Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

“If there was it wouldn’t have been signed off as accidental.”

“How many fatal horse falls have you seen?”

“Since I’m in the States?” she said. “None. When I was in medical school in Poland, a drunk stole a wagon that was hitched to a beautiful Sztumski—a big dray horse—and crashed it into a wall. Fortunately the horse was unharmed. People do fall off but it’s generally not fatal, especially now with helmets. More often than not when there’s an accident it has to do with racing and the horse is the victim.”

“So we’re talking a rare occurrence,” he said.

“Ah, I see where you’re going. Swoboda—there’s a nice Slavic name—was made to look like an accident and so poor Ms. Arlette is gnawing at you.”

“You should be a shrink, Basia.”

“Too frightening a thought, Milo. Being bombarded with all that insight. Besides, you’ve got Alex for that.”

I said, “Hi, Basia.”

“Hello. I figured you’d be there.”

“Why’s that?”

“Milo’s gnawing.”

—

While the two of them talked, I worked my phone. I was still clicking when Milo signed off.

He said, “What?”

“Trying to find out how many lethal horse falls occur per year. There’s no precise number, best guess is around a hundred. Back when Arlette died, the country’s population was significantly smaller so the number would probably be smaller unless a behavioral change—helmets, like Basia said—lowered the risk. Hold on…looks like helmets became popular right around the time Arlette had her fall.”

“Either way,” he said, “it didn’t help her. Dorothy, Stan Barker, now Arlette. People who associate with Dr. Des Barres tend to lose out to gravity.”

I said, “Getting rid of a wife in order to start a harem I can see. I can even see paring down the harem if a member grew troublesome—demanding more than a casual relationship. But why, years after Dorothy left Barker, would he be targeted?”

He checked his notes. “Seventeen years. Good point. Fine, let’s put ol’ Stan aside—though as you pointed out, he didn’t look like the outdoors-type and fatal hiking falls are super-rare. We’ve still got two dead women who lived with Des Barres kicking it prematurely a year apart and one’s a verified homicide. Galoway said Des Barres didn’t shuffle off the coil until nearly twenty years ago from a disease. Guy outlives his victims and dies in bed. Reassuring, Alex.”

I said, “What is?”

“Validation of my credo.”

“Life’s not fair.”

He bared his teeth. “How’d you guess?”

—

He searched for accounts of Arlette Des Barres’s death, found only a paragraph in the Pasadena Star-News.

Hollywood Woman Suffers Fatal Fall from a Horse

A woman riding alone at the western edge of Angeles Crest National Forest plunged to her death after falling or being thrown from her own horse. The body of Arlette Des Barres, 35, was found by park rangers after she failed to return from a ride last Sunday.

The horse, housed at Agua Fria Stables in Pasadena, was found a half mile east of the body. Purchased a year ago by Mrs. Des Barres, it was described by stable owner Winifred Gaines as “young but well-behaved.” Mrs. Des Barres was described as an experienced rider. She leaves behind a husband and three children.

I said, “Three children, two of whom remember their father fondly.”

Milo said, “Maybe Dr. Tony doesn’t? I’ll try him again.” Another call. Same message.

He looked up Agua Fria Stables. No current listing. “Same old story. Okay, tomorrow the archive. I find anything, you’ll be the first to know.”

His phone played something I didn’t recognize. He checked the screen and ignored the call.

I said, “Who was that?”

He said, “Ellie Barker. She’ll be the second to know.”

—

I heard nothing the following day. At eight p.m. on the second day, he phoned. “Any chance I can pop by, toss some stuff around?”

“When?”

“Now-ish, I’m a hundred feet from your ranchero.”

—

I was waiting on the terrace with Robin and Blanche as he drove up in his personal ride, a white Porsche 928 he and Rick have shared for years. Un-Porsche-like with its front engine but with its own sense of style and freakishly reliable. Like me, the two of them appreciate loyalty.

We were outside relaxing, Blanche chewing a jerky stick with Gallic flair, Robin and I sharing a bottle of Israeli Cab-Merlot a wine-auctioneer friend had gifted us for Christmas. In my free hand was a glass for Milo.

He made his way to the top of the stairs and took it. “What’s the occasion?”

Robin said, “Another day aboveground.”

“Your age, you’re thinking like that?”

“Have been since I turned ten, Big Guy.”

“What happened when you were ten?”

“I grew up. Taste, it’s great. From a forty-year-old vineyard where they found a two-thousand-year-old wine press.”

“France?”

“A hill near Jerusalem.”

He swirled and sipped. “ Very nice.” He gazed off into the trees that curtain the front of our property. “You know, I think I’ll finish and be on my way.”

I said, “Thought there was something to toss around.”

“It’ll keep, don’t want to ruin the festive mood.”

Robin took his arm. “C’mon, we’ve got some leftover rib-eye.”

“Oh, ye Jezebel,” he said. “Will temptation never cease to plague me?”

—

Eating and drinking in the kitchen loosened him up. He removed his jacket and slung it over a chair, smiled as Blanche toddled over and settled at his feet, and dropped her a small piece of meat.

I said, “What’s up?”

“Nothing. Literally.”

“Dead end at the archives?”

Blanche was on her hind paws, panting with lust. “Okay to give her another?”

Robin said, “We get to be the bad parents? Just a smidge and make her sit.”

Blanche obeyed the command before Milo had a chance to instruct her. He laughed and his arm lowered and the wet sound of ecstatic, slobbering bulldog jaws filtered up.

Then, cat-purrs.

I said, “The archive.”

“Better organized than I expected. Lev always impressed me as kind of a stoner but apparently before he went back to Harvard, he whipped everything into chronological order and the new guy hasn’t had time to screw it up. So finding the book shoulda been easy. But nothing there. Lev’s system cataloged chronologically from the time each case opened officially. Sometimes the 911 call, sometimes when the detective logged it. Ten hours before Dorothy’s coroner’s summary, a stabbing went down in Watts, and five hours after there was a fatal downtown liquor store 211. In between? Air. Just to make sure, I spent the entire damn day looking over every case five years before and after. Then I expanded to twenty years either way. Zilch. It ain’t there.”

Robin said, “Someone took the file and didn’t return it. Do people often get careless?”

“Sure,” he said. “But there’s no record of anyone checking that particular file out, so for all I know it was never cataloged in the first place.”

She said, “Because a rich guy was involved?”

“Shocking as it may be, darling, cases involving the high and mighty do have a way of veering out of lane. Take O.J. His Defense made a big deal about how he was mistreated by a racist department. Truth is, he was coddled initially because celebrity trumps race and cops are the biggest star-fuckers of all. If Des Barres had enough pull, sweeping up a bread-crumb trail wouldn’t be tough.” To me: “Anything on him from Maxine?”

“Not yet.”

“She’s usually quick, bad sign.” He played with his empty wineglass.