Devil's Waltz

19

I had to get away from the hospital.

Feeling like a teething puppy with nothing to chomp, I turned out of the lot and drove up Hillhurst, heading for a restaurant at the top of the street that I’d learned about from Milo but never went to alone. Continental food of the old school, autographed photos of near-celebrities, dark panel walls saturated with nicotine bitters, waiters without SAG cards.

A sign in the lobby said the restaurant wouldn’t be serving for another half hour but the cocktail lounge was accepting sandwich orders.

A middle-aged, tuxedoed woman with improbable red hair worked behind the bar. A few serious drinkers sat at the padded horseshoe chewing ice cubes, snuffling salted freebies, and devoting what little attention they had left to an auto-chase scene on the tube. The TV was mounted on a ceiling bracket. It reminded me of the one I’d just seen in Cassie’s room.

The hospital... dominating my thoughts the way it had years ago. I loosened my tie, sat down, and ordered a club sandwich and beer. When the bartender turned to prepare it, I went to the pay phone at the back of the lounge and called Parker Center.

“Records,” said Milo.

“Doctor Sturgis?”

“Well, if it isn’t Doctor Hard-to-Get. Yeah, I figured easiest way to get some action in that place was use the title.”

“If only it were so,” I said. “Sorry for the delay getting back to you but I was tied up with Vicki Bottomley, then Cassie and her parents.”

“Anything new?”

“Not much, except the Joneses seemed a little cool.”

“Maybe you’re threatening them. Getting too close.”

“Can’t see why. As for Vicki, she and I had a little psychodrama — I was trying to clear the air, leaned on her a bit. She accused me of suspecting her of harming Cassie. So I asked her if she was, and she went nuclear. Ended up giving me a sanitized version of her son’s story and adding something I hadn’t known: Reggie gave her a book as a Mother’s Day gift. True-crime thing about some nurse in New Jersey who murdered babies.”

“Some gift. Think she was trying to tell you something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should tell Stephanie to pull her off the case and see what happens. If Stephanie can be trusted. Meanwhile, this Dawn Herbert thing. On top of being murdered, she was a bit of a kleptomaniac.”

I gave him my blackmail theory. “What do you think?”

“Uh-huh... well,” he said, clearing his throat, “that’s certainly a good question, sir, but that information’s not currently available on our present data base.”

“Bad time to talk?”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” A moment later, he lowered his voice: “Brass coming through on tour, some kind of police-biggie convention this weekend. I’m off in five minutes. How about late lunch, early dinner — let’s say half an hour?”

“Started without you,” I said.

“What a pal. Where are you?”

I told him.

Still talking quietly, he said, “Good. Order me a pea soup with a ham bone and the breast of chicken with the cornbread stuffing, extra stuffing.”

“They’re only making sandwiches right now.”

“By the time I get there, they’ll be serving real food. Tell ’em it’s for me. Remember the order?”

“Soup, bone, chicken, extra stuffing.”

“They ever remake The Thirty-nine Steps, you can play Mr. Memory. Have ’em time the order so nothing’s cold. Also a dark draft. The Irish stuff — they’ll know what I mean.”

I returned to the bar, relayed Milo’s order to the bartender, and told her to delay my sandwich until he arrived. She nodded, called the kitchen, then served my beer with a dish of almonds. I asked her if she had a newspaper.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing toward the barflies. “No one around here reads. Try the machines out front.”

I went back to Hillhurst and caught a faceful of sunglare. Four coin-op newspaper dispensers lined the sidewalk. Three were empty; one of them was vandalized and graffitied. The last one was fully stocked with a tabloid promising SAFE SEX, RAUNCHY GIRLS, AND DIRTY FUN.

I went back into the lounge. The channel had been switched to an old western. Square jaws, moping dogies, and long shots of scrubland. The barflies stared up at the screen, entranced. As if it hadn’t been filmed just over the hill, in Burbank.

Thirty-six minutes later Milo appeared, waving me over as he strode past the bar, toward the restaurant section. I took my beer and caught up with him. His jacket was over his shoulder and his tie was tucked into his waistband. The band was crushed by the weight of his belly. A couple of the lushes looked up and watched him, dulled, but still wary. He never noticed. But I knew he would’ve been pleased to see how much cop-scent he still gave off.

