Devil's Waltz

17

Learning about Dawn Herbert’s murder and her penchant for stealing got me thinking.

I’d assumed she’d pulled Chad’s chart for Laurence Ashmore. But what if she’d done it for herself because she’d learned something damaging to the Jones family and planned to profit from it?

And now she was dead.

I drove to the fish store, bought a forty-pound bag of koi food, and asked if I could use the phone to make a local call. The kid behind the counter thought for a while, looked at the total on the register, and said, “Over there,” pointing to an old black dial unit on the wall. Next to it was a big saltwater aquarium housing a small leopard shark. A couple of goldfish thrashed at the water’s surface. The shark glided peacefully. Its eyes were steady and blue, almost as pretty as Vicki Bottomley’s.

I called Parker Center. The man who answered said Milo wasn’t there and he didn’t know when he’d be back.

“Is this Charlie?” I said.

“No.”

Click.

I dialed Milo’s home number. The kid behind the counter was watching me. I smiled and gave him the one-minute index finger while listening to the rings.

Peggy Lee delivered the Blue Investigations pitch. I said, “Dawn Herbert was murdered in March. Probably March 9, somewhere downtown, near a punk music club. The investigating detective was named Ray Gomez. I should be at the hospital within an hour — you can have me paged if you want to talk about it.”

I hung up and started walking out. A froth of movement caught the corner of my eye and I turned toward the aquarium. Both the goldfish were gone.

The Hollywood part of Sunset was weekend-quiet. The banks and entertainment firms preceding Hospital Row were closed, and a scatter of poor families and drifters massaged the sidewalk. Auto traffic was thin — mostly weekend workers and tourists who’d gone too far past Vine. I made it to the gate of the doctors’ parking structure in less than half an hour. The lot was functioning again. Plenty of spaces.

Before heading up to the wards, I stopped at the cafeteria for coffee.

It was the tail end of lunch hour but the room was nearly empty. Dan Kornblatt was getting change from the cashier just as I stepped up to pay. The cardiologist was carrying a lidded plastic cup. Coffee had leaked out and was running down the cup’s sides in mud-colored rivulets. Kornblatt’s handlebars drooped and he looked preoccupied. He dropped the change in his pocket and saw me, gave a choppy nod.

“Hey, Dan. What’s up?”

My smile seemed to bother him. “Read the paper this morning?” he said.

“Actually,” I said, “I just skimmed.”

He squinted at me. Definitely peeved. I felt as if I’d gotten the wrong answer on an oral exam.

“What can I say,” he snapped, and walked away.

I paid for my coffee and wondered what in the paper was eating him. Looking around the cafeteria for a discarded paper, I failed to spot one. I took a couple of swallows of coffee, tossed the cup, and went to the library’s reading room. This time it was locked.

Chappy Ward was deserted and the door to every room but Cassie’s was open. Lights off, stripped beds, the tainted meadow smell of fresh deodorization. A man in yellow maintenance scrubs vacuumed the hallway. The piped-in music was something Viennese, slow and syrupy.

Vicki Bottomley sat at the nursing station reading a chart. Her cap sat slightly off-kilter.

I said, “Hi, anything new?”

She shook her head and held out the chart without looking up.

“Go ahead and finish it,” I said.

“Finished.” She waved the chart.

I took it but didn’t open it. Leaning against the counter, I said, “How’s Cassie feeling today?”

“Bit better.” Still no eye contact.

“When did she wake up?”

“Around nine.”

“Dad here yet?”

“It’s all in there,” she said, keeping her head down and pointing at the chart.

I flipped it open, turned to this morning’s pages, and read Al Macauley’s summary notes and those of the neurologist.

She picked up some kind of form and began to write.

“Cassie’s latest seizure,” I said, “sounds like it was a strong one.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

I put the chart down and just stood there. Finally she looked up. The blue eyes blinked rapidly.

“Have you seen lots of childhood epilepsy?” I said.

