Dr. Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

  "I saw them briefly at the station but didn't have a chance to talk to them. Richard's lawyer— Joseph Safer— called me this morning and told me he expected to get Richard out by today and that Richard would be calling me to talk. I'm still waiting."

  It had been a day for waiting. And guesswork. If a hypothesis is formed in the forest and no one's there to . . . After returning from the library, I'd gone over Fusco's file again, no new insights. No new messages from anyone. I hadn't run for a couple of days, forced myself to do it, ended up in the mountains for a long time, got home still wired, did some push-ups, showered, drank water.

  At six, despite the dinner appointment with Judy, I broiled two steaks and baked a couple of Idahos. Steak with Robin. I figured on a salad with Judy. Light and healthful me, what a social butterfly.

  The drinks came. Judy raised her glass, inspected the contents and sipped. "Joe Safer is a prince— I'm not being sarcastic. The ideal defense attorney: kindly demeanor combined with the single-mindedness of a psychopath. If I were in trouble, I'd want him to talk for me." Her blue eyes clouded for a moment. She drank some more and they seemed to clear.

  "Ah," she said. "This hits the spot. I don't ingest enough poison."

  "Too temperate?"

  "Too weight-conscious."

  "You?"

  She smiled. "When I was sixteen I weighed a hundred and ninety-seven pounds. In high school, I was a total slug. To be accurate, I was repugnant. Walking two steps exhausted me." Another sip. "I guess that's why I could empathize with Joanne . . . up to a point."

  "Up to a point?" I said.

  "Only up to a point." Angry squint. "Let's just say that where she ended up was a whole different planet." She drank more, licked her lips.

  "It's hard to imagine someone deciding to eat herself into a stupor."

  "Oh," she said, "Joanne was full of surprises."

  "Such as?"

  Another squint. "Just that. And unlike me, she started off thin."

  Her voice had filled with anger and I decided to veer away. When in doubt, show personal interest.

  "How'd you take off the weight?" I said.

  "The old-fashioned way: deprivation. Self-denial has become my lifestyle, Alex." She ran her finger around the rim of the glass. "There's no other way, is there?"

  "Self-denial?"

  "Fighting," she said. "Most people lack the will. That's why we spend gazillions on the so-called war on drugs, preach about smoking and eating too much fat, but never make any progress. People will never stop getting high. People will take comfort where they find it." Another laugh. "Some talk for a judge, huh? Anyway, I take care of myself. For health, not cosmetics. I keep my family healthy."

  "Your girls are pretty athletic, aren't they?"

  "What makes you say that?"

  "I seem to recall pictures in your office— outdoor sports?"

  "My, what a memory," she said. "Yes, Ali and Becky like to sail and ski and they're trim now, but both of them have a tendency to pudge. Lousy genetics: Bob and I were both lumpy kids. I stay on them. It's easier now that they've discovered boys." She sat back. "They both have, thank goodness. Does that sound terrible? Perfectionistic mom?"

  "I'm sure you care about them."

  "That was shamelessly nonjudgmental, Alex. We're diametric opposites, aren't we? I get paid to do precisely what you avoid."

  The waiter approached and asked if she wanted a refill.

  "Not at this point," she said. "The doctor here will have a look at the menu, but I know what I want. The Tender Greens Salad, everything chopped very fine, no dried apricots or olives or nuts, dressing on the side."

  "I'll have the same," I said, "but leave in the nuts."

  The waiter glanced at his list of specials and walked away looking miffed. Judy said, "Leave in the nuts? Funny. . . . So— you have no idea how Eric and Stacy are coping?"

  "I'm sure it's rough for them. Any further thoughts about Richard?"

  "Do I think he's capable of soliciting murder? Alex, you know as well as I do that no one can ever really fathom what goes on in someone's head. So yes, I suppose it's theoretically possible that Richard tried to have Mate killed. But the way they said he did it sounds so damn stupid, and Richard's anything but."

  "Joanne was brilliant, too."

  Her face tightened. Tiny lines, softened by makeup and indirect lighting, appeared all over the surface of her skin. A woman cracking.

  "Yes, she was. I won't profess to understand why she did the things she did."

  I waited for the stress lines to fade. They didn't. She was gazing into her gin and tonic, playing with the stirrer.

  "I guess we never really understand anyone, do we?"

  I said, "Let's assume— for argument's sake— that Richard did pay Quentin Goad. Why would he hate Mate that much?"

  She touched a finger to her upper lip, massaged, looked up at the ceiling. "Perhaps he saw Mate as taking away something that belonged to him. Richard likes his possessions."

  "Was he especially possessive when it came to Joanne?"

  "More than any other alpha male? He's a middle-aged man, Alex. He's from a certain generation."

  "So he saw Joanne as his."

