The Biker's Doctor

Chapter Ten

What was I going to do? What were the police going to do? A million thoughts pounded through my head, making my instant headache immediately ten times worse.

"I saw who the man was when I left my apartment through a back entrance.” I found myself blurting out in the vague direction of Detective Jones, nearly in tears, “I can identify him, and I can identify the car that he was driving." I said unafraid.

That man, ‘Johnny’, had committed murder.

I focused on my memory of the car in the parking area when I had driven home and parked my own Porsche. I saw that the man had locked the vehicle. I had looked at the sound of the beep, and I can now remember several of the first letters of his licence plate. Surely, that could be more than essential information that would aid the police in tracking down a murderer on the loose.

I wanted to catch Brian's killer. Well, no, that was not true. I wanted the police to catch him. I wanted to help them do so, no more than that. That was as far as I wanted to go in seeking justice for Brian.

Brian. Oh, poor Brian, I thought to myself. Brian was dead. I will never see my neighbour again. It was true, I hardly knew the man, but now he was dead. He was polite and kind to me, so I know he was more than just a good person. We may have been only loose acquaintances, and not even what I would call friends. Still, he did not deserve an end like this. Brian had only been a few years older than me, and now his life was over. No one should die so young.

"It has been a long night for you, Miss Levi. You cannot go back to your apartment. It is a murder scene. We will need to quarantine it for an investigation. Is there somewhere you can go? Do you have any family or friends that we can call for you who live around here?"

Go? I thought to myself. Why was the detective not asking me what the man looked like? The crime was fresh in my memory. Should he not be drilling me for the freshest source of information in a murder case right now?

Every police officer should be out looking for this dangerous, armed psychopath straightaway!

"Should I not tell you what he looked like, what he drove?" I asked, surprising myself with the disappointment in my tone that I hadn't already given this information.

I decided not to wait for Detective Jones to ask me the descriptive questions, for which I was already preparing answers in my head. Alicia had told me that I needed to give details. That was precisely what I was going to do.

"I saw the car in the basement of my complex. I can… it was a black Lexus…. The license plate started with 6FB… I am sure of it. They were fighting over something Brian had said to someone, someone he had planned to meet, and money that he had taken…" I continued trying to remember what little I had heard of the fight between curse words from Brian.

The name Giuseppe came to mind with sharp focus. The detective will need that name. I will mention it next.

Short, bursting sentences were scrambled coming from me. I didn't care. Detective Jones needed all the information I could come up with, even if I was barely coherent and basically vomiting the facts.

The detective raised his hand to silence me. It was the way a mother would dismiss a child's tantrum. My mouth fell shut at the disrespectful gesture. I have no clue how to react to it.

"There is time for all of that. We should get you to a place where you can rest. Is there somewhere you can go tonight that is not back to your own apartment?" He repeated.

It seemed he was deliberately trying to say I could not go back to my home. That was fine with me. I did not want to be at a murder scene. I was okay collecting Lucifer and staying elsewhere, but why was he so fixated on my not returning there? Was it for my own safety?

"I…" I was confused. "My aunt." My voice shook out the words without me even thinking of them. "She lives in San Francisco. I can drive to her place in the city tonight. I am sure she will not mind me staying with her for a few days."

“Can you give me her information, please?”

What… I thought but did not say. Why was this so-called detective trying to silence me? I may not be familiar with the procedures for interviewing a witness to a crime, but something about this doesn't feel right. Something feels off, and that gut instinct that I have where I am in danger has just returned with a whack of vengeance.

I provided details about the affluent Pacific Heights suburb where Aunt Elenora Cole resided, and the detective raised his eyebrows. Even the name of the street gave the impression that I came from money — a lot of money. I am sure he recognised my aunt's last name as well, Cole. It didn't matter to me. He would have discovered that information with a simple search of my background. I was used to the reaction. Among so many others, Detective Jones did not expect a medical student to be the heiress of a small fortune behind the name Cole.

