Джонатан Келлерман - Serpentine

“His story is that you pressured him to take on a loser.”

“Is it? Like I said, the asshole lied when he breathed. No, just the opposite. Two D’s had already taken it on for like, fourteen, fifteen years. There wasn’t all the hoopla about cold cases you have today. It being a thing. All we had were winners and losers and in our shop this one was a loser. Meanwhile, we had no shortage of winners because of the idiot thing. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Idiot One shoots Idiot Two in a bar and sticks around.”

Alomar laughed. “Makes us look heroic. Dorothy…what was her name…”

“Swoboda.”

“Swoboda…the likelihood of her being a winner was the same as me getting recruited by the Lakers to play center.”

The olive eyes passed from Milo to me and back to Milo. “Are you saying something’s changed? One of those DNA deals? That was a thing but I don’t recall there being anything to test.”

“There wasn’t,” said Milo. “I’ve been asked to look into it because of connections.”

“What kind of connections?”

Milo said, “Ka-ching.”

“Big bucks?” said Alomar. “Who?”

“A relative of Dorothy’s.”

“So what’s Galoway’s deal in all this?”

“I contacted him because he’s the only living D. Turns out, he’s been misdirecting us from the get-go. Can’t say more yet.”

Alomar digested that. “Understood. When you can say, will you?”

“You bet,” said Milo. “If you didn’t want him on the case, how’d he score it?”

“I didn’t want him in my shop, period,” said Alomar. “Initially figured the best way to make use of his limited talent was have him gofer for one of my seasoned D’s. Scut work he couldn’t screw up too badly. Problem is, no one wanted him because of his personality. Yessir yessir, accomplishing diddly-squat, always an excuse. What I wanted was him out, but given the way he came in, I needed to be careful. I was still figuring out what to do with him when he waltzes into my office with Swoboda’s file, says he’d been looking through some old ones, figures he could accomplish something on this one. I said forget it, it’s old and cold for a reason. He basically begged—I guess you’d call it wheedling. Please, sir, give me a chance, sir. Like that kid in the musical—Oliver Twist. Then I thought to myself, Why not, maybe this is a solution. Keep him out of everyone’s hair, eventually I’ll find a way to get rid of him. So I said sure. And guess what happened?”

“Nada,” said Milo.

“Whole lot of nada, my friend. He spent a month or two on it, never filed any paper, quit and put in for disability retirement.”

“What was the disability?”

“Some kind of back thing. You know, crap that can’t be proven or disproven. I signed off, good riddance. I won’t bug you for details but can you tell me if he had some personal involvement in the case? Because it never made sense, him being so industrious.”

Milo thought about his answer.

The delay was sufficient for Alomar. “He did, huh? Evil bastard, I hope you nail him. God knows how much pension money he’s been racking up.”

“You really didn’t like him.”

“I really didn’t.” Alomar shifted in his chair. “Okay, full disclosure. One of my friends, worked Central, met Galoway at a cop bar on Main. Galoway’s got no idea my friend is my friend. She’s discreet, very good listener—like you seem to be, Doc. Anyway, he’s trying to pick her up and starts bitching about work. About me. Tells her I’m a fat, chain-smoking fuck who wheezes when he walks.”

He ran a hand across a flat, muscular chest. “Three years ago is when I stopped doing triathlons. Back then? I could climb walls.”

—

We thanked Alomar and drove away from the country club.

Just outside the gate, Milo produced his wallet. “Let’s go back to your place and find the name of that politician. Meanwhile, take out my Amex and order grub.”

“From where?”

“Wherever you want.”

I phoned Robin on speaker. She said, “Anything.”

Milo said, “Long as it’s gourmet.”

“There’s no need to make a production, Milo.”

“Humor me.”

“Okay, sushi from a place in Westwood, Alex knows it. Delivery in three hours.”

“How about the pooch?”

“She likes fish and rice. Bye, boys.”

I called and ordered enough for four.

Milo said, “That’s enough?”

“It’s not, we’ll raid the fridge.”

“Resourceful,” he said. “Darwin would be proud.”

CHAPTER 34

Back at the house, he collected the papers from the kitchen table and we beelined to my office.

I said, “Alomar hit on what we’ve figured: Galoway took the case to kill it and get rid of any records. Just as he’s about to leave the department, he gets a call from Seeger. Who’s been snooping around old magazines and just learned about Martha Maude and tells him. Fatal error.”

“Poor guy,” he said. “Probably thought he’d get props for being a miracle man.”

“Or he just wanted to solve the case.”

“Hmm…yeah, that happens, too. Thirsty, gonna get some water.”

I figured he wouldn’t stop at tasteless, transparent fluid, picked up the pulp and began reading.

Mike Leigh had met Martha Maude Hopple when she rode her bike past a property he was clearing as a day laborer. He already had a long sheet, was less than a month out of prison for a theft charge. Five months later, the two of them were traveling together, hitchhiking and stealing cars and burglarizing houses in the Little Egypt section of Illinois, then Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. One break-in involved the unexpected appearance of the homeowners, an elderly couple, the wife wheelchair-bound. Two corpses. Eighteen bucks taken.

According to the article’s feverish prose, the double murder led to Leigh and his “Jailbait Juliet acquiring a taste for blood.” By the time the duo was arrested for a reign of terror that included carjacking, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault, and murder, four more people had died.

Mike Leigh was executed in the electric chair ten months after his conviction.

Martha Hopple was been sentenced to a girl’s reformatory in Jarvis, Texas. I did a map search. Fifty miles from Tyler.

Milo returned with cranberry juice and a half-eaten apple. I was at my keyboard running a search using Martha Hopple’s name.

Nothing.

I told him about the reform school.

He said, “Longest she could be in there was till twenty-one, maybe even less. She gets out, finds a gig at a grower, meets Benni Cairn. So maybe Benni’s the woman in the car.”

“It fits,” I said. “Martha—probably Dorothy by then, given the Lolita thing it would make sense for her to change her identity—is a few years older than Benni but a whole lot more experienced. And dominant. She tells Benni stories about Hollywood, Benni has nothing going for her in Tyler, the two of them cut town.”

“Why would Dorothy want Benni along?”

“Someone to use.”

“For what?”

“Gullible younger woman?” I said.

“She pimped her out?”

“Could be that or other scams. Maybe Dorothy gave her a makeover and she looked like she did in the photo. The two of them knock around for a while, make their way to L.A., end up at Des Barres’s mansion. Benni’s more attractive than she used to be but no smarter. Easy enough for Dorothy to get her in the Caddy. Let’s go have some fun—oh, pull over for a second, I need my cigarettes.”

“Then bang,” he said. “Cold. What’s the motive for killing her?”

“Dorothy wanted to disappear. Probably with a whole lot of Des Barres’s bling.”