Deaths of Jocasta by J. M. Redmann

Author:J. M. Redmann [Redmann, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781602820739
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
Published: 2002-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Monday I went to the clinic, but Cordelia wasn’t there. Part of her bail arrangement was agreeing not to see patients. Bernie was busy canceling and rescheduling. Bowen and Goldstein would cover as best they could.

Better air-conditioning than mine, I told myself when I wondered what the hell I was doing here. I roamed about for a while, upstairs, downstairs. I avoided the back door and sight of the overgrown lot, until I realized I was avoiding it and made myself walk out to it to at least within a few feet (okay, yards) of the tangled and now trampled edge.

“Smelling the roses again, Miss Knight?” The ever-vigilant O’Connor.

“Wishing for a horrible head cold,” I retorted.

“I have some bad news for you. From your point of view.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

“Autopsy report on Faye Zimmer. Fifteen years old.”

“I know.”

“Sergeant Ranson?”

I nodded and he continued.

“She didn’t need an abortion. She wasn’t pregnant.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“Faye Zimmer was murdered. Someone put something sharp up her and killed her.”

“Jocasta,” I said, my brain making one of those dazed connections.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

“Jocasta?” he repeated.

“Oedipus Rex. Sophocles wrote the most well-known version. Oedipus unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. When he discovered what he’d done, he blinded himself. But his mother, Jocasta, commits suicide. In one version, a later Roman one, she kills herself by forcing a knife into her womb,” I finished disconcertedly, wondering what O’Connor thought of my jumbled thought patterns.

He grunted, then said, “I thought you might want to know.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“It’s like this, Miss Knight,” he told me. “I make piles. First pile is evidence, what’ll go in court. Next is what I’m sure of, but can’t prove yet. Last pile is what people tell me, she says, he says. Question marks. For a while you were a real big question mark. But you wouldn’t have pointed out that body if you were in it with her. That I’m sure of.”

“Cordelia didn’t kill anyone.”

“You’re so sure of that. Why?”

“She wouldn’t do it.”

“So you say.”

“Look, you’ve questioned her. She’s not stupid enough to dump a body a hundred yards from her back door while being the prime suspect of another murder.”

“Not stupid. Maybe arrogant.”

“No,” I said firmly.

“I don’t like fumble-fingered doctors who leave people dead, but anyone who would kill a fifteen-year-old girl that way makes me sick,” he said harshly.

“Then find the person who really did it,” I retorted.

“Look, this is what we know. All the victims have been patients at this clinic. Even Millie Donnalto and Elly Harrison had to admit that Dr. James treated some of these women. For Alice Tresoe, I have two witnesses that said she was six weeks pregnant and on her way here. And that was the last time anyone saw her alive. We got paperwork on all the rest proving they were here. Give me another suspect besides Dr. James.”

“Someone’s setting her up.”

“And who might that be?” he asked sarcastically.

“I don’t know. But as soon as I find out, you’ll be one of the first to know.

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