Survival of the Fittest (52 page)

He slapped his sternum and rolled his eyes.

“Debonair,” I said. “So tell me about this promotion. And why.”

“Kicked back up to D-III but removed from West L.A. They’re giving me an office at one of those little mini community outposts they’re putting up all over town. Cop-lite, the guys call ’em, but I get my own space, separate entrance. The title is major case investigator—troubleshooter on nasty stuff, anywhere in the city. The promise is I don’t have to deal with red tape, get total departmental support and backup.”

“Sounds good.”

He rubbed his face. “I’m not kidding myself, Alex. They want me out of the station—any station. And I know damn well this can go either way: the best thing that ever happened to me or they marginalize me, ease me out. If it’s the second, fuck ’em, I’ll deal with it. Meanwhile, they’ve upped my pay and promised lieutenant within a year.”

“Still sounds good,” I said. “Now, tell me why.”

“The official reason is that they were intending to do it all along—the meeting with the deputy chief was about that. Because of my solve rate, people in high places had put in a good word for me.”

“Carmeli. Wanting you out of the way.”

“Carmeli
and
the department,” he said. “The
real
reason is they need to shut me up. Because Carmeli told them about Baker and NU and what he was going to do about it, and they didn’t try to stop him.”

“Common interest,” I said. “The last thing LAPD needed was a psycho-killer cop.”

“Clean slate, Alex. Can’t say I’d rather see Baker in court.”

“And the story about Tenney being picked up for Raymond Ortiz and Latvinia and dying in a shoot-out with police gives their families some peace of mind. Too bad Raymond’s body will never be found.”

“They told his parents Tenney had burned it completely—confessed it before he went for his gun.”

“Convenient,” I said.

Frowning, he took something out of his pocket and placed it on the table.

Two neatly cut squares of newsprint.

This morning’s paper.

Two papers, same date.
Los Angeles Times, The New York Times.

The local story was slightly bigger, a front section, page 12, the lower right-hand corner:

PSYCHOLOGIST PERISHES IN HOUSEFIRE

SANTA MONICA—Fire investigators said an early-morning blaze that killed a psychologist yesterday was the result of faulty electrical wiring.

Roone M. Lehmann, 56, died in his bed of smoke inhalation during the fire that erupted in a secluded area of Santa Monica Canyon and consumed his house along with nearly half an acre of surrounding vegetation. Neighbors’ houses were spared. The structure had been outfitted with smoke alarms but apparently they failed to go off.

Lehmann, a bachelor, had served as a consultant to the Los Angeles Police Department as well as to several other foundations and institutions, including the Central City Skills Center. Funeral arrangements await notification of next of kin.

The smaller scrap said:

BOATING ACCIDENT CLAIMS TWO

A couple boating on Long Island Sound drowned yesterday evening in what police are terming a freak accident.

Farley Sanger, 40, and Helga Cranepool, 49, had apparently embarked on a nighttime sail when their craft sank after a previously undiscovered hole in the bottom widened and filled the twenty-foot sailboat with water.

“Mr. Sanger boated all the time,” said a Manhattan neighbor, preferring to remain anonymous, “but never at night.”

Sanger, an attorney, was a partner in the firm of   .   .   .

I gave him back the clippings.

“Same day, probably the exact same time,” I said, sliding the papers toward him. “Perish the careless.”

“Hey,” he said, “they made the rules.”

Chapter

62

I ended up telling Robin a version that left her shocked, but relieved, eventually able to sleep again.

My sleep was another matter but after two weeks, I was starting to settle down.

I’d never forget any of it, knew I had to get back on a routine.

Taking referrals, seeing kids, writing reports. Feed the fish, walk the dog.

Thinking about Helena, from time to time. The things she’d never know   .   .   . sometimes ignorance
was
bliss.

Thinking about Daniel, too. What
had
happened to him?

I filled the hours. Doing the usual things because I
could.

The small white envelope that arrived on a sunny Tuesday was punctuation of sorts.

No stamp, no postmark, stuck right in the middle of the day’s delivery.

Post-office oversight, if you believed that.

Embossed Hallmark trademark on the back flap.

Inside was no card, just a photograph.

Daniel, along with a pretty, slender woman around his age. He wore a white shirt, dark slacks, sandals, and she had on a loose blue dress and sandals. Several inches shorter than he was, with curly blond hair. Her arm in his.

Flanking them, three children.

A gorgeous, dark-skinned but fair-haired girl of college age wearing an olive-drab Army uniform, and two little black-haired boys in T-shirts and shorts and yarmulkes. The older boy grinned mischievously but the younger one looked serious, a clone of Daniel. Daniel and the woman and the girl all smiled evenly. The girl had Daniel’s features, her mother’s hair.

Stone wall behind them. Big, rough, golden stones.

Nothing else.

On the back was a typed address:

PINSKER STREET, JERUSALEM, ISRAEL.

Below that:

NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM? YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME HERE.

My service phoned. “A Mr. Brooker, Dr. Delaware.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Doctor? My name is Gene Brooker and I’m—”

“I know who you are, Captain. We   .   .   . encountered each other briefly.”

“Did we? Anyway, the reason I’m calling is to deliver a message, Doctor. From a mutual friend. He sent you something and wanted to know if you received it.”

