“Hey, Max,” Martinez had his gloved hands on his face to warm his cheeks. “If it’s all the same to you . . .” He gave a slight nod toward his squad car.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” I said. “Maybe, if one of your officers doesn’t mind . . .” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet and withdrew a couple twenties. “A round of coffee on me. No sense sitting out here being any more miserable than we have to be.”
“Thanks, Max. I’ll get someone on that.”
I turned toward Niki. “Why don’t you go to the hospital and check on Orton. We’ll need a warrant to dig through his clothing, and if he made a 911 call, he has a cell phone.”
“Thanks, Max, but it’s my turn to be the lead. That means I stay here with the ME and Crime Scene.”
“It’s too cold. You go to HCMC. I can stay here.”
“Max? Do we have to have ‘the talk’ again?”
“Is that the talk where you say you love my idea?”
“Love is such a strong word—and wildly inaccurate.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be chivalrous here.”
“Chivalrous—chauvinist, potayto—potahto. I appreciate the offer, but I got this.”
I chuckle as I watch her lips shiver. “Your call. You’re the lead.”
“Thank you, dear.” Niki gave a slight curtsy. “And tell Rick to order me another dark roast, as long as you’re buying.”
Honestly, I was happy to go to HCMC, and not just because it was face-splitting cold outside, but because that’s the only part of Jenni’s life that held shadows. If she uncovered something dark enough to bring about her murder, I’d find it at the hospital where she worked. It’s the only thing that made any sense.
The enormous, sprawling arms of HCMC serve as the first, and sometimes last, refuge of the injured and the broken in Minneapolis. It was where Jenni worked, and its parking ramp was where she died. I entered the ER and found the attending physician, who told me that Dennis Orton was in pretty bad shape when they brought him in. He had been wearing a winter coat made of a flammable material, the doctor thought maybe polypropylene, which caught fire and melted into his skin.
“Second-and third-degree burns on his chest and neck and face,” the doctor said. “The third-degree burns kill the nerves. It’s the second-degrees that hurt. We stabilized him and moved him to the Burn Unit.”
“Where are his clothes and possessions?”
“We bagged ’em. They’re in a locker on the Burn Unit.”
“I’ll be getting a search warrant to take possession of those, so don’t let him leave.”
“Leave?” the doctor looked surprised. “He’s not going anywhere. Not for a while. We have him intubated right now. I don’t expect him to be awake any time soon.”
“Intubated? So he’s not able to talk?”
“If a person breathes in too much fire, it can swell the airway shut. It’s a precaution.”
I pursed my lips and started to rearrange my day in my head. “How long until that changes?”
“We can do a fiber-optic exam later to see how it’s going. If it looks good, we could pull the tube out this afternoon. No promises.”
I thanked the doctor and headed out of the ER. The Burn Unit was nearby, but I had a stop to make before I went to visit Orton.
Just outside of the ER was a small collection of offices that I knew well—one of them used to be Jenni’s. The hospital keeps a social worker on duty at the ER around the clock to deal with emergency-room patients who need additional services. The battered wife, the abused child, the homeless, these were the people whom Jenni helped. I hadn’t been back to her office since she died, and I didn’t know what to expect. I just knew that Jenni’s office was where my digging had to start. What was she doing on the day she died? Who were her patients? What did she know that she wasn’t supposed to know?
I peeked into the Social Services Office, relieved to see a familiar face. I breathed a sigh and knocked. “Karen?”
“Max?” Karen stood up behind her desk, her jaw slack with surprise.
“I see they got you working on a holiday.”
She smiled. “Someone has to be here—and I’m not much of a college football fan. God, it’s been a long time.”
“Four and a half years,” I said. And with those words, a stampede of painful memories came crashing into the room. That hadn’t been my intention. “You look well,” I said, hoping to sidestep our shared history.
She pointed to a chair, and we both sat down. “I’m doing my best,” she said. “But, I got to tell you, this middle-age crap is a bitch. I tore my rotator cuff last year just raking the yard.”
“I hope you learned a lesson about the dangers of raking.” I smiled. “I steer clear of it myself.”
She smiled back, not because of my wit but because I believe she was remembering Jenni. They had been close, not best friends, but allies and office confidants. On those days when Jenni came home with a pebble in her shoe because of hospital politics, it had always been Karen who stood shoulder to shoulder with her.
“What brings you to these quiet halls on a day like today?” Karen asked.
I stepped into my pitch. “I want to talk about Jenni’s death.”
Karen stopped smiling.
“I need to tell you something, and I need you to keep it between us. Okay?”
“Sure, Max.” Karen, who had already been sitting rigid in her chair, lowered her hands to her lap.
“Jenni’s case was closed as a hit-and-run. They never found the driver.”
Karen nodded.
“But things have changed, Karen. I can’t tell you how I know, but what if I told you that it wasn’t an accident? What if I said that Jenni was killed on purpose?”
Karen gave a slight gasp. “Who would do . . .? Why would anyone . . . ?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. That’s why I’m here. I believe that she was murdered because of something she was doing here at work. I think she knew something that she wasn’t supposed to know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Karen, I need to know what she was working on when she died.”
“Oh, no, Max. I can’t . . .” Karen brought a nervous hand up to her lips. “We have HIPAA rules.”
“I wouldn’t be here if this weren’t important. I don’t have any other way to re-create what Jenni was doing back then. I have no other option, Karen. There’s got to be something you can do. Can’t you look at her calendar from back then? There might be something there. Please. Anything you can give me, no matter how small. I just need a place to start.”
“I’m not even sure . . .” Karen began clicking on her keyboard and shuttling her mouse around. “Our calendars are . . .” She trailed off distracted by something on the screen. “Hmm. It’s still there.”
“What’s there?”
“Jenni’s day planner. I would have thought . . . I guess they don’t delete that kind of thing when you . . .” Karen’s face turned pink. “Well, when someone . . . leaves.”
“Can you tell me what she was doing the day she died?”
“July 29th right? That’s the day she . . .”
“Yes, July 29th, but anything around that time might be helpful.”
“There’s not much here. Just names of patients she met with. I’d get in big trouble if I gave you any of those, of course.”