“Seen everything. Worked Onco. Took care of babies with brain tumors.” Shrug.

“I did oncology, too. Years ago. Psychosocial support.”

“Uh-huh.” Back to the form.

“Well,” I said, “at least Cassie doesn’t seem to have a tumor.”

No answer.

“Dr. Eves told me she’s planning to discharge her soon.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought I’d go out and make a home visit.”

Her pen raced.

“You’ve been out there yourself, haven’t you?”

No answer.

I repeated the question. She stopped writing and looked up. “If I have, is there something wrong with that?”

“No, I was just—”

“You were just making talky-talk is what you were doing. Right?” She put the pen down and wheeled backward. A smug smile was on her lips. “Or are you checking me out? Wanting to know if I went out and did something to her?”

She wheeled back farther, keeping her eyes on me, still smiling.

“Why would I think that?” I said.

“ ’Cause I know the way you people think.”

“It was a simple question, Vicki.”

“Yeah, right. That’s what this has all been about, from the beginning. All this phony talky-talk. You’re checking me out to see if I’m like that nurse in New Jersey.”

“What nurse is that?”

“The one killed the babies. They wrote a book about it and it was on TV.”

“You think you’re under suspicion?”

“Aren’t I? Isn’t it always the nurse who gets blamed?”

“Was the nurse in New Jersey blamed falsely?”

Her smile managed to turn into a grimace without a movement.

“I’m sick of this game,” she said, standing and shoving the chair away. “With you people it’s always games.”

“ ‘You people’ meaning psychologists?”

She folded her hands across her chest and muttered something. Then she turned her back on me.

“Vicki?”

No answer.

“What this is all about,” I said, fighting to keep my voice even, “is finding out what the hell’s going on with Cassie.”

She pretended to read the bulletin board behind the desk.

“So much for our little truce,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” she said, turning quickly and facing me. Her voice had risen, a sour reed solo superimposed on the Sacher-torte music.

“Don’t worry,” she repeated, “I won’t get in your way. You want something, just ask. ’Cause you’re the doctor. And I’ll do anything that’ll help that poor little baby — contrary to what you think, I care about her, okay? Fact is, I’ll even go down and get you coffee if that impresses you and keeps your attention on her, where it should be. I’m not one of those feminists think it’s a sin to do something other than push meds. But don’t pretend to be my friend, okay? Let’s both of us just do our jobs without talky-talk, and go about our merry ways, okay? And in answer to your question, I was out at the house exactly two times — months ago. Okay?”

She walked to the opposite end of the station, found another form, picked it up and began reading. Squinting, she held it at arm’s length. She needed reading glasses. The smug smile returned.

I said, “Are you doing something to her, Vicki?”

Her hands jerked and the paper dropped. She bent to pick it up and her cap fell off. Bowing a second time, she retrieved it and stood up rigidly. She was wearing a lot of mascara and a couple of specks had come loose below one eye.

I didn’t budge.

“No!” A whisper with lots of force behind it.

Footsteps turned both of our heads. The maintenance man came out into the hall, pulling his vacuum. He was middle-aged and Hispanic, with old eyes and a Cantinflas mustache.

“Sumtin’ else?” he said.

“No,” said Vicki. “Go.”

He looked at her, raised an eyebrow, then yanked on the machine and towed it toward the teak doors. Vicki watched him, hands clenched.

When he was gone, she said, “That was a horrible question! Why do you have to think such ugly thoughts — why does anyone have to be doing anything to her? She’s sick!”

“All her symptoms are some sort of mystery illness?”

“Why not?” she said. “Why not? This is a hospital. That’s what we get here — sick kids. That’s what real doctors do. Treat sick kids.”

I maintained my silence.

Her arms began to rise and she fought to keep them down, like a subject resisting a hypnotist. Where the cap had been, her stiff hair had bunched in a hat-sized dome.

I said, “The real doctors aren’t having much luck, are they?”

She exhaled through her nose.

“Games,” she said, whispering again. “Always games with you people.”

