:00 a.m. when—” She stopped, shook her head at herself. “In any case, one of Dr. Richards’s patients, Joan Thomas, was asking for a sedative, and she hadn’t been scheduled for one, so I needed a doctor to okay it. I knew Dr. Richards was at the hospital that night even though he wasn’t on call because he’d operated that afternoon on a young boy, Phoenix Taylor. The parents were upset, not Phoenix—he was doing fine—but Dr. Richards stayed. He’s like that, conscientious, always willing to spend time with a patient’s parents if they need him to.
“I checked the floor but couldn’t find him and he didn’t answer his page. One of the nurses said she’d seen him going toward the doctors’ on-call room. I checked. There was only one intern in there, Dr. Lyons, snoring like a bull. I’m very sure Dr. Richards wasn’t there. I called his cell, but it went to voice mail. I had to leave a message. I didn’t call him again because Dr. Lyons came around and okayed the patient’s sedative.
“It was nearly one o’clock when I saw Dr. Richards at the nurses’ station, yawning. I was going to ask him where he’d been, but there was a call from the ER about an admission and things turned hectic. I didn’t think much about it until you called and asked me. I’m sure Dr. Richards can explain where he was. There was no harm done.”
Arturo turned off the video, sat back in his chair, crossed his arms. “Where were you, Dr. Richards, during that three-quarters of an hour?”
Doc blinked at him, cocked his head to the side. “I remember now. Nurse Simpson was right about Keith’s—Dr. Lyons’s—snoring being way too loud for me, so I went two floors up to the doctors’ break room and slept there for a bit.”
“The break room on the sixth floor?”
“That’s right.”
“Now that’s curious, Doctor. There’s a security camera right outside the door of the sixth-floor break room. We have video footage from eleven forty-five p.m. to one o’clock a.m. You are not on the footage, either going into the room or coming out.” Arturo leaned forward. “It’s time for you to tell me the truth. No more lies.”
Doc stared at Arturo straight on, and said, his voice eerily calm, “I understand all this now. You think I hurt Deborah. I couldn’t ever hurt her. I loved her more than my own life.”
Arturo waved that away. “I hear what you’re saying, Dr. Richards. But the fact remains you weren’t in the hospital. Are you ready to tell me where you were during those missing minutes?”
“Yes, all right. This is the truth, I swear it. I went out to get some air—I needed some time alone to think, it hit me that night that I was moving into a house with Deborah, one step away from marriage. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to marry her. I didn’t care if she ever succeeded in her acting career, I only wanted her to be happy. But I started doubting myself because with her role in The Crown Prince it looked like she would hit it big and I had to wonder if she’d still want me, want a family with me. How could I measure up to all those hotshot actors she’d be working with? And how would I deal with her fame?
“I jogged down to the beach and sat on the sand. Tuesday night was beautiful out, calm, nearly a full moon overhead. And it all came clear to me. I decided I wouldn’t worry if she fell out of love with me, I’d have her for a certain time, and that would be enough. If she wanted to keep acting, I’d stop carping at her about it. I’d support her, completely, no more denigrating the industry. I’d do my best to help her, whatever it took. I wanted her, loved her; I wanted her to be my wife.” Tears ran down his cheeks. Arturo said nothing.
Doc swiped his hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I ran back to the hospital. I don’t know exactly how long I was gone, but it wasn’t even an hour.
“Listen, Detective, I actually forgot about leaving the hospital when you first asked me, and then I realized Deborah was being killed the same time I was gone. I got frightened. I knew you suspected me of killing her, and so I kept quiet. I didn’t think anyone had noticed.
“Then early the next morning one of the nurses woke me. I’d fallen asleep at the nurses’ station, after all. She told me I had to get moving, it was a big day for me and Deborah. I was happy and I left and went home and found her.” He simply stopped talking, stared blindly past Arturo, at her, Cam thought, as if he knew she was behind the two-way mirror, watching him, listening to him, weighing his every word.
“That’s quite a story, Doctor. In my experience, innocent people don’t generally lie to the police to avoid arousing suspicion. Let me tell you another story, one a jury is more likely to believe.” Arturo sat forward, clasped his hands in front of him. “You and Deborah had a huge fight, maybe about that role she was playing in The Crown Prince, maybe about what she’d done in Italy for those two weeks she’d been gone filming, who’d she seen, gone out with, maybe slept with. Or maybe you fought about the producer, Theo Markham, the big shot you’d met at that party six months ago. How you despised him, thought he was a lecher, and here he’d hired Deborah to play this role. She’d be with him countless hours, here, in Italy, out of your sight.”