The main dining room was empty except for a busboy running a manual carpet-sweeper over a corner. A stringy old waiter appeared — American Gothic on a crash diet — bearing soft rolls, Milo’s ale, and a plate of cherry peppers and stuffed olives.

“Him, too, Irv,” said Milo.

“Certainly, Mr. Sturgis.”

When the waiter left, Milo touched my beer glass and said, “You’re replacing that with dark draft, lad. From the weariness in your eyes, I’d say you’ve earned it.”

“Gee, thanks, Dad. Can I have a two-wheeler without training wheels too?”

He grinned, tugged his tie lower, then loosened the knot completely and pulled it off. Running his hand over his face, he sat back in the booth and snorted.

“How’d you find out about Herbert’s murder?” he said.

“From her former landlords.” I summarized my talk with Bobby and Ben Murtaugh.

“They seem on the level?”

I nodded. “They’re still pretty shaken.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s nothing new on the case. She’s on file as a Central Division open. The overall picture is a sadistic-psycho thing. Very little physical evidence.”

“Another low-probability one?”

“Uh-huh. Best bet on these wacko ones is the bad guy does it again and gets caught. Nasty one, too. She was hit over the head, had her throat cut and something wooden shoved up her vagina — coroner found splinters. That’s about all they’ve got physically. It happened near a punk club operating out of a garment contractor’s place in the Union District. Not far from the Convention Center.”

“The Moody Mayan,” I said.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“The Murtaughs.”

“They got it half right,” he said. “It was the Mayan Mortgage. Place went out of business a couple of weeks later.”

“Because of the murder?”

“Hell, no. If anything, that would have helped business. We’re talking the night-crawler scene, Alex. Spoiled kids from Brentwood and Beverly Hills putting on Rocky Horror Show duds and playing ‘Look, Mom, no common sense.’ Blood and entrails — someone else’s — would be just what they’re looking for.”

“That fits with what the Murtaughs said about Herbert. Grad student by day, but she used to punk herself up at night. Used the kind of hair dye that washes out the next morning.”

“L.A. shuffle,” he said. “Nothing’s what it seems... Anyway, the place probably closed down because that crowd gets bored easily — the whole kick is to move from place to place. Kind of a metaphor for life itself, huh?”

I did a finger-down-the-throat pantomime.

He laughed.

I said, “Do you know this particular club?”

“No, but they’re all the same — fly-by-night setups, no occupancy permits, no liquor licenses. Sometimes they take over an abandoned building and don’t bother to pay rent. By the time the landlord catches on or the fire department gets around to shutting them down, they’re gone. What’ll change it is a couple hundred clowns getting roasted.”

He raised his glass and buried his upper lip in foam. He wiped it and said, “According to Central, one of the bartenders saw Herbert leave the club shortly before two A.M. with a guy. He recognized her because she’d been dancing at the club and was one of the few heavyset girls they let in. But he couldn’t give any specifics on the guy other than that he was straight-looking and older than her. The time frame fits with the coroner’s ETD of between two and four. The coroner also found cocaine and booze in her system.”

“A lot?”

“Enough to dull her judgment. If she had any in the first place — which is doubtful, seeing as she was traipsing around the Union District in the wee hours, all alone.”

“The landlords said she was smart — Ph.D. student in biomath.”

“Yeah. Well, there’s smart and there’s smart. The actual killing took place on a side street a couple of blocks away from the club. In that little Mazda of hers. The keys were still in the ignition.”

“She was killed in the car?”

“Right in the driver’s seat, judging from the spatter pattern. Afterward, she slumped across both seats. The body was found just after sunrise by a couple of garment workers arriving for the early shift. Blood had seeped through the door and into the street. The slant of the street made it run down into the curb and pool. It was the pool they noticed.”

The waiter brought my ale, a bowl of soup oysters, and Milo’s pea soup. He waited while Milo tasted. Milo said, “Perfect, Irv,” and the old man nodded and disappeared.

Milo took a couple more spoonfuls, licked his lips, and spoke through the steam. “The Mazda’s convertible top was up but there was no blood on the headliner, so the coroner’s certain the top was down when it happened. The spatter pattern also indicates that whoever did it was outside the car, standing on the driver’s side. Standing over her, maybe a foot or two behind her. He hit her on the head. From the skull damage it must’ve knocked her out, may even have killed her. Then he used some kind of blade to sever her jugular and her windpipe. Once that was done, he did the mechanical rape, so maybe we’ve got ourselves a necrophile.”

