Devil's Waltz (25 page)

Dawn Herbert’s residence was a pale-blue box one lot from the corner. An old brown VW bus was parked in the driveway. Travel decals crowded the lower edge of the rear window. The brown paint was dull as cocoa powder.

A man and a woman were gardening out in front, accompanied by a large golden retriever and a small black mutt with spaniel pretensions.

The people were in their late thirties or early forties. Both had pasty, desk-job complexions lobstered with patches of fresh sunburn on upper arm and shoulder, light-brown hair that hung past their shoulders, and rimless glasses. They wore tank tops, shorts, and rubber sandals.

The man stood at a hydrangea bush, clippers in hand. Shorn flowers clumped around his feet like pink fleece. He was thin and sinewy, with mutton-chop sideburns that trailed down his jaw, and his shorts were held up by leather suspenders. A beaded band circled his head.

The woman wore no bra and as she knelt, bending to weed, her breasts hung nearly to the lawn, brown nipples visible. She looked to be the man’s height — five nine or ten — but probably outweighed him by thirty pounds, most of it in the chest and thighs. A possible match for the physical dimensions on Dawn Herbert’s driver’s license but at least a decade too old for the ’63 birthdate.

As I pulled up I realized that the two of them looked vaguely familiar. But I couldn’t figure out why.

I parked and turned off the engine. Neither of them looked up. The little dog started to bark, the man said, “Down, Homer,” and continued clipping.

That was a cue for the bark to go nuclear. As the mutt scrunched his eyes and tested the limits of his vocal cords, the retriever looked on, bemused. The woman stopped weeding and searched for the source of irritation.

She found it and stared. I got out of the car. The mutt stood his ground but went into the face-down submissive posture.

I said, “Hey, boy,” bent and petted him. The man lowered his clippers. All four of them were staring at me now.

“Morning,” I said.

The woman stood. Too
tall
for Dawn Herbert, too. Her thick, flushed face would have looked right at a barn raising.

“What can I do for you?” she said. Her voice was melodious and I was certain I’d heard it before. But where?

“I’m looking for Dawn Herbert.”

The look that passed between them made me feel like a cop.

“That so?” said the man. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Do you know where she does live?”

Another exchange of glances. More fear than wariness.

“Nothing ominous,” I said. “I’m a doctor, over at Western Pediatric Hospital — in Hollywood. Dawn used to work there and she may have some information on a patient that’s important. This is the only address I have for her.”

The woman walked over to the man. It seemed like a self-defense move but I wasn’t clear who was protecting who.

The man used his free hand to brush petals off his shorts. His bony jaw was set hard. The sunburn had gotten his nose, too, and the tip was raw.

“You come all the way here just to get information?” he said.

“It’s complicated,” I said, fudging for enough time to build a credible story. “An important case — a small child at risk. Dawn checked his medical chart out of the hospital and never returned it. Normally I’d have gone to Dawn’s boss. A doctor named Ashmore. But he’s dead. Mugged a couple of days ago in the hospital parking lot — you may have heard about it.”

New look on their faces. Fear and bafflement. The news had obviously caught them off guard and they didn’t know how to respond. Finally they chose suspicion, locking hands and glaring at me.

The retriever didn’t like the tension. He looked back at his masters and started to whine.

“Jethro,” said the woman, and the dog quieted. The black mutt perked up his ears and growled.

She said, “Mellow out, Homer,” in a singsong voice, almost crooning it.

“Homer and Jethro,” I said. “Do they play their own instruments or use backup?”

Not a trace of a smile. Then I finally remembered where I’d seen them. Robin’s shop, last year. Repair customers. A guitar and a mandolin, the former in pretty bad shape. Two folkies with a lot of integrity, some talent, not much money. Robin had done five hundred bucks’ worth of work for some self-produced record albums, a plate of home-baked muffins, and seventy-five in cash. I’d watched the transaction, unnoticed, from up in the bedroom loft. Later, Robin and I had listened to a couple of the albums. Public domain songs, mostly — ballads and reels, done traditionally and pretty well.

“You’re Bobby and Ben, aren’t you?”

Being recognized cracked their suspicion and brought back the confusion.

