Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (8 page)

And yet I couldn't deny the exhilaration I felt at uncovering the murder or the strong, almost gravitational pull I was feeling to find out who was responsible.

You're
a born detective.

If that was true, I was more like my father than I had ever known. I couldn't help wondering if that meant I was destined to leave my wife and abandon my son, too.

CHAPTER NINE

The rest of my shift was a blur of activity, one trauma patient after another, punctuated by thunderclaps and temporary power outages. For nurse Alice Blevins, it was like being back in her M.A.S.H. unit, feeling the rumble of mortars landing on the battlefield. She told me she hadn't seen this many wounded since Korea. I hadn't known raindrops could be as deadly as bullets, but evidence of it was all around me.

I was glad for the activity. It took my mind off the woman's murder and the conflicting feelings it provoked in me. But as soon as my shift was over, I called Dr. Barbette and asked him if the police had identified the dead woman yet. They had. Her name was Sally Pruitt, she was nineteen years old, and she lived with her parents, Joan and Vemon, in the San Fernando Valley.

I bombarded him with questions about Sally and the circumstances of her death. Did she have a boyfriend? When was the last time her parents had seen her? Did the murder happen at home? If not, where? What happened to her jewelry?

But Dr. Barbette didn't know any of the answers, nor did he care. He told me it was up to the homicide detectives now. His job was over.

It should have been over for me, too. Despite the chaos, I somehow managed to leave the hospital the moment my shift was officially over. I got home in time to give Steve a bath, put him to bed, and have a nice dinner with Katherine.

I told her all about Sally Pruitt and how I figured out she didn't die in the river but was murdered in a bathtub. I told her about meeting Dr. Barbette and assisting in the autopsy. I told her what he said to me and my fears about what it could mean.

By the time I was done telling her all those things, we'd long since finished dinner and were snuggling on the couch, Katherine's arms around me, her head against my chest.

"Dr. Barbette is right," she said. "You are a born detective. Don't tell me you haven't known it all your life."

"I haven't," I said.

"I have," she said.

"You
have
?" I asked, stunned.

"Oh come on, Mark. It's been obvious since the day I met you. You see things others don't. You know you do."

"I do not," I said.

"What about that thing you do at parties to entertain the guests?" she said.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The thing where you pick out someone you've never met and tell everybody all about him based on his clothes, mannerisms, and physical features."

"That?" I said.

"Yes,
that
," she said.

"It's just a game," I said. "Everybody does it."

"
Nobody
else does it," she said, "with the possible exception of Sherlock Holmes."

"He's a fictional character."

"I rest my case," she replied.

"I don't like playing that game anyway."

"You say you don't, but you do," she said. "You love it. Until tonight, I never knew why you were always so reluctant to do it. Now I know. It's because you're afraid of your natural talents, afraid it means you're going to be come your father."

"Exactly," I said.

"Hogwash," she snorted. "I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life."

"Children of alcoholics often become alcoholics themselves, even though they've seen the physical and emotional damage that it does," I said. "Heredity is a powerful force."

"It's true. You have a lot of your father in you. There's nothing you can do about that. Instead of running from it, accept it. Embrace those qualities that can work for you and make your life better. You don't have to worry about ever becoming your father."

"Why not?"

"Because you have me and I won't let you get away with it," she said, giving me a squeeze. "But you also have something else he didn't have."

"What's that?"

"Your mother—one of the most caring, giving, and nurturing women I've ever known. She was a fighter who raised three kids on her own," Katherine said. "What your dad lacked in character she made up for many times over. She's as much a part of you as he is, maybe more."

I didn't know if she was right, but it made me feel a lot better. I kissed her and we sat for a while in silence, listening to the patter of raindrops on the roof and the wind whipping against the windows.

"So what are you going to do now?" she asked.

"I was thinking about kissing you some more," I said.

"I meant about Sally Pruitt."

"I've done all I can do," I said. "I'm a good doctor, but even I can't raise the dead."

