Devil's Waltz

by Jonathan Kellerman

  I went back there several times, thinking about what to do, and then one night I saw an ambulance pull up in front of the house. He came out right afterward, in his Volvo, and I followed him at a distance, to Western Pediatric Medical Center. I stayed behind him all the way to the Emergency Room and heard him ask about his daughter, Cassie.

  The next morning I went back, to Medical Records, wearing my white lab coat and saying I was Dr. Herbert. It was really easy, no security. Later, they beefed things up. Anyway, the daughter: her chart was gone but a card was there listing all these other admissions for her, so I knew he was up to his tricks. The poor little thing.

  That’s what really got me going— it wasn’t just the money. Believe it or don’t, Ashmore, but it’s the truth. When I saw that card on the little girl, I knew I had to get him. So I went to Personnel and applied for a job. Three weeks later they called and offered me a half-time. With you, Ashmore. Shitty job, but I could watch Chip without him knowing. I finally got hold of Cassie’s chart and found out everything he was doing to her. I also read in there that they’d had a boy who died. So I looked up his chart and found out he’d had crib death. So Chip had finally murdered someone. Next time I saw Cassie’s name on the A and D sheets, I watched for him and finally saw him and followed him out to the parking lot and said, “Surprise.”

  He was really freaked out, tried to pretend he didn’t know me. Then he tried to put me on the defensive by saying how much weight I’d gained. I just told him I knew what he was up to and that he’d better stop. Also, if he didn’t give me a million dollars, I’d go to the police. He actually started crying, said he never meant to hurt anyone— just like he used to do when we were together. But this time it didn’t work. I said no dice.

  Then he said he’d give me a good-will payment of ten thousand dollars and try to come up with some more, but I had to give him time and it wouldn’t be anything near a million— he didn’t have that kind of money. I said fifty up front and we finally agreed on twenty-seven five. The next day he met me up at Barnsdale Park in Hollywood and gave me the money in cash. I told him he’d better come up with at least two hundred thousand more by the end of the month. He started crying again and said he’d do his best. Then he asked me to forgive him. I left and used the money to buy a new car because my old one was broken down, and in L.A. you’re nothing without a good car. I put Chad Jones’s chart in a locker at the airport— LAX, United Airlines, Number 5632— and the next day I quit the hospital.

  So now I’m waiting till the end of the month and writing this down as collateral. I want to be rich and I want to be a doctor. I deserve all that. But just in case he tries to renege, I’m leaving this floppy in a locked drawer each night, then collecting it in the morning. There’s also a copy in my locker at school. If you’re reading it, I’m probably in Dutch, but so what. I’ve got no other alternatives.

  March 7, 1989

  Dawn Rose Rockwell Kent Herbert

  DET. STURGIS: That’s it.

  MR. TOKARIK: Are we supposed to be impressed? Decoded hocus-pocus? You know this is totally inadmissible.

  DET. STURGIS: If you say so.

  MR. TOKARIK: Come on, Chip, let’s get out of here— Chip?

  MR. JONES: Uh-huh.

  DET. STURGIS: Sure you wanna go? There’s more.

  MR. TOKARIK: We’ve heard quite enough.

  DET. STURGIS: Suit yourself, Counselor. But don’t waste your time asking for bail. D.A.’s filing Murder One as we speak.

  MR. TOKARIK: Murder One! That’s outrageous. Who’s the victim?

  DET. STURGIS: Dawn Herbert.

  MR. TOKARIK: Murder One? On the basis of that fantasy?

  DET. STURGIS: On the basis of eyewitness testimony, Counselor. Collaborator testimony. Upstanding citizen named Karl Sobran. You do have a thing for your students, don’t you, Prof.

  MR. TOKARIK: Who?

  DET. STURGIS: Ask the prof.

  MR. TOKARIK: I’m asking you, Detective.

  DET. STURGIS: Karl Edward Sobran. We’ve got a windbreaker with blood on it and a confession implicating your client. And Sobran’s credentials are impeccable. Bachelor’s degree in interpersonal violence from Soledad, postgraduate training from numerous other institutions. Your client hired him to kill Ms. Herbert and make it look like a sex thing. Not much of a challenge, because Sobran likes to get violent with women— did time for rape and assault. His last paid vacation was for larceny and he spent it up in the Ventura County Jail. That’s where old Professor Chip, here, met him. Volunteer tutoring— a class project his sociology students were doing. Sobran got an A. Old Chip sent a letter recommending parole, calling Sobran graduate-school material and promising to keep him under his wing. Sobran got out and enrolled at West Valley Community College as a sociology major. What he did to Dawn— What was that, Prof? Fieldwork?

  MR. TOKARIK: This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.

  DET. STURGIS: D.A. doesn’t think so.

  MR. TOKARIK: The D.A. is totally politically motivated. If my client was any other Jones, we wouldn’t even be sitting here.

  DET. STURGIS: Okay . . . have a nice day. Steve?

  DET. MARTINEZ: See y’all.

  MR. TOKARIK: Coded disks, the alleged testimony of a convicted felon— absurd.

