Natural Causes (24 page)

"Yeah?" he said.

"It's me."

"Oh, yeah. Stoner. I tried to call you earlier
tonight."

"I went out," I said.

"I've got that phone number you wanted." He
read it off to me.

"Do you know whose it is?" I asked.

"Dover's," he said. "It's his private
phone. The wife told us on Monday. It just slipped my mind."

"He called Marsha on Friday night?"

"That's the way it looks."

"She didn't say anything about it to me."

"Take it up with the lady," Wattle said.
"Oh, by the way, I got some news for you. You know the Mex maid,
the one who found Dover's body?"

"Maria Sanchez?"

"That's the one," he said. "Well,
somebody offed her last night."

"No," I said.

"Yeah. Her and her kid both."

"Jesus. How?"

"Some psycho broke into her house and cut them
up. I don't know all the details. The Pacoima police are handling
it."

"You got their number?"

"Just a sec." He went off the line. When he
came back on, he gave me a number in L.A. county. "Look, Harry,
if there's some connection here, I want to hear about it. This is
murder, man. Can't play footsie on the big Number One."

"I talked to the girl," I said. "On
Thursday night. She told me a few things about Dover. I can't see how
it would have gotten her killed."

"Why not let me be the judge of that?"

I told him what Maria had told me--that Dover hadn't
been in his room on Friday night or on Saturday.

"Well, where was he, then?" Wattle asked.
"I don't know," I said.

"I thought he was working on some TV thing."

"That was a lie."

"Thanks for letting me know."

"I just found out about it myself, Sy. I was
going to tell you. You can forget about TV. At least, I think you
can."

"How 'bout my two hundred bucks?"

"I'll get it to you through Jack."

"Don't you forget, man," he said. "And
if you find out where Dover went, let me know."

He rang off. I put the phone down, laid back on the
bed, and thought about that candlelit room and the little boy, hiding
in his mother's skirt. I took a cigarette from the pack lying on the
nightstand. When I went to light it, I could see my hand shaking in
the matchlight. I blew the match out and smoked for awhile in the
darkness. Then I made the call to the Pacoima police.

I got a duty sergeant named Jackson--a black man by
the sound of his voice. He was cautious but fairly cooperative.

"What can you tell me about the Sanchez
killings," I asked, after I'd given him my name, address, phone
number, social security number, and Sy Goldblum's name and address,
to boot.

"I can read you the official bulletin: `Maria
Sanchez, female, Hispanic, 24, was found dead in her home, 4420
Coronado Avenue, at seven A.M. on Saturday morning. Her son, Rafael,
6, was found dead with her. Homicide is suspected.' "

"Can you tell me how she died?"

"We don't usually give out that information."

"Make an exception," I said. "Call
Goldblum if you want to verify my credentials."

Jackson sighed. Either it was a busy night or I'd
made a convincing case for myself, because he relented. "All
right. She died from burns and stab wounds."

I was sorry I'd asked.

"She was stabbed thirty-two times with a
short-bladed knife. Parts of her body had been painted with plastic
glue--you know, the kind that kids use on model airplanes. The glue
patches had been set on fire. It burns for a long time, man. Like
napalm."

"Jesus," I said, feeling sick. "The
boy, too?"

"The boy first, near as we can tell."

"He was tortured, too?"

"That's the way it looks."

"Do you have any suspects?"

"You get Goldblum to call us," he said.

I took that as a yes. But I didn't press him on it.
He was right. I should have been letting Wattle do the work. I
thanked Jackson for his help and hung up. Then I called Wattle back
and told him I wanted everything he could get on the Sanchez murders.

"What's the big deal?" he said. "Like
you said, I don't see the connection."

"I didn't know how she died before. She was
tortured, Sy. Her kid was tortured to death in front of her eyes."

"This ain't Cincinnati," Wattle said.

"There has to be a reason why she and the boy
were tortured."

"Why?" he said coldly. "Maybe somebody
just wanted to see them suffer. They come like that out here, man. Or
maybe she got on the wrong side of the Mex maf. Those greasers like
to make lasting examples of folks they don't like. You don't really
think this has anything to do with you, do you? Because I hate to be
the one to tell you this, but you're not that big a deal. This is
L.A., man. Nobody gives a shit about you."

I said, "Maybe Dover was the big deal."

"Dover died in the shower," Wattle said.
"Why don't you make yourself useful and find out why his wifey
forgot to tell you about the phone call?"

"I still want to know about the killings."

"All right. But it's gonna cost-"

"Put it on my tab,"
I told him.

***

After I hung up, I went for a drive--to cool out
completely. I thought I'd end up closing some bar, seeing what a few
double Scotches would do for the ache in my small-town gut. But I was
northbound on 71 before I knew it. And then I was off it, on the
oak-lined boulevard that led to her house--to Quentin's house.

I pulled into the driveway, flipped off my lights,
and coasted to a stop in front of the garage. There was moonlight on
the lawn and in the dark, broad-limbed oaks. It was shining on the
rooftops and reflecting off the dormers and leaded casements. I sat
in the car and studied the house, wondering what I was doing there.
It wasn't just Quentin's phone call--that would have waited until
morning. It wasn't just Maria Sanchez and her little boy. I wasn't
sure I wanted to give myself a reason for being at that house. It
might have been a good reason to leave, as well. It was enough that
it was late and that I was low and that I was already there.

That's what I told myself, anyway, as I got out of
the car. But halfway up the walk to the front stoop, I started to
feel foolish. I glanced at my watch--it was past two--and asked
myself again, "What are you doing?" It felt too much like
high school, standing there in the moonlight at two in the morning on
that broad, empty lawn.