“You seem to know a lot about us people.”

She looked startled and swiped at her eyes. Her mascara had started to run and the knuckles came away gray but she didn’t notice them; her glare was fixed on me.

I met it, absorbed it.

The smug smile came back on her face. “Is there anything else you want, sir?” She pulled bobby pins out of her hair and used them to fasten the wedge of white starch.

“Have you told the Joneses your feelings about therapists?” I said.

“I keep my feelings to myself. I’m a professional.”

“Have you told them someone suspects foul play?”

“Of course not. Like I said, I’m a professional!”

“A professional,” I said. “You just don’t like therapists. Bunch of quacks who promise to help but don’t come through.”

Her head jerked back. The hat bobbled and one hand shot up to keep it in place.

“You don’t know me,” she said. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s true,” I lied. “And that’s become a problem for Cassie.”

“That’s ridic—”

“Your behavior’s getting in the way of her care, Vicki. Let’s not discuss it out here anymore.” I pointed to the nurse’s room behind the station.

She slammed her hands on her hips. “For what?”

“A discussion.”

“You have no right.”

“Actually, I do. And the only reason you’re still on the case is through my good graces. Dr. Eves admires your technical skills but your attitude’s getting on her nerves, as well.”

“Right.”

I picked up the phone. “Call her.”

She sucked in her breath. Touched her cap. Licked her lips. “What do you want from me?” Trace of whine.

“Not out here,” I said. “In there, Vicki. Please.”

She started to protest. No words came out. A tremor surged across her lips. She put a hand up to cover it.

“Let’s just drop it,” she said. “I’m sorry, okay?”

Her eyes were full of fear. Remembering her final view of her son and feeling like a louse, I shook my head.

“No more hassles,” she said. “I promise — I really mean it this time. You’re right, I shouldn’t have mouthed off. It’s because I’m worried about her, same as you. I’ll be fine. Sorry. It won’t happen again—”

“Please, Vicki.” I pointed to the nurse’s room.

“—I swear. Come on, cut me a little slack.”

I held my ground.

She moved toward me, hands fisted, as if ready to strike. Then she dropped them. Turned suddenly, and walked to the room. Moving slowly, shoulders down, barely lifting her shoes from the carpet.

The room was furnished with an orange Naugahyde couch and matching chair, and a coffee table. A phone sat on the table next to an unplugged coffee maker that hadn’t been used or cleaned in a long time. Cat and puppy posters were taped to the wall above a bumper sticker that read NURSES DO IT WITH TENDER LOVING CARE.

I closed the door and sat on the couch.

“This stinks,” she said, without conviction. “You have no right — I am calling Dr. Eves.”

I picked up the phone, called the page operator and asked for Stephanie.

“Wait,” she said. “Hang up.”

I canceled the page and replaced the receiver. She did a little toe-heel dance, finally sank into the chair, fiddling with her cap, both feet flat on the ground. I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: a tiny daisy drawn in nail polish marker, on her new badge, just above her photo. The polish was starting to flake and the flower looked shredded.

She put her hands in her spreading lap. A condemned-prisoner look filled her face.

“I have work to do,” she said. “Still have to change the sheets, check to make sure Dietary gets the dinner order right.”

“The nurse in New Jersey,” I said. “What made you bring that up?”

“Still on that?”

I waited.

“No big deal,” she said. “I told you, there was a book and I read it, that’s all. I don’t like to read those kinds of things usually, but someone gave it to me, so I read it. Okay?”

She was smiling, but suddenly her eyes had filled with tears. She flailed at her face, trying to dry it with her fingers. I looked around the room. No tissues. My handkerchief was clean and I gave it to her.

She looked at it, ignored it. Her face stayed wet, mascara tracing black cat-scratches through the impasto of her makeup.

“Who gave you the book?” I said.

Her face clogged with pain. I felt as if I’d stabbed her.

“It had nothing to do with Cassie. Believe me.”

“Okay. What exactly did this nurse do?”

