Runaway Heart

TEN

Herman was back in the cardio unit hooked up to flashing, beeping monitors. He had once again been electronically converted, while Susan endured another stern lecture from Dr. Shiller, who scolded her that Herman could easily have a heart attack next time, or even a stroke, and that they couldn't continue to cheat the odds.

"I'll talk to him about it, I promise," she said, as Shiller was being called into an emergency. He walked off at a brisk gait to fix the heart of a more reasonable patient.

Susan went back into the C.C.U. and sat with her father. He seemed crushed by the events of the day, his chin down on his furry chest. The hospital gown, printed with strange little red balloon drawings, looked comical and inappropriate, but at least the balloons matched Herman's bloodshot eyes.

"Dad, you need to get the operation," she said creeping up on the subject carefully.

"And miss out on all this heart-unit fun?" he said, trying to elicit a smile but getting nothing from her. "Dad, they say if you don't, you're gonna die."

"At least that'll cheat Melissa King out of her damn million-dollar fine," he said.

"Daddy, I can't lose you." She put her head on his chest and hugged him. "You're all I've ever had. You're the person I most want to be like. I need you with me. I need you to teach me."

"Don't bullshit your daddy," he said, smiling down at the top of her head.

She looked up at him as he stroked her long blond hair, running his fat, sausage-like fingers through it. "Daddy, promise me you'll get this operation."

"Okay," he said softly. "If the food in here was better, I probably wouldn't. But, I don't think I can eat another cardboard sandwich."

She hugged him with gratitude.

"But I can't do it till I get this thing squared away with Melissa on the fine." He added, "I gotta get that cut down somehow. She misapplied Rule Eleven. The suit wasn't groundless. I'll work something out with her tomorrow, but we'll probably have to sell some stuff in D.C.-the antique cabinets, or some computers, maybe my car. I'll probably have to set up another university speaking tour to get some cash. Once I make those arrangements I'll do the radio ablation thing."

"Thank you, God," she said softly.

"I admit there's a strong resemblance, but I'm just his mouthpiece," he teased her.

There was a knock at the door. The Korean floor nurse appeared with two men wearing Sears and Roebuck suits, brown shoes, and athletic socks. Everything about them screamed "Cop."

"Yes?" Herman said.

"These gentlemen were asking to see you," the nurse said.

The men entered the room clawing at their back pockets like bubbas about to pay for the last round of beers, but coming out instead with faded brown badge carriers, flopping them open, flashing gold shields.

"I'm Sergeant Lester Cole and this is Detective Investigator Dusty Halverchek," the heavier and shorter of the two said. Sergeant Cole was about Herman Strockmire's height, but with a muscular, weightlifter's body and eyes so tired they seemed to hold disgust for everything they saw. Dusty Halverchek was younger. Blond, in a tan suit. He was average in all respects: height, weight, and coloring. Beige. Nondescript. Dusty.

"We're with the San Francisco PD."

Oh, shit, Herman thought. Roland got himself busted.

"I wouldn't normally bother you under these circumstances, but this can't wait," Sergeant Cole said, his eyes flickering across the beeping, flashing table full of monitors.

Halverchek was checking out Susan, staring at her, undressing her with his eyes as if he'd never seen a pretty woman before.

"This is my daughter, Susan," Herman said, trying to interrupt Halverchek's ten-second fantasy.

The beige cop shook her hand eagerly. "We're with Homicide," trying to impress.

Herman's spirits plunged. Roland. Homicide?

"Did you have someone named Roland Minton working for you?" Cole pulled Roland's California driver's license out of his pocket and showed it to Herman. The d-1 picture of Roland was thin, geeky, with punk hair.

"Yes," Herman nodded. "Please don't tell me he's dead." The sentence wheezed out of him, like air through a broken pipe.

"Dead barely covers what happened to him," Halverchek said with an easy, almost friendly calm. "He was ripped apart. Pieces of him spread all over his damn hotel room."

Susan put her hands up to her mouth and started sobbing.

"Jesus," Sergeant Cole said, looking at his young partner. "Why don't ya just lob a grenade at 'em?" He turned back to Herman. "I'm sorry. He's only been on this detail a month."

"How? You say he was…" Herman took a breath. "He was…"

"Mutilated." Cole finished the sentence. "We're still trying to get a handle on exactly what happened. It's a little strange. We're not exactly sure how the room was accessed. There were video cameras on every hotel floor, but according to the hallway security tape, nobody went in or out of his room at that time in the morning. There is no way down from the roof, no balconies-real whodunit."

"Roland is dead?" Herman tried to make it stick in his spinning brain, thinking this was easily the worst day of his life. He felt responsible. He had sent Roland up there.

"Sir, I'm sorry to have to do this while you're in here with heart problems, but in a homicide investigation time is everything and we have to move quickly. I need to know in what capacity Mr. Minton was working for you."

"He was an electronic forensic investigator," Herman said evasively. "Sometimes, when we're in a trial and aren't able to get data from a defendant that we've subpoenaed information from, I would employ Roland to help me locate it."

