Dr. Von Zombie And The Slut Lady

Could the world-famous plastic surgeon, the renowned “Love Doctor,” have been murdered? Wilaru investigates!

By David Wilaru* (DWilaru@gmail.com)

Dr. Von Zombie had just begun to spastically whack the kidney-shaped pill when the doorbell rang. A puff of white powder misted from the bowl and Von Zombie quickly inhaled it before grabbing the broken tablet and his straw and tottering from the room.

The bell rang again and Von Zombie increased his palsied gait past the entertainment room, through the living room and across the marble-tiled entryway to the mahogany front door.

A young woman in a nurse’s uniform, hands clasped demurely behind her back, waited on the landing. Beyond her the rolling hills dotted with pale, yellow, blue, and white stucco mansions fell away to the sea, their red tile roofs fluorescing in the early afternoon sun.

Dr. Von Zombie blinked twice and the woman’s face shimmered into focus. Carol? Karin? Christine? Dr. Von Zombie blinked owlishly.

“Yes?” Dr. Von Zombie asked querulously.

“Dr. Von Zombie, I’m sorry to bother you at home — ”

Von Zombie blinked again. “Are you are from the clinic? Carlie. . . .?”

“Kirstin Faberge. . . . From the OR.”

“Yes, yes. There is a problem? The butt lift is tomorrow, yah?” Dr. Von Zombie’s head weaved in small circle, his eyes tearing in the afternoon sun.

“Yes, tomorrow.” The nurse held out a sealed manila envelope with the words “Dr. Von Zombie — Personal” written across the front in black magic marker. “I was told that these papers needed to be delivered directly to you.”

Von Zombie stared at the envelope for a long moment then extended a pale hand. Kirstin nodded politely and began to descend through the ornamental garden to the deserted street below.

Nervously, Von Zombie ripped the flap and extracted a folded sheet of pale pink paper and a slightly smaller, sealed envelope.

In looping script the note read:

Dear Dr. Von Zombie,

I have discovered that your wife, Slut Lady, has been conducting a shameless affair with my husband, Dr. Dickbrain. Proof of her activities is enclosed.

I would appreciate it if you would put a stop to this at once.

Sincerely,

Vonda Valkyre Dickbrain

Von Zombie squinted and swooped the pile of photos back and forth until the images reluctantly swam into focus.

“Mein Gott!” Von Zombie gasped, grabbed his chest and toppled over into the rose bushes where he lay scratched and bleeding until Hard Service, the pool man, found him three hours later, by which point he was, of course, quite dead.

Noticing the photos scattered at Von Zombie’s side and in need of ready cash, Service made a quick trip to Kinkos before calling the police. The next day a copy of one of the pictures and Vonda Valkyre’s note arrived on my desk at the American Inquisitor with the following cover letter:

Dear Mr. Wilaru,

I have read your stories with interest, especially the piece you did on the trial of Professor Soapy, and I thought the enclosed might be of interest to you.

As you may know, Dr. Rudolf Von Zombie, AKA the Love Doctor, was the most renowned cosmetic surgeon in Texas with clients traveling to his clinic from all over the world. It’s an open secret that he made Belinda Bountiful the woman she is today. Now he is dead under tragic and, dare I say it, suspicious circumstances.

The police are all cretins and toadies and cannot be trusted to find Justice for poor Dr. Von Zombie. I believe that this is a case which only you and the American Inquisitor can properly investigate. By the way, I have six rather more revealing photographs I would happy to give to you.

If you think they might be useful in telling this horrific story, please send me ten thousand dollars to help defray my mailing and handling costs.

My best regards,

Hardwin Service, Pool Man.

I opened the enclosed, plain white envelope, glanced at the picture, and knew immediately that the Public’s Right To Know compelled me to take on this task.

After one look at the photo my editor, Leslie Lumbago, agreed, and authorized an all expenses paid trip to Las Noches, Texas together with a $500 stipend to acquire the rest of the pictures. Well, Mr. Hard Service would just have to make do with less.

