Inspector Burns pulled out a card. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, doctor, I’d appreciate it if you gave me a call.”
“Certainly. I…you have no idea what a shock this is.”
Paige and Honey stayed up all night, talking about what had happened to Kat, going over it and over it, in shocked disbelief.
At nine o’clock, Inspector Burns came by.
“Good morning. I wanted to tell you that I spoke to Dr. Mallory last night.”
“And?”
“He said they went out to dinner, and then he dropped her off and went home.”
“He’s lying,” Paige said. She was thinking. “Wait! Did they find any traces of semen in Kat’s body?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, then,” Paige said excitedly, “that proves he’s lying. He did take her to bed and—”
“I went to talk to him about that this morning. He says they had sex before they went out to dinner.”
“Oh.” She would not give up. “His fingerprints will be on the curette he used to kill her.” Her voice was eager. “Did you find fingerprints?”
“Yes, doctor,” he said patiently. “They were hers.”
“That’s imp—Wait! Then he wore gloves, and when he was finished, he put her prints on the curette. How does that sound?”
“Like someone’s been watching too many Murder, She Wrote television programs.”
“You don’t believe Kat was murdered, do you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Have they done an autopsy?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The medical examiner is listing it as an accidental death. Dr. Mallory told me she decided not to have the baby, so apparently she—”
“Went into the bathroom and butchered herself?” Paige interrupted. “For God’s sake, inspector! She was a doctor, a surgeon! There’s no way in the world she would have done that to herself.”
Inspector Burns said thoughtfully, “You think Mallory persuaded her to have an abortion, and tried to help her, and then left when it went wrong?”
Paige shook her head. “No. It couldn’t have happened that way. Kat would never have agreed. He deliberately murdered her.” She was thinking out loud. “Kat was strong. She would have had to be unconscious for him to…to do what he did.”
“The autopsy showed no signs of any blows or anything that would have caused her to become unconscious. No bruises on her throat…”
“Were there any traces of sleeping pills or…?”
“Nothing.” He saw the expression on Paige’s face. “This doesn’t look to me like a murder. I think Dr. Hunter made an error in judgment, and…I’m sorry.”
She watched him start toward the door. “Wait!” Paige said. “You have a motive.”
He turned. “Not really. Mallory says she agreed to have the abortion. That doesn’t leave us much, does it?”
“It leaves you with a murder,” Paige said stubbornly.
“Doctor, what we don’t have is any evidence. It’s his word against the victim’s, and she’s dead. I’m really sorry.”
Paige watched him leave.
I’m not going to let Ken Mallory get away with it, she thought despairingly.
Jason came by to see Paige. “I heard what happened,” he said. “I can’t believe it! How could she have done that to herself?”
“She didn’t,” Paige said. “She was murdered.” She told Jason about her conversation with Inspector Burns. “The police aren’t going to do anything about it. They think it was an accident. Jason, it’s my fault that Kat is dead.”
“Your fault?”
“I’m the one who persuaded her to go out with Mallory in the first place. She didn’t want to. It started out as a silly joke, and then she…she fell in love with him. Oh, Jason!”
“You can’t blame yourself for that,” he said firmly.
Paige looked around in despair. “I can’t live in this apartment anymore. I have to get out of here.”
Jason took her in his arms. “Let’s get married right away.”
“It’s too soon. I mean, Kat isn’t even…”
“I know. We’ll wait a week or two.”
“All right.”
“I love you, Paige.”
“I love you, too, darling. Isn’t it stupid? I feel guilty because Kat and I both fell in love, and she’s dead and I’m alive.”
The photograph appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on Tuesday. It showed a smiling Ken Mallory with his arm around Lauren Harrison. The caption read: “Heiress to Wed Doctor.”