32

Allison arrived by taxi, an hour and a half late, freshly made-up but looking exhausted. I had a couple of steaks on the grill, spaghetti with olive oil and garlic in the sauté pan, was mixing a butter lettuce salad.

“I was wrong,” she said. “Food at hand seems like a great idea.”

“No peanuts on the plane?”

“We were lucky to land. Some guy got drunk and rowdy. For a while it looked as if it was going to be ugly. A bunch of us subdued him, and finally he fell asleep.”

“A bunch of us?” I said.

“I got hold of one ankle.”

“Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”

She flexed a biceps. “It was terrifying.”

“Brave girl,” I said, holding her.

“When it happens, you don’t even think,” she said. “You just act… I need to sit down. Is wine on the menu?”

We took a long time eating, chatting, slipping into the fuzz of light intoxication. Later, undressed, in bed, we held each other without making love and fell asleep like roommates. I awoke at 4 A.M., found Allison’s side of the bed empty, and went to look for her.

She was in the kitchen, sitting in dim light, wearing one of my T-shirts and drinking instant decaf. Hair tied up carelessly, face scrubbed of makeup, bare legs smooth and white against the dark oak floor.

“Biorhythm must be off,” she said.

“From Colorado?”

She shrugged. I sat down.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I was wandering around, trying to tire myself out. What are all those guitar cases in the spare bedroom about?”

I told her.

She said, “Poor Robin, what a trauma. Nice of you.”

I said, “It seemed the right thing to do.”

A clump of black hair came loose, and she slipped it behind her ear. Her eyes were bloodshot. Without makeup she looked a bit faded, but younger.

I leaned over and kissed her lips. Sour breath, both of us.

“So she’s back in San Francisco?”

“Yup.”

“Helping her was the right thing to do,” she said. “Now do something for me.”

She got up, crossed her arms, raised the T-shirt from her slim, white body.


***

I was up by seven, wakened by her light snoring. I watched her chest rise and fall, studied her pale, lovely face scrunched between two pillows. Mouth agape in what could have been a comical expression. Long-fingered hands gripped the covers.

Tight grip. Frantic movement behind her eyelids. Dreams. From the tension in her body, maybe not good ones.

I closed my eyes. She stopped snoring. Started again. When she opened her eyes and saw me, the blue irises were clogged with confusion.

I smiled.

She said, “Oh,” sat up, stared at me, as if encountering a stranger.

Then: “Good morning, baby.” She knuckled her eyes. “Was I snoring?”

“Not a bit.”


***

She had a morning full of patients and left at eight. I tidied up, thought about Robin in San Francisco, Baby Boy Lee’s instruments gone and what that meant, if anything.

Three blocks south, the gangs were active…

But Baby’s Gibson had been the only acoustic instrument taken.

The phone rang. Milo said, “The ligature marks on Julie and Levitch are a perfect match to a light-gauge low E guitar string. Now what does that mean?”

“It means nothing about these killings is accidental,” I said. “And that worries me. Talk to the Pacific detectives about Robin’s break-in?”

“They see it as a routine burglary.”

“Are they good?”

“Average,” he said. “But no reason to think they’re wrong. Robin’s neighborhood, there’s plenty of that.”

I thought of Robin living with me, up in the Glen. Higher-priced neighborhood. Safer. Except when it wasn’t. A few years ago, a murderous psychopath had burned down the house.

Our house…

Milo said, “I asked them for a uniform drive-by for the next few weeks.”

“The usual two passes a day?”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s better than nothing. I also gave them Kevin Drummond’s vehicle and plates, told them to keep a special lookout. Meanwhile, Robin’s in San Francisco, so don’t worry. Stahl and the landlady got into Drummond’s apartment last night. He collects toys and magazines, has a slew of computer and printing equipment. No guitars, no strings, no creepy trophies, nothing incriminating. And not a single copy of GrooveRat. That’s what I find interesting.”

“Covering his tracks,” I said. “Or he’s got another storage space.”

“Stahl’s calling U-rent places.”

