Devil's Waltz

by Jonathan Kellerman

  MR. JONES: Ludicrous. But he is a sociopath— don’t forget that. Genetic liar. At worst I’m guilty of underestimating him— not realizing how truly dangerous he was. As much as I didn’t respect Dawn as a human being, I was horrified to find out she was murdered. If I’d known, I’d never have written that letter to Karl’s parole board. Never have . . . Oh, my God.

  DET. STURGIS: Never have what?

  MR. JONES: Talked idly to Karl.

  DET. STURGIS: About Dawn?

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t answer that.

  MR. JONES: You’re sighing again— it’s very wearisome, Tony. Yes, about her, as well as other things. I’m afraid I must have thrown out idle comments about Dawn that Karl must have misinterpreted horribly.

  DET. STURGIS: What kinds of comments?

  MR. JONES: Oh, no, I can’t believe he actually— How she was harassing me. He misunderstood. God, what a horrible misunderstanding!

  DET. STURGIS: You’re saying he misunderstood your comments and killed her on his own?

  MR. JONES: Believe me, Detective, the thought makes me sick. But it’s an inescapable conclusion.

  DET. STURGIS: What exactly did you tell Sobran about Dawn?

  MR. JONES: That she was someone from my past who was bothering me.

  DET. STURGIS: That’s it?

  MR. JONES: That’s it.

  DET. STURGIS: There was no solicitation? To kill or hurt her?

  MR. JONES: Absolutely not.

  DET. STURGIS: But there was payment, Prof. Two thousand dollars that Sobran deposited in his account the day after her murder. He had some of it in his pocket when I arrested him. He says he got it from you.

  MR. JONES: No problem. I’ve been helping Karl for a long time— so he could get on his feet, wouldn’t have to revert.

  DET. STURGIS: Two thousand dollars?

  MR. JONES: Sometimes I get a little loose with the purse strings. It’s an occupational hazard.

  DET. STURGIS: Of being a sociology professor?

  MR. JONES: Of growing up wealthy— it can be a real curse, you know. That’s why I always tried to live my life as if the money didn’t exist.

  Keeping my life-style unpretentious— keeping away from all the things that have the potential to corrupt.

  DET. STURGIS: Like real estate deals?

  MR. JONES: My investments were for them— Cindy and the kids. I wanted them to have some kind of financial stability, because teaching school sure won’t give you that. That was before I realized what she was doing.

  DET. STURGIS: By “doing,” you mean sexual behavior?

  MR. JONES: Exactly. With everything that walked in through the door. The children weren’t even mine, but I took care of them anyway. I’m a soft touch— it’s something I need to work on.

  DET. STURGIS: Uh-huh . . . Was Chad yours?

  MR. JONES: Not a chance.

  DET. STURGIS: How do you know?

  MR. JONES: One look at him. He was the spitting image of a roofer we had working out on the tract. Spitting image— total clone.

  DET. STURGIS: Is that why you killed him?

  MR. JONES: Don’t be tedious, Detective. Chad died of sudden infant death syndrome.

  DET. STURGIS: How can you be sure?

  MR. JONES: Textbook case. I read up on it— SIDS— after the little guy died. Trying to understand— to work it through. It was a horrible time for me. He wasn’t my flesh and blood, but I still loved him.

  DET. STURGIS: Okay, let’s move on. Your mother. Why’d you kill her?

  MR. TOKARIK: I object!

  MR. JONES: You fuck—

  DET. STURGIS: See, I did some studying, too—

  MR. JONES: You fat fu—

  MR. TOKARIK: I object! I most strenuously object to thi—

  DET. STURGIS:—trying to understand you, Prof. Talked to people all about your mom. You’d be amazed at how willing people are to talk once someone’s down—

  MR. JONES: You are stupid. You are psychotic and . . . and . . . egregiously stupid and ignorant. I should have known better than to bare my soul to someone like—

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip—

  DET. STURGIS: One thing they all agree on was that old Mom was a hypochondriac. Healthy as a horse but convinced she was terminally ill. One person I spoke to said her bedroom was like a hospital room— that she actually had a hospital bed. With the little table? All these pills and syrups lying around. Needles too. Lots of needles. She stick herself, or get you to do it?

  MR. JONES: Oh, God . . .

  MR. TOKARIK: Take my handkerchief, Chip.

  Detective, I demand that you cease this line of questioning.

  DET. STURGIS: Sure. Bye.

  MR. JONES: She was the one who did the sticking! Herself and me— she hurt me! Vitamin B-12 shots twice a day. Protein shots. Antihistamine shots, even though I wasn’t allergic to anything! My bottom was her fucking pincushion! Antibiotics the minute I coughed. Tetanus shots if I got a scrape. I was the Azazel goat— cod liver oil and castor oil, and if I threw it up, I had to clean it up and take a double dosage. She could always get hold of medicine because she used to be a nurse— that’s how she met him. Army hospital, he was wounded at Anzio— big hero. She took care of him, but to me she was a sadistic maniac— you have no idea what it was like!