“I did. Just now, as a matter of fact. Perfect timing.”

Silence. “Good. He said to tell you he’s fine. Thought you might be wondering.”

“I was. Thoughtful of him.”

“Yes,” he said. “He’s always been thoughtful.”

To my parents,
David and Sylvia Kellerman

Special thanks to
Detectives Paul Bishop and Vic Pietrantoni,
and to Dr. J. David Smith.

BOOKS BY JONATHAN KELLERMAN

FICTION

A
LEX
D
ELAWARE
N
OVELS
Guilt
(2013)
Victims
(2012)
Mystery
(2011)
Deception
(2010)
Evidence
(2009)
Bones
(2008)
Compulsion
(2008)
Obsession
(2007)
Gone
(2006)
Rage
(2005)
Therapy
(2004)
A Cold Heart
(2003)
The Murder Book
(2002)
Flesh and Blood
(2001)
Dr. Death
(2000)
Monster
(1999)
Survival of the Fittest
(1997)
The Clinic
(1997)
The Web
(1996)
Self-Defense
(1995)
Bad Love
(1994)
Devil’s Waltz
(1993)
Private Eyes
(1992)
Time Bomb
(1990)
Silent Partner
(1989)
Over the Edge
(1987)
Blood Test
(1986)
When the Bough Breaks
(1985)

O
THER
N
OVELS
True Detectives
(2009)
Capital Crimes
(With Faye Kellerman, 2006)
Twisted
(2004)
Double Homicide
(With Faye Kellerman, 2004)
The Conspiracy Club
(2003)
Billy Straight
(1998)
The Butcher’s Theater
(1988)

G
RAPHIC
N
OVELS
The Web
(2013)
Silent Partner
(2012)

NONFICTION
With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars
(2008)
Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children
(1999)
Helping the Fearful Child
(1981)
Psychological Aspects of Childhood Cancer
(1980)

FOR CHILDREN, WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED
Jonathan Kellerman’s ABC of Weird Creatures
(1995)
Daddy, Daddy, Can You Touch the Sky?
(1994)

Read on for an excerpt from

GUILT

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published by Ballantine Books

CHAPTER
1

A
ll mine!

The house, the life growing inside her.

The husband.

Holly finished her fifth circuit of the back room that looked out to the yard. She paused for breath. The baby—Aimee—had started pushing against her diaphragm.

Since escrow had closed, Holly had done a hundred circuits, imagining. Loving every inch of the place despite the odors imbedded in ninety-year-old plaster: cat pee, mildew, overripe vegetable soup. Old person.

In a few days the painting would begin and the aroma of fresh latex would bury all that, and cheerful colors would mask the discouraging gray-beige of Holly’s ten-room dream. Not counting bathrooms.

The house was a brick-faced Tudor on a quarter-acre lot at the southern edge of Cheviot Hills, built when construction was meant to last and adorned by moldings, wainscoting, arched mahogany doors, quarter-sawn oak floors. Parquet in the cute little study that would be Matt’s home office when he needed to bring work home.

Holly could close the door and not have to hear Matt’s grumbling about moron clients incapable of keeping decent records. Meanwhile she’d be on a comfy couch, snuggling with Aimee.

She’d learned the sex of the baby at the four-month anatomical ultrasound, decided on the name right then and there. Matt didn’t know yet. He was still adjusting to the whole fatherhood thing.

Sometimes she wondered if Matt dreamed in numbers.

Resting her hands on a mahogany sill, Holly squinted to blank out the weeds and dead grass, struggling to conjure a green, flower-laden Eden.

Hard to visualize, with a mountain of tree-trunk taking up all that space.

The five-story sycamore had been one of the house’s selling points, with its trunk as thick as an oil drum and dense foliage that created a moody, almost spooky ambience. Holly’s creative powers had immediately kicked into gear, visualizing a swing attached to that swooping lower branch.

Aimee giggling as she swooped up and shouted that Holly was the best mommy.

Two weeks into escrow, during a massive, unseasonal rainstorm, the sycamore’s roots had given way. Thank God the monster had teetered but hadn’t fallen. The trajectory would’ve landed it right on the house.

An agreement was drawn up: The sellers—the old woman’s son and daughter—would pay to have the monstrous thing chopped down and hauled away, the stumps ground to dust, the soil leveled. Instead, they’d cheaped out, paying a tree company only to cut down the sycamore, leaving behind a massive horror of deadwood that took up the entire rear half of the yard.

Matt had gone bananas, threatened to kill the deal.

Abrogate
. What an ugly word.

Holly had cooled him off by promising to handle the situation, she’d make sure they got duly compensated, he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Fine. As long as you actually do it
.

Now, Holly stared at the mountain of wood, feeling discouraged and a bit helpless. Some of the sycamore, she supposed, could be reduced to firewood. Fragments and leaves and loose pieces of bark she could rake up herself, maybe create a compost pile. But those massive columns …

Whatever; she’d figure it out. Meanwhile, there was cat pee–overripe soup–mildew–old lady stink to deal with.

Mrs. Hannah had lived in the house for fifty-two years. Still, how did a person’s smell permeate lath and plaster? Not that Holly had anything against old people. Though she didn’t know too many.