Dead Ringer Read online

  As he worked, an idea niggled at him. It didn’t come from anything one person had said; rather, it formed from an amalgamation of facts that coalesced into one thought.

  Holy shit! For a stunned moment he sat and wondered how he’d missed it. Excited, he reached for the phone.

  “Wendy. Lucas.” He paced the second-floor hall, phone tight against his ear, thinking through how Ditto might have worked it.

  “What’s wrong?” Even coming right out of sleep, she sounded concerned.

  “I’ve been thinking.” He realized it was past two in the morning. “Sorry to wake you,” he said, returning to the desk with the pad of legal paper in front of him. “But remember the conversation you had with the professor at the UW?”

  “Boynton. Yeah. What about him?”

  “Didn’t he say something about wondering how Ditto could get enough material to meet demand?”

  “He did. That’s one of the first things that got me interested in him. Ditto, I mean.”

  “Did he say they have so much trouble meeting their own needs, they sometimes are forced to buy bodies from Ditto?”

  “He did.”

  “How does Ditto do it?”

  “You woke me up to ask that? The only way he can do it is to produce his own bodies. As in kill people. For Christ’s sake, that’s what we’re trying to prove. Where are you going with this?”

  “The thing that keeps sticking in my mind is that. Ditto’s too successful. Doesn’t Boynton claim he’s shipping more cadavers and body parts than this region can reasonably support?”

  “Yes, but if you believe Ditto, he’s getting material from as far away as Portland, Spokane, and Vancouver. Who’s to say that isn’t enough population? Maybe, maybe not. Besides, when you ask others about Boynton’s claims, they argue that Boynton isn’t as aggressive as Ditto. Also, Ditto is running his funeral business. There can be several explanations why he could be doing better than Boynton.”

  “Maybe it’s all in the accounting.”

  “What are you talking about?

  “We know he’s substituting bodies. Has to be. How else can he have legitimate death certificates for people who don’t match the actual corpse? Andy and Lupita couldn’t be the only ones. I think we can prove it.”

  She was silent a moment. “How?”

  “A formal audit. Look at the numbers. I bet if you total up everything, you’ll find more bodies going out than coming in.”

  Wendy didn’t say a word.

  Lucas waited.

  Finally, she said, “We know that. Or maybe I should say we suspect that. The problem is, there’s no way to force an audit without probable cause. Give it up.”

  “Bear with me. How many unclaimed bodies you think turn up every year?”

  “Lucas, that’s one of the first things I checked. Unclaimed bodies go straight to the ME’s office. They’re cremated, and then they’re disposed of in a common grave every quarter. And the ME’s office is so totally inflexible about that policy, they redefine the term tight-ass. Besides, by the time an unclaimed stiff’s ready to be disposed of, it’s way past being of any use to Ditto’s body part business. So you can forget about the ME as his source.”

  “Right, so he’s not getting bodies from them, but what if he’s getting their paperwork? Get it? If a body’s unclaimed, what’s to keep the name on the death certificate from appearing on Ditto’s records? It could be an extra valid death certificate and one would know the difference. In addition, since some of these people don’t have an identified next of kin, he could use the name and death certificate numerous times without anyone knowing.”

  To make sure she got it, he said, “It’s an old accounting trick. Double entries. And it would work. Think about it. He kills four people and has four more who die of normal means but are sent to his funeral home for cremation or burial. He’s got eight bodies and four legitimate death certificates. He gives one death certificate to one of the ones he killed. If we check it, we’ll find it’s legit. The only way anyone would find out that he’s making double entries is if someone cross-checked the names on the ME’s records against those at DFH to see if any are the same. Of if they did an audit to show he’s supplying more bodies and parts than is actually coming in. If he weren’t in the body parts business, there’d be no way to tell. No one has ever had cause to audit him, so it’s just about perfect.”

  Several seconds of silence ticked by.

  “Goddamn it, you’re right. That could work. But only if someone in the coroner’s office is giving Ditto copies of death certificates. Holy shit.”

