Silent Partner (48 page)

"Milo, I don't know what's true and what's not. But even if Belding was dead, Magna lived on.

Lots of money and power to leech off. Let's say Kruse leaned on the corporation. On Billy Vidal."

"Why'd they let him get away with it for twelve years? Why'd they let him live?"

"I've been turning that over in my mind and I still can't come up with an answer. The only thing I can come up with was that Kruse also had something on Vidal's sister, something they couldn't risk coming out. She endowed his professorship, set him up as department head. I've been told it was gratitude—he treated a child of hers, but in her husband's obituary there was no mention of children. Maybe she remarried and had some—I was going to check on that before I found out about Willow Glen."

"Maybe," said Milo, "the Blalock thing is just a cover— Vidal using his sister as a screen, with the payoff really coming from Magna."

"Maybe, but that still doesn't explain why they let him get away with it for so long."

He got up, paced, drank beer, had another.

"So," I said, "what do you think?"

"What I think is you've got something there. What I also think is we may never get to the bottom of it. People thirty years in the grave. And it all depends on Belding being the daddy. How the hell you going to verify that?"

"I don't know."

He paced some more, said, "Let's get back to the here and now for a sec. Why did Ransom kill herself?"

"Maybe it was grief over Kruse's death. Or maybe it wasn't suicide. I know there's no proof—I'm just hypothesizing."

"What about the Kruse killings? Like we said before, Rasmussen's not exactly your corporate hit man."

"The only reason we latched on to Rasmussen was that he talked about doing terrible things around the time the Kruses were murdered."

"Not just that," he said. "Asshole had a history of violence, killed his own father. I liked all that psych stuff you dished out—killing Daddy all over again."

"To paraphrase an expert, that ain't evidence, pal. Given Rasmussen's history, terrible things could mean anything."

Page 291

"Fucking pretzel," he said. " 'Round and around." "There's someone who could clear it up for us." "Vidal?"

"Alive and well in El Segundo."

"Right," Milo said. "Let's just waltz into his office and announce to his secretary's assistant's gofer that we want an audience with the big boss—friendly little chat about child abandonment, blackmail, inheritance claims, multiple murder."

I threw up my hands, went to get a beer of my own. "Don't get miffed," he called after me. "I'm not trying to piss on your parade, just striving to keep things logical." "I know, I know. It's just damned frustrating." "How she died, or the things she did when she was alive?"

"Both, Sergeant Freud."

He used his finger to draw a happy face in the frost of his glass. "Something else. The twin photo—how old were the girls in it?" "About three."

"So they couldn't have been separated from birth, Alex. Meaning either both were cared for by someone else, or both were given to the Ransoms. So what the hell happened to the sister?"

"Helen Leidecker never mentioned a second girl living in Willow Glen." "Did you ask her?"

"No."

"Didn't bring up the picture?" "No. She seemed..." "Honest?"

"No. It just didn't come up." He said nothing. "Okay," I said, "flunk me in Freshman Interrogation."

"Easy," he said. "Just trying to get a clear picture."

"If you get one, share it with me. Goddammit, Milo, maybe the damned picture wasn't even Sharon and her sister. I don't know what the hell is real anymore."

He let me stew, then said, "Suggesting you let go of it all would be stupid, I suppose."

I didn't answer.

"Before you indulge yourself in self-contempt, Alex, why not just give the Leidecker woman a call? Ask her about the picture, and if you get a weird reaction, that'll be the tip-off that she hasn't been Honest Annie. Which could mean more cover-up—as in the twin was hurt under suspicious circumstances and she's trying to protect someone."

"Who? The Ransoms? I don't see them as abusers."

"Not abusers—neglecters. You yourself said they weren't parent material, could barely cope with one kid. Two would have been impossible. What if they turned their back at the wrong moment and one twin had an accident?"

"As in drowning?"

Page 292

"As in."

My head was spinning. I'd crammed all night, was still floundering___

Milo leaned over and patted my shoulder. "Don't fret. Even if we can't take it to court, we can always sell it to the movies. Show Dickie Cash the way it's done."

"Call my agent," I said.

