I stepped over a plastic box filled with computer disks that had been overturned, its lid cracked.
“Have you called hospital security?”
“No, and I’m not going to.” Her voice sounded determined.
Her position was hard to understand. The place was a shambles. Even if it did turn out to be a histrionic doctor, the hospital should know it had granted privileges to some nutcase. So why didn’t she want to tell anybody? It didn’t make sense . . . unless she was hiding something.
Francine walked around the room, randomly picking up a couple of dozen medical charts, fumbling to keep the metal cover brackets from snagging the silk of her jacket. Then she slipped them into the drawer of a nearby desk.
“I don’t think we should touch anything,” I warned. “I think we should find Dr. Polk.”
Francine paused for a moment. Near her foot was a coffee cup with its handle broken off. It read, Worrier Princess. She picked it up, along with the broken handle, and set it on a cart.
She frowned in frustration. “I told you, I don’t know where he is.”
“Have you called his home?”
Francine reached to quiet a tic that had begun pulsing under her left eye. “I called his wife, for all the good it did.” The comment had a clear implication, as in she-devil, wife from hell. “She was in Santa Barbara for the weekend and just got back. She claims she doesn’t know where he is.”
“You sound like you think his wife is lying about his whereabouts.”
“I didn’t say that. She probably doesn’t know—or care.”
I could barely keep the panic out of my voice. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me nobody knows where he is? What about a pager? A cell phone? A homing pigeon? Help me out here.”
Her eyes filled, and a tear splashed onto her cheek. She dotted it away with a middle finger. I noted she was careful not to smudge her blush.
“I tried his pager. He won’t answer.” She began searching in the folds of lavender silk for something but came up empty. Still sniffing, avoiding my eyes, she located a box of tissue on a nearby desk. The box was crushed but still dispensing.
I softened my voice because I felt guilty for making her cry. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Friday,” she said, kneading the tissue. “Dr. Polk left early. He seemed upset. Said he’d come back, but he didn’t. When I came in this morning, his tux was still hanging on the back of his office door. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
Friday was three days ago. My mouth felt dry, but I managed to say, “From a tux on a door?”
“He had a dinner on Saturday,” she said. “An important one. Black tie.”
Attending a formal dinner with his wife out of town? Not unheard of, but a little odd. Polk had never discussed his family or anything else about his personal life with me. Maybe he and his spouse had an open marriage, or maybe Francine had her information wrong. Wrong or not, it was strange that Francine seemed to know more about the doctor’s schedule than his wife did.
“He could have changed his mind and worn a suit,” I offered.
“He wouldn’t have done that. He was meeting someone.”
“Like who?”
She formed a cage around her mouth with her fingers and stared at me for a moment. “I don’t know. But this feels bad.”
My palms felt sweaty, and I had to remind myself to breathe. I didn’t need to hear “bad.” I needed to hear “good.” “Bad” was not good.
“Have you called the police?”
“What good would it do?”
“It would do good if it’s bad,” I said. “Maybe he was in a car accident, in the hospital, can’t remember who he is, crying out your name.”
I was working myself into a hissy fit. I imagined finding Polk on his deathbed with me at his side, whispering in his ear the last words he’d ever hear: “WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY FRIGGING LIFE?”
Francine moistened her lips and swallowed audibly. “I don’t want the police.”
Did she have police phobia or just a case of denial? Hard to tell. I didn’t buy her crazed-doctor theory, but I didn’t have time to worry about it, either. If Milton Polk had the original NeuroMed documents, I had to get them back, and the only way to do that was to find him. Maybe Francine had misunderstood about the dinner. Maybe Polk had gone to Las Vegas to hustle showgirls. But a horrible feeling had begun churning in the pit of my stomach, telling me I wasn’t going to find him anytime soon.
By now, Francine’s tissue was in shreds. She looked completely defeated, and for a moment I wondered if there was more than employee loyalty that kept her tied to the doctor.
“Go ahead, then,” she said. “Call the police if you want, but I don’t want them coming here.”
