Bones

CHAPTER 20

Pacific Public Storage was a city block of beige bunkers hemmed by twenty-foot chain link. Flagrantly orange ten-foot signage promised special deals. The company’s logo was a stack of suitcases.

We drove past and clocked the drive to the marsh before circling back. Six minutes each way, at moderate speed.

Perched above the entry to the facility’s parking lot was a security camera. A Quonset hut served as the office. One man worked the desk, young, chubby, bored. His orange polo shirt bore the logo. His I.D. badge said Philip. A biography of Thomas Jefferson was unfolded face-down on the counter. Passionate sports talk blared from a radio.

Milo eyed the book. “History buff?”

“School. Can I help you?”

“Police.”

The badge made Philip blink.

Milo said, “Some contraband was found in one of your units. Number fourteen fifty-five.”

“Contraband? Like dope?”

“Let’s just say something illegal. What can you tell me about that bin?”

Philip leafed through a ledger. “One four five five… that one’s vacant.”

“We know that, Mr…”

“Phil Stillway.”

“The contraband in question was obtained when the contents were auctioned off two weeks ago, Mr. Stillway.”

“I’ve only been here a week.”

Milo tapped the ledger. “Could you please check who rented the unit?”

“It’s not in here, in here is just the occupied units.”

“Occupied? You’ve got tenants living here?”

Philip gaped. “No, sir, I meant material. Belongings. No one lives here, that’s against regulations.”

Milo winked and grinned.

“Oh,” said Philip, “you were joking.”

“Who rented fourteen fifty-five and when?”

Philip walked two steps to a computer, sat down, tapped keys. “Says here it’s been in arrears for sixty days and that was… two weeks ago… um, yeah, there was an auction, everything got cleaned out.” Tap, tap. “Says here the rental agreement was… fourteen months ago. One year, paid in advance, sixty days in arrears.”

“Paid, how?”

Tap tap tap. “Says here cash.”

“Who’s the renter?”

“Says here Sawyer comma initial T.”

“Address?”

“P.O.B. 3489, Malibu, California, 90156.”

Malibu ’s zip code was 90265. Milo scowled as he copied down the information.

“What other information did Sawyer, T., give?”

Philip read off an 818 phone number.

Malibu ’s 310 but with everything cellular, logic no longer pertains.

Milo said, “Okay, let’s have a look at your security tapes.”

“Pardon?”

“The camera out front.”

“Oh, that,” said Philip. “It’s for when the gates close after eight p.m. and renters want access.”

“You lock up after eight?”

“Yeah, but they can give a deposit and apply for a twenty-four-hour card key.”

“When do the cameras get turned on?”

“When there’s no one in the office.”

“Which is?”

“At night,” said Philip. “After eight.”

“Did T. Sawyer apply for a card key?”

Philip swung back to his keyboard. “The box is checked. Yes… looks like we never got the card back, so the deposit was forfeited. Two hundred dollars.”

“Okay,” said Milo. “Let’s see those tapes. Anything before two weeks ago would be best.”

“It might be best,” said Philip, “but it’s also impossible. Everything’s recorded over after forty-eight hours.”

“Two days and gone? Tight security system you’ve got here.”

“This contraband, was it dangerous? Like toxic waste, something hazardous? My parents aren’t too cool with me working here, worried about the stuff people store.”

“Nothing toxic or radioactive,” said Milo. “Is there anyone in the company who can tell us something about Mr. Sawyer?”

“I can ask but I don’t think so. Everything we need to know is here.” Tapping the computer.

“Let’s look at the last forty-eight hours of tape.”

“Sure.” Philip reached to his left and switched on a VCR. The feed went straight to the computer and the screen turned gray. Stayed that way. “Hmm,” he said, tickling the keyboard and changing nothing.

“It’s not showing much, I don’t know…”

“Stay with it, Phil.”

A perusal of the Help menu and several false starts later, we were staring at a grainy black-and-white close-up of the storage facility gate. Static shot, but for a time register playing bingo. The camera angle was tilted to give a truncated view of the lot, maybe fifteen feet of asphalt, well short of the parking slots.

I said, “All You Wanted to Know About the Driveway But Were Afraid to Ask.”

Phil started to smile, saw the look on Milo ’s face and changed his mind.

The screen reverted to gray.

Error message.

Philip said, “Looks like it’s broken. I’d better report it.”

Milo said, “Fast-forward to make sure it’s blank.”

Philip complied. Nothing on the rest of the tape.

“Give us a key to fourteen fifty-five.”