“Poisoned babies — with lidocaine. But she was no nurse. Nurses love kids. Real nurses.” Her eyes shifted to the bumper sticker on the wall and she cried harder.

When she stopped, I held out the handkerchief again. She pretended it wasn’t there. “What do you want from me?”

“Some honesty—”

“About what?”

“All the hostility I’ve been getting from you—”

“I said I was sorry about that.”

“I don’t need an apology, Vicki. My honor isn’t the issue and we don’t have to be buddies — make talky-talk. But we do have to communicate well enough to take care of Cassie. And your behavior’s getting in the way.”

“I disag—”

“It is, Vicki. And I know it can’t be anything I’ve said or done because you were hostile before I opened my mouth. So it’s obvious you have something against psychologists, and I suspect it’s because they’ve failed you — or mistreated you.”

“What are you doing? Analyzing me?”

“If I need to.”

“That’s not fair.”

“If you want to keep working the case, let’s get it out in the open. Lord knows it’s difficult enough as is. Cassie’s getting sicker each time she comes in; no one knows what the hell’s going on. A few more seizures like the one you saw and she could be at risk for some serious brain damage. We can’t afford to get distracted by interpersonal crap.”

Her lip shook and scooted forward.

“There’s no need,” she said, “to swear.”

“Sorry. Besides my foul mouth, what do you have against me?”

“Nothing.”

“Baloney, Vicki.”

“There’s really no—”

“You don’t like shrinks,” I said, “and my intuition is you’ve got a good reason.”

She sat back. “That so?”

I nodded. “There are plenty of bad ones out there, happy to take your money without doing anything for you. I happen not to be one of them but I don’t expect you to believe that just because I say so.”

She screwed up her mouth. Relaxed it. Puckers remained above her upper lip. Her face was streaked and smudged and weary and I felt like the Grand Inquisitor.

“On the other hand,” I said, “maybe it’s just me you resent — some sort of turf thing over Cassie, your wanting to be the boss.”

“That’s not it at all!”

“Then what is it, Vicki?”

She didn’t answer. Looked down at her hands. Used a nail to push back a cuticle. Her expression was blank but the tears hadn’t stopped.

“Why not get it out into the open and be done with it?” I said. “If it’s not related to Cassie, it won’t leave this room.”

She sniffed and pinched the tip of her nose.

I moved forward and softened my tone: “Look, this needn’t be a marathon. I’m not out to expose you in any way. All I want to do is clear the air — work out a real truce.”

“Won’t leave this room, huh?” Return of the smug smile. “I’ve heard that before.”

Our eyes met. Hers blinked. Mine didn’t waver.

Suddenly her arms flew upward, hands scissoring. Ripping her cap from her hair, she hurled it across the room. It landed on the floor. She started to get up, but didn’t.

“Damn you!” she said. The top of her head was a bird’s nest.

I’d folded the handkerchief and rested it on one of my knees. Such a neat boy, the Inquisitor.

She put her hands to her temples.

I got up and placed a hand on her shoulder, certain she’d fling it off. But she didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

She sobbed and started to talk, and I had nothing to do but listen.

She told only part of it. Ripping open old wounds while struggling to hold on to some dignity.

The felonious Reggie transformed into an “active boy with school problems.”

“He was smart enough, but he just couldn’t find anything that interested him and his mind used to wander all over the place.”

The boy growing into a “restless” young man who “just couldn’t seem to settle down.”

Years of petty crime reduced to “some problems.”

She sobbed some more. This time she took my handkerchief.

Weeping and whispering the punch line: her only child’s death at nineteen, due to “an accident.”

Relieved of his secret, the Inquisitor held his tongue.

She was silent for a long time, dried her eyes, wiped her face, then began talking again:

Alcoholic husband upgraded to blue-collar hero. Dead at thirty-eight, the victim of “high cholesterol.”