  "Bob sees me as his. If you're asking was Richard pathologically jealous, I never saw it."

  "And Joanne chose to exclude him from the most important decision of her life."

  She swiped her lips with her napkin. "Meaning?"

  "Meaning I don't understand much about this family, Judy."

  "Neither do I," she said, very softly. "Neither do I." The restaurant din nearly blocked out the sound and I realized I was reading her lips.

  "Have you ever met Richard's parents?"

  "No," she said. "They never visited, as far as I know, and Richard never talked about them. Why?"

  "Grabbing any fact I can. Eric told me he's Greek-Sicilian."

  "I suppose I was aware of that— Joanne must've said something, or one of the kids did. But I can't recall Richard ever making a thing about it. I never saw grape leaves in the house, or anything like that."

  She looked and sounded tired, as if talking about the Doss family drained her.

  I said, "As friends and neighbors, they must have been a challenge."

  "What do you mean?" she said, in the same sharp tone I'd heard her use on an errant lawyer.

  "They're the kind of people to whom things happen. When I spoke to Bob about Joanne's diagnosis, he sounded pretty frustrated about Joanne's condition—"

  "Did he?" she said absently. She gazed around the room. A few more tables had filled. "That's just Bob being Bob. He prides himself on being analytic: identify the problem, cut it out."

  "Which he couldn't do with Joanne."

  "No, he couldn't." She stirred the drink. Eyes down again. Stress lines deeper.

  "Bob seems to feel her illness was all emotional depression," I said.

  She looked over at a table to the right. Two couples seated a few minutes ago, laughing, drinking. She summoned the waiter over, ordered another gin and tonic.

  "Do you agree?" I said.

  "With what?"

  "That it was all emotional."

  "I'm not a doctor, Alex. I couldn't begin to fathom Joanne's motivation." Another glance at the happiness nearby.

  "In terms of Eric and Stacy—"

  "Eric and Stacy are going to cope and move on, right? That's why I sent Stacy to you."

  Her second drink came. We traded courtroom stories and I listened to her go on about municipal politics, the D.A.'s inability to collect child support. That enabled me to steer the conversation back where I wanted it.

  "They couldn't get Mate, either."

  She stirred gin, nodded.

  "I'm not sure Mate was happy about that," I said. "No more prime time."

  "Yes, he was a grandstander, wasn't he?"

  "The interesting thing is, Judy, he never took credit for Joanne's death. Never even tried, and it's the only case I could
find where that was true."

  She'd been holding the glass in midair, lowered it slowly. "You've been researching?"

  "The police assumed Mate had assisted Joanne, but they never confirmed it."

  "I'd say it's a pretty good assumption, Alex. Her body was full of those chemicals Mate used."

  Our salads arrived. Big plate of what looked like lawn shavings. A few cashews on mine. My belly was still filled with steak and nothing had transpired to spark my appetite. I pushed leaves around. Judy aimed her fork at a cherry tomato, tried to stab it, but it rolled out from under the tines. For a split second, fury darkened her face. Talking about the Dosses had been an ordeal.

  She speared a speck of lettuce. "Even if Richard was stupid enough to give money to that loser, the loser backed out. I'm hoping he didn't try again. After we spoke, I asked around. So far, nothing beyond solicitation. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

  "No," I said.

  "Passion, Alex. It makes people do crazy things."

  "Richard was passionate about Joanne?"

  "I suppose he was." Peeling back her sleeve, she glanced at the Lady Rolex.

  "Here comes the egg timer," I said.

  She smiled. "I'm sorry, Alex. I'm very tired— not hungry, either. Is there anything else?"

  "I'd like to know more about Eric."

  "Just what I told you the first time. A genius, perfectionistic. Dominant personality."

  "Stacy said he and Ali dated."

  Pause. "Yes, they did. Year ago. Ali said he was a bit of a control freak— nothing weird, he just proved too intense for her. She broke it off."

  Stacy had said Eric had severed the relationship. Teenage soap opera. Did it matter?

  I said, "He sounds a lot like Richard."

  "He's Richard's boy all the way. Like a little nuclear weapon with legs."

  "And Stacy?"

  "You're Stacy's therapist. What do you think?"

  "Was she distant from Joanne?"

  "Why do you ask that?"

  "Because it was Eric who spent time with Joanne during her last days."

  She pushed her plate away. "Alex, I think you've gotten the wrong idea about the Dosses and us. We were friends, neighbors, lunched at the Cliffside. But for the most part they kept their problems to themselves and we lived our own life. Richard told Bob that Stacy seemed to be drifting. From the little I saw, she seemed a bit depressed, so I sent her to you. That's all there is. I can't carry any more on my shoulders. I'm sorry I haven't been more helpful, but that's all there is."