“I guess it’s okay.”

“Think of it this way,” said Milo. “If there is something dangerous in there, we’ll be the ones who get zapped, not you.”

“I need to stay up here, anyway,” said Philip, scrounging in a drawer. “This one should work. If it doesn’t, I don’t know.”

On the way to the bin, I said, “T. Sawyer.”

“Huck’s buddy. Har dee har har.”

The facility was laid out in a series of dim, narrow hallways that right-angled and continued, a broken snake of cement block tunnel. Door after plywood door, a variety of padlocks, some of them serious.

Company key-bolt on the hasp of 1455. Milo gloved up, unlocked, pulled the door open on fifty square feet of unlit vacancy.

Floors swept clean, not a speck of dust. The smell of bleach floated to the hallway.

He rubbed his eyes, ran his penlight over every surface. “Do I bother wasting the techie’s time?”

“Depends on how much butt-covering you need to do.”

“I’ll tell ’em to luminol, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

We returned to the front office. Philip was playing a game on the company computer, some floridly colored thing featuring ninjas and space aliens and sloe-eyed women whose chests defied gravity.

“Hi,” he said, continuing to work the mouse.

Milo said, “Are vacant units generally cleaned by the company?”

“Uh-huh.”

“With bleach?”

“It’s a special solution we get from the home office,” said Philip. “Kills anything. So the next person doesn’t have to worry.”

“How considerate,” said Milo.

“Yup.” Philip, encountering a lance-wielding demon materializing out of a massive, mauve cloudburst, squinted, hunched forward, and braced himself for battle.

Milo gunned the unmarked and played NASCAR on side streets all the way to the station. Itching to get back to see if a warrant on Travis Huck’s quarters at the Vander house was feasible.

The assistant D.A.’s he’d talked to so far weren’t encouraging, but he had a couple more to go. “John Nguyen’s sometimes helpful.”

“Lawyer-surfing,” I said.

“Talk about toxic waste.”

I left him to the legal system and drove home thinking about molars and incisors.

DeMaura Montouthe, the leading candidate for Jane Doe Three, was fifty-one, a fossil by street standards. The ten-year mug shot Moe Reed had unearthed showed a droopy-eyed, wrinkled, lantern-jawed visage crowned by a platinum bird’s nest. The life she’d led was a road map to mental and physical breakdown and she looked well into her sixties.

Yet she’d held on to her teeth.

Lucky genetics? Or was full dentition her last shred of vanity, the result of special care?

I looked up free facilities offering dental services in L.A. County, found eight, began calling, using my title.

Success at number four, a neighborhood walk-in clinic run by the dental school at the U.

Rose Avenue, south of Lincoln. Walking distance to Selena Bass’s garage digs.

Another brief car ride to the Bird Marsh.

I asked the receptionist when Ms. Montouthe had last visited. “Doctor” only went so far.

“She’s on our files, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Who’s her dentist?”

“Dr. Martin. She’s with a patient.”

“When will she be free?”

“She’s busy all afternoon-can I put you on hold?”

“No need.”

Western District Community Adjunct Dental Health Center was a converted storefront wedged between a designer ice cream parlor and a vintage-clothing shop. Pretty people flocked to both of the neighbors. A couple of homeless men hung out near the clinic’s wide-open door, smoking and laughing. One guy’s worldly belongings were piled on the sidewalk. The other held up a set of dentures and guffawed through a black maw. “They did me good, Mr. Lemon!”

Shopping Bag said, “Lemme try ’em!”

“Gimme a can of soup!”

“Yeah!”

The exchange was aborted when they saw me coming. Two cracked palms blocked my way as they panhandled me simultaneously.

“Breakfast money, Perfesser?”

“It’s afternoon, Mr. Lemon. Pancakes for the people!”

“Powder to the people!”

High-fives and raucous, phlegmy laughter.

I gave them each a five and they whooped, stepped aside. When they tried the same routine with a woman in dance tights leaving the ice cream joint clutching a double cone studded with candy bits, she said, “Fuck off.”

Inside the clinic’s aqua-blue waiting room a heavy woman with fearful eyes clutched a squalling baby and snuck glances at a sunken-faced codger slumped, half asleep. His clothes were filthy. He could’ve turned the scene outside into The Three Amigos. Sitting upright in a corner was a skinny-flabby Mohawked kid around twenty, with branded arms, a missing frontal incisor, and vengeful eyes.

The receptionist was cute and buxom and blond. Whatever her black tank top revealed was smooth and tan. She remembered my name and that killed her smile.

