To The Bone

by Neil Mcmahon

  "Don't nobody touch nothing," Franchi said roughly. "Is this Gwen?"

  Larrabee shook his head. "I saw her photos on the Net. She's pure white-bread. But – that hair. Coffee Trenette has hair like that. Monks said she was at the party last night."

  Franchi took two steps into the room, his gaze moving swiftly. It was chaotic, with objects looking like they had been thrown down in haste. Surgical instruments lay in a jumble on a tray. A wastebasket was stuffed with bloody towels. The fingers of a latex glove showed among them.

  Then he pointed at something with his pistol, a little flash of gold beside the sink, almost covered by another towel. He moved closer and lifted the towel away with the gun's barrel. The gold was the flex band of a wristwatch, a man's Rolex with a face of striking deep blue.

  "You'd remember a watch like that," he said. "Call Dr. Monks. Ask him if he noticed D'Anton wearing it. We'll keep looking."

  Larrabee made the call on his cell phone, while the detectives moved along the hall toward the front area of the clinic. Monks picked up immediately.

  "Did you get a look at D'Anton's wristwatch?" Larrabee asked.

  "A blue Rolex. You could see it from across the room."

  "We just found it. There's a dead woman on an operating table. I think it's Coffee Trenette."

  Monks closed his eyes. "Bad?"

  "Yeah. It looks like he started cutting on her, and went crazy."

  Monks remembered what Roberta Massey had said, about the gloved hands in front of her face.

  "D'Anton has big hands," he said. "If there are gloves, they'll be at least a size eight."

  "I can see one, in the wastebasket. I better not touch it. Wait a minute, there's a packet of them over here." Larrabee stepped cautiously to a paper envelope containing surgical gloves, lying on the counter close to the watch.

  "Eight and a half," Larrabee said. "Okay, I'll keep you posted."

  He clicked off the phone and was starting down the hall to follow the detectives when he heard Guido Franchi's bellow:

  "Two dead."

  The second body, also a woman's, lay facedown on the reception room floor, just inside the front door. Larrabee's immediate impression was that she had been running for it, and was caught from behind. There was no butchery here. The right side of her throat had been slashed with surgical neatness.

  Except for that, she was still beautiful. Franchi and the two other detectives were standing over her, looking almost reverent.

  Larrabee nodded curtly to Franchi. "This is Gwen Bricknell," he said.

  Outside in the parking lot, Franchi got on the phone and called more backup – a SWAT team to sweep the building for anyone who might be hiding, a CSI unit, uniforms to cordon off the area. Larrabee could hear the distant sirens, already starting.

  Then Franchi walked over to him and said, "D' Anton's probably trying to get out of the country right now. Call Dr. Monks again. Tell him what happened. Then let me talk to him."

  When Monks answered, Larrabee said, "We found Gwen, Carroll. She's dead, too. It looks like she surprised D' Anton while he was working on Coffee. She tried to get away, but he caught her."

  Monks did not say anything. Larrabee handed Franchi the phone.

  "I'd like for you to go up and talk to D'Anton's wife," Franchi said to Monks. "Before a bunch of ham-fisted sheriffs come stomping in, and she calls F. Lee Bailey. Don't tell her anything about this, just say you came by to pick up your stuff. See if you can get an idea where D'Anton might be headed, another ID he might use, anything like that."

  Monks said, "I'll try. She doesn't like me much."

  "She likes you better than she'll like us."

  The police units were starting to arrive, squad cars parking to surround the building, and a van spilling out husky young SWAT team members carrying assault rifles. A KPIX television news van came in right behind them.

  "You people stay the fuck out of the crime scene," Franchi yelled at the van. He shoved the phone back at Larrabee and strode toward it.

  Larrabee faded to the outskirts of the area, staying out of the way. The SWAT team started moving into the clinic, agile crouching men slipping inside like ballet dancers. Snipers were braced across squad car roofs, rifles trained on the exits. Flashing lights and the crackling of radio static filled the air like smoke.

  It was a hell of an exciting show. Except that there were two dead women at the center of it.

