To the Bone (14 page)

As he was stepping out into the hall, Tina said, “Hey, Stover.” She was standing with her hands on her hips, watching him thoughtfully. Her face was stone serious, as always.

“I wouldn't mind blowing you once in a while,” she said.

Larrabee had thought that he was pretty good at turning a compliment, but this one left him speechless, twisting in the wind.

“Don't worry, Bev's at work,” she said. “But it would feel too weird here anyway. I could drop by your place.”

“That's, uh, a lovely offer, Tina. I'm incredibly flattered.”

“It's the only thing I miss, with guys. I'm very oral. Dildos aren't any good for that, I like it to feel alive. But I don't want to, you know, ask just anybody.”

“No, that wouldn't be smart.”

“You have to keep it secret. If Bev found out I even thought about it, she'd kill me.”

“I believe you.” He did.

“And you can't come in my mouth. I don't like that part.”

“I promise.”

“Yeah, and the check's in the mail,” she said. “Keep it in mind.”

In fact, it was impossible not to.

 

There was one more place Larrabee wanted to look at tonight, a restaurant that Eden Hale had talked about to her brother Josh. Apparently she had painted it in glowing terms—a classy establishment with an upwardly mobile clientele, a different order of business from the sorts of places where she had hung out with Ray Dreyer in her earlier life. Larrabee wondered how much time she had spent here, and if she had made any acquaintances. She had to have done something with her time, besides shopping and carrying on her affair with D'Anton.

The place was called Hanover Station. It was located several blocks west of China Basin—another industrial building that had been abandoned as industry died. Dot-commer entrepeneurs had refurbished it and opened it at the crest of that money wave, five or six years ago. Larrabee had never been inside.

When he walked in, he saw that it had been turned into a single space the size of an airplane hangar, ringed by a second-story balcony for dining. The brick walls had been left uncovered, the old hardwood on the main floor refinished. The back bar was antique, cherry or rosewood. All in all, it was not bad, although the nut must have been fearsome. The room was nowhere near full now, and he suspected it was in jeopardy, with the crashing of the markets that had built it.

He ordered a Lagavulin scotch, straight up with an ice-water back, at the bar. He paid for it with a twenty and got five back. That came as no surprise, but the drink was short. For a place that was losing business, that was the wrong direction to take. The bartender was a slick, good-looking young man, brimming with unconcealed self-admiration. Larrabee decided there was no help there for what he wanted.

He stood and sipped, casually watching the scene. The crowd was all young, mid-twenties to thirties, well-dressed, confident, used to spending money. Two cocktail waitresses circulated among the tables. Larrabee made his choice, left his empty glass on the bar with no tip, and sat at a table in her area.

She came over immediately. He had picked her because she didn't really fit this place—she looked like she would have been more at home in North Beach or the Haight. She was about thirty, tall, and very slender, dressed in close-fitting black, with long straight dark hair. She wore at least one ring on every finger, and many bracelets, all silver. She was quite attractive, although there was a certain Morticia Addams quality.

“What can I get you?” she said.

“I'd like to buy you a drink.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I work till two, and I'm going straight home. Alone.”

“I didn't say you had to have it with me.” He laid a twenty-dollar bill on her tray.

“What do I have to do for that?” she said warily.

Larrabee handed her three photos of Eden Hale taken from the Internet, face shots with different angles and hairstyles, that he had chosen from her films. “Recognize her?”

The waitress touched one of the photos with a long-nailed fingertip. “There was somebody who used to come around, who looks like this. I think her name was Eden?”

“That's her.”

“I haven't seen her for a while.”

“You won't,” Larrabee said.

The bored glaze in her eyes went away. Her mouth opened a little.

“Have you got five minutes to talk to me?” he said.

“You a cop?”

“Private.” He opened his wallet and showed her his license.

She was starting to look interested. “I'll meet you out front,” she said.

He waited outside the front door. A sea breeze was springing up, and the moon was dimming behind thickening fog. There was not much traffic on the streets, but a few blocks away, the stream of headlights on the skyway of Interstate 80 was steady, an unending fuel line of human fodder for the city's guts.

The waitress came out and stood by him, fishing nervously for cigarettes in her purse. Larrabee took her Bic lighter from her fingers and held it while she leaned into the flame, cupping her hand against the breeze. She inhaled and stepped back, crossing her arms, one hand cupping the other elbow.

“Thanks,” she said. “She's dead, that woman?”

Larrabee nodded.

“Murdered?”

“It's looking that way,” he said.

She shivered. “What do you want to know?”

“What she was like. Who she hung out with. If there was anybody in particular.”

“She was nice enough. She always came in alone, and I never saw her leave with anybody. But she got hit on a lot.”

“She was a good-looking girl,” Larrabee said.

