To The Bone

by Neil Mcmahon

  Dusk was verging on night by now. In the thick woods that stretched down to the creek, moonlight glowed off the sinuous trunks of the smooth-barked madrones. The chorus of tree frogs was rising toward full swing, a soothing singsong pulse that would last until dawn. Monks could hear the rushing wings of bats, welcome because they cleared the air of mosquitoes, although at times they crawled inside the house's walls and talked in whispers that sounded eerily human. Somewhere, a dog barked, a sudden baying of alarm. It was picked up by another dog a quarter mile farther away, and then another, a canine telegraph that might stretch all the way to the Mississippi River, a dogless barrier too wide for sound to cross.

  He knew that he had come to that long-gone but so familiar edge, where too much of what lay behind was pain and nothing ahead mattered, where black rage ruled him, and one little step would put him over. The last time he had been there was the night he had almost strangled Alison Chapley with her own scarf. He had never let himself get that close since.

  He realized that the phone was ringing. He picked it up and said hello.

  "Hello," a woman's voice said. For those first seconds, he assumed it was Martine's. Then she said, "You probably don't remember me. It's Gwen Bricknell."

  Monks was more than surprised. He made a hard effort to change realities.

  "Indeed I do, Ms. Bricknell," he said.

  "Gwen. Please." Her voice had a confiding tone.

  "All right. Gwen. I'm Carroll."

  "Am I interrupting you?"

  "Not at all," Monks said. "Glad to chat. Or is there something I can do for you?"

  "Maybe. Maybe I can do something for you, too."

  "Oh?"

  "I have a soft spot for men in pain."

  Monks blinked, taken off balance again.

  "Am I in pain?"

  "Oh, yes," she said gently.

  "How do you know?"

  "Sometimes I can just feel things. Sort of like reading minds."

  "Really? What am I thinking right now?"

  "You're wondering what I'm wearing."

  This was not true, but Monks said, "Well? What?"

  "Not very much. Let's leave it at that." Several interesting images of the superb Gwen appeared in his mind. "But before, a minute ago – you were thinking something very different," she said. "Dark, dangerous. There was someone in the past, that you had a terrible moment with."

  Monks held the phone away and stared at it, trying to be sure he had just heard what he thought he had. Hairs had lifted on his neck.

  "Am I right?" she said.

  "Yes," he said shakily.

  "That's why I called. To help you out of that."

  "Thank you."

  "I can do more, much more. But there is something I want to ask you."

  "Of course," Monks said. He was still trying to get grounded.

  She hesitated. "This is confidential, in terms of the clinic."

  "I'll do my best with that."

  "We got a phone call this afternoon. It was Eden Hale's father. He said you'd come to his house, claiming she'd been murdered."

  This time, Monks was not entirely surprised. Tom Hale had called Baird Necker to complain, too. Apparently, he had grabbed the phone and broad-sided his outrage.

  "That's somewhat distorted," Monks said.

  "He wanted to know what we knew about it. I told him it was the first we'd heard of it."

  "Sorry to put you in an awkward spot."

  "Will you tell me why you think that, about Eden?" she said.

  "I don't think it. It's just a possibility."

  "What if I told you – this sounds crazy – what if I said I've been thinking about it, too? It won't go away."

  Monks pushed aside everything else that was running through his head.

  "You must have a reason," he said.

  "It's one of those things I feel."

  "Like you just did with me?"

  "Like that, yes. But – I don't know exactly how to put it. It's almost like it's a different color, except it's not a color at all. With you, it was pain and anger. This is hate. Someone who wanted her gone."

  Monks was not as skeptical as he would have been a few minutes earlier.

  "Who?" he said.

  "I don't want to plant anything in your mind. I'd rather have you come watch – this person – for yourself. If you notice something, too, then I won't think I'm crazy."

  "I'm the farthest thing from psychic, Gwen." Although Monks had often noticed that he had an uncanny ability to make stoplights turn red just as he got to them.

  "You don't need to be," she said. "I'm talking about a possessiveness you can see. It's creepy."