  57

  WENDY SAID TO TRAVIS Hunt, “Lupita worked the area around the porn shop, the same place Andy rented the video. He rented a room at the motel next door the same day Lupita went missing and the same evening Ditto’s Suburban is seen in an alley on the next block. The day after, that Andy’s car is impounded from the porn shop parking lot. Then both heads show up in Hong Kong supplied by Ditto’s company. Even though that video can’t be used as evidence, it can be used for verifying my story.”

  Wendy glanced over at Lucas to see if he wanted to add something at this point. When he didn’t, she went on and continued to explain Lucas’s theory of fixing the DFH records. “See how it works? Say Ditto needs four bodies for a demonstration and he doesn’t have them. He goes out, finds people who won’t be missed, and kills them. Now he has the bodies but he still needs the death certificates. He contacts his accomplice at the ME’s office, and that person supplies him with enough death certificates. He can’t reuse old ones because the approximate dates would be wrong if anyone ever checked.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Travis asked in a hushed voice.

  She, Lucas, and Travis sat at a window table purposely remote from other early morning customers in a funky twenty-four-hour café smelling of steam and fry grease. Wendy sat next to Lucas with Travis facing them on the other side, Travis’s body language saying he was frustrated with the request. She knew why, but had to go through with it to make sure Lucas knew she was pushing the case.

  Lucas picked up the menu wedged between a red Heinz bottle and a stainless steel napkin holder and appeared to read it, leaving Wendy to answer.

  She said, “C’mon, Travis, it should be obvious. I can’t go to Redwing with this. I want a warrant to run a list of the names of unclaimed bodies the ME has disposed of in the last six months against the names of bodies Ditto claims were donated. I want to look for matches and for duplicates. Simple enough. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem? You got several. For one thing, we don’t have probable cause. For another, assuming we were granted the warrant, the moment we ask for Ditto for his records, he and his lawyer will know you’re behind this and file another complaint against the department for harassment. By the time we sort things out, who knows what might happen to those records.”

  Silence.

  Wendy remembered she forgot to emphasize what keyed her to Ditto and DFH in the first place. “How about this for probable cause: Ditto’s Suburban was in the alley behind the motel where Lupita was last seen.”

  “Got proof of that?” Hunt challenged.

  Wendy said, “Haven’t you heard me? The vehicle was called in. It’s on record. What more do you want?”

  “No, not that part. The part about where Lupita was last seen. Unless you’re withholding something, all we know is she disappeared sometime that evening. Maybe. No one has an exact time or an exact place. Sure, she worked the area, but can you prove she was actually there at the same time Ditto’s vehicle was spotted?” He paused briefly, said, “Every damn bit of your evidence is circumstantial. You say it was Baer’s head in Hong Kong. You say—”

  “But it was,” Lucas jumped in, apparently unable to tolerate the legal jostling any longer. “The scar proves it. Hell, ask Trish, his boss, or any number of people who knew him to look at the video. They’ll verify it.”

  Travis waved that away. “We’ve been ove
r that. The video is worthless as evidence.”

  Wendy glanced at Lucas, saw him doing a slow burn but said nothing. What could she say? She couldn’t explain the other ongoing investigation.

  Travis said to Lucas, “Let’s get something straight. For what it’s worth, I believe you. The problem is getting a judge to buy your story now that Ditto claims harassment.” Hunt looked from Lucas to Wendy. “Understand what I’m telling you?”

  Wendy nodded, but Lucas remained stony still.

  Hunt pushed his chair back from the table and stood. For a moment he stared at Wendy, communicating a silent message that only a partner would understand. Finally, Travis said, “Here’s what I’ll do, I’ll make a few inquiries and try to massage this through a back channel. But if it comes back no deal, you’ll be okay with it?”

  “As long as I know you’ve given it a try.”

