To The Bone

Chapter 31

It was just after seven a.m. when Larrabee and Franchi arrived at D'Anton's clinic, carrying a warrant empowering the police to enter it, by force if necessary. An unmarked car with two plainclothes detectives was waiting in front, and two black-and-white squad cars were parked to triangulate the building, watching the other exits. They had tried repeatedly to rouse anyone who might be inside, but there had been no response.

The break-in was not going to require finesse. Ordinary locks could be picked or opened with a lock gun, but the clinic was protected by high-security deadbolts. All narcotics were locked in a safe, but any place that kept them was still a prime target for burglary. The simplest way in, and easiest to repair, was to break a window. That would set off a silent alarm system connected to the Taraval District police station, but they had been alerted and would not respond.

One of the detectives was in his thirties, comparatively young and agile. At Franchi's okay, wearing gloves and goggles, he smashed a ground-floor window with a gorilla bar. They waited, listening. It was just possible that someone was inside, armed, and that the intrusion would make him – or her – desperate.

The detective cleared the shards of glass from the frame, then went in, boosted by the others, pistol in hand. A minute later, he opened the rear door. Franchi, Larrabee, and the second detective went in next, leaving the uniformed cops outside to guard.

They stepped into a utility area, with stainless-steel counters, sinks, and refrigerators. Larrabee was immediately aware of the crisp smell he associated with medical facilities. It was silent except for the faint humming of physical plant machinery.

Franchi led, his pistol also drawn. He opened a door into a hallway, with four more opposing doors opening off of it. All but one were open. They were procedure rooms, fitted with operating tables and equipment, empty of people.

Franchi stepped quietly past the closed door and pressed himself against the wall. The young detective threw the door open, jumping back and leveling his gun.

Nothing moved inside the room, but there was something on the table.

Larrabee's gut understood before his mind did that it was not just something, but someone.

Franchi turned his head and yelled back down the hallway to the cops waiting outside, "One dead!"

The body was female, with coppery skin and long, jet black hair spilling from her head off the table's end. Her face had been largely peeled away, leaving rough, dark red crusted patches of raw tissue. The table and the floor underneath were slick with blood. There was a thick smell, not decay yet, but its precursor.

Franchi crossed himself, muttering in Italian. The young detective let his gun hand fall, his other forearm rising to cover his mouth. Larrabee had to fight the urge to hyperventilate. He had seen his share of bodies, but never one like this.

"Don't nobody touch nothing," Franchi said roughly. "Is this Gwen?"

Larrabee shook his head. "I saw her photos on the Net. She's pure white-bread. But – that hair. Coffee Trenette has hair like that. Monks said she was at the party last night."

Franchi took two steps into the room, his gaze moving swiftly. It was chaotic, with objects looking like they had been thrown down in haste. Surgical instruments lay in a jumble on a tray. A wastebasket was stuffed with bloody towels. The fingers of a latex glove showed among them.

Then he pointed at something with his pistol, a little flash of gold beside the sink, almost covered by another towel. He moved closer and lifted the towel away with the gun's barrel. The gold was the flex band of a wristwatch, a man's Rolex with a face of striking deep blue.

"You'd remember a watch like that," he said. "Call Dr. Monks. Ask him if he noticed D'Anton wearing it. We'll keep looking."

Larrabee made the call on his cell phone, while the detectives moved along the hall toward the front area of the clinic. Monks picked up immediately.

"Did you get a look at D'Anton's wristwatch?" Larrabee asked.

"A blue Rolex. You could see it from across the room."

"We just found it. There's a dead woman on an operating table. I think it's Coffee Trenette."

Monks closed his eyes. "Bad?"

"Yeah. It looks like he started cutting on her, and went crazy."

Monks remembered what Roberta Massey had said, about the gloved hands in front of her face.

"D'Anton has big hands," he said. "If there are gloves, they'll be at least a size eight."

"I can see one, in the wastebasket. I better not touch it. Wait a minute, there's a packet of them over here." Larrabee stepped cautiously to a paper envelope containing surgical gloves, lying on the counter close to the watch.

