It was past seven p.m. when Rudge dropped Jenner at the ME office. The main municipal building was brightly lit but the lab wing was dark.

Jenner reached for the door handle, then turned to Rudge and said, “Hey, can I ask you something? When we were at the farms, did you get the feeling we were being watched? Not by the management, by the workers, I mean. I could swear one of the field hands made a phone call about us as we were leaving UFL.”

Rudge nodded and grinned. “Actually, Jenner, the first call was made by the guy at the taqueria in Bel Arbre. No two ways about it: they’re watching us.”

“The farm owners, you think?”

“Unless they own the taco stand too, I’d say no: I’m thinking it’s the Mexicans.”

“The same people who approached Adam Weiss?”

“Maybe them, maybe bad guys—no way to know. It’s a tight community, and we’re sticking our dicks in it.” Rudge stretched. “Okay, Jenner, I gotta go write up my notes. See you tomorrow.”

Jenner crossed the shadowy lobby and went down the hall into his office. The voice mail light blinked aggressively on his phone. He scanned his desk for the envelope, then stepped back into the hallway to check the mailboxes.

Still no paycheck. Christ.

He sat at his desk, punched in his code, and listened to his messages. There was a message from Anders’s receptionist Arlene, asking him to see the sheriff as soon as possible. She stressed that no matter what time he got back, the sheriff would be in, and that he wanted to see Jenner urgently.

The last message was from Deb Putnam. She spoke softly and with an unforced warmth. She was following up—they’d talked about maybe getting dinner tonight. She’d called during the day, but he’d been out. She figured he might be too tired, but if he felt like it, he could give her a call when he got the message. She wasn’t doing much anyway, so if he wanted to hit Outback, they could do that, or maybe one of the fancier places down on the Promenade.

He added her number to his call list, then hung up.

He pulled out his cell. He hesitated for a second, then dialed Maggie Craine’s number.

His call went straight to voice mail. After an instant of indecision, he said, “Hey, Maggie. It’s Jenner. It’s about seven thirty p.m., and I’m about to get off work. Wondered if you felt like getting a drink or something. I’ll catch up with you…Take care.”

He hung up, feeling like a high school boy—regretting the call, regretting the message even more.

Jenner left the gloom of the lab wing and crossed the glass-block passage into the main building. The walkway was brightly lit from outside; the glowing corridor of white light made him think of near-death experiences, and then of his own death. He grinned—he’d never been good at thinking about his own mortality.

The door to Major Crimes was open, and seeing Rudge, Jenner stuck his head in.

“Hey.”

Rudge nodded grimly. Detective Bartley, a tanned man in a khaki suit, with brush-cut hair and a gold earring, was sitting on his desk near Rudge; he glanced at Jenner but said nothing. The two were looking at the TV.

Jenner turned to see what Bartley and Rudge were watching so intently. He recognized the show instantly—the lurid red-white-and-blue graphics (truth, justice, and the American Way) would have been enough, even without the tawdry American Crime logo in the corner.

Jenner was on TV.

Of course. That was why Amanda Tucker had come herself rather than sending one of her winged monkeys—the horrible deaths of four men alone couldn’t have dragged her down to this godforsaken swamp. Marty Roburn and his wife, rotting gently in a drowned car for weeks? Also not enough.

She’d come for Jenner.

She’d come to play with him, come to carve him up again, pop out his limbs like some gluttonous king tearing apart a chicken, come to open him up and serve him to her public.

He pulled up a desk chair and sat.

American Crime had put together a biography of Jenner; they’d done their homework. Over the caption INQUISITOR PATHOLOGIST IN FL, the camera panned slowly across a photo of him in medical school, his mother and father applauding as he received the prize in physical diagnosis. Then a montage from the ensuing years—on Miami Beach, Jenner next to the body of a drowned swimmer. Video of Jenner in court, gesturing emphatically as he testified in a child abuse case. A Miami Herald photo of him standing next to a bullet-riddled car in Liberty City, the bloody body of a man dangling through the driver’s-side window.

He watched it all, almost unable to hear. The location shifted to New York—a skyline shot of Manhattan, sliding down the West Side from the Empire State to the World Trade Center. Then the familiar 9/11 video—the planes hitting, the towers collapsing, the thousands of dust-covered workers fleeing in horror. Then Jenner’s photo from his New York ME ID card, the word QUIT in red block letters suddenly stamped across his face. His face was then replaced by head shots of the Inquisitor victims punching into the screen with a rat-a-tat rhythm. When they showed Joey Roggetti’s funeral, the detective’s flag-draped coffin surrounded by a welling ocean of blue serge dress uniforms lining the streets of Queens, Jenner could barely breathe.

