To The Bone

by Neil Mcmahon

  He did not expect her to be friendly, and he was surprised when she smiled and said, "Good morning, Dr. Monks."

  He murmured hello, struck again by her sheer beauty. If there was any flaw, it was flawlessness – as if, when D' Anton had sculpted her face, he had razored off the imperfections that lent humanness.

  But her eyes, dark like olives, were alive – wary, but not hard with hostility. If anything, she seemed a little frightened. The shock of Eden Hale's death had had time to sink in, he thought. This was not the ER; losing a patient was not something that happened with inevitable regularity.

  "We're closed, officially," she said. "I'm just rescheduling appointments."

  "Dr. D'Anton was going to leave some records for me. Sorry if this is bad timing."

  "No, no, it's fine. Welles – Dr. D'Anton – is taking a couple of days off. He asked me to make you at home. He apologizes for being abrasive yesterday. He was very upset."

  "Understandable, of course," Monks said.

  "I know this is awkward, Doctor," she said, surprising him again. "I don't mean for it to be."

  "I appreciate that, Ms. Bricknell," he said. "I don't like it either. But I need to find out what happened to that young woman."

  For the next couple of seconds, Monks had the eerie sensation that whoever was behind Gwen Bricknell's eyes had gone – that he was looking at an absolutely still body whose owner was someplace else. By the time he was aware of it, she was back.

  "I'll get the records," she said. She stood and opened the door into the rear office, started to step through, and stopped abruptly.

  Monks realized that the nurse, Phyllis, was walking past, just on the other side of the door.

  Gwen's shoulders sagged in exasperation. "Phyllis, you are everywhere I turn."

  "I cover a lot of ground," Phyllis said crisply. "Somebody has to."

  "There's really no need for you to be here today."

  "There's always a need for me to be here." Phyllis marched swiftly on, a squarish, formidable presence. Gwen glanced back at Monks, rolling her eyes.

  "She surprised me, too, yesterday," he said.

  "She's incredibly competent. She does most of the low-level procedures. It's almost like having another doctor. But sometimes she decides she's in charge, especially when Welles isn't around."

  Gwen went on into the office, leaving the door open. Monks glimpsed another figure, down the hallway that opened onto the procedure rooms. It was the maintenance man, Todd, apparently still at work on the air-conditioning. He raised a hand in cheerful greeting. Monks returned it.

  Gwen came back a minute later, with a manila folder clasped in her hands. Her fingers were long and slender, tipped by crimson ovals. She did not wear a wedding ring.

  "I wish I had such devoted staff," Monks said. "Coming to work when the clinic's closed."

  "Todd's a gem," she said. "He can fix anything. That's how we found him. He was working at Bayview Hospital, and Welles came out one day and his Jaguar wouldn't start. Todd just happened to be there and got it going. Now we can't do without him. He's like that character on M*A*S*H, what's his name? Who always knows what everybody needs ahead of time?"

  "Radar," Monks said.

  "Well, that's Todd."

  She walked ahead of him to one of the screened-off waiting rooms. Her dress was almost translucent, clearly outlining her body. It was an odd sensation, following her past the nude photos of herself on the wall. They had obviously been taken years ago, but she did not seem to have changed much. Eden Hale must have coveted those breasts, Monks thought. They were peach-sized, high and firm. No doubt, they, too, had been enhanced by D' Anton's touch.

  At the waiting room's door, Gwen turned to him and offered him the folder. But she held on to it for just a second, so that there was a curious little tug of war between them before she let go.

  Monks was reevaluating fast. Apparently, she did not hold grudges.

  He sat in one of the comfortable chairs and opened the folder. It contained a standard sheaf of medical records. He paged through Eden Hale's history. It was clean, as they tended to be with young affluent patients; even things like chickenpox and measles rarely appeared these days. She had had persistent ear infections, requiring occasional draining and antibiotic treatment, until age eleven. There were no allergies or adverse reactions to drugs, no operations or broken bones. Her blood work showed her to be O positive, with no diseases, and white cell count well within the normal range.

