Rite of Wrongs Page 5

  No talk of vacation Bible school in the summer, or prayers at bedtime. No plans for Christmas Eve services or a front-yard manger scene or an angel on top of the tree.

  Nothing about being blessed.

  Huh.

  Sure, she was only giving the hundreds of entries a hasty look-see, but there wasn’t so much as a hint of spirituality being important to the Gardners’ lives.

  There was a connection here—she was sure of it—between what the suspect believed Christianity demanded, and what the victim did not.

  Setting down her fork and pen, Miriam dug for her phone in her bag and typed out an e-mail to Karen Sosa, asking if she’d noticed a cross in Gina Gardner’s jewelry box or a Bible anywhere in the house. The absence of either wouldn’t necessarily mean anything; the only Bible she herself owned was a freebie she’d loaded to her Kindle after seeing the verse from Exodus painted on the Gardners’ entryway wall.

  But the suspect had added chapter and verse to a Scripture even atheists would recognize as being one of the ten Christian commandments. That meant something. And it was Miriam’s job to look at anything that could link the victim to her killer.

  Violence had a long-standing association with religious beliefs. While in school, she’d read statistics on reverse relationships between spiritual fervency and societal health. Granted, that had been years ago, but anyone today could look at the news and see everything from picketing to beheading committed in the name of a higher power.

  But this murder felt a lot more personal than that. Wrong place. Wrong time. Random. None of the buzzwords she and Ballard had tossed around fit. The killer had taken Gina Gardner’s life next to a wall hung with pictures of her family. The frames of those pictures had been broken, the glass crushed, the Scripture painted in their place.

  In her blood.

  Had she been alive to see her family desecrated? Had he mocked her parenting as he’d dishonored their lives? Had he lectured her on her weaknesses? Preached about her failings?

  Or, Miriam mused, forking up another bite of lasagna, had he said nothing as he’d destroyed the likenesses of those she’d loved, the three lives she and her husband had created, the family the five had made, forcing her to witness the massacre before ending her?

  The picture those thoughts created . . . Miriam blew out a heavy breath as she shoved the diary back into the folder. Then she covered the lasagna and put it in the fridge. She was done. No more. Not tonight.

  Tomorrow would be soon enough to get back to filling her head with humanity’s worst. Until then, all she wanted to do was dream of her favorite barista’s beautiful smile.

  NINE

  Tuesday, 8:00 a.m.

  Miriam met Ike Ballard at Chestnut Grove Pediatrics at eight the next morning. By the time they’d finished with the Gardner clan the night before, the clinic was closed. It didn’t open to patients until nine, though staff arrived earlier.

  The office took up half the first floor of an L-shaped building not far from Henry Cross Elementary and the Copper Acres subdivision where the Gardner family lived. Miriam imagined the doctors treated a huge number of the kids who went to school with Eloise, Imogene, and Theodore.

  Starting with Jeff Gardner’s practice was a way to scratch an itch that had been bugging Miriam since she’d talked to the man. His employees would’ve been interviewed eventually as part of the investigation, but Miriam had decided last night to visit the office first thing.

  It was probably nothing, her sense that something was sketchy with the pediatrician, but that sense had seen her through fourteen years’ worth of tough spots.

  Granted, she struck out more often than she hit a home run, but such was the life of criminal investigation. And when she thought about it that way . . . chalk up one more reason it might’ve been a good idea to have skipped the academy, used her psychology degree as intended, and gone into counseling.

  Big bucks. Better hours. Being her own boss.

  And no goddamn blood.

  “You’re looking kinda green, Rome. Too much Starbucks sauce?”

  She glanced at Ballard as he circled the front of his unmarked SUV, a white GMC Yukon hand-me-down from patrol, identical to hers save for the red-and-blue lights embedded in her grille. She shook her head. “Birthday party for my niece. My dad made his famous lasagna. And I OD’d on cake. What’re we thinking today?”

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning.” Ballard yawned, covering his mouth with his fist, then stretching. “I haven’t started thinking anything yet.”

