To The Bone

by Neil Mcmahon

  Finally, with relief, they found their way to Citrus Heights and joined the relatively normal street traffic. It was just before two p.m.

  Tom and Noni Hale lived in an upscale area – a tract, like most of the city's suburbs, but older, built in the late fifties or early sixties, and more gracious. The house was ranch style, long and low with a stucco exterior and a red tile roof. It was weathered to a soft brindle color that helped give it a Spanish feel. But most of the comfortable quality came from the yard, large and private, closed in by oleander hedges and a vine-wreathed fence. Monks glimpsed orange and lemon trees in the back. He had a brief mental image of a laughing little girl, the picture of innocence, playing underneath them.

  They got out of the car and walked to the door. It was significantly hotter here than in San Francisco – over a hundred, Monks was sure. The air had a different feel to it, an infinitely fine grit that seemed to abrade his skin and teeth. To the east, the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada looked like clouds through the hazy air. The Sierra foothills looked bone-dry, too.

  A woman answered the bell. She was fiftyish, attractive, with carefully applied makeup and coiffed hair tinted auburn. A loose tunic covered a suggestion of spread around her waist, but tight pedal pushers showed off calves that were still slim and firm. Her face was tense with stress.

  "Mrs. Hale? My name's Larrabee. I called earlier."

  Her mouth made a little grimace. "Yes," she said, and stepped back to let them in. Larrabee did not move.

  "This is my associate, Dr. Monks," he said.

  She blinked, and then her eyes widened.

  "You're – not – the one who-"

  "I attended your daughter in the Emergency Room," Monks said.

  "I can't believe you had the nerve to come here." Mouth trembling, she wheeled around and called, "Tom. This is that doctor!"

  A man came striding into the room from another part of the house. Tom Hale had the look of a jock gone to seed, with thinning hair and a once powerful body turned shapeless. He was wearing a golf shirt and pleated white shorts. His face was red from sun, anger, and possibly booze.

  "I did everything in my power to save your daughter's life, Mrs. Hale, and I've been saving lives for more than twenty-five years," Monks said. "I wouldn't dream of coming here if I couldn't say that."

  Tom Hale ignored him and glared at Larrabee. "Is that what this is really about? You told us you had questions, but you brought him here to try to soften us up? Well, forget it."

  "I came here because I'm willing to explain in detail what happened in the Emergency Room," Monks said. "I'll also tell you that the case will undergo a review by a team of medical specialists in the next few days. If they find that I was negligent, I'll quit practice."

  Larrabee glanced at him, astonished. Monks had not known he was going to say that until he did. But he meant it.

  Noni Hale's face had gone from outraged to doubtful.

  "I did come because I have questions, Mr. Hale," Larrabee said. "Not to try to soften you up."

  Slowly, Noni moved aside from blocking the doorway. "You have to understand, this is very hard for us," she said. Monks and Larrabee followed her into the house.

  The living room was immaculate, with a leather couch and chairs and a dozen Sunset magazines fanned out in perfect order on the glass-topped coffee table. The photos of two young men were on prominent display. One was wearing the dress uniform of a marine lance corporal; the other was in a tux, with his arm around his beaming bride. They were all clean-cut and good-looking. There were no photos of Eden.

  "When you took home Eden's things," Larrabee said, "did you take a phone answering machine?"

  "I don't think so. No." Noni turned to her still glowering husband for confirmation. He shook his head sullenly. "I don't remember seeing one," she said.

  "Do you know if she had one?"

  "I'm – not sure. I suppose so."

  Monks remembered that the parents had not known about Eden's breast surgery. It did not sound like there had been much communication between them.

  "Did she have a source of income, besides her work?" Larrabee said. "From you? Or an inheritance, anything like that?"

  "No. We used to help her out now and then. But not for years." Noni looked puzzled now.

  "She must have been doing pretty well, judging from her apartment."

  "She'd been on TV. Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, some others. But we don't really know much about that part of her life. The whole acting thing – it wasn't what we wanted. We tried our best to get her into something more respectable. She was very smart, but she didn't care about school."

