The Wedding Guest (Alex Delaware #34) - Jonathan Kellerman Page 0,60

those…okay, here we go. He stabbed someone to death eighteen years ago, back in Akron…sounds like a bar brawl, voluntary manslaughter pled down to involuntary, he served five out of ten in Youngstown, Ohio…suspected prison gang involvement, probably has tattoos, need to see his corpse.”

He phoned the crypt, talked to an attendant named Pedro, and asked which pathologist would be doing Lotz’s autopsy.

“I don’t see any autopsy on the schedule, Lieutenant.”

“Big backlog.”

“Yeah,” said Pedro. “But that’s not it. He’s marked for X-ray and an exterior only. You know how it is with O.D. suicides.”

“This one might not be suicide.”

“Oh? How come?”

“He’s related to a homicide I’m working. If there was an autopsy, who’d be doing it?”

“Dr. Rosen filled out the forms. She’s out right now, teaching at the med school.”

“Don’t know her. New?”

“Yup,” said Pedro. “She’s part-time, we got a bunch of those.”

“Do me a favor. Ask Dr. Lopatinski if she can do the autopsy. If she can’t, have Dr. Rosen call me. Whoever does it, make sure every bit of body ink is logged.”

“He’s ganged up?”

“Good chance of that. More important, I need a tox screen A-sap.”

“Hold on,” said Pedro. “I’m writing it all down.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”

“Don’t know about scholar,” said Pedro, “but my mama raised me right.”

Milo returned to Michael Lotz’s criminal résumé. “So he’s capable of killing…okay, what’s next?” He frowned. “Nothing’s next, just a bunch of possessions for personal use…starting in Philly after his release. Straight release, no parole…now he’s heading west…west: Omaha, Tulsa…a second one in Tulsa five years ago…and a third. Then it stops. All of a sudden he switches from bruising to using?”

I said, “If you don’t need to mug someone to get heroin, it’s a great pacifier. Maybe he found himself that reliable supplier. Or began trading dope for favors.”

“Hit man for hire,” he said. “Stalking Suzanne to that bathroom, shooting her up, and garroting her doesn’t sound like a rookie move. So why’s he dead? I’m not thinking suicide due to guilt.”

“Unlikely,” I said. “He O.D.’d accidentally or someone made sure he O.D.’d.”

“Another fentanyl cocktail.”

“Or just purer heroin. If whoever hired him was also his supplier, it would be easy. Not hard to see a motive: He outlived his usefulness and his addiction made him unreliable. With the gang thing—three busts in Tulsa—maybe someone at their PD will know him.”

He pulled out his pad and scrawled. Laughed. “All these parents paying for their kids to have a safe space, this asshole’s lurking in the basement.”

“Pena said he came through Academo’s HR. The company’s headquartered in Columbus. Lotz has no record there but he did spend time in Ohio—Akron and then the prison time in Youngstown.”

“Long-term relationship with someone in the company?”

“Someone who also knew Suzanne. Lotz didn’t get a repro of her license by himself. Whoever hired him was close enough to her to get hold of the real one and photocopy. That fits with the personal nature of the crime.”

“Hostile boyfriend, maybe living right where we’re headed,” he said, tightening his jaw and patting his jacket where his gun bulged. “Or a girlfriend, God forbid I of all people should assume.”

Half a mile later, he frowned: “Lotz having the notes on the wedding and the photo says he’s involved but what if he was just a go-between who hired some other scrote to actually do the deed?”

I said, “Another reason to get rid of him.”

“But a complication. I need to trace his movements that day, see if he left the building at the right time.” He sent a text to Robert Pena about the CCTV feed. Waited for a reply, got none, and cursed.

I said, “Let’s take another look at Tomashev’s photos, see if Lotz shows up.”

“Good idea, soon as we check out Suzanne’s digs. I snag a shot of Lotz with Amanda, I don’t need any mood-elevating substance.”

“You see her as hiring a hit man.”

He swiveled away from the screen and toward me. “Why the hell not? She lives where Lotz works, easy for them to have contact.”

“In addition to her age and lack of criminal experience, she’s socially inept. Big leap from passing someone in the hall to contracting murder. You ask the wrong person, you put yourself at risk. How would she be able to sense Lotz was a good candidate?”

“Maybe she’s not as nerdy as you think.”

“Maybe but what’s her motive?”

“How ’bout one of the usuals: Romance gone wrong, Suzanne threatened to show up and embarrass her. You figured Suzanne for