“Yeah, but it was more than looks. There was just something about her that said ‘fuck me.' I'd see the guys watching her; it was like they were back in the jungle—wanted to throw her down on the floor right there. She'd play into it, but it wasn't really even like she was prick-teasing. It's just the way she was.”

“You ever overhear her talking? Figure out her story?”

“Just a little. She said she'd been an actress, but she was getting into modeling. There was something else, too. Wait a minute.”

The waitress put her hand to her forehead, concentrating, with the cigarette smoking between her fingers.

“She was going to work for some famous surgeon, something like that. Seems like maybe she hinted she was going to marry him.”

Larrabee's eyebrows rose. “Marry him, huh?”

“I
think
I heard that. I didn't pay much attention, really. I hear so many people talking about all the stuff they've got going, and I think, then why are you sitting in here trying to impress everybody?”

She inhaled deeply on the cigarette, watching him. Her eyes were softer now, the early toughness gone. It was something that happened, an odd bit of psychology, like transference. People wanted to please their interrogators, to contribute something important. People who were not criminals, at least.

The suggestion that Eden had talked about marrying D'Anton was a choice bit of information. But there wasn't much else he did not already know, and he doubted there would be much more.

“One more question,” he said. “How did she dress?”

The waitress shrugged. “Like everybody else here.”

“Like a businesswoman? Not flashy?”

“Like she'd just come from the office.”

“Did that seem strange, with her acting slutty?”

She snorted with amusement. “Are you kidding?”

Larrabee handed her one of his business cards. “Keep thinking about it, and ask your friends, huh? If anything turns up, give me a call.”

She reached into her purse again, head ducking as her fingers searched, hair spilling around her face. It made her look more vulnerable still. She found the twenty-dollar bill and offered it back to him.

“You didn't have to give me money,” she said.

“Come on. I've been keeping you away from your tips.”

“I don't make twenty bucks in five minutes.”

“Neither do I,” Larrabee said.

She smiled and tossed her hair. “Maybe we should have that drink sometime.”

He left with her name, Heather, and her phone number written on another one of his cards.

There were many available women in San Francisco, and Larrabee encountered them frequently through his work. That also gave him a romantic gloss that was more imagined than real. He got his share of come-ons, with the offer of sex usually there more or less immediately. This was fine with him, although, by his own lights at least, he never exploited it. But the need was there in him just like anybody else, particularly when he was in between longer relationships. Like now.

The last one of those had been Iris, the stripper with the stage name Secret, who had left two years ago to dance in Vegas. At first she had come back to stay with him often, and there was a time when it seemed like the relationship could have gotten solid. But she had slipped into another world, or maybe hardened into what she was destined to be from the beginning, with the dancing giving way to hooking and drugs. He had not heard from her in a while.

He was thinking seriously about Tina's offer. The sheer weirdness of it was intriguing, and he was reasonably sure that she wanted exactly what she said and nothing more. As for the waitress, Heather—he had been in those sorts of situations many times, and he doubted he would go for this one. The way it usually went, there would be a few nights of entertaining discoveries about each other's lives, accompanied by energetic lust. Then the unraveling would start—the realization that there were no real common interests or compatibility—and it would take its course, probably with a fair dose of pain and trouble.

Although there would be those first few nights.

He got into the Taurus and punched the number of D'Anton's former nurse again.

This time, a woman answered.

“Mrs. Pendergast? Margaret?”

“I'm not interested. And take my name out of your computer.” She sounded middle-aged, with the sharp-edged reply of someone weary of endless solicitations.

“I'm not trying to sell you anything, Margaret. My name's Stover Larrabee. I left you a message earlier.”

“Oh? I haven't checked, I just got in.”

Larrabee was relieved. At least there was no overt hostility, yet.

“I'm a private investigator. Calling you from San Francisco.”

“What about?” she said, cautious now.

“About a young woman named Katie Bensen, who went missing back when you were working for Dr. D'Anton. Do you remember that?”

There was a longish silence. Then she said, “I do. But I don't especially want to.”

“Will you give me just a minute, Margaret?” he said quickly. “So I can explain to you why you should?”

Larrabee lowered his voice to a confidential tone, just the two of them in on this delicate and crucial matter, and plied his trade.

L
ate, after midnight, you find yourself driving toward the clinic. In the past you've returned to the operating room—to linger, to replay the event, moment by frozen moment, in your mind.

But tonight, you drive past. Things have gone very wrong: the word
murder
has been spoken. It's not about last night, or even the other times. It's what they think might have happened to Eden Hale.

That Monks is prying, and that will bring the wrong kind of attention around. The thought of this—of
him
—sets off the old fear. You realize you've been grinding your teeth.

You pull over to the curb and close your eyes.
Concentrate
.

It starts to come to you. What to do, how to set things up, so they'll look at someone else.

