Dr. Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Milo said, "He and your sister are important witnesses. In a homicide case, we need to be extra thorough. Does Paul still volunteer at the hospital?"

  "Nope. Soon as Tanya was discharged and they were dating, he quit. That's what made me wonder."

  "About what?"

  "About if it was just a technique to hit on women. She's recuperating, and all of a sudden they're dating. Couple of months later, both of them move out of their apartments and they rent this place."

  "How long ago was that?"

  "Over a year," she said. "I shouldn't put him down if she likes him. He treats her well enough. Does the cooking, the cleaning—all the cleaning, now that's a good deal. Doesn't leave clothes on the floor— he's real neat, a neat freak, I never saw Tanya live so organized. He even grooms Duchess— Tanya's dog— can spend a half hour brushing her. Duchess likes him now. At first she didn't, and I'm thinking, Yes, animals have a sense. But then she took to him and I'm thinking, What do I know? Or maybe dogs aren't that smart. After all, it was Duchess who got them into this mess by finding— but you know that, don't you."

  "What else did Tanya tell you about finding Dr. Mate?"

  "Not much. Like I said, she was grossed out— Tanya isn't much of a talker anyway. Paul was really into it, though. I'm sure he'll be jazzed that you're back to ask him more questions."

  "Why's that?" said Milo.

  "He thought it was neat—fascinating, he called it. Learning about police procedure. After Tanya called me, I came over. To give her support. Paul had the TV on, waiting to see if he and Tanya would be on. So he'll be jazzed at more attention."

  "Happy to oblige," said Milo. "Any idea where we can find him?"

  "No, like I said, it could be anywhere. He announces to Tanya they're going somewhere and most of the time she agrees. He drives and she sleeps in the car."

  "Most of the time?" I said.

  "Sometimes she puts her foot down. She doesn't like when her work piles up. When she turns him down, Paul gets all pouty and usually he stays home and keeps pouting. But sometimes he goes off by himself for a day or so . . . I have no idea where they are, but you could try Malibu. That's the one place Tanya likes to go."

  "Where in Malibu?" said Milo, keeping his voice casual.

  "Not the beach. We've got— Tanya and I own some land up in the Malibu mountains. Western Malibu, it's more like Agoura, across the Ventura County line and up into the hills. Five, six acres, I don't even know the exact size. Our parents bought it years ago, Dad was going to build a house, but he never got around to it. I never go there because there's really nothing there and it's kind of a mess— dinky little cabin, no phone, gross bathroom, tiny little septic tank. Half the time the electricity lines are down, the road's always washing out. My kids would go crazy from boredom there."

  "But Tanya likes it."

  "Tanya likes things quiet. When she was recuperating from chemo she went there. Or maybe it was to show she was tough. She can be stubborn. The place is probably worth some money now, I would've sold it a long time ago."

  "Does Paul like it?" I said. "Being a Tree Person?"

  "Probably. What Paul really likes is to drive, just for the sake of driving— like gas is free and he's got all the time in the world."

  "Working for himself in real estate."

  "I don't know what he does in real estate— he doesn't seem to work much, but he must be doing okay," she said. "He always has money. Isn't stingy with Tanya, I'll grant him that. Buys her jewelry, clothes, whatever. Plus he cooks and cleans, so what am I complaining about, right?"

  Milo copied down directions to the cabin, promised to let her know if her sister was there.

  "Great," she said. Then she frowned. "That means she'll know I was here, checking up on her. 'Cause I'm the only one who knows about Malibu."

  "Do the people at her job know your number?" he said. "Maybe she listed you as her emergency contact."

  Kris Lamplear brightened. "That's true, she did."

  "Great. We'll just tell her that's how we reached you."

  "Okay, thanks— there's nothing wrong, is there? With Tanya and Paul?"

  "What would be wrong, ma'am?"

  "I don't know. You just seem awfully eager to talk to them."

  "Just what I said, ma'am. Follow-up. It's a high-profile case, we've got to do everything we can to avoid looking stupid."

  "That I understand." She smiled. "No one likes looking stupid."

  34

  HE SPED ONTO the 405. The intersection with the 101 West was nearly immediate, the heavy traffic was flowing east, and soon we were sailing.

  "Malibu," he said. "Sounds familiar."

  "Oh yeah."

  A few years ago, Robin and I had rented a beach house just over the county line. The mouth of the canyon road Kris Lamplear had described was less than a half mile away. I'd gone hiking up there myself, passing campgrounds, the occasional private property, mostly state land walled by mountainside. I remembered long stretches of solitude, silence broken by birdcalls, coyote howls, the occasional roar of a too-fast truck. Brain-feeding silence, but sometimes it had seemed too quiet up there.

  "'Paul likes to drive,'" he went on. "Your basic prerequisite for Serial Killer School. A neat freak and the bastard likes to drive. Now, why didn't I think of that? Could've arrested him the first time I met him, saved the city a lot of overtime."

  "Tsk, tsk. And don't forget his generosity," I said. "Gives his girlfriend jewelry. I wonder how much of it was previously owned."

