Dr. Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

  The Hispanic woman hadn't moved. Milo turned. Her head flipped away, quick as a shuffled card, and I knew she'd been watching us.

  Eyes back on the newspaper. Concentrating. The paper waved. No breeze, her hands had tightened. Her bag was a macramé sack that she'd placed on the grass.

  Milo studied her. She ignored him. Licked her lips. Buried her nose deeper in newsprint.

  He began to turn away from her, and her eyes flicked— just for a second— toward Mate's apartment.

  He said, "Hold on."

  I followed him as he strode toward her. Her hands were clenching the paper, causing it to shimmy. She folded her lips inward and drew the newsprint closer to her face. I got near enough to read the date. Yesterday's paper. The classifieds. Employment opportunities . . .

  Milo said, "Ma'am?"

  The woman looked up. Her lips unfolded. Thin purplish lips, chapped and puckered, bleached white around the edges. The rest of her complexion was nutmeg brown. Bags under the eyes.

  She was somewhere between fifty and sixty, short and heavy with a plump face and big, gorgeous black eyes. She wore a navy polyester bomber jacket over a blue-and-white flowered dress that reached to midcalf. The dress material looked flimsy, riding up her stocky frame, adhering to bulges. Thick ankles swelled over the top seams of old but clean Nike running shoes. White socks rolled low exposed chafed shins. Her nails were square-cut. Her black hair was threaded with gray and braided past her waist. Her skin was slack around neck, jaw and chipmunk cheeks, but stretched tight over a wide brow. No makeup, no jewelry. A rural look.

  While working at Western Peds, I'd known several Latin women who'd chosen that same unadorned appearance. Long hair, always a braid, dresses, never pants. Devout women, Pentecostal Christians.

  "Something I can do for you, ma'am?"

  "Are you . . . you're police, right?" The old mouth emitted a young voice, breathy and tentative. No accent; the merest softening at the end of each syllable. She could've found employment giving phone sex.

  "Yes, ma'am." Milo flashed the badge. "And you are . . ."

  She reached into the macramé bag and brought out a red plastic alligator-print wallet. Producing her own I.D., as if it had been demanded of her many times.

  Social Security card. She thrust it at Milo.

  He read, "Guillerma Salcido."

  "Guillerma Salcido Mate," said the woman defiantly. "I don't use his name anymore, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm still Dr. Mate's wife— his widow."

  10

  GUILLERMA MATE STOOD straighter, as if fortified by the claim. Took the Social Security card from Milo's fingers and slipped it back into her purse.

  "You're married to Dr. Mate?" He sounded doubtful.

  Another dip into the bag, another thrust of paper.

  Marriage license, fold marks grubby, photocopied lettering faded to the color of raw plywood. Date of issue, twenty-seven years ago, City of San Diego, County of San Diego. Guillerma Salcido de Vega and Eldon Howard Mate wagering on nuptial bliss.

  "There," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am. Do you live here in L.A.?"

  "Oakland. When I heard— it's been a long time, I didn't know if I should come. I'm busy, got a job taking care of the elderly at a convalescent home. But I figured I should come. Eldon was sending me money, this pension he had. Now that he's gone, I should know what's going on. I took the Greyhound. When I got here I couldn't believe it. What a mess this place is, all the streets dug up. I got lost on the city bus. I've never been here."

  "To L.A.?"

  "I been to L.A. Never been here." Jabbing a stubby finger at the duplex. "Maybe the whole thing was a sign."

  "A sign?"

  "What happened to Eldon. I don't mean I'm some prophet. But when things happen that aren't natural, sometimes it means you have to take a big step. I thought I should find out. Like who's burying him? He had no faith, but everyone should be buried— he didn't want to be cremated, did he?"

  "Not that I know."

  "Okay. Then maybe I should do it. My church would help."

  "How long exactly has it been since you saw Dr. Mate?"

  She touched her finger to her upper lip. "Twenty-five years and . . . four months. Since right after my son was born— his son. Eldon Junior, he goes by Donny. Eldon didn't like Donny— didn't like kids. He was honest about that, told me right at the beginning, but I figured he was just talking, once he had his own he'd change his mind. So I got pregnant anyway. And what do you think? Eldon left me."

  "But he supported you financially."

  "Not really," she said. "You can't call five hundred a month support— I always worked. But he did send it every month, money order, right on the dot, I'll give him that. Only, this month I didn't get it. It was due five days ago, I have to figure out who to talk to at the army. It was an army reserve pension, they need to send it directly to me now. You have any idea how to contact them?"

  "I might be able to get you a number," said Milo. "During the twenty-five years, how often did you and Dr. Mate communicate?"

  "We didn't. He just sent the money. I used to think it was because he felt guilty. About walking out. But now I know he probably didn't. For guilt you got to have faith, and Eldon didn't believe in nothing. So maybe he did it out of habit, I don't know. When his mother was alive he used to send her money. Instead of visiting. He was always one for habits— doing things the same exact way, every single time. One color shirt, one color pants. He said it left time for important things."

  "Like what?"

