Free Taking the Fifth by J. A. Jance Page A

shaking his head.
    “What a waste,” he mumbled. “What a terrible, shameful, sinful waste.”
    We followed him into a magnificent sunlit living room. He sat down at the end of an opulent sofa, using the arm of the couch as well as the cane to ease himself into a sitting position. He was still shaking his head.
    “It’s God’s scourge,” he said, reaching for a white Bible that lay on a polished cherry wood end table beside his couch. He moved the book into his lap, stroking it with his hand, letting his fingers trace the pattern of the gold-embossed lettering. “For the wages of sin is death,” he continued as though we weren’t in the room.
    “You knew your son was ill?” I asked.
    He started at my question. “Ill? You call that ill? That’s not an illness. It’s a pestilence, visited on the wicked, on those who have willfully turned their faces from the Lord.”
    William Thomas looked across the room and stared out the huge window at the expanse of city and mountain at our feet. His rheumy old eyes were reddened, but there were no tears of sadness. His hand, resting on the Bible, trembled with some inner tremor. The old man may have disowned his son, but he wasn’t letting him go to the devil without a fight.
    “I don’t believe Jonathan died of AIDS,” I said quietly.
    Slowly William Thomas swung toward me, an almost electrical charge of interest crossing his face. It was as if I had thrown him a lifeline. “You what?”
    “Detective Lindstrom and I are with the Homicide squad,” I said. “We’re investigating your son’s death as a possible murder.”
    “You think he was murdered?” Thomas asked.
    I nodded. “We’d need you to request an autopsy to verify it, but…”
    “He didn’t die of AIDS?” he asked incredulously, having to verify over and over what I’d said, as if he hadn’t quite heard me correctly the first time.
    “That’s what we think, but because of the nature of your son’s illness, the medical examiner is reluctant to do an autopsy. You or someone in your family will have to request it.”
    Forgotten, the Bible slipped to the floor as the old man used the crook of his cane to pull a telephone within reach. “Who do I call?” he demanded. “I’ll do it now. This very minute.”
    I read him Dr. Wendell Johnson’s number. His hand shook violently as he punched the numbers. He sat impatiently, drumming his fingers on the table, as he waited for the call to be answered. “This is Jonathan Thomas’s father,” he said into the phone.
    Evidently, in the space of a minute, Jonathan Thomas was no longer disowned.
    “I want to talk to the doctor,” William Thomas continued. There was a pause. “That’s all right. I’ll wait,” he said.
    While William Thomas sat on hold, an oppressive silence settled over the room. I looked around at the expensive, tasteful furnishings—the gleaming wooden tables; the burnished brocade of the sofa and chairs; the elegant pieces of crystal set here and there; the lustrous, broad-leafed plants.
    It struck me as ironic that Jonathan Thomas, shut out of this house while he lived, was being welcomed back as a prodigal son only after he was dead. It was a hell of a price to pay. I wondered where, in the Good Book, it said that murder was more acceptable than AIDS.
    Maybe it wasn’t in the Good Book at all, but it certainly was in William B. Thomas’s mind. More macho, maybe, and less dishonorable.
    “This is Jonathan Thomas’s father,” he said again into the phone. “I understand you were treating my son. Yes, yes. I know. Two detectives are here with me now. They said they need an autopsy, that I should call you to request it.”
    Again there was a pause. “What do you mean, it isn’t necessary? It is if I say so, and I want one.”
    Dr. Johnson used every means at his disposal to attempt to dissuade the old man, but Jonathan’s father held on like a bull terrier. From hearing his side of the conversation, it was clear we were