Trying like hell to control my breathing and my nerves, I showed her my badge and asked to see the doctor.

“Dr. Garza was here earlier, but he’s gone out for a while,” she said, dropping her eyes to the gun inside my shoulder holster. “He’s probably at home. Should I call him?”

I handed her papers. “I have a warrant to search his office. I need his keys.”

The woman gave me a sidelong look as she unlocked Garza’s office and snapped on the flickering overhead light. She walked to a credenza against the back wall, opened an antique-looking silver cigarette box on its surface.

The box was empty.

“He always keeps the file keys here,” she said. “They’re gone. That’s very strange.”

I told the security guard to break the locks with his crowbar, and I began to methodically trash the place.

The file cabinets held patient files and medical journals still in their glassine wrappers. I flipped through hundreds of files, graphs, and memos, looking for anything that would trigger a thought or an action, anything that would give me a clue.

Nothing did.

I jerked out the top drawer of Garza’s desk, sending pens and paper clips spilling onto the carpet. I pawed through the tangle of office supplies, hoping for brass buttons, a piece of jewelry, or a hospital ID bracelet, any souvenirs or trophies a serial killer might keep of his victims.

It was all strictly Office Depot.

An overnighter hung behind the door.

I yanked the zipper down, tossed the contents: a blue sports jacket, size 42 long; gray pants; black Coach belt; two button-down shirts, one pink, one blue; underwear; a leather tie holder. I found and unzipped a small black case—a diabetes test kit complete with syringes and bottles of insulin.

Garza was a diabetic.

His toiletry kit was filled with the normal stuff—toothpaste, razor, mouthwash, some sample packets of a soporific, an acid reducer, pills for erectile dysfunction.

Why the overnighter?

Fresh clothing for his court appearance?

Stuff to wear after spending the night with his girlfriend?

Either way, this was not evidence of murder.

I was digging into the corners of the bag and inside the zipper pockets, panting with frustration, when my Nextel rang.

“I’m down in the nurses’ locker room,” Jacobi said, pausing to cough, then saying words that made me want to name my firstborn Warren.

“Get down here, Boxer. I’ve got a suspect under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Chapter 119

Chapter 119

A SUSPECT UNDER ARREST? I felt as if maybe all our hard work and risk-taking had finally paid off. Now, who was this monster?

A shifting crowd of nurses and aides were bunched against the far wall of the basement locker room. Some were squawking about their civil rights; others jeered at the cops as they used bolt cutters on the locks of unclaimed lockers.