“Robin Castagna’s a friend of mine,” I said.

“That so?” said the man.

“She patched up your gear last winter. Gibson A-four with a headstock crack? D-eighteen with loose braces, bowed neck, bad frets, and a popped bridge? Whoever baked those muffins was good.”

“Who
are
you?” said the woman.

“Exactly who I said I was. Call Robin — she’s at her shop, right now. Ask her about Alex Delaware. Or if you don’t want to bother, could you please tell me where I can find Dawn Herbert? I’m not out to hassle her, just want to get the chart back.”

They didn’t answer. The man placed a thumb behind one of his suspender straps.

“Go call,” the woman told him.

He went into the house. She stayed behind, watching me, breathing deeply, bosoms flopping. The dogs watched me too. No one spoke. My eyes caught motion from the west end of the block and I turned and saw a camper back out of a driveway and lumber toward Sepulveda. Someone on the opposite side of the street was flying an American flag. Just beyond that, an old man sat slumped in a lawn chair. Hard to be sure but I thought he was watching me too.

Belle of the ball in Culver City.

The suspendered man came back a few minutes later, smiling as if he’d run into the Messiah. Carrying a pale-blue plate. Cookies and muffins.

He nodded. That and his smile relaxed the woman. The dogs began wagging their tails.

I waited for someone to ask me to dance.

“Get this, Bob,” he said to the woman. “This boy’s her main squeeze.”

“Small world,” said the woman, finally smiling. I remembered her singing voice from the album, high and clear, with a subtle vibrato. Her speaking voice was nice too. She could have made money delivering phone sex.

“That’s a terrific woman you’ve got there,” she said, still checking me out. “Do you appreciate her?”

“Every day.”

She nodded, stuck out her hand, and said, “Bobby Murtaugh. This is Ben. You’ve already been introduced to
these
characters.”

Greetings all around. I petted the dogs and Ben passed the plate. The three of us took muffins and ate. It felt like a tribal ritual. But even as they chewed, they looked worried.

Bobby finished her muffin first, ate a cookie, then another, chewing nonstop. Crumbs settled atop her breasts. She brushed them off and said, “Let’s go inside.”

The dogs followed us in and kept going, into the kitchen. A moment later I heard them slurping. The front room was flat-ceilinged and darkened by drawn shades. It smelled of Crisco and sugar and wet canine. Tan walls, pine floor in need of finishing, odd-sized homemade bookshelves, several instrument cases where a coffee table would have been. A music stand in the corner was stacked with sheet music. The furniture was heavy Depression-era stuff — thrift-shop treasures. On the walls were a Vienna Regulator that had stopped at two o’clock, a framed and glassed Martin guitar poster, and several handbills commemorating the Topanga Fiddle and Banjo Contest.

Ben said, “Have a seat.”

Before I could comply, he said, “Sorry to tell you this, friend, but Dawn’s dead. Someone killed her. That’s why we got freaked out when you mentioned her name, and the other murder. I’m sorry.”

He looked down at the muffin plate and shook his head.

“We still haven’t gotten it out of our heads,” said Bobby. “You can still sit down. If you want to.”

She sank into a tired green sofa. Ben sat next to her, balancing the plate on one bony knee.

I lowered myself to a needlepoint chair and said, “When did it happen?”

“A couple of months ago,” said Bobby. “March. It was on a weekend — middle of the month, the tenth, I think. No, the ninth.” Looking at Ben.

“Something like that,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure it was the ninth, babe. It was the weekend of Sonoma, remember? We played on the ninth and came back to L.A. on the tenth — ’member how late it was because of the problems with the van in San Simeon? Least that’s when he said it happened — the cop. The ninth. It
was
the ninth.”

He said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

She looked at me: “We were out of town — playing a festival up north. Had car trouble, got stuck for a while, and didn’t get back till late on the tenth — early morning of the eleventh, actually. There was a cop’s business card in the mailbox with a number to call. Homicide detective. We didn’t know what to do and didn’t call him, but he called us. Told us what happened and asked us lots of questions. We didn’t have anything to tell him. The next day he and a couple of other guys came by and went through the house. They had a warrant and everything, but they were okay.”

A glance at Ben. He said, “Not too bad.”

