"You mean, he hurt her?" Monks said.
"Yeah," she said harshly. "And then weaseled out of it. The bastard."
Monks glanced at Larrabee, who was listening intently on the speakerphone. Larrabee gave him a nod.
"I can't promise anything, Mrs. Massey," Monks said. "But there is the possibility of legal action. I need to hear Roberta's story. When would be a good time?"
"She gets home about three. But I have to tell you, she might not want to talk about it. She's worked very hard on forgiving."
"I respect that," Monks said. "But she might be able to keep somebody else from getting hurt. Ask her to think about that, will you, Mrs. Massey?"
He thanked her and ended the connection. Larrabee sat back.
"Sounds like Roberta might be thinking about Jesus, but Mom's thinking about money," Larrabee said. "My guess is, you're going to get the story."
Redwood City was about a half-hour drive from San Francisco, down the peninsula. That left almost three hours to fill. Larrabee went into his office to take care of other business. Monks got a pack of index cards and returned to the kitchen table. Years ago, he had discovered a technique that was a great help in malpractice investigations. It worked well for criminal cases, too. It was a little bit like reading tarot cards, except that it was based on facts.
He started by writing down the major pieces of information they had so far, one point on each card, concentrating on what had started all this – Eden Hale's death.
Eden Hale dies in ER of DIC Roman Kasmarek suggests possibility of toxin Ray Dreyer propositioned by Coffee night of Eden's death
Then he started shifting the cards around, looking at different combinations, trying to read the past. Questions, contradictions, and lapses would stand out, and a part of his brain beneath the surface of consciousness would worry at them. Often – and often during sleep – the knots would start to dissolve.
He worked at it for more than an hour, stopped for a sandwich of cold cuts from Larrabee's refrigerator, then returned to put the information into a concise summary in his head.
Right off, there was the problem that they were trying to investigate a murder, even though they weren't sure that it was a murder. The main reason for suspecting so was Roman Kasmarek's bafflement at what had caused the DIC. Roman, a much-experienced pathologist, had suggested a toxin as the only thing he could think of that might have had that effect, but it was nothing that showed up on tests, or that he recognized.
If Eden had been poisoned, it was almost certainly intentional and carefully planned – not something she had taken accidentally. That was another problem. The substance could have been administered hours before she started to get sick, by someone she did not even notice.
The single tangible indication so far that strengthened the possibility of murder was the disappearance of her answering machine. It might have been taken by someone who feared that a recorded conversation would identify them. That pointed to someone who had access to Eden's apartment, and who she had talked to. But it was also possible that her parents had thrown the machine in with the other things they had taken and just not remembered, or it had been moved in another innocuous way.
The intangibles weighed more heavily in Monks's own mind – primarily, that there were people who might have wanted her dead. The more he was learning, the more his list was expanding.
D' Anton was still at the top. He was a physician, familiar with medicines and chemicals. He certainly had the opportunity to administer poison. As for motive, he had been spending a lot of money on her. She had even suggested to acquaintances that he was going to marry her. He might have decided he wanted out of the relationship, and she refused – maybe threatened to expose him to scandal.
But as things stood, D' Anton was untouchable.
Ray Dreyer also had opportunity and motive. His jealousy might go much deeper than he admitted, especially if he realized that he was losing Eden for good. He could have given her poison, and still spent his night of passion with Coffee Trenette. And it was just possible that he was smarter than he wanted anyone to think.
Julia D' Anton had to be considered. If she knew about Eden's affair with her husband, she might have acted to protect him, or her own glossy life. And there was another bit of information that might conceivably enter in. Eden had posed for Julia to sculpt. Julia's models were also sometimes her lovers. Could she have been jealous at losing Eden – especially to her own husband?
There was the suspect Gwen Bricknell had hinted at. And he dutifully added Gwen herself to the list. As D'Anton's assistant, she had reason to be protective of him, too. Monks didn't give this much weight, although it was going to put an edge on his date with her tonight.
He started wondering if the poison could have come from the clinic, and decided to include the other personnel there – the nurse, Phyllis; the maintenance man, Todd; clerks, janitors, anyone who might have had contact with Eden and access to supplies.
Then there were all those possible connections and reasons that there was no way to imagine – someone Eden had angered, an obsessed fan from her porn days, a rejected lover, a random psychopath. She was sexually arousing, the kind of woman that men would do stupid things over – and that other women would see as a threat.
Monks put the cards into an ordered stack and set them aside. The bitter truth was, he had a vested interest in murder. If it was a toxin that had caused the DIC, his use of heparin was going to be far more justified than if he had failed to recognize and treat salmonella.
But so far, intangibles were what all those factors remained. It would take hard evidence to push this into an official investigation.
He poured more coffee and took it to a window. Outside, the fog was burning off. The Embarcadero, skirting the Bay, looked festive with traffic and tourists.
Now that the up-to-date information about Eden was fixed in his mind, he turned his attention to what Larrabee had said earlier:
We might be talking about more than one murder.
Monks started a new set of cards.
Katie Benson disappears after treatment by D'Anton
D'Anton dismisses nurse who talked to police Roberta Massey's mother claims that D'Anton hurt Roberta
He stared at that last card, trying to see into it, as if it were a door he could force open.
Chapter 25
The trailer court where Roberta Massey lived with her mother was at the eastern edge of Redwood City, squeezed up next to the area's salt evaporators, huge greenish-brown fields of stagnant water that extended out into the Bay. It was hot here, almost treeless, with the sea air gummy and smelling faintly of processed sewage.
Monks was alone. He and Larrabee had decided that the two of them together might be intimidating to a reluctant witness – that a doctor, with a personal grievance against D' Anton, would have a better chance to win Roberta's sympathy.
The mobile homes were decrepit and crammed close together, and the maze of sticky streets was lined with junker cars. He felt himself being watched through dirty curtained windows as he cruised, looking for the address. He decided that if he left the Bronco here overnight, it would be gone by dawn – although treated with respect, becoming the personal ride of some biker.
1632 Paloma Court was a corrugated aluminum single-wide that had once been aquamarine. Time and the salt air had reduced it to a dull flaky green. It was set back only about ten feet from the street, and surrounded by sparse grass struggling up through the sandy soil. A small dog inside started yapping when Monks climbed the rickety wooden steps.