“He always keeps the file keys here,” she said. “They’re gone. That’s very strange.”
I told the security guard to break the locks with his crowbar, and I began to methodically trash the place.
The file cabinets held patient files and medical journals still in their glassine wrappers. I flipped through hundreds of files, graphs, and memos, looking for anything that would trigger a thought or an action, anything that would give me a clue.
Nothing did.
I jerked out the top drawer of Garza’s desk, sending pens and paper clips spilling onto the carpet. I pawed through the tangle of office supplies, hoping for brass buttons, a piece of jewelry, or a hospital ID bracelet, any souvenirs or trophies a serial killer might keep of his victims.
It was all strictly Office Depot.
An overnighter hung behind the door.
I yanked the zipper down, tossed the contents: a blue sports jacket, size 42 long; gray pants; black Coach belt; two button-down shirts, one pink, one blue; underwear; a leather tie holder. I found and unzipped a small black case—a diabetes test kit complete with syringes and bottles of insulin.
Garza was a diabetic.
His toiletry kit was filled with the normal stuff—toothpaste, razor, mouthwash, some sample packets of a soporific, an acid reducer, pills for erectile dysfunction.
Why the overnighter?
Fresh clothing for his court appearance?
Stuff to wear after spending the night with his girlfriend?
Either way, this was not evidence of murder.
I was digging into the corners of the bag and inside the zipper pockets, panting with frustration, when my Nextel rang.
“I’m down in the nurses’ locker room,” Jacobi said, pausing to cough, then saying words that made me want to name my firstborn Warren.
“Get down here, Boxer. I’ve got a suspect under arrest on suspicion of murder.”
Chapter 119
A SUSPECT UNDER ARREST? I felt as if maybe all our hard work and risk-taking had finally paid off. Now, who was this monster?
A shifting crowd of nurses and aides were bunched against the far wall of the basement locker room. Some were squawking about their civil rights; others jeered at the cops as they used bolt cutters on the locks of unclaimed lockers.
Jacobi, bulky and scowling, looked more like muscle than he did a cop. He stood beside a dark-skinned woman in blue scrubs, sitting on a bench between the banks of lockers. Her arms were cuffed behind her back. I didn’t think I’d ever seen her before.
She was in her forties, with a plain, unlined oval face and short, straightened hair. A gold charm of a praying angel dangled from a chain around her neck.
She lowered her head and whimpered softly as I approached. Did she know who I was? Was this our killer?
“I asked this lady if she’d come down to the Hall to answer a few questions. She made a break for the door,” Jacobi said.
Then he showed me a small plastic box half-filled with caduceus buttons. I took the box and stared into the glinting brass pool. How could anything so harmless-looking have such murderous implications?
I allowed myself a small but triumphant smile as I looked at Jacobi.
“These were on the top shelf of this lady’s locker, Lieutenant,” he said. “I sent Conklin and Samuels back to the Hall for a warrant to search her apartment.”
“What’s your name?” I asked the woman.
“Marie St. Germaine.” She had a hint of an accent. West Indian, I thought.
The tag hanging from the chain around her neck identified her as a CNA, a certified nurse’s assistant. That meant that her job took her from floor to floor, giving her the opportunity to get into patients’ rooms.