“They just wanted to go through her stuff, see if they could find anything that might relate. ’Course they didn’t — that was no surprise. It didn’t happen here and they told us from the beginning they didn’t suspect anyone she knew.”

“Why’s that?”

“He — this detective — said it was…” She closed her eyes and reached for a cookie. Managed to find it and ate half.

“According to the cop, it was a sick psycho thing,” said Ben. “He said she was really…”

Shaking his head.

“A mess,” said Bobby.

“They didn’t find anything here,” said Ben. The two of them looked shaken.

“What a thing to come home to,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” said Bobby. “It really scared us — to have it be someone we knew.” She reached for another cookie, even though half of the first one was still in her hand.

“Was she your roommate?”

“Tenant,” said Bobby. “We own the house.” Saying it with wonderment. “We have a spare bedroom, used to use it as a practice room, do some home recording. Then I lost my job over at the day-care center, so we decided to rent it out for the money. Put a card up on the bulletin board at the university ’cause we figured a student might want just a room. Dawn was the first to call.”

“How long ago was this?”

“July.”

She ate both cookies. Ben patted her thigh and squeezed it gently. The soft flesh cottage-cheesed. She sighed.

“What you said before,” he said, “about this medical chart. Was her taking it uncool?”

“She was supposed to return it.”

They looked at each other.

“Did she have a ‘taking’ problem?” I said.

“Well,” he said, uncomfortably.

“Not at first,” said Bobby. “At first she was a great tenant — cleaned up after herself, minded her own business. Actually, we didn’t see her much because we had our day jobs, and then sometimes we’d go out to sing at night. When we didn’t, we went to sleep early. She was out all the time — real night owl. It was a pretty good arrangement.”

“Only problem,” said Ben, “was her coming in at all hours, because Homer’s a good watchdog and when she came in he used to bark and wake us up. But we couldn’t very well tell her when to come in and out, could we? Mostly, she was okay.”

“When did she start taking things?”

“That was later,” he said.

“A couple of months after she arrived,” said Bobby. “At first we didn’t put it together. It was just small stuff — pens, guitar picks. We don’t own anything valuable, except the instruments, and stuff gets lost, right? Look at all those one-of-a-kind socks, right? Then it got more obvious. Some cassette tapes, a six-pack of beer — which she could have had if she’d asked. We’re pretty free with our food, even though the deal was she was supposed to buy her own. Then some jewelry — a couple pairs of my earrings. And one of Ben’s bandannas, plus an antique pair of suspenders he got up in Seattle. Real nice, heavy leather braces, the kind they don’t make anymore. The last thing she took was the one that bothered me the most. An old English brooch I got handed down from my grandmother — silver and garnet. The stone was chipped but it had sentimental value. I left it out on the dresser and the next day it was gone.”

“Did you ask her about it?” I said.

“I didn’t come out and accuse her, but I did ask her if she’d seen it. Or the earrings. She said no, real casual. But we knew it had to be her. Who else could it have been? She’s the only other person ever stepped in here, and things never disappeared until she came.”

“It must have been an emotional problem,” said Ben. “Kleptomania, or something like that. She couldn’t have gotten any serious money for any of it. Not that she needed dough. She had plenty of clothes and a brand-new car.”

“What kind of car?”

“One of those little convertibles — a Mazda, I think. She got it after Christmas, didn’t have it when she first started living with us or we might have asked for a little more rent, actually. All we charged her was a hundred a month. We thought she was a starving student.”

Bobby said, “She definitely had a head problem. I found all the junk she stole out in the garage, buried under the floorboards, in a box, along with a picture of her — like she was trying to stake claim to it, put away a little squirrel’s nest or something. To tell the truth, she was greedy, too — I know that’s not charitable but it’s the truth. It wasn’t until later that I put two and two together.”

“Greedy in what way?”

“Grabbing the best for herself. Like if there’d be a half-gallon of fudge ripple in the freezer, you’d come back and find all the fudge dug out and just the vanilla left. Or with a bowl of cherries, all the dark ones would be picked out.”

“Did she pay her rent on time?”

“More or less. Sometimes she was a week or two late. We never said anything, and she always paid, eventually.”