I looked up at the second story. A lamp clicked on
behind a moonlit window. The moon disappeared and I could see a
curtain and the shadow of a woman. There was another shadow beside
her. I walked back to the car and got in. As I was backing out of the
driveway, the light went off and the moon reappeared, reflected off
the windowpanes.
 

28

I called the girl the next morning about eleven and
asked if I could come out to talk. She sounded sleepy and hung-over.
She also sounded as if she weren't alone.

"Give me an hour, O.K.?" Marsha said.

Around noon, I drove out to the Dover house. The boy
on the mower was back at it, cutting long parallel lines on the huge
lawn. Sprinklers were on, buzzing and whisking like wasps beneath the
oaks. I walked up to the stoop and tried the doorbell. When no one
answered, I walked around the house, through the topiary garden, to
the terrace stairs. Someone had hung a Dixie cup on Cupid's foot. I
gave it a spin and went up to the pool.

Marsha was sitting on the chaise--a glass of tomato
juice in her right hand. She was wearing those aviator glasses and a
string bikini. I watched myself in the sunglasses as I walked up to
her--a big, sandy-haired man in a short-sleeved shirt and slacks.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," she said back. "Why didn't you
stay last night? That was you wasn't it?"

I looked at her for a moment. "I don't like to
watch."

"Oh, hell, I would have gotten rid of him. It
didn't mean anything, anyway."

"What does, Marsha?" I said it before I
could think about it.

"Lighten up, Harry, will you? That asshole was
kinda hard on me last night, and I got a bad headache. I told you you
were welcome. What more do you want me to say?"

I sat down on the diving board and stared into the
blue, sun-streaked pool. Another Dixie cup was bobbing in the water,
like a small white buoy.

"Quentin called you last Friday."

The girl took her sunglasses off, dangling them in
her free hand. Her eyes looked bruised and puffy, as if she hadn't
slept at all.

"So this is a business visit, right?"

"I guess it is," I said.

She stared at me for a brief second, then flipped the
glasses back on her nose. "I didn't get any phone call on
Friday."

"Don't fuck with me, Marsha. Please? The hotel
has a record of it. So do the cops."

"I don't give a shit what the cops have a record
of," she said. "I didn't get any goddamn phone call."

"Were you out?"

"Yeah," she said sharply. "As a matter
of fact, I was." She pursed her lips and sighed. "I didn't
get the phone call because Quentin left call--forwarding on his
phone--not because I was out. The phone didn't even ring here. It
rang wherever he forwarded the call to. O.K.? I didn't even know
about it until Monday night."

"You mean you didn't use the phone until
Monday?" I asked.

"I don't use that phone at all--the one in
Quentin's study. That's Quentin's phone. It took the phone company a
whole week to get around to fixing it." She giggled. "I
guess you know that, don't you?"

"I guess I do," I said. "How'd you
find out about the call-forwarding?"

"Quentin's cardiologist, Phil Feldman, called me
on Monday evening, after I got back from L.A. Quentin always left
Feldman a number where he could be reached when he went out of
town--it made him feel safer. This time he left him the number of his
study phone. Feldman had been trying to get hold of Quentin since
Saturday and kept getting no answer. So he called me on my line.
Eventually we figured out what was wrong. The phone repairman
explained it to me. Quentin had forwarded his calls, so that the
phone was ringing out on the coast. Somewhere in L.A., I guess."

"Yeah, but why would Quentin call his own phone
on Friday if he was trying to reach someone in L.A.?"

"I don't know," she said.

"And you don't know exactly where Quentin
forwarded his calls to?"

"No," Marsha said. "Maybe Feldman
does. I think he talked to Quentin on Saturday morning. What
difference does it make at this point?"

It made a big difference to me. Those calls might
have been going to wherever Dover had been staying on Friday night
and Saturday, although it was damn odd that he would have used
call-forwarding to reach somebody in L.A. when he could have dialed
directly from the Belle Vista phone.

"I guess I'll have to talk to Feldman," I
said. "Do you know his address?"

"Quentin made me memorize it," she said.
She gave me an address on Burnett, a couple of blocks from the
Delores.

"Is that it with the business?" Marsha
said, getting up off the chaise. She walked over to where I was
sitting and kissed me hungrily on the mouth.

"Don't you ever get enough?" I said, when
she came up for air.

"Aw, don't be shitty, Harry. Please?"

She stared at me for a moment. "Why'd you come
out here last night?"

"I heard some bad news," I said. "I
wanted some company."

"Yeah, but why me?"

"I don't know why."

"Sure you do." She stretched her arms above
her head and her breasts rose beneath the light bikini halter. "Just
like me. You wanted some more."

"I guess I did," I admitted.

"So why don't we do it?"

"'Cause I gotta go talk to Dr. Feldman."

"Oh, don't go," she said. "Please? I'm
sorry about last night. I didn't know you were going to come back."

"I'll come out later."

"I don't need you later," she said. "I
need you now. I don't feel good. I can't sleep. Just stick around
until I fall asleep, O.K.?"

I couldn't help thinking
about the night she'd asked Connie to stay with her--to keep her from
having bad dreams. As beautiful as she was, I didn't want to be her
babysitter. I didn't know what I wanted to be to Marsha Dover. But I
didn't want to leave her alone, either.

***

We ended up making love--that was almost a given with
Marsha--in a big bed with bolster pillows and pale blue silk sheets.
I watched her face as I screwed her-that beautiful, blonde child's
face. She kept her eyes squeezed shut while we made love-not
fluttering shut as if she were fantasizing, but shut tight as if she
were afraid to open them. When she came, she turned her head back and
forth on the pillow and pushed me away from her with the palms of her
hands, as if she needed room to breath. Her hips never stopped
moving. I came immediately after she did.