  She shrugged. Her eyes fluttered and she began to sway. Began to fall. Both Milo and I took hold of her shoulders.

  "I'm okay," she said, shrugging us off angrily. Smooth- ing her dress, as if we'd messed it. "Got a little low blood sugar, that's all, no big deal, I just got to eat. I brought food from home, but in the bus station someone stole my Tupperware." The black eyes lifted to Milo. "I want to eat something."

  • • •

  We drove her to a coffee shop on Santa Monica near La Brea. Dulled gold booths, streaked windows, fried-bacon air, the clash and clatter of silverware scooped into gray plastic tubs by sleepy busboys who looked underage. Milo chose the usual cop's vantage point at the back of the restaurant. The nearest patrons were a pair of CalTrans workers inhaling the daily steak- and-eggs special heralded by a front-door banner. Loss leader; the price belonged to the fifties. Unlikely to cover the cost of slaughter.

  Guillerma Mate ordered a double cheeseburger, fries and a Diet Dr Pepper. Milo told the waitress, "Ham on rye, potato salad, coffee."

  The ambience was doing nothing for my appetite, but I'd put nothing in my stomach since the morning coffee and I asked for a roast-beef dip on French roll, wondering if the meat had been carved from the budget cows.

  The food came quickly. My beef dip was lukewarm and rubbery, and from the way Milo picked, his order was no better. Guillerma Mate ate lustily while trying to maintain dignity, cutting her burger up into small pieces and forking morsels into her mouth with an assembly-line pace. Finishing the sandwich, she forked french fries one at a time, consuming every greasy stick.

  She wiped her mouth. Sipped Dr Pepper through two straws. "I feel better. Thanks."

  "Pleasure, ma'am."

  "So who killed Eldon?" she said.

  "I wish I knew. This pension—"

  "He had two, but I only get one— the five hundred from the reserves. The big one for a couple thousand from the Public Health Service he kept for himself. I don't think I coulda gotten more out of him. We weren't even divorced and he was giving me money." She edged closer across the table. "Did he make more?"

  "Ma'am?"

  "You know, from all the killing he did?"

  "What do you think of all the killing he did?"

  "What do I think? Disgusting. Mortal sin— that's why I don't go by his name. Had everything changed back to Salcido— he wasn't even a doctor when we were married. Went to medical school after he walked out. Went
down in Mexico, because he was too old for anyplace else. I have friends up in Oakland who know we were married. At my church. But I keep it quiet. It's embarrassing. Some of them used to tell me to go get a lawyer, Eldon's rich now, I could get more out of him. I told them it would be sin money. They said I should take it anyway, give it to the church. I don't know about that— did he leave a will?"

  "We haven't found one yet."

  "So that means I have to go through that thing— probate."

  Milo didn't answer.

  "Actually," she said, "we did talk in the beginning, Eldon and me. Right after he walked out. But just a few times. Donny and me were in San Diego, and Eldon wasn't that far, down in Mexico. Then, after he became a doctor, he went up to Oakland to work in a hospital and I did a real stupid thing: I took Donny and we went there, too. I don't know what I coulda been thinking, maybe now that he was a doctor— it was stupid, but there I was with a boy who didn't even know his father."

  "Oakland didn't work out?" I said.

  "Oakland worked out, I'm still there. But Eldon didn't work out. He wouldn't talk to Donny, wouldn't even pick him up, look at him. I remember it like yesterday, Eldon in his white coat— that scared Donny and he started screaming, Eldon got mad and yelled at me to get the brat out of there— the whole thing just fell apart."

  She picked at a scrap of lettuce. "I called him a couple more times after that. He wasn't interested. Refused to visit. Donny's being born just turned him off like a faucet. So I moved across the bridge to San Francisco, got a job. Funny thing is, a few years later I was back to Oakland 'cause the rent was cheaper, but by that time Eldon was gone and the checks were coming from Arizona, he had some kind of government job doing I don't know what. Back then's when I thought of getting a lawyer."

  "Any reason you didn't file for divorce?" I said.

  "Why bother?" she said. "There was no other man I wanted to know, and Eldon was sending me his army pension. You know how it is."

  "How is it?" said Milo.

  "You don't make a move in the beginning, nothing happens. He sent the check every month, that was enough for me. Then when he started in on that killing business, I knew I was lucky he'd left. Who'd want to live with that? I mean, when I heard about that I got sick, really sick. I remember the first time. I saw it on TV. Eldon standing there— I hadn't seen him in years and now he was on the TV. Looking older, balder but the same face, the same voice. Bragging about what he did. I thought, He's finally gone a hundred percent crazy. The next day I was on the phone, changing my name on the Social Security and everything else I could find."

  "So you never talked to him about his new career?"

  "Didn't talk to him about anything," she said. "Didn't I just say that?" She shoved her plate away. Pulled more soda through the straws, let the brown liquid drop like the bubble in a carpenter's level before it reached her lips.

  "Even if it was making him real rich, how would it look if suddenly I showed up wanting more?" She touched the handle of her butter knife. "That was filthy money. I been working my whole life, doing just fine— tell me, did he get rich from the killing?"