I woke up late Saturday morning to big news. U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers had been released after two years in captivity in a Soviet prison, swapped for Russian spy Rudolf Abel on a bridge between West Berlin and East Germany. More rains were expected, extending by at least another two days the heaviest rainstorm in Southern California in nearly a decade. And Harry Trumble was sitting at our kitchen table, eating pancakes and eggs.

Harry Trumble was the son of one of the policemen who had looked out for our family after Dad abandoned us. Harry and I grew up together, and our friendship lasted even after I became a doctor and he became a uniformed police officer. We remained friends right up until his fiancée and I fell in love with each other.

The last time I had spoken to Harry was three years earlier after we were pulled off each other in the middle of a fistfight outside the Blossom Room at the Roosevelt Hotel. You can guess what that fight was about.

Harry had changed since then. He was heavier, with hunched shoulders, a long face, and bloodshot eyes. There was a half-smoked Camel pinched at the edge of his wry smile. He wore a suit and tie. His wet hat was on the empty seat beside him.

I was wearing my bathrobe over my pajamas and felt a little silly dressed like that in front of him, even though I was in my own house.

"Kat's in your kid's room, changing his diaper," Harry said.

Nobody ever called her Kat but him. He was telling me he still owned a part of her and always would. I took a seat opposite him at the table. "How long have you been here?"

"Since about eight," Harry said. "She didn't want to wake you, seeing as how it's your day off, so she cooked me breakfast. You know, this is the first breakfast she's ever made me. She's a hell of a cook, Mark."

I nodded. "Congratulations on making detective, Harry."

His eyes widened. "I didn't know you kept up on personnel changes at the department."

"I don't," I said. Most of the police officers I knew had stopped socializing with me after Katherine dumped Harry for me. "But here you are, wearing a brand-new suit, coming by to see me for the first time in years, the day after I discover a murder. I'm guessing it's your first homicide case and you're pretty nervous about it."

He took a drag on his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the air. "Why do you guess that?"

"Because this has to be even more uncomfortable for you than it is for me," I said. "And you wouldn't be putting yourself through it if you didn't have a lot at stake."

He flicked some ashes onto his plate. "You're still good at that party game of yours, Mark. But we aren't at a party."

He stood and picked up his hat. "And the murder of this girl, it's not a game. I came by to tell you to stay out of it."

"What makes you think I'd get involved?" I asked. Before he could answer, Katherine emerged from Steve's room with the baby in her arms. She wore a turtleneck sweater and Capri pants and had a big, forced smile on her face.

"Good morning, Mark," she said. "Look who's here, it's Harry."

"I see," I said.

"Isn't this a wonderful surprise?" she said. "We've spent the last hour catching up."

"That's terrific," I said.

"Sit down, Harry," Katherine said. "We can visit some more while Mark eats."

"I wish I could, Kat," Harry said, making funny faces at Steve and getting rewarded with a big smile. "But I've got to get to work. Thanks for breakfast."

"Come back again soon," Katherine said. "I mean it." She didn't mean it. Harry nodded, knowing it, too. He glanced at me, his gaze putting an exclamation point on his earlier warning, then put on his hat and left. As soon as he was gone, Katherine handed the baby to me and left the room. I knew she was crying.

I waited a few minutes, bouncing Steve on my knee and letting him chew on my finger. Then I put him in his playpen and went into the bedroom.

Katherine was sitting on the edge of the bed, a tissue balled up in her hand.

"You okay?" I asked, sitting beside her.

She nodded. "When I opened the door and saw Harry, I almost fainted with surprise. He looks ten years older. Did I do that to him? Did we?"

I shrugged. I honestly didn't know. Even when he was a kid, Harry had that weary, basset-hound expression on his face.

"We talked for an hour," she said. "He hasn't got anyone, you know."

"You asked?"

She shook her head. "He made sure I knew without actually telling me straight out. We mostly talked about the friends we had in common, what's happened to them since..."