  DET. STURGIS: Sounds like no one protected you.

  MR. JONES: No one! It was a living hell. Every day brought a new surprise. That’s why I hate surprises. Hate them. Detest them.

  DET. STURGIS: You prefer everything planned out, huh?

  MR. JONES: Organization. I like organization.

  DET. STURGIS: Sounds like your dad let you down.

  MR. JONES: (laughs) That’s his hobby.

  DET. STURGIS: So you go your own way.

  MR. JONES: Mother’s the— Necessity’s the mother of invention. (laughs) Thank you, Herr Freud.

  DET. STURGIS: Getting back to mom for a minute—

  MR. JONES: Let’s not.

  DET. STURGIS: The way she died— Valium O.D., plastic bag over the head— guess we’ll never prove it wasn’t suicide.

  MR. JONES: That’s because it was. And that’s all I have to say about that.

  DET. STURGIS: Want to say anything about why you hung two pictures she painted in your house but really low to the ground? What was that, a symbolic demeaning or something?

  MR. JONES: I have nothing to say about that.

  DET. STURGIS: Uh-huh . . . yeah . . . So what you’re trying to tell me is, you’re the victim and this is all a big misunderstanding.

  MR. JONES: (unintelligible)

  DET. STURGIS: What?

  MR. JONES: Context, Detective. Context.

  DET. STURGIS: New lens.

  MR. JONES: Exactly.

  DET. STURGIS: Your reading up on sudden infant death was because you were trying to understand your . . . Chad’s death?

  MR. JONES: Exactly.

  DET. STURGIS: Did you read up on Munchausen syndrome by proxy because you were trying to understand Cassie’s illnesses?

  MR. JONES: As a matter of fact, I did. Research is what I’m trained to do, Detective. All the experts seemed to be baffled by Cassie’s symptoms. I figured I’d learn what I could.

  DET. STURGIS: Dawn Herbert said you were once pre-med.

  MR. JONES: Very briefly. I lost interest.

  DET. STURGIS: Why?

  MR. JONES: Too concrete, no imagination involved. Doctors are really nothing more than glorified plumbers.

  DET. STURGIS: So . . . you read up on Munchausen syndrome— doing the old professor thing.

  MR. JONES: (laughs) What can I tell you? In the end we all revert . . . It was a revelation, believe me. Learning about the syndrome. Not that I ever imagined, in the beginning, that Cindy might be doing something to her— Perhaps I was too slow to suspect, but my own childhood . . . too painful. I suppose I repressed. But then . . . when I read . . .

  DET. STURGIS: What? Why are you shaking your head?

 
MR. JONES: It’s hard to talk about . . . so cruel . . . You think you know someone and then . . . But the fit— everything started to fit. Cindy’s history. Her obsession with health. The techniques she must have used . . . disgusting.

  DET. STURGIS: Such as?

  MR. JONES: Smothering to simulate asphyxia. Cindy was always the one who got up when Cassie cried— she only called me when things got bad. Then those terrible GI— gastrointestinal— problems and fevers. Once I saw something brown in Cassie’s baby bottle. Cindy said it was organic apple juice and I believed her. Now I realize it must have been some sort of fecal matter. Poisoning Cassie with her own filth so that she’d get an infection but it would be an autologous one— self-infection, so that no foreign organism would show up on the blood tests.

  Disgusting, isn’t it?

  DET. STURGIS: That it is, Prof. What’s your theory on the seizures?

  SR. JONES: Low blood sugar, obviously. Overdose of insulin. Cindy knew all about insulin, because of her aunt. I guess I should have figured it out— she talked about her aunt’s diabetes all the time, wouldn’t let Cassie have any junk food— but it really didn’t sink in. I guess I really didn’t want to believe it, but . . . the evidence. I mean, at some point one simply has to stop denying, doesn’t one? But still . . . Cindy had—has— her frailties, and sure, I was furious with her for her sexual acting-out. But her own child . . .

  DET. STURGIS: Hers, only.

  MR. JONES: Yes, but that’s beside the point. Who wants to see any child suffer?

  DET. STURGIS: So you went over to the university and pulled medical articles out of the SAP data bank.

  MR. JONES: (unintelligible)

  DET. STURGIS: What’s that?

  MR. JONES: No more questions, okay? I’m getting a little tired.

  DET. STURGIS: Did I say something that offended you?

  MR. JONES: Tony, make him stop.

  MR. TOKARIK: Session ended.

  DET. STURGIS: Sure. Absolutely. But I just don’t get it. We’re having a good talk, all convivial, and then all of a sudden I say something about the SAP data bank— that great computerized system they’ve got, where you can pull articles right off the computer and Xerox them? Something just click about that, Professor? Like the fact that professors can open an account and get an itemized monthly bill?

  MR. TOKARIK: My client and I have no idea what you’re talking abou—

  DET. STURGIS: Steve?

  DET. MARTINEZ: Here you go.

  MR. TOKARIK: Ah, more tricks from the police bag.