Didn’t want them coming here? Did she actually think I could control the Los Angeles Police Department? Not even the chief could do that. The truth was, I didn’t know if someone would take the report over the telephone or in person. All I knew as I dialed the number was that my hands were trembling.
A female officer answered my call. She asked a lot of questions that I couldn’t answer, like what had Polk been wearing when he disappeared, and who had seen him last. In the middle of describing the scar on Polk’s chin, I was abruptly transferred to a detective named Kleinman. Francine clamped her lips together as she listened to a long series of “uh-huhs” before I hung up.
“What’s the matter?” Her voice was strained. “Why didn’t you finish? What did he say?”
“He doesn’t think Dr. Polk’s missing,” I said cautiously.
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
“Someone’s coming over. They want to show us some pictures.”
“Pictures?” she said. “What on earth for?”
Well, that was the hard part: the “What on earth for?” Poor Francine. Poor me. Amazing how much deeper the shit I was in had just become.
5
i’d told Francine that the police were coming to the Center to show us some pictures, but I hadn’t told her everything Detective Kleinman had said, especially not the part about a body that had been found on the beach near the Venice pier late Sunday evening, and definitely not the part about Kleinman suspecting that the body was Milton Polk’s. I didn’t tell her, partly because it was hard enough to deal with my own shock over Polk’s death. Francine had been devoted to him, and I didn’t know how she’d react. I decided to let the police handle it.
Lucky for me, Francine didn’t ask any further questions about my conversation with Kleinman. She was obviously in denial. After I hung up the telephone, she stepped up her efforts to tidy up the office. I tried to persuade her to let the police look around first, to make sure we weren’t contaminating a crime scene, but she was adamant that there had been no break-in. It was true that there were no signs of forced entry. So maybe she was right. Still, I felt apprehensive, even as I pitched in to help her sort through the debris. After a while, Francine took a stack of patient charts, walked down the hallway to her office, and closed the door. I left her alone.
I’d been gone from my office long enough to be missed, so I used my cell phone to check in, but Gordon was out and Marsha-the-Popsicle-queen hadn’t heard anything about the attorney meeting. I gave her my number, but she seemed on edge, so I didn’t keep her on the line. I wasn’t sure what to tell Gordon anyway. He didn’t even know that the NeuroMed documents were missing—maybe permanently missing. Even if they were still around somewhere, with Polk dead, finding them and getting Mo Whitener off our backs was going to be difficult if not impossible.
At least an hour or more had passed since I’d spoken with the detective. Francine was still in her office, and I was beginning to wonder if Kleinman had forgotten about us when I heard two quick taps on wood. Before I could react, the door opened and a man entered. He was on the far side of forty, five ten, thinning brown hair, and a neat little mustache on a face with enough crags and crannies to qualify as interestin
g. He was wearing sharply creased black slacks, a matching houndstooth check sports jacket, and a tie that looked snappy but not flashy. As a package, he wasn’t all that bad, except for his hairstyle, which definitely needed an update to one of the more recent decades.
“Detective Duane Kleinman, LAPD,” he said. “Are you . . . ?” He consulted a small spiral notebook.
“Tucker Sinclair,” I said.
He looked up from his notebook and studied me. The hint of a smile trailed across his lips, as if he liked what he saw. Then he pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to me. When I read his title, a tingling sensation crept up my neck.
“This says you’re a homicide detective.”
“That’s right.”
“You think Dr. Polk was murdered?”
“We don’t even know if it’s your missing doc yet,” he said. “Like I told you on the phone, he wasn’t carrying a wallet. I’d like you to take a look, but I have to warn you, he’s a little banged up.”
I didn’t want him to think I was a wuss, so I said, “Don’t worry about me.”
Kleinman pulled a Polaroid photo from his coat pocket and placed it on the desk in front of me. I leaned over to get a better look. The face of the man in the picture was gray. No, not gray exactly. It was more like colorless, except for a purple, gooey hole in the forehead. The features were barely recognizable. Part of his nose was missing. His eye sockets were empty, gaping holes. His mouth stretched into a macabre grin. He was wearing off-the-rack brown polyester that could have belonged to any of a thousand men, except that it didn’t. Even if I hadn’t spotted that familiar crescent scar on his chin, I’d have known by the suit that the man in the photo was Milton Polk.
