Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

I said, “She never gave you any indication at all who he was?”

“I asked a couple of times, hoping maybe she’d figure out I loved the car, was angling for a ride. All she did was smile and change the subject. Now that I think about it, she never talked about herself, period. It was always about me, what I wanted, what I needed, how was I feeling. Pretty good approach when you’re working with a spoiled little brat, no? I can see her doing great as a nurse.”

He brightened. “Hey, maybe Lucky Bastard was a rich doctor. Isn’t that why girls became nurses back then? To hook up with M.D.s?”

Milo said, “Is there anything else you can tell us about her?”

“Nope. I turned six, got miraculously better, went to school, made friends. Don’t know exactly when Ellie moved out but it wasn’t long after and instead of the Duesenberg we got a Plymouth. Big family with a Plymouth station wagon the color of pea soup. Talk about a comedown.”

I said, “Could you estimate how many times you saw the Duesenberg?”

“You’re trying to figure out if she was entertaining some regular visitor, something hot and heavy going on? Well, all I can say is less than a dozen and probably more than half a dozen.”

“At night.”

“So how did a five-year-old see it? Because that five-year-old was a disobedient brat who’d sneak out of the house through the kitchen in the middle of the night and walk over to see the car. Sometimes it was there, sometimes it wasn’t. The last time I tried it, I ran into my father. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of Ellie’s house, looking at the car, himself. I turned to escape, he saw me, caught me. I thought he’d whack me but he didn’t. He laughed. Said, yeah, it’s fantastic, Davey, can’t blame you. That’s when he told me the model. ’Thirty-eight SJ. And what the pipes meant, the advantage of supercharging. We stood there together, taking in that monster. It was one of those-I guess you’d call it a bonding thing. But then he warned me never to leave the house without permission or he would tan my hide.”

Helmholtz smiled. “I always felt he thought I was a sissy. I guess he didn’t punish me because he assumed I was out there being a guy.”

We continued up the block. No one else remembered Ellie Green or the Duesenberg.

Back at the station, Milo ran her name. Nearly two dozen women came up but none whose stats fit the slim blonde who’d lived at the bone house in 1951. He repeated the process with Greene, Gruen, Gruhn , even Breen , came up empty. Same for death notices in L.A. and the neighboring counties.

I said, “She worked as a nurse and the box came from the Swedish Hospital.”

He looked up the defunct institution, pairing it with Eleanor Green and the same variants. A few historical references popped up but the only names were major benefactors and senior doctors.

He said, “Helmholtz could be right about Lucky Bastard being a medical honcho. Maybe even someone George Del Rios or his two M.D. kids knew and Ellie Green came to rent the house through personal referral.”

“Rich doctor wanting a stash pad for his pretty girlfriend,” I said. “For partying or waiting out her pregnancy.”

“Helmholtz never saw her pregnant.”

“Helmholtz was a five-year-old, not an obstetrician. If she moved in before she started babysitting him, she could have already delivered.”

“Rich doctor,” he said. “Insert ‘married’ between those two words and you’ve got one hell of an inconvenience. Problem is, Ellie seems to have disappeared.”

“Like her baby,” I said.

“Lucky Bastard making sure to clean up his trail?”

“The baby was only found by chance. If her body was concealed just as skillfully, there’d be no official death notice.”

“Nasty … wish I could say it felt wrong.”

He got up, paced. “You know anyone who’d remember Swedish Hospital?”

“I’ll ask around.”

“Thanks.” He frowned. “As usual.”

Milo’s request to find an old-timer got me shuffling the reminiscence Rolodex. The first two people I thought of turned out to be dead. My third choice was in her late eighties and still training residents at Western Pediatric Medical Center.

Salome Greiner picked up her own phone.

“Hi, Sal, it’s Alex Delaware.”

“Well, well,” she said. “What favor does Alex Delaware need?”

“Who says I need anything?”

“You don’t write, you don’t call, you don’t even email or text or tweet.” Her cackle had the dry confidence of someone who’d outlived her enemies. “And yes, I am still alluring but I don’t see you asking me on a hot date. What do you need?”

“I was wondering if you remembered Swedish Hospital.”

“That place,” she said. “Yes, I remember it. Why?”

“It’s related to a police case.”

“You’re still doing that,” she said.

“At times.”

“What kind of police case?”

I told her about the bones.

She said, “I read about it.” Chirps in the background. “Ahh, a page, need to run, Alex. Do you have time for coffee?”

“Where and when?”

“Here and … let’s say an hour. The alleged emergency won’t last long, just a hysterical intern. A man, I might add. Roll that in your sexist cigar, Sigmund.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, wondering why she didn’t just ask me to call back.

“Meet me in the doctors’ dining room-you still have your badge, no?”

“On my altar with all the other icons.”

“Ha,” said Salome. “You were always quick with a retort, that’s a sign of aggressiveness, no? But no doubt you hid it from patients, good psychologist that you are.”

Western Pediatric Medical Center is three acres of gleaming optimism set in an otherwise shabby section of East Hollywood. During the hospital’s hundred years of existence L.A. money and status migrated relentlessly westward, leaving Western Peds with patients dependent on the ebb and flow of governmental goodwill. That keeps the place chronically broke but it doesn’t stop some of the smartest, most dedicated doctors in the world from joining the staff. My time on the cancer ward comprised some of the best years of my life. Back in those days I rarely left my office doubting I’d done something worthwhile. I should have missed it more than I did.

The drive ate up fifty minutes, parking and hiking to the main building, another ten. The doctors’ dining room is in the basement, accessible through an unmarked door just beyond the cafeteria steam tables. Wood-paneled and quiet and staffed by white-shirted servers, it makes a good first impression. But the food’s not much different from the fare ladled to people without advanced degrees.

The room was nearly empty and Salome was easy to spot, tiny, nearly swallowed by her white coat, back to the wall at a corner table eating cottage cheese and neon-red gelatin molded into a daisy. A misshapen sludge-colored coffee mug looked like a preschool project or something dreamed up by the hottest Big Deal grad of the hippest Big Deal art school.

Salome saw me, raised the mug in greeting. I got close enough to read crude lettering on the sludge. To Doctor Great-Gramma .

A blunt-nailed finger pinged ceramic. “Brilliant, no? Fashioned by Number Six of Generation Four. She just turned five, taught herself to read, and is able to add single digits.”

“Congratulations.”

“The Gee-Gees are entertaining, but you don’t get as close as with the grandchildren. More like diversion from senility. Get yourself some coffee and we’ll chat.”

I filled a cup and sat down.

“You look the same, Alex.”