“Don’t you usually work days?” Goode asked.

  “Yeah, but we had a five-car pileup on the 805 that took forever to process,” Artie said, his voice ragged from exhaustion. “Bunch of gang members chasing and shooting each other. They’re going about a hundred and twenty, and two of them lose control. Boom. Five cars totaled, two fatalities, two drivers in critical condition. Only one guy walked away.”

  Goode briefed Artie on his findings so far but let him examine both bodies and come to his own conclusions about the gunshot wound and bruising.

  “We won’t know for sure until we do the autopsy, but it seems like this guy was dead before he was dumped here, and was shot postmortem,” Artie said. “If he was killed in a fall from that balcony, you’d see a lot more blood, and it would have spread further. His skull would have cracked open like a melon.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Even if he was shot somewhere else and the killer did a cleanup, we’ll probably still see blood in his hair. We’ll check for powder burns on his temple and hands, and his daughter’s too. She could’ve shot him, then killed herself some other way.”

  “Right. I had them both bagged,” Goode said. “We’ll have the gun dusted for prints, but if the shooter was an intruder, he probably wiped it clean.”

  “Good move, grasshopper. Find any blood in the house?”

  “No, not yet anyway.”

  “So, if this was a staged suicide, the question is how did Simon Fontaine actually die? Hey, wait. Is this an injection bruise here on his neck? That’s interesting.”

  “That’s what I said. Victoria has something similar on her arm.”

  “Really? Show me.”

  Artie followed Goode upstairs, where he confirmed the detective’s assessment. “If she didn’t shoot herself up, whoever did wasn’t very good at it,” he said. “People don’t generally inject themselves in the neck, though. Dr. Thompson can take a closer look at both injection sites at the morgue.”

  Goode made sure to point out the pregnancy test and Dr. Fontaine’s name on the prescriptions for his daughter. “Can we get a rush on the tox screen?” Goode asked.

  “We’ll need a request from your chief, but I’m sure that won’t be an issue in this case,” Artie said.

  Once Simon’s body was taken away, Goode was tempted to come back with a weighted mannequin and dump it off the balcony to see how and where it landed.

  You never know. This smells like a murder for the good doctor. Victoria, I’m still not sure about.

  Chapter 5

  Katrina

  Saturday

  As soon as Katrina woke up, she reached for her phone to search for news about the two dead bodies that had interrupted her evening out.

  But all she saw on the Sun-Dispatch website was a measly brief. It didn’t say whether the dead man at the mansion was the homeowner, Dr. Simon Fontaine. Nor did it explain his relationship with the young woman who was also found dead there. It didn’t even mention that Homicide had been called in.

  After only a week on staff, she hadn’t met many of her colleagues, including those who worked in bureaus, like Norman Klein, whose name was on this shoddy little brief.

  Is he an intern or an actual reporter? Where was his editor? I thought this was a real paper. What have I done, coming back here?

  She’d taken the job at the Northampton Record in part because it had won awards, but the primary reason was that the detectives working her parents’ murder case had advised her to keep a low profile or get out of town until they could catch the killer. She figured the little town in Western Massachusetts was about as far away and under the radar as she could get without leaving the country.

  Under the circumstances, she suggested the cops look into any possible connection with the “suicide” of her brother, Franny, a developer who was blamed for a multimillion-dollar loss to a group of investors when his hotel resort project on Mission Bay was aborted due to “environmental issues.” But if the cops had found, or even looked for, a connection, no one had shared it with her.

  As advised, she secreted herself away in an apartment in Northampton. When she wasn’t at work, she hid out at a dive bar where she and her colleagues drank beer or whiskey and played pool after deadline. But she wasn’t very good at keeping a low profile.

  Sniffing out several iffy contracts on her beat led her to the revelation that the head of a waste-hauling company with reputed ties to the Polish mafia had bribed two school board members, then killed Katrina’s source—the superintendent’s estranged wife, who had leaked the explosive documents to her. Threats on Katrina’s life ensued, but she still came to work every day, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, and wrote the hell out of a series of stories.