Ambient noise in my head blocked out all other sounds. A blend of fascination and revulsion kept my eyes fixed on the picture until my face contorted and my throat began to close. Only one question stormed through my head: Was the trashcan within barfing distance? Firm hands gripped my shoulders and guided me to a chair.
“That him, ma’am?”
I looked into Kleinman’s hazel eyes and nodded. “Where’s his nose?” This was good. This was investigative reporter stuff.
“Fish,” he said. “Looks like he was in the water for at least twenty-four hours.”
“What happened?”
“He drowned, according to the autopsy.”
I’d never seen an autopsy, but imagining Polk on a dissecting table brought back painful memories of tenth-grade biology, a dead frog, and what I had to do to get an A.
“He’s got a hole in his head.” I said it as though I were telling Kleinman something he didn’t know.
His voice was gentle, more so than I expected. “Body gets tossed around pretty good in the surge. Could have hit something sharp while he was down there. Like rocks or debris.”
While I impressed the detective with my clever incisive questions, Francine had slipped out of her office and moved to a position behind my chair. She stood in freeze-frame, wide-eyed and silent, gaping at the picture. Her hand clenched the lavender jacket close around her throat. I heard low, guttural keening and felt air rushing past by my cheek. Kleinman managed to catch her just before she melted onto the floor.
Needless to say, that put a damper on Kleinman’s interview, but didn’t stop it altogether. After a brief delay to allow Francine to compose herself, he resumed asking questions. He seemed particularly interested in finding out why Polk’s wife hadn’t reported him missing. Francine was in no shape to theorize, and I explained that I’d never met the woman. The only concrete information Francine offered was Mona Polk’s name and home telephone number, which she recited from memory. After an hour or so, Kleinman finally gave up and allowed Francine to lock up the office and go home.
I didn’t want to think about Milton Polk’s death anymore, but Kleinman seemed bent on continuing his interview. I had no choice but to grab my purse and allow him to nudge me into a quiet corner of the hospital cafeteria. While he thought I wasn’t looking, he straightened his tie and hiked his pants over the hint of a paunch. He bought us each a cup of tepid coffee. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so the oil slick floating on the surface of the java didn’t look exactly appetizing. The detective pulled up a chair for me beside his and then studied me carefully.
“Calvin Klein,” he said. I waited for the punch line. “Your suit. Looks like Calvin Klein. I used to be a ragman. Know what that is?”
I raised my palms in the international you-got-me sign.
“Apparel business. Doctor told me to get a job with less stress, so I joined the Department.” He shook his head and chuckled.
Then he asked if I minded if he took a few notes. Notes, I thought. Why did he need to take notes? I didn’t know anything about Milton Polk’s death. But he didn’t wait for my answer, just took out a pencil and the same tablet I’d seen earlier and asked me to spell my name. Then he took down my address and phone number, too. It gave me the creeps that my personal statistics were going to be in a police file somewhere.
“I just can’t believe he’s dead,” I said. “What was he doing at the beach anyway?”
“Like I told you before, we don’t know. He was alive when he went in the water. Could be accidental drowning, or maybe suicide. You think the doc was the type to kill himself?”
I paused, but not for very long, because the notion was ridiculous. “No. I mean, he had his ups and downs, but he was an entrepreneur at heart. What sends the rest of us into therapy was just a day at Magic Mountain for him.”
Kleinman rocked back in the chair and tapped the eraser end of a pencil on his knee, like a drummer. He asked me if Polk had been in poor health, or despondent over a loss or a death in the family, or had marital problems. Every “I don’t know” reminded me how little I’d actually learned about the man.
