Джонатан Келлерман - When the Bough Breaks

He inhaled his cigarette, coughed and sucked again. There was yellow around the irises of his eyes; gray, unhealthy flesh pouched the wary orbs. He looked like a man recuperating from a coronary or just about to have one.

“What are you, collection agency?”

“I’m one of her daughter’s doctors.”

“Oh yeah? Don’t tell me about doctors. It’s one of you that got me into this in the first place.”

“Towle?”

His eyebrows rose. “Yeah? You from his office? ’Cause if you are, I got plenty–”

“No. I just know him.”

“Then you know he’s a nag. Gets into stuff he has no business getting into. My wife hears me say this, she’ll kill me. She loves the guy. Says he’s terrific with the kids, so who am I to argue, right? What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“Psychologist.”

“The kid had problems, huh? Wouldn’t surprise me. She looked a little iffy, if you know what I mean.” He held out his hand, tilted it like the wing of a glider.

“You said Dr. Towle got you into the mess with Bonita Quinn?”

“That’s right. I met the guy once or twice, maybe. I don’t know him from Adam. One day he calls me out of the clear blue and asks me if I could give a job to a patient of his. He heard there was an opening for a manager in this place, and could I help this lady out. I say does this person have experience – we’re talking multiple units here, not some duplex. He says no, but she can learn, she’s got a kid, needs the money. I say, listen, Doc, this particular building is singles-oriented, the job’s not right for someone with a kid. The manager’s place is too small.” He looked at me scowling. “Would you stick a kid in a hole like this?”

“No.”

“Me neither. You don’t have to be a doctor to see it’s not fit. I tell Towle this. I explain it to him. I say, Doc, this job is meant for a single person. Usually I get a student from UCLA to do it – they don’t need a lot of space. I’ve got other buildings, I tell him. In Van Nuys, a couple in Canoga Park, more family-oriented. Let me call my man in the Valley, have him check it out, I’ll see if I can help this person.

“Towle says, no, it has to be this building. The kid’s already enrolled in school in this neighborhood, to move her would be traumatic, he’s a doctor, he knows this to be a fact. I say, but Doc, you can’t have kids making noise in a place like this. The tenants are mostly singles, some like to sleep late. He says I guarantee you this kid is well-behaved, she makes no noise. I think to myself this kid makes no noise, there’s gotta be something wrong with her – now you show up and it make sense.

“I try to put him off, but he presses me. He’s a nag. My wife loves him, she’ll kill me if I get him pissed off, so I say okay. He makes an appointment for me to meet this lady, shows up with the Quinn broad and the kid. I was surprised. I gave it a little thought the night before, figured he was humping this broad, that’s why the Albert Schweitzer routine. I expected something classy, with curves. One of those aspiring actress types, you know what I mean? He’s older, but he’s a classy-looking guy, right? So in he walks with her and the kid and they look like a pair outta the Dust Bowl, real hicks. The mother is scared outta her skull, she’s smoking more than me, which is a feat the kid’s, like I told you, a little iffy, just stares into space, though I’ll grant you she’s quiet. Didn’t make a sound. I had my doubts she could handle the job, but what could I do, I already committed myself. I hired her. She did okay. She was a hard worker, but she learned very slowly. No complaints about the kid, though. Anyway, she stays for a few months, then she flies the coop leaving me with this junk and she’s probably got five grand worth of rent checks, I have to go back and trace ’em and have the tenants put stops on ’em and write new ones. I gotta clean this place, hire someone new. Let me tell you, no more Mister Nice Guy for Marty. For doctors or anyone else.”

He folded his arms over his chest.

“You have no idea where she went?” I asked.

“I did, would I be standing here jawing with you?”

He went into the bedroom. It was as bleak as I remembered it.

“Look at this. How can people raise kids like this? I got three, each has his own room, they got TVs, bookshelves, Pac Mans, all that stuff. How can a kid’s mind grow in a place like this?”

“If you hear from her or find out where she is, would you please call me?” I took out an old business card, crossed out the number and wrote my home phone number on it.

He glanced at it, and put it in his pocket. Running one finger along the top of the dresser he came up with a digit cloaked with dust kittys. He flung the dust away. “Yecch. I hate dirt. I like things to be clean, know what I mean? My apartments are always clean – I pay extra for the best cleaning service. It’s important tenants should feel healthy in a place.”

“You’ll call me?”

“Sure, sure. You do the same for me, too, okay? I wouldn’t mind finding Miss Bonita, get my checks back, give her a piece of my mind.” He fished in his pocket, pulled out an alligator billfold and from it produced a pearl-gray business card that said M and M Properties, Commercial and Residential, Marduk I. Minassian, President , followed by a Century City address.

“Thanks, Mr. Minassian.”

“Marty.”

He continued probing and inspecting, opening drawers and shaking his head, bending to look under the bed Bonita Quinn had shared with her daughter. He found something under there, stood up, looked at it and tossed it in a metal wastebasket where it landed with a clang.

“What a mess.”

I looked in the basket, saw what he had discarded, and pulled it out.

It was the shrunken head Melody had shown me the day we’d spent together at the beach. I held it in my palm and the rhinestone eyes glared back, glossy and evil. Most of the synthetic hair had come loose but a few black strands stuck out of the top of the snarling face.

“That’s junk,” said Minassian. “It’s dirty. Throw it away.”

I closed my hand over the child’s keepsake, more sure than ever that the hypothesis I’d developed on the plane was right. And that I had to move fast. I put the shrunken head in my pocket, smiled at Minassian, and left.

“Hey!” he called after me. And then he muttered something that sounded like “Crazy doctors!”

I retraced my route, got back on the freeway and headed east, driving like a demon and hoping the Highway Patrol wouldn’t spot me. I had my LAPD consultant badge in my pocket but I doubted it would help. Even police consultants aren’t supposed to weave in and out of traffic going eighty miles an hour.

I was lucky. Traffic was light, the guardians of the asphalt were nowhere to be seen, and I made it to the Silver Lake exit just before one. Five minutes later I was walking up the steps to the Gutierrez home. The orange and yellow poppies drooped, thirsty. The porch was empty. It creaked as I stepped onto it.

I knocked on the door. Cruz Gutierrez answered, knitting needles and bright pink yarn in her hands. She didn’t seem surprised to see me.

“Si, señor?”

“I need your help, señora.”

“No hablo inglés.”

“Please. I know you understand enough to help.”

The dark, round face was impassive.

“Señora, the life of a child is at stake.” That was optimism speaking. “Una niña. Seven years old – siete años. She’s in danger. She could be killed. Muerta – like Elena.”

I let that sink in. Liver spotted hands tightened around the blue needles. She looked away.

“Like the other child – the Nemeth boy. Elena’s student. He didn’t die in an accident, did he? Elena knew that. She died because of that knowledge.”