  “Well, it’s time,” she said, jerking at the clinic’s front door and finding it locked.

  Ballard cupped his hands like goggles to peer inside. “Think they closed up shop today? Out of respect?”

  Since the lights were on . . . “Let’s find out.”

  She knocked, and continued to knock until an older woman with a wedge of gray hair and wearing teddy-bear scrubs rushed from the inner office into the lobby to scold her. When Miriam held up her badge to the glass, the woman’s mouth formed a big O.

  Fumbling with the overhead catch, she hurried to let them in. “I’m sorry. All that hammering, I expected to find an impatient parent,” she said, securing the entrance once they were inside. “Some people don’t understand the meaning of an appointment. Or office hours.”

  Ignoring the crack rather than taking it personally, Miriam looked around. The room smelled like clean babies, which she took as a very good sign, and was carpeted with the indestructible indoor-outdoor stuff that came patterned in tracks for race cars, fences for farm animals, and oceans for pirate ships and submarines.

  Milk crates of toy cars and trains sat against the walls. Others held plastic dolls. Tables were littered with copies of The Cat in the Hat and Highlights and The Poky Little Puppy, along with parenting magazines. The two TVs mounted high on the walls weren’t visible from outside. One played Sesame Street, the other Maya & Miguel. Both were close-captioned.

  Miriam thought of the playroom in her parents’ home, her nieces and nephews romping, her mother never complaining. She cleared her throat and turned to the woman. “I apologize for the hammering. I’m Detective Miriam Rome. This is Detective Ike Ballard. And you are?”

  “Helen Hudson. I’m Dr. Nguyen’s head nurse, but I also manage the office.” She worried her hands together, her fingers free of rings, her nails free of polish. She stood about five feet four. Miriam put her age at sixty. “You must be here about Dr. Gardner’s wife. Such a tragedy. The sweetest, most generous woman.”

  “We’d like to talk to the staff before you start seeing patients,” Ballard said, his voice calming, his smile hiding the fact that he could be a real ass. “Do you have an office or break room we can use?”

  She nodded. “Is anything wrong? I mean, other than the, uh . . .”

  “No, ma’am,” he assured her. “Just routine questions.”

  “Okay, then. This way,” she said, and led them inside.

  Two women, their scrubs matching Helen’s, sat at the nurses’ station, chatting and laughing until they looked up and caught Miriam’s eye. Or maybe it was the gun on her hip that silenced them. Helen continued on. Miriam gave both women a nod and followed, clicking her pen as she walked.

  “Do you want to start with me?” Helen tossed the question over her shoulder.

  “That would be great,” Ballard said. “And since you manage the office, you should be able to give us the names of everyone who works here, yes?”

  “Of course.” Helen pushed open the break-room door and set about dumping the coffee from the near-empty pot and brewing another. “There’s the three doctors, Gardner, Nguyen, and Cuellar, and two girls at the front who handle payments, insurance claims, and schedule the appointments. Then there are the nurses. Eight on staff, and usually six here every day.”

  As Helen rattled off everyone’s names, Miriam sat in one of the blue-plastic chairs and scribbled them down in columns according to their jobs, listening while B
allard asked the nonthreatening questions designed to put the older woman at ease.

  How long have you worked here?

  How long have you known Dr. Gardner?

  How often did you see his wife?

  How did the couple seem to get along?

  They were questions Ballard didn’t have to think hard to come up with. They were also questions he knew Miriam would never ask. She wasn’t charming enough to set anyone at ease. Ballard did it well. So did Melvin. Miriam tended to go straight for the jugular.

  Still, she took down all of Helen’s answers before butting in.

  “Who else is in and out regularly? Besides the patients and their parents?” When Helen frowned, Miriam added, “I assume you use a janitorial service and have drug-sales reps drop by. Maybe lab couriers.”