  Just hours after the national investigative award for that series was announced, Metro Editor Linda Kelley called to offer her a job at the Sun-Dispatch. Katrina reflexively said yes and gave notice that same day.

  Although Katrina was relieved to have an excuse to come home, her therapist, whom she’d started seeing after the death threats started, cautioned that she would be bringing her PTSD with her. Katrina had tried to deny it, but she had to admit that over the past week, she’d jumped whenever a Massachusetts area code, or even an unknown number, showed up on her caller ID. Not to mention the couple of voicemails she’d gotten, with heavy breathing but no talking, since her first stories had run in the Sun-Dispatch. She couldn’t help but keep her eyes peeled for black Town Cars like the one that had parked outside her apartment at night while she was writing the mafia series.

  The prosecutor on that case had called this past week, trying to persuade her to testify at the upcoming trial. So far, she’d put him off, saying her stories spoke for themselves. But he was persistent, so the possibility of a subpoena was hanging over her like an evil spirit. Nonetheless, Katrina was determined not to let her anxiety take a toll, or to tell anyone about any of this.

  Katrina wasn’t scheduled to work that Saturday, but she wanted to “hit the ground running,” as they said in the biz, by submitting a list of story ideas to her new boss, Joanne Wagner, one of the assistant Metro editors. After that, Katrina planned to find a short-term rental before her few boxes of belongings arrived by UPS. Her longer-term plan was to move into the family house in Point Loma as soon as the tenants’ lease expired.

  The elevator rattled its way up to the third floor of the brick building, circa 1973, which overlooked Interstate 8, the freeway that ran east to west through Mission Valley. The elevator bell sounded with an antiquated ding as the doors opened onto a blue carpet with worn patches.

  The newsroom was a big open area with desks configured into pods for the reporters, surrounded by glass-walled offices for the editors. Just like at her last newspaper, the cleaning staff vacuumed occasionally, but wasn’t allowed to disturb reporters’ desks, or their stacks of books, yellowed newspapers, and notebooks, full of scrawls no one else could read. That meant the dust blown around by the computers’ internal fans coated every exposed item and layer of paper. Like the photos of reporters posing with politicians or celebrities they admired or detested, the campaign buttons with slogans like “I’m not running for Congress” or Obama’s “Yes we can,” and the random keepsakes like troll dolls, petrified Twinkies, and purple Peeps.

  Because she’d only been there a week, her desk, which faced the editors’ meeting room and the executive editor’s corner office, was comparatively naked. Several minutes after Katrina sat down, a woman’s voice erupted behind her.

  “Hello, Katrina.”

  She turned to see it was Linda Kelley, the woman who had hired her.

  How long has she been standing here?

  “Oh, hi,” Katrina said, whirling around in her swivel desk chair. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

  “Sorry,” Linda said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you’d be out looking for an apartment.”

  “I was putting a story list together.”

  She’d heard from her pod-mates that Linda didn’t know how to take a day off, but Katrina made no judgment because they shared that trait. Journalism was a hungry vortex. Filling the endless black hole of anticipation with stories distracted her so she didn’t feel lonely. But the reward lasted only a day or two at a time. Until the next big scoop came along, and the adrenaline rush that came with it.

  She hoped she wouldn’t wear the long-term consequences like Linda—the purplish bags under her eyes, the thick middle section, and the untreated white roots. It was too soon to tell whether Linda’s eye bags were caused by insomnia or whiskey, but Katrina wanted none of them.

  Her editor, Joanne, had already warned her that Linda’s crusty exterior came with an unpredictable temper, a common trait among female senior editors who lacked intimate contact with other sentient beings and weren’t home enough to have pets. But it was because of women like Linda, who had fought their way up in a formerly all-male industry, that Katrina had a job at all.

