Dr. Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

  "Climbing the stairs to Dr. Mate's apartment? When?"

  "No, no— just tried to get up there, I shooed him away." Glued to the orange melodrama.

  "When was this?"

  "Few days ago— maybe Thursday."

  "What did he want?" said Milo.

  "How would I know? You think I let him in?" One of the feuding women had jumped to her feet, pointing and cursing at her rival. Duane was positioned between them, relishing every strutting-rooster moment of it.

  Bleep bleep bleep. Mrs. Krohnfeld read lips and her own mouth slackened. "Such talk!"

  Milo said, "The bum, what else can you tell me about him?"

  No answer. He asked the same question, louder. Mrs. Krohnfeld jerked toward us. "Yeah, a bum. He went . . ." Jabbing over her shoulder. "Tried to go up. I saw him, yelled out the window to get the hell outa there, and he skedaddled."

  "On foot?"

  Grunt. "That type don't drive no Mercedes. What a louse." This time, directing the epithet at Duane. "Stupid idjits, wasting their time on a louse like that."

  "Thursday."

  "Yup— or Friday . . . look at that." The women had raced toward each other and collided, alloying into a clawing, hair-pulling cyclone. "Idjits."

  Milo sighed and rose. "We're going upstairs now, Mrs. Krohnfeld."

  "When can I put the place up for rent?"

  "Soon."

  "Sooner the better—idjits."

  The steps to Mate's unit were on the right side of the duplex, and before I climbed I had a look at the rear yard. Not much more than a strip of concrete, barely space for the double carport. An old Chevy that Milo identified as Mate's was parked next to an even older Chrysler New Yorker. Unused laundry lines sketched crosshatch shadows across the cement. Low block fencing revealed neighbors on all sides, mostly multiple-unit apartment buildings, higher than the duplex. Throw a barbecue down here and lots of people would know the menu.

  Mate had chased headlines, desired no privacy in his off-hours.

  An exhibitionist, or had Alice Zoghbie been right? Not cued into his surroundings.

  Either way, easy victim.

  I mentioned that to Milo. He sucked his teeth and took me back to the entrance.

  Mate's front door was capped by a small overhang. Ads from fast-food joints littered the floor. Milo picked them up, glanced at a few, dropped them. Yellow tape banded the plain wood door. Milo yanked it loose. One key twist and we were in. A single lock, not a dead bolt. Anyone could've kicked it in.

  Mold, must, rot, the nose-tweaking snap of decaying paper. Air so heavy with dust it felt granular.

  Milo opened the ancient venetian blinds. Where light penetrated the apartment it highlighted the particulate storms that we set off as we moved through tight, shadowed spaces.

  Tight because virtually the entire front of the flat was filled with bookshelves. Plywood cases, separated by narrow aisles. Unfinished wood, warped shelves suffering under the weight of scholarship.

  Life of the mind. Eldon Mate had turned his entire domicile into a library.

  Even the kitchen counters were piled high with books. Inside the fridge were bottles of water, a moldering slab of hoop cheese, a few softening vegetables.

  I walked around reading titles as dust settled on my shoulders. Chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, toxicology. Two entire cases of pathology, forensics, another wall of law— civil liability, jurisprudence, the criminal codes of what appeared to be every state of the union.

  Mostly crumbling paperbacks and cold shabby texts with torn spines and flaking pages, the kind of treasures that can be found at any thrift shop.

  No fiction.

  I moved to the tiny back room where Mate had slept. Ten feet square, low-ceilinged, lit by a bare bulb screwed to a white porcelain ceiling fixture. Bare gray walls jaundiced by western light seeping through parchment- colored window shades. The cheap cot and nightstand took up most of the space, leaving barely enough room for a raw-looking three-drawer pine dresser. Ten-inch Zenith TV atop the dresser— as if Mate had had to make up for Mrs. Krohnfeld's video excess.