  A copy of D' Anton's chart from the breast procedure confirmed that it was an augmentation, using saline-filled implants, inserted through endoscopic incisions in the armpits. Most of the chart was a checklist, in technical jargon and abbreviations. Monks was not familiar with all the terms, but D'Anton's terse, handwritten notes at the bottom confirmed that the procedure had been routine and had gone smoothly. All in all, the records were thorough and excellent, the work of a top-notch professional.

  There was a copy of her discharge form, the same form that the paramedics had found in her purse. It contained postoperative instructions – no strenuous activity, sponge baths only for five to seven days, sexual relations permitted to resume after that time provided the breasts were treated gently – and it stipulated that the patient must be cared for by a competent adult for at least twenty-four hours afterward. This was signed underneath with a scrawl that Monks was able to read only because he already knew the name: Raymond L. Dreyer.

  Finally, there were photographs – several of her face, both full on and in profile, others of her nude upper body, and a few close-ups of her breasts. Another set of images, computer-generated, appeared to be the projected results. These showed the breasts enlarged, shapely, prominent. They also showed a modified face, with nose and cheekbones sculpted into graceful lines – eliminating the hint of coarseness Monks had noticed.

  It seemed that the planned makeover on Eden Hale had only started.

  He looked again at the discharge form, under method of payment. It was checked CASH.

  Monks stacked the sheets and put them back into the folder. There was no suggestion of anything other than that Eden had left here healthy. He hadn't really expected there to be. Any possibility that the records had been altered was extremely unlikely.

  He walked back to the desk and gave Gwen the file.

  "I'm sure you get told this a lot," he said. "I've seen your face many times. TV, magazines."

  She raised a hand and pointed, with a voila gesture, at the room's photo display of nudes.

  "Yes?" she said, with just a hint of a smile now – a model advertising something intimate. "It seems like you've gotten a pretty good look at the rest of me, too."

  "I'm an admirer of beauty," Monks said.

  Her expression changed subtly, with a flicker of pleasure passing across her eyes before they lowered. It was a shameless thing to say, Monks knew. But, even calculated, it gave him a pleasant shot of electricity.

  He'd spent a fair amount of time last night, during those sleepless hours, remembering his clear sense that Julia D' Anton had known Eden Hale, and that Gwen had wanted to hide it.

  He did not want to confront her. It was probably nothing, and he would probably never see her again. But just in case there turned out to be some little scratch on D'Anton's Teflon surface after all, Monks wanted to keep Gwen Bricknell friendly, willing to talk.

  "I'm glad we were able to help you, Dr. Monks," she said, her gaze returning to meet his own. "If there's anything more I can do, let me know."

  Chapter 16

  Monks drove to North Beach, following Stover Larrabee's directions to a meeting place. Today, that place was a beat-up blue van with on the spot plumbing lettered on the side, parked on Stockton, a couple of blocks north of Columbus. Several lengths of copper and PVC pipes were strapped to the rack on the van's top. The back was filled with scarred toolboxes and bins of fittings. A couple of pairs of greasy Carhartt overalls hung from hooks.

  That was all cover.
The van was also outfitted with camcorders, telephoto equipment, a parabolic microphone, bugs and sweepers, and a full set of lock picks.

  Larrabee was hunched forward with his forearms over the steering wheel when Monks got in. He had a pair of Leica binoculars in his lap. A small TV set with the sound off was playing the Today show. A couple of crossword puzzle books and paperbacks lay on the floor, along with a thermos of coffee and a trucker's jug to urinate into. The van was positioned to give a good view downhill.

  'Tucking surveillance," Larrabee said. "Every time I take one on, I swear, never again."

  It was only midmorning, but the streets were already happening, with crowds cruising the cafes and souvenir stores. With the warm weather, there was much flesh on display. Obvious tourists tended toward shorts and tank tops or T-shirts of the I'm with Stupid variety. Local skin was likely to be pierced or tattooed, and topped by hair of colors not found in nature. It occurred to Monks that this was an alternative plastic surgery, for those on tight budgets or who wanted to make a more radical statement.