"You mean steal it, don't you? You hack it off someone's computer," Sergeant Cole said.

"No," Herman fudged. "He would access Web pages, read corporate reports, try and make an informed guess as to which computer or company might have the stuff we're looking for. Then I would file a new discovery motion and try to get my hands on the electronic data."

"And he had to go to San Francisco to do this? The Internet is everywhere."

Herman didn't answer. He just shrugged.

"Have it your way, but I wasn't born yesterday, Mr. Strockmire. My take is, he went up there to steal some corporate documents, then sent them down to you, so you could decide if they were worth going after-then you'd write your discovery motions. If that's what happened, I want whatever he sent you, and I want it now. It's evidence. It might contain a motive."

"I received nothing," Herman said. "And I resent the implication that I would cheat to win a case." A lie, but what choice did he have?

"And I resent the way this guy was murdered," Cole shot back. "Mr. Minton is in a morgue refrigerator in six separate rubber bags. I'm looking for evidence in a murder. Computer crime is way down on my list, so relax. Whoever did this is a vicious son of a bitch. We're still trying to figure out how the body was ripped apart like that."

"You're sure it was him? That it was Roland?" Herman asked. "If the body was… was mutilated, maybe his license was planted on someone else's body."

"We have his head," Halverchek said. "It's a match."

"I beg your pardon?"

"He was decapitated." Dusty Halverchek seemed to be enjoying this. It was as if they were discussing ball scores. "His head was ripped off and thrown on the bed."

Susan turned and ran out of the room in tears.

"Shit, Dusty," Cole said.

Herman was wondering how he would get through the next few minutes. Miraculously, his heart stayed on rhythm, although the bedside monitor beeped ominously.

"What kind of information was he after?" Cole asked.

"He was looking for information regarding a case we had in court. We were suing three labs and a handful of federal agencies over careless testing of bio-enhanced corn."

"I see," Cole said, looking over at Halverchek, who shrugged. "And you say he sent you nothing?"

Herman nodded. "He hadn't contacted me in two or three days, which is unlike him. I was expecting to hear yesterday, because we started trial this morning. When he didn't call I got worried. I didn't know what could have happened to him."

"He died sometime around five this morning," Cole said. "You're absolutely sure he gave you nothing? Sent you nothing? No material-or anything that might suggest who could have killed him?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? We were expecting him to call. He didn't. I was getting worried."

"I see." Cole looked at Halverchek again and they had some kind of silent cop moment. Then Cole turned back to Herman. "Anything else you can think of that might be important?"

"He has a mother. Have you notified her?" Herman asked.

"Not yet. We didn't have any next of kin. If you have her number, we'll do it."

"I'd like to be the one to call her. He was her only child."

"Sorry," Cole said. "We have to do the notification of death, then you can contact her. Where does she live?"

" Washington, D.C. "

"You can call her sometime tomorrow after lunch."

Herman wrote the number down and handed it to Sergeant Cole.

"We'll need a list of names of the corporations and agencies you were suing."

"It's in my briefcase… on the top. They're listed on a motion I filed yesterday. It's a copy, so you can have it."

Halverchek opened the briefcase, found the motion, and held it up for Herman to see. He nodded. Then the nondescript cop folded it and put it in his side pocket.

"Okay, then you have no further knowledge of who or what might have killed him?" Cole asked.

"Did you say what might have killed him?" Herman furrowed his brow.

"The body was ripped apart. Shredded," Cole said. "There was no surgical intervention. He wasn't cut apart, is what I'm trying to say. We know of nothing that would have enough strength to disjoint a man physically like that… pull him limb from limb. Our ME is telling us it would take more than a thousand pounds per square inch to accomplish that. Also, the window frame was bent open. We can't imagine the killer got in that way, because there was no balcony to stand on, but the window was pried. No human would be strong enough to do it. There was urine mixed in with all the blood. It doesn't match the urine left in the deceased's bladder, so whoever or whatever did this urinated on the body parts."

Herman's mind was wrestling with what Sergeant Cole had just said.

"Okay, Mr. Strockmire. I'm going to end this now because your doctor says it's a terrible time for this interview, and he wanted us to keep it short. But I'm going to have to ask some follow-up questions later. I may require you to come up to San Francisco. Would that be possible?"

"Yes."

"Here are my numbers," Sergeant Cole said, handing him an embossed card that was a lot nicer than the flat, cheap Institute for Planetary Justice cards that Herman gave to his clients.

After Sergeant Cole and Detective Halverchek left, Herman lay quietly in the hospital bed listening as his heart beeped hypnotically from the bedside monitor. He was horrified about Roland, feeling responsible and full of remorse. But his mind kept coming back to Sergeant Cole's statement:

We know of nothing that could have enough strength to disjoint a man physically.

With all that he knew about the abuses of the federal government, Herman had a few ideas of his own. But he dared not even contemplate their ramifications.