“No! None of that’s true, none of it!”
“Did you know, Doctor, that Theo Markham, the producer of The Crown Prince, Deborah’s producer, was sleeping with Connie Morrissey? Did you know he was about to give the role in The Crown Prince to her before she was murdered? And then Deborah got offered the role. Surely you had to wonder if she’d betrayed you, if she’d slept with that corrupt debaucher to get the role?
“Or did Deborah break, finally see you as everyone else did—always belittling her, making her career seem unimportant, even immoral, always trying to get her to quit. How long would anyone take that kind of abuse?”
Doc rose straight out of his chair. “No, no! Look, I did have my doubts, yes, but Deborah loved me, she always loved me!”
“Do you know Markham is convinced you murdered Deborah? That he’s even hired a private investigator to prove it? This man has a serious hate-on for you. Why? What is he to you, and what are you to him?”
Doc looked puzzled. Arturo would swear it wasn’t an act. “Markham? I only met the man that one time. He’s nothing at all to me.”
“Then why is he convinced you murdered Deborah?”
Doc shook his head. “I don’t know, but that’s why you came after me, isn’t it? Because of what this Markham says?”
“Do you know Deborah’s neighbor Mrs. Buffet?”
“What? Mrs. Buffet? The whole neighborhood knows her. She’s always watching everyone from her window. Why?”
“She saw the murderer leave Deborah’s house, after midnight. Tall and thin, wearing a ball cap, which, she said, he pulled off to rub blood off his bald head.”
Doc shuddered, touched his hair. “I’m not bald.”
“No, so you wore a cap over your hair to protect you from the blood splatter. And you’d know to protect yourself, Dr. Richards. After all, you’re a surgeon, you’re used to blood, right?”
Doc shook his head slowly, back and forth, licking his cracked lips. “Why are you saying these things to me? This is all crazy.”
Arturo, his voice soft now, leaned forward again. “She’d already cut you loose, hadn’t she? Or was about to. You knew it and it burned you, destroyed everything you felt for her. She’d made you feel worthless, like less than nothing, but you held it together. You went to work as usual, but what she’d done festered. You’d given her two years of your life, supported her even though you hated what she was doing. So what if you wanted more for her, you were only being honest, right? That gave her no right to kick you aside. It gnawed at you, deep down, and then you remembered the serial killer who’d just killed again in Las Vegas and how you’d worried about him attacking Deborah. And then it came to you—what better cover was there? You knew he cut their throats. You could do that easily.
“I know you didn’t take your car. There are cameras in the parking lot. Your car stayed put, which means you ran back to Deborah’s house, not a problem for you. You’re an athlete, a surfer, you can ru
n. You gathered everything you needed, waited for your chance to tell everyone you were taking a nap in the on-call room, but you ran home, instead, and broke in like a burglar would, like the serial killer did. Deborah was asleep, as you expected her to be. She must have looked beautiful lying there, but I guess it didn’t matter anymore, you hated the faithless bitch’s guts.”
Arturo leaned close, his voice dropped to a near whisper. “Tell me, Doctor, how did it feel when you sliced open her throat?”
Doc was shuddering like a palsied man, sobbing, shaking his head back and forth.
“Before you closed her eyes, did you see her confusion, her horror, her terror?”
Doc was no longer shuddering, no longer sobbing. He sat silent, frozen, tears pooling in his eyes, and yet again he started shaking his head. “Why are you saying these things to me? I did nothing to her—I loved her; she loved me. I did close her eyes, I told that agent I did, I couldn’t bear looking into her eyes and knowing I’d failed her, I wasn’t there to protect her. I did not kill her. If you don’t believe me, I don’t know what else I can say or do.”
“I know what you can do. You can take a lie detector test.”
The pain left Doc’s eyes, replaced by—what? Fear? Doc said, “I didn’t think you were using lie detectors anymore, not accurate enough.”
“Maybe not for court, but accurate enough for us. You’re in our crosshairs now, Doctor, our prime suspect. You could save yourself and us all a lot of trouble if you take it and pass.”
Doc said, “Yes, all right, I will. I did not murder Deborah and I’ll prove to you I’m not lying.”
“Good choice, Doctor. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You want a cup of coffee?”
56
* * *
Cam shook Arturo’s hand. “Good job getting him to go for the polygraph. I thought he’d be too smart for that.”
Arturo gave her a twisted smile. “It’s possible he might beat it. He’s a doctor, knows how it works, knows the physiology. But if he’s hiding something that might not be enough.”