Nothing Lasts Forever

It was Honey who arrived at the apartment first and stumbled across Kat's mutilated body, lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the bathroom, obscenely sprawled against the cold white tiles. A bloodstained curette lay beside her. She had hemorrhaged from her womb.

Honey stood there in shock. "Oh, my God!" Her voice was a strangled whisper. She knelt beside the body and placed a trembling finger against the carotid artery. There was no pulse. Honey hurried back into the living room, picked up the telephone, and dialed 911.

A male voice said, "Nine-one-one Emergency." Honey stood there paralyzed, unable to speak. "Nine-one-one Emergency ... Hello ... ?" "H ... help! I ... There's ..." She was choking over her words. "Sh ... she's dead." "Who is dead, miss?"

"Kat."

"Your cat is dead?"

"No!" Honey screamed. "Kat's dead. Get someone over here right away."

"Lady ..."

Honey slammed down the receiver. With shaking fingers, she dialed the hospital. "Dr. T ... Taylor." Her voice was an agonized whisper.

"One moment, please."

Honey gripped the telephone and waited two minutes before she heard Paige's voice. "Dr. Taylor."

"Paige! You ... you've got to come home right away!"

"Honey? What's happened?"

"Kat's ... dead."

"What?" Paige's voice was filled with disbelief. "How?"

"It ... it looks like she tried to abort herself."

"Oh, my God! All right. I'll be there as soon as I can."

By the time Paige arrived at the apartment, there were two policemen, a detective, and a medical examiner there. Honey was in her bedroom, heavily sedated. The medical examiner was leaning over Kat's naked body. A detective looked up as Paige entered the bloody bathroom.

"Who are you?"

Paige was staring at the lifeless body. Her face was pale. "I'm Dr. Taylor. I live here."

"Maybe you can help me. I'm Inspector Burns. I was trying to talk to the other lady who lives here. She's hysterical. The doctor gave her a sedative."

"What ... what do you want to know?"

"She lived here?"

"Yes."

I'm going to have Ken's baby. How good can it get!

"It looks like she tried to get rid of the kid, and messed it up," the detective said.

Paige stood there, her mind spinning. When she spoke, she said, "I don't believe it."

Inspector Burns studied her a moment. "Why don't you believe it, doctor?"

"She wanted that baby." She was beginning to think clearly again. "The father didn't want it."

"The father?"

"Dr. Ken Mallory. He works at Embarcadero County Hospital. He didn't want to marry her. Look, Kat is -  was - it was so painful to say was -  a doctor. If she had wanted to have an abortion, there's no way she would try to do it herself in a bathroom." Paige shook her head. "There's something wrong."

The medical examiner rose from beside the body. "Maybe she tried it herself because she didn't want anyone else to know about the baby."

"That's not true. She told us about it."

Inspector Burns was watching Paige. "Was she alone here this evening?"

"No. She had a date with Dr. Mallory."

Ken Mallory was in bed, carefully going over the events of the evening. He replayed every step of the way, making sure there were no loose ends. Perfect, he decided. He lay in bed, wondering why it was taking doorbell rang. Mallory let it ring three times, then got up, put on a robe over his pajamas, and went into the living room.

He stood in front of the door. "Who's there?" He sounded sleepy.

A voice said, "Dr. Mallory?"

"Yes."

"Inspector Burns. San Francisco Police Department."

"Police Department?" There was just the right note of surprise in his voice. Mallory opened the door.

The man standing in the hall showed his badge. "May I come in?"

"Yes. What's this all about?"

"Do you know a Dr. Hunter?"

"Of course I do." A look of alarm crossed his face. "Has something happened to Kat?"

"Were you with her earlier this evening?"

"Yes. My God! Tell me what's happened! Is she all right?"

"I'm afraid I have some bad news. Dr. Hunter is dead."

"Dead? I can't believe it. How?"

"Apparently she tried to perform an abortion on herself and it went wrong."

"Oh, my God!" Mallory said. He sank into a chair. "It's my fault."

The inspector was watching him closely. "Your fault?"

"Yes. I ... Dr. Hunter and I were going to be married. I told her I didn't think it was a good idea for her to have a baby now. I wanted to wait, and she agreed. I suggested she go to the hospital and have them take care of it, but she must have decided to ... I ... I can't believe it."

"What time did you leave Dr. Hunter?" "It must have been about ten o'clock. I dropped her off at her apartment and left."