  "What's the venue?" Monks said.

  "This guy comes to me. Ernesto, he's Panamanian, a little hotheaded. He's got some bucks, and a good-looking wife. But he goes to a business convention, and meets another babe he decides is the love of his life. Comes back home and tells his wife he's leaving her. This all happens within a week, now.

  "So needless to say, his wife, she's Latina, too, she goes ballistic, and she goes out and picks up a musician, a guy who lives down there" – Larrabee pointed at a row of apartment buildings downhill – "and fucks him. He's ten years younger than her, but it seems to actually take – it's been going on a couple months now.

  "Meantime, the husband starts to realize that maybe the new babe isn't it after all. He decides he wants his wife back, but she tells him to piss up a rope. On top of that, he figures he's going to lose his ass in the divorce. So he hires me to follow her and photograph her with her guy. That way, he can claim she's the one who broke up the marriage."

  "He can?"

  "If he can get divorced in Panama, which is what he's planning, maybe," Larrabee said. "I don't particularly care. He's paying me a thousand bucks a day plus expenses. But sometimes, I get involved in this kind of idiot shit, I think of a lot of other ways I could have made a living." Larrabee shook his head, face wry. "So? What's going on with you?"

  Monks brought him up to date. When he finished, Larrabee turned off the TV. He put the binoculars to his eyes and focused on the building where Ernesto hoped to catch his wife and her paramour in flagrante delicto.

  "Has it crossed your mind that this might not have been an accident?" Larrabee asked.

  Monks blinked. "You mean murder? No. Not really."

  "I'm just putting together what you've told me," Larrabee said, still scanning through the glasses. "She was a healthy young woman; she shouldn't have died. The DIC thing is very mysterious. Dr. Kasmarek thinks it could have been caused by a toxic substance, but it would have to be an unusual one – like, somebody deliberately chose it so it wouldn't be identified. She was alone the last several hours, and dopey, so it would have been easy to slip it to her."

  He lowered the binoculars again and slouched back in his seat.

  "And it sounds like those women at the clinic know more than they're telling," he said.

  "It's still a long way from there to murder."

  "This girl was not exactly Suzy Creamcheese," Larrabee said. "Not criminal, but money trouble. I ran quickie background checks on her and Dreyer. Bad credit reports, and they ran out on their rent in a couple of places down in LA. I keep wondering where she was getting all that money. Paying cash for the city's most expensive plastic surgeon."

  "You think she could have been blackmailing somebody?"

  "All I think so far is that there's several things that are off," Larrabee said. "What do you say we go take a look around her apartment?"

  "A look for what?"

  "Just a look. I doubt we'll find anything. It's a place to start, is all."

  "Her fiancé said there were no chemicals – nothing like that."

  "You can't take that guy's word for anything. Remember, he was the last one with her."

  "It doesn't make sense that he'd have wanted to hurt her," Monks said. "He talked about her like she was his bank account. He was outraged that he'd been ripped off."

  "You never know. Could be he's smarter than you're giving him credit for, and that's what he wants everybody to think. Maybe she was cheating on him, or costing him money some way he couldn't get out from under."

  "You're not figuring on breaking in, are you?" Monks said warily. He had helped Larrabee do so in the past, and it had scared the shit out of him.

  Larrabee grinned. "Relax. Her boyfriend said the building had a super, right? For a doctor and a private investigator – I'm betting he'd open it up."

  "What about the lady you're supposed to be surveilling?"

  "I've already got several photos of her and this guy together on the street. I was hoping maybe they'd get frisky this morning and leave the shade up, but there's nothing happening in there." Larrabee shrugged. "Ernesto wants more, that's another thousand bucks."

  They drove to Eden Hale's apartment, on Twenty-fifth Avenue, near Irving Street.

