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.
Whatever the reason, Rich wasn’t going to chance it. He called Joan’s number and left a message. “Joan, it’s Rich Conklin,” he said. “Please call me. I’m concerned for your safety.”
Chapter 19
Rich was at his desk when John Sackowitz dropped by and sat down in Lindsay’s chair. Sac was a big man and was wearing a gray jacket, jeans, white shirt, and a weird pink tie.
Sac moved the desk lamp out of his way so he could look Conklin directly in the eye. Then he said, “Sam Alton’s betrayed widow, Rachel, is in shock. It’s nightmare city over at her house. God, I hate notifications. Did you get a chance to speak to Joan?”
“She’s gone missing. That’s according to her husband anyway. I’m heading out to Seacliff to tour the house and grounds. I’ll call you later.”
Sac stood up and said, “I’ve got some paperwork to do.” He lumbered over to his desk across the room and began typing up his report.
Conklin turned off his desktop and waved good-bye to Sac.
A few minutes later, he was in his car and driving out to Seacliff when Brady called.
“Conklin, a dead body was found in an apartment building in West Portal. Welky was the first one on the scene, and an ADA just brought him a search warrant. Welky found two IDs in the room and a wallet that belongs to Samuel J. Alton.”
Seriously? There was no way Samuel J. Alton had died twice.
So who was this dead man with his wallet?
Conklin made the excruciatingly slow drive to the middle-class, family-oriented neighborhood. He got stuck at the lights at both the entrance and exit of a three-block shopping district, and then, once he’d gotten free of that, he hit another traffic snarl on a block filled with homey bars and restaurants. Twenty minutes after leaving the Hall, he parked in front of an apartment building on West Portal Avenue, between a cruiser and the coroner’s van. He hopped out of his car and headed toward the crime scene.
The building was a classic midcentury San Francisco–style home with five stories of gray stucco, arched windows, and a view of the West Portal Muni. A half dozen trees out front softened the lines of the building under a clear sky overhead. A light-rail car rattled by as Conklin entered the building. If he hadn’t been summoned there on police duty, he would have never guessed that there had been a murder inside.
The old man behind the front desk pointed to the elevator behind him, then raised four fingers.
Fourth floor. Got it.
Conklin was met upstairs by the two beat cops who’d arrived on the scene first. Their names were Officers Calvin Welky and Mike Brown. Conklin signed the log, put on booties and gloves, and then walked into a clean, bright three-room apartment.
Welky said, “The manager, Mr. Wayne Murdock, said the apartment belongs to one Arthur O’Brien, an actor and probably a junkie. Murdock got a call from O’Brien’s mother. She hadn’t heard from her son in a couple of days. She said he wasn’t returning her calls. Murdock went to the young man’s residence, found his body here, and called it in.”
Conklin looked around the living room. It was dominated by a fifty-two-inch TV. Across the room from it sat a nondescript brown couch. A set of weights took up one corner of the space. It looked to Conklin like this was a single man’s apartment. There were no knickknacks or sentimental items breaking up the uniform brown color palette. But the most telling detail of all was the drug paraphernalia that was scattered across the coffee table.
Conklin noticed a stubby candle, a scorched spoon, a box of matches, and a flock of opaque glassine envelopes that were coated with white powder.