"You didn't go into the apartment?" "No."

"Did Dr. Hunter talk about what she planned to do?" "You mean about the ... ? No. Not a word." Inspector Burns pulled out a card. "If you think of anything else that might be helpful, doctor, I'd appreciate it if you gave me a call."

"Certainly. I ... you have no idea what a shock this is."

Paige and Honey stayed up all night, talking about what had happened to Kat, going over it and over it, in shocked disbelief.

At nine o'clock, Inspector Burns came by.

"Good morning. I wanted to tell you that I spoke to Dr. Mallory last night."

"And?"

"He said they went out to dinner, and then he dropped her off and went home."

"He's lying," Paige said. She was thinking. "Wait! Did they find any traces of semen in Kat's body?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Well, then," Paige said excitedly, "that proves he's lying. He did take her to bed and - "

"I went to talk to him about that this morning. He says they had sex before they went out to dinner."

"Oh." She would not give up. "His fingerprints will be on the curette he used to kill her." Her voice was eager. "Did you find fingerprints?"

"Yes, doctor," he said patiently. "They were hers."

"That's imp - Wait! Then he wore gloves, and when he was finished, he put her prints on the curette. How does that sound?"

"Like someone's been watching too many Murder, She Wrote television programs."

"You don't believe Kat was murdered, do you?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Have they done an autopsy?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"The medical examiner is listing it as an accidental death. Dr. Mallory told me she decided not to have the baby, so apparently she - "

"Went into the bathroom and butchered herself?" Paige interrupted. "For God's sake, inspector! She was a doctor, a surgeon! There's no way in the world she would have done that to herself."

Inspector Burns said thoughtfully, "You think Mallory persuaded her to have an abortion, and tried to help her, and then left when it went wrong?"

Paige shook her head. "No. It couldn't have happened that way. Kat would never have agreed. He deliberately murdered her." She was thinking out loud. "Kat was strong. She would have had to be unconscious for him to ... to do what he did."

"The autopsy showed no signs of any blows or anything that would have caused her to become unconscious. No bruises on her throat ..."

"Were there any traces of sleeping pills or ... ?"

"Nothing." He saw the expression on Paige's face. "This doesn't look to me like a murder. I think Dr. Hunter made an error in judgment, and ... I'm sorry."

She watched him start toward the door. "Wait!" Paige said. "You have a motive."

He turned. "Not really. Mallory says she agreed to have the abortion. That doesn't leave us much, does it?"

"It leaves you with a murder," Paige said stubbornly.

"Doctor, what we don't have is any evidence. It's his word against the victim's, and she's dead. I'm really sorry."

Paige watched him leave.

I'm not going to let Ken Mallory get away with it, she thought despairingly.

Jason came by to see Paige. "I heard what happened," he said. "I can't believe it! How could she have done that to herself?"

"She didn't," Paige said. "She was murdered." She told Jason about her conversation with Inspector Burns. "The police aren't going to do anything about it. They think it was an accident. Jason, it's my fault that Kat is dead."

"Your fault?"

"I'm the one who persuaded her to go out with Mallory in the first place. She didn't want to. It started out as a silly joke, and then she ... she fell in love with him. Oh, Jason!"

"You can't blame yourself for that," he said firmly.

Paige looked around in despair. "I can't live in this apartment anymore. I have to get out of here."

Jason took her in his arms. "Let's get married right away."

"It's too soon. I mean, Kat isn't even ..."

"I know. We'll wait a week or two."

"All right."

"I love you, Paige."

"I love you, too, darling. Isn't it stupid? I feel guilty because Kat and I both fell in love, and she's dead and I'm alive."

The photograph appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. It showed a smiling Ken Mallory with his arm around Lauren Harrison. The caption read: "Heiress to Wed Doctor."

Paige stared at it in disbelief. Kat had been dead for only two days, and Ken Mallory was announcing his engagement to another woman! All the time he had been promising to marry Kat, he had been planning to marry someone else.

That's why he killed Kat. To get her out of the way!

Paige picked up the telephone and dialed police headquarters.

"Inspector Burns, please."

A moment later, she was talking to the inspector.

"This is Dr. Taylor."

"Yes, doctor."

"Have you seen the photograph in this morning's Chronicle?"

"Yes."

"Well, there's your motive!" Paige exclaimed. "Ken Mallory had to shut Kat up before Lauren Harrison found out about her. You've got to arrest Mallory." She was almost yelling into the telephone.