  Travis pulled a key ring from his pocket, started sorting through the keys. “Keeping Redwing out of the loop makes it tricky.” Hunt picked out what looked like a car key. “Metz is the only judge I feel safe going to. But last I heard he’s out of town until the end of next week. You all right with waiting that long?”

  Wendy understood he was stalling. “I have a choice?”

  He grinned. “No, but thought I’d ask.”

  Wendy nodded again. “I owe you one. Thanks.”

  Hunt’s grin widened. “Actually, this makes us even.”

  FRUSTRATED, LUCAS WATCHED HUNT leave. Wait a week, ten days? Way too long. By then Ditto would know about the warrant and would either alter the records or destroy them in an office fire or maybe an explosion like the one that killed Laura.

  “What?” Wendy was studying him.

  “Even if Travis gets a warrant, we can’t wait that long. You know damn well Ditto will do something to cover his ass.”

  “I’m not thrilled about it, either, but you have to admit it’s better than nothing. You just need to hang in there and trust me on this.”

  “Bullshit. You guys have a leak in the department, and you don’t even have a clue who it is. Ditto’s going to find out.” Lucas started for the door, thinking of ways to get what they needed before Ditto could react. He had to do something other than stand by and watch the man who’d murdered Laura and Andy go free.

  “Lucas,” Wendy called as he walked out the door. “Lucas!”

  Seething, he stopped, turned to face her. “What?”

  Her face was etched in worry. “Just what the fuck you think you’re doing?”

  What was there to say? Nothing. She was a cop, and her priority was to work within the system. But the situation was way beyond that now. Bobby Ditto had to be destroyed, no matter what it took.

  “I’m leaving.”

  “You think I’m blind? You’re planning something that has a good chance of landing you in deep shit. I don’t want to see that happen.”

  “Are we done here?”

  “No. That gun I loaned you. Where is it?”

  “At the house.”

  “I want it back.”

  “This minute?”

  “Damn right. The way you’re acting, you’re on the verge of a classic fuckup. I don’t want to deal with the paperwork if you do. We’re driving over to your house now.”

  58

  LUCAS PULLED THE LETTER from the printer, sat back to read it one last time. It would serve as a last will and testament if things went south tonight. It also explained the reasons for the actions he was about to commit. And if things worked out the way he hoped, then no harm, no foul. Destroying the letter would be the first thing he did upon returning home. If he made it.

  He resisted the strong urge to call Josh. Just to hear his son’s voice one last time and tell him he loved him. But Josh would become suspicious and start probing, so it was best to just put the note on the kitchen table where Josh could easily find it.

  Reading his words filled him with regrets. For not being a better husband. For not telling Laura more often that he loved her. For not being a more attentive father. For not trying harder to convince Andy to stick with therapy. For a thousand little things in his life that he could have done differently.

  Lucas positioned the letter on the kitchen table and weighted it in place with a saltshaker. After one final look around the house, he walked out the front door to his car.

  He sat behind his steering wheel mentally reviewing the plan. This morning, as soon as Wendy drove off with the gun, he’d phoned a pathologist friend who had connections with the coroner’s office. The friend had been able to obtain a list of all unclaimed bodies processed through the ME’s office during the past six months. People who died without family or spouse to dispose of them properly. The list was now folded and in his pocket.

  Obtaining the list was the easy part. Getting access to Ditto’s files required a hell of a lot more thought. He needed help. No doubt about it. And he couldn’t call on just anybody. It had to be someone comfortable working outside the law and with, well, to be blunt, criminal skills. If that someone had motivation to nail Ditto’s ass, all the better.

  Someone like Luis Ruiz. Earlier that evening …

  … they meet a few minutes after two on the shore of Gas Works Park. As they stood looking out over the water, Lucas sketched out his plan to lure Ditto out of the building so he can break into his office. Ruiz listened carefully and then refined it, seeing problems McRae never would’ve thought of. To Lucas, this is a good validation for choosing Ruiz.