  An hour later, the SWAT team had cleared the building and it was crawling with technicians. Police higher-ups were starting to arrive, and it was rumored that the city's medical examiner himself was on his way. The newspeople were all over it, too. Franchi had long since lost his battle to keep them out.

  He and Larrabee were standing together in the parking lot, when he got a call from the office that was running the NCIC checks.

  "One of the names just came up," the cop in the office said. 'Todd Peploe. Looks like he's the maintenance man at D'Anton's clinic."

  "What's the pop?"

  "He was working at a hospital down in San Diego, back in the early nineties. Apparently, he was impersonating a doctor, molesting women. He got seven years and did two."

  "Find out where he lives and get after his ass, right now" Franchi said. He turned to Larrabee, looking very unhappy. "We might be after the wrong guy. The maintenance man's got a record of playing doctor. Christ, could he be that smart, to plant that watch and gloves?"

  "Just because they're crazy, it doesn't mean they're stupid," Larrabee said. "I'd better call Carroll and let him know."

  Monks did not answer his cell phone. Larrabee's watch said 8:22 a.m. Monks was probably with Julia D' Anton by now.

  When Monks's voice mail came on, Larrabee said, "Carroll, it's Stover. Give me a call ASAP." He left it at that, in case Julia might overhear.

  Whoever the killer was, he was most likely traveling away from this area as fast as he could. There was no reason for him to go to the house where the party had been.

  But Larrabee was seriously annoyed at himself for assuming too quickly that D' Anton had to be the murderer. And a little queasy about the new level of unpredictability.

  "All these years we've been doing this, and we act like a couple of fucking amateurs," Franchi said morosely.

  "I was just thinking the same thing," Larrabee said.

  Chapter 32

  Monks drove somberly along the last stretch of narrow deserted road to the D'Antons' house. He was starting to realize how much he had wanted to find out that all his suspicions about Gwen Bricknell were empty – that this nightmare would end, and maybe, just maybe, the good parts of what he had felt with her would touch him again.

  He passed the eucalyptus grove where he had spent the night, and saw the Bronco's tire tracks across the field, outlined in the morning dew.

  That part, at least, had been real.

  He stopped at the rise that overlooked the property, as he had last night. The vista was the same – the picturesque Victorian house in its secluded valley, surrounded by wooded ravines and ridges that led down to the pale blue Pacific – but now it was quiet, with only one vehicle parked there, Julia D'Anton's white SUV. Monks had called from Larrabee's office to tell her he was coming; she had not answered, and he had left a message on the machine. But it looked like she was still here.

  He reached under the seat and unlocked the metal box that held the Beretta. There was still an outside possibility that Julia D' Anton was dangerous, and he had promised himself that he would never again walk into a situation like that alone and unarmed. He made sure that the clip was full, jacked a round into the chamber, and slipped the pistol into his back pocket. Then he drove on down the hill.

  As he was parking, the door of the sculpture studio opened and Julia leaned out. Monks recognized her long red-brown hair. She waved to him, beckoning him to come in, then disappeared back inside. A friendly enough reception, he thought, as he crossed the gravel drive. Apparently she'd gotten his phone message and
was expecting him. Maybe she'd be willing to talk.

  The studio's door was slightly ajar. Now he could hear the sound of a small engine coming from inside, a steady, low rumble like an idling motorcycle. He knocked and peered in.

  "Julia?" he called.

  He pushed the door open and stepped into the high-ceilinged room. It was just as he had seen it last night, with Gwen, except filled now by the ambient sunlight filtering through the old windows. The rumbling sound was coming from a small air compressor in a corner of the room, its coiled hose lying beside it on the floor. He had never thought of a compressor being used for sculpture; he supposed that she used it to operate an air hammer or blow away dust as she worked.

  Monks raised his voice over the engine's noise. "Julia. Listen, I need-"

  The compressor shut off abruptly, startling him with the sudden stillness. A few seconds later, he let out his breath, realizing that he had frozen along with it. The assemblage of unfinished sculptures – some bare, others draped with tarps – seemed eerily caught in mid-pose, and brought a sharp twinge of the fear he had felt last night. The phrase still as a statue flitted through his mind.