  "Doesn't look like it," said Milo.

  "So what was the point?"

  "He claimed he was helping people."

  "The devil claims he's an angel. Back when I knew Eldon, he wasn't interested in helping anyone but himself."

  "Selfish?" I said.

  "You bet. Always in his own world, doing what he wanted. Which was reading, always reading."

  "Why'd you come down here, ma'am?" said Milo.

  She held her hands out, as if expecting a gift. Her palms were scrubbed pale, crisscrossed by brown hatch marks. "I told you. I just thought I should— I guess I was curious."

  "About what?"

  She moved back in the booth. "About Eldon. Where he lived— what had happened to him. I never could figure him out."

  "How'd the two of you meet?" I said.

  She smiled. Smoothed her dress. Sucked soda up the straw. "What? Because he was a doctor and I'm some brown lady?"

  "No—"

  "It's okay, I'm used to it. When we were married and I used to walk Donny in the stroller, people thought I was the maid. 'Cause Donny's light like Eldon— spitting image of Eldon, in fact, and Eldon still didn't like him. Go figure. But stuff like that don't bother me anymore, the only thing that matters is doing right for Jesus— that's the real reason I'd never put a claim on Eldon's killing money. Jesus would weep. And I know you're gonna think I'm some kind of religious nut for saying this, but my faith is strong, and when you live for Jesus your soul is full of riches."

  She laughed. "Of course, a nice meal once in a while don't hurt, right?"

  "How about dessert?" said Milo.

  She pretended to contemplate the offer. "If you're having."

  He waved for the waitress, "Apple pie. Hot, à la mode. And for the lady . . ."

  Guillerma Mate said, "As long as we're talking pie, honey, you got any chocolate cream?"

  The waitress said, "Sure," copied down the order, turned to me. I shook my head and she left.

  "Eldon didn't believe in Jesus, that was the problem," said Guillerma, dabbing at her lips again. "Didn't believe in nothing. You wanna know how we met? It was just one of those things. Eldon was living at this apartment complex where my mother did the cleaning— she wasn't legal so she couldn't get a decent job. My dad was a hundred percent legal, had a work permit, did landscaping for Luckett Construction, they were the biggest back then. My dad got citizenship, brought my mom over from El Salvador, but she never bothered to get papers. I was born here, pure American. My friends call me Willy. Anyway, Eldon was living in the complex and I used to run into him when I was washing down the walkways or trimming the flowers. We'd talk."

  "This was in San Diego?"

  "That's right. I was out of high school only a few years, helping my mom out, taking classes part time at the JC, planning to be a nurse. Eldon was a lot older— thirty-six and he looked in his forties, had lost most of his hair already. I wasn't attracted to him at first, but then I started to like him. 'Cause he was polite. Not just for show, all the time. Quiet, too. That was good, I'd had enough of noisy men. Also, back then I thought he was a genius. He had a job as a chemist, kept science books and all kinds of other books everywhere, reading all the time. Back then, that impressed me. Back then I thought education was the way to get saved."

  "No more, huh?"

  "Wise man, fool— we're all weak mortals. The only genius is the one up there." Pointing to the ceiling. "Proof is, would a genius go around killing other people? Even those who asked for it? Does that sound like a smart thing to do when we're all gonna answer for our deeds in the next world?"

  She shook her head and spoke to the ceiling tiles. "Eldon, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now."

  The dessert came. She waited until Milo'd taken a forkful before attacking her pie.

  I said, "But at the beginning you were impressed with his education."

  "I used to think education was everything. I was gonna be a registered nurse— when I moved up to Oakland, I had these . . . fantasies, I guess you'd call 'em. Eldon would open up a doctor's office, I'd work with him. But then he wouldn't have nothing to do with Donny and me, so I had to keep working and never got to finish school." She licked her lips. "I'm not complaining. I take care of the elderly, do what nurses do, anyway. And now I know there's no shortcut to happiness, doesn't matter what your job is in this world. The main world is the one afterward, and the only way to get there is Jesus. It's exactly what my mother taught me, only back then I wasn't listening to her. No one listened to her, that was the burden she carried around. My father was godless. She never turned him around till he was dying, and even then, not till the pain came on real bad, so what else could he do but pray?"

  The back of her spoon skated over the chocolate cream pie, picking up a coating of whipped cream. She licked it, said, "My dad smoked all his life, got lung
cancer, it spread to his bones, all over his spine. He died in bad pain, choking and screaming. It was horrible. Made a big impression on Eldon."

  "Eldon saw your father die?" I said.

  "You bet. Dad died right after we were married. We'd go visit Dad in the hospital and he'd be coughing up blood and screaming from the pain and Eldon would turn white as a ghost and have to leave. Who'da figured he'd be a doctor? You know what I think? Seeing Dad die could be part of what started out Eldon on this killing business. 'Cause it really was horrible, Mom and me got through it by praying. But Eldon didn't pray. Refused to, even when Mom begged him. Said he wouldn't be a hypocrite. If you don't have no faith, seeing something like that is gonna scare you."