“Now!” he said proudly.
I looked in all three mirrors and saw a combination of Annie Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Cruella De Vil. In a newsboy’s tam from 1920.
“If the idea is to frighten the people we’re interviewing, this works,” I told BB. “Now let’s go.”
In the car he fussed with his do-rag, a dirty black bandanna, all the way to La Jolla.
“Got to get the tie right,” he insisted. “Get it wrong, gonna look like I’m tryin’ to join the Aryan Nation.”
“BB, there’s no way,” I said as we pulled into Jennings Rainer’s gated condo parking lot. “It’s a closed club.”
The guard at the condo looked askance but let us in after phoning Rainer. It wouldn’t be the last time we’d get funny looks, I thought. It’s not every day you see a Gibson girl with cropped hair running around trendy neighborhoods with a black gangbanger whose entire life is probably devoted to selling your toddler drugs.
“I can’t imagine why this is necessary, Dr. McCarron,” Jennings Rainer said as he opened the door to a seventh-floor condo with a view of other condos. “And who is this?”
“Mr. Berryman is my bodyguard,” I said in somber tones. “The police are concerned with their liability in this case. As an outside consultant, if I were to be hurt …”
“Ah,” he said.
Doctors understand anything involving insurance.
BB stood conspicuously just inside the door and scoured Rainer’s living room with his eyes as if assassins lurked behind every piece of furniture. Not that there was that much furniture.
Rainer’s condo had obviously been done by a decorator who felt strongly about chrome. The glass-topped coffee table had a chrome frame, as did black leather director’s chairs flanking a white leather couch on which I was sure nobody had ever sat. The railing of a small balcony beyond sliding glass doors was woven with chicken wire. I could see that each honeycomb was snugly fastened to the bottom of the rail with baling wire. There was no furniture on the balcony, but there was a double dog dish, one of those plastic igloo-shaped doghouses called Dogloos, and a cat-litter box containing two squares of grass turf.
“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked as Rainer and I sat in the black chairs.
“Um, Snuffy,” he answered, tugging at the red plaid vest he wore over gray flannel slacks with a navy blazer. “He’s upstairs. May I offer you something to drink—you and Mr. Berryman, of course?”
Jennings Rainer had well-trimmed white hair and the look of a very old choirboy. A few broken capillaries across his nose and cheeks might mean a drinking problem, or might mean he’d spent a lot of time crying. Hard. On a black enamel sofa table I saw a silver-framed photo of Rainer and a pleasant-looking woman with tinted red hair. The photo seemed fairly recent, and the woman did not appear to be well. The red hair was sparse and much shorter than that particular woman would ever wear it. Chemotherapy.
“No, thank you,” I answered. “And I’m so sorry you have to go through this unpleasantness, but it has to be done. I’m aware that you lost your wife only two years ago. What a difficult time for you. We’ll make this as brief as possible.”
“I don’t know what the police are talking about, Dr. McCarron,” he began. “All my medical staff have been with me for years. No one at my clinic is sending these letters, and certainly no one at my clinic is killing our patients by somehow causing them to have cerebral hemorrhages. I do understand that the only common denominator among these women is that they’ve been our clients, but that is coincidence. What more can I say?”
At the top of carpeted stairs there was a whuffing sound.
“Snuffy,” Jennings Rainer explained. “Do you mind?”
In a minute he returned holding a young schnauzer in his arms. The dog regarded me and then BB with interest but didn’t bark. Instead, he licked Rainer’s face and cocked his head as if expecting something.
“His walk,” Rainer explained. “We always have ourselves a nice long walk when I get home, don’t we, boy?”
“Snuff was Mar’s dog, that’s my wife, Marlis,” he went on. “I got him for her when we knew, well, when the cancer came back. She adored him. Snuff was right there on the bed with her when she …”
“I’m so sorry, Dr. Rainer,” I said, and I was.