“Dr. Martin’s still busy, sir.”

“I’ll wait.”

“It could take a while.”

“When she takes a break, please let her know DeMaura Montouthe may be dead.”

“Dea-” Her hand jetted to her mouth. “What kind of doctor are you?”

I showed her my LAPD consultant badge.

Her lips worked. She looked ill. “Oh, my God. Hold on.” She hurried through a back door.

The kid with the Mohawk drawled, “Everyone gets dead.”

Faye M. Martin, D.D.S., was thirty or so and gorgeous, with ivory skin, a heart-shaped face framed by gleaming red-brown hair, liquid dark eyes, and a figure a white coat couldn’t camouflage.

Stunning resemblance to Robin-she could’ve been Robin’s younger sister-and, God help me, I felt a tug below my waist.

I worked at staying business-like as we shook hands. Her businesslike manner and my thinking about DeMaura Montouthe helped.

As she led me to an unused treatment room, she asked what a psychologist was doing working with the police. I gave her the short version and it seemed to satisfy her.

The room smelled of raw steak and mint. Gum care posters, and ominous photos of what happened when gum care was abandoned, papered the walls. Canisters of free toothbrushes and paste shared space with chrome-plated picks and curettes and bottles of cotton balls. Off to one side was a bright red patient chart.

Faye Martin perched on a rolling stool and placed her hand on the chart. Crossing her legs, she unbuttoned her coat, revealed a black blouse, black slacks, a gold chain bearing chunky, free-form amethysts. Her figure was fuller than first impression. She seemed unaware of her looks.

The only other seating was the dental chair, still in full recline. She said, “Oh, sorry,” got up and adjusted the tilt. I climbed on.

“As long as you’re here, open wide and let’s have a look at your bite-sorry, it’s terrible about DeMaura, I shouldn’t joke.”

I said, “There’s no better reason to joke.”

Faye Martin said, “Guess so… I’m assuming it was a violent death?”

“If the body we have is her, it was.”

“The body.” She sat back down. “Poor DeMaura. Do you have any idea who did it?”

“Not yet. Confirming identity would be a big help.” I described the dental irregularities Dr. Hargrove had listed.

“It’s her,” said Faye Martin. “Darn.”

“You don’t need to look at X-rays?”

“Before I swear to anything I’ll need to, but it’s her. That combination of anomalies is rare. DeMaura and I used to joke about it. Baby teeth. ‘Guess I never grew up, Doc.’ ”

She picked up the chart, read for a few seconds, put it down. “She had a nice laugh. The rest of her was so… what you’d expect from her lifestyle. But her teeth could’ve belonged to a healthy woman.”

An unpolished fingernail plinked a button of her white coat. “She was a nice person, Dr. Delaware. Almost always cheerful. Considering her situation, I found that pretty remarkable.”

“Sounds like you knew her pretty well.”

“As well as you can know anyone in this setting,” she said. “Except for kids, we mostly treat a transient population. But DeMaura was pretty regular about her appointments.”

She checked the chart again. “She’s been coming in for three years. For the first six months she saw Dr. Chan. He retired and I picked her up.”

“The patients get regular dentists?”

“When the workload permits, we try to make it as much like a private practice as possible. For DeMaura that was easy because all she needed were cleanings-oh, yes, and one replaced amalgam right at the beginning.”

“Why would she need to be a regular just for cleanings?”

“She had some tendency to build up plaque, but nothing extreme.” She played with the chart. “Dr. Chan had been seeing her twice a year but I put her on every three months. To keep tabs on her, not just dentally, for overall health. I felt the only way she’d get regular medical care was if I referred her.”

“She trusted you.”

“I took the time to listen. Truth is, I enjoyed talking to her. She could be funny. Unfortunately, she stopped coming in…” Flipping a page. “… fifteen months ago. When did she die?”

“Possibly around then.”

“I should’ve known something was up, she was always so dependable. But the phone number she left was inactive and I had no way to contact her.”

“I found it surprising that she’d held on to her teeth.”

“She had super-long roots, lots of room for error,” said Faye Martin. “She’d been told that by another dentist, years ago, and it became a point of pride for her. So did her name. ‘Montouthe, it’s karma, Doc, I’m the Chomper Queen.’ And she didn’t have too many points of pride, healthwise.”

“What physical problems did she have?”

“You name it,” said Faye Martin. “Arthritis, bursitis, acute bouts of pancreatitis, liver issues, at least one episode of Hep A I’m aware of, the usual STDs. She wasn’t HIV-positive, at least she’d avoided that. Not that it matters anymore.”