“Sounds like overkill,” I said. “Some kind of frenzy.”

“Or thoroughness,” he said, sipping soup. “He was cool enough to raise the top.”

“Was she seen dancing with anyone in the club?”

“Nothing on record. Only reason the bartender remembered her leaving was he was on a smoke break, just outside.”

“He wasn’t considered a suspect?”

“Nope. Tell you one thing, the asshole who did it came prepared — think about all those weapons. We’re talking a predator, Alex. Maybe someone watching the club, prowling the area ’cause he knows there’s lots of women around. He waits until he sees exactly what he’s been looking for. Lone target, maybe a certain physical type, maybe he’s just decided tonight’s the night. With the added bonus of a convertible on a quiet, dark street. With the top down. Which is like ‘You are cordially invited to assault me.’ ”

“Makes sense,” I said, feeling my gorge rise.

“A grad student, huh? Too bad she flunked Logic One-A. I’m not trying to blame the victim, Alex, but add the dope and booze to her behavioral pattern and it doesn’t sound like a lady with strong instincts for self-preservation. What’d she steal?”

As I told him, he ate more soup, used his spoon to wedge marrow out of the bone, and ate that too.

I said, “The Murtaughs said she seemed to have plenty of money even after she quit her job. And you’ve just added cocaine to her budget. So blackmail makes some sense, doesn’t it? She latches onto the fact that one Jones kid died and the other keeps coming back into the hospital with unexplained illnesses. She steals the evidence and tries to exploit it. And now she’s dead. Just like Ashmore.”

He put his glass down slowly. “Big leap, from petty pilfering to putting the squeeze on biggies, Alex. And there’s no reason, from the facts of the case, to think a psycho didn’t cut her up. In terms of where she got her money, we still don’t know her family didn’t give it to her. For that matter, the coke could have been asset, not a debit — maybe she dealt dope, too.”

“If she had family money, why would she rent a cheap single room from the Murtaughs?”

“Slumming. We already know she played roles — the whole punk bit. And the thefts she pulled on her landlords were illogical, not for profit. Exactly the kind of thing that’s likely to get discovered. She comes across disorganized to me, Alex. Not the type to plan and execute a high-level blackmail scheme.”

“No one said she was good at it. Look at the way she ended up.”

He looked around the empty room as if suddenly concerned about being overheard. He drained his ale glass, then lifted his spoon and pushed the soup bone around his bowl like a kid playing toy boat in a tiny green harbor.

“The way she ended up,” he finally said. “So who killed her? Daddy? Mommy? Grandpa?”

“Wouldn’t you say hired help? Those types don’t do their own dirty work.”

“Hired to slice her and do a mechanical rape?”

“Hired to make it look like a ‘psycho thing’ that’ll never get solved unless the psycho does it again. Hell, maybe Ashmore was involved, too, and the same guy was paid to set up a phony mugging.”

“Imaginative,” he said. “You just sat there with those people, playing with their kid, making chitchat, and thinking all this?”

“You think I’m totally off-base?”

He ate more soup before answering. “Listen, Alex, I’ve known you long enough to appreciate the way your mind works. I just don’t think you have much more than fantasy at this point.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But it sure beats thinking about Cassie and everything we’re not doing for her.”

The rest of the food came. I watched him carve up his chicken. He took a long time to section the meat, showing more surgical skill and deliberation than I’d ever seen before.

“Phony psycho job on Herbert,” he said. “Phony mugging for Ashmore.”

“He was Herbert’s boss. Owned the computers and had done a toxicology check on Chad Jones. It was logical to think he knew whatever Herbert did. Even if he didn’t, whoever killed her might have taken care of him, too, just to be careful.”

“Why would he be involved in blackmail? He was independently wealthy.”

“He invested in real estate,” I said, “and the market’s sliding. What if he was leveraged to the hilt? Or maybe he hadn’t quit gambling, as his wife believed. Lost big at the tables and needed some cash. Rich folk can get poor, right? The L.A. shuffle.”