I arrived in Las Noches in time to snap three or four dozen digital pictures at the tasteful service held for Dr. Von Zombie at the We’re Sorry You’re Dead Funeral Home and Crematorium.

Dr. Von Zombie, dressed in a charcoal gray suit, hands folded on his chest, wire-rimmed glasses glittering in the pin lights artfully arranged above the coffin, appeared dignified and at peace in the shot captured by the camera lens built into the second brass button on my left sleeve.

Belinda Bountiful seemed especially grief stricken as she bent over the casket to give her mentor a final wave goodbye. But was his passing simply a tragic accident or had darker forces been involved? Perhaps the assortment of beverages at this afternoon’s open-bar wake would loosen tongues as well as bladders.

“Tragic,” I whispered to a tall blond woman as we both took one last look at the body.

“Yes, he always hated that suit.”

“As well he should. By the way I’m David Wilaru.” I held out my hand which she carefully examined as if looking for a treat. “And you are. . . ?”

“Oh, Cokehead Sharon. Pleased to meet you,” she said smiling, then licked my palm. “Salty.”

“Are you going to the wake?”

“The party? Sure.”

“Could I follow you?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

“I will endeavor to try.”

Suiting action to words, Cokehead Sharon promptly trotted down the granite steps and into a BMW roadster parked at the curb just ahead of my rented Hyundai. After two or three minutes of inactivity, I got out and tapped on her window which rolled down with a melodic hum.

“Yes?”

“Aren’t we going to the wake?”

“Soon as you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.” Cokehead Sharon gave me a blank stare. “I’m following you.”

“I’m following you?”

“No, I don’t know where it is. I’m following you.”

“Oh, you’re following me?”

“Yes, I’m following you.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

The window rolled back up and the Z4 squealed away, barely missing my foot. I jumped into my Hyundai and gamely gave chase. After several apparently random detours, half an hour later we reached Dr. Von Zombie’s palatial home and I took a panoramic shot from the curb to be run above the caption “Love Doctor’s Texas Mansion.”

As I climbed the steps I looked for the scene of the crime. Paused about ten feet ahead of me was a five foot five inch stocky, red-skinned man wearing a cowboy hat. I approached him and followed his gaze to a shattered rose bush just left of the walk.

“Is that where they found him?” I asked when I reached his side.

“Who are you?”

“Wilaru, David G. Wilaru, wordsmith.”

“Bob, Cowboy Bob, cowboy,” Bob said and extended a callused hand. “Double Delight.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you as well.”

“No, that’s the name of the rose,” Bob nodded to the crushed stems, “Double Delight. Hybrid Tea rose, pink and white, originally bred by Jackson and Perkins. A shame it had to go that way, even if its blooms didn’t have much scent. Oh, well, maybe they can save it.” Bob shook his head sadly.

“Do you raise roses, Bob?”

“Well, it gets awful lonely out on the ranch, just me and the cows. A guy likes to have a little beauty around him on those long Texas nights.”

Bob’s ice-blue eyes seemed to linger on me a bit too long, and I hurriedly bent to examine the mashed stems. Near the bottom they were streaked as if with rust. Surreptitiously exposing the flash gun in my cuff link I snapped three or four hurried pictures of the death scene.

“What the hell was that?” Cowboy Bob demanded as I stood up.

“What was what?”

“All those flashes.”

“Heat lighting, no doubt caused by the interaction of those cumulo-nimbus clouds with the southerly trade winds.” I skillfully diverted Bob’s gaze by pointing my right hand toward the horizon and snapped a another half dozen frames. “See, there it goes again.”

“Damn government and their death-ray experiments messing up the weather, I’ll tell you what.”

“Exactly right,” I agreed and ushered Bob up the final steps to the open front door. Inside, about fifty people circulated between a champagne fountain and a table of canapés in shapes resembling scalpels, stethoscopes, and Blue Cross membership cards.

At the head of the table was Dr. Von Zombie’s russet-haired widow, Slut Lady. At her side with a comforting hand on her hip, was the deceased’s partner, Dr. Danny Dickbrain.