  "Is anybody here?" he said. Now his voice was too loud. There was no answer, no movement or sound.

  He stepped farther into the room. A door at the far end was also slightly open. Perhaps she had gone into the main house, expecting him to follow. He started toward it.

  Then he saw a light, a bright cone from a lamp, illuminating a workbench littered with tools and chips of stone. It was partly blocked from his vision by the canvas-draped statue of Eden Hale. He took another two steps, and Julia's figure came into view.

  She was sitting with her back to him. Her hands were at rest on the workbench. She was upright, stiff, and Monks's apprehension came back. She might have waved him in a moment ago, but his strong sense now was that she had taken up a hostile posture, and she was not going to cooperate after all – had called him in only to vent anger on him.

  "Julia, I need help finding your husband." Monks tried to keep the tension out of his voice, to sound nonthreatening, even placating. It was not easy. "You have to talk to me."

  She did not move. Monks exhaled impatiently and stepped to her, his hand rising to touch her shoulder. He imagined suddenly that there was a sweetish smell in the air.

  That was when he saw the blood seeping down the side of her face and neck.

  Monks registered instantaneous bits of visual information in an insane, impossible collage. Her left eye, the one he could see, was half-closed, filled with congealing blood. Her chin was propped on a stone block. The bleeding was profuse and seemed to be coming from under her disarrayed hair.

  His hand went to the hair instead of to her shoulder. He gripped it and tugged. It came away in his hand. He reared back, shaking the bloody scalp from his grip. Her body seemed to lean slightly, sliding away as though avoiding his grasp, but then she kept sliding, unchecked, until she crumbled to the floor.

  There was a sudden rustling behind him. He started to turn, and caught a glimpse of something like a giant gray bat unfolding its wings and lunging forward. A rough, blinding weight closed over his face and body. He lurched, batting at it with his arms, realizing that it was a canvas tarp, draped over him like a tent. He stumbled around, tripping on it, trying to shake it off. But it seemed to have no end. He managed to grab a handful of canvas and started pulling it off himself, hand over hand.

  A searing slash of pain ripped across the back of his right wrist.

  Monks screamed. He let go of the canvas as if it were red-hot and clasped his hand close to his body. He could feel blood welling from the cut, wetting his shirt.

  Another slash ripped down his back. Then another.

  He took two running steps before his feet caught up in the canvas and he fell, crashing onto the floor. His fingers pulled at the pistol in his pocket, but they were slippery with blood. He managed to get the gun free, lost it in the bloody slick, found it again.

  The pain ripped through him again, this time down the left side of his head. Monks lashed out with his legs, swinging them, clinging to the gun with both hands.

  He felt his feet connect with something solid but yielding. Flesh.

  He pointed the gun at it and pulled the trigger four times, starting low and moving up, crisscrossing from side to side.

  He heard a cry, a roaring sound of rage and pain.

  One of the slashes had slit the canvas near his face. He thrust his left hand into it and forced the blood-soaked edges apart, peering through. His panicked gaze took in a man's upper body lunging forward, a patch of blood above the abdomen-

  A large scalpel in the surgically gloved hand, slashing down at him.

  The charging weight closed his canvas window. Monks shot point-blank, again and again, all the five rounds that were left in the clip. He felt the body slam down on top of him, and he cried out as the scalpel sliced down across his hip. He tried to roll, but he was hopelessly entangled in the canvas, with the weight pinning him down.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the next stabs or slashes that would open him and bathe him in his own blood, wrapped in his canvas shroud.

  Then he realized that the visceral groan he was hearing was not his own. The weight on top of him shifted slightly, in a sort of writhing. Nothing was cutting at him anymore.

  Monks started working his way free. He was losing blood – could feel the wetness down the side of his face and neck, seeping from his back, and below his waist into his pants. He was already weak and getting weaker fast. The canvas had him wrapped tight as a cocoon, with no end or opening. It was like fighting some giant soft thing that patiently absorbed his struggles, flexing but never giving ground.