“Thank God we owned the house,” she said. “Besides that, the only other thing Jimmy left us worth anything was an old Harley-Davidson motorcycle — one of those choppers. He was always tinkering with that thing, making a mess. Putting Reggie on the back and racing through the neighborhood. He used to call it his hog. Till Reggie was four he actually thought that’s what a hog was.”

Smiling.

“It was the first thing I sold,” she said. “I didn’t want Reggie getting ideas that it was his birthright to just go out and crack himself up on the freeway. He always liked speed. Just like his dad. So I sold it to one of the doctors where I worked — over at Foothill General. I’d worked there before Reggie was born. After Jimmy died, I had to go back there again.”

I said, “Pediatrics?”

She shook her head. “General ward — they didn’t do peds there. I would have preferred peds, but I needed a place that was close to home, so I could be close to Reggie — he was ten but he still wasn’t good by himself. I wanted to be home when he was. So I worked nights. Used to put him in at nine, wait till he was asleep, grab a nap for an hour, then go off at ten forty-five so I could be on shift by eleven.”

She waited for judgment.

The Inquisitor didn’t oblige.

“He was all alone,” she said. “Every night. But I figured with him sleeping it would be okay. What they call latchkey now, but they didn’t have a name for it back then. There was no choice — I had no one to help me. No family, no such thing as day care back then. You could only get all-night babysitters from an agency and they charged as much as I was making.”

She dabbed at her face. Looked at the poster again, and forced back tears.

“I never stopped worrying about that boy. But after he grew up he accused me of not caring about him, saying I left him because I didn’t care. He even got on me for selling his dad’s bike — making it into a mean thing instead of because I cared.”

I said, “Raising a kid alone,” and shook my head in what I hoped was sympathy.

“I used to race home at seven in the morning, hoping he’d still be asleep and I could wake him up and pretend I’d been there with him all night. In the beginning it worked, but pretty soon he caught on and he’d start to hide from me. Like a game — locking himself in the bathroom...” She mashed the handkerchief and a terrible look came onto her face.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to—”

“You don’t have kids. You don’t understand what it’s like. When he was older — a teenager — he’d stay out all night, never calling in, sometimes for a couple days at a time. When I grounded him, he’d sneak out anyway. Any punishment I tried, he just laughed. When I tried to talk to him about it, he threw it back in my face. My working and leaving him. Tit for tat: you went out — now I go out. He never...”

She shook her head.

“Never got a lick of help,” she said. “Not one single lick... from any of them. Your crowd, the experts. Counselors, special-ed experts, you name it. Everyone was an expert except me. ’Cause I was the problem, right? They were all good at blaming. Real experts at that. Not that any of them could help him — he couldn’t learn a thing in school. It got worse and worse each year and all I got was the runaround. Finally, I took him to... one of you. Private clown. All the way over in Encino. Not that I could afford it.”

She spat out a name I didn’t recognize.

I said, “Never heard of him.”

“Big office,” she said. “View of the mountains and all these little dolls in the bookshelf instead of books. Sixty dollars an hour, which was a lot back then. Still is... specially for a total waste of time. Two years of fakery is what I got.”

“Where’d you find him?”

“He came recommended — highly recommended — from one of the doctors at Foothill. And I thought he was pretty smart myself, at first. He spent a couple of weeks with Reggie, not telling me anything, then called me in for a conference and told me how Reggie had serious problems because of the way he’d grown up. Said it was gonna take a long time to fix it but he would fix it. If. Whole list of ifs. If I didn’t put any pressure on Reggie to perform. If I respected Reggie as a person. Respected his confidentiality. I said what’s my part in all this? He said paying the bills and minding my own business. Reggie had to develop his own responsibility — long as I did it for him he’d never straighten out. Not that he kept what I said to him about Reggie confidential. Two years I paid that faker and at the end of it I got a boy who hated me because of what that man put in his head. It wasn’t till later that I found out he’d repeated everything I’d told him. Blown it way up and made it worse.”

“Did you complain?”

