The Medical Examiner (Women's Murder Club 16.50)

No doubt she was working on a story headlined “Dead Woman Walking.”

Chapter 18

Rich Conklin was at his desk in the squad room. He was doing a background check on the deceased, since he now had his name.

Samuel J. Alton had a negligible record. Twenty years before, when he was seventeen, he had been busted for selling pot at a beach party in LA. He’d pled guilty to the misdemeanor, got six months’ probation, and paid a fine. It seemed he’d learned his lesson, though, because after that he hadn’t gotten so much as a parking ticket.

But Sam Alton wasn’t exactly a model citizen, because once a month he came to town, stayed at the Warwick, and apparently spent time with a very wealthy woman who had a home in an exclusive part of town. That woman always booked a room for the two of them. She also happened to have a husband. And he’d had a wife and kids.

Had last weekend’s tryst gotten Sam Alton killed?

If so, by whom? How did the killer gain access to the room?

And if his death wasn’t caused by a scorned spouse, what was the motive for the shooting?

Conklin opened a file of photos. Dr. H. had taken some at the scene, while Claire had taken the others. In Claire’s pictures of the victim, he was resting on a metal table in her lab. She’d also included close-ups of the labels. Seeing Claire’s careful, meticulous work made Conklin smile. She was very good at her job.

There was a second zip file containing photographs of Sam Alton’s clothing that had been stowed away at the hotel.

The attached note from Dr. H. read:

See Joan Murphy’s clothes as they were found in the room. No GSR on them. Same deal with John Doe’s apparel. The clothing was neatly folded on a chair, jacket hung in the closet. Also no GSR. The lab has it all now and is processing for trace. We’ll get who did this.

Rich stared at the pictures for a while. What the neatly hung and folded clothing told him was that these two people knew each other well. He saw no violence, but he didn’t see any uncontrollable passion, either. It felt to him as though Joan and Samuel had been a couple for a while. He thought about the way Joan had stared at Alton’s dead body.

What had she said? “I’ve never seen this man before.”

And she had seemed indignant.

Her voice had been hard. Cold. Had it been full of guilty knowledge? Had she set Alton up to be killed? Or had she suffered brain damage that had resulted in memory loss while she was in that cataleptic state? Did she truly not remember her lover?

Conklin’s cell phone vibrated. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Robert Murphy.

Rich answered the phone by simply saying his name, and Joan’s husband replied, “This is Robert Murphy. Have you heard from Joan?”

“Not today. Why do you ask?”

“She’s missing, Inspector. She slept in her bed last night, but both she and her car are gone now.”

“Can you please give me the plate number?”

Murphy recited the numbers.

Conklin asked, “Is there a tracking device on her phone?”

“You’ve got me there. I don’t have the slightest idea. Inspector, I’m worried about her. Especially in light of recent events.”

Rich said, “I’ll put out a lookout on her car and will let you know if I hear anything. If you hear from her in the meantime, please call me.”

“I will.”

Conklin hung up and then played the conversation back in his mind. Had Murphy been straight with him or was he acting? It seemed strange that he would be worried that Joan was missing for a few hours, even though he hadn’t been ruffled when she’d been missing for almost twenty-four hours.

The alarm bells were going off in Conklin’s head. Something just didn’t add up.

What had happened to Joan?

Had she collapsed somewhere and gone into another cataleptic state? Had her husband killed her? Or perhaps she’d just gone somewhere to grieve for her dead lover because the memories from the shooting came back.