Death Claims (7 page)

It was a little glass square, the kind non-smokers keep. A redand- black ad for an unpronounceable drug product was stenciled on its bottom. Dave set it on the couch arm. "Where?" he asked. 

"Arena Blanca. He asked me there for drinks and dinner, Christmas week. After sundown, we swam. Before, we sailed. With a friend of Peter's. His boat? I don't know. Catboat, twentyfooter. Very pleasant. That's a pretty bay, sheltered by those hills. Calm." 

"Do you remember the friend's name?" "I wouldn't have, but I've run into him since. Jay McPhail. He works nights and weekends at the drugstore in that new shopping center. On the coast road. Not far from the turnoff to Arena Blanca. Yup. Some developer will make a packet off all that white sand and blue water, once the rich old widows who own those rickety places die off." 

"One of them did. April Stannard's mother." 

"Nice girl." De Kalb frowned. "That's another thing. Why would he kill himself when he had a lovely girl like that? She really cared about him. She was at that hospital
—
" 

"Night and day," Dave said. "Eve Oats told me. She also told me to ask you if he was still in pain." 

De Kalb stared. "Pain? Certainly not." 

"Then why was he on morphine?" 

De Kalb sat up sharply. "What?" 

"You weren't at the inquest?" 

"No. I was in New York. For a meeting of dermatologists." Bleak smile. "Also for the Indoor Track and Field Champion- ships. Took off from L.A. International that same night. The night John died. Didn't know that then, not till I got back. But flying you remember the weather. And it was raining, yes, but you couldn't really call it a storm. No wind to speak of. The bay wouldn't have been rough." 

"He was found on the rocks out at the point." 

Headshake. "He wouldn't swim out there." 

"That's what I think. All right. What about the morphine? Was he on it at the hospital?" 

"Oh, yes, certainly. At first. It was indicated. But no longer than necessary. The danger of addiction isn't exactly news to us." 

"And you took him off it?" 

"When we could. Too soon for him. He begged. They often do, afraid the pain will come back. It won't. We don't start withdrawal until we know it won't. But there can be panic. That's not easy to face. It's one of those times you have to be ruthless. With them and with yourself." 

"It was in his system when he died," Dave said. "There were the usual needle marks, lots of them. He never did get off it." 

De Kalb made a grim sound and pushed up out of the chair. Hands shoved into pockets, he moved to a window. It was a black mirror. He glowered at his reflection without seeing it. "We change the dispensary locks. It doesn't help, Too many people have to have keys. Regulations are strict, but emergencies happen. Doors get left unlocked, keys fall into unauthorized hands." He turned back, a pallbearer slump to his shoulders. "And, as I expect you know, the drug-addiction rate among physicians is high. That makes it awkward for the nurse in charge when things turn up missing. The police most often don't get called. It's a mess. And it doesn't get better. It gets worse." 

"No idea who gave it to John Oats?" 

"Probably an orderly." De Kalb's sigh was harsh. He dropped loose-jointed into the chair. "They come and go. The work is hard, sometimes gruesome, the pay is poor. We've caught them in the past. They find out what patients are being withdrawn. It's a way of picking up an extra five, ten dollars." 

"It would be a way of picking up a lot more than that after the patient was out of the hospital." 

De Kalb's head tilted. He blinked, puzzled. 

"I mean, in the back of his mind the hospital patient who's an addict knows if he's caught he'll be taken off the stuff in easy stages. But once outside he's on his own. I understand abrupt withdrawal can be unpleasant." 

"It starts with yawning that you can't control," De Kalb said. "Sometimes it breaks the jaw. Shivering that seems as if it will shake you to pieces. You sweat in a way you can't believe a human being could. If you're lucky, you sleep. After a fashion. But you wake up. And the mucus begins running. You think you'll drown in your own mucus. Some do. And you're cold and there's no way to get warm. Then the vomiting starts and the diarrhea. Your muscles go crazy. You try to cover yourself and get warm, but your legs keep kicking the blankets off. You get up and walk. If you've got the strength. It doesn't help. Nothing helps. You lie on the floor. And you scream." 

"That should drive prices up," Dave said. 

De Kalb's hands made big, knobby fists on the chair arms. "I'll get whoever did it." 

