To the Bone (5 page)

“You ought to have some facts in hand before you go slinging accusations, Doctor,” Monks said.

“Eden Hale left here in perfect health,” D'Anton said, in a tone bordering on outrage. “Less than twenty-four hours later, in your care, she was dead.”

“And she came into my care too far gone to have a chance. She died of DIC. Are you familiar with it?”

D'Anton hesitated. “An abnormality in blood clotting, isn't it? I don't remember the details.”

“It causes severe circulatory depression, and bleeding everywhere. It takes hours to develop. Whatever started it happened to her beforehand. Were you aware of anything that could have contributed? Low blood count? Carcinoma? Complications?”

“None of those.” The sharpness was back in D'Anton's voice. “Of course I'd checked her history—she was pristine. The procedure was a simple one. I've done thousands of them. It went like clockwork and she came out in tiptop shape.”

“Then let's talk about what might have happened in between.”

“There was supposed to be someone with her for at least twenty-four hours,” D'Anton said. “Her fiancé, I believe.”

“I talked to him. He had other plans last night.”

“He left her alone?” D'Anton said incredulously.

Monks nodded.

“That's—criminal.”

“We tried to call you, too.”

“If I took night calls from every neurotic woman I treated, I'd never sleep. Besides, by that time she was ‘too far gone,' isn't that what you're saying?”

This guy is Teflon,
Monks thought. “Yes.”

“Whereas her
fiancé
made a commitment to care for someone recovering from surgery.”

“I've got a feeling that Mr. Dreyer's definition of ‘making a commitment' is different from the medical community's,” Monks said. “There's no help there now, anyway. What time was her procedure?”

“Late morning.”

“That makes it roughly eighteen hours before I saw her. There are a couple of possibilities. Traumatic injury, but there was no obvious sign of it. Massive infection, as from the surgery—” Monks paused, watching with grim satisfaction as D'Anton's face flushed with indignation.

“Impossible.” D'Anton almost spat the word.

“Or something unknown.”

“You're groping for a diagnosis. That's pathetic.”

“I'd appreciate a look at her records,” Monks said.

“Certainly not, unless you're here in official capacity, Doctor—I'm sorry, your name's slipped my mind.”

“Monks. No.”

“What
are
you trying to do?”

“I'm trying to have a consultation with another professional,” Monks said. “For Christ's sake, you
knew
her. I'd think you'd want to help find out why she died.” Monks shook his head and turned to go, angry at D'Anton, but at himself, too, for falling into this schoolboy exchange of finger-pointing.

“I'm distraught about it, of course,” D'Anton said, stepping after him. “It's hard to believe. She was so vibrant.”

The words had the feel of a clumsy attempt to cover his callousness, and Monks did not go for it.

“I guess I'm lucky there,” Monks said. “I never saw her like that.”

D'Anton bristled visibly. “I can't imagine how
you
must feel.”

“In emergency medicine, people are going to die,” Monks said. “It's not Rodeo Drive.”

Julia D'Anton had left the reception room when Monks walked back through it. Gwen Bricknell was working busily at her desk. She did not look up.

So much for making a good impression, Monks thought.

Outside, the heat and bright sunlight hit him hard. He could already feel the day's grit on his skin beneath his clothes. Julia D'Anton's SUV was still parked in the lot, the only vehicle besides his own that did not fit here—a Toyota 4Runner, nondescript white, several years old, and a little down-at-heels. It seemed an odd choice in this glitzy world. The rear compartment was thick with dust and chips of stone. Monks remembered her work clothes and wondered if she was landscaping or redecorating.

He opened the Bronco's door and started to get in.

“That's yours, huh?” a man's voice said. “What is it, a seventy-five?” The tone was friendly—the first positive thing Monks had heard today. He turned. It was the maintenance man, Todd, walking toward D'Anton's Jaguar, carrying a towel and Windex.

“Seventy-four,” Monks said.

“She's in great shape.” Todd started polishing the Jag's glass, keeping his body carefully away, so that his belt buckle and keys would not scratch its finish. He was in his early thirties, good-looking, wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt that showed off a well-muscled torso. A floppy, dark blond haircut completed the look of a '60s-era Southern California surfer. But there was nothing laid-back about him. He exuded brisk competence.

“I know I should get something more sensible,” Monks said. “She's like an old dog I can't bear to part with.”

“Hey, I hear you. I had a seventy-five. I've been kicking myself ever since I sold it.” He patted the Jaguar's hood. “Although I've got to admit, I wouldn't mind having one of these.”

“It's a beautiful machine,” Monks agreed.

“Only for the rich and famous. I try to take care of it for the doc. Especially, like now. He's pretty bummed out.”

“So I've gathered.”

“Yeah,” Todd said, and this time Monks imagined accusation in his tone. He wondered if Todd had overheard his conversation with D'Anton, and—like everyone else—blamed Monks for troubling the great man; if his seeming friendliness had only been a setup to take a shot.