  Larrabee cleared his throat. "Are you aware that she was involved in, ah, adult films?"

  Tom Hale, pacing at the room's far edge, made a choked angry sound.

  Noni folded her arms. "Eden made some mistakes."

  "I wasn't passing judgment," Larrabee said.

  "That was years ago," she said, still sharp-edged. Then she sagged. "Some of our friends found out about those films, I don't know how. People at church. It was awful. They wouldn't say anything, but – the way they'd look at us."

  Tom Hale's face was getting increasingly ugly. "What's the point of this?" he demanded.

  "I'm trying to put together a picture of your daughter's life," Larrabee said.

  "Why? What difference does it make now?"

  "We're considering the possibility that Eden's death was caused by a toxic substance," Monks said. "Our hospital pathologist – a man I respect a great deal – suggested that."

  "Toxic substance? What do you mean?"

  "A chemical, probably."

  "Something that poisoned her, is what you're saying," Tom Hale said.

  "It would have had that effect, yes."

  "What does that have to do with the phone machine?"

  Larrabee gave Monks a look that plainly said: It's up to you. Monks hesitated, trying to weigh the Hales' grief against his own need to push this.

  "We're also considering that it might not have been accidental," Monks said.

  Noni Hale looked like she had been hit in the face. Tom stepped past her with his jaw thrust forward. His eyes were furious, the skin around them screwed up tight.

  "What? Why the goddamned hell aren't the police in on this?"

  "We haven't approached them yet," Monks said. "We're trying to establish whether we have cause to."

  "So you don't have any cause to?"

  "What we have at this point is speculation, based on medical knowledge."

  Hale pointed a shaking forefinger at Monks. "You know what I think? I think this is a hoax. You let our daughter die, and now you're trying to weasel out of what you've got coming. Get out."

  'Tom, wait," Noni said. "I want to know about this."

  "We're not saying another word without our lawyer." The finger stabbed at Monks again. "You'd better have one, too."

  "I'd advise you to keep everything you took from her apartment," Larrabee said. "Store it carefully, especially medicines, chemicals, anything like that. Oh, and bedding. Towels. Clothes she'd worn recently. It may need to be examined."

  Tom Hale stomped out of the room. At the door, Larrabee offered Noni a business card.

  "This is not a hoax, Mrs. Hale," he said quietly. She hesitated but took it.

  Monks trudged through the heat to the Taurus. All in all, it had gone about as he had expected – no better, no worse. He wondered how much of Tom Hale's anger had to do with losing his daughter, and how much was because the family's dirty laundry was getting an airing.

  They were about to pull away from the curb when they saw a young man come hurrying out of the Hales' backyard, at the far end of the house. He was waving at them. He trotted to the car, glancing back over his shoulder as if he feared that someone would stop him.

  "I heard you talking to my parents," he said. His speech was hesitant, with some of the syllables forced. Monks got the impression that he had learned not to stutt
er. His eyes were earnest and filled with appeal. "Eden did have an answering machine."

  So – this was one of Eden's brothers. But Monks was pretty sure he was not one of the faces in the living room photographs. He was twenty-two or -three, tall and gangly, with a long, pale face and a vertical crown of hair four inches high, dyed gold. One ear sported a stud that looked like a real diamond.

  "When did you talk to her last?" Larrabee asked.

  "Just a few days ago." He glanced nervously at the house again.

  "What do you say we take a drive?" Monks said. "Come on, hop in."

  He got into the backseat and sat with his hands clasped between his knees. Larrabee eased the car out into the street.

  "I'm Carroll, and this is Stover," Monks said.

  "Josh. Hi."

  Eden and Joshua, Monks thought, recalling Noni Hale's concern about her church. The names did suggest a biblical theme. Although in Eden's case, it had taken a twist that clearly had not been foreseen.

  "Any place in particular you'd like to go, Josh?" Larrabee asked. "Get a burger, maybe?"

  "No, thanks." His lips started to tremble and his eyes dampened. "I can't believe she's dead."