  A door led to the adjoining bathroom, and I went in there because bathrooms can sometimes tell you more about a person than any other space. This one didn't. Razor, shaving cream, laxatives, antigas tablets, and aspirin in the medicine cabinet. Amber ring around the tub. Bar of green soap bottomed by slime, sitting like a dead frog in a brown plastic dish.

  The closet was skinny and crammed full, sharp with the reek of camphor. A dozen wash-and-wear white shirts, half that many pairs of gray twill slacks, all Sears label; one heavy charcoal suit from Zachary All, wide lapels testifying to a long-ago fashion cycle; three pairs of black cap-toe oxfords stretched by cedar shoe trees; two beige windbreakers, also Sears; a pair of narrow black ties hanging from a hook— polyester, made in Korea.

  "What was his financial situation?" I said. "Doesn't look like he spent much on clothes."

  "He spent on food, gas, car repairs, books, phone and utilities. I haven't gotten his tax forms yet, but there were some bankbooks in there." Indicating the dresser. "His basic income seems to have been his U.S. Public Health Service pension. Two and a half grand a month deposited directly into the savings account, plus occasional cash payments, two hundred to a thou each, irregularly spaced. Those I figure were donations. They add up to another fifteen a year."

  "Donations from who?"

  "My guess would be satisfied travelers— or those who survived them. None of the families we've talked to admit paying Mate a dime, but they'd want to avoid looking like they hired someone to kill Grandma, wouldn't they? So he was pulling in around fifty grand a year, and in terms of assets he was no pauper. The three other passbooks were for jumbo CDs of a hundred grand each. Dinky interest, doesn't look as if he cared about investing. I figure three hundred would be about a decade of income minus expenses and taxes. Looks like he's just about held on to every penny he's earned since going into the death business."

  "Three hundred thousand," I said. "An MD in practice could put away a lot more than that over ten years. So he wasn't in the travel business to get rich. Notoriety was the prize, or he really was operating idealistically. Or both."

  "You could say the same for Mengele." Flipping the skimpy mattress, he peered underneath. "Not that I haven't done this already." His back must have twinged, because he sucked in breath as he straightened.

  "Okay?" he said.

  Suddenly the room felt oppressive. Some of the book aroma had made its way in here, along with a riper smell, more human— male. That and the mothballs added up to the sad, sedate aroma of old man. As if nothing here was expected to ever change. That same sense of staleness and stasis that I'd experienced up on Mulholland. I was probably getting overimaginative.

  "Anything interesting on his phone bills?" I said.

  "Nope. Despite his publicity-seeking, once he got home, he wasn't Mr. Chatty. There were days at a time when he never phoned anyone. The few calls we did find were to Haiselden, Zoghbie, and boring stuff: local market, Thrifty Drugs, couple of used-book stores, shoemaker, Sears, hardware store."

  "No cell phone account?"

  He laughed. "The TV's black-and-white. Guy didn't own a computer or a stereo. We're talking manual typewriter— I found blank sheets of carbon paper in the dresser."

  "No sheets with any impressions for a hot clue? Like in the movies?"

  "Yeah, right. And I'm Dirty Harry."

  "Old-fashioned guy," I said, "but he pushed the envelope ethically."

  I opened the top drawer of the dresser on mounds of folded underwear, white and rounded like giant marshmallows. Stuffed on each side were cylinders of rolled black socks. The middle drawer contained stacks of cardigans, all brown and gray. I ran my hand below them, came up empty. The next drawer was full of medical books.

  He said, "Same with the bottom. Guess next to killing people, reading was his favorite thing."

  I crouched and opened the lowest drawer.
Four hardbacks, the first three with warped bindings and foxed edges. I inspected one. Principles of Surgery.

  "Copyright 1934," I said.

  "Maybe if he'd kept up, that liver would've fared better."

