Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

Her mother said, “Really? Again?”

I said, “Bad bad cars. You can throw them again.”

I pantomimed a toss.

Another glance at her mother.

Lara rolled her eyes. “If he says so.”

Amelia turned to me, turned doubtful by her mother’s tone. I retrieved the toys and threw them nearly to the far wall. “Bad cars!”

Inhaling and squeezing her hands into tiny fists, Amelia ran over and aped my motions. Picked the cars up. “Bah bah bah.”

She began breathing hard.

“That’s okay? The way she’s panting.”

I nodded.

“If you say so.”

We watched as Amelia went through car-assault eight more times. I use hard-plastic miniatures able to take the abuse. Sometimes I spackle and repaint the wall.

By the time Amelia left the office, insistent upon walking unaided, one of the cars was clutched in her tiny hand.

Her mother said, “That’s the doctor’s.”

I said, “That’s okay, now it’s Amelia’s.”

Swinging the vehicle overhead, the child trotted away, laughing. Her mother muttered, “Go know.”

I walked them out of the house and down to a Mercedes of Beverly Hills loaner SUV.

Amelia’s mother opened a rear passenger door and said, “Okay.”

Amelia hesitated for a second, then climbed in and allowed herself to be buckled in. All the while passing the toy from hand to hand.

“Ooom, bah bah bah.”

I said, “Oom va-roooom.”

She tittered then broke into a giggle fit.

Lara smiled despite herself. Before she got behind the wheel, she faced me, biting her lip.

I said, “A question?”

“So that’s it?”

“No, we’ll need more sessions. In the meantime, don’t do anything different. But if she does want to get mad at the cars, don’t stop her.”

Amelia began humming.

“Okay…maybe this will actually be useful. I guess.”

Amelia said, “Vuhooom!”

Lara said, “Um, do you do eating disorders?”

CHAPTER 19

At eight p.m., Milo called my private line and asked if I was still “healing miniature psyches.”

“Free now but tied up until noon tomorrow. Progress?”

“Nah, I’ve just got something I want you to hear.”

“I’m listening.”

“Hear as in verbal exchange, then we discuss. Not over the phone.”

I was tired, had planned to finish my paperwork then unwind with Chivas and my guitar gently weeping. But he sounded needy and Robin had returned to her shop and would be working late tweezing minuscule inlay onto the mandolin’s sound-hole rosette.

Her guess: back by nine. Eleven was more likely.

I said, “I’ll leave the door open.”

—

I was at my keyboard when he tapped on the doorframe. The playhouse was still in the center of the room.

“That for me?”

“If you can handle deep psychic exploration.”

“Sounds like my nightly sleep pattern.”

He plopped onto the battered leather couch, leaned forward, and began examining the house. “Kinda Beaver Cleaverville. Do I get to pick a favorite room? And don’t say the kitchen.”

“What, then?”

“Bypass the process and head straight for the outcome. The dining room.”

He removed a steak the size of a toenail. “For plastic, this stuff looks pretty good, but the portions? Tsk…is this broccoli or cauliflower…or a lawn cutting from Dad’s mower?”

I saved the file I was working on, double-checked, and logged off just as he was plucking a Mom-doll out of the house. “Apron and bouffant hair?”

I said, “I bought it when I started in practice.”

“Maybe you should update. Mama with skinny jeans and a coupla tattoos?” He rotated the doll. “Is her name Susan or Mary Jane? Is she still true to her sorority?”

“Sorry,” I said, “patient confidentiality. How’s Twohy?”

“Still in the hospital, nothing new to say. In terms of the crime scene, Petra doesn’t know for sure where the shooter hid but she’s got a good guess. Indentation in some brush twenty feet from where Twohy fell. Unfortunately, no footprints. Or casing, maybe it was a revolver.”

He held up the doll. “Back to Formica and TV dinners for you, Suzy.”

I said, “Did you have time to watch the mansion?”

“Briefly, still can’t figure a good way to do it, road’s too open, traffic’s too thin. I used the Porsche to blend in, did some drive-bys seven to ten a.m. and four to seven p.m., figuring those were the likely times Sabino or some other employee would be coming or going. No one came or went except for FedEx delivering what looked like boxes of books. Top of that, Martz called me yesterday emphasizing I was to report to her and no one else. Meaning I can’t request backup from Moe or Sean or Alicia. Now the topic for discussion.”

He triggered his phone. Two beeps were followed by a deep male voice.

“This is Dr. Des Barres.”

“Doctor, Lieutenant Sturgis.”

“You, again? I got your messages and ignored them because I’m busy and have nothing to say to you.”

“If you could just—”

“You misled my service, saying it was an urgent call.”

“It kind of is, Doctor.”

“It kind of isn’t, ” said Anthony Des Barres. “False premises. Not right, Lieutenant. Goodbye.”

“Sorry, sir, no harm intended but if you could give me just a second? Your brother and sister did.”

“A second to do what?” said Anthony Des Barres. “What in the world do you think I can tell you?”

“Did they fill you in?”

“I haven’t talked to my brother. My sister said something about a woman who lived with our father umpteen years ago.”

“And was murdered during that time.”

“That’s supposed to concern me because…”

“It may not concern you at all, Doctor. The case has been reopened and I’m trying to gather background information.”

“By operating scattershot? If I went about my job that way I’d never get any work done.”

“You’re a surgeon?”

“ Vascular surgeon,” said Anthony Des Barres. “I take apart blood vessels and put them back together again. I don’t ask my patients about their childhoods or their ears or their rectums. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got reality to attend to.”

“The woman in question was named Dorothy Swoboda.”

“That means nothing to me.”

“I sent your brother a photo and he thought he recognized her. Could I do the same with you?”

“You’re serious,” said Des Barres.

“It won’t take long, sir.”

“Then can we put this to bed? I don’t like talking about them.”

“Who?”

“My father’s houris. It wasn’t a great time for us, seeing him change after my mother died.”

“Running a harem.”

“I said ‘houris,’ didn’t I? I believe it’s the root of ‘whore.’ ”

“Not a classy bunch.”

“Hah. Cheap types traipsing in and out of the house. A flesh parade. I was in college but my sister was a little kid. What kind of environment do you think that was for her? If I could’ve taken her with me I would’ve, but a dorm isn’t exactly the right place for a ten-year-old.”

“The home environment affected your sister?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist.” A beat. “I’m not saying Valerie needs one, she’s doing fine. Goodbye.”

“That photo?”

“Email it.”

“Where, please?”

Des Barres rattled off a Gmail address. “Do not send it to my office. If you do, I’ll lodge a complaint. I cannot have my staff distracted.”

Click.

I said, “Angry man.”

Milo shook his head. “You’d think people would learn what hostility sets off in detectives. Now listen to this.”