  "It's tough, really tough. Were you close?"

  "We were like sisters," Josh said, watching their faces anxiously. What he saw, or didn't see, seemed to reassure him. "Well, it's not any secret. I played with her dolls and wore her clothes when I was little. My parents tried like heck to change me, but-"

  But they finally started pretending you and Eden didn't exist, Monks thought.

  "It sounded like your folks weren't getting along with her," he said.

  "They stopped speaking to her after they found out about those movies. Now – they're totally freaked."

  "That's sure understandable," Larrabee said. "When you talked to her, what kind of a mood was she in?"

  "Good. She seemed happy."

  "Not worried about anybody or anything?"

  "She was getting ready to have the surgery, and she was a little scared about that. But excited, too." Josh gazed down at his clasped hands. "Do you really think somebody might have k-k-killed her?"

  "It's a possibility. Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to?"

  "Noooo," he said hesitantly.

  "How about her boyfriend?" Monks said. "Fiancée, whatever he is. Ray."

  "Well – he's a lowlife."

  "I gathered that."

  "You know him?" Josh asked, surprised.

  "We met. He's a lowlife, but-" Monks prompted.

  "He really got off on her being an actress. She used to joke that she never had to worry about him beating her up, because it might hurt her looks."

  "Did she ever take advantage of that?" Larrabee asked. "Fool around with other guys, make him jealous?"

  "She had sex with people sometimes, to help her career. But Ray didn't care about that. He'd even help set it up. Like those porn movies."

  "Ray set up the movies, huh?" Larrabee said.

  "When they were living in LA. It was a favor to somebody who was going to give her a part. It was supposed to be kept secret. She used a different name."

  "Did she get the part?"

  Josh shook his head sadly.

  Larrabee cruised on through the curving side streets, where there was not much traffic to require his attention. Sacramento was essentially flat, but they were high enough here to get glimpses of its expanse, mile after mile of tree-lined streets cut by the blue bands of its confluent rivers and the speeding glittering glass and metal streams of the freeways.

  "There's one big problem with all this, Josh," Larrabee said. "Your sister was all of a sudden spending a lot of money. She told Ray she inherited it from an aunt. Is that true?"

  Josh lowered his eyes, then shook his head again.

  "Where'd she get it, then? Do you know?"

  He did not answer. His fingers twisted each other anxiously.

  "I'll be real straight with you," Larrabee said. "When the police get in on this, the first thing they're going to look for is whether she was blackmailing somebody."

  "No!" Josh looked up, starting to go teary-eyed. "She wasn't like that at all."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Eden was sweet, she really was," Josh said, suddenly defensive. "But she believed what she wanted to. Ray latched onto her when she was still in high school. She was the prom queen, and he came on like this big photographer, who was going to make her career. After that, she couldn't get away from him. He talked her into things, like those movies, but just loser things. She never would have done anything really wrong."

  Monks hoped it was true, and allowed himself to feel a little better. If this was, in fact, the end of his career, maybe it had not been wasted on a hardhearted gold digger.

  "But something was going on with her, huh?" Larrabee said. "Come on, you knew her better than anybody else. Suppose somebody did hurt her. You'd want to help us find out who, right?"

  Josh squirmed in his seat. "She made me promise to keep it secret."

  "It doesn't matter to her now, Josh. Sorry to put it like that, but it's true."

  Finally, he seemed to make up his mind. He glanced somewhat theatrically to both sides, then leaned forward and said in a confidential whisper: "It was the man she went to San Francisco to be with."

  "Could you be a little more specific?"

  "Her plastic surgeon. Dr. D'Anton."

  Larrabee, to his credit, kept driving smoothly, but Monks swiveled in his seat. Josh shrank back, looking a little frightened at his intensity.

  "Eden was having an affair with Dr. D'Anton?" Monks said. "Are you positive, Josh?" As he spoke, he remembered her discharge form from the clinic, with method of payment marked: CASH.