  The fourth book caught my eye. Smaller than the others. Ruby-red leather binding. Shiny new . . . gold-tooled decorations on the ribbed spine. Ornate gilt lettering, but a crude, orange-peel texture to the leather— leatherette.

  Collector's edition of Beowulf published by some outfit called the Literary Gem Society.

  I picked it up. It rattled. Too light to be a book. I lifted the cover. No pages within, just hollow, Masonite space. MADE IN TAIWAN label affixed to the underside of the lid.

  A box. Novelty-shop gag. Inside, the source of the rattle:

  Miniature stethoscope. Child-size. Pink plastic tubing, silvered plastic earpieces and disc. Broken earpieces— snapped off cleanly. Silvery grit in the box.

  Milo's eyes slitted. "Why don't you put that down."

  I complied. "What's wrong?"

  "I checked that damn drawer the first time I tossed the place and that wasn't in there. The other books were, but not that. I remember reading each of the copyrights, thinking Mate was relying on antiques."

  He stared into the red box.

  "A visitor?" I said. "Our van-boy commemorating what he'd done? Broken stethoscope delivering a message? 'Mate's out of business, I'm the doctor now'?"

  He bent, wincing again. "Looks like someone clipped the plastic clean. From the dust, maybe he did it right here . . . very clean."

  "No problem if you had bone shears. One very nasty little elf."

  He rubbed his face. "He came back to celebrate?"

  "And to leave his mark."

  He walked to the door, looked out at the bookcases in the front room, scowled. "I've been here twice since the murder and nothing else looks messed with. . . ."

  Talking to himself more than to me. Knowing full well that with thousands of volumes, there was no way to be sure. Knowing the yellow tape across the door was meaningless, anyone could've pried the lock.

  I said, "The bum Mrs. Krohnfeld saw—"

  "The bum walked up the stairs in plain sight and ran away when Mrs. Krohnfeld screamed at him. She said he was a mess. Wouldn't you expect our boy to be a little better organized?"

  "Like you said, some people delegate."

  "What, the killer hires a schizo to break in and stick a box in a drawer?"

  "Why not?"

  "If it was an attempt to piss on Mate's grave, wouldn't delegating lessen the thrill?"

  "Probably, but at this point he's being careful," I said. "And delegating could offer its own thrill: being the boss, wielding power. It could've happened this way: the killer knows the neighborhood because he stalked Mate for a while. He cruises Hollywood, finds a street guy, gives him cash to deliver a package. Half up front, the rest upon completion. He could've even positioned himself up the street. To watch and get off and to make sure the street guy followed through. He picked someone disorganized specifically, because it added another layer of safety: If the bum gets caught there's very little he can tell you. The killer used some sort of disguise for extra insurance."

  His cheeks bubbled as he filled them with air, bounced it around, blew it out silently. Out of his pocket came a sealed package of surgical gloves and an evidence bag.

  "Dr. Milo's in the house," he said, working his hands into the latex. "You touched it, but I'll vouch for you." Fully gloved, he lifted the box, examined it on all sides.

  "Someone who knows the neighborhood," he said. "Hollywood Boulevard's full of novelty shops, maybe I can find someone who remembers selling this recently."

  I said, "Maybe the choice of titles wasn't a coincidence."

  "Beowulf?"

  "Valiant hero slays the monster."

  • • •

  We spent another hour in the apartment, going over the kitchen and the front rooms, searching cupboards, scanning the bookcases for other false volumes, coming up with nothing. In some of the books, I found bills of sale going back decades. Thrift shops in San Diego, Oakland, a few in L.A.

  Outside on the landing, Milo retaped the door, locked up and brushed dust from his lapels. He looked shrunken. Across the street, a middle-aged Hispanic woman stood in the paltry shade of a wretched-looking magnolia, purse in hand, newspaper folded under her arm. No one else around, and like any midday pedestrian in L.A. she stood out. No bus stop; probably waiting for a ride. She saw me looking at her, stared back for a second, shifted the purse to the other shoulder, removed the paper and began to read.