It was only when Kleinman asked if Polk had had any financial difficulties that I paused. Telling Venus or Eugene about Mo Whitener’s accusations was one thing, but telling Kleinman was quite another. I tippy-toed around the subject by explaining that Polk had wanted money to expand NeuroMed and that I’d helped him write a business plan to present to potential investors. Aside from that, I told him that there were no other financial pressures I knew about. I didn’t see how Whitener’s charges of fraud could possibly relate to Polk’s death, unless Whitener compensated for being a bad businessman by being a good hit man. That seemed a little far-fetched. On the other hand, if Polk’s death wasn’t an accident or suicide, then someone had killed him. That was a sobering thought.
Kleinman’s tablet remained on the table, but he didn’t make any more notes in it. He just continued nodding and drumming and rocking in his chair, listening politely to whatever I said. His hazel eyes sparkled with interest, but his facial muscles remained slack, betraying no emotion at all.
“When was the last time you saw the doc?”
“A few weeks ago, I guess.”
His mouth turned up in a reassuring smile. “You didn’t see him or hear from him at all this past weekend?”
I told him no, that except for a trip to Trancas Market for tomatoes and mozzarella cheese, I’d stayed at home all weekend, mostly alone, mostly working. I almost told him that no one had called, either, but that seemed a little too pathetic.
After a few more questions he smiled again. “Sure appreciate your cooperation.” Then he added, “By the way, is there anything you think I should know that I haven’t asked?”
I knew I’d paused too long when I saw him frown.
“I think somebody broke into NeuroMed over the weekend,” I said.
All rocking and drumming stopped, as well as any smiling or polite questioning. Kleinman’s facial muscles hardened.
“And you’re just getting around to telling me now?” He sounded irritated.
I used an airy tone to cover my nervousness. “Better late than never.”
He frowned but listened without interrupting while I told him what Francine
had said about the tux, the dinner, and Polk’s mystery meeting. This time he took notes, lots of them. His response to Francine’s theory that the office had been tossed by a doctor having a temper tantrum was a chilly “You don’t really believe that’s what happened, do you?” and I had to say, “No.”
“You destroyed evidence.” His voice was stern, almost angry, and rightly so, but what was I supposed to do, wrestle Francine to the ground to keep her from contaminating his crime scene?
“I didn’t destroy anything,” I countered.
“It’s called aiding and abetting, ma’am,” he said. “You may have just helped a killer get away.”
Not me, you dickhead, I thought. Francine helped a killer get away. I wanted dull-but-pleasant Kleinman back. Badass Kleinman was getting on my nerves. He continued grilling me, asking me over and over again: Why had I come to NeuroMed this morning? When did I arrive? What did the room look like when I got there? Who else did I see? My prissy white blouse got so damp from nervous perspiration that I found myself wishing dress shields were back in style. When he finally finished scribbling in his notebook, he slapped it closed and told me that either he or his partner would be in touch.
As he stood to leave, I said, “By the way, you got the wrong Klein.”
He looked annoyed. “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”
“My suit. It’s Anne, not Calvin.”
He looked at me for a moment, then smiled, but the sparkle in his eyes was now less of interest and more of suspicion. “Bad call, I guess.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.”
Detective Kleinman abandoned me to the smell of old French fries and a feeling of dread. Maybe he and I could be friends if we really tried, but at this point Jimmy the Greek wouldn’t have taken those odds.
It was after five, but I tried once more to reach Gordon. I got only voice mail and more frustration. I dumped the coffee and headed toward the exit. Maybe my life would have been better if at the moment of conception my parents had been watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s instead of groping each other in the backseat of a Corvair, listening to a National Public Radio special on Sophie Tucker, the “last of the red-hot mamas.” Then my name might have been Audrey. Audrey was a stand-alone name. Nobody messed with it. There would have been no Tuck, Tuckie, T-bird, or Friar, and no temptation for creative rhymesters. If my name were Audrey, I’d be hustled by Hollywood’s hunk du jour, not macho jerks whose nicknames were Bulldog or Spud and whose idea of a romantic gift was a nose-hair trimmer. This is the kind of deep thinking I do when I’m looking for my car in parking garages and trying to forget my troubles.
False Profits Page 5