Guilt (6 page)

“I was wondering if you remembered Swedish Hospital.”

“That place,” she said. “Yes, I remember it. Why?”

“It’s related to a police case.”

“You’re still doing that,” she said.

“At times.”

“What kind of police case?”

I told her about the bones.

She said, “I read about it.” Chirps in the background. “Ahh, a page, need to run, Alex. Do you have time for coffee?”

“Where and when?”

“Here and … let’s say an hour. The alleged emergency won’t last long, just a hysterical intern. A man, I might add. Roll that in your sexist cigar, Sigmund.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, wondering why she didn’t just ask me to call back.

“Meet me in the doctors’ dining room—you still have your badge, no?”

“On my altar with all the other icons.”

“Ha,” said Salome. “You were always quick with a retort, that’s a sign of aggressiveness, no? But no doubt you hid it from patients, good psychologist that you are.”

Western Pediatric Medical Center is three acres of gleaming optimism set in an otherwise shabby section of East Hollywood. During the hospital’s hundred years of existence L.A. money and status migrated relentlessly westward, leaving Western Peds with patients dependent on the ebb and flow of governmental goodwill. That keeps the place chronically broke but it doesn’t stop some of the smartest, most dedicated doctors in the world from joining the staff. My time on the cancer ward comprised some of the best years of my life. Back in those days I rarely left my office doubting I’d done something worthwhile. I should have missed it more than I did.

The drive ate up fifty minutes, parking and hiking to the main building, another ten. The doctors’ dining room is in the basement, accessible through an unmarked door just beyond the cafeteria steam tables. Wood-paneled and quiet and staffed by white-shirted servers, it makes a good first impression. But the food’s not much different from the fare ladled to people without advanced degrees.

The room was nearly empty and Salome was easy to spot, tiny, nearly swallowed by her white coat, back to the wall at a corner table
eating cottage cheese and neon-red gelatin molded into a daisy. A misshapen sludge-colored coffee mug looked like a preschool project or something dreamed up by the hottest Big Deal grad of the hippest Big Deal art school.

Salome saw me, raised the mug in greeting. I got close enough to read crude lettering on the sludge.
To Doctor Great-Gramma
.

A blunt-nailed finger pinged ceramic. “Brilliant, no? Fashioned by Number Six of Generation Four. She just turned five, taught herself to read, and is able to add single digits.”

“Congratulations.”

“The Gee-Gees are entertaining, but you don’t get as close as with the grandchildren. More like diversion from senility. Get yourself some coffee and we’ll chat.”

I filled a cup and sat down.

“You look the same, Alex.”

“So do you.”

“You lie the same, too.”

Dipping her head, she batted long white lashes. I’d seen a photo from her youth: Grace Kelly’s undersized sib. Her eyes were still clear, a delicate shade of aqua. Her hair, once dyed ash-blond, had been left its natural silver. The cut hadn’t changed: jaw-length pageboy, shiny as a freshly chromed bumper, bangs snipped architecturally straight.

Born to a wealthy Berlin family, she was one-quarter Jewish, which qualified her to enroll in Dachau. Escaping to New York in the thirties, she worked as a governess while attending City College night school, got into Harvard Med, trained at Boston Children’s where she did research on whooping cough. At thirty, she married a Chaucer scholar who never made much money but dressed as if he did. Widowed at fifty, she raised five kids who’d turned out well.

“Down to business,” she said. “Tell me more about that skeleton.”

I filled in a few more details.

“Ach,” she said. “A fully formed baby?”

“Four to six months old.”

“Intact.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” she said. “In view of the rumors about that place.”

She returned to her cottage cheese. It took me a moment to decode her remark.

“It was an abortion mill?”

“Not exclusively, my dear.”

“But …”

“If you were a girl from a well-to-do family who’d gotten into a predicament, the talk was Swedish could be exceptionally discreet. The founders were well-meaning Lutheran missionaries, seeking to help the poor. Over the years, any religious affiliation was dropped and priorities changed.”

“They went for-profit?”

“What else? One thing they
didn’t
have was a pediatrics department. Or a conventional maternity ward. So I really can’t see how a baby would ever come in contact with the place.”