  Finally, his groping hands found an edge. He wormed his head and shoulders under it, forearms pushing the weight away, feet scrabbling wearily on the floor as if he were climbing a hill of loose sand.

  When he got his head free, he could see that the attacker was lying on his side facing Monks, motionless, curled into himself. There were more expanding patches of blood on his shirt. His face was contorted with pain and rage, but Monks recognized him instantly:

  Todd Peploe, the clinic's maintenance man.

  His hair and forehead were smeared with blood, too, but that, Monks knew already, was not Todd's. It had come from Julia D'Anton, when Todd had worn her bloody scalp like a wig, to lure Monks in.

  Chapter 33

  The following Monday morning at seven, Mercy Hospital Emergency Room's monthly Quality Assurance committee meeting was starting. The conference room was unusually crowded. In fact, it was packed. All the thirty-some seats were taken, and there were more people in the hall. The air was filled with a low buzz of talk.

  Monks had gotten there early and found a chair near the back. He was moving very carefully and stiffly because of his wounds. None of the scalpel slashes had been deep, thanks, in part, to the canvas tarp that had enwrapped him. But they had required a total of 173 stitches. He felt like Frankenstein's monster, his torso a tight sack stuffed full of flesh that the wrong twitch could pop open, ripping a seam like a zipper. The cuts hurt like hell, too, and he was almost salivating with anticipation of an afternoon feast of Percocet and vodka.

  But not yet. He was staying clearheaded for this meeting. This was where judgment of his treatment of Eden Hale was going to be rendered by his peers.

  He did not know which way it was going to go.

  Most of the faces were familiar. Vernon Dickhaut was sitting beside him, and all the other ER docs who were not on duty were also present, along with Jackie Lukas and Mary Helfert, the nurses who had worked with him on Eden. Roman Kasmarek, the pathologist, was sitting on his other side. Baird Necker, the chief administrator, and Paul Winner, the internist who had criticized him, were there, too, along with several nurses and physicians from other departments. Apparently, the word had spread. This case was not just interesting – it was now tinged with notoriety.
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br />   Dick Speidel, the committee chairman, stood up at the head of the long conference table. He was a commanding figure, big and bearlike. The room got quiet.

  "I'm sure I don't have to remind anybody that these proceedings are protected from discovery," Speidel said. "I've approved some non-ER personnel who have asked to sit in. But what happens here, stays here.

  "We're going to start right off with Dr. Monks's case, because I don't think we have three times the usual number of people just for the coffee and doughnuts." A sprinkling of laughter arose. Monks did not join in. "Committee members have had a chance to look over the material, including my own review. I'll recap it.

  "In brief, it's been established beyond doubt that the patient, Eden Hale, died of florid DIC. We're quite sure now that it was caused by ricin – a poison that was deliberately administered to her – but there was no hint of that at the time.

  "Dr. Monks's diagnosis was correct, and, by my lights, very astute. He also acted correctly in addressing the DIC with utmost urgency. It was far and away the most serious presenting problem.

  "The pathway he chose is a thornier issue. Blood products are the major treatment for DIC. But heparin's clinical boundaries aren't established. There's no definite evidence it would have helped with someone that far gone. It might have helped, and in the circumstances it certainly wasn't unreasonable. He was fully aware that it was a desperate measure, and it probably wouldn't succeed – but it was either that or stand there and watch her die.

  "However, there's a case to be made that administering the heparin was an unnecessary procedure, and even inappropriate."

  Speidel paused, with a certain amount of dramatic flair, like a jury foreman about to take the poll.

  "My own opinion is that the outcome was predictable – the patient was beyond saving when she came in – and that Dr. Monks acted well within the reasonable standard of care," he said. "I'll open this up by asking the other ER physicians if they agree. Gentlemen and ladies, this is not a feel-good encounter session. If you think Dr. Monks performed unacceptably, let him have it."