Shock Treatment (16 page)

“Crap!” Vartann blurted as he took a shortcut across the lawn. He glanced down at his feet.

Sara paused in her tracks. “What is it?”

“Ugh.” Lifting his right foot, he glared in disgust at the sole. “Watch your step. Some dog's been using this yard as a toilet.”

Sara decided to stick to the paved front walk. She recalled that Heather's dog was also missing, but was reluctant to read too much into a random piece of poop. Plenty of people had dogs, maybe even Heather's family.

“Thanks for the warning.” She couldn't resist
teasing him a bit. “Didn't anyone tell you not to step in the evidence?”

“Is that what this is?” He extended his soiled sole toward her. A fecal odor confirmed the nature of the specimen without benefit of advanced forensic technology. “You're free to bag it if you like.”

Sara made a face. “I'll pass, thank you.”

He scraped his shoe off on the grass as best he could, then joined her on the front porch. As before, she stepped back and let him ring the doorbell. A chime sounded inside, followed almost immediately by some high-pitched yapping.

She and Vartann exchanged a look. He lifted an eyebrow. “Didn't that neighbor say something about a yappy dog?”

“Could be a family tradition,” Sara pointed out. She still didn't want to jump to conclusions. “Lots of folks get the same breed over and over.”

“Good point,” Vartann conceded. “One of my uncles has had seven bulldogs, all named Marlene.”

Marlene?
Before Sara could inquire further, the door was opened by an older white man wearing a button-down sweater and slacks. Receding gray hair was combed back neatly. He peered warily at his visitors through a pair of bifocals. “Yes?”

“Frank Gilroy?” Vartann asked.

“Yes,” the man confirmed. “Can I help you?”

Vartann held up his badge. “Detective Vartann, LVPD. This is Sara Sidle from the crime lab. We're looking for your daughter, Heather.”

Frank tensed visibly. “She doesn't live here.”

That's not exactly what we asked,
Sara noted. She found it interesting that Heather's father didn't ask
why the police were looking for her. Which implied that he had been in touch with her, and was familiar with her recent difficulties.

“We know that,” Vartann said. “But do you know where we can find her?”

“'Fraid not.” Frank did not invite them in.

A station wagon was parked in the driveway. According to the DMV, Heather drove a used lime-green Yaris. Sara hadn't spotted any vehicles matching that description yet, but Gilroy's garage door was closed. It was possible the Yaris was hiding nearby.

“We're not looking to arrest Heather,” she explained. “We just need to ask her some questions about that incident at her job yesterday. You know about that, right?”

Frank faltered, uncertain how to respond. He tugged at his collar. “Um, I'm not sure.”

“It would be better for Heather if she talked with us,” Sara advised him, playing good cop. She tried to peer past him into the house, but he blocked her view. “Avoiding us gives the wrong impression.”

Her words appeared to give him pause. He started to glance back over his shoulder, but caught himself. “I'll tell her that . . . if I see her.”

Frantic yapping continued to punctuate the conversation. What was Heather's dog's name again? Sara smiled slyly as a sneaky ploy popped into her mind.

“Jonas!” she called out. “Here, Jonas!”

The unseen dog barked excitedly. Running paws raced toward the door. A female voice shouted in alarm. “Jonas . . . no!”

The command came too late. A wiry white-and-brown terrier darted out the door, past Frank, who
grabbed unsuccessfully for the hyper canine. Sara knelt down just in time for a furry little torpedo to pile onto her lap. Yipping loudly, the terrier started licking Sara's face enthusiastically enough to remove several layers of epithelials. A metal tag hung on the dog's collar. Doing her best to avoid being licked to death, she managed to get a look at the tag. Engraved letters read
JONAS
.

Sara stood up, much to the terrier's frustration. She confronted Frank. “Care to explain why your daughter's dog is here, Mr. Gilroy?”

“I . . . I . . .” At a loss for words, Frank gripped the door more for support than to bar the way. He stared at the telltale canine with a stricken expression that reminded Sara of any number of crestfallen felons who suddenly found themselves faced with a murder weapon they thought they had disposed of. He swallowed hard. “I can explain this. . . .”

