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The gala was in full swing, as glitzy an affair as socialite and heiress Mary McGuire Hancock, III, was known for. White canvas canopied the spacious grounds, strands of miniature lights twinkled like stars in every tree and music from a jazz combo played backup to conversations and laughter.
And like all gatherings of the Courage Bay elite, fashion was on parade. Sequined gowns clung to gorgeously slinky bodies and stretched across paunchier ones. Men in tuxedos lined up at the open bars, while waiters in stiff white shirts and creased black pants wandered the crowd with trays of recherche hors d'oeuvres.
It was a night for visiting old friends and making new ones, a night for schmoozing and soliciting checks for impressive sums of money.
A night for murder.
His pulse quickened at the thought, but he was careful not to show any sign of his excitement. This had to be just another charitable function until the perfect moment presented itself. The night had just started. He had plenty of time.
But once he struck, justice would be swift and merciless. Most importantly, justice would be served.
Callie Baker finished a conversation with one of the councilmen and turned to find District Attorney Henry Lalane at her elbow.
"You look lovely tonight, Callie."
"Thank you, Henry."
"This must be a big event for the hospital's chief of staff."
"Bigger for the children who'll benefit from the donations we raise," she said. "The money's earmarked to purchase new equipment for the pediatric wing."
"It's a great turnout."
"You have to love that about Courage Bay. Rich or poor, the residents are always ready to support a worthy cause."
"There's not a lot of poor people here tonight."
"No, but there have been so many other fund-raisers across the city. The latest was sponsored by the students at Jacaranda High. They raised over a thousand dollars for the hospital at their spring carnival."
"So I heard. My niece goes to school there."
And his daughter probably would have been a student there, too, if she hadn't been killed a few years before in a random drive-by shooting. No one was ever apprehended for the crime. Callie was sorry she'd mentioned the school now, though Henry didn't seem upset by the comment. Still, she knew how devas-
tated he and his wife had been at the loss of their daughter.
Henry sipped his drink. "Bernie Brusco seems to be enjoying himself," he said, letting his gaze settle on the man who was laughing and tangoing across the portable dance floor with their hostess.
"Not the best of dancers," Callie observed, "but he's generous. I hadn't met him before tonight, but he wrote out a very substantial check for the hospital."
"He should. He's probably one of the richest men here."
"Really. I wouldn't have guessed that. What does he do?"
"Owns a string of convenience stores in L.A. Yet here he is crashing our little social scene."
"Mary said he bought a house in Courage Bay."
"Lucky us."
"And that must be another new face in town," Callie said, nodding toward a very handsome man standing beneath a palm tree a few yards away, looking exceedingly bored. "I've never seen him before."
"Looks like an aging surfer to me. I hate those new T-shirt looking things that pass for dress shirts."
"It's the style." Callie had no idea if the stranger surfed, but she thought he was aging quite nicely. Probably near forty, he was still lean and sun-bronzed, with short sandy hair and a great body. The kind of guy Callie's best friend Mikki would classify as a hunk.
Too bad Mikki hadn't been available to attend the party. She'd have made certain the guy wasn't bored, un-
less he happened to have a ring on his finger. Mikki's claim was that every good-looking guy in southern California was gay, married or divorced and carried more baggage than a 747. Callie wasn't totally convinced she was wrong.
"Think I'll go introduce myself," Henry said. "Then I'll have to search for my social butterfly wife. It's getting late, and I've got a full day tomorrow."
"Are you working on Saturdays now?"
"Too many of them, but not by choice. The workload seems to have doubled over the last year. Unfortunately our staff hasn't."
Callie nodded and finished her second glass of champagne as Henry walked away. She spent the next few minutes chatting with various guests, then decided she was too tired to make small talk. It was nearing midnight, and like Henry, she was feeling the strain of a long, busy week. Most of the doctors on staff at Courage Bay Hospital who'd attended the event had already called it an evening.
Callie headed toward the area where she'd seen Mary and Bernie a few minutes earlier, wanting to thank her hostess one last time before cutting out. She stopped short when she heard a ruckus break out beneath the canopy to her left. She spun around just in time to see Bernie Brusco fall against one of the small tables. Another guest tried to break his fall, but the table collapsed, and both men fell on top of it.
"We need a doctor," someone yelled.
Callie rushed over, along with everyone else in hearing distance. She ordered the anxious crowd back and knelt in the grass beside Bernie.
"Can't... breathe. Chest... hurts."
"Call 911 for an ambulance," Callie ordered, directing her comment to Mary. She reached for Bernie's wrist to check his pulse. It was dangerously accelerated.
"Do something." Bernie's voice was a hoarse whisper.
Callie put the flat of her hand on the man's chest and felt the rapid, irregular beating of his heart. "Has this happened before?"
"No."
His shallow gasps weren't getting much oxygen to his lungs, so she slipped her arm beneath him and placed his head at an angle that should have made breathing easier. He clutched her arm and held on tight.
"Don't let... me die."
"I won't." Not if she could help it. "Try to take a deep breath."
"I'm...trying."
He gasped then went limp.
"Is he dead?" an onlooker asked.
Callie didn't bother to answer, just leaned over and gave a sharp whack to Bernie's chest with the side of her hand, then pressed his heart between the sternum and the spine with rhythmic motions. Thankfully the heart responded and started beating again on its own. The pulse remained high, inconsistent with a typical heart attack.
The ambulance arrived in short order. "His pulse is near 180," Callie told the paramedics as they loaded him onto the stretcher. "Squirt some procardra under his tongue when you get him in the ambulance. I'll call the E.R. and alert them you're on the way and to have an IV setup for a nipride drip."