  Possessiveness of whom? Monks wanted to ask. Why did you tell me that Julia didn't know Eden? Did you know about Eden's affair with D'Anton?

  But she had gone from hostile to friendly to offering information. He decided to let her keep moving at her own pace, at least until the time came when it might be necessary to push.

  "All right," he said. "Where do I see it?"

  "Welles and Julia host events." She pronounced the word like it began with a capital E. "Like parties, but more – focused. There's going to be one tomorrow night. Will you be my date?"

  It seemed that there was not going to be any mourning period for Eden at the D'Anton household.

  "I'd be honored," Monks said.

  "Will it feel awkward to you? Being with a woman who's – well, you know. Been exposed a lot."

  "My guess is I'll like it fine."

  "You do say the right things," she said, and now her tone was sultry. "Let me give you directions."

  He got a pen and wrote them down. The place was near the Marin coast, south of him – a private, very choice area of real estate.

  "My God, I hope it cools down," she said. "I'm beaded all over with sweat. What about you?"

  "It's actually not bad here. I'm up in the redwoods."

  "I meant, is there anyone you suspect?"

  "Everyone," Monks said.

  She laughed. "You must stay very busy. I'll see you tomorrow, Carroll."

  Monks put down the phone, still trying to process what had just happened. The guns lying on the picnic table brought back the enormously different reality of a few minutes before. He felt like he had been walking down the hall to a familiar room, but suddenly found himself in another city. Abruptly, he feared it might be the onset of a malaria attack. But they almost never came anymore, and he had not felt any warning symptoms.

  He tasted his drink. It had gotten watered from melting ice. He dumped it over the railing, went inside, and poured another one. The vodka bottle was past the half-empty point.

  When he walked back out, a man's voice said, "Doc?"

  Monks jerked around, spilling the drink.

  "Hold your fire," the voice said. "It's Emil."

  "Emil," Monks said, opening his arms expansively. "Come on up."

  The voice's owner came into view, a thickset grizzled man in his late sixties. This was Emil Zukich, a neighbor from a couple of miles up the road, the master mechanic who had given Monks the Bronco, then rebuilt it when it had been savaged by gunshots.

  "I didn't see your lights," Monks said.

  "Mrs. Fetzer called me about some shooting down here. Thought maybe I'd better come in quiet."

  Shame touched Monks. Mrs. Fetzer was his closest neighbor, a reclusive middle-aged widow. He had not considered that the shooting might alarm her or drag Emil out to check on him.

  "Everything's fine," Monks said. "Just a little target practice."

  "Target practice? This time of night?"

  "I've got some fine vodka."

  I can't stay. How about if I help you put those away?" Emil nodded toward the guns.

  Monks was suddenly very tired. He walked to a chair and sat down heavily. "I'm sorry, Emil," he said.

  "I ain't going to ask if you're all right, 'cause I can see you're not. That's a bad mix, Doc. Booze and guns."

  "I know."<
br />
  "Maybe I should take them with me."

  "I'm all right now."

  I'll just check them, then."

  Emil cleared the weapons one at a time, making sure they were unloaded, not forgetting to open the Beretta's chamber. A Korean War vet, he had fought at Pork Chop Hill. When he finished, he put them back on the table.

  "Anything I can do?" Emil said.

  "No. I just need some sleep. Sorry again."

  "Not to worry. Things can get that way, I know." Emil faded into the night like a bandit.

  It came home to Monks, with force, that he was alone again.

  He went into the kitchen and swilled vodka from the bottle. It was warm and its fine flavor was lost to his taste, but he drank it anyway. He pulled food from the refrigerator, salami and cheese and bread, and tore off chunks with his teeth, aware as he bolted it down that he was ravenous.

  When his belly was quiet, he made his way down the hall, lurching a little. He stopped in the bathroom to urinate and brush his teeth. Then he fell into bed.

  As he reached to turn out the light, his gaze was caught by an illustration in an open book on his nightstand, a work of medieval history. Martine had probably read in it last night, while her deadbeat lover slept on the couch. The picture was an old woodcut by Durer. Several women in a rustic kitchen, surrounded by leering imps and familiars, were brewing a cauldron of magical potion, then flying up the chimney to join the hordes of their sisters, riding their broomsticks through the turbulent moonlit sky to a Walpurgisnacht orgy.

