“The ironic thing is that Victoria had an IUD, so we never used a condom,” he said. “I have to wonder how well it worked, though, since she got pregnant twice with it. I don’t know if Alex snuck down from Ramona and had sex with her while she and I were dating or if she was with someone else, maybe in Hawaii. I’m not sure I want to know.”

  Seeing an opening to switch topics, Katrina asked, “Were you aware that Congressman Winchester’s reelection campaign committee received $750,000 in direct donations and an additional $5 million from a PAC called Christians For Everlasting Marriage? The donations came from scores of people connected to Vitaleron, including your family and board members.”

  “Uh, no, I wasn’t,” Michael said.

  As Katrina showed him the stack of donations she’d printed out, he added, “I should clarify. I was aware of the contributions, but certainly not the scope. Darren’s our most politically connected board member, and he suggested we all give to Winchester because he’s on the FDA committee. Said it’s standard practice. Darren handled the Christian group donations too. So, as board chairman, he’s the best person to address those questions.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Is Simon or Vitaleron in financial trouble?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but I doubt it. I was only relaying what he said to me over the weekend. I’m only getting into the financials now. All I know is that our drug isn’t considered lifesaving like the AIDS cocktail, which means we aren’t eligible for the expedited FDA approval that Simon and my dad were hoping for. That means a longer testing process and a bigger long-term investment.”

  “Didn’t Darren go to that Hawaii retreat three months ago?” Katrina asked. “I know he’s going through a divorce.”

  “Yes,” Michael said.

  “Is it possible the baby could be his?”

  Michael’s face turned pale. He stood up abruptly, with a pained expression. “I need to get back to work, Katrina.”

  “Sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you,” she said, standing up. “Thanks for your time. I’m sorry for your loss too.”

  Michael nodded. He had tears in his eyes when she left.

  Chapter 36

  Goode

  Wednesday

  Esperanza Cepeda lived in the University Town Center area, a few miles from the surgery practice and the Fontaines’ mansion.

  When Goode rang the doorbell at her condo, he expected her to answer with sniffles and red eyes, not a cocktail in hand. Whiskey on the rocks, by the looks of it. Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot, but it was apparently from being snockered at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Ms. Cepeda?” he asked. “I’m Detective Goode, San Diego PD. Homicide. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  That seemed to wake her up a bit, though not enough to break through her inebriated haze. He’d expected her to be Mexican because of her name, but he could see now that she was a Filipina.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Can I come in?”

  Opening the door wider, she motioned clumsily toward the living room. “You want a drink?”

  “No, thanks, I’m on duty.”

  She staggered a few steps ahead of him and plopped into an armchair. He sat across from her, waiting for her to register that this was a serious visit. She didn’t.

  “Regina Russell said you’ve called in sick all week. Are you really sick, or are you too drunk to go to work?”

  “Of course I’m sick. I’m in mourning,” she said. “My boss, Dr. F, and my friend Victoria are dead.”

  “So, you’re upset. I can understand that. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She stared at him blankly and blinked as she took another sip. The ice cubes clinked as he stayed purposely silent for a minute, hoping she’d volunteer something useful.

  “I’m not sure if you know, but we served a search warrant on Monday, which specifically listed a drug log for all narcotics and drug supplies at the surgery office,” he said. “Regina said you spontaneously decided to take the log home the day of the incident.”

  “Okay.”

  Given her mental state, Goode almost felt it wasn’t right to question Esperanza, but he needed that log. If she’d been involved in these deaths somehow, that might explain why she was so drunk she could hardly talk.

  Guilt can do that.

  “I came over to pick up that log. I also wanted to let you know that we’ll need you to give us an official statement when you’re sober,” he said.

  “I am sober,” she said. “Sober as a house mouse.” She giggled, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.”

  “Ms. Cepeda, this is serious. I’m here because of a special death investigation. We think the Fontaines may have been murdered, and I’m wondering if you know anything about that.”

  Esperanza wrenched herself out of the chair, set her glass on a coaster on the table with a thud, and disappeared into the other room, where he heard her rustling through papers. She came back a minute later and thrust several handwritten sheets at him before dropping herself back into the chair.

  “I was going to type the log into the computer, but I never got the chance, so I hope you can read my writing. I’m quitting anyway.”

  “Why are you quitting?”

  “I can’t go back there.”

  “I see. How long have you known the Fontaines?”

  “Ten years. Dr. F hired me right out of nursing school,” she said. “I’m really upset.”

  “So you said.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t really talk right—” she muttered before nodding off. Within fifteen seconds, she was snoring.

  After checking to make sure she was still breathing, Goode wrote a message on his business card, “Please call me in the morning,” and left it on the table next to her before letting himself out.

  It was a quick hop over to the ME’s office, where Goode buzzed past the front desk and headed for the copy machine outside Artie’s office.

  Without the log, Foster hadn’t been able to tell if any drug vials or containers were missing or unaccounted for at the surgery. But now that Goode had it for comparison with his team’s audit reports, he made two copies of the paperwork and handed a set to Artie.

