Джонатан Келлерман: Serpentine

She said, “Sure, water coming up,” and hurried off past the dining room into a kitchen doorway.

I said, “Looks like the butler’s on vacation.”

“So she’s doing the regular-gal thing for our benefit.”

Ellie Barker returned with two bottles of Dasani that she handed to us before settling in a facing love seat. “Thanks so much for doing this, guys. I hope it’s not a giant hassle.”

Milo checked himself midway through an eye roll.

Not soon enough. Ellie Barker flinched.

Thrown off for the second time, she coped the same way and turned to me. “A psychologist…part of me does think it’s crazy, trying to find out after all this time. I can’t exactly pump myself up with hope. But if I don’t ever try…” She looked at the floor.

I said, “Is this the first time you’ve tried?”

“No, it’s the third time but to my mind the first two don’t count.”

“Nothing came of them?”

“Less than nothing,” she said. “Private investigators. I think they were taking advantage of me.”

“Because…”

“It was too quick. Like going through the motions. They were corporate security types, maybe that was my mistake, I don’t know.” Daring a look at Milo.

He uncapped his water bottle, took a long swig. “Was one of them Sapient Investigations?”

Green-gray eyes widened. “They were the first. How did you—do they have a reputation for taking advantage?”

“They’re among the biggest and they concentrate on California. Mostly Northern California where you’re originally from. Their emphasis is on computer fraud, industrial espionage, tax cases.”

“You researched me.”

“Just the basics.”

“I see.” One slender freckled hand tugged at the fingers of the other. “I got the referral through my executive board—my former board, I had a company that I sold.” Small smile. “You probably know that, too.”

Milo said, “What was the second outfit?”

“Cortez and Talbott. They’re down here. Costa Mesa.”

“That’s Orange County,” said Milo.

“Does that make them a poor choice?” said Ellie Barker.

“Don’t know their work, ma’am, but generally it’s best to keep things local.”

“I guess I figured with the internet, geography wasn’t relevant.” Color spread around delicate ears. “A friend of mine—an engineer at Google—recommended them, I thought they’d be close enough.”

“Did either of them give you written reports?”

“They both gave me one-page letters basically informing me nothing could be done. Plus bills for way more hours than seemed reasonable. I paid them and gave up. Or thought I had. But it kept gnawing at me—wanting to know anything.”

She stared into her lap. “I read a story in college titled ‘Man Without a Country.’ I’m a woman without a past. I have no idea who my biological father is or where I was born. My first birth certificate was when my stepfather adopted me. My mother was already dead and he put down his own mother’s birthday as mine. I’ll be forty in a few months and I realized I’d probably lived the majority of my life. If that doesn’t sound coherent and rational, I can’t help it.”

She twisted her hair. “At this point, you’re probably thinking, Oh boy, a sad case, what a waste of my time.”

Gray eyes glistened with moisture. Ellie Barker wiped them hurriedly.

Milo said, “I’ll be frank, ma’am. You may be walking up a dead-end road, I don’t know enough to say. But if the doctor and I limited ourselves to what was obviously rational, we’d both be out of work.”

Ellie Barker’s smile was immediate, grateful, pathetic. Needy kid finally getting something from surrogate dad.

“Well,” she said, “I just hope you don’t think I’m some kind of flake. I majored in business, I like to think I’m practical. I thought I was doing pretty well suppressing the whole thing. Then something weird happened. I was at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for a fundraiser and they sat me next to a woman and she was really friendly, asking me about myself, how I’d ended up with all the old-folk donors. I was feeling pretty low because I’d just gotten Cortez and Talbott’s report so I told her about looking for my mother. She seemed sympathetic, and then the woman on the other side of her must’ve overheard because she said she had police connections. So I switched seats and talked to her—Dr. Bauer—and she said she’d see what she could do and took my number. The next day she called and said she’d contacted my state assemblyperson, Darrel Hernandez. I didn’t even know his name, politics isn’t my thing. A few days later, one of Hernandez’s assistants phoned and said she’d called your mayor and then…do you know all this?”

Milo nodded. “The wheels of justice grinding at warp speed.”

Ellie Barker flinched. “You think it was tacky? Using an advantage someone else wouldn’t have? I considered that, Lieutenant. But it’s not like everyone loses their mom at three so I rationalized it as some sort of karmic leveling-out.”

“No need to justify, ma’am. I was just commenting on…an atypical situation.”

Ellie Barker leveled her gaze at him. “You’re telling me you were pressured. I guess I should’ve figured. Does that mean we’re just going through the motions?”

No anger, just the habitual resignation of an abandoned pup.

“Ms. Barker,” said Milo, “I never just go through the motions.” He’d sat up straight, put some steel in his voice.

“So you’ll try?” said Ellie Barker. “I’d be so grateful. Even if it goes nowhere.”

He pulled out his pad. “Tell me about your mother, ma’am. Start from the beginning and tell me everything you know.”

“Sure. I do want to say thanks so much—but could you do me one teensy favor, Lieutenant?”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not used to being called ma’am.”

CHAPTER 3

Ellie Barker opened her mouth to speak, froze, and began fiddling with her fingers.

“Sorry, I’m trying to sort out my thoughts.” A tongue-tip raced between her lips. “I could use some water myself, just a second.”

She was gone longer than it took to fetch the Dasani dangling from her hand. After sitting, she set about working the cap. It resisted, plastic quivering. She put the bottle down, defeated by shaky fingers.

Her right hand rose to her throat.

Touching a necklace of dark-green speckled beads that she hadn’t been wearing when we entered. Fingering orbs like a rosary. Her eyes soared to the ceiling and stayed there.

Milo said, “Take your time.”

She shook her head. “Every time I go through this I’m confronted by how little I know. Not that the other guys really cared. They said anything relevant would be found on the internet, they had access to bases I didn’t. Is that true?”

“The internet’s a tool, no more, no less.”

“One of many in your toolbox, I hope.”

“We do the best we can, ma’a—Ms. Barker.”

“Ellie’s fine.”

He leaned forward. “Ellie, whatever you think you do or don’t know, we have to start somewhere.”

“Sure. Of course. Sorry.” Another lip-lick. Both hands squeezed the bottle. Bubbles floated and descended. “Okay, here goes. My mother’s maiden name was Dorothy Swoboda. When she was with my father—technically he was my stepfather but he’s the only dad I ever knew—I assumed she took his name. Barker. Stanley Barker. I found out later they’d never actually married. I don’t know who my biological father was because my stepdad had no idea and there’s no record of my birth.”

“Nowhere?”

“Not as Eleanor Swoboda, not as Eleanor Barker. That one thing Sapient and Cortez looked into and agreed upon. After my dad filed the certificate he got me a Social Security number and that’s the extent of it. I never knew about any of this. Why would a kid be concerned with paperwork? And I was happy with my birthday, he always got me a cake.”