  He gave a dispirited laugh. "Trophies . . . Lord knows what else he hangs on to."

  He exited at Kanan, took it down to PCH and raced north along the beach. The Coast Highway was virtually empty past Trancas Canyon. The ocean was serene, low tide breaking lazily, too blue to be real. We crossed the county line at Mulholland Highway, just past Leo Carrillo Beach, where a handful of beachcombers walked the tide pools.

  Back to Mulholland. End of the trail.

  No way to travel Mulholland from start to finish. The road was thirty-plus miles of blacktop, girding L.A. from East Hollywood to the Pacific, choked off in several places by wilderness. Nothing important comes easy. . . . Had Michael Burke/Paul Ulrich thought of that when selecting his kill-spot?

  A mile into Ventura, Milo hooked right, veering toward the land side. I caught a peek of my rented house on the private beach just ahead, a wedge of weathered wood visible beyond a sharp curve of the highway. Robin and I had liked it out there, watching the pelicans and dolphins, not minding the rust that seemed to settle in daily. We'd stayed there nearly a year while our house in the Glen was being rebuilt. The moment the lease was up, the landlord had handed the place over to his brilliant aspiring-screenwriter son in hopes of spurring Junior to creativity. The only time I'd met Junior he'd been drunk. I'd never seen anything with his name on it at the multiplex. Kids today.

  The car climbed into the mountains. Neither of us talked as we searched for the unmarked road that led to the property. Address on the mailbox, Kris Lamplear had said.

  The first time, Milo overshot and had to circle back. Finally, we found it, nearly five miles from the ocean, well past its nearest neighbor, preceded by a good mile of state land.

  The mailbox was ten feet up the entrance, concealed by a cloud of plumbago vine. Rusty box on a weathered post, its door missing. Most of the gold-foil address numerals gone, too. The three digits that remained were withered and curling.

  Nothing in the box. The air was cool, sweet, and the unmarked's idling engine seemed deafening. Milo backed out, parked on the road, turned off the motor, and we returned to the mailbox on foot. Ahead of us, the dirt road— more of a path— swept to the left and flattened in an S that snaked through the greenery. Nothing in the immediate distance but more vines, shrubbery, trees. Lots of trees.

  Milo said, "No sense announcing ourselves, giving him a chance to orchestrate. Let's see if we can get a view of the cabin, watch it for a while."

  •
• •

  We walked a thousand feet before it came into view, graying clapboard barely discernible through a thickening colonnade of pine and gum trees and sycamores. Old, twisted sycamores, just like the one where Alice Zoghbie and Roy Haiselden had been propped. Had Ulrich/Burke noticed that? I thought he had. He would have liked that, the symmetry, neatness. The irony. Frosting on the old murder cake.

  If Milo was thinking that, he wasn't putting it into words. He trudged steadily but very slowly, mouth set, eyes swiveling from side to side, one arm loose, the other at his belt, inches from his service revolver. More tension than readiness for battle. He'd stashed his shotgun in the trunk of the unmarked.

  The path finally ended at an egg-shaped parking area partially edged by large, circular rocks. The border looked like someone's primitive attempt at hardscape, long disrupted by the elements. Two cars: Ulrich's navy BMW and Tanya Stratton's copper-colored Saturn.

  Ulrich had told us a tale of another dark BMW stationed on Mulholland.

  BMW like ours.

  I'd agonized over whether the car had been Richard's. Richard or Eric at the wheel. But it had existed only in Ulrich's lie.

  Orchestrating.

  The building was just beyond the cars, at the rear of the property, and we approached, trying to shield ourselves behind trees, straining for a better look. Finally, we had a view of the front door. Open, but blocked by a dirty-looking screen.

  Ugly little thing, not much more than a shed, shoved up against a mountain wall and surrounded by brush. Tar-paper roof the brown-green of a stagnant pond, the clapboard, once white, now murky as laundry water. Nearly hidden by low branches— one bough swooped within a foot of the door— as if yielding itself to green strangulation.

  Up above, barely visible through the sycamores, was a mountain ridge crowned by a thick black coiffure of pines. More state land. No prying neighbors.

  We advanced to within twenty yards of the cabin before Milo stopped, ducked off the path and into the brush, motioning me quickly to do the same.

  A second later, the screen door opened and Tanya Stratton stepped out, letting it slam shut with a snare-drum rattle.

  She wore a long-sleeved tan shirt, blue jeans, white sneakers, had her hair tucked into a red bandanna. No dark glasses this time, but she was too far away for us to see her eyes.

  She stretched, yawned, went to her car and popped the trunk.

  The cabin door opened again, exposing a stretch of arm. Tan arm, male arm. But Ulrich didn't appear. Holding the screen ajar. A good-looking golden retriever bounded out and raced to Tanya Stratton's side.

  Duchess. Great nose, thinks she's a drug dog.

  "Great," Milo whispered. "So much for surveillance."

  Speaking so softly I had to read his lips. But the dog's ears perked and she pivoted toward us, began nosing the ground. Walking. Picking up speed. Tanya Stratton said, "Duchess! Treat!" and the dog froze in her tracks, shook herself off. Turned and ran toward her mistress.