  “Let’s go over this together to look for discrepancies. Two pairs of eyes are better than one,” he said.

  Although, if Esperanza was in on this, she could have falsified the log. Or she could have taken a syringe full of something with her and no one would be the wiser.

  Unfortunately, as she’d warned, the log was a mess. Neither of them could read her scrawls very well.

  “By the way, the lab checked out those green capsules of the sex drug you gave me. They said it’s nothing like they’ve seen before, but there was no trace of it in either victim. So, we can rule out accidental death via sex drug. I’ll send this inventory and log over to them for ideas about what to test for next.”

  “I hope they can do that as quickly as possible,” Goode said. “This new reporter, Katrina Chopin, is good. She doesn’t have this log, but there seems to be a leak in your office, and I need to stay ahead of her.”

  “A leak? That’s disturbing. I’ll nose around about that. But don’t worry, we want to find an answer as much as you do.”

  From there, Goode drove to the crime lab. Dwight Pepper had never called him back.

  “Is Dwight here?” he asked the receptionist, laughing to himself. He’d almost asked for Spanky.

  “He’s in the back office to your left,” she said.

  After a couple of wrong turns, Goode found the tech—sweaty, flushed, and smiling sheepishly.

  “Sorry I didn’t call, but I wanted to wait until I was all done to give you my full report. After we sprayed BlueStar, we did find some blood spatter on the balcony, like you said, but it was pretty confined, and there wasn’t much of it. We took some swabs for DNA, but it’s unlikely we’ll get a full profile for the reasons you stated earlier.”

  “Right. So, good news, bad news, but progress nonetheless. I’m sure it’s Simon Fontaine’s blood anyway. What else?”

  “I had my assistant run back for a metal detector, and we went over the place again as you requested. It took us a while to crawl around in the bushes, but we finally found the damn bullet,” he said, holding it up and smiling. “Now we have to see if it matches this gun.”

  “Excellent,” Goode said. “I assume it will, but with a staged scene, anything is possible. The shooter could’ve used a different weapon and taken it with him.”

  “Let’s find out,” Dwight said.

  He led Goode over to a vertical water tank built into the floor, twelve feet long and two feet in diameter. After firing the gun into it, he fished out the bullet.

  “Now we compare this to the one we found in the bushes, which may have hit bone going through the skull, but we should still be able to tell,” he said, leading Goode over to a microscope.

  Goode hoped they matched. The paperwork that Dallas Fairchild had sent over looked legit, but this ballistics test was the best chance to confirm, scientifically, if it was his gun that fired that bullet.

  “Looks like a match to me,” Dwight said. “Take a look for yourself?”

  “Sure, why not,” Goode said, taking his turn at the microscope.

  “Oh, and by the way, the gun was wiped clean. No prints or DNA. And no gunshot residue on either victim’s hands.”

  “As I expected,” Goode said. “Thanks.”

  Stone didn’t sound all that pleased by the mix of results.

  “What’s the matter?” Goode asked. “That’s multiple boxes we can check off. No death by sex drug and neither victim shot the gun, which points toward murder and away from accidental death or murder-suicide. We thought we had a staged scene, but now we can prove it with the blood, the fired bullet, and the casing found on the balcony as evidence that someone shot Simon postmortem and moved his body downstairs to the patio.”

  “That’s all good, but we have another problem. Milton Biggs called. Alex Battrelle won’t come back voluntarily. He’s busy with ‘client affairs’ and claims he didn’t kill anyone. Yes, he stayed the night with Victoria, but she was alive when he left her Friday morning, as their texts will show.”

  “What ‘client affairs’ does he have in the Caymans?”

  “Biggs said Alex is committed to several days of financial transactions that require paperwork to be signed in person. He’s devastated by Victoria’s death. They’ve known each other for years. She was the mother of his child, even if she aborted it, et cetera, et cetera. Bottom line is we can eff off.”

  “So now what? I have to ask Super Special Agent Wattshispants to step in? He didn’t want to tip off Alex that the feds were watching him.”

  “How else are we going to get him back here? We know he was one of the last, if not the last, people to see her before she died, and we need answers. If Alex has been doing transactions already, that’s got to be enough to get him on something.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  Stuck in traffic coming into La Jolla, Goode could almost taste the refreshing vodka tonic with lime he was going to have. His car was barely moving when Katrina called.

  “Good news, I hope,” he said.

  “You’re not going to like this, but I wanted to give you a heads-up. I also need a quote from the chief,” she said.

  “Oh, great,” he said, his heart thudding loudly. “What trouble are you causing now?”

  As Katrina described the nearly $6 million in campaign contributions to Congressman Winchester, including those from the mayor and the chief, Goode shook his head.

  “Wow,” he said, pausing. “I sure didn’t see that coming.”

  “I know, right? Do you want to pass on that message, or should I call Stone for the quote? I’m on a tight deadline.”

  “I’ll run it up the flagpole. All the board members, the Fontaines, and the Battrelles, too, huh? That’s crazy.”

  “Maybe not. Now we know why the mayor and chief let the Vitaleron execs speak at the news conference.”

