Chapter Seven

Quietly, Mary Ann Casey stepped in the door and stood there, wondering why, under the circumstances, she had agreed to come to San Francisco. He was a good friend. He had been more than a friend in the past, and truthfully, she had wanted that something more to continue. But he couldn't...or wouldn't commit. And then she'd read in the newspaper that he'd found the woman to whom he could commit...and then lost her.

Now as he sat in his chair behind his desk, his back to her as he stared out the window, she wondered what he was thinking. Was he consumed by his loss, or was he looking for a way to change it, to fix it? Smiling, she knew he was not drowning in his sorrow. That just wasn't John McIntyre. She was there to perform a second autopsy on the body of an Angela Bedford. But was she there for something more?

"I don't think you can change the world by staring out at it like that?"

Trapper raised up and swung around in his chair in one smooth motion wearing a pleased smile on his face. "Mary Ann," he said, rising from behind his desk and moving to take her hands. When he kissed them, he lingered with his eyes closed, knowing this request might be difficult for her. "I was actually a little surprised you agreed to do this."

She exhaled. "Oh, Trapper. I read the newspaper. I know what's happened. How could I stay away if I can help?"

Standing with his arms around her, he asked, "Have you had dinner?"

Moving her arms around his neck, she answered, "No, but then I'm not that hungry."

"Neither am I, but we have to eat. Doctor's orders." Taking her arms from around his neck, he held her hand as they walked out of his office on their way to a light dinner at an all night deli.

Sharing a chicken salad sandwich and a bag of chips, the two had a difficult time with small talk until Mary Ann broke the ice. "She must have been very special. It seems things went very fast."

"Well, it surprised a lot of people at first, but then everyone seemed to know before we did." He chuckled. "When Leah first came here, we were constantly at each other's throats. And she was fine with that. She thrived on it. But that was just the way she dealt with...or rather didn't deal with...pain."

"There was a fairly comprehensive article about her in the Bee. After what she had been through, this..." She bowed her head. "Life isn't always fair."

Trapper pursed his lips and nodded.

"Tell me about Angela Bedford. Why her?"

"She and Leah were friends long before we went to Washington. I don't think anyone knows why she was killed, and I don't think it was just to use her to steal Leah's body. We found out tonight that Leah's former boss may have had something to do with this, but as far as I know, there's no connection to Angela, other than Angela was our grant writer, and Doug Manning was the technical consultant until he wasn't."

"What do you mean until he wasn't?"

"He was excused because of a conflict of interest. He sued Leah when she left Manning Consulting. She countersued, and he lost. But that had nothing to do with Angela."

"So what do you want me to look for?"

"Leah had been trying for several weeks to contact Angela. She filled up Angela's answering machine, so I have good reason to believe Angela was taken and kept alive. They waited to kill her. The first autopsy determined she hadn't been dead more than eight hours and found sea water in her lungs. I think who ever took Angela was waiting for the right opportunity to take Leah, and then throw everyone off track until they could get away by swapping the bodies."

"You didn't find out about the switch until the funeral. I understand Leah was a heart transplant patient. Why didn't the pathologist find that?"

"She may have. Some of her notes from the autopsy are missing, and she's been killed. So unless the FBI can find notes in her desk, the tapes from the autopsy or something in her home, we may never know."

Taking the last potato chip, Mary Ann thought for a moment before she put it in her mouth. Crunching the chip, she looked back up at Trapper. "Is there something specific you want me to look for?"

"Yes, but I don't know what exactly to tell you," said Trapper, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs and dropping his arm over the back. "Look for anything unusual in the blood. You should have access to some of the blood they removed from Angela's body when she was embalmed. I'm going to see if they have any of Leah's blood in the morgue."

"You want me to look for similarities."

"Yes, if I can get a sample of Leah's blood. Whoever switched the bodies has, so far, cleaned up very well after himself. There may not be any left."

Mary Ann took a deep breath. "I'll get started first thing in the morning."

"Good. Did you rent a car?"

"No, I took a cab to the hospital."

Trapper stood and offered his hand. "Then I'll take you to your hotel. Where are you staying?"

Turning, she stepped into him and looked coyly into his eyes. "I didn't book a hotel. I thought I might be staying with a...friend."

Trapper smiled. "Mary Ann..."

"Trapper, I understand your heart still belongs to Leah. But while all this gets figured out, there's no point in you being alone in your misery." Trapper clamped his mouth shut and looked away. "Don't they say misery loves company?"

"You can stay in the guest room," he said, walking to the door of the deli and holding it open for her. "And you'd better stay in the guest room."

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Agents Allen and Savage drove to Amit Desai's last address, a small house in a rundown area near The Haight. Agent Allen had called for a forensic unit, and they were already there removing items from the house while a woman apparently of Middle Eastern descent ran back and forth beside them yelling in a foreign language and grabbing at everything that had been bagged and removed.

Allen walked up to the head of the forensic team. "Find anything solid yet?"

"We found a couple of empty medical vials in the bathroom trash; no label, some of the suspects clothes, a backpack, and a notebook that had been written on. We don't have the piece of paper with the writing, but we do have the page with the imprint. That's about all there is. Whoever this guy was, he's covered his tracks pretty well. The family here didn't even know he was missing. Seems he just up and left without telling anyone."