In the remaining fifteen minutes he gave me thumbnail sketches of the rest of the medical staff. Megan, of course, had been expected to take over the clinic. But she and her husband, Chris, had bought some land in Northern California and wanted to move there, build a house, raise the kids in a small community. Chris had some ideas about land management, tree farming, sustainable agriculture. He wanted to grow trees and herbs, Rainer said with disbelief. Organic herbs. Her father was sure Megan was neither threatening nor murdering their patients.
“Jeff and T.J.,” he went on, “both have been with me for years. Both r.n.’s, trained in the service. Jeff’s my operating room manager, Jeff Pond. He was Navy. T. J. Eldridge is the surgical assistant, came out of the Army.”
His eyes crinkled a little at the edges as he smiled. “Now, you’re going to find both of these boys a little out of the ordinary, but they’re not killers.”
“Out of the ordinary?” I said as BB moved quickly to the kitchen door for no apparent reason and glared at a microwave oven. Rainer watched him, puzzled.
“Um, yes,” he went on. “Pond’s a weight-lifter, what do you call them? Bodybuilder. Good-looking man, though. And excellent in a crisis. Pond’s got nerves of steel, just like those beefy arms of his.
“Now, T.J., he’s a family man, a little old-fashioned like me. Completely dependable. Got two of the cutest little towheaded kids you ever saw. Mar always thought his wife was kind of ‘slow,’ if you know what I mean, and tried to help her out at clinic parties and what have you. Then come to find out Kara Eldridge has been going to school during the day without telling anybody and gotten herself a two-year degree in computer programming from a community college! Apparently she just finished her course of study a few months ago. She’d be so surprised, Mar would.”
“Do you have a computer here?” I asked.
“It’s my wife’s,” he said sheepishly. “To tell the truth, I meant to learn to use it, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Do you mind if I look at it?”
Upstairs the second bedroom had been made into a sort of office. The antiqued pine desk and chair had been his wife’s, I thought, brought here from a house where they had lived and raised a little girl. As I booted up Marlis Rainer’s old Macintosh computer, BB stood at the door and dramatically glanced back and forth through both windows as if snipers were stationed on every balcony in the facing building. Under his right sock was a gun-shaped bulge. As a parolee BB couldn’t carry any weapon, much less a concealed one. But we figured the transparent green plastic squirt gun in his ankle holster wouldn’t really qualify as a weapon or even an equally illegal facsimile. Rainer didn’t seem to notice it.
The computer revealed that Marlis Rainer had collected recipes from the Internet, maintained interests in counted cross-stitch embroidery, organic container gardening, and child portrait photography, and spent a lot of time e-mailing friends, none of whom lived out of town. The last message, written over two years in the past, was to someone with the e-mail name “betty-bun.”
“I want you to have my mother’s recipe for creamed chipped beef,” it said. “Megan and Chris are vegetarian and will never use it. Enjoy!”
Before the final stages of her illness, Rainer’s wife had given away her recipes.
The computer’s modem wasn’t connected to any Internet service provider here, where Rainer had moved after his wife’s death. There wasn’t even a phone jack in the room. I turned Marlis Rainer’s computer off. Quickly.
“And what about your anesthesiologist, Isadora Grecchi?” I said too loudly in the quiet little room.
Jennings Rainer had been watching as I invaded the now-lost world of
his wife’s days.
“Mar’s creamed chipped beef was the best in the world,” he said, sighing. “I suppose I should get rid of her old computer, get a new one for myself, learn all the things you can do on them. But you see, it’s as if some part of her is still in there, in that wiring. Parts of her life, things she said to her friends, all her interests. I know she’s gone, but part of her isn’t. It’s in there. So I just keep it, let it sit there.”
He turned to face me, shoulders back.
“Dr. McCarron, I’m aware that the grieving process can be dangerous if it goes on too long. I’m thinking of seeing someone, a professional. This nonsense you’re investigating has nothing to do with my clinic, but we’re going to be ruined by it. I’ve already decided to close. And do you know? I don’t care. Megan was not going to take over, anyway. My career is finished, my wife is dead, and I’m afraid to get rid of her computer. Can you recommend someone? I assume that in your line of work you have occasion to meet psychiatrists and other psychologists.”
