Burning Garbo

by Robert Eversz

  “Yes you are! It’s not just that you’ve wasted my time and played hell with my emotions. Nothing you’ve done has helped, and nothing you’ve said has turned out to be true. Let’s just cut the bullshit and look at what’s happened. You’ve been arrested for arson, wild rumors are being printed in the tabloids about my aunt’s death, Ben’s in the hospital, and his home’s in ruins.”

  “That’s all my fault?”

  “It all comes back to you, to the lies you’ve told.”

  “Lies? When have I—”

  “The two guys on the hill the day of the fire? Everything Ben and I thought and did came from the belief that you were telling the truth, that there were two guys on that hill who might have murdered my aunt. Well, guess what? You’re the only one who saw them. Nobody else saw them and nothing proves they exist.”

  “But Ben found one of them, put him in his mug—”

  “Ben doesn’t remember, does he? And it doesn’t matter anyway, because you just point to a guy who looks like the fantasy arsonist you described and say, That’s him. Who’s to know the difference? And the guy who supposedly attacked you in Douglas? Funny but you’re the only one who saw him, too.”

  “I’m not telling lies, and I’m not inventing things. Lupe was just murdered, remember?”

  “And who’s to say you didn’t kill him?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe he saw you that day. Maybe Detective Claymore was right. Maybe you lit the match that killed my aunt after all.”

  I walked back to my car, opened the door, stuck the key into the ignition, stared out the windshield. I thought about going back to say good-bye to Ben but couldn’t work up the will to do it. After a while, I strapped on my seat belt and started the engine. The Rott must have sensed my depression, because he dropped his head onto my lap and didn’t move it, except for the occasional attempt to lick my face during the ride to Beverly Hills. “That’s one of the things I like about dogs,” I said. He looked up at me. I gave him a pat. “You get to know one, you can depend on him. He’ll get up the same time most mornings, want to do the same things he does every morning. You feed him, he’ll eat. You take him outside, he’ll want to run. You call him, he’ll come to you.” I looked down at the Rott. His big eyes looked back at me. “Well, maybe he won’t always come to you, but he won’t turn around and bite you for no good reason either. Not like people. Not like people at all.”

  At a stoplight I lifted the mobile phone from my jacket pocket. A business card dropped onto the seat beside me, pulled out with the phone. I didn’t recognize the name at first, just the title. Paramedic. The red-haired paramedic had given me his home phone number the night Ben’s trailer went down, said to give him a call if I was feeling any pain. As though I’d actually give him a call. I tore the card in half, then in half again. The pieces fluttered to the floor.

  I dialed Dr. Scarpers.

  I waited thirty minutes in the lobby of Dr. Scarper’s Beverly Hills office, sandwiched between patients who looked cut from the pages of the glamour magazines and entertainment trades they thumbed, before the hygienist popped over the reception counter to call my name. She led me down the hall and into the dentist’s office. Before I had a chance to sit Dr. Scarpers brushed past the door, pulling a pair of latex gloves from her hands. “Let’s make it fast. I’m working from a full appointment calendar today.” She bumped the door shut with her hip and hovered at the corner of the desk.

  “Was I completely wrong?”

  She must have heard some anguish in my voice because she stilled long enough to appraise me with a glance, her eyes enormous behind her heavy black glasses and, for a moment at least, compassionate. “Honestly, I can’t say one way or the other,” she said and waved me into a chair before sitting behind her desk. “The coroner is satisfied he made the right decision, and I couldn’t prove otherwise.”

  “You examined the file yourself?”