  "Oh, it was more than an affair. He was making her beautiful." Josh sounded dreamy now – maybe seeing himself in her place. "It wasn't just a fantasy. He had the power to really do it. And then, she was going to be somebody." The air-conditioning was on in the car, but Monks rolled his window down anyway. The fresh air, hot and gummy though it was, felt good sweeping across his face. He was starting to want a drink.

  Chapter 19

  They got back to San Francisco about five p.m. Monks picked up the Bronco at Larrabee's office and started the drive home. The rush-hour traffic was thick, and he spent a slow twenty minutes on Highway 101, getting through the floodgate of vehicles pouring on and off the Richmond Bridge. Even the two-lane country roads past San Rafael toward the coast buzzed with manic tailgaters. With relief, he pulled into the dirt parking lot of his favorite place to shop.

  It was one of the few old general stores left along the coast, with scarred wooden floors and the palpable aroma of decades of meat, fish, sausage, and cheese. It was bigger than you thought when you first walked in, with counters of dry goods at the back – jeans and wool shirts, boots, fishing and camping gear, first aid and automotive supplies – a basic selection of just about anything you might need to get by. It was cool and dark and quiet. The owners were an extended Portuguese family, the stumpy beret-wearing padron, his always – black-dressed wife, and a fluid collection of children, grandchildren, cousins, and nieces and nephews.

  The wife was behind the counter when Monks walked in. She greeted him with eyes that seemed sad, even reproachful.

  "Dr. Monk. You don't come see us no more."

  Monks realized guiltily that Martine had been doing most of the shopping for the past several months, and his usual twice-a-week visits had fallen off.

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. Lisbon. I've been terrifically busy. I'll do better, I promise."

  She nodded slightly, accepting the excuse, if not entirely satisfied.

  By way of reparation, Monks bought more than he had intended to: a large salmon fillet, chunks of brie and Jarlsberg, a Genoa salami and a string of linguica, a loaf of fresh sourdough bread, the makings for an avocado salad. He threw in half a dozen bottles of Carmenet wine, mostly cabernets, but two of the sauvignon bl
anc that Martine favored, just in case.

  And liquor. It was more expensive than at the chains, but early on in the twenty-some years that he had been coming here, he had understood that there was an importance to this sacrament that transcended money – an arcane link between him and a way of life that had a kind of profundity, a connection to the way things were on some essential ancient level, that was missing in his own.

  As he was about to make his selection, the padron came in the rear door with his heavy stumping walk. He spent most of his time at his bocce court out back, working on his game, or socializing with friends, or just sitting. But he always seemed to appear for this part of the ritual, whether by radar or something as mundane as a buzzer system. His wife faded back at his approach.

  "What today, Doctor? The usual?" His face was the color of saddle leather, deeply creased, sprouting a gray stubble of whiskers. He had the worst teeth Monks had ever seen. They were exposed by a knowing grin, an understanding between two men of the world.

  "Better throw in a couple extra, Antonio," Monks said.

  "How many you want? Three, four?"

  "Make it six or eight. Hell, make it a case." The old man's grin widened. His wife backed farther away, eyes anxious, lips moving slightly as if she were saying a rosary. Antonio's thick-fingered hands carefully placed bottles of Finlandia vodka into an empty carton.

  "A little drink is good for a man," he said. He said it every time.

  Monks made the requisite response. "It keeps the blood flowing."

  He was back in the Bronco, just starting it up, when the store's front door opened and Antonio came huffing out, waving, with something in his hand. Monks realized it was a net sack of lemons.

  "You almost forgot," Antonio called.

  The lemons were beautiful, fragrant and smooth-skinned, promising succulent juicy flesh inside: the perfect complement to the vodka.

  "Christ, thanks, Antonio," Monks said. He lifted up in the seat, reaching for his wallet.

  "No, no," the old man said, waving the money away. "On me."

  Stover Larrabee was in his office drinking a can of Pabst when the phone rang. The caller was a cop named Guido Franchi, who had been a rookie with Larrabee on the SFPD. Franchi was still on the force, a detective lieutenant now.