Chapter 19 Kobe
Kobe
“What you’re suggesting is preposterous.” Fatemeh Kordestani’s heels clicked on the vinyl floor as she marched ahead, her long strides outpacing me. The woman was determined to leave me in the dust, and I had to jog to keep up with her.
When I’d arrived in the bullpen that morning—slipping in late since I stayed at Dominique’s and had trouble leaving his almost naked body alone when my alarm went off—Rue informed me that she had scheduled meetings that morning, and I was to chase down Navid Kordestani’s ex-wife again.
Since I was the one suggesting his indiscretions might have gone deeper than being a disrespectful doctor and teacher, I was the one to suffer Fatemeh’s wrath.
I tracked down the thoracic specialist at H?pital Montfort, where she was doing a weekend rotation and following up with a few surgical patients.
I caught her ten minutes after she arrived, the moment she finished consulting with a nurse about her morning schedule.
To say she was unhappy to see me was the understatement of the century.
Fatemeh refused to take five seconds to discuss my concerns in private, so I’d been forced to race after her, explaining my suspicions about her ex-husband while she clipped down the hall toward an area I wouldn’t be permitted to enter.
For that reason, I’d forgone professionalism—not that it was my forte.
“It’s not preposterous. He wouldn’t be the first man to have an affinity for young girls. How can you be so sure?”
Fatemeh halted so abruptly I nearly crashed into her.
Spinning to face me, her fashionable scarf swung, tassels bouncing against her blouse, hair nearly whipping against my face.
She glared down her nose. Her heels gave her an extra inch and a half of height.
“My ex-husband was a lot of things, Detective, but he was not a pedophile.”
The cordoned-off area where she planned to escape was less than twenty feet away. The door was clearly marked Hospital Personnel Only and the instant she barreled through it, the interview would be over.
Before she ran off, I tried a new angle.
“Listen to me. Navid was on the committee that voted to decide if a student named Jesse Vargas was to be expelled for drug use.
The same student who had a reputation for making inappropriate advances on women.
Rumor has it, your husband voted in favor of letting Jesse continue to study at the university.
“I don’t know if you’re following the news, but Jesse Vargas is one of our victims, killed in the same fashion, by the same person as Navid.
I believe there is a connection between this student and your ex-husband.
They knew each other. Navid tried to save him from expulsion.
Why? Who was this student to him? How were they connected? ”
Fatemeh studied me for a long time, her momentum seemingly forgotten.
The disgust on her face wasn’t hidden. “Oh, I remember the uproar that was Jesse Vargas.” The name came out like a bad taste on her tongue.
“I have a colleague with a daughter who was in his program. If my husband voted for him to remain at school, I knew nothing of it. So far as I understand, the votes were private. I find it worrisome that the police deal in rumors. Besides, that all happened after our divorce. We weren’t chummy.
I only spoke with Navid when he was late paying my alimony. ”
“Riiight. Needed your money.”
“It was my due, and Navid had a nasty habit of forgetting to pay me. I warned him.”
“Was the inheritance your due as well?”
A tight, humorless smile formed on her painted lips. “A coincidence. I didn’t know I was still listed as his beneficiary until yesterday when the lawyer contacted me, but I’m sure you won’t believe that.”
“It’s a hard sell.”
A nurse approached as though looking to interrupt our conversation. Fatemeh held up her hand in a stop motion, asking for a minute. The action was brief, and the nurse retreated, but not before something caught my eye.
Before Fatemeh could lower her hand, I caught her wrist. She immediately tried to wrench free, but I held tight, turning it to view the underside.
Fatemeh’s nostrils flared, and she pulled the appendage, trying to free herself a second time. “Let go of me.”
I didn’t and stared at the thick line of raw and torn skin along the base of her fingers. When she saw where my attention was focused, she snarled, “I lift weights, Detective. Calluses are par for the course, and I have a habit of tearing them off when I’m stressed. Ask anyone.”
I dropped the hand and snagged the other. “What are you stressed about?”
“You’re crossing a line, Detective.”
“Sue me.”
Teeth gnashing, Fatemeh relented to the inspection.
The same line of freshly torn skin marred her other hand.
Marks like that could be the result of many things.
The remains of weightlifting calluses, sure.
Maybe. Using all her strength to hold a rope while strangling a resistant male victim twice her size? Why not?
Fatemeh’s hostility mounted when I released her. Instead of stepping back, she moved into my personal space and lowered her voice. “Never touch me again. Consider that a warning.”
“You’re not a fan of men, are you?”
“I’m not a fan of men who think it is their right to touch women without permission. You and your badge and your authority don’t scare me. If you want to see what years of weight training have done for me, Detective, I dare you to cross that line again.”
I sensed more than I saw numerous hospital personnel stop and stare.
For a moment, I wondered what Rue would say if she was present.
Knowing better than to feed Fatemeh’s fire, especially when we had an audience, I stepped back and raised my hands in surrender, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to get any information from this woman.
“Thank you for your time,” I bit out sarcastically before turning and marching away.
I was halfway down the hall, eyes on the elevator and my escape, when the specialist called out, “If you can’t see the connection between Jesse Vargas and my ex-husband, then you’re an idiot.”
Fists clenched, I ground to a halt and spun to face the smug doctor, who was adjusting her scarf and fixing her hair.
I waited, hating that she had regained the upper hand.