I described the blue box, asked if she knew what it was.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. We wrap our bodies in shrouds, then bag them. Typically, mortuaries pick them up, there’d be no reason to use solid brass containers.”

“Maybe it was designed for something else and whoever buried the baby improvised.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Yes, why not—how about storage for tissue samples? A precaution when dealing with infectious material. Back in those days all kinds of nasties were rampant—TB, polio. My old friend, pertussis. I don’t see bronze serving any particular antiseptic purpose but someone could’ve had a theory.”

“Makes sense. Did you know any of the staff?”

“My work was always here.”

Not really an answer. I said, “But you know quite a bit about the place.”

She smiled. “It’s not only psychologists who know how to listen.”

“Who did the talking?”

“A friend of mine attended there briefly.”

“Why only briefly?”

She used her fork to section a perfect cube of Jell-O. “I’d imagine something drew his attention elsewhere.”

“Was he bothered by what went on?”

She speared the Jell-O, ate, drank tea. “I can’t remember what was related to me back in the Jurassic era.”

“I’ll bet you can, Salome.”

“Then you lose the bet.”

“Was it the abortions?”

Carving and piercing another cube, she withdrew the tines slowly. Red liquid oozed onto her plate. “I don’t need to tell you, Alex. Those were different times. In any event, I can’t see any direct link between Swedish Hospital and a full-term baby.”

I said, “Eleanor Green.”

The fork wavered. She put it down. “Who’s that?”

“A pediatric nurse. She lived in the house where the bones were found.”

“If you already have a name, why all the circumlocution? Go and track her down.”

“She seems to have disappeared.”

“Nurse on the run.” She chuckled. “Sounds like a bad movie.”

I said, “The friend who told you about Swedish—”

“Is gone, Alex. Everyone from my wanton youth is gone, leaving me the last woman standing. That’s either my triumph or cause for clinical depression, take your pick.”

“No peds, no ob-gyn,” I said. “Besides abortions, what brought in the profit?”

“My guess would be the same kinds of things that bring it in now. Procedures—radiology, short-term surgery.”

“Were the attending physicians from any particular part of town?”

She stared at me. “I appreciate your persistence, darling, but you’re pressing me for data I simply don’t have. But if we’re still in a betting mood, I’d wager against Watts or Boyle Heights.” She took hold of the fork, speared the abandoned Jell-O. Savored. “How have things been
going for you, my dear? Doing anything interesting other than police work?”

“Some court work,” I said.

“Custody?”

“Custody and injury. One more question, Sal: Did your friend ever mention a doctor who drove a Duesenberg?”

She blinked. “That’s a car.”

I said, “It’s a very expensive car, made in the thirties and forties.”

“I’ve never been much for automobiles, Alex. A fact that greatly distressed my boys when they wanted fancy-shmancy wheels and I insisted on no-frills functionality.” She looked at her watch. “Oops, need to get going.”

Standing on tiptoes, she pecked my cheek hard, marched away, stiff-shouldered, stethoscope swinging.

I called her name but she never broke step.

M
ilo said, “Abortion mill. Plenty of those, back then.”

I said, “This one served wealthy families.”

“Good business model.” He speared a massive forkful of curried lamb, studied the outsized portion as if daring himself. Engulfed, chewed slowly.

We were at Café Moghul, a storefront Indian restaurant on Santa Monica near the station. The bespectacled woman who runs the place believes Milo is a one-man strategic defense system and treats him like a god in need of gastric tribute.

Today, the sacrificial array was crab and chicken and the lamb, enough vegetables to fill a truck garden. The woman came over, smiling as always, and refilled our chai. Her sari was hot pink printed with gold swirls and loops. I’d seen it before. More than once. Over the years, I’ve seen her entire wardrobe but I have no idea what her name is. I’m not sure Milo does, either.

“More of anything, Lieutenant?”

“Fine for the time being.” He snarfed more lamb to prove it, reached for a crab claw.

When the woman left, he said, “Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“I go with Dr. Greiner’s logic. No reason for a baby to be linked to a place like that. Same for Ellie Green, seeing as she worked with kids. Anyone with access to medical equipment coulda gotten hold of that box.”