I didn’t even bother to explain the difference between clinical and social psychology.
“The best person I know is a forensic psychiatrist,” I said. “She’s the staff psychiatrist at a state prison, but she has a private practice as well. She’s also my partner in a consulting business. Let me give you her number.”
“Forensics?” Rainer said, smiling for the first time. “That sounds rather interesting.”
“I think you’ll like her,” I said. “I do.”
As we made our way soundlessly back down the heavily carpeted stairs, Rainer said, “Oh, yes, you asked about Isadora. She’s quite competent, has a number of interests outside work. Art, volunteering, that sort of thing. Isadora became a sort of mentor for Kara Eldridge after Mar’s death, tried to help her as Mar had done. Isadora never married, seems quite content to live alone.”
BB was listening, intently.
“She’s quite involved in women’s health issues,” Rainer concluded.
“Uh-HUH,” BB said softly as I nudged him out the door.
14
Real Art, No Art
Can’t believe you send that dude to Roxie,” BB said in my truck after he’d stopped giggling over Rainer’s finding a woman who never married unusual.
“Rainer is from another time, BB,” I said, addressing the issue of Grecchi’s marital status. “In his day it was assumed that all any woman could possibly want was to care for a husband and family. And don’t assume—”
“This Grecchi gonna turn out to be our man,” he conjectured.
“Don’t assume that,” I insisted as we sped south on 1-5 toward the heart of San Diego and a one-thirty appointment with Isadora Grecchi. “And why wouldn’t Rox be a good shrink for Rainer? He’s depressed and he knows it. I think she’ll be wonderful with him.”
I did think Rox would be helpful to Jennings Rainer, and I didn’t think Jennings Rainer had sent threatening letters or poisoned caviar to anyone. But I’m not renowned for my abilities with people, only with numbers.
“What did you think of Rainer?” I asked BB.
“Sad old dude. Loved his wife, she gone. His daughter ain’t gonna take over the business. All he got is that dog.”
I equate the love of animals with a sort of core decency which precludes the murder of other species, such as our own. But that isn’t remotely true. Any number of murderers have been apprehended in the company of a pet, and there are regulations regarding what must be done with pets taken into custody because their owners are on their way to death row. I thought Jennings Rainer was exactly what he appeared to be, but that didn’t mean he was. What if Snuffy was just a prop? A borrowed dog meant to create precisely the illusion I’d fallen for? But Snuffy had seemed happy in the arms of Jennings Rainer and had clearly expected the walk Rainer said they took every day. Had I been conned by a schnauzer?
And the wife’s computer. Rainer couldn’t have faked that without a lot of work. It was real, as were his feelings. And the computer couldn’t have been used to e-mail me or Rathbone because it wasn’t connected to a server. It was only a dusty electronic ghost Rainer would need help exorcizing. Rainer and thousands of other people in coming years, I thought. People who could return in time to the lost world of a dead loved one with the flick of a mouse, perhaps discovering things they were never intended to know. And then perhaps not being able to get back. I wondered if dad had given this problem any thought. It would make a terrific pastoral counseling workshop.
BB seemed unusually thoughtful. “Dude really loved his wife,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Blue, you ever love anybody like that? Like if they gone you just empty?”
I didn’t know what to say. BB is eight years younger than I am, and while a friend, he’s also a former patient of Roxie’s from his days in prison. There were boundaries, I thought. But he wasn’t being nosy or intrusive. He just wanted to know something.
“Yes,” I said, forgetting about the boundaries. “It took me a long time to get back to myself after she was gone. For a while, for a few years, I felt empty like that and kept emptiness around me. It’s hard. And nobody tells you how hard it’s going to be. There aren’t any songs on the radio about that emptiness, no books or movies. But sooner or later most people find out, and then they don’t talk about it, either. Why, BB?”
“I never cared that much about anybody,” he said quietly. “But I’d like to.”
