Dr. Death (48 page)

No motive for the slaying of the man known as "Dr. Death" has been put forth by authorities yet, though the same sources indicate that Ulrich, a licensed physician in New York State under the name of Michael Ferris Burke, may have been mentally ill.

November found me thinking about how wrong I'd been on so many accounts. No doubt Rushton/Burke/ Ulrich would've been amused by all my wrong guesses, but teaching me humility would've ranked low on his pleasure list.

I called Tanya Stratton once, got no answer, tried her sister. Kris Lamplear was more forthcoming. She didn't recognize my voice. No reason to, we'd exchanged only a few words when we'd met and she'd assumed I was a detective.

"How'd you know to call me, Doctor?"

"I consult to the police, was trying to follow up with Tanya. She hasn't called back. You're listed as next of kin."

"No, Tanya won't talk to you. Won't talk to anyone. She's pretty freaked out by all those things they're saying about Paul."

"She'd have to be," I said.

"It's— unbelievable. To be honest, I'm freaked, too. Been keeping it from my kids. They met him. . . . I never liked him, but I never thought . . . Anyway, Tanya has a therapist. A social worker who helped her back when she was sick— last year. The main thing is she's still in remission. Just had a great checkup."

"Good to hear that."

"You bet. I just don't want the stress to . . . Anyway, thanks for trying. The police have really been okay through all this. Don't worry about Tanya. She'll go her own way, she always does."

• • •

November got busy, lots of new referrals, my service seemed to be ringing in constantly. I booked myself solid, reserved lunchtime for making calls.

Calls that didn't get answered. Messages left for Richard, Stacy, Judy Manitow. A try at Joe Safer's office elicited a written note from the attorney's secretary:

Dear Dr. Delaware:

Mr. Safer deeply appreciates your time. There are no new developments with regard to your common interests. Should Mr. Safer have anything to report, he'll definitely call.

I thought a lot about the trip to Lancaster, composed a mental list of reasons not to go, wrote it all down.

I sometimes prescribe that kind of thing for patients, but it rarely works for me. Putting it down on paper made me antsier, less and less capable of putting it to rest. Maybe it's a brain abnormality— some kind of chemical imbalance, Lord knows everything else gets blamed on that. Or perhaps it's just what my Midwestern mother used to call "pigheadedness to the nth."

Whatever the diagnosis, I wasn't sleeping well. Mornings presented me with headaches, and I found myself getting annoyed without good reason, working hard at staying pleasant.

By the twenty-third of November, I'd finished a host of court-assigned assessments— none referred by Judy Manitow. Placing the rest in the to-do box, I awoke on a particularly glorious morning and set out for the high desert.

• • •

Lancaster is sixty-five miles north of L.A. on three freeways: the 405, the 5, then over to the 14, where four lanes compress to three, then two, cutting through the Antelope Valley and feeding into the Mojave.

Just over an hour's ride, if you stick to the speed limit, the first half mostly arid foothills sparsely decorated with gas stations, truck stops, billboards, the red-tile roofs of low-cost housing developments. The rest of its nothing but dirt and gravel till you hit Palmdale.

Motels in Palmdale, too, but that wouldn't have mattered for Joanne Doss, it had to be Lancaster.

She'd made the trip late at night, when the view from the car window would have been flat-black.

Nothing to look at, lots of time to think.

I pictured her, bloated, aching, a passenger in her own hearse, as someone else— probably Eric, it was Eric I couldn't stop thinking about— burned fuel on the empty road.

Riding.

Staring out at the black, knowing the expanse of nothingness would be among her final images.

Had she allowed herself to suffer doubt? Been mindlessly resolute?

Had the two of them talked?

What do you say to your mother when she's asked you to help her leave you?

Why had she set up her own execution?

I spotted a county sign advertising a regional airport in Palmdale. The strip where Richard's helicopter had landed on all those trips to oversee his construction projects.

He'd never been able to get Joanne to witness what he'd created. But on her last day on Earth, she'd endured an hour's trip, made sure she'd end up in the very spot she'd avoided.

Prolonging the agony so she could send him a message.

You condemn me. I spit in your face.

• • •

The Happy Trails Motel was easy to find. Just a quick turn onto Avenue J, then a half-mile drive past Tenth Street West. Lots of open space out here, but not due to any ecological wisdom. Vacant lots, whiskered by weeds, alternated with the kind of downscale businesses that doom small-town proprietors to anxiety in the age of mergers and acquisitions.

Bob's Battery Repair, Desert Clearance Furniture, Cleanrite Janitorial Supply, Yvonne's Quick 'n' Easy Haircutting.

I passed one new-looking strip mall, the usual beige texture coat and phony tile, some of the storefronts still vacant, a FOR LEASE sign prominent at the front of the commodious parking lot. One of Richard's projects? If I was right about Joanne's motives, just maybe, because the motel was in clear view across the street, sandwiched between a liquor store and a boarded-up bungalow that bore a faded, hand-painted sign: GOODFAITH INSURANCE.

The Happy Trails Motel was a single-story, U-shaped collection of a dozen or so rooms with a front office on the left-hand tip of the U and a dead neon sign that pleaded VACANCY. Red doors on each room, only two of them fronted by cars. The building had blue-gray walls and a low white gravel roof. Over the gravel, I saw coils of barbed wire. An alley ran along the west side of the motel and I drove around back to see what the wire was all about.

The coils sat atop a grape-stake fence that separated the motel from its rear neighbor: a trailer park. Old, sagging mobile homes, laundry on lines, TV antennae. As I cruised closer, a dog growled.