“He was such a wonderful man,” a blond matron with the breasts of a teenager whimpered to Slut Lady, moistly patting her hand.

“I’ll miss him terribly,” Slut Lady agreed, crunching a caviar-covered Ritz cracker.

“My darling,” a swarthy man whose shirt had apparently lost most of its buttons whispered, then ducked forward and gave her a heartfelt kiss. “Salty,” he muttered a moment later as he pulled back and caressed her cheek.

“You’re being so brave,” I said as I took Slut Lady’s hand. “You didn’t discover the, . . . ah — ”

“Oh no, that was our pool man. I was getting my bikini waxed when it happened so, luckily, they had already carted him off by the time I got home. All I had to do was sign a few papers. Danny here,” Slut Lady patted Dr. Dickbrain affectionately, “took care of the rest of the pesky details for me.”

“Luckily, I had almost finished my tummy-tuck when I got the call, so I was able to rush right over only an hour or so after they found him.”

Well, that seemed like an airtight alibi for Dr. Dickbrain. I moved away from the grieving widow and, snapping photos as I went, worked my way back to the bar.

By the end of the afternoon I had subtly interviewed Dr. Von Zombie’s and the Slut Lady’s closest friends:

• the Clinic’s attorney, Don Disfunctional, his wife, Mademoiselle Oohlala
• Oohlala’s bodyguard, Fat Stupid And Ugly
• Slut Lady’s closest friend, Cokehead Sharon (who had finally showed up two hours later, her hair resembling a post-hurricane haystack and now a different color), and
• A neighbor lady, Norma Normal, who arrived late in the afternoon with a large macaroni and cheese casserole.

As the sun was setting over the lip of the Gulf of Mexico, I wandered onto the back patio. The gentle splash, splash, splash of the pool sweep’s writhing tentacles made a haunting counterpoint to the rustling of the geckos in the dry leaves beneath the ju-ju bushes.

At the far end of the pool a bronzed, stocky man netted floating crickets with a long-handled boom.

“Excuse me . . . .”

“Around the back of the cabana house, the door with the picture of a garden hose.”

“Mr. Service?”

“Uhhh, no.”

“I’m David G. Wilaru from the Inquisitor.”

“Then I mean, yes. Can’t be too careful these days. They always say they’re almost divorced but, sometimes they lie.”

“It’s a sad fact of American life that adulterers today are no longer the moral paragons they once were.”

“Ain’t that the truth. So, I guess you got my letter.”

“Indeed I did. You found the body?”

“Will my name be in your story?”

“Would you like it to be or would you prefer to be identified as a ‘close family friend’?”

“Could I be an ‘intimate acquaintance’ since, truthfully, we weren’t really friends?”

“Consider it done. Now, as the on-the-scene expert, do you think Dr. Von Zombie was murdered and if so, by whom?”

“Well, he was clutching his chest, his eyes were open and bloodshot and very pink.”

“Is that unusual?”

“No, his eyes were always pink. I think it was from all the drugs.”

“What drugs?”

“Well,” Service said, sliding closer and lowering his voice to a throaty whisper. “Dr. Von Zombie liked to have little pick-me-up in the afternoon. And the mornings. And sometimes at night. Confidentially, he like to crush Yippek and Woopix in a bowl and inhale the powder through a juice-box straw.”

“And you think he had been doing that when he died?”

“I couldn’t say, though I did notice a juice-box straw under the rose bush and a half-crushed mauve pill in the dirt next to his right hand.”

“What colors are Yippek and Woopix?”

“Vermillion and maroon.”

“So this pill was neither?”

“You know, I never thought of that, but you’re right. It was the same shape as Yippek and Woopix but I bet it was Slambo, the stuff they knock out elephants with when they want to work on their teeth.”

“Wouldn’t Dr. Von Zombie have noticed the difference?”

“If he weren’t color blind.”

“Was he color blind?”

“Now that you mention it, I think he was.”

“Did you tell any of this to the police?”