"Eight and a half," Larrabee said. "Okay, I'll keep you posted."

He clicked off the phone and was starting down the hall to follow the detectives when he heard Guido Franchi's bellow:

"Two dead."

The second body, also a woman's, lay facedown on the reception room floor, just inside the front door. Larrabee's immediate impression was that she had been running for it, and was caught from behind. There was no butchery here. The right side of her throat had been slashed with surgical neatness.

Except for that, she was still beautiful. Franchi and the two other detectives were standing over her, looking almost reverent.

Larrabee nodded curtly to Franchi. "This is Gwen Bricknell," he said.

Outside in the parking lot, Franchi got on the phone and called more backup – a SWAT team to sweep the building for anyone who might be hiding, a CSI unit, uniforms to cordon off the area. Larrabee could hear the distant sirens, already starting.

Then Franchi walked over to him and said, "D' Anton's probably trying to get out of the country right now. Call Dr. Monks again. Tell him what happened. Then let me talk to him."

When Monks answered, Larrabee said, "We found Gwen, Carroll. She's dead, too. It looks like she surprised D' Anton while he was working on Coffee. She tried to get away, but he caught her."

Monks did not say anything. Larrabee handed Franchi the phone.

"I'd like for you to go up and talk to D'Anton's wife," Franchi said to Monks. "Before a bunch of ham-fisted sheriffs come stomping in, and she calls F. Lee Bailey. Don't tell her anything about this, just say you came by to pick up your stuff. See if you can get an idea where D'Anton might be headed, another ID he might use, anything like that."

Monks said, "I'll try. She doesn't like me much."

"She likes you better than she'll like us."

The police units were starting to arrive, squad cars parking to surround the building, and a van spilling out husky young SWAT team members carrying assault rifles. A KPIX television news van came in right behind them.

"You people stay the fuck out of the crime scene," Franchi yelled at the van. He shoved the phone back at Larrabee and strode toward it.

Larrabee faded to the outskirts of the area, staying out of the way. The SWAT team started moving into the clinic, agile crouching men slipping inside like ballet dancers. Snipers were braced across squad car roofs, rifles trained on the exits. Flashing lights and the crackling of radio static filled the air like smoke.

It was a hell of an exciting show. Except that there were two dead women at the center of it.

An hour later, the SWAT team had cleared the building and it was crawling with technicians. Police higher-ups were starting to arrive, and it was rumored that the city's medical examiner himself was on his way. The newspeople were all over it, too. Franchi had long since lost his battle to keep them out.

He and Larrabee were standing together in the parking lot, when he got a call from the office that was running the NCIC checks.

"One of the names just came up," the cop in the office said. 'Todd Peploe. Looks like he's the maintenance man at D'Anton's clinic."

"What's the pop?"

"He was working at a hospital down in San Diego, back in the early nineties. Apparently, he was impersonating a doctor, molesting women. He got seven years and did two."

"Find out where he lives and get after his ass, right now" Franchi said. He turned to Larrabee, looking very unhappy. "We might be after the wrong guy. The maintenance man's got a record of playing doctor. Christ, could he be that smart, to plant that watch and gloves?"

"Just because they're crazy, it doesn't mean they're stupid," Larrabee said. "I'd better call Carroll and let him know."

Monks did not answer his cell phone. Larrabee's watch said 8:22 a.m. Monks was probably with Julia D' Anton by now.

When Monks's voice mail came on, Larrabee said, "Carroll, it's Stover. Give me a call ASAP." He left it at that, in case Julia might overhear.

Whoever the killer was, he was most likely traveling away from this area as fast as he could. There was no reason for him to go to the house where the party had been.

But Larrabee was seriously annoyed at himself for assuming too quickly that D' Anton had to be the murderer. And a little queasy about the new level of unpredictability.

"All these years we've been doing this, and we act like a couple of fucking amateurs," Franchi said morosely.

"I was just thinking the same thing," Larrabee said.