Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“So do you.”

“You lie the same, too.”

Dipping her head, she batted long white lashes. I’d seen a photo from her youth: Grace Kelly’s undersized sib. Her eyes were still clear, a delicate shade of aqua. Her hair, once dyed ash-blond, had been left its natural silver. The cut hadn’t changed: jaw-length pageboy, shiny as a freshly chromed bumper, bangs snipped architecturally straight.

Born to a wealthy Berlin family, she was one-quarter Jewish, which qualified her to enroll in Dachau. Escaping to New York in the thirties, she worked as a governess while attending City College night school, got into Harvard Med, trained at Boston Children’s where she did research on whooping cough. At thirty, she married a Chaucer scholar who never made much money but dressed as if he did. Widowed at fifty, she raised five kids who’d turned out well.

“Down to business,” she said. “Tell me more about that skeleton.”

I filled in a few more details.

“Ach,” she said. “A fully formed baby?”

“Four to six months old.”

“Intact.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting,” she said. “In view of the rumors about that place.”

She returned to her cottage cheese. It took me a moment to decode her remark.

“It was an abortion mill?”

“Not exclusively, my dear.”

“But …”

“If you were a girl from a well-to-do family who’d gotten into a predicament, the talk was Swedish could be exceptionally discreet. The founders were well-meaning Lutheran missionaries, seeking to help the poor. Over the years, any religious affiliation was dropped and priorities changed.”

“They went for-profit?”

“What else? One thing they didn’t have was a pediatrics department. Or a conventional maternity ward. So I really can’t see how a baby would ever come in contact with the place.”

I described the blue box, asked if she knew what it was.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. We wrap our bodies in shrouds, then bag them. Typically, mortuaries pick them up, there’d be no reason to use solid brass containers.”

“Maybe it was designed for something else and whoever buried the baby improvised.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Yes, why not-how about storage for tissue samples? A precaution when dealing with infectious material. Back in those days all kinds of nasties were rampant-TB, polio. My old friend, pertussis. I don’t see bronze serving any particular antiseptic purpose but someone could’ve had a theory.”

“Makes sense. Did you know any of the staff?”

“My work was always here.”

Not really an answer. I said, “But you know quite a bit about the place.”

She smiled. “It’s not only psychologists who know how to listen.”

“Who did the talking?”

“A friend of mine attended there briefly.”

“Why only briefly?”

She used her fork to section a perfect cube of Jell-O. “I’d imagine something drew his attention elsewhere.”

“Was he bothered by what went on?”

She speared the Jell-O, ate, drank tea. “I can’t remember what was related to me back in the Jurassic era.”

“I’ll bet you can, Salome.”

“Then you lose the bet.”

“Was it the abortions?”

Carving and piercing another cube, she withdrew the tines slowly. Red liquid oozed onto her plate. “I don’t need to tell you, Alex. Those were different times. In any event, I can’t see any direct link between Swedish Hospital and a full-term baby.”

I said, “Eleanor Green.”

The fork wavered. She put it down. “Who’s that?”

“A pediatric nurse. She lived in the house where the bones were found.”

“If you already have a name, why all the circumlocution? Go and track her down.”

“She seems to have disappeared.”

“Nurse on the run.” She chuckled. “Sounds like a bad movie.”

I said, “The friend who told you about Swedish-”

“Is gone, Alex. Everyone from my wanton youth is gone, leaving me the last woman standing. That’s either my triumph or cause for clinical depression, take your pick.”

“No peds, no ob-gyn,” I said. “Besides abortions, what brought in the profit?”

“My guess would be the same kinds of things that bring it in now. Procedures-radiology, short-term surgery.”

“Were the attending physicians from any particular part of town?”

She stared at me. “I appreciate your persistence, darling, but you’re pressing me for data I simply don’t have. But if we’re still in a betting mood, I’d wager against Watts or Boyle Heights.” She took hold of the fork, speared the abandoned Jell-O. Savored. “How have things been going for you, my dear? Doing anything interesting other than police work?”

“Some court work,” I said.

“Custody?”

“Custody and injury. One more question, Sal: Did your friend ever mention a doctor who drove a Duesenberg?”

She blinked. “That’s a car.”

I said, “It’s a very expensive car, made in the thirties and forties.”

“I’ve never been much for automobiles, Alex. A fact that greatly distressed my boys when they wanted fancy-shmancy wheels and I insisted on no-frills functionality.” She looked at her watch. “Oops, need to get going.”

Standing on tiptoes, she pecked my cheek hard, marched away, stiff-shouldered, stethoscope swinging.

I called her name but she never broke step.

Milo said, “Abortion mill. Plenty of those, back then.”

I said, “This one served wealthy families.”

“Good business model.” He speared a massive forkful of curried lamb, studied the outsized portion as if daring himself. Engulfed, chewed slowly.

We were at Cafe Moghul, a storefront Indian restaurant on Santa Monica near the station. The bespectacled woman who runs the place believes Milo is a one-man strategic defense system and treats him like a god in need of gastric tribute.

Today, the sacrificial array was crab and chicken and the lamb, enough vegetables to fill a truck garden. The woman came over, smiling as always, and refilled our chai. Her sari was hot pink printed with gold swirls and loops. I’d seen it before. More than once. Over the years, I’ve seen her entire wardrobe but I have no idea what her name is. I’m not sure Milo does, either.

“More of anything, Lieutenant?”

“Fine for the time being.” He snarfed more lamb to prove it, reached for a crab claw.

When the woman left, he said, “Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“I go with Dr. Greiner’s logic. No reason for a baby to be linked to a place like that. Same for Ellie Green, seeing as she worked with kids. Anyone with access to medical equipment coulda gotten hold of that box.”

I said nothing.

He put the claw down hard enough for it to rattle. “What?”

“When I asked Salome if she recalled a doctor who drove a Duesenberg, she tensed up and terminated the conversation and walked out on me.”

“You touched a nerve? Okay, maybe Duesie-man was the guy who worked at Swedish and he was more than a friend and she didn’t want to get into details with you. Was Greiner married back then?”

“Yes.”

“Happily?”

I thought about that. “Don’t know.”

“Kids?”

“Five.”

“What was her husband like?”

“He wrote books about Chaucer.”

“Professor?”

“Never got his Ph.D.”

“How’d he earn a living?”

“He didn’t.”

“Real alpha male, Alex. So she was the breadwinner. So a fellow doc with hot wheels coulda been appealing. She doesn’t want to dredge all that up, so she terminates the tete-a-tete.”

“Why have a tete-a-tete in the first place?” I said. “Why not just talk over the phone?”