Jonathan Kellerman - Billy Straight

“Have your hands full?”

“It takes a while to get them tucked in. My mom says they run rings around me. Tomorrow, though, I get to sleep in. Day off. Mom’s driving them to school.”

“Good for you,” said Petra. “I may just drive up to Montecito tomorrow. Care to join me?”

“Sure,” he said quickly. “It’s a pretty drive.”

Lying in bed, in darkness so total she felt suspended, she thought about Lisa being abducted and butchered, Balch’s picking up the Jeep.

Ramsey edgy because of a little boy who stole books… wherever he was.

The fact that no one on the street knew him intrigued her. He hadn’t taken up with other runaways, hadn’t sought help from any agency. A loner. Made sense. A kid who loved to read wouldn’t fit in. He’d probably been an outcast back home, too. So why hadn’t he been reported missing? Where were the parents?

Had to be abuse. An eleven-year-old intellectual… running from God knew what. A kid like that witnessing a murder. No reason for him to trust anyone.

A survivor. And now the police had turned him into quarry. She had.

She’d just fallen asleep when the phone rang. It was well after midnight, and her heart pounded as for one horrible, irrational moment she panicked about her father’s condition, then realized he was beyond worry. One of her brothers in trouble-Kathy?

A nervous-sounding woman said, “Detective Connor? This is Adele again, from the station. I’m really sorry to bother you this late, but a call came in for Detective Bishop, long-distance, international, and no one answers at his house. You’re his partner, and seeing as it’s international, I-”

“International from where?”

“Vienna. A police inspector named Tauber. I guess he didn’t figure out the time difference.”

“Thanks, put him on.”

A scratchy voice said, “Detective Bishop?”

“This is his partner, Detective Connor.”

“Ah. Yes, yes, this is Inspector Ottemar Tauber from Vienna.” Clear connection; the scratchiness was the Austrian’s vocal quality. He coughed, cleared his throat a couple of times.

“Hello, Inspector. Is this about Karlheinz Lauch?”

“Two days ago Detective Bishop submitted an inquiry concerning Herr Lauch,” said Tauber. “We have located Herr Lauch for you. Unfortunately, he is unavailable to you for questioning as he is deceased.”

“When did he die?”

“It appears to have occurred fifteen months ago.”

“What was the cause of death, Inspector?”

“It appears to have been cirrhosis of the liver.”

“A young man like that,” said Petra.

Tauber clucked his tongue. “These things happen.”

Lauch eliminated as a suspect for Lisa. Meaning the similarities between Lisa and Ilse Eggermann weren’t worth a damn.

Or were they?

Ramsey a multiple killer? No, too weird.

Tauber’s call had burned away any drowsiness. She was wired. Going into the kitchen, she drank ice water, paced, sat down at the table, got up, and put on the stereo. Derek and the Dominos. There’d been no music in the apartment since Ron’s visit.

Think, think… Lauch eliminated for Lisa meant concentrate on Ramsey. Stalking Lisa, following her. DV offenders were often obsessive; it made sense.

Did his dispatching Balch to get the Jeep mean the four-wheeler was the murder vehicle? The Mercedes a distraction, just as she’d wondered? She recalled the way Ramsey had flicked on the lights in the car museum. Showing her the gray sedan-probably hoping she’d ask for a look, because he knew she’d learn nothing.

Balch doing the dirty work.

All at once-maybe it was the dark room, her fried nerves-her mind took a hairpin turn.

What if Balch was an active part of it?

Or working for himself?

She sat there, tight as a fiddle string, viewing the case through a whole new prism.

Just a slight shift of angle and everything changed.

Balch as bad guy. Flashing back to all her hypotheses, she inserted Balch’s name in Ramsey’s slot.

Everything fit.

Lisa and Balch… yet another older man. Something romanticand financial?

Because Balch wrote the checks, managed Ramsey’s finances, probably understood them better than the boss. You heard about that all the time-business managers soaking celebrities.

Balch colluding with Lisa to soak Ramsey? Ex-wife and long-suffering lackey finding common ground in their resentment of the man with the dough.

Lisa had talked to Ghadoomian the broker about setting up investments, being financially independent, soon. But she’d never followed through.

Daddy reneging on the fifty thou? Or other plans laid to waste?

Had Lisa gotten greedy, leaned on Balch, caused their partnership to disintegrate?

Petra thought about it for a long time. Balch was no prize, but Lisa was no conventional girl. Balch’s motivation was no big puzzle: Bedding the quarterback’s ex-the woman Ramsey had failed to satisfy-would be the ultimate thrill for an underachiever like him.

All those years protecting Ramsey on the football field and in real life, watching his own screen dreams fade as Ramsey earned millions. For all of Balch’s adoration of his buddy, the payback had been limited: Ramsey hadn’t helped Balch progress past those first few grade-D flicks. Balch said he had no talent, but the same was true for plenty of small-time players. Surely Ramsey could have gotten him something in the industry. Instead, he’d stuck Balch in that dingy office, shuffling papers, while he himself lived a star’s life. Why not a better office, at least?

Ramsey telling Balch: You don’t deserve better.

What if Balch finally decided he did?

With Lisa’s help. She liked taking risks. Had she stepped too far over the edge?

Then something else hit her: Balch lived in Rolling Hills Estates, near Palos Verdes. Ilse Eggermann’s body had been dumped near Marina del Rey, but her date with Lauch had taken place in Redondo Beach, just a few freeway stops away from the peninsula.

She pictured Balch stopping off at the Redondo pier for dinner or drinks. Watching Ilse and Lauch quarrel, Ilse walking out on Lauch. Allowing Balch to move in.

Noticing Ilse because she reminded him of Lisa?

Picking her up wouldn’t have been that tough. Kindly older guy, chivalrous. Ilse would have been vulnerable, alone at night, a foreigner.

After a pig like Lauch, Balch might have even seemed suave.

The resemblance between Lisa and Ilse not a coincidence! Because Balch had been lusting for Lisa for years.

The underling, always the underling… Balch rescues Ilse, tries for sexual payback, gets shut down.

In a rage, he butchers her. Gets away with it.

Years later, blackmailed, up against the wall, why not do it again?

She ran it through again. Balch managing to get out of the house while Ramsey sleeps. Using the fire road, driving one of Ramsey’s cars. But Estrella Flores spots him. She’d never liked Balch in the first place, might have viewed anything he did with suspicion.

He eliminates her.

One more time: It still fit.

Maybe in the morning it would seem ludicrous. Right now, she liked it.

Wil Fournier had changed into his best suit for the date with Leanna the Macy’s model from Ethiopia. He didn’t want to get close to the Russian; the guy oozed sleaze.

Selling T-shirts, tourist crap, the outward trappings of a legit business; but those eyes, that demeanor. Wil had worked Wilshire Bunco and Fraud for two years, collaborated with West Hollywood Sheriff’s on lots of Russian scams. The weirdest case was five years ago, an immigration racket, strong-arming new arrivals. Wil and a sheriff’s D making a call to the apartment of one of the suspects, the guy opening the door, covered with blood, holding a carving knife. He’d just dismembered another Russian. What had he been thinking, answering the door like that?