Dave shook his head. "Get the police. Ask for Captain Campos. He bought the verdict on John Oats, but only because he's overworked and it saved time. This will turn him around. And he'll handle it well." Dave stood. "In my job I meet police officers. I'd take Campos for one of the bright ones." 

De Kalb got up. "I'll call him in the morning." 

"Doesn't that hospital have a night shift?" Dave asked. "Call him now. It was nine this morning when I saw him, but police hours are long. He may still be at work." A telephone in woodgrain plastic sat on the desk. Dave picked it up and held it out to him. "If not. call him at home. When he knows what it's about, he won't mind." 

The little girl came down the carpeted stairs. Sideways. One step at a time. "Daddy, Daddy!" She was flapping an open book. Dave glimpsed a diamond-back rattler mottled among mottled leaves. "Read to me. Mommy says she doesn't like snakes." Tears were in the blue eyes. The pink mouth trembled. "And you promised, you promised." 

De Kalb set down the phone and picked her up. "I promised," he told her, "and I will. Just as soon as I make one telephone call." He used a fingertip to wipe her tears away. 

"I'll go," Dave said.

T
HE SHOPPING CENTER
was a cry of light against the hulking darkness of the hills. Its signs were crisply lettered sheets of milky plastic, its shopfronts naked glass, the interiors ice-white fluorescent. Brave but lonely. Safeway, laundromat, Kentucky Fried Chicken, liquor, Newberry's, hairdresser, drugs. Three cars waited on space enough for thirty. Dave left his pointed at the drugstore and pushed inside. 

The silence was large, but a typewriter was snipping little holes in it. Slowly. At the rear. Dave went there between hedges of toothpaste, deodorants, laxatives. The counter was chin high and topped by old-fashioned glass urns filled with dried herbs, for cuteness, not use. The urns were labeled in Spencerian script. The sign overhead was Spencerian too, gold on a white oval:
Prescriptions
. A boy looked at him between the urns. His tightly curled black hair was parted in the middle and combed over his ears. His brown eyes dreamed and his mouth was a dark rose. He could have posed for a Rossetti drawing. He could have been Rossetti, young, before the bloat set in. 

"McPhail?" Dave said. 

"McSucceed," the boy said. "At least till now. What's wrong?" 

"Does something have to be wrong?" 

"You didn't say Mr. McPhail, you didn't say Jay McPhail. You said McPhail. For some reason, that sounds official. And you look official. Did I mess up on a prescription?" 

"You're a friend of Peter Oats. I'm looking for him. I'm from the company that insured his father's life. His father's dead. Peter was the beneficiary." 

"Just a second." The typewriter tapped some more. The platen ratcheted. The boy came to the end of the counter where its height dropped and there was a coral-color cash register and a flat glass-top display box of razor blades and small flashlight batteries. His white jacket was open. Under it was a pirate-stripe skivvy shirt. His pants were bell-bottoms, tie-dyed purple. A little bottle sparkled in his hand. He licked the label he'd typed and pasted it to the bottle that held cotton and some red-and-gray capsules. "I haven't seen Peter for a while. I'm going on with school. He's not. He's into acting. Would you believe?" 

"Would it be difficult?" 

"It's far out, man. I mean, he's so quiet. He taught himself guitar, you know? He's got a good voice. Would he sing for anybody? Hell, no. He liked lonely things, climbing, riding, swimming. He doesn't look strong, but he is. Mostly he read, listened to records, classical music. Then, all of a sudden, he's acting. With Whittington and the rest of those fags." 

"Is he a fag?" Dave said. 

McPhail's Pre-Raphaelite eyes hardened. "I was his best friend all through EMSC. Do I look like a fag?" 

"I don't know what a fag looks like," Dave said. "And neither does anyone else. You took him sailing Christmas week. With his father and Dr. De Kalb." 

"In my folks' boat. That was the last time I saw him. Except around town with Whittington. Always with Whittington. Jesus!" He scrawled a name on an envelope that was printed with a yellow mortar and pestle, dropped the pill bottle into it, tucked it away under the counter. "Too bad about his father. I really grooved on him." 

"Was it the last time you saw
him
too?" 

The boy straightened, wary, turned his head, watched Dave from the corners of his eyes. "I said
—
" 

"I heard what you said. But John Oats was on morphine. Morphine is a prescription drug." 