“Wonder if it was Stahl’s second entry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Normally he’s got the demeanor of a statue. Yesterday, when you talked about going in, his eyes got jumpy, and he looked at the floor.”

“Did he… he’s a strange one, that’s for sure… the magazines included gay porn. Rough stuff. Stahl said Kevin’s been living spartan, just a few bits of clothing, no personal effects of any consequence. That could be because he split for the long run or there is another stash spot.”

“It could also mean psychological deterioration,” I said. “Drawing inward. Spitting on his parents’ values.”

“Petra decided she will give the parents another try- specifically the father. I’m heading over to Ev Kipper’s office building, see if I can learn more about his girlfriend. Because one of his neighbors called me. Claims Ol’ Ev’s been looking especially angry. Pounding away late at night, past the curfew. They’re afraid to call the cops. Also the girlfriend’s been looking rather down the last coupla days, eating alone. I can’t see any easy link to the cases, but I don’t have a lead in any other direction. The more I think about Erna Murphy, the more I want to know about her, but all Petra’s found, so far, are a few merchants who vaguely remember Erna on the street. No buddies or boyfriends, she was always by herself.”

“What about the doctor the Dove House folks called in when she bled on the sheets? Could be Erna opened up to her.”

“The Dove House folks said the doctor just met Erna once.”

“The Dove House folks admitted they don’t stay in touch with the women once they leave the shelter. And Erna was out of there more than she was in. If she got sick again, maybe she returned to the person who’d cared for her.”

“Well,” he said, “nothing else looks promising, might as well check it out- you mind doing it? I’m on my way to Century City.”

“Sure,” I said. “What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Let me check my notes… here it is… Hannah Gold.”

“I’ll call her now.”


***

I phoned Dr. Gold, got a male receptionist, used my title.

He said, “She’s with a patient, Doctor.”

“It’s about a patient. Ernadine Murphy.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“It’s important.”

“Hold on, please.”

Moments later: “Dr. Gold wants to know what it’s about?”

“Ernadine Murphy was murdered.”

“Oh. Hold on, please.”

Longer wait, this time. The same man came on the line. “Dr. Gold will be free at noon. You can come by then.”


***

The office was a sand-colored bungalow next to a Fiat mechanic. A black plastic sign to the right of the door said:

Vrinda Srinivasan, M.D.

Hannah R. Gold, M. PH., M.D.

Angela B. Borelli, M.D.

Internal Medicine, Obstetrics-Gynecology,

Women’s Health Issues

I arrived at noon, but Dr. Gold wasn’t free. Three patients sat in the waiting room- two elderly women and a starving girl around fifteen. All of them looked up as I entered. The kid kept staring until my smile made her frown in disgust and she returned to picking her cuticles.

Small, overheated waiting room, furnished with clean but faded castoffs. Framed photos of Machu Picchu and Nepal and Angkor Wat hung on the walls. Enya sang sweetly on tape.

A handwritten sign taped to the reception counter said:

We take Medi-Cal from you-

and sometimes we even get paid by the State.

Cash won’t be refused- pay what you can, or don’t

worry about it.

No glass blocking the reception area, just a cramped space occupied by a young man in his early twenties with neatly cut, prematurely gray hair. He pored over Principles of Accounting as if it were a thriller. A name tag on his plaid, short-sleeved shirt read ELI.

When I stepped up, he put the book down reluctantly.

“I’m Dr. Delaware.”

“She’s running late.” He lowered his voice: “She’s very upset by what I told her. You might not be able to tell, but she is. She’s my sister.”


***

Twenty-five minutes later, all three patients were gone, and Eli announced he was going to lunch.

“She’ll be right out,” he said, tucking the textbook under his arm and leaving the bungalow.

Five minutes after that, a woman in a buttoned white coat stepped into the waiting room, holding a medical chart. Young face, foxlike, the kind of bronze skin that glows naturally. Not much older than thirty but her thick, brushy, shoulder-length hair was snow-white. Genetics; Eli would get there soon. She had pale, green eyes that could’ve used some rest.

