Prayers for the Dead. Faye Kellerman

I want you to check all of them out.”

      “You going home after impound, Loo?”

      “No, I’m going by Myron Berger’s house. Something’s way off with that.”

      “Be careful.”

      “Always am.”

      “See you, Loo.”

      “See you.” Decker rubbed his hands, then his arms, watching Gaynor totter back to his car. The man had two more years before he’d be forced to hang up his shield. Forty-five years of police service: thirty-five of them as a detective third grade, fifteen of those as a Homicide detective in brutal gang territory. And yet the guy was always neat, clean, punctual. As dependable as Big Ben and still had a bounce in his step at twelve-thirty in the morning.

      Way to go, Farrell.

       8

      Something Marge could never understand: why someone would buy a house abutting the foothills. A bad month of rain and, lo and behold, a thousand-pound avalanche of mud occupied space that once was the living room. Yet, Pete’s house sat at the edge of the mountain. So did the home belonging to Dr. Elizabeth Fulton. For her domicile, she had chosen a sprawling one-story ranch thing made out of wood siding. A big piece of property. At least a couple of acres separated her from her nearest neighbor.

      Unlatching the metal gate, Oliver said, “Guess the doctor isn’t a bug on landscaping.”

      Marge nodded. The lot was fenced with chain-link, the lawn a scratch pad of scrub grass. No flowers, no shrubs, no bushes, no plants that hadn’t come from airborne seeds. In the background, behind the house, Marge could see several rows of tall citrus. She could smell them too, blossoms giving off a tart, sweet scent. They walked up to the front entrance. The doctor answered the door before they knocked, her complexion mottled gray and dappled with perspiration.

      No wonder, Marge thought. The doctor was wearing sweats and a sweater. Internal chill. Her face appeared childlike, probably because of her eyes. The size of beach balls, they seemed to take up half her face. Big, brown irises, red-rimmed at the moment. Between the orbs sat a button nose spangled with freckles. Her mouth was wide with lush lips. Woolly henna hair was pulled back into a ponytail. At a quick glance, she looked to be barely twenty. But with smile lines apparent and ripples in her neck, Marge figured her age closer to forty.

      “Dr. Fulton.” Oliver took out his badge and ID. Fulton gave it a cursory glance, then motioned them across the doorway. “Please, come in.”

      The living room had been decorated pseudo-country. Cheerful floral prints covered a traditional sofa and two matching chairs. A wall-sized bay window was topped with a pleated valance and the tiebacks were sewn from the same flowered fabric. The actual window curtains were drawn, made from lace that allowed light to pass through. At one in the morning, the outside view was a screen of still shadows. In the middle of the bay stood a polished pine rocker resting on bleached oak flooring that had been pegged and grooved. The fireplace was going full blast. It was hot, and Marge could feel wet circles under her armpits. The hearth was masoned from bouquet canyon stone, the plaster mantel hosted a half-dozen photographs of a chubby toddler boy.

      “Sit wherever you’d like,” Fulton whispered.

      Oliver chose a chair, Marge took the sofa. The doctor stood next to the fireplace screen and rubbed her hands together. “I shouldn’t be here. I should be there … at the hospital … helping.” She brought her hands to her face and cried into them.

      “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit?” Oliver asked.

      “No.” She wiped her eyes with her fingers, folded her arms across her chest. “What happened?”

      “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Marge said.

      “Was he kidnapped? Carjacked? I mean no one would have hurt him if they had known who he was, right?”

      Oliver took out his notepad. “You sure you don’t want to sit, Doctor?”

      “Positive.” She shook her head. “I mean … why?”

      Oliver said, “If you could help us with the why, you’d be doing everyone a service. When was the last time you saw him, Doctor?”

      “Last night. At our research meeting.”

      “The Curedon meeting,” Oliver clarified.

      “Yes. How did you— You’ve spoken to Dr. Decameron, then.”

      “Yes.” Marge took out her pad. “You have regularly scheduled meetings?”

      “Yes and no. Dr. Sparks sends us a memo when we’re to meet. It works out to about once or twice a week.”

      “You don’t mind that?” Marge asked.

      “Mind what?”

      “That he sends you a memo at his … discretion?”

      Fulton threw Marge an impatient look. “He’s a very busy man. Of course, we work around his schedule.”

      “When was the last time you actually saw him?” Oliver repeated.

      “Oh gosh! He cut our research meeting short. It must have ended around seven-thirty, maybe quarter to eight.”

      “Why did he cut the meeting short?” Marge asked.

      Fulton said, “Well, he really didn’t cut it short, per se. He just summed things up rather quickly after he took the phone call from his son. He gave no reason for hurrying things along.”

      “Did he seem upset after the phone call?”

      “He was upset when he took the call. He was angry at—” She stopped short.

      Oliver said, “Dr. Decameron told us he had an argument with Dr. Sparks.”

      “It wasn’t an argument. Dr. Sparks just became a little irritated shall we say.”

      “Irritated at Decameron.”

      “Yes.”

      “Why?”

      Her eyes grew suspicious. “Dr. Decameron didn’t tell you?”

      “We’d like your opinion,” Marge said.

      She stared at Marge, appeared to be weighing her words. “Dr. Decameron read some of Dr. Sparks’s faxes. The latest Curedon trial results. Of course, Reggie apologized right away. He was just excited about the data. You see, there had been some slowdown of Curedon’s efficacy rate. The newest numbers however were very encouraging.”

      “Yeah, Dr. Decameron told us something about that,” Oliver said. “How you’ve been getting a lot more deaths lately.”

      She bristled. “Not a lot. Just some … Dr. Decameron seems to feel it might be a lab or computer processing error.”

      Oliver said, “Maybe he’s making excuses because he’s anxious to bring Curedon to market.”

      Marge said, “Big boost in his career as an academician, right?”

      “Yes, but—”

      “Maybe he’s even been promised a piece of the profits,” Oliver suggested.

      “No, no, no,” Liz protested. “That’s entirely false. The only one who would gain anything monetarily is … was Azor. You’re way off base.”

      “You’re sure about that,” Marge said.

      “Sure I’m … at least to my knowledge.”

      “Let’s go back to the meeting,” Marge said. “It ended around seven-thirty