Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

He pushed his glass to the side. “Milo, I’m sure you like what you do. And I’ve nothing but respect for what you do. But I never had any interest in bodies, my plan was to do financial for a few years, then go back to school for a CPA and get a fed job. Secret Service or the IRS. Or maybe go private and get into industrial security. Homicide? What’s that going to do for me? I tried to beg off, it was like talking to a brick. So I must’ve pissed someone off. Why else would they assign me to a loser?”

Milo said, “Any idea who?”

“No, that’s the thing. It was like that writer…the guy who turned into a bug?”

I said, “Kafka.”

“Exactly, Kafka. It was like him, stuff starts happening and you have no idea. The only thing I could think of was working white collar I got too close to some moneybags. But none of my cases fit the bill, I was strictly small-time.”

“Why bother reopening the case if the goal was to fail?”

“You tell me,” said Galoway. “Here’s the funny thing, rookie me might’ve actually solved it if I had some decent intel. You know what they say, it’s always in the file. I went over that sucker a hundred times, at first it was like reading Chinese.”

He jiggled an index finger. “Truth is, I’ve got a pretty good feeling for who did it. But good luck proving it.”

Milo’s bulk edged forward. “You developed a lead?”

“No, no, just what I said, a feeling, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Well,” said Galoway, “I don’t want to make more of this than it is but something Seeger wrote down got me going. Though he didn’t realize it. His handwriting sucked, you could barely make it out, but once I did I got curious. I played with it for a while, went to my new captain and told him I was making progress. He gives me a look like I just pulled my dick out and wanted to rub it on his face. A few days later, I’m back on financial. After that, I had enough with the job. Department was incentivizing early retirement so I left with my pension and got my real estate license and worked for a brokerage. The plan was to make enough to go back to school but all of a sudden I’m making serious dough selling property so I decided to stick with that a bit longer. Then I get bigger listings and serious commissions. Then I start using my earnings to flip houses.”

He lifted his juice. “Here’s to good luck.”

Milo pulled out his pad. “What did Seeger write down?”

Galoway looked uneasy. “Like I said, it was based on a feeling, not evidence. Plus all these years later, it’s like I’m handing you a glass of spoiled milk.”

“I’ll take what I can get, Du.”

Galoway looked back at the counter. “Hold on, let me get myself one of those muffins.”

CHAPTER 10

Fortified by two large bites of a fist-sized, rust-colored concoction laced with pumpkin seeds, Galoway wiped his lips and sat up straight, as if called upon to recite in class.

“You mind if I back up a bit? To make things clear for you.”

“Sure,” said Milo.

“How much do you know about her? Dorothy.”

“She was shot in the head in her car somewhere on the L.A. side of Mulholland, the car was pushed over the side then torched to look like an accident.”

Galoway stared at him. “That’s it?”

“We just started, Du.”

“Wow. Okay. First, I’m going to give you what I see as the psychology—her psychological state, you can appreciate that, Doctor.” He cleared his throat. “To me it was obvious she was unhappy with her marriage. She’d left him—what was his name…Seymour… Stanley. Right?”

“Stanley Barker.”

“An eye doctor. Right?”

“Right.”

Galoway grinned. “Nice to know the memory’s got some battery power left. Anyway, Stanley’s living up north but Dorothy dies down here. Obviously, that’s a red flag. I called him. He didn’t sound thrilled to hear from me, I’m thinking this is probably the guy. ’Cause that’s what they teach us, right? Start from the inside and work your way out. I figured he’d clam up but he answered my questions, just not with enthusiasm. He admitted they weren’t getting along, she’d left him six months before she was killed. No warning. He comes home, there’s a note on the bed and the kid’s at the next-door neighbor’s. Which tells you she had to be pretty miserable. I ask a few more questions—confirming the basics—and we finish. After that, Stanley’s not so great about getting back to me. So he stays on top of my list.”

I said, “Did you ever meet him face-to-face?”

“That would’ve required a plane ticket and a hotel, Doc. Milo, tell him the way it is when you’re soloing on a loser and ask for dough.”

“Got it,” I said.

“I’d have loved to sit down with the guy,” said Galoway. “You going to?”

Milo said, “He died nineteen years ago.”

“Oh. So like…two years after I talked to him. Who picked the case up after me?”

“No one.”

“All these years?” said Galoway. “Bummer. Anyway, no way was I going to dip into my own pocket. So I’m ready to fold my tents, figuring Stanley got away with it. Then something else Seeger wrote down—this smudged-pencil writing in the corner of a page, you could barely make it out—attracted my attention. The car wasn’t hers, it was registered to a company. Precision machining outfit, forget the name.”

He tapped his forehead, wrinkled it, tapped again. “Nope, gone, time for some new double A’s. Anyway, they made surgical knives, stuff like that. No indication Dorothy’s got those types of skills, I’m figuring if she had a job there, she was a secretary, something along those lines. But then I read the file for the zillionth time and the car she was in gets to me. Not a cheapo, we’re talking a one-year-old Cadillac Eldorado. Are you getting the same feeling I did, Milo?”

“Young woman, rich guy.”

“Bingo,” said Galoway, giving a thumbs-up. “Good-looking chick comes to town with no job experience, what’s she going to do? Use what God gave her.”

“Who owned the car?”

“Exactly, the obvious question. The first guy didn’t ask, or if he did, he didn’t record it. Same for Seeger. But I sniffed around. Unfortunately, the company wasn’t listed locally, so I backtracked with some business directories at the public library and then I went to the newspaper morgue. All of which takes time, by then there’s a little internet going on but the department’s not using computers except to teach clerks word processing. So we’re talking prying open Tut’s Tomb with my fingernails. Anyway the owner of the company is a guy named Dee barze. Spelled D-E-S separate word B-A-R-R-E-S, probably a French dude. Anton Des Barres. I check the backwards directory for an address and get nothing, makes sense, rich guys keep it private. So I go to the assessor and Des Barres had a house in L.A. but the last property tax payment was four years ago. I’m thinking shit, he split to France or wherever. But then I wonder if he’s dead so I check and sure enough, he kicked the bucket a year before that.”

I said, “Cause of death?”

He gave me a pitying smile. “Was he murdered, Doc? That would be juicy but nope, some disease, forget which. But here’s something that is juicy: The house was right on Mulholland, maybe two miles east of where they estimate Dorothy was found in that torched Caddy. I say estimate because if the site was recorded, it’s lost.”

Milo said, “Interesting.”

“ I thought so,” said Galoway. “A picture’s forming, right? Good-looking chick leaves her old man, comes down here, gets with a rich older guy who gives her a Caddy to tool around in. Then things go bad. I mean they had to, right, for a car like that to get sacrificed? That tells me getting rid of her was a priority. Now I’m feeling some energy. I put it all together and tell my new captain and he gives me that dick-on-the-face look, says you have any actual evidence? I say not yet. A few days later, I’m re-transferred.”