  The witchcraft terror had exercised a tremendous hold on the medieval imagination. In Europe, between about 1300 and 1700, tens of thousands, almost all women – some estimates put the number at over a million – were executed for this ultimate heresy, selling their souls to the powers of evil, joining forces with the enemy of mankind.

  In practice, beneath the genuine superstition of the times, there were far more tawdry motivations at work: misogyny, cruelty, and greed. The elderly, eccentric, and deformed – offensive to righteous citizens and helpless to defend themselves – were often targeted. But being young and pretty could be dangerous, too. A man suffering from unrequited lust might decide that this could only be because the desired one had cast a spell on him, and have the revenge of seeing her punished for rejecting him. Someone who coveted a neighbor's property might swear that they had seen that neighbor make unexplained trips into the forest at night; the victim's possessions would be confiscated, and given or sold cheaply to the accuser. Many suffered, as at Salem, from the lies of spiteful children.

  Once the victims were accused, they were guilty until proven innocent, which almost never happened. Typically, they were tortured into confessing whatever lurid scenarios their inquisitors dreamed up, then burned alive. They were also forced to implicate others, so the process mushroomed. Villages were decimated; victims' entire families were considered contaminated; children were tortured into accusing their parents, then burned along with them. It was all done with the utmost piety.

  There was evil in the world, Monks had no doubt of that – pervading human life, in different guises, in every era. During the witch-hunts, it had worn the judges' robes.

  The oblivion of sleep came to him with merciful swiftness.

  Chapter 21

  The laser printer in Stover Larrabee's office whooshed quietly, adding more information to the stack that was accumulating. Larrabee was not an office person, and he had not grown up in the computer generation. He was more comfortable working in old-fashioned ways. But there was no denying that computers saved a lot of time, phone calls, and miles.

  Guido Franchi, his SFPD detective friend, had provided a tantalizing piece of information. In 1997, a young woman named Katie Bensen had been reported missing. A routine police check turned up a common scenario. Katie was in her early twenties – no one knew her age for sure, or even if that was her real name. According to what she told friends, she had run away from home in her early teens and drifted ever since. She had no trouble finding places to crash; she was attractive, and willing to trade sex for money or drugs.

  Katie had never been found. The police were unable to locate any family. She joined the ranks of young women who frequently went missing like that – drifters, druggies, girls who came to San Francisco looking for something or to get away from something else, living in a shadow world beneath the radar. Usually, they moved to another city because of legal or personal trouble, often changing names. Overworked police departments could not spend time and resources chasing girls who wanted to stay disappeared. But they could easily become throwaways – victims of that dangerous world, which included predators who sought them out.

  One thing set Katie apart. She had claimed, to her friends, that she had been a patient of Dr. D. Welles D' Anton. For a young woman who had been living one step above the streets, this was, to say the least, unusual.

  There were no more details in the police report. It was only noted that D' Anton's office had been contacted, in the hopes that they might have a current address for her. They did not. That was that.

  Franchi was right – the case went nowhere, and it was several years old. Most likely, Katie had lied about her connection with D' Anton to impress her friends, and just skipped town.

  But if not, she was another young woman whose unexplained death was linked to D' Anton.

  The police report did mention the name of a nurse in D' Anton's office, one Margaret Pendergast. Tracking her was no problem. Ms. Pendergast was an upstanding citizen, at least on paper. She had bought a house in Anaheim in early 1998.

  Which meant that she had left D' Anton's employ not long after Katie Benson's disappearance.

  Larrabee found her phone number, but got no answer. He left a message on her machine, then started focusing on Dr. D. Welles D'Anton himself.

  The standard background check information on D'Anton came up readily, including his license to practice in the state of California. But Larrabee realized that none of it dated back farther than twenty years. This was astonishing: his medical education should have been a matter of public record.