Katherine's voice trailed off.

"Since you broke his heart and I betrayed him," I said, finishing her sentence.

"It wouldn't have worked out with Harry anyway," Katherine said. "He was married to his badge. I was just his mistress. His little 'Kitty-Kat'."

"But you still feel guilty," I said.

"No," she said, taking my hand and resting her head on my shoulder. "I love you, Mark. I love the family we've made together. I wouldn't trade this for anything. But when Harry looked at me and Steve, I knew what he was seeing."

"What might have been," I said. "The life he doesn't have."

"A life I'm not sure he ever really wanted," she said. "Even so, he seemed so sad."

"It's okay to still care about him," I said, giving her hand a squeeze. "I do, too."

CHAPTER TEN

It was wet and dreary outside, so we spent the morning in the apartment, playing with Steve and doing all the domestic tasks that had piled up during the week, like paying bills, cleaning up the house, and putting our Blue Chip stamps into savings books.

We got one Blue Chip stamp for every dime we spent at participating supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations. During the week we'd drop the loose stamps we accumulated into a big bowl on the kitchen counter, and then every Saturday we'd put them in the book. We were saving up for a Murray Ohio Super Deluxe Fire Truck for Steve to drive around in the courtyard. The truck was bright red and had pedals, ladders, whitewall tires, and a big silver bell. It cost ten books, which was about ten thousand stamps.

When we finished emptying the stamp bowl, Katherine made us grilled cheese sandwiches by wrapping them in aluminum foil and running the iron over them. It was how her mother taught her to do it. She sang while she worked, which always brought back memories of her performing at the Blossom Room. If she minded trading the stage for an ironing board, she never said so.

Steve started wailing around noon. We put him down in his crib for a nap, but that only made him cry louder. When he was like that, there was only one way he'd sleep. We had to take a drive.

So we bundled him up in his little rain slicker, put on our raincoats, and got into the Chevy. Five minutes after I started driving, Steve was asleep. The only problem was that if we stopped for more than a minute or two, he'd wake up again.

We headed over Sepulveda Pass into the valley, as we often did on what we called our "nap expeditions." It gave Katherine an excuse to cruise by the many new neighborhoods and housing developments. Usually, once we'd decided Steve had slept long enough, we'd stop and visit a few of the furnished model homes, buy some produce at one of the fruit and vegetable stands, and head back home in time for dinner.

The valley was one massive grading project, countless citrus and walnut orchards plowed under and replanted with neat rows of new homes. The construction had left the ground naked, and the steady downpour of the past week had turned the subdivisions into massive mud puddles and the streets into brown streams that spilled over the hundreds of sandbag dams meant to contain them.

So we gave up on exploring the new subdivisions and daydreaming about the house we hoped to own someday. Instead, I drove towards the slightly more established neighborhoods where some lawns and trees had taken root. These were homes built in the postwar boom of the early fifties, catering to veterans on the GI Bill. The homes were one-story, two-bedroom, assembly-line stucco boxes designed to get the most square footage out of the fewest dollars and the cheapest materials.

Vernon and Joan Pruitt lived in a house that faced a mirror reflection of itself across the street. Everybody in the Van Nuys housing tract had the same floor plan, only flip-flopped and alternating with every other house. Even the landscaping and the automobiles in the carports looked similar. It was dizzying. If it hadn't been for the addresses painted on the curbs and repeated in large numbers atop the carports, I never would have found the right house.

I'd looked up the Pruitts' address before leaving the hospital the night before, telling myself I was doing it in case I needed the information to fill out paperwork on Sally Pruitt.

As luck would have it, our Saturday "nap expedition" just happened to take us past the Pruitts' home.

At least that's how I explained it to Katherine as I slowed to a stop in front of the house.

I braced myself for an argument, but I didn't get one. Instead, she told me to get out of the car quickly before Steve noticed we weren't moving and woke up. She slid over into the driver's seat and said she'd drive around the block a few times.