  “The coroner was not interested in raising questions about the identification. He gave me five minutes to verify whether or not the contents of the file came from my office. That gave me time to check the X rays and the chart but nothing else.” She lifted a gilt dental probe from the penholder beside her computer monitor and, bracing the base of her palm against the desk, scraped beneath the nail of her left index finger, the task giving her a moment to think and, perhaps, to decide whether or not to level with me. “As I told you before, there’s nothing particularly individual about an X ray, except the teeth themselves. The film isn’t stamped with the date or patient’s name. That information is affixed by printed or handwritten labels. The X ray from one office is going to look the same as one from any other office. A forgery can be discovered only by checking the contents of the X rays, and even then, someone who knows what they’re doing can duplicate the work from one mouth to another, if he has a model to work from.”

  “Creating the time line you were talking about before,” I said when her pause extended long enough for me to show I understood.

  “The X rays I examined showed a reasonable progression of care. Somebody hadn’t simply taken seven panoramics of the same mouth on the same day and slapped different dates on them. The records of the teeth themselves changed. Starting from the first panoramic, dated 1980, each subsequent X ray showed some work had been done during the intervening years, except a few that showed no new work, which is reasonable. People don’t always develop cavities between X rays.”

  “And the hand chart, the one with the red and blue pencil marks?”

  “Matched the work seen on the X rays perfectly.”

  “Then the identification was correct,” I said, feeling stupid. “The teeth in the X ray are Doubleday’s, and the X rays matched the teeth found in the ruins of her estate.”

  Dr. Scarpers lurched forward and returned her dental probe to the penholder. “You can come to that conclusion if you wish. The coroner certainly did.”

  “And you?”

  She stood with an abruptness that brought me to my feet, too. “And me? I’m late for my next appointment,” she said.

  I put my hand on the knob, as though I intended to swing open the door and leave, but instead turned and leaned against the jamb. “Something didn’t fit,” I said. “What was it?”

  “You’re persistent,” she said.

  I nodded. Nothing if not that.

  “I didn’t have time to check whether the work I’d billed matched the time line of the X rays.”

  Her glance pinned mine, her enormous eyes charmingly ghoulish, curious whether or not I’d figure it out.

  “So the only thing you verified was that there was no obvious forgery, that they could have been Doubleday’s records. You didn’t prove that they in fact were her records.”

  “Correct. I did observe one discrepancy in the file, specifically in the first panoramic, dated 1980. Ms. Doubleday was twenty-nine years old then, but that first X ray showed a mouth with more than twice the usual amount of dental work.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning nothing, because I can’t swear that Doubleday didn’t come to me in that condition. Meaning if you want the coroner to agree to a more thorough examination, you’ll have to come up with proof that Doubleday is either alive or buried elsewhere.”

  She reached for the door then, and I allowed myself to be ushered into the hall. She walked me as far as the reception counter, and when I turned to thank her one last time, she asked, “Now why would somebody have twice as much dental work as the average person of the same age?”

  My tongue ran along the back of my teeth, remembering the many cavities I’d suffered through. “She didn’t remember to brush and floss regularly?”

  She shook her head as though I’d disappointed her. “And?”

  I didn’t think it through so much as wait for it to occur to me. “Because you were looking at the combined dental work from two mouths,” I said, “or the mouth of someone much older than twenty-nine.”

  She pursed
her lips and pulled her head back, as though the idea had never occurred to her. “Really?” She smiled mischievously. She’d been baiting me. “That would be clever, wouldn’t it? But how do you prove it? How do you convince the coroner to let me prove it?” She flapped her hand at me once, a mixed gesture of dismissal and goodbye, and slipped through a doorway off the hall.

  As I walked toward my car in the lot the mobile phone vibrated in my jacket pocket. I didn’t recognize the number flashing on the display and picked up to a tentative voice, unsure he’d reached the right number. “Hello? I’m calling about the dog? The Rottweiler?”

  I said, “What about it?”

  “Well …” The voice hesitated, surprised, perhaps, by the sharpness of my tone. “I think it’s mine. You put the poster up, right? That’s how I got your number. Black Rottweiler, male, two years old, brown markings on the chest? Oh, and no teeth, of course that’s the most obvious characteristic.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  “You have him, then? The children will be so happy.”

