Devil’s Waltz. By: Jonathan Kellerman

going was talking to Rick. He’d heard of Munchausen-the adult type.

Said he’d seen nurses and doctors with those tendencies.

Mistakes in dosage that aren’t accidental, heroes rushing in and saving

the day-like pyromaniac firemen.”

“Chip talked about that,” I said. “Medical errors, dosage

miscalculations. Maybe he senses something about Stephanie without

realizing It. . . . So why’s she calling me in? To play with me? We

never worked that closely together. I can’t mean that much to her,

psychologically.”

“Calling you in proves she’s doing a thorough job. And you’ve got a

rep as a smart guy-real challenge for her if she’s a Munchie.

Plus, all the other shrinks are gone.”

“True, but I don’t know. . . Stephanie?”

“There’s no reason to get an ulcer over it it’s all theory. I can peel

em off, right and left.”

“It makes my stomach turn, but I’ll start looking at her more

closely.

Guess I’d better watch what I say to her, stop thinking in terms of

teamwork.”

Ain’t it always that way? One guy, walking the road alone.”

“Yeah. . . Meantime, as long as we’re peeling off theories, how about

this one? We’re not making headway because we’re concentrating on one

bad guy. What if there’s some kind of collusion going on?”

“Who?”

“Cindy and Chip are the obvious choice. The typical Munchausen husband

is described as passive and weak-willed.

Which doesn’t fit Chip at all. He’s a savvy guy, smart, opinionated.

So if his wife’s abusing Cassie, why isn’t he aware of it? But it

could also be Cindy and Vicki-” “What? Some romantic thing?”

“Or just some twisted motheraaughter thing. Cindy rediscovering her

dead aunt in Vicki-another tough R.N. And Vicki, with her own child

rearing a failure, ripe for a surrogate daughter. It’s possible their

pathology’s meshed in some bizarre way. Hell, maybe Cindy and

Stephanie have a thing going. And maybe it is romantic. I don’t know

anything about Stephanie’s private life. Back in the old days she

hardly seemed to have one.”

“Long as you’re piling it on, what about dad and Stephanie?”

“Sure,” I said. “Dad and doc, dad and nurse-Vicki sure kisses up

plenty to Chip. Nurse and doc, et cetera. Ad nauseum. E pluribus

unum. Maybe it’s all of them, Milo. Munchausen team-the Orient

Express gone pediatric. Maybe half the damn world’s psychopathic.”

“Too conservative an estimate,” he said.

“Probably.”

“You need a vacation, Doc.”

“Impossible,” I said. “So much psychopathology, so little time.

Thanks for reminding me.”

He laughed. “Glad to brighten your day. You want me to run Steph

through the files?”

“Sure. And as long as you’re punching keys, why not Ashmore?

Dead men can’t sue.”

“Done. Anyone else? Take advantage of my good mood and the LAPD’s

hardware.”

“How about me?”

Already did that,” he said. “Years ago, when I thought we might become

friends.”

I took a ride to Culver City, hoping Dawn Herbert stayed home on

Saturday morning. The drive took me past the site of the cheesy

apartment structure on Overland where I’d spent my student/intern

days.

The body shop next door was still standing, but my building had been

torn down and replaced with a used-car lot.

At Washington Boulevard, I headed west to Sepulveda, then continued

south until a block past Culver. I turned left at a tropical fish

store with a coral-reef mural painted on the windows and drove down the

block, searching for the address Milo had pulled out of the DMV

files.

Lindblade was packed with small, boxy, one-story bungalows with

composition roofs and lawns just big enough for hopscotch.

Liberal use of texture-coat; the color of the month was butter. Big

Chinese elms shaded the street. Most of the houses were neatly

maintained, though the landscaping-old birds of paradise, arborvitaes,

spindly tree roses-seemed haphazard.

Dawn Herbert’s residence was a pale-blue box one lot from the corner.

An old brown VW bus was parked in the driveway. Travel decals crowded

the lower edge of the rear window. The brown paint was dull as cocoa

powder.

A man and a woman were gardening out in front, accompanied by a large

golden retriever and a small black mutt with spaniel pretensions.

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