Isadora Grecchi lived in an old Craftsman bungalow in San Diego’s Mission Hills district. Built in the thirties, these architectural gems can be found all over central San Diego. Grecchi’s had been restored but with modern features where advisable. Its long-eaved roof had been done in synthetic, fireproof shake shingles, and a deck cantilevered over a canyon rim in back was visible from the street. I parked in her driveway and saw the front door opening. Even from her porch, it was clear that Isadora Grecchi wasn’t happy about our visit.
“What’s he doing here?” she yelled.
BB flexed all the muscles in his upper body and then stood glowering beside my truck with his arms crossed over his chest. He was truly formidable, unless you knew him. And so was Isadora Grecchi. I was certain no one had ever described her as “pretty,” but with her coarse, unruly black hair and huge brown eyes, she was interesting. Wide cheekbones, aquiline nose, too-large mouth. She was wearing jeans and a paint-spattered tan corduroy shirt, no shoes. Big bones, about five-five, but not an ounce of fat.
“And who does your hair?” BB said under his breath.
“Mr. Berryman is my bodyguard,” I said for the second time that day. “I’m Dr. Blue McCarron.”
“I know who you are. The police said it would be necessary to talk to you in order to avoid being interviewed by one of them at the police station. I had no idea they’d send a bag lady and an apprentice pimp. I want you to get this asshole off my property.”
Her voice was deep and projected like a trained singer’s. I could have heard her a block away.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s police policy to ensure the safety of consultants in the field.”
“Bullshit,” boomed Isadora Grecchi, quite correctly. “All right, come in. Let’s get this over with.”
Grecchi’s opening remarks were no indication of her taste. The interior of the house had been gutted, providing a spectacular view through the structure and out to the deck and canyon beyond. The original woodwork on walls and ceilings had been kept and refinished in an eggshell varnish that emphasized the grain. Ditto the hardwood floors, rarely seen in any but San Diego’s oldest homes. A fireplace in the north wall also retained its original Italian glazed tiles in a deep celery color Grecchi had repeated in silk throw pillows strewn on two couches slipcovered in buttery yellow canvas. On the east wall was a stark black and white abstract I suspected was an original Franz Kline. The only thing in the room that didn’t exude artistic taste so understated you almost missed it was a shabby brown corduroy teddy bear
on the mantel. The toy was missing one of its black button eyes and lent a sense of sadness and disarray to the impeccable surroundings.
“Sit down,” Grecchi told me.
To BB she said, “What kind of statement are you making by displaying your underwear? You look like a fucking two-year-old.”
BB merely stood by the door and glared, although I could tell he was warming to her. To the right of a kitchen/dining area at the back of the house I could see an easel under a skylight. The scent of oil paint was everywhere and she held a brush in her left hand.
“You do abstracts,” I guessed aloud.
“And you don’t,” she answered.
A comedian. But there was an edge to Isadora Grecchi that wasn’t funny. Something jumpy and bitter. Maybe dangerous.
In fifteen minutes I was told several times that she knew absolutely nothing about threatening letters or murders connected to the Rainer Clinic, where she had worked for fifteen years. All other questions were answered cursorily. She’d had a decorator select her china and didn’t know what a blue willow plate was, she said, opening a kitchen cabinet door to display elegant plain black dishes and pale green Hungarian stemware. She had never belonged to a church and in fact couldn’t be paid enough to set foot in one. I could tell she was enjoying my incompetence, which made me feel even more incompetent. Until I mentioned Jennings Rainer.
“Dr. Rainer mentioned that you’re involved in women’s health care issues,” I said, fishing awkwardly. “And yet you’re doing breast implants and—”
“I don’t do breast implants or any other form of surgery,” she interrupted. “I’m an anesthesiologist. I anesthetize.”
But I’d seen it and so had BB. A leap of emotion at the mention of Rainer’s name, a softening of those dramatic facial features. The impression, oddly, was one of motherliness. Isadora Grecchi seemed to feel, for a split second, protective of the aging surgeon. But why?
“When the clinic closes, I plan to join the staff of a hospital which specializes in breast cancer,” she went on in obvious defense. “In the meantime, I donate two afternoons a week to surgeries at a women’s reproductive health center.”
The Last Blue Plate Special Page 15
