Darkness Calls. Caridad Pineiro
telling him to cool it. “Hi, Maggie. Came by for a quick checkup,” she said.
Maggie rose and slinked her way around her desk. She had the kind of walk women envied and men drooled over. With her five-foot-ten-inch height and slim build, she looked more like a model than a physician. “Heard you had a small altercation,” she said, and then leaned forward, to take a better look. “I can see you had more than a little physical contact.”
Diana shrugged it off, but David piped in from behind her, “She was out cold for about five minutes.”
Diana glared at him again and he backed off, taking a seat on the sofa in Maggie’s office.
“Thanks, David. At least one of you has some sense,” Maggie said with a smile that had David blushing in response.
Maggie skewered Diana with her sharp gaze. “You and I obviously need to talk about what happened.”
Diana didn’t argue and followed Maggie into the examining room, where she jumped up onto the table and waited as Maggie slipped on a lab coat, grabbed some things and walked over.
“Were you really out for five minutes?” Maggie questioned as she plucked a penlight from her jacket pocket, flipped it on and shined it in Diana’s eyes. Like last night, Diana pulled away from it.
Maggie shut it down and placed her hands on her hips. “Sensitivity, huh? Bet you have a monster of a headache, as well.”
“Yeah, and a little fuzziness every now and then, but don’t worry. Another doctor took a look at me last night and said it was a mild concussion,” she reassured.
Maggie harrumphed, reached out and gently applied pressure to the area on Diana’s cheekbone and jawline where Latimer’s forearm had connected. Diana winced, but the pain was minor. “This doctor let you go home without—”
“She gave me instructions and my brother dutifully woke me every few hours. Needless to say, I’m a little wiped today,” Diana complained.
Maggie said nothing else, just grabbed a pad and wrote out a prescription. She roughly tore it off and handed the slip to Diana.
Diana eyed the paper with confusion and a little trepidation. “You’re not going to say anything? Not going to warn me about—”
“Doing something as stupid as taking on a man twice your size and failing to go to a hospital like any reasonable person should have? No, of course not. You’re a big girl, right? You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Mama Maggie, I appreciate your concern—”
“You’re as pigheadedly macho as any of those men out there, Di. And that’s not a good thing,” Maggie said as she began her tirade again. “And what kind of doctor—”
“Her name was Danvers. Melissa, I think,” Diana said.
“I had a professor named Danvers in med school. He had a daughter,” Maggie offhandedly offered.
“Think you could dig up a little more on her? Ask around?” Diana asked, and tucked the prescription paper into her jacket pocket.
Maggie sensed there was more to Diana’s interest. “For personal or business reasons?”
“A little of both. For business reasons—I want to know what kind of doctor she is. Whether she’s on the up-and-up.”
“And for the personal?” Maggie asked, one fine auburn-colored eyebrow raised.
“She’s involved with a suspect. How involved, Maggie? Would she lie to protect him?” Diana explained.
Maggie eyed her carefully and finally nodded. “The second question—the one about being involved—sounds like it’s still business? Unless of course…is he handsome?”
Handsome was an understatement, Diana thought but wouldn’t admit. She shrugged and said, “I guess.”
Maggie chuckled and shook her head, clearly aware of Diana’s subterfuge. “Must be major-league handsome, but despite that, or maybe because of it, I will ask around for you. See what I can find out.”
Diana slipped off the examining table and faced her friend once more. “Think you can do me another favor?”
Maggie let out a huff, but it was more playful than anything. “What now?”
“Do you think that liberated woman inside of you could talk to my poor partner? Ask him to have lunch or dinner? Put him out of his misery?”
“What makes you think—”
“I know you too well, Mags, just like you know me. Do yourself a favor. He’s a really nice guy.”
“Coming from you, that’s quite a compliment,” Maggie noted, and slipped an arm around her shoulders as she walked Diana back to her outer office.
David was still there, waiting patiently. He jumped off the sofa and grinned at them. “Ready to go?”
“
“We could always go out for a quick bite,” David said, obviously not enjoying the prospect of eating over stomach-churning crime-scene photos.
“No, not me. I’d like to get some things done before Latimer shows up this afternoon. But you two go ahead,” she said, and glanced at Maggie, who grinned and piped in with “If you don’t want to go alone, I’d be more than happy to join you.”
David looked from one woman to the other, a little flummoxed by Maggie’s offer. Then he grinned and nodded. “That would be great. We can bring Diana back a sandwich so she doesn’t have to eat fossilized food from the vending machine.”
“See you at twelve, then?” Maggie prompted, and after David confirmed the time, they returned to Diana’s office.
They talked over how they would handle Latimer’s interrogation later that afternoon, then put in a call to the local detective heading up the NYPD part of the investigation so he could join them. It was close to noon when they finished, and despite her earlier plans, Diana needed to fill the prescription Maggie had given her. “I’m going to get this,” she said, waving the small slip of paper in the air, “and grab a sandwich down at the deli. Meet me back here for Latimer’s interrogation.”
“Will do, Special Agent in Charge.” David waved as he left the room.
Diana grabbed her purse and headed out, picking up her medication at a local drugstore and buying a premade sandwich at the corner deli. Back at her desk, she popped one of the painkillers, slugged it down with a mouthful of Coke and laid out her sandwich so she could work while she ate.
She started with the crime-scene photos, reviewing those of the locations first while she ate her sandwich. Despite years of training and investigations, she hadn’t grown desensitized enough to eat while examining the more grisly photos. She then turned to the remaining evidence, carefully reviewing all the details of the injuries inflicted and the places where the killer had dumped the bodies.
The toxicology reports from the medical examiner’s office had revealed the presence of flunitrazepam residues, what was more commonly known on the street as a “roofie”—the date-rape drug. If the killer administered the drug in a drink at the club, he’d have had twenty or thirty minutes before it took effect. Enough time to convince his victim to leave voluntarily.
Where he took the women had to be as equally isolated as the places where he left the bodies. But the evidence pointed to a more populated location. She glanced at the comments about the sheets in which the victims had been wrapped. They were the kind that hotels used and bore the traces of commercial laundering. The ME indicated the sheets