"He didn't have any prescriptions. He bought shaving cream here. Tooth powder. That's all." 

"Bought isn't what I'm talking about. You liked him. He was your best friend's father. Did you give him what he needed?" 

"Shit!" The boy hit the release bar on the cash register with his fist. The drawer opened with a jingle. He slammed it shut. "Okay. I guess it can't hurt him now. No. I didn't give it to him. But he asked me. I found him in here one morning when I opened up. Poking around in the dark"
—
the boy jerked his head
—"
back there. He was in bad shape, sweating. He'd broken in. He wanted to steal it, but he couldn't find it. He begged me for it. Sad. Christ, how sad!" 

"You didn't report it." 

"He was Pete's father," the boy said. "He was a good man, a fine man. I wouldn't do it to him. How could I? Would you?" 

"What did you do?" 

"Offered to phone his doctor. De Kalb. He wouldn't let me. I couldn't make sense out of hisreasons. I don't think they were reasons. He was just scared, sick, ashamed. I ended up driving him home. Nice of me, wasn't it?'' Self-contempt soured the words. 

"You know the answer to that," Dave said. 

"No, I don't. Not what you mean. He's dead. Maybe it was because I didn't help him." 

"Somebody helped him," Dave said. "If that's the term for it. Don't blame yourself." 

"I couldn't make myself give it to him. If he got caught, it could be traced. I worked hard to get to be a pharmacist. And I'm working hard to get to be a doctor. I'd be finished. That was all I could think of. Me." His smile was miserable. "Makes me one of the good guys
—
right?" 

"Did you tell Peter?" 

"Christ, no. How could I tell Peter?" 

"And you don't know where he's gone?" 

"Sometimes when things got bad in his life-he and his mother didn't get along too well
—
he'd take a sleeping bag and drive off alone. It was bad, his father drowning. He really loved his father." 

"So they tell me," Dave said. 

He stepped out of the car into a wind that was cold and damp. He shivered, turning up his collar and crunched across the sand to the pink house that was no color in the night. The warped garage door hadn't been pulled down. The old station wagon was still there, a pale hulk in its stall. He climbed the high flight of wooden steps and at the top felt for the corroded button and pushed it. The buzz came back too loud. He squinted, pawed for the door, touched space. Open. 

And no one came. He lifted and tilted his wrist. His watch said greenly 9:50. Twelve hours since his first time here this morning. Had she tired herself out with housecleaning and gone to bed early? He poked the buzzer again. It echoed on emptiness. But then he heard footsteps below. Backed by the dark wash of night surf only a few yards off, her voice came thin. 

"Peter? Is that you?" She set a quick foot on the steps. Dave felt the rickety framework shiver. 

"Sorry to be a disappointment twice." 

She halted. Down where she was, a disk of light showed. Feeble but evidently strong enough to reach him. "Oh, it's Mr. Brandstetter." She didn't care. The light went out, but she didn't come up. He waited a second, then he went down. She was wearing a man's corduroy jacket, much too big for her, the cuffs clumsily turned back. John Oats's jacket? She turned away and her voice sounded as if she'd been crying. "I was walking on the beach when I saw your headlights. I thought it had to be Peter this time." 

"I haven't found him. No one else ever comes?" 

She shook her head, stepped down onto the sand, moved off. "No. And that was fine when John was here. It's not fine now." 

He went with her down the softening slope of dimly white sand toward the black shift and whisper of the bay, its chill breathing. At its inmost curve the window lights of houses rippled yellow on the water. Shadow boats rocked asleep at shadow jetties. He said, "Dr. De Kalb came Christmas week. Jay McPhail." 

"That was a good day," she said. "John was really pleased, really happy." 

"But no one else? No one since?" 

"Someone ate supper with him the night he
—
" But she couldn't say it. She walked more quickly, hunched inside the bulky coat. He lengthened his stride. She changed the wording. "That last night. But it must have been Peter. I told you
—
John's friends never came." 

"What about strangers?" 

She halted, turned. "I thought you wanted Peter. He killed his father
—
isn't that what you said? For the precious insurance money your company doesn't want to pay him. Now it's strangers. Why?" 

"John Oats used morphine. You heard that at the inquest. What you didn't hear was that he had no prescription. I checked that out with Dr. De Kalb tonight. And with Jay McPhail."