And then Ana de Jong. Ana. The New York Post telephoto shots of them on the sidewalk in front of his building, Jenner fully dressed, Ana in one of his sweatshirts, bare-legged in sneakers, up on tiptoe to kiss him. Then Jenner with his arm around her shoulder, lifting his coat to shield her from the photographer. Then grainy ambush video, slowed to a crawl, the two of them running down Crosby, fleeing the paparazzi. Jenner hadn’t seen that one before; it was from after he’d killed Ana’s tormentor, when he’d brought her home from the hospital.

He watched the flow in silence, the images gushing through him. Amanda Tucker now, the return of the “creepy, creepy sexual opportunist” clip. Then Jenner, his New York State Physician Identification, the words LICENSE SUSPENDED forming onscreen. A map graphic showing southern Florida in orange, with Douglas County highlighted and a yellow star for Port Fontaine. The camera zoomed to the star, then cut to standard tourist footage of the town—beaches, the Promenade boutiques, a waterfront seafood restaurant.

Then Marty and Bobbie Roburn, and an artist’s rendering of four men hanged in a jungle, then what looked like a yearbook photo of Adam Weiss, the images stacking into a neat pyramid on the screen, with Weiss at the top.

Amanda Tucker in front of the municipal building, chatting with Tom Anders, walking the marble halls to his office. Anders in front of the huge bronze bust of his dad at the entrance to his office, talking about the investigations. Then in the sheriff’s office, Anders’s sweaty sheen an uncomfortable contrast to Amanda Tucker, cool and dry in her cream pants suit.

Jenner stood. He didn’t need to see this.

But he didn’t leave.

Onscreen, Amanda was showing Anders their video biography of Jenner. She then asked the sheriff if he’d known that Jenner had lost his license in New York. Anders stressed that, though he was vaguely aware of Jenner’s involvement in the Inquisitor case, today was the first he’d learned of the suspension. The late medical examiner, Dr. Roburn, had recruited Jenner and had spoken extremely highly of Jenner’s skills.

Amanda pushed it. “And now that you’re aware of these issues, will you be looking into Dr. Jenner’s qualifications? Have there been any problems with his performance?”

Anders pursed his lips, then nodded, saying, “I would say that some of Dr. Jenner’s decisions have seemed questionable to me.”

“And, Sheriff Anders, do you now feel that Dr. Jenner is…the ideal person to be investigating these killings? Particularly given that one of them is his former mentor, Dr. Roburn.”

“Well, I’ll tell you this, Amanda. My office will review his credentials, and if there’s anything that doesn’t meet Douglas County’s standards, appropriate actions will be taken.”

“And what would you mean by ‘appropriate actions’?”

“Well, today I’ve spoken with the Dade County medical examiner’s office in Miami; they’ve agreed to provide emergency coverage, should the need arise.”

Amanda Tucker nodded, a look of firm approval on her face, said, “I see.”

The outro clip was the slow motion video of Jenner and Ana running to the safety of his loft.

And then they were in a commercial break, an earnest Vanessa Redgrave–lookalike urging Americans to invest in gold in a time of crisis.

Rudge, with a long whistle, leaned back, then looked at him. “Hey, Jenner—maybe if you’re really extra-good this year, Santa will bring you the DVD…”

Jenner, unsmiling, shook his head.

“That all true?”

Jenner stood. “What do you mean ‘true’? Yeah, that was me. Yes, I did those things. Yes, I was with the girl, and yes, she was an Inquisitor victim. But it wasn’t like I…you know, planned it or anything—it just happened. I was having a hard time, she was having a hard time, and it happened. And it’s all right now, she’s gone.”

“And the cop? The detective? Roggetti, was it?”

“What about him?”

“What really happened?”

“Just like it said in all the papers: the guy got the drop on us. He beat the crap out of me, killed Joey Roggetti, and cut up another detective real bad.”

Rudge thought for a second, nodding.

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Well, I’m luckier than Joey,” Jenner said, forcing a fake grin.

