“Don’t you think this worries me? I’ve turned over every stone,” Engstrom said, her voice rising, wavering for the first time since she’d taken the stand.

“Come on, Dr. Engstrom. Just answer the question. You’re head of this department. You’re on the hospital board. Have the number of pharmaceutical-based fatalities more than tripled in the last three years?”

“Yes, but . . . Well, yes.”

“Do you dispute that my clients’ loved ones died because they received the wrong medication?”

“No, I can’t dispute that,” Engstrom said in a barely audible voice.

“So whether these fatalities are the fault of your bulletproof vending machine or human error is irrelevant, right? I mean, either way,” O’Mara pushed on, “isn’t it true that these deaths are the result of negligence on your part and the part of the hospital?”

“Objection! Argumentative.” Kramer was up on his feet.

Cindy felt the little hairs on her arms lift. Beside her, Whit Ewing whistled softly.

“Sustained,” Bevins said.

“Withdrawn,” said Maureen O’Mara. Her eyes went to the jury and stayed there. “Your Honor, the plaintiffs rest.”

Chapter 56

I’D BEEN TOLD that it was a beautiful fall day, but I sure couldn’t swear to it. I was having ham and Swiss on a roll in my office, with its dark-alley view, when Inspector Conklin knocked on the door.

“Come on in,” I told him.

Conklin was in his shirtsleeves, his brown eyes lit up with something. Whatever it was, I really wanted to know.

“Lou, we’ve got someone in the lunchroom you should meet. Like, right now if you can.”

“What’s going on?”

Conklin started out of my office, saying, “C’mon, Lieutenant,” taking long strides away from me and down the hall.

“Conklin?”

I tossed down the report I’d been editing and followed him to the small, cluttered room that was home to our microwave and yellowing Kenmore fridge.

Jacobi was sitting at the battered table across from a pretty young woman in her early twenties wearing a blue Polarfleece shirt and stretch pants. Her long dark hair was in a braid down her back. She looked up at me with reddened, mascara-smudged eyes.

Clearly, she’d been crying.

Jacobi had his “Uncle Warren” face on. It was short of a smile, but I could read happiness in his eyes.

“Lieutenant,” Jacobi said, “this is Barbara Jane Ross. She was throwing out newspapers when she found this.”

He pushed the newsprint picture of Jag Girl into the center of the table, the pretty blond girl we’d found displayed like a mannequin in the Jaguar convertible on Chestnut Street.

Innumerable dead-end tips had flooded our phone lines since Jag Girl’s picture had run in the Chronicle. From the look on Jacobi’s face, I knew this young woman had something valuable to say.

Barbara Jane Ross and I shook hands. Hers were cold as ice. “May I see that?” I asked of the photo she clutched in her left hand.

“Sure,” she said, handing me a snapshot of herself and Jag Girl on the beach. Both girls were wearing wide-brimmed hats and small bikinis; they had identical braids, and both were grinning broadly.