“Where’d you refer her for those issues?”

“The Marina Free Clinic. I called over there once to find out if she’d followed through. She only came in to get her prescriptions, no follow-up.”

I said, “No one she trusted there.”

Faye Martin’s long-lashed brown eyes locked in to mine. Her cheeks were pink. “Guess I practiced your profession without a license.”

“Good thing. You’re the first person we’ve found who knows anything about her. We haven’t been able to turn up any relatives or friends.”

“That’s because she had no friends. Or so she claimed. She said she didn’t like people, was happiest just walking around by herself. She called herself a lonely bad girl. Disowned by family back when she still lived in Canada.”

“Where in Canada?”

“ Alberta.”

I laughed. “We were told Alabama.”

“Hey, an A’s an A,” said Faye Martin.

“Why was she disowned?”

“They were farmers, religious fundamentalists. DeMaura really didn’t give out the details. She came in to have her teeth cleaned, would talk and I’d listen. That happens here more than you think.” She brushed hair from her face. “I didn’t get much psych training in dental school, sure could use some.”

“Is there anything in the chart that could help us know her better?”

“The official record’s just teeth and gums, anything else DeMaura told me stayed in Vegas. But I’ll make you a copy. If your forensic odontologist has time, he or she can make the official match. If not, send me what you’ve got and I’ll do it.”

“Appreciate it. What stayed in Vegas?”

“What she did for a living. She wanted me to know right at the out-set that she was a ‘bad girl.’ Made love only for money-that’s not the terminology she used. But I don’t want to imply that was a big part of our conversations. For the most part, it was just silly chat. She’d come in, kind of goofy, start laughing about some joke she heard on the street, try to retell it, mangle it, and we’d both crack up. For a moment I’d forget what-who she was-and it would be like hanging with a friend, chick-talk. But her last visit, fifteen months ago, was different. First of all, she looked better. Nice makeup, not the crazy stuff she wore for work. Decent clothes and her hair was clean and combed out. Nothing could erase all those years of hard living, but that day I caught a glimpse of what she might’ve looked like if things had turned out differently.”

I said, “The only picture I’ve seen was a mug shot.”

Faye Martin frowned. “One thing I know is facial structure and DeMaura’s was well proportioned and symmetrical. She had the under-pinnings of a good-looking woman, Dr. Delaware. That day, it shone through. I told her how pretty she looked, asked if she was going somewhere special. She claimed she had a date with her boyfriend. That surprised me, she’d never talked about men except as customers.”

“She claimed. You had your doubts?”

“Even with her teeth and fixed up, DeMaura was far from ravishing. And the man she described was younger and good-looking.”

“How much younger?”

“She didn’t specify but she called him a kid. ‘Gorgeous kid, I could be his momma but he likes ’ em mature.’ Honestly, I thought she was making it up. Or, at the least, exaggerating. After I finished doing her teeth and my assistant left the room, she started talking about the sexual side of their relationship and for the first time I saw a hint of… I guess it would have to be arousal. As if she could still feel. So maybe this guy, whoever he was-if he existed-maybe he turned her on. Though I also wondered if DeMaura had been the victim of some cruel joke. Misconstruing one of her business relationships as personal.”

“Crush on a client,” I said.

“What she told me next made it the wrong type of client. She said he liked to hurt her. And that she liked to be hurt.”

“Hurt how?”

“I didn’t ask. The prurient details didn’t interest me, just the opposite-to be truthful, I was repulsed. I did warn her to be careful but she said they were just playing games.”

“She used that word?”

“Yes, games. Then she placed her hands around her neck and stuck out her tongue and wobbled her head. As if she was being strangled.”

Dark eyes narrowed. “Is that how she died?”

“There’s evidence of strangulation, but all that was left of her were bones.”

“My God,” she said. “It wasn’t her fantasy, it happened.”

“What else did she say about this boyfriend?”

“Let me think back.” Massaging the smooth space between shaped eyebrows. “She said… now I’m sorry that I didn’t press for details… okay, she said she liked rubbing his head, he was her good-luck charm. It was one of the games they played, she’d rub his head and he’d do what he wanted-her words, he does what he wants, whatever he wants. She said she loved his head, how smooth it was. ‘Like a baby’s ass.’ So I guess he was bald.” Frowning. “I gave her a new toothbrush and a pick and some Colgate Total.”

She sprang up. “Let me copy this for you.”

I said, “This has been helpful. You’ve got nothing to regret.”

She turned, smiled. “At least someone has psych training.”