  Nodding briskly, Helen reached for a ceramic coffee mug. It was white with the orange logo of a children’s pain reliever. “All of those, yes. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Miriam said, but Ballard smiled and took the one Helen had poured. “Does Dr. Gardner know any of them personally? Did he ever have a tiff with a vendor or a messenger?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “And no falling out with any of the employees here?”

  “No. Never. Of course not.” She added the last vehemently.

  “What about with parents?” Miriam watched Helen stiffen, her gaze moving back to Ike. “Maybe over a child’s treatment plan or fees for services?”

  “He wouldn’t necessarily share that information,” Helen said, reaching for another mug. “But I’m not aware of anything.”

  Miriam gave the older woman a chance to fix her own cup of coffee, then pressed on. “Do you know if he has any patients whose parents are clergy? Or in the ministry? Anyone who might have taken issue with his religious beliefs?” She jotted herself a note to look into what those actually were since the diary had yielded zip on that front. “Or been vocal about their own?”

  “What a strange thing to ask.” Helen looked from Miriam down into her cup. “But no. No one comes to mind.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Hudson,” Ballard said, moving to stand behind Miriam’s chair.

  “Helen, please.”

  “Thank you, Helen. Could you ask”—he glanced over Miriam’s shoulder at her notes—“Kyra to come in.”

  After Kyra, a first-year nurse who was unable to add anything to what Helen had told them, Miriam and Ballard talked to the practice’s two other doctors. Both had tight schedules so a joint conversation was better for them, though Miriam would’ve preferred separate interviews.

  Paul Nguyen, who had studied at Tulane, reminded Miriam physically of her sixteen-year-old nephew, Blake. He was only an inch or two taller than she was, lean and wiry, and did not look his age, which in his case, turned out to be the same as Jeff Gardner’s forty-five.

  CeeCee Cuellar was a smartly put-together woman a year younger than Miriam. She was the most recent addition to the practice, and the most tight-lipped of the two physicians, going above and beyond to protect patient privacy when asked about the issue of religion.

  Miriam mentally called bullshit before taking another tack. “What about the clinic’s finances? Is the group having money trouble?”

  “Not at all,” Dr. Nguyen answered. “In fact, we’ve been discussing bringing on a fourth doctor. The oil industry, the Houston economy . . . it’s been very, very good to us here in Union Park. We’ve added half-day hours on Saturday to try and accommodate the demand.”

  “Try being the operative word,” Dr. Cuellar interjected, her arms crossed over her lab coat, her dark eyes narrowed. “Everyone on staff is definitely overworked.”

  “Just fortunately not underpaid,” Nguyen concluded with a laugh.

  Meaning the Gardners’ finances shouldn’t throw up any red flags when Miriam dug into them later.

  And so it went for the next hour. Everyone who worked with or for Dr. Jeff Gardner thought the man’s wife was an angel and the man himself a saint. His daughters could’ve been Disney princesses, his son an Einstein in the making.

  The staff thought just as highly of Drs. Nguyen and Cuellar. No one had any plans to leave for other employment. Neither did anyone believe Gina Gardner’s fate was more than a tragic case of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Of course, no one but the responding officers, the crime-scene techs, and the CID knew about the bloody Bible verse.

  Miriam looked at the list of names she’d jotted down, having put a checkmark next to those of the staff members they’d talked to. She had two still unmarked, and circled both.

  “Is that everyone?” she asked Helen, who’d returned to escort them out the rear entrance. The lobby was now bustling with children, and Helen thought it best the little ones not be frightened by the badges and guns.

  “Everyone who’s here, yes,” she said as they followed her to the back of the building. She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Allyson and Sameen are off today. They’ll be here tomorrow. I can have Qiesha call and give you their numbers.”

  “That would be great.” Miriam dug into one of her notebook’s pockets and handed Helen three of her business cards. “Here’s a card for both of them. And here’s one more for the office, in case anyone needs to get in touch for any reason. Thank you again for your time.”

  “You’re most welcome,” she said, lining up the cards with the fingers of both hands as one would a deck. “If I can be of any more help—”

  “I do have one last question,” Miriam said, wishing she hadn’t left her sunglasses in her SUV. “Dr. Gardner discovered his wife’s body when he went home at lunch. Did he have appointments all morning yesterday?”