"Wait a minute. Calm down, doctor. We may have a motive, but I told you, we don't have a shred of evidence. You said yourself that Dr. Hunter would have had to be unconscious before Mallory could perform an abortion on her. After I spoke to you, I talked to our forensic pathologist again. There was no sign of any kind of blow that could have caused unconsciousness."

"Then he must have given her a sedative," Paige said stubbornly. "Probably chloral hydrate. It's fast-acting and - "

Inspector Burns said patiently, "Doctor, there was no trace of chloral hydrate in her body. I'm sorry - I really am - but we can't arrest a man because he's going to get married. Was there anything else?"

Everything else. "No," Paige said. She slammed down the receiver and sat there thinking. Mallory has to have given Kat some kind of drug. The easiest place for him to have gotten it would be the hospital pharmacy.

Fifteen minutes later, Paige was on her way to Embarcadero County Hospital.

Pete Samuels, the chief pharmacist, was behind the counter. "Good morning, Dr. Taylor. How can I help you?"

"I believe Dr. Mallory came by a few days ago and picked up some medication. He told me the name of it, but I can't remember what it was."

Samuels frowned. "I don't remember Dr. Mallory coming by here for at least a month."

"Are you sure?"

Samuels nodded. "Positive. I would have remembered. We always talk football."

Paige's heart sank. "Thank you."

He must have written a prescription at some other pharmacy. Paige knew that the law required that all prescriptions for narcotics be made out in triplicate -  one copy for the patient, one to be sent to the Bureau of Controlled Substances, and the third for the pharmacy's files.

Somewhere, Paige thought, Ken Mallory had a prescription filled. There are probably two or three hundred pharmacies in San Francisco. There was no way she could track down the prescription. It was likely that Mallory had gotten it just before he murdered Kat. That would have been on Saturday or Sunday. If it was Sunday, I might have a chance, Paige thought. Very few pharmacies are open on Sunday. That narrows it down.

She went upstairs to the office where the assignment sheets were kept and looked up the roster for Saturday. Dr. Ken Mallory had been on call all day, so the chances were that he had had the prescription filled on Sunday. How many pharmacies were open on Sunday in San Francisco?

Paige picked up the telephone and called the state pharmaceutical board.

"This is Dr. Taylor," Paige said. "Last Sunday, a friend of mine left a prescription at a pharmacy. She asked me to pick it up for her, but I can't remember the name of the pharmacy. I wonder if you could help me."

"Well, I don't see how, doctor. If you don't know ..."

"Most drugstores are closed on Sunday, aren't they?"

"Yes, but ..."

"I'd appreciate it if you could give me a list of those that were open."

There was a pause. "Well, if it's important ..."

"It's very important," Paige assured her.

"Hold on, please."

There were thirty-six stores on the list, spread all over the city. It would have been simple if she could have gone to the police for help, but Inspector Burns did not believe her. Honey and I are going to have to do this ourselves, Paige thought. She explained to Honey what she had in mind.

"It's a real long shot, isn't it?" Honey said. "You don't even know if he filled the prescription on Sunday."

"It's the only shot we have." That Kat has. "I'll check out the ones in Richmond, the Marina, North Beach, Upper Market, Mission, and Potrero, and you check out the Excelsior, Ingleside, Lake Merced, Western Addition, and Sunset areas."

"All right."

At the first pharmacy Paige went into, she showed her identification and said, "A colleague of mine, Dr. Ken Mallory, was in here Sunday for a prescription. He's out of town, and he asked me to get a refill, but I can't remember the name of it. Would you mind looking it up, please?"

"Dr. Ken Mallory? Just a moment." He came back a few minutes later. "Sorry, we didn't fill any prescriptions Sunday for a Dr. Mallory."

"Thank you."

Paige got the same response at the next four pharmacies.

Honey was having no better luck.

"We have thousands of prescriptions here, you know."

"I know, but this was last Sunday."

"Well, we have no prescriptions here from a Dr. Mallory. Sorry."

The two of them spent the day going from pharmacy to pharmacy. They were both getting discouraged. It was not until late afternoon, just before closing time, that Paige found what she was looking for in a small pharmacy in the Potrero district. The pharmacist said, "Oh, yes, here we are. Dr. Ken Mallory. I remember him. He was on his way to make a house call on a patient. I was impressed, because not many doctors do that these days."