  The building was not luxurious, but it was nice – several stories of whitish concrete, post-war, with a glass-doored lobby and small but – well kept grounds. Most of the apartments had a view, with the north-facing ones overlooking Golden Gate Park.

  "What do you figure these go for?" Larrabee said. "Couple grand a month, minimum?"

  Monks nodded. Minimum.

  They rang the outside bell for the superintendent. He appeared after a minute, an earnest-looking Hispanic man who could have been forty or sixty. Monks and Larrabee showed him their respective licenses, while Larrabee explained that they would like to look around Ms. Hale's apartment for just a few minutes. A twenty-dollar bill was artfully presented, and accepted, in the process.

  The super took them up to the third floor and down a quiet hallway. "Her mother and father came here yesterday," he said, taking out keys. "They took some things, her personal stuff, you know. They gonna send a mover for the furniture." His serious brown eyes looked from one to the other of them. "There some kind of trouble here?"

  "No," Larrabee said. "Just some questions we're trying to clear up. Wait, if you want. We won't take long."

  The apartment was a one-bedroom, beige – carpeted, with a couch, coffee table, dining set, and a few other pieces of furniture. There was a home entertainment center, with TV, VCR, and stereo, and two cordless phones, one in the front room and one by the bed. It was all good quality, and new. But it was oddly impersonal, giving the feel of a waiting room rather than a place where someone actually lived.

  If there had been any photographs or other personal touches, they had been removed. The queen-sized bed had been stripped and the bathroom and medicine cabinet cleared. Monks kept an eye out for bloodstains, in case the paramedics had underreported her blood loss, and the salmonella had been more advanced than it had seemed. But there was nothing he could see on the carpet, and the couple of faint small stains on the mattress had the look of dried menstrual bleeding.

  There was nothing under the sink but dish soap, a couple of sponges, and a spray bottle of 409. The refrigerator was empty, and the plastic trash can contained only a few crumpled, makeup-smeared tissues. Monks suspected that these had come from Eden's distraught mother. Whatever Eden might have eaten to give her the salmonella was gone.

  Only two things remained that gave a sense of Eden herself. One was her reading material – dozens of issues of Cosmopolitan, other women's magazines, and fashion catalogs, stacked on tables or just lying around. The other was her clothes. One closet was stuffed, bristling with outfits that looked wild, sexy – on the cutting edge of fashion, he supposed, for the circle she had moved in. At least twenty pairs of shoes spilled out of a basket a
nd littered the floor, with spike heels and boots predominant. Her lingerie drawer was another echo, packed with bras and panties that tended toward the colorfully skimpy.

  But the other closet was a surprise. It had only a dozen outfits, dresses and blouse-skirt combinations, neatly hung. These were much more conservative, the sort of things professional women picked out carefully at exclusive shops. They looked mostly unworn, with the tags still on.

  Larrabee looked at this closet longer than he had the other one. Then he turned back to the super, who was waiting politely in the doorway.

  "Has anybody else been here?" Larrabee asked. "Besides her parents?"

  The super shook his head. "Just the ambulance guys."

  "How about her boyfriend? He said he talked to you that morning."

  "Yeah, but I just told him what happened and he went straight to the hospital."

  "You're sure he hasn't been back since?" Larrabee said.

  "He don't have keys."

  Larrabee stared. "No kidding? The guy she was going to marry?"

  "She didn't want him coming around all the time. She told me. I think they fought about it, you know?"

  "I guess they would," Larrabee said. "How long did she live here?"

  The super thought about it. "Maybe four months."

  "Any other regular visitors?"

  "It didn't seem like it. I'm not here all the time, you know. But I don't think she had, like, girlfriends or anything."

  "Do you know where she worked?"

  "She told me she's a model. But it seemed like mostly when she went out, she went shopping. Or at night."

  "With her boyfriend?"

  "Sometimes. Sometimes alone."

  "No other men friends?"

  "Nobody I saw."

  Larrabee nodded, apparently satisfied with what he had gotten. "Okay. We may be back." Another twenty-dollar bill appeared and disappeared. "Thanks again."