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.
The woman who came to the door was wearing a calf-length blue denim dress and a silver cross around her neck. Her dark hair was long and straight, with bangs over her forehead. She wasn't wearing much, if any, makeup, or other jewelry besides the cross. He guessed that she was about thirty, maybe younger, but with the unhurried movements of someone who had settled into an older pace. She was thick-bodied, pale-skinned, pretty in a puffy sort of way.
"Are you the doctor?" she asked through the screen.
"Yes. Roberta?"
She nodded shyly.
"Thanks for seeing me," Monks said.
Mom's gone next door, but she'll be back."
Monks wondered if that was a warning, in case he intended to try something. Letting people know they were being watched might be standard procedure around here.
She unhooked the door and opened it. The dog, a little dust mop with feet, jumped up on his shins and wagged its tail furiously, but then nipped his fingers when he bent to pet it. He stepped into a space that was clean but claustrophobic, heavy with the pall of cigarette smoke, and beneath that the less definable spoor of people who had been living close together for a long time. A large TV faced a much-used couch. The walls were hung with crosses and cheap reproductions of religious paintings, including a suspiciously handsome Christ.
"Mom told me what you said, about how I might be able to keep him from hurting somebody else," Roberta said.
"I'm glad you see it that way, Roberta. I know this is difficult for you. Will you tell me what happened?"
She bent her head down, as if she were praying, and swept the bangs back off her forehead.
Monks saw the scar, just at the hairline, going from the far right of her forehead to the center. His hand moved to touch it, his forefinger tracing the hard ridge of flesh.
"Dr. D'Anton did this to you?" he said in disbelief.
She nodded, her eyes still cast down. Then she turned away, bending over and hugging herself, with sudden wrenching sobs shaking her body. Monks put his arm around her shoulders. She turned again, toward him, and wept against his chest.
A few minutes later, calmer but with her voice still trembling, Roberta told Monks her horror story, in halting words that were a strange mixture of pious platitudes and street talk.
It had happened in the summer of 1998, starting when she went to a party in San Francisco. She was looking for drugs, preferably narcotics. She had no luck at first, but she met another young woman there who wanted the same thing. The second girl knew about another party, that same night – at D' Anton's house, in Marin County. She had been there once before, with friends. She hadn't been invited this time, but she thought that a couple of attractive young women might be allowed to crash. Things could get pretty wild, she said, and there had been plenty of dope around. But she needed a ride, and Roberta had a car.
They drove to D'Anton's house and blended timidly into the party. Many of the guests were older and obviously had money. Roberta felt very much out of place with them. But there were other young people, too, and no one asked her to leave.
And there were drugs – pot and cocaine being used openly, with plenty of liquor and good wine.
The two girls wandered apart. Someone gave Roberta a Vicodin. She started to get very high.
At some point, an older man spoke to her. She knew that this was the host, Dr. D'Anton – he had been pointed out to her – and she got nervous again. But he seemed interested in her and asked her about herself. He told her she was pretty, and then he did something that stayed in her mind – he reached up and spanned her forehead between thumb and forefinger, as if measuring it with calipers, then traced his fingertips across the frontal ridge above her eyebrows.
Her forehead was a little protuberant, Monks noticed, marring her attractiveness with a slightly beetle-browed look.
She only spoke with D'Anton for a minute. She kept partying, drinking too much. She got woozy. Things became unclear. She remembered trying to apologize to a woman who helped her to a couch in a quiet room. Then she passed out.
When she came to, she was on an operating table.
"I saw this light that came to warn me," she told Monks. Her voice was softly reverent. She was sitting beside him on the couch, her hands nervously petting the little mutt in her lap. "I was unconscious, my eyes were still closed, and it appeared in my mind. It was like a flame, like the pillar of fire the Lord sent to lead the Israelites. I started to wake up. And felt-" She shivered. "Felt something burning across here." Her finger touched the hairline scar.
"He was cutting your skin?" Monks said.
She nodded, swallowing dryly. "And then he started pulling it down. Ripping it right off my face. I opened my eyes. There was blood running into them, but I could see those hands, with rubber gloves, and the knife he was holding. I screamed and started thrashing around. It must have freaked him out, because then he was gone."
She was starting to cry again. Monks patted her wrist. The dog growled protectively.
"Did you think he was going to kill you, Roberta?"
"I don't know. Maybe he was trying to fix what he'd looked at before, my forehead. But he's crazy, I know that."
Monks stood and put his hands in his pockets, listening as she talked on in her shaking voice, coaxing her to continue when she broke down.
Roberta had managed to get up off the operating table. She could feel the fold of loose skin flapping down her forehead, and she could hardly see through the blood running into her eyes. She found a towel, wiped her eyes and pressed it against her forehead to stem the blood, then stumbled through the darkened building, trying to find her way outside. She had no idea where she was; it might or might not have been D'Anton's clinic. She came to a door, but it was locked.
She was frantically trying to open it when someone slipped an arm around her from behind, pinning her own arms, and jabbed a needle into her shoulder.
She tried to plead, but she lost consciousness within seconds. Her last thought was that she was going to die.
But she awoke, slowly, groggy and in pain. It took her some time to realize that she was in the driver's seat of her own car – slammed into a highway underpass bridge abutment. The windshield above the steering wheel was spiderwebbed, as if her head had hit it. The dashboard and hood were littered with shards of glass. Her face was sticky with congealed blood.