“I’m Dr. Gold.” She held out a hand, gripped my fingers defensively, the way delicately boned women learn to do so as not to be crushed. Her skin was dry and cold.

“Thanks for meeting with me.”

The sea-colored eyes were down-slanted, wide, and curious. Broad mouth, strong, square chin. An exceedingly handsome woman.

She locked the waiting room door, sat down on a worn, olive green, herringbone chair that matched nothing else in the room, crossed her legs. Beneath the white coat, she wore black jeans and gray boots. Enya’s voice mourned in Gaelic.

“What happened to Erna?” she said.

I gave her the basics.

“Oh, my. And you’re here because…?”

“I consult to the police. They asked me to talk to you.”

“Meaning the murder has psychological overtones as opposed to a dumb street crime.”

“Hard to say, at this point,” I said. “How well did you know her?”

“You don’t really know someone like Erna. I saw her a few times.”

“Here or at Dove House?”

“Once there, twice here.”

“She returned after your emergency call to the shelter.”

“I gave her my card,” she said. “I was shocked to find out she’d actually kept it.” She flipped the chart open. Inside was a single page. Upside down, I made out small, neat handwriting. “Both times were drop-ins. The first was a little over two weeks after I saw her at Dove House. Her anal fissures had started bleeding again, and she was complaining of pain. It didn’t surprise me. All I’d done the first time was a superficial exam. Someone like that, you can only imagine what’s going on internally. I urged her to get scoped, offered to arrange it for free at County. She refused, so I gave her salve and analgesics and the basic lecture on hygiene- not laid on too thickly. You have to know your audience.”

“Know what you mean,” I said. “I trained at Western Peds.”

“Really?” she said. “I did my training at County but rotated through W.P. Do you know Ruben Eagle?”

“I know him well.”

We exchanged names, places, other petty commonalities, then Hannah Gold’s face turned grave. “The second time I saw Erna was a lot more alarming. It was at night. She burst in here just as I was closing up. The staff had gone home and I was turning off the lights and the door opened and there she was, waving her hands, really out of sorts. Then her eyes got a panicked look and she reached out.”

She shuddered. “She wanted physical comfort. I’m afraid I stepped away from her. She was a big woman, my reflexive response was fear. She gave me this look, just collapsed on the floor in tears. I eased her to her feet, brought her back to my office. She was muscularly rigid and babbling incoherently. I’m not a psychiatrist, I didn’t want to fool with Thorazine or anything else heavy. Calling Emergency Services would have been a betrayal- I no longer felt threatened. She was pathetic, not dangerous.”

She closed the chart. “I gave her an IM injection of Valium and some herb tea, sat there with her for- had to be almost an hour. Finally, she calmed down. If she hadn’t, I would have called the EMTs.”

“Any idea what had upset her?”

“She wouldn’t say. Got extremely quiet- almost mute. Then she apologized for bothering me and insisted on leaving.”

“Almost mute?”

“She answered simple yes-or-no questions about nonthreatening topics. But nothing about what had brought her to the office or her physical problems. I wanted to check her out physically, but she’d have none of that. Yet, she kept apologizing- lucid enough to know she’d been inappropriate. I suggested she return to Dove House. She said that was a dandy idea. Those were her exact words. ‘That’s a dandy idea, Dr. Gold!’ When she said it she was almost… perky. She’d do that, turn cheerful without warning. But it was an upsetting cheerfulness- overwrought. Using phrases that were… too refined for the context.”

“The people at Dove House felt she’d been well educated.”

Hannah Gold thought about that. “Or faking it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you seen psychotics do that? They latch on to phrases and spit them back- like autistic children?”

“Was that your sense of Erna?”

She compressed her lips. “I really can’t claim to have a sense of her.” The down-slanted eyes narrowed. “Do you have any idea who did this to her?”

“It could be someone she trusted. Someone who used her.”

“Sexually?”

“Was she sexually active?”