Bernie managed to murmur his thanks to Callie as the medics hurried him to the ambulance.
Mary was waiting at Callie's side when she finished the phone call to the E.R. "Will he be all right?" she asked, her voice shaky.
"The hospital E.R. is one of the finest in the state. He'll get excellent care." It was the best she could promise.
Mary blinked and flicked the back of her hand across her eyes. "Poor Bernie. One minute he was really enjoying himself, wolfing down hors d'oeuvres as if he hadn't eaten for days and drinking some kind of specialty cocktail the bartender had mixed for him. The next he was gasping for breath."
"Which bartender mixed his drink?"
"One of those young men," Mary answered, motioning to the portable serving area set up at the back of the tent.
"What was he eating?"
"The seafood canapés-you know, the ones served on the shrimp-shaped crackers. He'd piled a dozen or so on his plate. Couldn't stop raving about how good they were." Mary slapped her hand against her cheek.
"Oh, dear. You don't suppose they made him sick, do you? My caterer insists on the freshest ingredients. I'm certain the seafood wasn't tainted."
"If it was tainted, we'd have a lot more people than Bernie affected. But it's possible he had an allergic reaction to one of the ingredients."
"It looked like a heart attack to me," Mary said, "but then he's only forty-five, and he seemed perfectly healthy before he collapsed."
Callie scanned the immediate area for his glass or perhaps a half eaten seafood canapé but found neither. No doubt both had been removed by one of the attentive waiters.
"I guess I'd better get back to the guests and try to salvage what's left of the party spirit," Mary said, clasping and unclasping her hands. "I don't feel much like it, though. I thought Bernie was going to die right here in the grass. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been here."
"But I was here, and he didn't die," Callie said, taking one of Mary's hand in hers and giving it a comforting squeeze. "The party was lovely, and what happened to Bernie wasn't your fault."
"Will you call me as soon as you know something? I can come and stay with Bernie if you think he needs me."
"I'll call, but he's probably better off without company tonight."
Callie waited until Mary walked away, then went to the large serving table, took a couple of the seafood ca-
napés and wrapped them in a paper napkin. She stopped and had the young bartender write out the ingredients he'd used in Bernie's special drink, as well.
Avoiding as many of the guests as she could, Callie walked to the front lawn of the sprawling estate and waited for one of the attendants to get her car. The bored stranger was waiting for his as well.
"You were impressive," he said, stepping closer. "I noticed you earlier but would never have taken the beautiful woman in red for a doctor."
"Difficult to recognize us when we're not wearing our white coats," Callie said. "I don't think we've met." She extended her hand. "I'm Callie Baker, chief of staff at Courage Bay Hospital."
"Jerry Hawkins."
"Are you new to the area?"
"Visiting my mother, Abby Hawkins."
"I didn't know Abby had a son."
"I'm the black sheep of the family. Mother usually keeps me hidden away when I come to visit, lest I embarrass her in front of her friends."
"Then she should be proud of you. You behaved quite appropriately tonight."
"I have my moments."
The attendant drove up with his car. Jerry started to walk away, then turned back to Callie. "The world would have been a better place if you'd let him die."
"Excuse me?"
"You do know how Bernie Brusco makes his money,
don't you?"
"I heard he owns a chain of convenience stores."
"To launder the cash he makes supplying drugs to half of southern California."
"What makes you think that?"
"Not a matter of thinking it. It's fact."
"Even if what you say is true, it wouldn't have mattered. I took an oath to save lives. All lives, not just the ones I deem worthy."
"Too bad. You probably sentenced a few hundred adolescents to death by keeping Brusco alive." He turned and walked to his car, leaving the sting of his accusation hanging in the still night air.
Max Zirinsky bit the end off a cold French fry and stared at the names he'd scribbled on the napkin. Dylan Deeb, Bruce Nepom, Lorna Sinke and Carlos Esposito. Four unsolved murders in one year. Different MO in every case but with one common factor. They were all suspected of having committed a criminal act.
Max reviewed the evidence in his mind, the way he did dozens of times a day. Deeb had made one hit movie, which was preceded and then followed by a string of marginal successes and a few bombs. He'd bought a home in Courage Bay after the box office hit, claiming he'd wanted a place where he could flee the Hollywood publicity circus.
More often than not, he'd brought the circus with him, to the disdain of his privacy-loving neighbors.
Deeb was known for his wild parties and a parade of very young, big breasted babes who came and went, frequently in groups.
He'd been brought up on charges of soliciting sexual favors from underage female actresses in exchange for parts in his movies. But all Deeb had to do was give his unhappy starlets the promise of a role in one of his movies, and they merely smiled and refused to testify. Deeb was scum, but he'd walked away from the charges a free man.
Someone had changed that by paying a visit to Deeb's Courage Bay house in the midst of one of the worst series of rains to hit the area in years. Warnings had gone out for everyone in the area to evacuate.
Deeb's house had been swept away in a mud slide with Deeb still inside it. Severe bruising on his neck indicated foul play, and an autopsy revealed that he'd been strangled before his house had taken the plunge.
Then there was Bruce Nepom. An unlicensed contractor, Nepom was taken to the E.R. at Courage Bay Hospital after his roof collapsed on him during the storm of the century back in January. Nepom died while in hospital, and an autopsy showed his injuries stemmed from trauma to the base of his skull with a blunt instrument. He'd been facing possible charges in the death of an elderly couple after the roof he'd built for them collapsed, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
The third case involved an aide to city council named Lorna Sinke. The woman had escaped prosecution in the