  “I was actually going to call you in, so it’s good that you’re already here,” Linda said. “I’d like you to work on a story that broke last night. We’ll pay you overtime for today, and you’ll still have time to look for a place to live.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Katrina said, cringing inwardly at the assignment she sensed was coming, which would cost her a date with the sexy surfing detective. As she grabbed her notebook and pen, Linda rolled closer, as if she were going to reveal a secret.

  “Did you see the crime brief about the two deaths on La Jolla Farms last night?” she asked.

  Dammit.

  “Yes, I did,” Katrina replied.

  “We had to chase it in because it came in after deadline. The reporter, Norman Klein, had already left his office at the cop shop when he heard the ‘shots fired’ alert on his scanner, so he called Big Ed, our nightside editor. Ed used the crisscross directory and online property records to figure out who owned the house.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Dr. Fontaine was a newsmaker, quite influential in the La Jolla medical, biotech, and philanthropic communities, where we have a lot of readers. He was working on a groundbreaking sexual enhancement drug at a local pharmaceutical company he founded, Vitaleron, and we need you to find out if the deaths are somehow related to that. We still don’t have IDs on the victims, but we figure he’s probably one of them.”

  Katrina nodded, excitedly taking notes. Since she had no choice in the matter, she was pleased that it sounded way more intriguing than your basic cops story.

  “I’d like you to get a feel for the neighborhood and introduce yourself to the lead detective,” Linda said, as Katrina suppressed a smirk to hide her secret. “We need to get a handle on how these people died. For all we know, Dr. Fontaine had a heart attack during a romp with some floozy. If he was taking his own sex drug, that would be a bombshell because it’s still in experimental trials. We also want to know how far along those trials are. They’ve been very hush-hush about that.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’ve created a special database access for you to run full background checks—criminal, civil, and financial—on the Fontaine family and its holdings in Vitaleron. You can sign in at the office or the hotel from your laptop.”

  Linda paused, as if she were deciding whether to say more.

  “FYI, the paper’s owner, Vincent Battrelle, and his son Michael are both on the Vitaleron board, so there is great interest in this story. John Palmer, our executive editor, suggested I give it to Jerry Kennedy, our City Hall reporter, so he’s doing the daily today. But I want you to do the bigger investigative takeouts from here on out. If you run, you can make the ten o’clock news conference. This is the perfect chance for you to show us—and the community—what you can do.”

  “Great,” Katrina said. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “I don’t know how they did things at your last paper, but ours is family owned, so you’ll need to tread lightly on the Battrelles. Don’t call or put them into the story without talking to me first. I’m guessing the police will say these deaths are suspicious or they wouldn’t have called a news conference. But either way, let’s talk to the Fontaines’ friends, family, and business associates to see if their company was in trouble. You’ll be working directly with me on this.”

  “I can tell you right now that Homicide was called in last night,” Katrina said.

  “What?” Linda asked. “How do you know that?”

  “Oh, I have my sources.”

  The editor’s mouth, which normally turned down at the edges, broke into a smile, the first one Katrina had seen since she’d arrived. “Terrific! I knew you’d be a good hire.”

  It’s too bad, but that date with Goode is just going to have to wait.

  Katrina was about to head out when her desk phone rang.

  “Ms. Chopin?” a woman asked.

  “Yes, speaking,” Katrina said, surprised that the caller ID showed a four-digit extension inside the building.

  “Please hold for Mr. Battrelle.”

  Vincent Battrelle? Why’s he calling me, and on a Saturday? I’m not even scheduled to work today. Are there hidden cameras in the newsroom?

  The cheesy hold music was barely tolerable as she waited for the newspaper owner to come on the line.

  “Hello, Ms. Chopin. How are you this morning?”

  Smooth as whipped butter.

  “Pretty peachy, Mr. Battrelle. How are you?”

  He laughed. “I’m pretty peachy too. I’ll get right to the point, because I’m sure you’re still getting settled in. Can you come over for a drink this evening? I’d like to talk to you about a personal matter.”