  DET. STURGIS: Here. You look at it, Counselor. The articles with the red stars are on sudden infant death. Check the dates your client and Ms. Kirkash pulled ’em out of the computer. Six months before Chad died. The blue ones are on Munchausen syndrome. Check those dates and you’ll see he pulled those two months after Cassie was born— long before her symptoms started. To me that spells premeditation, don’t you think, Counselor? Though I have enjoyed the little comedy routine he’s just done for us— maybe the fellas on cell block will enjoy it, too. Hell, maybe you can get him off High-Power and into the main population, Counselor. So he can teach those sociopaths some sociology— what do you say? What’s that?

  MR. JONES: (unintelligible)

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip—

  DET. STURGIS: Are those tears I see, Chipper? Poor baby. Speak up— I can’t hear you.

  MR. JONES: Let’s deal.

  DET. STURGIS: Deal? For what?

  MR. JONES: Reduced charges: assault— assault with a deadly weapon. That’s all you’ve got evidence of, anyway.

  DET. STURGIS: Your client wants to negotiate, Counselor. I suggest you advise him.

  MR. TOKARIK: Don’t say anything, Chip. Let me handle this.

  MR. JONES: I want to deal, goddamit! I want out!

  DET. STURGIS: What do you have to deal with, Chipper?

  MR. JONES: Information— hard facts. Things my dad’s been doing. Real murder. There was a doctor at the hospital named Ashmore— he must have been bothering my dad about something. Because I overheard my dad and one of his lackeys— a worm named Novak— I heard them talking about it when I went to visit my dad at his house. They were in the library and didn’t know I was standing right outside the door— they never paid much attention to me. They were saying this guy, this doctor, would have to be handled. That with all the security problems at the hospital it shouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t really think much of it, but then a month later, Ashmore was murdered in the hospital parking lot. So there had to be a connection, right? I’m sure my dad had him killed. Take a close look at it— believe me, it’ll make all this nonsense look trivial.

  DET. STURGIS: All this folderol, huh?

  MR. JONES: Believe me, just investigate.

  DET. STURGIS: Selling the old man down the river, huh?

  MR. JONES: He never did a thing for me. Never protected me— not once, not a single time!

  DET. STURGIS: Hear that, Counselor? There’s your defense: a bad childhood. Bye, Chip. C’mon, Steve.

  DET. MARTINEZ: See y’all in court.

  MR. JONES: Wait—

  MR. TOKARIK: Chip, there’s no nee—

  END OF TAPE

  37

  The indictment made the third page of a news-thin Saturday paper. The headline was PROFESSOR CHARGED WITH MURDER AND CHILD ABUSE, and an old college photo of Chip was included. In it, he looked like a happy hippie; the article described him as a “sociological researcher and recipient of several teaching awards.” The mandatory sample of disbelieving colleagues was quoted.

  Next week’s story swallowed that one up: Chuck Jones and George Plumb’s arrests for conspiracy to commit the murder of Laurence Ashmore.

  A co-conspirator named Warren Novak— one of the gray accountants— had cut a deal and was telling all, including the fact that Plumb had instructed him to draw cash out of a hospital account to pay a hired killer. The man who’d actually cracked Ashmore’s skull was described as a former bodyguard for Charles Jones named Henry Lee Kudey. A photo showed him being escorted to jail by an unnamed federal agent. Kudey was big and heavy and sloppy-looking and appeared to have just woken up. The marshal was blond and wore black-framed spectacles. His face was a nearly equilateral triangle. As a Western Peds Security guard he’d called himself A. D. Sylvester.

  I wondered why a government agent would be doing the arresting on a homicide until I came to the final paragraph: Federal charges against Chuck Jones and his gang for “alleged financial wrongdoings based upon a lengthy government probe” were imminent. Anonymous “federal officials” were quoted. The names Huenengarth and Zimberg never appeared.

  • • •

  At four o’clock on a Tuesday, I made my fourth attempt to reach Anna Ashmore. The first three times, no one had answered at the house on Whittier Drive. This time, a man did.

  “Who’s calling?” he said.

  “Alex Delaware. I’m on the staff at Western Pediatric Hospital. Paid a condolence call last week and just wanted to see how she’s doing.”

  “Oh. Well, this is her attorney, Nathan Best. She’s doing as well as can be expected. Left for New York last night to visit with some old friends.”

  “Any idea when she’ll be back?”

  “I’m not sure she will.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If you speak to her, give her my best.”

  “All right. What did you say your name was?”

  “Delaware.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “Psychologist.”

  “You wouldn’t be in the market for some bargain real estate, would you, Doctor? The estate will be divesting itself of several properties.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well, if you know someone who is, tell them. Bye.”

  • • •

  At five o’clock, I stuck to a recently acquired routine and drove to a small white house on a shady dead-end street in West L.A., just east of Santa Monica.

  This time
Robin came along with me. I parked and got out. “Shouldn’t be long.”

  “Take your time.” She pushed the seat back, put her feet up on the dash, and began sketching pearl-inlay designs on a piece of Bristol board.