  Stratton had pulled a bag out of the trunk. Now she opened it, reached inside, dangled something in front of Duchess's nose.

  "Sit. Wait."

  The dog settled on her haunches, watched the Milk-Bone that Tanya waved near her nose.

  Tanya said, "Good girl," gave her the bone, ruffled the fur around the retriever's neck. Duchess stayed by Tanya's side, waited till Tanya let her back into the cabin.

  "Good dog," muttered Milo. He looked at his Timex. "Separate cars. What do you make of that?"

  "Maybe Tanya's planning on leaving before him. Work obligations, like her sister said."

  He thought about that. Nodded. "Leaving him alone to do his thing. Which could be sticking close to base or taking another drive. Maybe he's got stuff stashed here. Buried here. Meaning I can't afford to mess up any of the search rules. Gonna have to coordinate with Malibu sheriffs to keep it kosher. . . . Maybe the best thing is back off, find somewhere to watch the road. See if Tanya leaves, then what he does— if she's not in immediate danger."

  "His pattern with his women friends is to wait until they've gotten ill again, minister to them, then take it all the way. Then again, he may have hastened the process along."

  "Poison?"

  "He'd know how."

  "So what are you saying, forget waiting? Waltz right in?"

  "Let me think."

  I never got around to it.

  The door opened yet again and this time Paul Ulrich showed himself. Fit and well-fed, in a white polo shirt, khaki pants, brown loafers, no socks. Muscular arms, ruddy complexion. Mug of something in one hand.

  He drank, placed the cup on the ground, took a few steps forward.

  Showed us his face.

  Two alert, sparkling eyes, a smudge of rosy skin behind flaring mustaches.

  Twin propellers of hair so huge, so flamboyant, that despite my attempt to get past them, to seize upon something— the merest grace note of recognition— that would tie his face into one of the photos in Leimert Fusco's file, my brain processed only mustache.

  Facial hair could do that.

  He retrieved his coffee, strutted around. Flexed a bicep and inspected the bulge of muscle.

  Another sip. Big stretch.

  So content. Top of the morning.

  The mustache made him look like a Keystone Kop. Nothing funny about him.

  Milo's hand was square on his gun, fingers white against the walnut grip, scrambling toward the trigger. Then, as if realizing what he was doing, he drew it away. Wiped his hand on his jacket. Rubbed his face. Stared at Ulrich.

  Suddenly Ulrich dropped to the ground, as if avoiding gunfire. We watched him peel off fifty lightning push-ups. Perfect form. When he bounced back to his feet, he stretched again, showing no signs of exertion.

  He ran a hand over his thinning hair, rotated his neck, flexed his arms, worked on the neck some more. Even killers get stiff . . . all those hours behind the wheel. . . .

  Smoothing one mustache, he reached behind and picked at his seat.

  Even killers untangle their shorts.

  Watching it— the banality— I felt let down. Human. They shouldn't be, but they always are.

  Ulrich finished his coffee, placed the mug on the ground once more, walked to his own car. Popped his trunk. Out came something black. Small leather case, the polished surface reflected the filtered sunlight leaking down through the trees.

  Doctor's bag. Ulrich stroked it.

  I whispered, "There you go."

  Milo said, "What the hell does he need that for right now?"

  The cabin door opened again. As Tanya stepped outside, Ulrich moved quickly, shifting the bag behind his back, inching toward his car. She took only a few steps, was looking away from him, up at the treetops. Ulrich slipped the bag into the trunk, lowered the lid, sauntered over to Tanya.

  Not acknowledging him, she started to turn, was about to reenter the cabin when he reached her. Slipping one hand around her waist, he kissed the back of her neck.

  She was rigid, unresponsive.

  Ulrich remained behind her, maintained his grip around her waist. Kissed her again and she twisted away from his lips. He stroked her cheek, but his face, unseen by her, bore no affection.

  Immobile.

  Eyes hard and focused. Face slightly flushed.

  Tanya said something, broke away from him, disappeared back into the cabin.

  Ulrich stroked his mustache. Spit in the dirt.

  Walked back to the car. Quickly. Face still expressionless. Flushed scarlet. He popped the trunk and retrieved the black bag.

  Milo said, "Not good."

  His hand shot back to his gun and now he was stepping out from behind the tree. He'd barely taken a step when the shot rang out, hard and sharp, like hands clapping once.

  From behind Ulrich. Above. The growth of pine at the ridge.

  Milo ran back to his hiding spot. Gun out, but no one to shoot at.

  Ulrich didn't drop. Not right away. He stood there as the r
ed spot formed on his chest, got redder, larger, blossoming like a rose captured in time-lapse. Exit wound. Shot from the back. The leather bag remained in his hand, the mustache blocked out expression.

  Another hand-clap sounded, then another, two more roses decorated Ulrich's white shirt. Red shirt, hard to believe it had ever been white . . .

  Milo's gun hand was rigid, still, his eyes bounced from Ulrich to the pine ridge.

  More applause.