My Aunt Elenora Cole, my mother’s sister, was my only family member, and yes, she was not more than an hour's drive away, as she lived just north of San Francisco in Pacific Heights. I had chosen early in my life to keep my father's last name, Levi. Unlike my mother, who chose a life of chaos and crime, my aunt had followed my grandparents' wishes for an everyday life, one devoid of motorcycle clubs and crime. Elenora even followed their religious sentiments. Elenora was the CEO of her own company, a successful designer of luxury kitchenware in Union Square. Her plates, silverware, and pristine crystal glassware were of the highest quality. The Cole label could be found as far East as a three-Michelin-star restaurant in New York, to the most discerning private collector in London. She was a fierce business executive without the time for a life partner or a family with children.

I had not followed my aunt’s religious sentiments, and I don’t think that she really held that against me. She was never the preachy type. In fact, she was not nearly as dedicated as my grandparents were, at least, so I heard. She continued to attend Sunday Mass, with weekly donations pledged, and I think that was about the extent of what she thought her obligations to the Church were.

It was not that I didn’t believe in God. However, my studies definitely focused on the scientific aspects of mortality. Given what I had seen in medicine and my limited exposure to the Emergency Room, it was not exactly a place where I saw much that would lead me to believe in miracles or in God.

I wanted to believe that the lives I would save as a doctor were within my power. Not in some benevolent being. I did not think that, no matter what I did, those lives I would try to save had a sealed fate. I don’t believe that a doctor would be good in their profession at all if they gave in to such notions of death and fate. It was up to me to save a life, not meaningless prayer. If a patient wanted to pray, I was fine with whatever comfort it brought their soul. But they were crazy if they thought it would save them.

Elenora and I got along reasonably well. We met for a fancy formal dinner in the city, more out of an obligation to an aunt to check on her only niece. Going out for such a formal dining experience was a chore. I did not really like dressing up. The kind of dinner reservations that Elenora insisted on were usually Michelin-starred favourites who were, in fact, clients of hers, and that most definitely meant that I had to dress up in something nice. In fact, the only nice clothes that I owned were explicitly chosen for dinner out with her.

It was a bit like she was trying to match up going out to dinner with me, to coincide with the necessary social obligations of her business by attending the restaurants that had invested in her designs. At least it was a chance for me to see her and have some relationship with family.

I knew that Aunt Elenora belonged in a different kind of class than I wanted to belong to. I did not show off my inherited wealth. I didn't feel like I had earned it, and dare I say it, neither did my mother. Eliza did not work for that money, as Elenora had, or as my grandparents had before her. Elenora could show it off as much as she liked because she had worked so hard to build it up. Her pieces were beautiful. They deserved all the credit in the world, and so did she for designing them. I loved every time that I walked by a restaurant and recognised her work. It was like her footprint on the world, and it would last for generations, even if she did not have children who would carry on after her. In a way, her work was her child in that respect.

Elenora only spoke to my father once he retired from the club, on the occasion when she came to see me. Upon my father’s death, she took charge of most of my finances and was actually impressed that my father had not squandered them. He was genuine in leaving behind a world of crime and the old club. Her love for me was such that she not only did not want to have children of her own, but also did not want to have children at all. I just filled that gap for her.

Elenora bent over backwards to fulfill my requests. She even took my father's Harley-Davidson motorcycle because I refused to sell it. I didn't have the space at my apartment to keep the bike safe. I will sell it, eventually. I had no use for it. I was sure as hell not going to ride it. I just wasn’t ready to part with it yet. I remembered hearing the unmistakable roar of the engine, and that meant Dad was driving home. I missed that sound. I would never have that again.

I knew that Elenora would not have a problem with my staying in one of her multiple guest bedrooms. She might think of me as being in the way of her usual dull routine. I would do my best to respect her space until I can return to my apartment.

I dreaded that thought. I don’t think I would be able to go back to my apartment very easily, knowing that someone has now been killed in such proximity to where I lived. I also doubt that I will ever feel safe in my home again. Going back to my apartment is not going to happen any time soon, so I suppose I don’t have to worry for now, at least, about returning to it.

I will need to get Lucifer, though. I know my aunt will not be happy about having that dog run around her immaculate mansion. I don’t like the idea of him bouncing around and potentially knocking over one of her favourites, priceless original glasswork. But I have nowhere else to take him, so he will have to come and live there as well, at least temporarily. I will do my best to keep him confined so that no accidents occur. I can manage that. It will take some convincing on my part with Elenora, but it is the only option I have for him.

"I will have an officer take you to your aunt’s address." Detective Jones said, as I sat there with my thoughts hitting me in waves.