  Afterwards, they climb into Ruiz’s Honda Civic and scout Ditto’s building on the east side of Queen Anne Hill between Dexter and Eighth Avenue. A four-story office building roughly divided into thirds, with DFH occupying the southeast third. Apparently DFH had its own basement garage access.

  Now Lucas checked to make sure his cell battery was fully charged. Finished going through his mental checklist, he drew a deep breath, fired up the Volvo, and headed toward Lake Union.

  59

  STREETLIGHT. JESUS. HE HADN’T even considered that. His attention had been figuring out the most likely place to see the garage and front entrance without being seen.

  Lucas glanced around for a less conspicuous place to stand, someplace he wouldn’t be bathed in mercury vapor light. Or was it sodium vapor? Whatever. Standing on the corner like this made him obvious as hell to anyone who bothered to look out a window. Didn’t matter that he’d worn all black tonight; jeans, sweatshirt, and watch cap. He shivered in spite of lingering warmth in the night air.

  On the corner across the street from DFH was one of the few remaining old utility poles, its wood splintered from climbing spikes. It smelled of creosote. He hid behind it in case anyone from Ditto’s office looked out at the street.

  Lucas watched the building for ten minutes, looking for activity. Only three lights on, making the place seem empty. In spite of the relatively warm night, his fingers grew so cold they tingled. He shook his hands but it didn’t help. His breathing picked up and his gut knotted. He felt exposed and vulnerable.

  Shit, why couldn’t Wendy have left him the gun? Better question was: Why had he given it to her? What would she have done if he simply refused to give it back? Yeah, he could imagine what she would’ve done.

  He checked his watch and then rocked his head left and right, trying to release his tight neck muscles. By now Ruiz should be over in the Georgetown area waiting for the call.

  A car approached and slowed. Checking him out? Was it the same one as a few minutes ago? He couldn’t remember. It pulled to the curb across the street from the front of DFH, and the driver cut the lights. Lucas faded into the shadows as best he could and watched. Nothing happened, and it was too dark to see into the car.

  He waited.

  Nothing.

  A few moments later the interior light of the car came on as a woman stepped out of the passenger door. She leaned in, then stood, turned, and walked briskly into a small parking lot to the side of the building. He heard an ignition fire up, then
saw headlights come on. A moment later a car pulled out of the parking lot, turned right, and accelerated. The car at the curb started, the drive pulled a U-turn and headed off in the other direction.

  The sound of an ignition … He thought about Laura, what it must have been like to turn the key and have your world turn into a fiery explosion. Hopefully her death was instantaneous. One moment here, then oblivion.

  That son of a bitch.

  If he couldn’t kill the bastard, he’d destroy him the best way he knew how: by devastating the business that seemed to be Ditto’s life. Then he’d make sure the rest of his life was doled out day by day, year after year, with nothing but a postage stamp–sized cement floor, concrete and steel walls, a stainless steel crapper, a bunk.

  The second-floor light of the DFH building went off, leaving only two top floor lights on. Jesus, there was no point waiting any longer. He dialed Ruiz’s cell. He answered immediately. Lucas said, “Go ahead. Call.”

  DITTO WAS LEANING BACK on the couch, legs straight out, heels on carpet, stroking himself. The phone rang. The DFH line, rather than his private one, which meant he had to take it and couldn’t let it roll over to voice mail. The good news was that calls at this time of night usually meant business. Business was always good news.

  He picked up the TV remote and froze the image of a woman in fishnet stockings giving head to a butt ugly muscle-bound guy with tattooed arms. Had to admit, Baer had good taste in porn. He answered with a simple, “DFH.”

  Ninety seconds later, call finished, Ditto disconnected and dialed Gerhard’s extension.

  “Hey, got a pickup for you. Some beaner’s mother died, and he doesn’t know what to do with her.” Ditto felt pride at how well his advertising campaign obviously penetrated the regional market. This guy, for example. With an accent like that he was probably a migrant worker, maybe even illegal, which would mean cash. “Got something to write with?”