  DET. STURGIS: Ask your client if it’s absurd.

  MR. TOKARIK: I’ll do no such thing. Let’s go, Chip. Come on.

  MR. JONES: Can you get me bail, Tony?

  MR. TOKARIK: This isn’t the place to—

  MR. JONES: I want out of this place, Tony beings are piling up. I’ve got papers to grade.

  MR. TOKARIK: Of course, Chip. But it may take—

  DET. STURGIS: He’s not going anywhere and you know it, Counselor. Level with him.

  MR. JONES: I want out. This place is depressing. I can’t concentrate.

  MR. TOKARIK: I understand, Chip, but—

  MR. JONES: No buts, Tony. I want out. A l’extérieur. O.U.T.

  MR. TOKARIK: Of course, Chip. You know I’ll do everything I—

  MR. JONES: I want out, Tony. I’m a good person. This is totally Kafkaesque.

  DET. STURGIS: Good person, huh? Liar, torturer, murderer . . . Yeah, I guess if you don’t count those minor technicalities, you’re up for sainthood, Junior.

  MR. JONES: I am a good person.

  DET. STURGIS: Tell that to your daughter.

  MR. JONES: She’s not my daughter.

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip—

  DET. STURGIS: Cassie’s not your daughter?

  MR. JONES: Not strictly speaking, Detective. Not that it’s relevant— I wouldn’t hurt anyone’s child.

  DET. STURGIS: She’s not yours?

  MR. JONES: No. Even though I’ve raised her as if she were. All the responsibility but none of the ownership.

  DET. MARTINEZ: Whose is she, then?

  MR. JONES: Who knows? Her mother’s such a compulsive roundheels, jumps anything with a— In pants. God only knows who the father is. I sure don’t.

  DET. STURGIS: By “her mother” you’re referring to your wife? Cindy Brooks Jones.

  MR. JONES: Wife in name only.

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip—

  MR. JONES: She’s a barracuda, Detective. Don’t believe that innocent exterior. Pure predator. Once she snagged me, she reverted to type.

  DET. STURGIS: What type is that?

  MR. TOKARIK: I’m calling this session to a halt right now. Any further questions are at your legal risk, Detective.

  DET. STURGIS: Sorry, Chip. Your legal beagle, here, says zip the lip.

  MR. JONES: I’ll talk to whom I want, when I want, Tony.

  MR. TOKARIK: For God’s sake, Chip—

  MR. JONES: Shut up, Tony. You’re growing tedious.

  DET. STURGIS: Better listen to him, Prof. He’s the expert.

  MR. TOKARIK: Exactly. Session ended.

  DET. STURGIS: Whatever you say.

  MR. JONES: Stop infantilizing me— all of you
. I’m the one stuck in this hellhole. My rights are the ones being abridged. What do I have to do to get out of here, Detective?

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip, at this point there’s nothing you can do—

  MR. JONES: Then what do I need you for? You’re fired.

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip—

  MR. JONES: Just shut up and let me get a thought out, okay?

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip, I can’t in good conscience—

  MR. JONES: You don’t have a conscience, Tony. You’re a lawyer. Quoth the Bard: “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” Okay? So just hold on . . . okay . . . Listen, you guys are cops— you understand street people, how they lie. That’s the way Cindy is. She lies atavistically— it’s an ingrained habit. She fooled me for a long time because I loved her—“When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.” Shakespeare— everything’s in Shakespeare. Where was I . . . ?

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip, for your own sake—

  MR. JONES: She’s amazing, Detective. Could charm the bark off a tree. Serve me dinner and smile and ask me how my day had been— and an hour before, she was in our marital bed, screwing the pool man. The pool man, for God’s sake. We’re talking urban legend here. But she lived it.

  DET. STURGIS: By “the pool man” you’re referring to Greg Worley of ValleyBrite Pool Service?

  MR. JONES: Him, others— what’s the difference? Carpenters, plumbers, anything in jeans and a tool belt. No trouble getting tradesmen out to our place— oh, no. Our place was Disneyland for every blue-collar cocksman in town. It’s a disease, Detective. She can’t help herself. Okay, rationally, I can understand that. Ungovernable impulses. But she destroyed me in the process. I was the victim.

  MR. TOKARIK: (unintelligible)

  DET. STURGIS: What’s that, Counselor?

  MR. TOKARIK: I register my objection to this entire session.

  MR. JONES: Suppress your ego, Tony. I’m the victim— don’t exploit me for your ego. That’s my problem in general— people tend to take advantage of me because they know I’m fairly naïve.

  DET. STURGIS: Dawn Herbert do that?

  MR. JONES: Absolutely. That folderol you read was absolute fantasy. She was a dope addict when I found her. I tried to help her and she paid me back with paranoia.

  DET. STURGIS: What about Kristie Kirkash?

  MR. JONES: (unintelligible)

  DET. STURGIS: What’s that, Prof?

  MR. JONES: Kristie’s my student. Why? Does she say it’s more than that?

  DET. STURGIS: Actually she does.

  MR. JONES: Then she’s lying— another one.