"Have your people call my people and let's take a power bran muffin."

I forced a smile. "Have you checked Port Wallace birth records yet?"

"Not yet. If you're right about Lanier going home to have her baby, hometown would be the perfect place— assuming she never read Thomas Wolfe. How about you give a call down there and see what you come up with? Start with the Chamber of Commerce and find out the names of any hospitals doing business back in '53. If you're lucky and they hold on to records, a little lying will

pry it out of them—say you're some kind of bureaucrat. They'll do anything to get rid of you. If nothing pans out, check out the county registrar."

"Call Helen; call Port Wallace. Any more assignments, sir?"

"Hey, you want to play sleuth, develop a taste for the tedious stuff." "The safe stuff?"

He scowled. "Damn right, Alex. Think back to what the Kruses and the Escobar girl looked like. And how fast the Fontaines lit out for Coconut Country. If you're right about a tenth of this, we're dealing with people with very long arms."

He made a circle with thumb and forefinger, released the finger as if flicking away a speck of dust. "Poof. Life is fragile—something / got from Freshman Philosophy. Stay inside; keep your doors locked. Don't take candy from strangers."

He rinsed out his bowl, put it in the drainer. Saluted and began to leave.

"Where are you off to?" "Got something I have to follow up on." "The something that kept you from calling Port Wallace? Stalking the wild Trapp?" He glowered at me.

I said, "Rick assured me you're going to get him." "Rick should stick to cutting up people for fun and profit. Yeah, I'm gunning for the scrote, found a soft spot. On top of his other virtues, he has a penchant for females of the underage persuasion." "How underage?"

"Teenage jailbait. When he was back in Hollywood Division he was heavily into the Police Scouts—earned himself a departmental commendation for public service beyond the call of blah blah. Part of that service was providing personal guidance to some of the more comely young lady scouts."

"How'd you find this out?"

Page 293

"Classic source: disgruntled former employee. Female

officer, Hispanic, couple of years behind me in the academy. She used to work the Hollywood Evidence Room, took leave to have a baby. After she returned, Trapp made her life so miserable, she opted for stress disability and quit. Few years ago I ran into her downtown, day of her final hearing. Racking my brains for a hook into Trapp made me remember. She really hated him. I looked her up and paid her a visit. She's married to an accountant, got a fat little kid, nice split level in Simi Valley. But even after all these years, talking about Trapp made her eyes bulge. He used to grope her, make racist comments—how Mexican girls lost their virginity before their baby teeth, what brown-nose really means—all of it delivered in a Tio Taco accent."

"Why didn't she report it when it was happening?"

"Why didn't all those kids at Casa de los Ninos tell anyone what was happening to them? Fear.

Intimidation. Back then the city didn't believe in sexual harassment. Filing a complaint would have meant exposing her entire sexual history to Internal Affairs and the press, and she'd been known to party. These days her consciousness is raised. She realizes how badly she got screwed and is sitting on a lot of rage. But she hasn't talked about it to anyone—certainly not hubby.

After she spilled her guts, she made me swear I wouldn't drag her into anything, so I've got knowledge that I can't use. But if I can find corroboration, the bastard's good as gone."

He walked to the door. "And that, my friend, is where I'm choosing to focus my extracurricular attention."

"Good luck."

"Yeah. I'll work it from my end; maybe it'll all connect and we'll meet in Gloccamorra.

Meanwhile, watch your rear."

"You too, Sturgis. Yours ain't scorchproof."

I got Helen Leidecker's number from San Bernadino information. No answer. Frustrated but relieved—I hadn't relished testing her integrity—I found a United States atlas and located Port Wallace, Texas in the southernmost

part of the state, just west of Laredo. A faint black speck on the Texas side of the Rio Grande.

I called the operator for the South Texas area code, dialed 512 information, and asked for the Port Wallace Chamber of Commerce.

"One second, sir," came the drawled reply, followed by clicks and several computer squeaks.

"No such listing, sir."

"Are there any government offices listed in Port Wallace?"

"I'll check, sir." Click. "A United States Post Office, sir."

"Ill take that."

Page 294

"Hold for that number, sir."

