“So how’s Allison?” he said.
“She’s in Boulder.”
“Skiing?”
“Psych convention.”
“Oh . . . okay, all filled up.” He replaced the hose. “When’s she getting back?”
“Few days. Why?”
“We need to wait for her,” he said. “To schedule the double date.”
Dove House occupied a run-down, cloud-colored apartment building on Cherokee, just north of Hollywood Boulevard. No sign or identifying marks. The front door was open, and the ground-floor unit to the left was labeled OFFICE.
The director was a young, clean-shaven black man named Daryl Witherspoon, working alone at a battered desk. Cornrows lined his skull. A silver crucifix swung as he got up and walked toward us. His gray sweats smelled freshly laundered.
Milo showed him the picture, and he placed a palm against his cheek. “Oh, my. Poor Erna.”
“Erna who?”
“Ernadine,” said Witherspoon. “Ernadine Murphy.”
“E. Murphy,” I said.
Witherspoon regarded me curiously. “What happened to her?”
Milo said, “I called here about a week ago, spoke to a woman who thought she knew Ms. Murphy.”
“That was probably Diane Pirello, my assistant. Was Erna—did this happen a week ago?”
“Last night. What can you tell us about her?”
Witherspoon said, “Let’s sit down.”
Milo and I perched on a thrift shop sofa that stank of tobacco. Witherspoon offered us coffee from a bubbling machine, but we declined. Footsteps sounded from above. The room was painted a bright yellow that seared the eyes. Inspirational messages taped to the plaster were the art du jour.
Witherspoon pulled up a chair and said, “Are you able to tell me what happened?”
“That’s still unclear,” said Milo. “She was found in an alley just a few blocks away. Behind the Pentecostal church.”
“The church . . . she wasn’t religious,” said Witherspoon. “That’s one thing I can tell you.”
“Resistant?” I said.
He nodded. “Very. Not that we lean hard on them. But we do try to get through to them. Ernie had no desire to embrace the Lord. She really wasn’t one of our regulars, just checked in from time to time when things got bad for her. We never turn anyone away unless they’re violent.”
“Was she ever violent?”
“No, never.”
Milo said, “What made things go bad for her?”
“It all came down to alcohol. She was drinking herself to death. We’ve known her off and on for the last couple of years, and lately, we could see significant deterioration.”
“Such as?”
“Health problems—persistent cough, skin lesions, stomach problems. One time she slept here and the next morning her sheets were splotched with blood. At first we figured it was . . . you know, the time of the month. There’s no shortage of tampons here, but some of the women forget. As it turned out, Erna was bleeding from . . .” Witherspoon flinched . . . “her rear end. Internally. We called in one of our volunteer doctors and finally convinced Erna to be examined. She said it was nothing critical, but that Ernie did have some fissures that should be looked into. She also said there were probably intestinal problems that should be looked into. We offered to send Erna to a specialist, but she left and didn’t return for months. That was her pattern. In and out. For a lot of them, we’re a depot.”
“What about mental problems?” said Milo.
“That goes without saying,” said Witherspoon. “For most of our people, that’s a given.”
“What kind of specific mental problems did Ernadine Murphy have?”
“As I said, it all came down to drink. I figured she finally went too far—organic brain syndrome they call it. Going dull. And when she’d sleep here, she’d sometimes wake up and hallucinate. Korsakoff’s syndrome, it’s a vitamin B deficiency they get.” He frowned. “Folks joke about pink elephants, but there’s nothing funny about it.”
I said, “What was she like before she deteriorated?”
“Hmm . . . I can’t say she was ever really . . . normal. I’m not saying she was stupid. She wasn’t. Once in a while, when we could dry her out long enough and she talked, you could see she had a good vocabulary—our sense was she’d once been educated. But when we tried to ask her about it, she’d clam up. Lately, those dry periods were few and far between. For the last year or so she was still pretty dysfunctional.”