  The dog ran away from me, I wanted to say. I took him for a walk on the beach and he bolted. I’m so sorry. I said, “Children?”

  “Two. Five and seven years old. They’ve been heartbroken.”

  “Describe the collar.”

  “I understand, you need to be sure.” The voice spoke with the confidence of a good memory. “Brown leather collar, silver tag engraved with the name, Dog.”

  “Why Dog? What kind of name is that?”

  His laugh had a smug sound, as though he’d answered the same question many times. “It was the only name our five-year-old could pronounce at the time. His full name is Dogbert, after the comic-strip character in Dilbert, but the kids just call him Dog.”

  I could tell him things had changed, I wasn’t interested in giving up the dog, tough luck for him and his kids. All he had was the number of my cell. Easy enough to change numbers.

  “I’d be happy to offer a reward,” the voice said.

  “The only reward I need is to be sure he’s going to a good home. You mind telling me what happened with his teeth?”

  “The vet said it was a rare gum disease, even suggested we put him down. But that would have broken the kids’ hearts, so we spent what had to be spent and nursed him back to health. He’s been eating well with you?”

  “A couple pounds of hamburger every day.”

  “I’m so glad you found him. We’ve all been terribly worried. Could you bring him by my office early this evening? We’re working late. Anytime between now and eight P.M.”

  I said, “Okay.”

  “My name is Dr. Trip Payne. That’s P-A-Y-N-E.”

  He gave me his address, Santa Monica Boulevard near Saint John’s Hospital. I told him I’d be there before eight and hung up the phone, thinking I didn’t have to show up, I could drop my phone down the nearest storm drain and never hear from him again. The Rott barked once as I approached, a short protest that he’d been locked too long in the car. I drove south and then west, skirting Santa Monica Boulevard in a wide circle, to Venice Beach. The Rott didn’t know anything was wrong, and I was careful to keep the worry from my voice. I walked him toward the pier, through the clusters of Rollerbladers, bicyclists, surfers, Tai Chi practitioners, lovers, and meditative strollers who congregate at the beach each day at sunset. When we reached the sand I unclipped his leash, and he got a five-mile run chasing seagulls, who flapped from his leaping jaws at the last moment, lazily circled the waves, then landed another few hundred yards up the beach, again out of reach. He would have chased them until he dropped dead, the dumb animal.

  I settled into the sand and called him to my side. He trotted up to me willingly enough, tongue hanging loose from his mouth like a red rag. “I should have known you had family somewhere when I saw you with Arlanda’s kids,” I told him. I gripped the mobile phone in one hand, scratched his ear with the other. “I’m happy you got family. You’re a good dog. You deserve people who love you.” I watched the sun burn, enormous and oblong, to shimmering extinction at the ocean’s end. “We’ve had a good time together, haven’t we? We made a good pair. You understand this has nothing to do with how I feel about you. Part of me wants to throw this stupid phone into the waves, right now. A big part. But I can’t do that. Even though I’d take care of you and love you like my own dog if I could. I know that would be the best thing for me. To keep you. But it wouldn’t be the best thing I could do for you. I live in a tiny apartment, and when the landlord throws me out, I’ll move to another tiny apartment, because it’s all I can afford. I work out of my car, and when I’m not in my car, I’m on the street or working assignments where I can’t take you. You spend most of your time in the car, waiting for me to get back, and what kind of a life is that? No life for a big dog like yourself. The guy who called, he’s a doctor with a family, probably owns a big house with a yard you can run around whenever you want. You’ll be happier with them. Sure, you might miss me, but you’ll be happy to see them, too. In a couple of days, you’ll forget about me. It’s the right thing to do. It sucks, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  My throat constricted and my vision blurred as I drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard toward Saint John’s Hospital. My chest convulsed too, and it had been so long since I’d felt anything like it, I didn’t realize at first what was happening. I’d been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years, abandoned by friends and family, and within one month of my release I’d married, fallen into a warped kind of love, and witnessed my husband stretched out dead on the shores of Lake Hollywood. I had not cried, not once, not on the witness stand when called upon to testify in my defense, not alone in the privacy of my prison cell, not while I knelt above the body of my husband, and not when the cop who interrogated me afterward said my obvious lack of emotion implicated me in his murder. I had not cried in terror, pain, grief, or indignation. And now I was choking up in my car because I had to return a stray dog to his rightful owner.