  Larrabee started to entertain the incredible notion that D'Anton might be a fraud. He accessed a CD-ROM directory of board-certified medical specialists and looked again, scrolling carefully down the list of names.

  His finger stopped tapping the key. He grinned.

  The credentials were impressive – M.D. from Johns Hopkins, surgical residency at UCLA, back to Hopkins for plastic surgery certification -

  But they were for one Donald W. Danton. Born in Youngstown, Ohio, November 3, 1952. Married Julia Symes in 1983. The dates jibed with a man of fifty. It had to be him.

  The usual reasons for a name change were obvious – a criminal record, bad debts, adopting a stage persona. But this apostrophe had turned him from Donald Danton of Youngstown, Ohio, to Dr. D. Welles D'Anton of San Francisco, plastic surgeon to the stars.

  Next, Larrabee found that the name Symes was old California money, with plenty of alumni from Stanford and USC. The LA branch of the family included several financiers and producers in the movie business. Julia Symes, D'Anton's wife, was from San Francisco but had gone to college at Pomona. She would have been an undergraduate there at the time Danton – now D'Anton – was doing his surgical residency at UCLA. They had married the year she graduated.

  Larrabee was getting the feeling that D'Anton had orchestrated his career very carefully – acquiring the proper medical credentials, a wealthy wife who was connected in the film world, and a new name and persona.

  A quick online search turned up no allegations of malpractice or negligence against D'Anton, with the apostrophe or without. But very often, cases didn't show up on those kinds of records because they never got that far. A physician who was threatened with a lawsuit, or a misconduct complaint, would inform his or her insurance company immediately. The company's attorneys might then persuade the complainant not to pursue it, or an agreement would be reach
ed privately. There would be no official record of the matter.

  Larrabee had put out feelers for several other avenues that might turn up these kinds of incidents. The personnel at ASCLEP, the malpractice insurance company that he and Monks worked for, might have heard about them – or other physicians, lawyers, and newspeople, of whom Larrabee knew quite a few.

  But the best bet was D'Anton's own insurance company, Pacific Doctors Mutual. If any complaints had ever been lodged against him, they would be in the files. But those were highly confidential, jealously guarded from outsiders.

  Hacking was beyond his level of skill. But he knew just the person for the job, Tina Bauer. He called Tina and spoke with her briefly, arranging to stop by her apartment. The day had already been a long one, with the drive to Sacramento and back. But this was business that needed taking care of.

  Larrabee locked up and walked through the old building's hall, ears attentive to familiar sounds, alert for possible intruders. It was zoned for commercial use only; legally, he was not supposed to be living there. But the owners were glad to have their own private security force and looked the other way. The building housed another dozen offices, mainly small shipping companies and wholesalers. It was a throwback to an older era, like a stage set of musty offices and aging personnel moving slowly in their little enclaves, oblivious to the frenzied digitized world outside their doors. By this time of evening it was deserted.

  It was after eight and getting dark when he walked outside. He liked the night, and he always felt better when he got out on the street. The San Francisco sky was a shade of midnight blue he had never seen anywhere else, and the great buildings of the skyline glimmered with elegance and power. There was no place like it. Where he had grown up – Flint, Michigan – seemed like another planet. His name, Stover, came from his mother's maiden name of Stoverud, Norwegian loggers and farmers. His father had worked the assembly lines in Flint, until that bitter closing had cost the town the little it had. By the time Stover was twenty, there was not much else to do but leave.

  Traffic this evening was relaxed; rush hour was over and the Giants were playing out of town. A few human shapes carrying garbage bags or pushing shopping carts were moving, with the deliberateness of having no destination. There were a lot of street people in the neighborhood, down toward the east end of Howard Street. Pac Bell Park, new and splendid, was a fine addition to the city. But the surrounding gentrification, blocks and blocks of upscale condo and office buildings, had pushed the homeless toward the older areas. Larrabee knew the ones who had been around a while and always kept a sheaf of folded dollar bills in his pocket to hand out when he met them. This maintained a respect for him and his property, and even a sort of loyalty between him and those denizens of a world that was like a halfway house to death.