“Not in the classic sense,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

She licked her lips. “When I examined her, her vaginal area was raw, and she had body lice and old scars- fibrosed lesions. Those are things you expect in a street person. But then I did a pelvic and couldn’t believe what I found. Her hymen was intact. She was still a virgin. Women on the street get used in the worst ways imaginable. Erna was a big woman, but a violent man- a group of men- could’ve subdued her. I find the fact that she was never entered remarkable.”

Unless her companion had no interest in heterosexual intercourse.

“Her genital area was raw,” I said. “She could’ve been assaulted without being penetrated.”

“No,” she said, “this was more like poor hygiene. There were no lacerations, no trauma of any sort. And she didn’t get upset when I checked her out. Just the opposite. Stoic. As if she was totally cut off from that part of her.”

I said, “When she was lucid- refined- what did she talk about?”

“The first time she was here I got her to talk about things she liked, and she started going on about art. How it was the best thing in the world. How artists were gods. She could name painters- French, Flemish, artists I’ve never heard of. For all I know, she made them up. But they sounded authentic.”

“Did she ever mention friends or family?”

“I tried to ask her about her parents, where she was from, where she went to school. She didn’t want to talk about that. The only thing she admitted to was a cousin. A really smart cousin. He liked art, too. She seemed to be proud of that. But that’s all she’d say about him.”

“Him,” I said. “A male cousin.”

“That’s my recollection.” She shook her head. “It’s been a while. You said someone she trusted might’ve abused her. There really is a cousin? I assumed it was all delusion.”

“I haven’t heard of one,” I said. “The police are thinking she might’ve been lured by someone she knew. When did her two visits take place?”

She consulted the chart. Erna Murphy’s first drop-in had been five months ago. The second had taken place on a Thursday, two days before Baby Boy’s murder.

“The cousin,” she said. “She talked about him as if she was really impressed. If I’d known…”

“No reason to know.”

“Spoken like a true psychologist. When I was in med school I dated a psychologist.”

“Nice guy?”

“Terrible guy.” She suppressed a yawn. “Excuse me! Sorry, I’m bushed. And that’s really all I can tell you.”


***

“Kissing cousin,” said Milo, by cell phone.

“Nothing beyond kissing.” I gave him the results of Erna Murphy’s pelvic exam.

“Last virgin in Hollywood. If it wasn’t so pathetic…” He was on his cell, calling from the car, reception fading in and out.

“More like virgin sacrifice,” I said. “She was used and discarded.”

“Used for what?”

“Good question.”

“Theorize.”

“Adoration, submissiveness- listening to his fantasies. Running chores- as in scoping out murder scenes and reporting back. An asexual relationship is consistent with Kevin’s being gay. The interest in art drew them together. Maybe she called him her cousin because he represented her surrogate family. She refused to say a word about her real family.”

“Or,” he said, “Kevin’s really her cousin.”

“That, too,” I said. “Red hair, just like his mother.” I laughed.

“Hey, sometimes it helps not to be too brilliant.”

“How would you know?” I said.

“Pshaw. No luck on Erna’s folks, yet. Stahl’s working with the military. But guess what: Kevin’s Honda showed up. Inglewood PD tow yard. Parked illegally, it got hauled in two days ago.”

“Inglewood,” I said. “Near the airport?”

“Not far. I’m heading there as we speak. Gonna flash Kevin’s picture at the airline desks, see if anyone remembers him.”

“You’re canvassing LAX by yourself?”

“No, me and my baby Ds, but it’s still a needle in the proverbial you-know-what. The Honda’s being transferred to our motor lab, but it’s been pawed over pretty thoroughly. What finding it does, though, is firm up Kev as our bad boy. He did bad things, found out we were asking about him, cut town. There were no trophies in his pad because he took them.” His voice was engulfed by static. “… any ideas about which airline to start with?”

“Check with Passport Control and eliminate foreign flights.”

“My first stop,” he said, “not that it’s gonna be a snap, those guys love paperwork. Let’s assume domestic, though. Where would you begin?”

“Why not Boston?” I said. “He’s been there before. Enjoyed the ballet.”

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