But then, Monks thought, he was imagining all kinds of things by now. He waved good-bye to Todd anyway.

Monks started the engine, sorting through his impressions. It seemed clear that Gwen Bricknell and Julia D'Anton knew each other well. Not many physicians' receptionists would feel comfortable shaking and scolding their boss's wife.

And it seemed that Eden Hale had been more than just another patient, whom Gwen remembered only because of her unusual name. The way that Julia had blurted it out, with Gwen picking up on it instantly and hushing her, suggested familiarity there, too. Monks had intended to lead the conversation in that direction, to see what he might uncover. But Gwen had headed that off.

Monks remembered the tattoo on Eden's rump, and Ray Dreyer's sleazy persona. These did not jibe with the elegant world of women like Gwen and Julia. He wondered what relationship they might have had with her.

Wondered why Gwen Bricknell had lied about it.

 

D'Anton stepped into an empty procedure room and slumped back against the wall with his face in his hands. It was the room where he had operated, yesterday, on Eden Hale. A few more sessions of sculpting her face, and the perfection within her would have shone forth.

He knew female flesh as very few people ever had—by sight, by scent, and, above all, by touch. He knew the strength and tone of the muscles under his fingertips, the suppleness of the skin. How best to enhance them, and how long that would last. Most of his patients were attractive, and many were beautiful.

But Eden was far beyond that.

To the uneducated eye, she had been nothing really special. But D'Anton had seen deeper the instant he first had noticed her. She had an ideal bone structure, a superb musculature, and a quality to her flesh that was the closest to perfection he had ever found—precisely the right combination of firmness and yielding, seeming to give off an energy of its own that spread through his hands and made touching her almost hypnotic.

He would never feel that warmth again.

He pushed away from the wall and strode to a conference room where Gwen Bricknell and his wife, Julia, were talking in low, urgent tones. At the sound of the opening door, both swiveled to look at him.

“That scum of a boyfriend left Eden alone last night,” D'Anton said to Gwen. “Why the
hell
did you let her go with him?”

Gwen's eyes went fierce in return. “It's not up to me to make that judgment, Doctor. She chose him. He's a competent adult.”

“He's neither of those things!”

“Then from now on, you can vet them yourself.” She tossed her head defiantly.

“Blame yourself, Welles,” Julia cut in. She was glaring, too, her earlier shock turning to rage, her voice trembling. “If you'd left Eden alone, none of this would have happened.”

D'Anton stifled the urge to snap back at her. There were other pressing worries to be dealt with, and the most immediate one was Monks. D'Anton had gone through the charade of not remembering the name, but in fact he knew perfectly damned well who Monks was.

“Call that Dr. Monks,” D'Anton said to Gwen. “Tell him I apologize for being rude. Stress, all that. He's welcome to look at Eden's records. We'll have them ready if he cares to drop by.”

Gwen's eyebrows rose. “Mind if I ask why the sudden chumminess?”

“Because he's got a reputation for causing trouble. I want him to know I have nothing to hide. To leave me the hell alone.” He looked at his watch. It was 9:47
A.M.
, a time when he would normally be brimming with energy, even excited, lost in the full swing of the morning's work. “How many more appointments?”

“Three.”

“Send in the next one,” he said. “Let's get this day over with.”

 

Monks drove toward nowhere, heading west out of a vague wish to get near the ocean, as if that would ease the constriction he felt around him. He kept turning on unfamiliar streets, working his way farther from the city, until he topped the bluffs that crested the coastline to the south. He was not familiar with the area; it was somewhere in Pacifica.

He found a place to pull off the road and got out of the Bronco, leaning across the hood on his forearms. He watched the long white-capped breakers roll in, remembering some thirty years ago, when he had shipped out to tend the wounded in Vietnam, and come home with his own inglorious million-dollar wound, delivered by the tiny saber of an anopheles mosquito.

To the east, the traffic on Interstate 280 streamed nonstop down the long depression of the San Andreas Fault, an endless speeding line of hot little bumper cars darting in and out of clusters of eighteen-wheelers, sleek luxury European sedans, RVs towing boats or second vehicles. They all had one thing in common, the one thing that, right now, looked better than just about anything in the world. They were all on their way to someplace else.

There were plenty of things bothering him about Eden Hale's death, but now he pinned down an elusive one that had been growing underneath the others. Several different people had weighed in so far, all with their own very different perspectives. Most of their interests were self-oriented—Baird Necker's in protecting the hospital; Gwen Bricknell's, the plastic surgery clinic; D'Anton's, his reputation. Ray Dreyer seemed mainly concerned about the marketable commodity he had lost. And a lot of what was driving Monks himself, he admitted, was a desire to justify his own actions in the ER.

But in this shuffle, Eden had gotten lost. She was the seed that had started it all, but then she had been pushed aside, ignored, while the players squared off to pursue their own aims.