“Why? I was the stupid one. For believing. You wanna know how stupid? After... after Reggie... after he had his... after he was... gone — a year after, I went to another one. Of your crowd. Because my supervisor thought I should — not that she’d pay for it. And not that I wasn’t doing my job properly, ’cause I was. But I wasn’t sleeping well or eating or enjoying anything. It wasn’t like being alive at all. So she gave me a referral. I figured maybe a woman would be a better judge of character... This joker was in Beverly Hills. Hundred and twenty an hour. Inflation, right? Not that the value went up. Though in the beginning this one seemed even more on the ball than the first one. Quiet. Polite. A real gentleman. And he seemed to understand. I felt... talking to him made me feel better. In the beginning. I started to be able to work again. Then...”

She stopped, clamping her mouth shut. Shifting her attention from me to the walls to the floor to the handkerchief in her hand. Staring at the sodden cloth with surprise and revulsion.

She dropped it as if it were lice-ridden.

“Forget it,” she said. “Water under the dam.”

I nodded.

She tossed the handkerchief at me and I caught it.

She said, “Baseball Bob,” with reflexive quickness. Laughed. Shut it off.

I put the handkerchief on the table. “Baseball Bob?”

“We used to say that,” she said defensively. “Jimmy and me and Reggie. When Reggie was little. When someone would make a good catch, he was Baseball Bob — it was stupid.”

“In my family it was ‘You can be on my team.’ ”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one.”

We sat in silence, resigned to each other, like boxers in the thirteenth round.

She said, “That’s it. My secrets. Happy?”

The phone rang. I picked it up. The operator said, “Dr. Delaware, please?”

“Speaking.”

“There’s a call for you from a Dr. Sturgis. He’s been paging you for the last ten minutes.”

Vicki stood.

I motioned her to wait. “Tell him I’ll call him back.”

I hung up. She remained on her feet.

“That second therapist,” I said. “He abused you, didn’t he?”

“Abuse?” The word seemed to amuse her. “What? Like some kind of abused child?”

“It’s pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?” I said. “Breaking a trust?”

“Breaking a trust, huh? How about blowing it up? But that’s okay. I learned from it — it made me stronger. Now I watch myself.”

“You never complained about him either?”

“Nope. Told you I’m stupid.”

“I—”

“Sure,” she said. “That’s all I needed, his word against mine — who’re they gonna believe? He’d get lawyers to go into my life and dig it all up — Reggie. Probably get experts to say I was a liar and a rotten mother...” Tears. “I wanted my boy to rest in peace, okay? Even though...”

She threw up her hands, put her palms together.

“Even though what, Vicki?”

“Even though he never gave me peace.” Her voice soared in pitch, teetering on hysteria.

“He blamed me till the end. Never got rid of those feelings that first faker planted in his head. I was the bad one. I’d never cared about him. I’d made him not learn, not do his homework. I didn’t force him to go to school because I didn’t care a hoot. It was ’cause of me he dropped out and started... running around with bad influences and... I was one hundred percent of it, hundred and five...”

She let out a laugh that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

“Wanna hear something confidential — kind of stuff you people like to hear? He was the one gave me that book about that bitch from New Jersey. That was his Mother’s Day gift to me, okay? All wrapped up in a little box with ribbons and the word Mom on it. In printing, ’cause he couldn’t do cursive, never mastered it — even his printing was all crooked, like a first-grader’s. He hadn’t given me a present for years, not since he stopped bringing home his shop projects. But there it was, little gift-wrapped package, and inside this little used paperback book on dead babies. I nearly threw up, but I read it anyway. Trying to see if there was something I’d missed. That he was trying to tell me something I wasn’t getting. But there wasn’t. It was just plain ugly. She was a monster. No real nurse. And one thing I know — one thing I’ve worked into my own head, without experts — is that she has nothing to do with me, okay? She and me didn’t even live on the same planet. I make kids feel better. I’m good at that. And I never hurt them, okay? Never. And I’m gonna keep helping them the rest of my natural life.”