  Even stone cracks when the right seam is struck.

  My mobile phone vibrated in my jacket pocket and I answered, hoping it might be the doctor calling to tell me he had changed his mind, I could keep the dog if I wanted him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you got into trouble out of state?” It was my parole officer, outraged. “I just got a call from a sheriff in Cochise County, asking all kinds of questions about you.”

  “I followed the rules. I checked in.”

  “What are you getting yourself involved in?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You call someone breaking into your hotel room with a knife nothing?”

  “The local law seemed to think the guy was a lost drunk.”

  “The local law didn’t know you were a paroled felon with a record of violence when he interviewed you.”

  “Like I said, I checked in.”

  “I got another call this morning, from an LASD detective working assaults, said you and another man were the victims of vehicular assault in Pacific Palisades, involving—and I had a hard time believing this one—a house trailer and a bulldozer?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “The other victim was hospitalized, and you didn’t even bother to report this to me?”

  “I forgot.”

  “Spare me the crap. Where are you, right now?”

  I didn’t see a reason to lie to her

  “Santa Monica.”

  “You are the subject of four separate police investigations. Four. I’ve been around enough to know what you’re doing here. What are the odds that you’ll duck charges on all four? Do you want to COP?”

  COP was parole-speak for “continue on parole.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “You will. You’re heading for a parole violation, and not a small one either. When that happens I won’t stand, up for you, not again. I won’t COP you. You need to take a long, hard look at your life. If you don’t, you’ll go stra
ight to jail, do you understand me? It’s just a matter of time.”

  “I’m not asking you to do me any special favors. I’m not asking you to COP me. You want to call the police, have them come and get me now, before I hurt somebody? Maybe that’s what you should do. You can threaten me with prison all you want. It doesn’t scare me. I’ve already been there. I survived it. Maybe I belong in prison, you know? Maybe that’s the best place for scum like me.” I didn’t realize I was shouting until I pulled up at a red light, heard my voice above the still traffic.

  “We need face time, right now. Be at your apartment in one hour.”

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Break it.”

  “I have to give Baby back. I can’t break it.”

  “Wait a minute, that’s your dog, the Rottweiler?”

  “The owner’s expecting me.”

  “You have to give your dog away?”

  “Yes!”

  I was shouting again.

  “Where are you meeting the owner?”

  I recited the address.

  “This is what we’ll do. First, I want you to get a hold of yourself. Maybe I don’t give you enough credit sometimes. You’re a smart girl. You know people can do bad things when under stress. So I want you to pull off the side of the road if you have to, take deep breaths until you feel you can control yourself. If you get to the address before I do, go ahead, meet the owner. I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot when you get out. If I’m not there, wait for me. Is that clear?”

  I said it was.

  “Okay then. Do it. You’ll be fine.”

  I parked in the lot behind the courtyard building where Dr. Payne held his practice and leashed the Rott. I didn’t give him one last hug and I didn’t think about what I was going to do. It felt like I was jumping off a cliff, and if I thought about it, I wouldn’t do it. The knob to Payne’s door turned in my hand, the office open late as promised. I tugged the leash to let the Rott in first. The overheads in the waiting room had been dimmed but a bright light spilled into the hallway from an area behind the reception desk. I called hello repeatedly, my voice bouncing back louder each time from the empty hallway. A shadow jutted into the hall and its voice said, “Just a minute.”