You think about who might fit.

M
onks slept a surprising ten hours, a sign that he had been exhausted as well as drunk. He awoke hungover, no doubt about that, with his senses operating through a grainy screen. But the sleep made him feel a hell of a lot better than he otherwise would have.

Herded by cats darting between his ankles, he walked down the hall to the kitchen. He put out fresh food for them, started water heating for coffee, then checked the blinking light on his phone machine.

The message was from Larrabee. “I've got something good. Come on down here as soon as you can.”

The call had come last night, and it was still early, not yet seven
A.M.
Monks decided there was time for breakfast. He scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, browned half a can of corned beef hash, topped it all liberally with jalapeño sauce, and washed it down with strong black French roast. By the time he shaved and showered, it was just eight
A.M.

Monks called Mercy Hospital to see if Dick Speidel, the Quality Assurance chairman, had come in yet. He had.

“I looked the case over last night, Carroll,” Speidel said. “Personally, I lean toward your side, but I'm going to recommend that it go to committee. It's so unusual, and she did die.”

“Fair enough.”

“The bottom line is, it seems pretty clear that she was beyond help when she came in. You took a wild swing. I'd probably have done the same, if I'd even thought of it. But you're going to be up against some purists who might consider it an inappropriate procedure.”

“I already am,” Monks said.

“Well, you won't have long to wait. I've sent out copies to everyone. You're on the docket for Monday.”

“I appreciate it, Dick.”

“See you then. Good luck.”

Monks put down the phone, feeling better than when he had picked it up.

His guns were still on the deck, glistening with dew, a silent accusation of last night's excesses. He dried them, wiped them down with an oily rag, and put each one away, where it belonged.

The fog that had been hovering offshore had moved in during the night, shielding him, at least for a few hours, from the hammering sun. Grateful for its cover, he got into the Bronco and drove down to the city again.

 

Stover Larrabee was just getting out of the shower when the phone rang, a little after eight
A.M.
He was groggy, not used to the hours. He usually stayed up late and slept late.

The caller was Tina Bauer. “I found something,” she said. “Just a reference to a file, but the complainant's name's on it.”

“I'll come get it. When's good?”

“I could bring it over, if you want.”

“Well—if you're sure it's no trouble, Tina.”

“I've got to run some errands anyway. Half an hour?”

“I'll be here.”

While he dressed, he replayed the tape he had made last night, on the phone to Margaret Pendergast—D'Anton's former nurse. Strictly speaking, it was illegal to tape a conversation without the other party's permission, but sometimes expediency outweighed everything else.

It had taken some time to get her going, but Larrabee was a professional sympathetic listener, and Margaret, like a lot of people who hold on to a troubling secret for a long time, was glad for a chance to unburden herself at last.

“I don't think I did anything illegal,” Margaret's recorded voice said nervously. “Not really, anyway. But what if I did? Would you turn me over to the police?”

“I don't have any reason to, Margaret. I'm just trying to get information that might help my client. I mean, you didn't do any bodily harm? Rob somebody, nothing like that?”

“Certainly not! I just—knew something I didn't tell. I don't even know for sure it was important.”

“In that case, I seriously doubt it's an issue,” Larrabee said. “How about this? You tell me what happened. I'll give you my professional opinion on whether you broke the law. If there's any problem, we can discuss it.”

He heard her sigh, a thin, spinsterish sound. “It's not just the police,” she said. “I was very disturbed. But—” The sentence lingered, unfinished.

“But it's time to make peace with it, huh?”

“I
would
like to get it settled,” she said.

“Margaret, I do this all the time, and I can promise you, a lot of people it wouldn't bother. But you, I can tell you've got a real conscience. Believe me, you'll feel much better.”

She sighed again, then started remembering out loud.

Margaret had worked for D'Anton for about two years, from 1995 to 1997. She had been in her forties then, never married, a highly competent nurse with a great deal of administrative experience. She had been wooed to D'Anton via a head-hunting agency. Her stay had by and large been a smooth one. She didn't have much personal contact with D'Anton—he tended to be brusque, and mainly ignored his support staff. His anger could be ferocious. The clinic was not a relaxed or friendly place, but it was run at a high level of competence, and pay and prestige were excellent.

She remembered the girl who had disappeared, Katie Bensen, because street-smart Katie had been very much out of place among D'Anton's other, affluent patients. But the staff did not ask questions. Katie's procedures had been simple, a couple of light skin peels to remove traces of adolescent acne.

About two months later, a plainclothes SFPD detective came in. Margaret was handling the desk. He showed her a photo of Katie and asked if they had a current address for her. He was polite, apologetic for bothering the august Dr. D'Anton, and it was clear that he did not really expect any help—this was just a space that needed to be filled in on a report.