  Helen swallowed hard and frowned as if she didn’t like the taste of Miriam’s query. “I’m fairly certain he did. But I work primarily with Dr. Nguyen and don’t always see Drs. Gardner and Cuellar come and go.”

  And there was the chink she’d been looking for. “Could you check on that for me? I’ll give you a call later today and see what you’ve found out.”

  “Certainly,” the older woman said, then added, “I hope you find who did this soon.”

  “Oh, we will,” Ballard assured her, walking away with a wave. Once around the building’s front, he stepped off the sidewalk and into the parking lot.

  “Hey, Ballard.” Miriam clicked her key fob to unlock her door, her mind on her notes and their complete lack of anything useful. Tossing her notebook into the passenger seat on top of her crossbody, she looked up to find Ballard still waiting.

  “What?”

  “When we were in the Gardner house yesterday, did you notice a Bible anywhere? Or a Scripture embroidered on a pillow? Maybe praying hands above any of the kids’ beds?”

  Ballard thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Can’t say that I did. Though the ID tag on Bongo’s collar was a Saint Francis medal.”

  The patron saint of animals. “Huh. Really.”

  “Yep. And considering he made it out alive, I guess it worked.”

  TEN

  Wednesday, 9:00 a.m.

  Miriam arrived at the county’s forensic-services department only minutes before Ballard. Fiona Wick, one of the two forensic pathologists in the office that served four adjoining counties, was ready and waiting. She’d already switched out her lab coat for protective clothing and had Gina Gardner’s body on the slab.

  On a supply shelf just inside the door sat Fiona’s Louboutin black-patent platforms that Miriam wished she had a reason to wear. She was only three years younger than Fiona, but the other woman was so chic, Miriam always felt like an awkward tween when around her—not because of anything Fiona said or did but because at thirty-eight years old, Miriam wasn’t sure she’d ever have her own ducks in anything resembling a row.

  She might be degreed, and able to follow bread crumbs better than Cumberbatch’s Holmes, but her personal life was a wreck. She was the first to admit it. No r
eason not to; it was the absolute truth. And she really had no business judging her siblings because of it.

  It was also why she worked as many hours out of the day as she could. She needed to keep busy, to stay on the move. To think. To act. Slowing down allowed the bits and pieces of herself she kept on the perimeter of her life to creep into the day-to-day.

  Truths like how she’d ended up thirty-eight with a bad tequila habit and emotionally alone—though that one was easy. The genesis was in her choice to work her way through grad school not as a waitress or barista but answering calls for a suicide-prevention hotline.

  A bad day there had made it easy to justify the drink. A lot of bad days there had made it easy to get out from behind a desk and become a police officer. She was proud of the fact that in the heat of the moment and face-to-face, she’d saved more lives beyond the suicidal.

  The morgue and autopsy suite was in the basement of Union Park’s only hospital—a corner of the basement at that. A far corner, even, which meant a long, long walk from the elevator down the brightly lit and overly sanitized hallway’s squeaky-clean tile floor.

  Clean was good, but it was still a morgue, with dead bodies cracked open, internal organs removed, and secrets and dignity thrown to the wind. Not to mention the blood.

  So much blood.

  Once inside, having made eye contact with Fiona and shared a cursory nod, Miriam took up her usual position as far away from the stainless-steel table as she could get.

  She did her best not to shiver as she leaned against the cold counter near the exit. She didn’t need to see what was going on. She was good with listening to Fiona explain her findings. A technician from the crime lab listened as well, photographing the body and Fiona as she worked.

  But Ballard . . .

  He bellied up to the bar, his hands in his pockets, his goggles and protective clothing in place. Miriam wasn’t sure if he enjoyed watching Fiona or the autopsy more. Metal tools clinked as she finished with one and reached for the next. Miriam didn’t look too closely. She didn’t want to know what they were.