Sara doubted that.

“It's okay, Dad.” Heather Gilroy appeared behind her father. Sara recognized the blond masseuse from her driver's license photo. She was dressed casually, in a violet jogging suit. Taking mercy on her father, she slid past him onto the porch. “I can handle this.”

Frank seemed to realize the jig was up. His shoulders sagged in defeat. “You sure, honey?”

“My problem,” she insisted. “Let me deal with it.” She scooped up Jonas, who had been circling Sara's ankles, trying to get her attention. Heather gave the terrier a gentle bop on the nose. “Bad dog.”

Her father retired to the foyer, but kept a close watch over the proceedings. Sara glimpsed an older
woman spying on them from the living room. Heather's mother, no doubt. The woman was wringing her hands anxiously.

Heather shooed Jonas inside, then pulled the door shut to get a little more privacy. “Please,” she entreated. “Don't blame my folks for any of this. They were just trying to protect me.”

“I understand.” Sara got the impression that Heather was ready to talk. She decided to make it easy on her. “Why don't we sit down?”

It was a bit nippy out, but not freezing yet, so there was no need to move indoors. Heather deposited herself in a white wingback chair, while Sara and Vartann claimed a matching wicker couch. The porch lights made observing Heather no problem. She looked nervous, but resigned. Despite her history, she didn't seem like a flight risk. “You know,” she said. “It's almost a relief to get this over with. I've been a nervous wreck since . . .”

“Why don't you tell us about it,” Vartann suggested. “In your own words.”

“Not much to tell, really.” She smiled weakly. “It was just an ordinary Monday morning at The Nile, except that Ms. Segura ended up taking Madame Alexandra's place in the Cleopatra Room. I put the snakes on the client, just like I've done plenty of times before. But then that striped snake bit her— and wouldn't let go.” Her bottom lip trembled. “I had to yank the damn thing off her!”

That sounds right,
Sara thought. According to her research, coral snakes tended to hang on to their victims, in order to inject a full load of venom. “What then?”

“Well, Rita was pretty freaked out, no surprise. So was I, to be honest. But at first the bite didn't seem that bad. Then she started getting woozy and collapsed onto the floor.” A guilty look came over Heather's face. “That's when I cleared the hell out of there.”

Vartann regarded her sternly. “Why did you run?”

“I don't know. I just panicked.” Unsure what to do with her hands, she picked at a loose strand of wicker on her armrest. “She looked like she was dying. I was afraid I was going to get arrested or sued or something.” She looked anxiously at Sara and Vartann. “Am I?”

“Not tonight,” Sara said. “We're still conducting our investigation.”

Heather didn't look terribly reassured. “Oh.”

“Do you know any reason why anyone would want to hurt Ms. Segura?” Vartann asked.

“On purpose?” Heather seemed surprised by the question, as though that possibility had not even occurred to her before. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“That's what we're trying to figure out,” Sara said. “Did Rita have any enemies, maybe somebody with access to the snakes?”

“How would I know?” Heather threw up her hands. “I barely knew the woman.”

“What about Madame Alexandra?” Vartann asked. “She was the one who was supposed to get the snake massage that morning, right?”

“Yes. Every Monday, before we opened. I was getting the room ready when Ms. Segura showed up.”

That fit with what they had heard before. Sara spelled it out for her. “Could somebody have meant for Madame Alexandra to be bitten instead?”

“I can't think why,” Heather said. “But, you know, she's just my boss. I don't know anything about her personal life.”

Come to think of it,
Sara thought.
Neither do we.

She still had to get Heather's fingerprints and DNA, but first she had another question. “Do you know the difference between a coral snake and a milk snake?”

“Not really,” Heather confessed. “Madame Alexandra told me they weren't poisonous, and that was enough for me. The serpentine massages were popular, so she had us all doing them. That doesn't mean we knew anything about the snakes.” She looked sick to her stomach. “I guess that was a mistake, huh?”

“Looks like it,” Sara said.

“Y
OU DON'T LOOK
like a cop.”

