“Thank you for coming, Detectives,” Krish said. “He’s this way.”
Krish led them to an examining room with three metal tables side by side. Robles lay naked on the middle table. The air was thick with the sickly-sweet scent of antiseptic and death. Every surface gleamed. Harsh overhead lights gave the dead man’s body a grotesquely illuminated sheen.
Robles was even thinner than Serrano remembered, his body all angles. His rib cage looked like twigs covered by tissue paper. His collarbones protruded from his torso like the ends of a coat hanger. And Serrano could have fit a golf ball into the hollows of his cheeks. His skin was covered in thin scars and cheap tattoos that had already begun to fade despite his young age.
Serrano circled the body. He noted track marks on Robles’s arms and between his toes. A large putrid abscess had formed in the crook of Robles’s right elbow. Serrano leaned in, took a whiff, and recoiled.
“Sepsis,” he said, stepping back. “A few more months without treatment, and Robles would have needed his arm amputated.”
“His record might have been clean recently,” Tally added, “but Chris knew how to keep his extracurricular activities under wraps.”
“Or his sister did,” Serrano said.
“Mortuary van is on the way,” Krish said. “Cause of death was a pulmonary embolism. You need to know there was nothing in Christopher Robles’s medical history regarding the extent of his recent drug use. But as you can plainly see, his usage had been long, and it had been frequent, and it was ongoing.”
“You think there were complications postsurgery due to the long-term effects?” Serrano said.
“No doubt,” Stevens said. “I’m sure the autopsy will confirm it. Sepsis had already set in. See that abscess?” Stevens pointed to the green-and-black wound on Robles’s arm. “No doubt blood poisoning had already begun to develop. We pumped him full of antibiotics, but this infection should have been treated a long time ago.”
“Look at the scars,” Stevens said, pointing to the marks on Robles’s arms. “Those are years old. That kind of long-term usage, you develop thrombosis, tuberculosis, bacterial infections, you name it.”
“I’ll request his full medical records,” Serrano said. “We can get HIPAA waived given that Robles was the suspect in a crime.”
“I still don’t understand. Why in the hell wouldn’t all this be in his charts?” Krish said.
Tally looked at Serrano. They both knew Robles had spent time in rehab. No doubt his stints in prison had come with trips to the medical wing.
Tally said, “Pretty sure I can guess.”
Tally parked the Crown Vic at the curb in front of the Drummond residence. Snow fell into trenches where the streets had been recently plowed. The lawn outside the Drummond house looked lovely covered in a blanket of fresh powder. It brought back difficult memories for Serrano: sledding and snowmen and hot chocolate. Memories that, no matter how hard he tried, he was unable to suppress.
They began to trudge up the driveway when Nicholas Drummond came barreling out the front door, waving his arms like he was signaling a plane on a runway.
“No, Detectives,” he said. “Turn around. Not today.”
“We need to speak to your wife,” Serrano said. “I know emotions are running high, and our hearts go out to you both. But we need her to come to the hospital, and then we need to ask her a few questions.”
Tally added, “Christopher’s medical records were wiped clean of his recent substance issues. Meaning someone had them expunged.”
“And you think it was Isabelle,” Drummond said, his voice laced with anger and confusion, as though he hadn’t considered the possibility but was now forced to. Drummond came down the steps and lowered his voice. “Listen, this isn’t a good time. Chris was . . . I can’t say I ever knew the kid all that well. But to my wife, he was the most precious thing on earth. She doesn’t need this right now.”
“I’m sympathetic to that, Mr. Drummond,” Serrano said. “But Christopher was in police custody after breaking into someone’s home while armed and with intent to harm. This isn’t a courtesy call. We need to talk to your wife about her brother.”
Then a voice rang out: “You did this to him.”
Serrano and Tally both looked up. Isabelle Drummond was standing in the doorway, her eyes streaked with red. Her face was not marked with anger but hate. Pure hate.
“Mrs. Drummond,” Tally said. “We are so sorry for your loss. If we can just take a minute of your time—”
“You already took some of my time, and now my brother is dead. Maybe if you take more time, you can kill my husband too. Maybe me? You goddamn murderers.”
“Mrs. Drummond,” Serrano said. He took a step forward.
“Take one more step, I’ll consider you trespassing, and I’ll get my gun,” Isabelle said. Serrano couldn’t tell if she was serious.
“Please don’t threaten us, Mrs. Drummond,” Tally said. “We understand this is a difficult time. It doesn’t need to come to this.”
“You came here to talk to my husband about that bitch ex-wife of his. And you bring, who, that strange woman with you? And then I find out that she’s not even a real cop? What was it, some sort of fun ride along? Did you feel sorry for her and her two sad, fatherless children?”
Fatherless children? Serrano’s eyes narrowed. Clearly Isabelle had done some digging into Rachel Marin. Which made him wonder whether Christopher really had acted of his own accord.
“The sooner we talk to you,” Tally said, “the sooner we can find out why your brother is dead.”
“My brother is dead because of you and that woman. You’re lucky you’re police. You have all your buddies to protect you. I know how it works. You take in a suspect, he dies in your custody, you wipe your hands of it.”
“That’s not the case,” Serrano pleaded. “We want to know the truth.”
“The truth is that I’m not saying another word to you without my lawyer present. And that Marin bitch had better keep her loved ones closer than I did. You never know what could happen to someone when you think they’re safe.”
Isabelle went back into the house, leaving the door open. A signal that she expected her husband to join her. Nicholas sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Detectives. Our lawyer will be in touch.”
He turned around to join his wife.
“Please, just one question, Mr. Drummond,” Serrano said. Drummond turned around. “When did you really begin dating Isabelle Robles?”
Drummond said nothing, hesitated a moment, and then went inside and slammed the door. A shelf of snow loosened from the roof and tumbled to the ground.
CHAPTER 18
Tally pulled the Crown Vic into the parking lot of the Best Western as Serrano finished the last dregs of his now-cold coffee. Serrano saw the unmarked police car parked at the other end of the lot. They walked over and rapped on the driver’s side window. Officer Lowe rolled it down and offered a tired smile. Lowe and Chen appeared to be sleepy but lucid.
“Detectives,” Lowe said.
“Any action last night?” Serrano asked. Lowe shook his head.