"I'm distraught about it, of course," D'Anton said, stepping after him. "It's hard to believe. She was so vibrant."
The words had the feel of a clumsy attempt to cover his callousness, and Monks did not go for it.
"I guess I'm lucky there," Monks said. "I never saw her like that."
D'Anton bristled visibly. "I can't imagine how you must feel."
"In emergency medicine, people are going to die," Monks said. "It's not Rodeo Drive."
Julia D'Anton had left the reception room when Monks walked back through it. Gwen Bricknell was working busily at her desk. She did not look up.
So much for making a good impression, Monks thought.
Outside, the heat and bright sunlight hit him hard. He could already feel the day's grit on his skin beneath his clothes. Julia D'Anton's SUV was still parked in the lot, the only vehicle besides his own that did not fit here – a Toyota 4Runner, nondescript white, several years old, and a little down-at-heels. It seemed an odd choice in this glitzy world. The rear compartment was thick with dust and chips of stone. Monks remembered her work clothes and wondered if she was landscaping or redecorating.
He opened the Bronco's door and started to get in.
'That's yours, huh?" a man's voice said. "What is it, a seventy-five?" The tone was friendly – the first positive thing Monks had heard today. He turned. It was the maintenance man, Todd, walking toward D'Anton's Jaguar, carrying a towel and Windex.
"Seventy-four," Monks said.
"She's in great shape." Todd started polishing the Jag's glass, keeping his body carefully away, so that his belt buckle and keys would not scratch its finish. He was in his early thirties, good-looking, wearing tight jeans and a T-shirt that showed off a well-muscled torso. A floppy, dark blond haircut completed the look of a '60s-era Southern California surfer. But there was nothing laid-back about him. He exuded brisk competence.
"I know I should get something more sensible," Monks said. "She's like an old dog I can't bear to part with."
"Hey, I hear you. I had a seventy-five. I've been kicking myself ever since I sold it." He patted the Jaguar's hood. "Although I've got to admit, I wouldn't mind having one of these."
"It's a beautiful machine," Monks agreed.
"Only for the rich and famous. I try to take care of it for the doc. Especially, like now. He's pretty bummed out."
"So I've gathered."
"Yeah," Todd said, and this time Monks imagined accusation in his tone. He wondered if Todd had overheard his conversation with D'Anton, and – like everyone else – blamed Monks for troubling the great man; if his seeming friendliness had only been a setup to take a shot.
But then, Monks thought, he was imagining all kinds of things by now. He waved good-bye to Todd anyway.
Monks started the engine, sorting through his impressions. It seemed clear that Gwen Bricknell and Julia D' Anton knew each other well. Not many physicians' receptionists would feel comfortable shaking and scolding their boss's wife.
And it seemed that Eden Hale had been more than just another patient, whom Gwen remembered only because of her unusual name. The way that Julia had blurted it out, with Gwen picking up on it instantly and hushing her, suggested familiarity there, too. Monks had intended to lead the conversation in that direction, to see what he might uncover. But Gwen had headed that off.
Monks remembered the tattoo on Eden's rump, and Ray Dreyer's sleazy persona. These did not jibe with the elegant world of women like Gwen and Julia. He wondered what relationship they might have had with her.
Wondered why Gwen Bricknell had lied about it.
D' Anton stepped into an empty procedure room and slumped back against the wall with his face in his hands. It was the room where he had operated, yesterday, on Eden Hale. A few more sessions of sculpting her face, and the perfection within her would have shone forth.
He knew female flesh as very few people ever had-by sight, by scent, and, above all, by touch. He knew the strength and tone of the muscles under his fingertips, the suppleness of the skin. How best to enhance them, and how long that would last. Most of his patients were attractive, and many were beautiful.
But Eden was far beyond that.
To the uneducated eye, she had been nothing really special. But D'Anton had seen deeper the instant he first had noticed her. She had an ideal bone structure, a superb musculature, and a quality to her flesh that was the closest to perfection he had ever found – precisely the right combination of firmness and yielding, seeming to give off an energy of its own that spread through his hands and made touching her almost hypnotic.
He would never feel that warmth again.
He pushed away from the wall and strode to a conference room where Gwen Bricknell and his wife, Julia, were talking in low, urgent tones. At the sound of the opening door, both swiveled to look at him.
'That scum of a boyfriend left Eden alone last night," D'Anton said to Gwen. "Why the hell did you let her go with him?"
Gwen's eyes went fierce in return. "It's not up to me to make that judgment, Doctor. She chose him. He's a competent adult."
"He's neither of those things!"
"Then from now on, you can vet them yourself." She tossed her head defiantly.
"Blame yourself, Welles," Julia cut in. She was glaring, too, her earlier shock turning to rage, her voice trembling. "If you'd left Eden alone, none of this would have happened."
D'Anton stifled the urge to snap back at her. There were other pressing worries to be dealt with, and the most immediate one was Monks. D'Anton had gone through the charade of not remembering the name, but in fact he knew perfectly damned well who Monks was.
"Call that Dr. Monks," D'Anton said to Gwen. "Tell him I apologize for being rude. Stress, all that. He's welcome to look at Eden's records. We'll have them ready if he cares to drop by."
Gwen's eyebrows rose. "Mind if I ask why the sudden chumminess?"
"Because he's got a reputation for causing trouble. I want him to know I have nothing to hide. To leave me the hell alone." He looked at his watch. It was 9:47 a.m., a time when he would normally be brimming with energy, even excited, lost in the full swing of the morning's work. "How many more appointments?"
"Three."
"Send in the next one," he said. "Let's get this day over with."
Monks drove toward nowhere, heading west out of a vague wish to get near the ocean, as if that would ease the constriction he felt around him. He kept turning on unfamiliar streets, working his way farther from the city, until he topped the bluffs that crested the coastline to the south. He was not familiar with the area; it was somewhere in Pacifica.
He found a place to pull off the road and got out of the Bronco, leaning across the hood on his forearms. He watched the long white-capped breakers roll in, remembering some thirty years ago, when he had shipped out to tend the wounded in Vietnam, and come home with his own inglorious million-dollar wound, delivered by the tiny saber of an anopheles mosquito.
To the east, the traffic on Interstate 280 streamed nonstop down the long depression of the San Andreas Fault, an endless speeding line of hot little bumper cars darting in and out of clusters of eighteen-wheelers, sleek luxury European sedans, RVs towing boats or second vehicles. They all had one thing in common, the one thing that, right now, looked better than just about anything in the world. They were all on their way to someplace else.
There were plenty of things bothering him about Eden Hale's death, but now he pinned down an elusive one that had been growing underneath the others. Several different people had weighed in so far, all with their own very different perspectives. Most of their interests were self-oriented – Baird Necker's in protecting the hospital; Gwen Bricknell's, the plastic surgery clinic; D'Anton's, his reputation. Ray Dreyer seemed mainly concerned about the marketable commodity he had lost. And a lot of what was driving Monks himself, he admitted, was a desire to justify his own actions in the ER.