Service grimaced and gave his shoulders a tiny shrug.

“Quite right!” I said. “They’d only screw it up. Now, for the most important question: Where did Dr. Von Zombie get his drugs?”

“I guess from his clinic. God knows I never had any luck selling him any. Doctors!” Service gave his head an angry shake.

“But a doctor can’t write a prescription for himself. He’d have to get another doctor to — ” At that moment Dr. Dickbrain and a giggling Slut Lady emerged from the cabana door marked with a picture of a watering can.

“You don’t think . . . ?” Service whispered.

“Yes, on occasion, I do.”

“Are you going to call the police?”

“No, we’ll try Dr. Dickbrain for murder the real American Way, in the Press where it belongs.”

And we did a swell job of it too.

Within three weeks eighty-seven percent of the American Public had found Dr. Dickbrain guilty of murder right along with OJ Simpson and John and Patsy Ramsey. And in the end, that’s all that counts, isn’t it?

— David G. Wilaru

David Grace is Mr. Wilaru’s alter-ego (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)

To see a searchable list of all David Grace’s columns in chronological order, CLICK HERE

To see a list of David Grace’s columns sorted by topic/subject matter, CLICK HERE.

To see all of David Grace’s Wilaru stories, CLICK HERE

All 50 of David Wilaru’s columns are collected in The Wilaru Chronicles available at: www.Amazon.com/dp/B01AGTD0Q0

*David G. Wilaru, A Brief Biography

David Wilaru’s early employment was in the creative paperwork allocation and re-allocation sector, but he always knew that his true calling was to be a Wordsmith.

After his divorce from his wife, Sharon, whom Mr. Wilaru once described as: “…as frigid as a penguin in a KitchenAid,” he pursued his dream of a writing career with a stint drafting product manuals for Godzilla Brothers, Inc., penning the user manuals for such cutting-edge Godzilla Brothers’ products as the Delilah Magic Hedge Trimmer, the Trident Electric Fork and Wordbuster, the world’s first solar powered fountain pen.

After leaving Godzilla Brother following his unfortunate involvement with Dr. Werner Buick’s Thirty Day Plan and overcome with ennui, Mr. Wilaru founded SCRAP, The Surrender Company Representing All People, a project that, unfortunately, led to his brief confinement in the Feldman-Margolis Memorial Psychiatric Ward where he edited the patient newsletter, Four Soft Walls.

After his release from the Feldman-Margolis Center, Mr. Wilaru accepted a position as a slogan writer with the 1001 Adult Greeting Cards For All Occasions Company of East Los Angeles, Inc. where he diligently honed his creative talents.

Thereafter, Mr. Wilaru went on to hold a senior public relations position with the Silicon City medical appliances company, BodySpares, Inc. where he directed the marketing effort for the Mirage Artificial Pancreas 690 RG.

After BodySpares’ unfortunate difficulties with the SEC, Mr. Wilaru joined the start-up, Xcitement, Inc., where he designed the marketing campaign for the Xcitement Confidential Adviser (popularly known as “The Brain Box”) and single-handedly coined the slogan “Get Sane At Warp Speed.”

After Xcitement’s sudden bankruptcy, Mr. Wilaru took over as the head of Marketing and Public Relations for Memories-R-Us, Inc. where he directed the advertising strategy for The Dog Box and other Memories-R-Us products.

It was during this high-tech marketing period that, in his spare time, Mr. Wilaru wrote his first paperback novel, the moderately successful Grip Melman, Garbage Detective: The Case Of The Hostess In The Can.

After the unfortunate litigation generated by the book’s Second-Printing Party, Mr. Wilaru obtained a position as a free-lance writer and later as a staff reporter for The American Inquisitor Weekly News Magazine, a post which he still holds today.

A self-described obsessive-compulsive Wordsmith, Mr. Wilaru regularly writes about subjects of topical interest including Gay Marriage, Hollywood Culture, the rapid growth of Amnesiaiology, the Patriot Act, Middle East Developments, and his specialty, UFO Babies, together with other matters of broad general appeal.