  “Yes, and I didn’t tell you this, but my lieutenant had initially wanted us to talk about the search warrants, but that got quashed—by the chief, apparently. The only reason those searches came out is because of your reporting.”

  “Really? Hmmm,” she said. “Can I mention that when I talk to the chief?”

  “Yes, as long as you don’t say where you heard it.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Sure.”

  Great. This is not what we need right now, but maybe this will make them be more transparent. Politics and crime investigations don’t mix well.

  “A couple other questions, though.”

  I’m scared to ask.

  “Shoot.”

  “Michael Battrelle thinks he’s a murder suspect. Is that true?”

  “You’re going to have to ask Stone about that. But off the record, I find that an interesting comment, considering we still don’t know how the Fontaines died.”

  “He also said that a neighbor called 911.”

  “We don’t know that either. It was an anonymous call.”

  “That’s what I thought. But he specifically said a neighbor reported ‘shots fired.’”

  “That’s interesting as well. What else did he say?”

  “That Darren McMurphy told him it was a double suicide.”

  “Did he, now.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said. Is Michael a suspect?”

  “I can’t really answer that, even off the record. But let’s say his comments don’t lessen my suspicions any.”

  “How well did Darren McMurphy know Victoria?”

  “I don’t know. Good question.”

  “Because he was with her in Hawaii at a retreat three months ago, and she’s three months pregnant. I have a source who might know more. Thanks.”

  “Wait, who—”

  Katrina hung up before he could finish his question. Still, she’d given him a new avenue for inquiry: Victoria Fontaine and Darren McMurphy.

  Goode was feeling pumped when he called Stone from the parking lot at Windansea.

  “Damn,” the sergeant said. “She’s good.”

  “I tried to tell you.”

  “Just wait till the case is over, buddy.”

  “I am. Don’t worry. Since she couldn’t quote me, I said you would answer her questions, or have the chief call her about the donation in his name.”

  “I’ll call his cell right now. Then it’s duck and cover. You’d better call Watts right away.”

  “Will do. I’ll be at home with a cocktail later, reading through Victoria’s computer files. Let me know when it’s safe to come out of the bunker.”

  It was 4:45 p.m., and assuming that Agent Wattshispants left his cush office job promptly at 5:00 p.m., Goode tried to catch him.

  “Detective Goode, I had a feeling you’d be calling,” Watts said. “Let me guess. He won’t come back voluntarily.”

  “Righto.”

  “I guess you’ll have to wait until next week, then.”

  “Hopefully not. His attorney said he was conducting transactions as we speak, and I’ve also gathered more information about my potential victim. She’s in more danger than I knew.”

  “It would give your request a lot more weight if you told me the victim’s identity and what evidence you have to support that.”

  “Remember the Double-Judge Murders?”

  “Yes, of course. Our office was asked to assist when your detectives’ leads ran dry. What does that have to do with this case?”

  Goode explained that his potential victim was the judges’ daughter, who was now aggressively investigating this story for the Sun-Dispatch, and whose life had been threatened. He also summarized the Vitaleron and Lexicon property ownership ties, the personal and professional connections between the three families, and the campaign donation bombshell Katrina was about to break.

  “Damn, Goode!” Watts said, his tone changing dramatically. “You know, if you’d have mentioned some of this up front, you would’ve gotten a lot more cooperation from me.”

  “I had a strong hunch before, but I was still developing the information at that point.”

  “I don’t have to tell you that the unsolved murder of those judges is of great importance to the bureau, and to the community at large. If bringing Alex Battrelle back will help with that, as well as our money-laundering case, which now looks like it’s part of a political corruption scheme, you’ll have our full cooperation, Detective. This may be a quadruple win for our departments, combined.”

  “Great to hear,” Goode said. “So how do we handle this?”

  Watts said he would send two agents on the first plane to the Caymans, hook up with local law enforcement, and confront Alex at his hotel. If he didn’t agree to come back voluntarily for questioning, they would threaten him with arrest for money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the IRS and escort him to the airport.

  “If he’s smart, he’ll come voluntarily,” Watts said.

  Chapter 37

  Katrina

  Wednesday

  Katrina had barely laid her notebook on her desk when she felt Linda’s presence beside her.

  “Follow me, please,” Linda ordered, heading for her office.

  So much for the friendly, encouraging, editor-reporter relationship.

  Once Katrina was seated, Linda closed the door and folded her hands on the desk in front of her, her mouth a straight horizontal line.

  She looks pissed.

  “Chief Baxter was in John Palmer’s office this afternoon,” she said.

  Was that before or after I called Goode to give him the heads-up on tomorrow’s story about their Christian PAC donations?

  Katrina shifted in her chair uncomfortably as Linda’s voice sliced through the air like a sharp knife cutting a rare steak. “Apparently, the chief voiced some concerns about your story today, not the least of which was the ‘conservative Christian’ reference. John reminded me that we’ve only just gotten past our problems with the SDPD, and he’s concerned that this Vitaleron story has set us back again.