  "If the box is a 'gift,'" I said, "it's another point in favor of the confederate angle. Someone wanting to put himself in Mate's place. Literally. Choosing the bedroom's consistent with that: the most personal space in the apartment. Think of it as a rape of sorts. Which is consistent with the violation of Mate's genitalia. Someone into power, domination. Playing God— a psychopathic monotheist, there can only be one deity, so he needs to eliminate any competition. On the competition's home base. I can see him walking around, exhilarated by triumph. Enjoying the extra bit of thrill of sneaking into an official crime scene. Maybe he came at night to minimize the chance of discovery, but still he couldn't be sure. If you or anyone else from the department had shown up, he'd have been trapped. The bedroom's at the back of the apartment and there's no rear exit. No place to hide except that bedroom closet, so to escape he'd have had to cross the front room, hide in that maze of bookshelves. I think he's jazzed by the danger element. It's the same first impression I had of the murder itself. Choosing an open road to perform surgery on Mate. Removing the cardboard so Mate's body would be discovered. Cleaning up carefully but leaving the scene naked. The note. Extreme meticulousness combined with recklessness. A psychopath with an above-average IQ. He's bright enough to plan precisely in the short term, but vulnerable in the long run because he gets off on danger."

  "Is that supposed to comfort me?"

  "He ain't Superman, Milo."

  "Good. 'Cause I ain't got no kryptonite."

  He stood there thinking and swinging the bag. The woman across the street looked up. Our eyes met. She returned to her paper.

  "If the guy walked around," said Milo, "maybe he touched stuff. After the apartment was printed. Now you and I just mauled it. . . . Asking for new prints is gonna be fun."

  "I doubt he left any. That careful, he is."

  "I'll ask anyway." He began trudging down the stairs. Stopped midway. "If this is a message, who's it aimed at? Not the public. Unlike the body and the note, there was no way he could be sure it would be found."

  "At this point," I said, "he's talking to himself. Doing anything he can to enhance the kick, evoke memories of the kill. He may very well want to return to the scene of the murder but views that as too dangerous, so breaking into Mate's home, directly or by surrogate, would be the next-best thing."

  I thought of something Richard Doss had told me . . . dancing on Mate's grave.

  "Broken stethoscope," I said. "If I'm right about his taking the black bag, the message is clear: 'I get the real tools, you get broken garbage.' "

  We resumed our descent. At the bottom of the stairs, Milo said, "The idea of a confederate gets me thinking. About Attorney Haiselden, who should be in town but isn't. Because who spent more time with Mate? Who'd be more familiar with the apartment, maybe even have a key? The guy's behavior is wrong, Alex. Here we are, Mate's cold for a week, Haiselden should be throwing press conferences. But not a peep out of him. Just the opposite— he rabbits. Collecting coins from laundromats? Gimme a break, this asshole's hiding from something. Zoghbie said representing Mate was the only thing Haiselden did as a lawyer. That says overinvolvement. Mate was Haiselden's ticket to celebrity. Maybe Haiselden got hooked on it, wanted more, no more second fiddle. He watches Mate I.V. enough travelers, figures it qualifies him as a death doc. Hell, maybe Haiselden's one of those guys who went to law school because he c
ouldn't get into med school."

  "Interesting," I said. "Something else I pulled off the computer fits that. Newspaper account of a press conference Haiselden did call after one of the trials. He said Mate deserved the Nobel Prize, then he added that as Mate's lawyer, he deserved part of the money."

  His free hand balled. "I've been delegating finding him to Korn and Demetri, but now I'm handling it personally. Going over to his house, right now. South Westwood. I can drop you at the station or you can come along."

  I looked at my watch. Nearly five. It had been a long day. "I'll call Robin and come along."

  We crossed the street to the unmarked. Milo locked the evidence bag in the trunk, circled to the driver's side, stopped. Glancing to his left.