Returning to the street, I parked. Nothing crisp about the air here. High eighties, arid, dusty, and heavy as unresolved tension. I entered the office. No reception counter, just a card table in a corner, behind which sat an old man, hairless, corpulent, with very red lips and wet, subjugated eyes. He wore a baggy gray T-shirt and striped pants. In front of him was a stack of paperback spy novels. Off to the side sat a collection of medicine bottles, along with a loose eyedropper and an empty pill counter. The room was small, murky, paneled with pine boards long gone black. The air smelled like every kid's first booster shot. A comb dispenser hung on the rear wall, along with another small vending machine that sold maps and a third that offered condoms and the message
Be Healthy!

To the old man's right was a glass display case filled with photos. Ten or so pictures of Marilyn Monroe in black-and-white. Scenes from her movies and cheesecake shots. Below the montage and stretched across the center of the case, pinned in place like a butterfly, was a pink satin two-piece bathing suit. A typed paper label, also pinioned, said, CERTIFIED GENUINE M.M.'S SWIMSUIT.

"It's for sale," said the hairless man wearily. His voice was half an octave below bassoon, clogged and wheezy.

"Interesting."

"If you meant that, you'd buy it. I got it from a guy used to work on her pictures. It's all bona fide."

I showed him my police consultant badge. The small print tells them I've got no real authority. When they're going to be helpful, they never bother to check. When they're not, a real badge wouldn't impress them.

The old man barely looked at it. His skin was pallid and dull, compressed in spots, lumped like cooling tallow. Licking his lips, he smiled. "Didn't think you were checking in for a room, not with that sport jacket. What is it, cashmere?"

He stretched a hand toward my sleeve and for a moment I thought he'd touch it. But he drew back.

"Just wool," I said.

"Just wool." He humphed. "Just money. So what can I do for you?"

"Several months ago a woman from L.A. checked in and—"

"Killed herself. So why're you here now? When it happened, the police didn't barely want to talk to me. Not that they should've, I wasn't working that night, my son was. And he didn't know much, either— you read the report, you know."

I didn't deny it. "Where is your son?"

"Florida. He was only visiting, doing me a favor 'cause I was indisposed." His fingers brushed against one of the medicine bottles. "Back in Tallahassee. Drives a truck for Anheuser-Busch. So what's up?"

"Just doing some follow-up," I said. "For the files. Did your son ever talk to you about who checked Ms. Doss in that night?"

"She checked herself in— the coward. Barnett said she didn't look too good, unsteady on her feet, but she did it all, paid with a credit card— you guys took the receipt." He smiled. "Not our usual clientele."

"How so?"

His laughter began somewhere in his belly. By the time it reached his mouth he was coughing. The paroxysm lasted too long to be trivial.

"'Scuse me," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of a dimpled hand. "Like you don't know what I'm talking about."

He smiled again. I smiled back.

"Not poor, not horny, not drunk," he said, amused. "Just a rich coward."

"A coward because—"

"Because God grants you your particular share of years, you go and laugh in His face?
She
was like that, too." Pointing to the Monroe case. "Body like that and she wasted it on politicians and other scum. That bikini's worth something, you know. Big money, but no one around here appreciates memorabilia. I think I'm gonna get myself a computer, list it on the Internet."

"Did your son mention anyone with Ms. Doss?"

"Yeah, there was someone out in the car, waiting. Behind the wheel. Barnett never looked to see who it was. We look too hard, we don't get business, right?"

"Right," I said. "Was there anyone else here who might've noticed?"

"Maybe Maribel, the cleaning girl. The one who found it. She came on at eleven at night, was working till seven. Asked for night work because she had a day job over at the Best Western in Palmdale. But you guys already talked to her. She didn't tell you much, huh?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, she was a little . . ."

"She was sick is what she was," he said. "Pregnant, ready to drop. Already had a miscarriage. After she found . . . what she found, she wouldn't stop crying, I thought we were gonna have one of those real-life video situations right out there in the parking lot— ever deliver a baby?"

I shook my head. "She end up delivering okay?"

"Yup, a boy."

"Healthy?"

"Seems to be."

"Any idea where can I find her?"

He crooked a thumb. "Out back, Unit Six, she's working days now. Someone had a party last night in Six. Longhair types, Nevada plates, paid cash. Should've known better than to give pigs like that a room. Maribel'll be cleaning that one for a while."

I thanked him and headed for the door.

"Here's a little secret," he said.

I stopped, turned my head.

He winked. "Got the Monroe
Playboy
, too. Don't keep it in the case, 'cause it's too valuable. One price gets you all of it. Tell all your friends."

"Will do."

"Sure you will."

• • •

Maribel was young, short, frail-looking, in a pink-and-white uniform that seemed incongruously proper for the pitted lot and the splintering red doors. She was gloved to the elbows. Her hair was tied back, but loose strands were sweat-glued to her forehead. A wheeled cart pulled up to Unit Six was piled with cleaning solvents and frayed towels. The trash bag slung from the side overflowed with filthy linens, empty bottles and stink. She gave the badge a bit more attention than her boss had.

"L.A.?" she said, with the faintest accent. "Why're you coming out here?"

"The woman who killed herself. Joanne Doss—"

Her face closed up tight. "No, forget it, I don't wanna talk about that."

"Don't blame you," I said. "And I'm not interested in making you go through it again."

Her gloves slammed onto her hips. "Then
what
?"

"I'd like to know anything you can remember about
before.
Once Ms. Doss went in the room, did she ever come out? Did she ask for food, drinks, do anything that caught your attention?"

"Nope, nothing. They went in after I got here— around midnight, I already told them that. I didn't see them until . . . you know."

"Them," I said. "Two people."

"Yup."

"How long did the other person stay?"

"Don't know," she said. "Probably a while. I was up at the front desk, mostly, 'cause Barnett— Milton's son— wanted to go out and party and not tell his dad."