Allen scratched his head. "Look for a connection between Desai a man named Doug Manning."

The forensic detective took out a notebook and wrote down the name. "What's his story?"

"He was Miss Haverty's boss at Manning Consulting. He disappeared, too, only he managed to sell a business and several homes without being noticed. We haven't been able to find him."

While Agent Allen spoke with the forensics detective, Agent Savage turned and walked back to the car. She had remained quiet and listened. Her only interest in Haverty was her connection to Bedford's disappearance, and the most she would find out about Bedford would come from the autopsy. Allen was going through the motions and finding dead ends. Maybe it was time to start from the beginning. She yelled back across the road to Allen. "I'm going back to the hotel. I'll see you tomorrow at the hospital."

Allen gave her a quick nod and watched her call a cab. She'd not offered any help with this case other than the letter that had been found in Angela's safe. As far as he was concerned, she was dead weight and was happy to see her gone.

Agent Tamara Savage was far from dead weight. She'd been decorated several times in her career and had been given special commendation for taking a bullet for a former partner. But this was not her city, and Agent Allen had an advantage in that he already knew one of the two women in question here. Tonight, she would learn this city; its good, its bad and its worse. The first place she would start was the beach where the Bedford case seemed to finally move forward; the scene of the drowning of Miss Haverty.

Dropping by her hotel to change out of her suit, she donned jeans and a sweater, and after pulling on her tennis shoes, she went back down to the waiting cab and asked for the nearest rental car lot. Happy to have her own transportation rather than being Allen's sidekick, she drove to China Beach, parked at the top of the cliff and walked down the long flight of steps to waves crashing on the sand below. It was late, but the moon offered enough light to see the beach, the ocean, and the houses that lined the cliff above clearly.

She stood motionless, listening to all the sounds around her; the gentle rolling of the waves onto shore, the plaintive cries of the seabirds...a distant fog horn, music coming from one of the homes behind her. Turning her head so that her ear was toward the ocean, she heard faint voices, and peering into the inky darkness, she was able to make out a darkened ship drifting in and out of a fog bank that had stalled offshore.

"Damn foreigners!"

She jumped and turned around, her hand instinctively moving to the gun she carried at the waist of her jeans.

"Pardon me, ma'am. Didn't mean to scare you. It's just I see you noticed that ship out in the water there. It's those damn foreigners. They come up here on a boat, swim to shore and sneak into the city for an all-nighter, then swim back to their boat the next morning."

"Wouldn't the coast guard find the boat?"

"No. The boat leaves and comes back. There's so many boats that come and go through the Golden Gate, no one really pays attention to the ones that come and go. Just the ones that stay."

"You come out here often?"

"Every night. I live right up there," he said, pointing to the homes on the cliff. "Third one from the end."

Tamara kept her eyes on the boat as she spoke. "Anything bad...other than the foreigners...ever happen on this beach. I was thinking about bringing my kid out here some time."

"Well, it's pretty hard to get to. You gotta come down all those stairs from up top. Still, on the weekends it's pretty crowded. Not so much during the week. 'Cept, there was girl found drowned here...oh...about a week ago."

"Drowned?"

"Yeah. She'd been coming down here for awhile to swim every morning. She'd go about twenty feet out and then swim up and back a couple of times." He turned toward the homes on the cliff. "You see that little house there? The one kinda hanging on the cliff?" Tamara nodded. "She lived there."

"So you watched her swim?"

"Every morning. Real early-like."

"What about the day she drowned?"

"Yeah, I saw her go into the water."

"Was there anyone else here? Or maybe a boat out there?"

The man frowned and shoved his hands in his pockets. "How come you asking? You a cop?"

"Not exactly. But I'm trying to find out if she drowned or if she was killed."

"Why would you think she was killed?"

"Because according to her fiancé, she was an excellent swimmer. He doesn't believe she drowned."

"I saw those two together a couple of times. Nice looking couple. He was some big surgeon at one of the hospitals in town."

"Did you see anyone else on the beach that day?"

Scratching his chin, the man quietly answered, "Yeah, there was someone on the beach. A man...young, with dark curly hair was out here early, sitting on the beach. He was wearing a wet suit, so I assumed he'd been in. He said something to her. I know because she smiled at him, and then went right on in. After she swam a lap or two, he went back in, too. I didn't see either one of them come out, but then I had gone into the house for awhile. When I came back out to the deck, that's when the police first arrived, and her body was up on shore."

"The young man?"

"Oh, he wasn't anywhere to be seen."

"Do you remember if there was a boat out there that day?"

"Yeah, there was. One of those real fancy yachts was sitting out there when she first went in, but it was gone by the time I came back out."

Tamara held out her hand, and when he took it, she slipped him a card. "If you remember anything else from that morning, Mr.?"

"Simmons. Fred Simmons."

"Mr. Simmons, would you call me at the number on that card?"

"You said you wasn't a cop?"

"I'm not. I'm with the FBI. Have a nice day, Mr. Simmons."