Rudge raised his hands in irritation. “Jesus, you gotta let that shit go. Roggetti was a cop, one of New York’s Finest. He knew the risks—we all know the risks, but we know the odds are in our favor, know what I’m saying? And sometimes it don’t work out, and we lose. But we do what we do because we believe in it. Roggetti died doing what he believed in. He protected and served, right? He’s a hero. And you killed the man who killed him, right? You tracked down that muthafucka and flat-out killed him dead. You did what had to be done for Roggetti, so in my book you’re a hero too.”

He shook his head. “You can’t go around carrying this shit, Jenner—I saw you tense up when the funeral came on. Sooner or later you have to tell yourself: ‘It’s not my fault’…”

Jenner said, “Look, I watched Joey die in front of me, watched him bleed out maybe four feet from where I was lying. That man beat me down, beat me so bad I couldn’t move—all I could do was watch my friend die. Joey died in my building, trying to help my girlfriend. So don’t tell me whose fault it is or…”

“Dr. Jenner?” He turned to see Anders right behind him. “You and I need to have a little talk.”

A Hard Death
001-coverpage.html
002-titlepage.html
004-epigraphpage.html
003-TOC.html
005-chapter01.html
006-chapter02.html
007-chapter03.html
008-chapter04.html
009-chapter05.html
010-chapter06.html
011-chapter07.html
012-chapter08.html
013-chapter09.html
014-chapter10.html
015-chapter11.html
016-chapter12.html
017-chapter13.html
018-chapter14.html
019-chapter15.html
020-chapter16.html
021-chapter17.html
022-chapter18.html
023-chapter19.html
024-chapter20.html
025-chapter21.html
026-chapter22.html
027-chapter23.html
028-chapter24.html
029-chapter25.html
030-chapter26.html
031-chapter27.html
032-chapter28.html
033-chapter29.html
034-chapter30.html
035-chapter31.html
036-chapter32.html
037-chapter33.html
038-chapter34.html
039-chapter35.html
040-chapter36.html
041-chapter37.html
042-chapter38.html
043-chapter39.html
044-chapter40.html
045-chapter41.html
046-chapter42.html
047-chapter43.html
048-chapter44.html
049-chapter45.html
050-chapter46.html
051-chapter47.html
052-chapter48.html
053-chapter49.html
054-chapter50.html
055-chapter51.html
056-chapter52.html
057-chapter53.html
058-chapter54.html
059-chapter55.html
060-chapter56.html
061-chapter57.html
062-chapter58.html
063-chapter59.html
064-chapter60.html
065-chapter61.html
066-chapter62.html
067-chapter63.html
068-chapter64.html
069-chapter65.html
070-chapter66.html
071-chapter67.html
072-chapter68.html
073-chapter69.html
074-chapter70.html
075-chapter71.html
076-chapter72.html
077-chapter73.html
078-chapter74.html
079-chapter75.html
080-chapter76.html
081-chapter77.html
082-chapter78.html
083-chapter79.html
084-chapter80.html
085-chapter81.html
086-chapter82.html
087-chapter83.html
088-chapter84.html
089-chapter85.html
090-chapter86.html
091-chapter87.html
092-chapter88.html
093-chapter89.html
094-chapter90.html
095-chapter91.html
096-chapter92.html
097-chapter93.html
098-chapter94.html
099-chapter95.html
100-chapter96.html
101-chapter97.html
102-chapter98.html
103-chapter99.html
104-chapter100.html
105-chapter101.html
106-chapter102.html
107-chapter103.html
108-chapter104.html
109-chapter105.html
110-chapter106.html
111-chapter107.html
112-chapter108.html
113-chapter109.html
114-chapter110.html
115-chapter111.html
116-chapter112.html
117-chapter113.html
118-chapter114.html
119-chapter115.html
120-chapter116.html
121-chapter117.html
122-chapter118.html
123-chapter119.html
124-chapter120.html
125-chapter121.html
126-chapter122.html
127-chapter123.html
128-chapter124.html
129-chapter125.html
130-chapter126.html
131-chapter127.html
132-chapter128.html
133-chapter129.html
134-chapter130.html
135-chapter131.html
136-chapter132.html
137-chapter133.html
138-chapter134.html
139-chapter135.html
140-chapter136.html
141-chapter137.html
142-chapter138.html
143-chapter139.html
144-chapter140.html
145-chapter141.html
146-backmatterpage01.html
147-acknowledgmentpage.html
148-aboutauthorpage.html
149-adcardpage.html
150-creditspage.html
151-copyrightpage.html
152-aboutpublisherpage.html