  DET. STURGIS: Another what?

  MR. JONES: Predator. Believe me, she’s old beyond her years. I must attract them. What happened with Kristie is that I caught her cheating on a test and was working with her on her ethics. Take my advice and don’t accept anything she says at face value.

  DET. STURGIS: She says she rented a post office box for you out in Agoura Hills. You have the number handy, Steve?

  DET. MARTINEZ: Mailboxes Plus, Agoura, box number 1498.

  MR. JONES: That was for research.

  DET. STRUGIS: What kind of research?

  MR. JONES: I’ve been thinking of a possible project: pornography research— recurrent images in an overly organized society— as a form of ritual. Obviously, I didn’t want material sent to my home or my campus office— you get on pervert lists, and I didn’t want a flood of garbage coming in. So Kristie rented the POB for me.

  DET. STURIGS: Any reason you didn’t rent it yourself?

  MR. JONES: I was busy, Kristie lived out there, and it just seemed convenient.

  DET. STRUGIS: Any reason you rented it under the name of Ralph Benedict, M.D.? A physician who’s been dead for two and a half years and just happened to have treated your wife’s aunt for diabetes?

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  DET. STRUGIS: Any reason you had medical apparatus shipped out to that post office box using Ralph Benedict, M.D.’s name and medical license number?

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  DET. STURGIS: Any reason you had insulin and Insuject insulin-delivery systems, such as the one we found in your hand in your daughter’s hospital room, shipped to that post office box in Ralph Benedict, M.D.’s name?

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  MR. JONES: Ridiculous. Cindy knew about the POB, too. I gave her my spare key. She must have used it for that.

  DET. STURGIS: She says she didn’t.

  MR. JONES: She’s lying.

  DET. STURGIS: Okay, but even so, why’d you use Benedict’s name to get the box? It’s your name on the application form.

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  MR. JONES: I want to— I want to clear my name, Tony. In all honesty, Detective, I can’t really answer that one. It must have been subconscious. Cindy must have mentioned Benedict’s name— yes, I’m sure she did. As you said, he was her aunt’s doctor, she talked about him a lot, and it stuck in my mind— so when I needed a name for the box, it just popped into my head.

  DET. STURGIS: Why’d you need an alias in the first place?

  MR. JONES: I already explained that. For the pornography— some of the stuff I received was really disgusting.

  DET. STUGIS: Your wife says she knew nothing about the box.

  MR. JONES: Of course she does. She’s lying. Really, Detective, it’s all a matter of context— seeing things in a different light, using a new lens.

  DET. STURGIS: Uh-huh.

  MR. TOKARIK: Now what are you pulling out?

  DET. STURGIS: I think it’s obvious. This is a mask.

  MR. TOKARIK: I fail to see—

  MR. JONES: No big deal. It’s from the carnival— Delta Psi’s carnival. They dressed me up as a witch. I kept the mask for a souvenir.

  DET. STURGIS: Kristie Kirkash kept it. You gave it to her last week and told her to keep it.

  MR. JONES: So?

  DET. STURGIS: So I think you put this on when you injected Cassie. So you’d look like a woman— the wicked witch.

  MR. TOKARIK: Ridiculous.

  MR. JONES: I agree with you there, Tony.

  DET. STURGIS: A souvenir, huh? Why’d you give it to Kristie?

  MR. JONES: She’s a Delta Psi. I thought the sorority would like to have it.

  DET. STURGIS: Considerate.

  MR. JONES: I’m their faculty adviser. What’s the big—

  DET. STURGIS: You have a thing for your students, don’t you? That’s how you met your wife, isn’t it? She was your student.

  MR. JONES: It’s not unusual— the teacher-student relationship . . .

  DET. STURGIS: What about it?

  MR. JONES: Often . . . sometimes it leads to intimacy.

  DET. STURGIS: You tutor her, too? Your wife?

  MR. JONES: As a matter of fact, I did. But she was hopeless— not very bright at all.

  DET. STURGIS: But you married her anyway. How come? A smart guy like you.

  MR. JONES: I was smitten—“this spring of love.”

  DET. STURGIS: You met in the spring?

  MR. JONES: It’s a quotation—

  DET. STURGIS: Shakespeare?

  MR. JONES: As a matter of fact, yes. I fell deeply in love and was taken advantage of. A romantic nature. My bête noire.

  DET. STURGIS: What about Karl Sobran? He take advantage of you too?

  MR. JONES: With Karl it was different— with him, ironically, I wasn’t naïve. I knew what he was, right away, but I felt I could help him channel his impulses.

  DET. STURGIS: What did you know he was?

  MR. JONES: Classic antisocial sociopath. But contrary to popular belief, those types don’t lack consciences. They merely suspend them at their convenience— read Samenow. As a police officer, you really should. Where was I? Karl. Karl is very bright. I was hoping to direct his intelligence in a constructive manner.

  DET. STURGIS: Like murder for hire?

 
MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  MR. JONES: Stop sighing, Tony. That’s ridiculous. Of course not. Did Karl actually say that?

  DET. STURGIS: How else would I know about him, Prof?