J. T. Aldridge did not strike Ray Langston as the scary criminal mastermind Marshall Segura had pictured. He was a skinny, unimposing white guy in his late twenties with multiple priors for selling pot on street corners. An orange prison jumpsuit seemed slightly too large for his scrawny frame. A buzz cut kept his short brown hair under control. Confused blue eyes looked Ray over, a trifle suspiciously, but without the shark-like deadness Ray had come to associate with stone-cold killers. About the only thing that fit Segura's description was the angry snake tattooed atop Aldridge's jugular. Its jaws were open, poised to strike. Crimson teardrops dripped from its exposed fangs.
A rattler,
Ray noted.
Not a coral snake.

“I'm not,” he said. “I'm a doctor. With the crime lab.”

High State Desert Prison was only about twenty-five
miles northeast of Vegas. Ray was glad that he hadn't needed to drive all day to interview the convicted drug dealer; in fact, it had taken longer to arrange this visit with the Department of Corrections. According to court records, Aldridge had been found guilty by a jury headed by Rita Segura. Motive enough to have someone plant a coral snake at The Nile?

Ray was here to find out.

“A doctor?” Aldridge perked up. “Like a medical doctor?”

“That's right.”

Ray sat opposite the convict in a private interview room. Painted concrete walls and barred windows made the interrogation rooms back at the police station seem homey by comparison. A stony-faced prison guard, his beefy arms crossed atop a barrel chest, watched over the encounter from a discreet distance. Ray actually found the guard more intimidating than Aldridge, even though the inmate was the one handcuffed to his chair. A billy club rested against the guard's hip.

“Cool.” Aldridge leaned forward. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You think maybe you could write me a prescription for some, you know, medical marijuana? I need it for my nerves.” He held his free hand so Ray could see it shake. “I have a problem with, what do you call it, anxiety.”

“I'm not really here in a medical capacity,” Ray hedged. “But perhaps we can talk about that later.” Nevada was one of fourteen states that had legalized the medicinal use of cannabis, but it was typically used to relieve the symptoms of patients suffering
from AIDS, cancer, or glaucoma. He doubted that Aldridge qualified for a permit, but didn't want to deny him just yet. He still needed the convict's cooperation. “Right now I want to talk to you about your trial.”

Aldridge snorted. “That wasn't a trial. That was a joke. My stupid public defender was just going through the motions. He couldn't even get my name right. The whole thing was a big misunderstanding. A case of, you know, mistaken identity? I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I see.” Ray took Aldridge's claims with a grain of salt. Convicts who freely admitted their guilt were about as rare as slot machines that paid out jackpots on a regular basis; according to most prisoners, every conviction was an appalling miscarriage of justice. Ray got straight to the point. “Do you remember the jury that convicted you?”

“Not really.” Aldridge drew back from the table, going on guard. He eyed Ray warily. “How come?”

“One of the jury members was attacked,” Ray divulged. He was reluctant to mention Rita Segura by name, just in case Aldridge was unfamiliar with her identity.

“And you think I did it?” The inmate acted incredulous. He gestured at the austere concrete walls surrounding them. “Look around, man. I've got the perfect alibi.”

“You could have arranged to have someone on the outside do it,” Ray observed. Like Heather Gilroy, perhaps. “A witness at the trial claims you glared at the jury when the verdict was read.”

“I was pissed, man, that's all. Doesn't mean I'm
out to get them, or that I even remember what they looked like. They were just twelve dumb sheep who fell for the prosecution's bullshit.” Flushing with anger, he raised his voice enough to get a cautionary look from the guard, who took one step forward. Aldridge dialed it down, but still tried hard to convince Ray. “If I wanted to get back at anybody, it would be that hard-ass judge for throwing the book at me, or the narcs who busted me, or that scumbag who fingered me to get himself a better deal. Trust me, if I was out for revenge, the damn jury would be at the bottom of my list. A whole lot of other people are responsible for me being in here.”

Ray was inclined to believe him. Aldridge was just a small-time pot dealer with no violent crimes on his record. He didn't seem the type to hatch an elaborate revenge scheme from behind bars. Still, Ray's gaze was drawn back to the coiled serpent on the convict's neck.