Monks got behind the Bronco's wheel and punched a number on his cell phone. While it rang, his gaze fixed on a welded patch on the opposite door panel, where on a rainy evening last fall, a 9-millimeter bullet had exited while he lay huddled on the floor, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other frantically jamming down on the accelerator, trying to escape the ambush he had driven into.

After four rings, he got the answering machine of Stover Larrabee, a private detective and Monks's partner in insurance investigations.

“I need a favor, Stover,” Monks said. “There's a young actress named Eden Hale. It looks like she's going to figure into my life, so I'd like to know more about hers.”

Monks paused. “Did I say ‘There is'? I should have said ‘was.'”

I
n Stover Larrabee's darkened office, a computer screen was showing a video. A pretty young woman, wearing a fiery red wig and nothing else, was down on all fours, mouthing the erection of a panting man with a weight lifter's torso. Another, similarly built, young stud mounted her from behind, pelvis slapping her rump with rabbitlike quickness. Her muscles were tensed, displaying their fine definition, and her breasts shimmied with each impact. Her eyes were closed, not with faked passion, but rapture that seemed real. All three players had tattoos in evidence, including one of a snake-wrapped apple on the woman's left buttock.

“That her?” Larrabee said.

“Yes.” Monks had not been certain during the clip's opening moments. Eden Hale—starring as Eve Eden in the video—had obviously been a few years younger when she had made this, and she looked a lot better on-screen than she had last night in the ER. But when her tattoo came into view, that clinched it.

Monks saw now how striking she was physically. Her body was strong and yet graceful, waist and hips forming a perfect hourglass, legs long and tapering. Her not-yet-augmented breasts were pear-shaped, not large, and like most women's, a little uneven—lovely by his standards, but not the symmetrical jutting orbs that many men worshiped. But the bar to real beauty was the way her face looked from certain angles—nose somewhat thick at the bridge, and cheekbones protuberant, giving the impression of coarseness. It had probably not helped her acting career.

“Seen enough?”

Monks nodded. Larrabee clicked the video off and lifted the shades on his third-story windows. They were many-paned, old enough for the glass to have rippled from settling, and etched with grimy salt from the storms that blew in from the Bay they overlooked.

Neither man spoke for a moment. There was a sort of guilty weight in the room. Monks had no objection to seeing attractive women unclothed, nor to the occasional glimpse of pornography. But watching someone who had just died in his hands had a ghoulishness to it.

“She was a rising star, huh?” Larrabee said. He was burly, forty-five, with a mustache and rooster-like shock of dark hair.

“That's what her fiancé said.”

“What was your take on him?”

“Some kind of small-time operator.”

“Pimp?”

“On that edge.”

Monks leaned his shoulder against a window jamb and stared out toward the Bay. Larrabee's immediate neighborhood was a holdover from industrial days, when this part of the city had belonged to factories and shipping. But a few blocks south, gentrification had come in big-time, with expensive high-rise apartment buildings and fancy plazas. Sunlight flashed off the glass and metal of the cars crowding the Embarcadero. Flocks of pedestrians were drifting toward the afternoon Giants game at Pac Bell Park, with the masts of the China Basin yacht fleet spiking the skyline behind it.

“Lots of creepy people in that porn world,” Larrabee said. “You remember Iris?”

“Sure.” Iris had been a girlfriend of Larrabee's a few years ago, a stripper at the North Beach clubs. She had some things in common with Eden Hale, Monks realized: physical beauty, breast surgery, and a stage name—Secret.

“There were always guys after her to make porn loops,” Larrabee said. “They create a fan club. Seems that men get a lot more interested in watching a girl dance if they've seen her horizontal. She draws bigger crowds and higher pay.”

Monks knew that Iris had left San Francisco, and Larrabee, for Las Vegas and a better career. He decided not to ask whether porn loops had figured in.

The Internet references Larrabee had found showed that Eden Hale had had several roles as a mainstream actress, bit parts in soaps and sitcoms. She had also made a few adult films. Someone had seized on the connection as a marketing ploy—the thrill of watching a legitimate actress, even a comparative unknown, having sex. A search of her name brought up several items along the lines of:
WATCH EDEN HALE GET A FACIAL
…A credit-card number and a few clicks of the mouse would then deliver action like they had just seen, with the star billed in the film credits as Eve Eden.

“This girl must have had money, huh?” Larrabee said. “Maybe her family?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“Because that guy D'Anton doesn't take on anybody who doesn't. But if she was rich, why would she do the porn? For kicks?”

Monks had not thought about that, obvious though it was. “I don't know anything more about her.”

“I'm sure there's more to her story,” Larrabee said. “I can keep looking, if you want.”

“I don't think so, Stover. It's not like it matters. Just me being sappy.”

“Well, let me know if there's anything else.”

Monks said thanks and left. There
wasn't
anything else, but to wait—for Roman Kasmarek's appraisal, for the medical examiner's autopsy, and to find out if the beating Monks had taken over the past hours was going to continue.