I said nothing.

He put the claw down hard enough for it to rattle. “What?”

“When I asked Salome if she recalled a doctor who drove a Duesenberg, she tensed up and terminated the conversation and walked out on me.”

“You touched a nerve? Okay, maybe Duesie-man was the guy who worked at Swedish and he was more than a friend and she didn’t want to get into details with you. Was Greiner married back then?”

“Yes.”

“Happily?”

I thought about that. “Don’t know.”

“Kids?”

“Five.”

“What was her husband like?”

“He wrote books about Chaucer.”

“Professor?”

“Never got his Ph.D.”

“How’d he earn a living?”

“He didn’t.”

“Real alpha male, Alex. So she was the breadwinner. So a fellow doc with hot wheels coulda been appealing. She doesn’t want to dredge all that up, so she terminates the tête-à-tête.”

“Why have a tête-à-tête in the first place?” I said. “Why not just talk over the phone?”

“She bothers you that much,” he said.

“I’m not saying Salome did anything criminal. I do think she knows more than she let on.”

“Fine, I respect your intuition. Now, what do you suggest I do about it?”

I had no answer, didn’t have to say so because his phone began playing Debussy. Golliwog’s Cakewalk.

He slapped it to his ear. “Sturgis … oh, hi … really? That was quick … okay … okay … okay … yeah, makes sense … could be … if I need to I’ll try it … no, nothing else from this end. Thanks, kid.”

Clicking off, he snatched up the crab claw, sucked meat, swallowed. “That was Liz Wilkinson. She dates the bones consistent with the clippings. No new evidence of trauma, internal or external, not a single deformity or irregularity. She didn’t find any marrow or soft tissue but will ask DOJ to try to get DNA from the bone tissue. Problem is between budget cuts and backlog, this is gonna go straight to the bottom of the pile. If I want to speed it up, she suggested I ask Zeus to descend from Olympus. Only thing that’ll motivate him is if the media continue to cover the case. And Liz just got a call from a
Times
reporter.”

“The press contacts her but not you?”

“When did you hear me say I wasn’t contacted?” His tongue worked to dislodge food from a molar. Placing the crab claw on a plate piled with empties, he scrolled his phone through a screen of missed calls. The number he selected was from yesterday afternoon.

“Kelly LeMasters? This is Lieutenant Milo Sturgis returning your call on the bones dug up in Cheviot Hills. Nothing new to report, if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

He returned to his food.

I said, “So we forget about Swedish Hospital.”

“I don’t see it leading anywhere, but feel free to pursue. You come up with something juicy, I’ll say it was my idea in the first place.”

An innocuous chime sounded in my pocket. My phone’s turn to join the conversation.

Milo said, “The ringtone era and you’re living in a cave?”

I picked up.

“Hi, Doctor, Louise at your service. Just took one from a Holly Ruche. She said no emergency but to me she sounded kind of upset so I thought I’d be careful.”

“Thanks, Louise.”

“All these years talking to your patients,” she said, “you pick things up. Here’s her number.”

I walked to the front of the restaurant, made the call.

Holly Ruche said, “That was quick. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No bother. What’s up?”

“Is there anything new on the … on what happened at my house?”

“Not yet, Holly.”

“I guess these things take time.”

“They do.”

“That poor little thing.” Sharp intake of breath. “That
baby
. I was all about myself, didn’t even think about it. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. Not that I’m OCD or anything.”

“It’s a tough thing to go through, Holly.”

“But I’m fine,” she said. “I really am … um, would you have time to talk? Nothing serious, just one session to clear things up?”

“Sure.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, thank you. I couldn’t do it tomorrow. Or the day after.”

“What works for you, Holly?”

“Um … say in three days? Four? At your convenience.”

I checked my calendar. “How about three days, one p.m.?”

“Perfect. Um, could I ask what your fee is?”

“Three hundred dollars for a forty-five-minute session.”

She said, “Okay. That’ll work. Seeing as it’s only once. Where’s your office?”

“I work out of my home.” I told her the address. “Off of Beverly Glen.”