I called the post office. No answer there either. Checked my watch. Eight A.M. here, two hours later there. Maybe they believed in the leisurely life.

I called again. Nothing. So much for my assignments. But there was still plenty to do.

The research library had a single listing for Neurath, Donald. A 1951 book on fertility published by a university press and housed, across campus, in the biomedical library. The date and subject matter fit, but it was hard to reconcile an abortionist with the author of something that scholarly.

Nevertheless, I made the trek to BioMed, consulted the Index Medicus, and found two other articles on fertility, authored in 1951 and 1952 by a Donald Neurath with a Los Angeles address.

The L.A. County Medical Association Directory features photos of members. I found the one from 1950 and flipped to the

N's.

His face jumped out at me, slicked hair, pencil-line mustache, and lemon-sucking expression, as if life had treated him poorly. Or maybe it was living too close to the edge.

His office was on Wilshire, just where Crotty had put it. A member of AMA, education at a first-rate medical school, excellent internship and residency, an academic appointment at the school that loosely employed me.

The two faces of Dr. N.

Another split identity.

I hurried to the BioMed stacks, found his book and the two articles. The former was an edited compendium of current fertility research. Eight chapters by other doctors, the last one by Neurath.

His research involved the treatment of infertility with injections of sex hormones to stimulate ovulation—revolutionary stuff during a period in which human fertility remained a medical mystery. Neurath emphasized this, listed previous treatments as slapshot and generally unsuccessful: endometrial biopsies, surgical enlargement of the pelvic veins, implantation of radioactive metal in the uterus, even long-term psychoanalysis combined with tranquilizers to overcome "ovulation-blocking anxiety stemming from hostile mother-daughter identification."

Though researchers had begun to make a connection between sex hormones and ovulation as early as the 1930's, experimentation had been limited to animals.

Neurath had taken it a step further, injecting half a dozen barren women with hormones obtained from the ovaries and pituitaries of female cadavers. Combining the injections with a regimen of temperature-taking and blood tests in order to get a precise fix on the time of ovulation. After several months of repeated treatments, three of the women became pregnant.

Two suffered miscarriages, but one carried a healthy baby to term.

While stressing that his findings were preliminary and needed to be replicated by controlled studies, Neurath suggested that hormonal manipulation promised hope for childless couples and
Page 295

should be attempted on a large scale.

The 1951 article was a shorter version of the book chapter. The one from '52 was a letter to the editor, responding to the '51 article, by a group of doctors who complained that Neurath's treating of humans was prema- ture, based on flimsy data, and his findings were tainted by poor research design. Medical science, the letter

emphasized, knew little about the effects of gonadotropic hormones on general health. In addition to not helping his patients, Neurath might very well be endangering them.

He countered with a four-paragraph retort that boiled down to: the ends justified the means. But he hadn't published further.

Fertility and abortion.

Neurath giveth; Neurath taketh away.

Power on an intoxicating level. Power lust loomed as the motivating force behind so many of the lives that had brushed up against Sharon's.

I wanted very much to speak to Dr. Donald Neurath. Looked him up in the current County Directory and found nothing. I kept backtracking. His last entry was 1953.

Very busy year.

I searched the Journal of the American Medical Association for obituaries. Neurath's was in the June 1, 1954 issue. He'd died in August of the previous year, age forty five, of unspecified causes, while vacationing in Mexico.

Same month, same year as Linda Lanier and brother Cable.

The effects of gonadotropic hormones...

Ahead of his time.

Pieces began to fall into place. A new slant on an old problem-improbable, but it explained so many other things. I thought of something else, another part of the puzzle crying out for solution. Left BioMed and headed for the north side of campus. Running, feeling light-footed, for the first time in a long time.

The Special Collections Room was in the basement of the research library, down a long quiet hall that discouraged casual drop-ins. Smallish, cool, humidity-controlled, furnished with dark oak reading tables that matched the raised panels on the walls. I showed my faculty card and my requisition slip to the librarian. He went searching and came back shortly with everything I wanted, handed me two pencils and a pad of lined paper, then went back to studying his chemistry book.