Finished arranging herself, she crossed her arms and lifted her chin at a smart angle, smirking. “My husband was many things, Detective, but a sex-fanatic he was not.”
She spoke loud enough that anyone nearby could hear.
She clearly had no compunction about humiliating her husband, even in death.
“The man self-prescribed Viagra for years. One of the reasons our marriage failed was because even with a little blue pill in his system, he couldn’t get it up.
The man drank like a fish, among other things.
Whether the drinking was the cause of his impotence or his impotence was the result of his heavy drinking, I have no idea. ”
“Maybe it was you.”
She laughed humorlessly. “You would say that. Why are all men afraid of beautiful women?”
“You think you have me pegged, but you’re wrong. Your beauty has no effect on me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure. Whatever you say. Use that tiny little brain of yours for once. Jesse Vargas was a drug dealer. My husband was a doctor with access to any pills he wanted. Shall I draw the parallel for you, or can you sort it out from there? The answer seems simple if you ask me.”
I frowned. “Are you saying Jesse bought drugs from Navid?”
“I have no idea if he did or didn’t, but you wanted a plausible connection between the two.
I’m giving you one. I’m far more apt to believe that my husband peddled opioids or whatever the kids want these days than that he was some sort of sex-fanatic who couldn’t keep his limp dick in his pants.
Particularly that he was seeking the company of students half his age. ”
I refused to admit she might be onto something. Instead, I spun, waving over my shoulder. “Thanks for your help, Ms. Kordestani.”
“It’s Doctor, asshole.”
I gave her the finger. Rue wasn’t around, and this woman had shredded my final nerve.
Instead of heading back to the station, I aimed for the university campus and the building where Navid had his office. Classes had wrapped up for the holiday, so I wasn’t hopeful I would find who I was looking for, particularly on a weekend.
Luck was on my side, and when I knocked on the partially opened door marked with the deceased Dr. Kordestani’s name, a mumbled voice called, “Come in.”
Buckley Calloway, Navid’s TA, sat slumped at the doctor’s desk, cheek propped in an upturned hand as he gazed hazily at a laptop screen. A stack of papers sat beside him on the desk.
“Shouldn’t you be heading home for the holiday?” I asked when he didn’t turn his attention from the screen.
Sparing me a glance, Buckley’s expression slowly shifted from confusion to recognition. He sat upright, visibly shaking off his languor. “Detective.”
“Do you have a minute?”
“Um.” He glanced again at the computer. “Sure. Term papers,” he said, cleaning the mess on the desk and shutting off the laptop. “Dr. Kordestani’s replacement is in over his head and asked me to handle extra stuff until he’s settled. How can I help you?”
I remained on my feet, ignoring the offer when Buckley waved for me to sit. “I’ll make this quick. You seem to be one of the few people who were close to Dr. Kordestani. Did you spend time together off campus as friends?”
Buckley’s brows pinched, and he seemed to contemplate before answering. “We had coffee sometimes, but it was usually because he wanted to discuss something related to my position.”
“Were you familiar at all with the doctor’s routine or habits?”
“Meaning?”
“Was he a football fan? Did he like to drink? Hang out at bars? Smoke? Take drugs? Did he play pickleball on the weekends? Did he hang out with students? Attend parties? Sleep around?”
Buckley stared disconcertingly, his expression unreadable. Suspicious. “Why?”
“I’m trying to build a profile so we can find his killer. So far, you’re the only person who talks positively about him. I have two more victims who, for all intents and purposes, seem to be unrelated to Navid. I was hoping you’d help me make connections.”
“Jesse and Ford. I saw the news.”
I didn’t confirm or deny, waiting to see if Buckley might fill in the blanks.
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I can’t think of how they might relate. So far as I’m concerned, the professor didn’t know them. They aren’t—weren’t—in the medical program.”
“Did you know them?”
Buckley shrugged. “Jesse had a reputation. Everybody knew Mr. Popular. Ford was one of his friends from a couple of years ago, I think. I sort of remember him. Jesse had a… following.”
“I hear he was a big partier.”
Buckley huffed. “Yeah, more like a big idiot.”
“Have you ever partied with him?”
“Fuck no. My girlfriend told me what he was like.”
“Who’s your girlfriend?”
“Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“Alyssa Malhony.”
It wasn’t a name I recognized.
“Buckley—”
“Please don’t call me that. Boss or Buck if you have to.”
I used neither. “Do you know if Navid Kordestani did drugs?”
Buckley flinched. “Are you serious?”
I waited, despising how this guy wanted me to validate everything.
“No. Why do you want to make him into a bad guy? God, you people are the worst. He was smart and helpful and one of the best teachers in the medical program.”
Buckley’s insistence on Navid’s glowing character felt over the top. I suspected he wouldn’t say a single bad thing about the professor if he had a gun pointed at his head, which alone was odd.
“One last question. Were you aware that Dr. Kordestani was on the committee that decided Jesse Vargas’s fate at the university last year?”
“I heard.”
“How did you hear? Did he tell you?”
“No. I wasn’t his TA last year, but everyone knew because Fatemeh found out how he voted and fucking tore him apart for it in the middle of the dining hall in the north building. She made a huge scene. Have you seen her? We all thought she was going to flatten him.”
I stared at the kid, but nothing on his face or in his body language told me he was lying. Was this how the rumor had spread?
Fatemeh had lied to me.