  She got up, marched to our waiter, who was talking with a colleague, stood there for a few seconds, then said something that caused his head to retract, as if he'd been bitten. He stalked away and she returned, finished her drink while standing. "Snotty little bastard. I'm waiting to tell him we're ready for the check, he's discussing his latest audition."

  Looking off to one side, the object of her wrath raced over, flung the check at the table and fled. Judy reached for it, but I got there first.

  "What?" she said. "Bribing the judge?"

  "Thanking the judge for her time," I said.

  "That's all I've given you," she said. "Time. Heat, no light."

  • • •

  Her Lexus had been left at the curb and I waited for her to drive away. As I waited for the Seville, I tried to make sense out of the last half hour.

  She'd arrived at the restaurant looking strained— more tense than I'd ever seen her— and each of my questions seemed to yank her psyche's drawstring tighter. Before she left, she warned off further inquiry. So I'd opened some kind of wound but had no idea what it was.

  No chance to get to the topic of hospitals, no way to work it into the conversation.

  I'd watched her in court, seen her handle the tough- est of cases with aplomb, so this was something per- sonal. . . . The closest she'd gotten to autobiography was self-loathing about her teenage obesity.

  I was repugnant. . . . But if that related to the Dosses, I was missing the connection.

  I can't carry any more on my shoulders.

  Burdened by the Dosses, as was her husband? Bob expressing it as anger because he was a man of a certain generation?

  Some kind of intimacy gone terribly bad? Bob jealous of Richard and Joanne in the pool— did it all reduce to another sleazy suburban couples' swap?

  And had that related, in some way, to Joanne's decline? Something Richard couldn't forgive her for?

  Guilt and expiation. Had Eric found out?

  Eric and Allison breaking up, Becky in therapy, eating disorders, poor grades, Joanne quitting as tutor, Stacy losing focus, Eric dropping out. Bob enraged, Judy on the edge . . . Joanne dead.

  Put together a certain way, I could make it sound like a psychopathology stew.

  Even so, what did it have to do with Mate's corpse stretched out in the back of a van, geometry on flesh?

  Why hadn't Mate taken credit for Joanne?

  The Seville screeched to a halt and the attendant held my door with an expression that said I didn't deserve it. Driving away, I went over it again, finally decided I'd wasted my time and Judy's, most certainly damaged my relationship with the presiding judge of family court.

  Another day, another triumph. The car was low on gas and I filled up at a station on Wilshire, used the pay phone near the men's room to call my service. Joseph Safer had phoned five minutes earlier from the Dosses' home number.

  Richard answered, hoarse, quieter than usual. "Doctor— hold on." A second later, Safer's melodious voice flowed through the receiver.

  "Doctor, thanks so much for getting back promptly."

  "What's up?"

  "Richard and the children are home. Richard arrived four hours ago, but I waited until the hubbub died down before I called you."

  "Press hubbub?"

  "Press, police, what you'd expect. As far as I can tell, everyone's departed with the exception of a single unmarked police car parked down the block. Occupied by the two gentlemen who accosted Richard at your home, as a matter of fact."

  Korn and Demetri on butt-numbing duty. So Milo had regained at least some of the upper hand.

  "Not too subtle," I said.

  "We-ell." Safer chuckled. "Cossacks aren't generally known for subtlety."

  "Did they search the house?"

  "They threatened to," said Safer. "We're disputing their contentions, urging the judge to exercise some restraint. I realize it's an imposition at this hour— however, if you could find time to come over to chat with Richard and the children, that would be marvelous."

  "At the house?"

  "I could bring them to your office, but with all they've been through . . ."

  "No, that's fine," I said. "I'll be right over."

  26

  SAFER GAVE ME directions to the house: west on Sunset, past the Pacific Palisades shopping district, a mile beyond the old Will Rogers estate, then a quick turn north.

  Twenty minutes or so from the Village, just as close to my home. In all the time I'd spent with the Dosses, I'd never seen them in their natural surroundings. Back when I was an intern at Western Peds, I found time to make house calls, school visits. After I got licensed, I rarely ventured from the comfort of my own furniture. Was I nothing more than a primatologist deluding himself that he understood chimps because he'd observed them scratching and swinging behind the bars of zoo cages?

  House calls were impractical.

  Practicality could be confining. Now I'd have the chance to stretch.

  • • •

  I found the turnoff easily enough and sped up a very dark street that climbed into the Palisades. No sidewalks, front lawns the size of small parks, walls and gates and talkboxes, night-black shrubbery, towering cascades of old-growth trees.

  Close enough to the ocean to feel the breeze and smell the brine. Were ugly September mornings better up here? I caught glimmers of moon-blanched water between the bulk of big houses. As I continued, the properties got wider,
offered broader glimpses of Pacific. Now I was high enough to see all of the moon, gravid and low. The sky was a cloudless indigo comforter.