  Now she was really confused. She wasn’t allowed to contact or mention the paper’s owner in her story without Linda’s permission, but he was inviting her to his house for a drink?

  Personal for him or me?

  This couldn’t be a typical new-hire welcome, or surely Linda would have prepared her. She didn’t know how old the guy was or whether he was married or divorced. Only that he had two grown sons, one of whom was a playboy who often embarrassed the family. But being new on the job, she couldn’t say no, so she accepted his invitation.

  “Great. I live on Whale Watch Way, overlooking La Jolla Shores,” he said, rattling off the address. “I’ll see you around six forty-five. Come hungry.”

  Hungry for what?

  Chapter 6

  Goode

  Saturday

  Goode was grateful he didn’t have to handle media calls, because he didn’t trust reporters. He watched Stone’s stress levels escalate around 6:00 a.m., when the sergeant’s phone started blowing up. After listening to Stone argue with a reporter, Goode patted his buddy on the shoulder and went back to supervising the forensic techs inside the mansion.

  Before he left, Artie asked Goode if he could access the contact list on Simon’s phone to find a relative to formally ID the bodies. Luckily, Simon was old school and didn’t have password protection, so Goode was able to find a William in his contacts. A check on Google and Facebook confirmed that he was, in fact, Simon’s brother.

  When Artie called William on speakerphone, Goode could hear how broken up he was. William, who had already connected the dots from the brief in the newspaper, agreed to come to the morgue within ninety minutes to ID his brother and niece. Simon’s son, Cal, was last known to be surfing somewhere in Costa Rica, where William had been trying to reach him, with no success. Same with Simon’s estranged wife and Victoria’s mother, Nancy, who was out of the country and had been in an acrimonious divorce battle with Simon over the division of property.

  William had strong feelings about what did and didn’t happen at the mansion. “This was no suicide—single, double, or otherwise,” he said before hanging up.

  “He sounded more upset about losing Victoria than his own brother,” Artie told Goode. “I guess he and his niece were close.”

  “Seems like it,” Goode said. “I’ll follow up with him myself to ask a few more questions.”

  Artie gave Goode an ETA for the autopsies, which he knew Goode would want to observe.

  The brass tried to control the narrative by scheduling a news conference in front of the security gate at ten o’clock.

  “Seems weird that Lieutenant Wilson is taking the lead,” Stone said. “The chief usually likes to talk about the big cases.”

  “Maybe he’s having a bad hair day,” Goode said.

  Dr. Henry Largo, the chief medical examiner, showed up too. It disturbed Goode how excited the man got talking about dead people.

  Among the media gathered on the street, Goode recognized Jerry Kennedy from the Sun-Dispatch by his arrogant posture.

  “Yo, detective, whassup?” Kennedy said as he approached Goode, who kept walking toward the podium, reminded of how much he disliked the reporter’s miscalculated familiarity.

  “I thought you covered City Hall,” Goode said.

  “Yeah, but I’m on the rotating Saturday shift, so I got saddled with the cop beat today. No offense. Your bro, Norman Klein, will be back at it Monday.”

  “Sergeant Stone is handling media,” Goode said dismissively before turning to stand behind Wilson, who was about to speak. The lieutenant was celebrated for his ability to release as little information in as many words as possible, which kept the media at bay.

  “We’re here today due to the great public interest in the tragic deaths of Dr. Simon Fontaine and his daughter, Victoria, whom we are able to identify publicly now that their next of kin has been notified,” Wilson said. “Reflecting our usual policy, we won’t be releasing details about the scene or last night’s events at this time. I can, however, tell you that we have opened a suspicious-death investigation. The case has some unusual characteristics, but as always, we’re approaching it as a homicide to ensure that no evidence is overlooked. We will get to the bottom of this case, because we’re committed to keeping this—and every other neighborhood in San Diego—safe. We won’t be taking any questions. Thanks, everybody.”