No resident ever made house calls. "What's the prescription for?"

Paige found she was holding her breath.

"Chloral hydrate."

Paige was almost trembling with excitement. "You're sure?"

"It says so right here."

"What was the patient's name?"

He looked at the copy of the prescription. "Spyros Levathes."

"Would you mind giving me a copy of that prescription?" Paige asked.

"Not at all, doctor."

One hour later, Paige was in Inspector Burns's office. She laid the prescription on his desk.

"Here's your proof," Paige said. "On Sunday, Dr. Mallory went to a pharmacy miles away from where he lives, and had this prescription for chloral hydrate filled. He put the chloral hydrate in Kat's drink, and when she was unconscious, he butchered her to make it look like an accident."

"You're saying he put the chloral hydrate in her drink and then killed her."

"Yes."

"There's only one problem with that, Dr. Taylor. There was no chloral hydrate in her body."

"There has to be. Your pathologist made a mistake. Ask him to check again."

He was losing his patience. "Doctor ..."

"Please! I know I'm right."

" You 're wasting everybody' s time."

Paige sat across from him, her eyes fixed on his face.

He sighed. "All right. I'll call him again. Maybe he did make a mistake."

Jason picked Paige up for dinner. "We're having dinner at my house," he said. "There's something I want you to see."

During the drive there, Paige brought Jason up to date on what was happening.

"They'll find the chloral hydrate in her body," Paige said. "And Ken Mallory will get what's coming to him."

"I'm so sorry about all this, Paige."

"I know." She pressed his hand against her cheek. "Thank God for you."

The car pulled up in front of Jason's home.

Paige looked out of the window and she gasped. Around the green lawn in front of the house was a new white picket fence.

She was alone in the dark apartment. Ken Mallory used the key that Kat had given him and moved quietly toward the bedroom. Paige heard his footsteps coming toward her, but before she could move, he had leaped at her, his hands tight around her throat.

"You bitch! You're trying to destroy me. Well, you aren't going to snoop around anymore." He began squeezing harder. "I outsmarted all of you, didn't I?" His fingers squeezed tighter. "No one can ever prove I killed Kat."

She tried to scream, but it was impossible to breathe. She struggled free, and was suddenly awake. She was alone in her room. Paige sat up in bed, trembling.

She stayed awake the rest of the night, waiting for Inspector Burns's phone call.

It came at 10:00 A.M.

"Dr. Taylor?"

"Yes." She was holding her breath.

"I just got the third report from the forensic pathologist."

"And?" Her heart was pounding.

"There was no trace of chloral hydrate or any other sedative in Dr. Hunter's body. None."

That was impossible! There had to be. There was no sign of any blow or anything that would have caused her to become unconscious. No bruises on her throat. It didn't make sense. Kat had to have been unconscious when Mallory killed her. The forensic pathologist was wrong.

Paige decided to go talk to him herself.

Dr. Dolan was in an irritable mood. "I don't like to be questioned like this," he said. "I've checked it three times. I told Inspector Burns that there was no trace of chloral hydrate in any of her organs, and there wasn't."

"But ..."

"Is there anything else, doctor?"

Paige looked at him helplessly. Her last hope was gone. Ken Mallory was going to get away with murder. "I ...I guess not. If you didn't find any chemicals in her body, then I don't ..."

"I didn't say I didn't find any chemicals."

She looked at him a moment. "You found something?"

"Just a trace of trichloroethylene."

She frowned. "What would that do?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. It's an analgesic drug. It wouldn't put anyone to sleep."

"I see."

"Sorry I can't help you."

Paige nodded. "Thank you."

She walked down the long, antiseptic corridor of the morgue, depressed, feeling that she was missing something. She had been so sure Kat had been put to sleep with chloral hydrate.

All he found was a trace of trichloroethylene. It wouldn't put anyone to sleep. But why would trichloroethylene be in Kat's body? Kat had not been taking any medications. Paige stopped in the middle of the corridor, her mind working furiously.

When Paige arrived at the hospital, she went directly to the medical library on the fifth floor. It took her less than a minute to find trichloroethylene. The description read: A colorless, clear, volatile liquid with a specific gravity of 1.47 at 59 degrees F. It is a halogenated hydrocarbon, having the chemical formula CCl CCL:CHCl.

And there, on the last line, she found what she was looking for. When chloral hydrate is metabolized, it produces trichloroethylene as a by-product.