Margaret looked up Katie's records. Her address was the same one the detective had, an apartment in San Francisco. To make sure, Margaret checked the billing records. There she found something surprising. Katie's bill had, in fact, been sent to a different address—D'Anton's Marin County house.

Margaret thought it must be a mistake. The billing was done by a separate office, an independent contractor that handled many other physicians. Someone there must have been looking at D'Anton's address for another reason and carelessly typed it in.

She told the detective that the clinic had the same address for Katie that the police did. He thanked her and left.

Then, wanting to correct the mistake, Margaret went to D'Anton and told him what had happened.

She had never seen him get flustered before. He stammered out an explanation—Katie had modeled for his wife, Julia, and the procedures were partial payment for that.

Then he got angry. The police had no right to come around casting aspersions on
him
. And Margaret had no business giving out information without a subpoena.

She was taken aback. It was nothing medical, or confidential, she pointed out—just confirming the address the police already had. D'Anton barked a few more sharp words about loyalty and priorities, then turned his back and stalked away.

D'Anton ignored her for the rest of the week. Then he surprised her again, by asking her to meet with him privately—to stay late, on a Friday evening, after everyone else had gone home.

He ushered her into one of the operating rooms and closed the door behind, even though the building was empty. There was a cold intensity to him that frightened her. She had violated his strict policy of clinic confidentiality, he told her; she was being dismissed. If she agreed, without argument, he would give her an excellent recommendation and three months' severance pay. Otherwise, she would get neither.

She moved to Southern California soon afterward and found a new job.

“I should have gone to the police and told them,” she said to Larrabee. “I'm not proud of it.” Then she added, defensively, “But—you know. I was a nurse, a woman. He was the great surgeon. He'd have gotten rid of me anyway, with a bad recommendation and no money.”

“Why do you suppose he got so upset, Margaret?” Larrabee asked.

He waited through her long silence, aware that this was the question that must have gnawed at her through the years.

“All I can think,” she finally said, “is that he didn't want anybody to connect him, or his wife, to a girl who'd gone missing.”

 

Tina arrived at Larrabee's right on schedule. She was wearing blue jean cutoffs, a tank top, and sandals. Her legs, he realized, were really pretty good.

She handed him a sheet of paper, a computer printout. It read:

The reference was to an actual file, the kind kept in a folder in a cabinet, in the insurance company's offices. It would contain specific information about the case—but getting to it, at least legally, was next to impossible. Professional misconduct could mean many things, and it was possible that the claim was frivolous and had just gone away.

But D'Anton might have paid somebody off, as he had Margaret Pendergast. Apparently, the matter either had been dropped or settled informally—directly between the complainant and the physician, with no action from the insurance company.

“You're a gem, Tina. What do I owe you?”

“Call it three hundred. It didn't take long.”

He gave her three one-hundred-dollar bills.

She folded her arms. With the cutoffs and purse slung over her shoulder, she looked like a hooker from the neck down. But her face, with the cat's-eye glasses, still belonged in the world of fluorescent-lit offices.

“So?” she said. “You want me to do you?”

Larrabee hesitated, touched by something like superstition at disrespect to this serious business. But it wasn't tough to shake off. He glanced at the clock. Monks wasn't due for another hour.

“Well—sure, if you're sure,” he said.

“You worried it'll fuck up our professional relationship?”

“Not from my side. You're not using me as leverage to break up with Bev, nothing like that?”

“Nope. We're tight. It's just something she can't give me.”

“I feel a little funny about it being one way.”

“That's okay. This way, I'm not really cheating.” Tina unslung her purse and set it on a table, swinging into business mode.

“How do you like to, uh, operate?” Larrabee asked.

“You go sit on the couch.”

He did as he was told. It was like being under the watchful gaze of a nurse.

She took a small tape recorder from her purse and clicked it on. Then she got beside him on the couch and curled herself over his lap, like a cat. She was a good warm weight, with perfume that suggested lilacs.

The tape started playing, the strumming of a folksy guitar, then a husky male voice talking. Larrabee realized, with some surprise, that it was an old episode of
Prairie Home Companion.

“We used to listen to it in the joint,” she said. “His voice turns me on. Wow, I haven't done this in a long time.”

“I imagine it's like riding a bicycle.”

“You can touch my breasts.”

He slipped his hand inside her top. They barely existed, palm-sized areas of soft flesh, but the nipples were surprisingly large.

“That's nice,” she said. “Maybe next time I'll bring my vibrator.”

She went to work with that same businesslike competence, still wearing her glasses, occasionally raising her head to giggle at a joke from the tape. It was the first time Larrabee had ever heard her laugh.

The deep voice in the background was unsettling, like having another man in the room, and from time to time other voices chimed in. With the vibrator, it would be a full-fledged chorus.

But then, you could get used to just about anything.