Without the magic words Federal Bureau of Investigation after his name, it took Skip a little longer to track down Dr. Gallagher than it had Pender. But what he lacked in official standing he more than made up for by his refusal to take no for an answer. Or yes, for that matter. Even after Sergeant Bagley of the Santa Cruz County Coroner’s Office finally agreed to pass on his request for information to the appropriate forensic pathologist, Skip continued to pester him. After his second follow-up call, he received a chewing-out from the beleaguered sergeant. “What the hell’s your problem, Epstein? I gave her the message. If she wants to get back to you, she will, so don’t call me again.”
Skip apologized as meekly as you can when you’re grinning from ear to ear, then popped into the bull pen, waved a twenty in the air like Captain Ahab holding up the golden doubloon, and offered it to the first man or woman who could come up with a name and contact number for a female forensic pathologist who worked with the Santa Cruz coroner. His operatives, an independent-minded bunch who would have bitched about, forestalled, or even ignored a direct order, dropped everything they were working on and threw themselves into the challenge.
The winner was Sandy Pollock, a tiny, T-shirted, jeans-wearing single mother in her mid-thirties whose forearms were blue to the elbows with tattoos. “There’s only the one,” she said, handing him a slip of paper with one hand and snatching the twenty from Skip’s fingers with the other. “Dr. Alicia Gallagher. Contract pathologist. The first number’s her office at U.C. Santa Cruz, the second’s her cell.”
“Fine work,” said Skip, to a chorus of grumbling. “Thank you, one and all.”
He made the call from his office, spinning his chair around to face the picture window overlooking the Marina Safeway parking lot. “Hello, Dr. Gallagher. This is David Epstein, Epstein Investigative Services in San Francisco. I’ve just been talking to Sergeant Bagley. I believe you were the lead pathologist on the Meadows Road investigation?” All true statements-just not connected.
“And…?”
“I’d like to ask you about your identification of one victim in particular, name of Luke Sweet.”
Long pause. Long, long pause.
“Dr. Gallagher? You still there, Dr. Gallagher?”
“I’m here.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Luke Sweet-is there a possibility he’s still alive?”
“That’s, um, currently under review.”
“Which means there is a possibility he’s still alive.”
“Which means precisely what it says.”
That was all Skip could get out of her, but more than he’d expected. Obviously there was now some official doubt as to whether Luke Sweet had perished in the Meadows Road fire. This didn’t necessarily mean he’d killed his grandparents or kidnapped Judge Brobauer, thought Skip-just that, alive, he’d be the number one suspect. And at the moment, there was no number two.