“If Ashmore was in on it — and I’m just playing along at this point — why would he want Herbert for a partner?”

“Who says he did? She could have found out on her own — gotten hold of his computer data and decided to free-lance.”

He said nothing. Wiped his lips with his napkin, even though he hadn’t eaten any chicken.

I said, “One problem, though. Ashmore was killed two months after Herbert. If their murders are related, why take so long to eliminate him?”

He tapped his fingers on the table. “Well... another way to look at it is, Ashmore had no knowledge of what Herbert was up to at first, but found out later. From data she’d stashed in the computer. And he either tried to capitalize on it, or told the wrong person.”

“You know, that dovetails with something I saw the other day. Huenengarth — the head of Security — removing Ashmore’s computers the morning after Ashmore’s murder. My first impression was he was getting hold of Ashmore’s equipment. But maybe what Huenengarth was really after was in the machines. The data. He works for Plumb — meaning he really works for Chuck Jones. Guy’s a real corporate henchman type, Milo. Plus, his name came up yesterday when I was speaking to Mrs. Ashmore. He was the one who called to offer the hospital’s sympathies. Was coming by with the UNICEF certificate and the plaque. Strange job for head of Security, wouldn’t you say? Unless his real intention was to learn if Ashmore kept a computer at home and, if he did, to get it out of there.”

Milo looked down at his plate. Finally ate. Quickly, mechanically, without much apparent pleasure. I knew how much food meant to him and felt bad for ruining his dinner.

“Intriguing,” he said, “but it’s still one big if.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s give it a rest.”

He put his fork down. “There’s a basic flaw with all of it, Alex. If Grandpa knew about Junior and/or Mrs. Junior killing Chad, and cared enough about hushing it up to pay blackmail money and hire a killer, why would he allow Cassie to be brought back to the same hospital?”

“Maybe he didn’t know, until Herbert and/or Ashmore put the arm on him.”

“Even so. Why not send Cassie somewhere else for treatment? Why run the risk of dealing with the exact same doctors who’d treated Chad and having them make the same connection the blackmailers had made? It’s not like the family wouldn’t have been justified. Cassie isn’t getting any better — you yourself said Jones Junior’s talking about medical errors. No one would blame them for getting a second opinion. Also, it’s one thing to say the parents are abusers and Grandpa’s protecting them, even to the point of eliminating a blackmailer. But if Grandpa knew Cassie was being poisoned, wouldn’t he want to step in and stop it?”

“Maybe he’s no better than they are,” I said.

“Family of psychos?”

“Where do you think it starts?”

“I don’t know—”

“Maybe Chuck Jones was an abusive father and that’s where Chip learned it. The way he’s tearing down the hospital sure doesn’t make him Mr. Compassionate.”

“Corporate greed is one thing, Alex. Watching your granddaughter get messed with to the point of epileptic seizures is another.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it’s probably all fantasy — getting far afield. Would you please eat? Your pickiness is making me nervous.”

He smiled for my benefit and took fork in hand. Both of us faked fascination with our food.

“Huenengarth,” he said. “Don’t imagine there’d be too many of that name on file. What’s the first name?”

“Presley.”

He smiled. “Even better. Speaking of which, I ran Ashmore and Steph. He’s clean except for a couple of traffic tickets that he didn’t get around to paying before he died. She’s been clean for a long time, but a few years ago she had a DUI.”

“Drunk driving?”

“Uh-huh. Caused a collision, no injuries. First offense, she got probation. Probably got sent to AA or a treatment center.”

“So maybe that’s why she’s changed.”

“Changed how?”

“Got thin, started putting on makeup, got into fashion. Image of the young professional. She has a designer coffee maker in her office. Real espresso.”

“Could be,” he said. “Strong coffee’s part of the reformed alkie thing — to replace the booze.”

Thinking of his off-and-on flirtation with the bottle, I said, “You think it means anything?”

“What, the DUI? You see any evidence she’s still boozing?”

“No, but I haven’t been looking for any.”

“Any clear relationship between alcoholism and Munchausen?”

“No. But whatever problem you’ve got, booze makes it worse. And if she had the typical Munchausen background — abuse, incest, illness — I could understand her hitting the bottle.”

He shrugged. “So you answer your own question. At the very least it means she’s got something she’d like to forget. Which makes her like most of us.”