Jonathan Kellerman - Billy Straight

The only remnants of Balch’s presence were fast-food cartons, take-out menus from local restaurants, and a top drawer full of office-supply flotsam. No family photos-Petra supposed that made sense: Balch was a two-time marital loser.

Man with no attachments? Something about him that got in the way of relationships? So what? The same could be said for millions of people who didn’t kill.

She kept going. All the papers were Ramsey’s. Now Amerian was paying attention again. Rent books, tax returns, folders listing deductions, business contracts. Documents Petra would have loved to see a few days ago. Balch had worked here for years but left nothing of himself behind.

Did that say something about the way he viewed his job?

She removed a California Tax Code from the shelf, flipped pages, turned it upside down. Nothing. Same for the next ten books. The place was even messier than when she’d interviewed Balch. For a guy with such a disorganized mind, he’d proved a canny killer-so many steps, carefully laid out.

Then why had he been sloppy enough to call Westward Charter and alert them to the rabbit?

The usual psychopath’s self-destructive behavior?

Or a ruse… where was he?

They left at 1 P.M., stopped for lunch at a seafood place on Ventura. Not much conversation. Wil had started off grumpy, and four hours of futility hadn’t improved his disposition. He ate his sand dabs slowly, drank a lot of iced tea, looked out the window. Petra’s crab cakes went down like deep-fried hockey pucks, and by 3 P.M. they were in separate cars on the 101 headed for the 405 interchange and the one-hour ride to Rolling Hills Estates and Balch’s home on Saddlewax Road.

He got ahead of her at Imperial Highway, and she’d lost sight of him when she thought of something. Speeding up, she managed to spot the Supra just past Hermosa Beach and waved him off at the Redondo Beach exit. They both pulled onto the shoulder. Petra jogged to his car.

“Humor me,” she said, “but I want to take a look at the place on the pier where Ilse Eggermann was last seen, then go to Balch’s.”

“Fine,” he said. “Good idea. I’ll stick with you.”

A fifteen-minute westerly cruise down Redondo Beach Boulevard took them to the former site of Antoine’s, now a Dudley Jones Steak House franchise with a harbor view. Deep-red room full of weekend brunchers and noise, blond surfer/waiters sailing past with platters of rare flesh and melon-size baked potatoes.

Petra allowed herself a second to visualize Ilse Eggermann feuding with Lauch. Leaving the restaurant, descending wooden steps off the pier-just as she and Wil were doing now. Continuing down to the parking lot. Late at night, deserted, the place would be spooky.

The drive to Rolling Hills Estates chilled her.

Six-mile straightaway on Hawthorne Boulevard, it began as a swath through the usual mash of car dealers, malls, and office-supply barns, then narrowed just before Palos Verdes Drive, where a median strip appeared, planted with eucalyptus and pine and black-trunked shaggy trees that resembled willows. A white wooden sign welcomed her to Rolling Hills Estates, and low white corral fencing appeared along both sides of the road.

Ten minutes from Redondo, driving leisurely. This was Balch’s turf.

She pictured him coming home from a long day as Ramsey’s slave, stopping off for a drink, noticing Ilse and Lauch fighting. He follows them out, sees Lauch drive off, picks up Ilse, promising to drive her to her hotel near the Marina, but they never get there.

Open dump in a parking lot.

Look what I can get away with!

Then back home. So simple.

A day at the beach.

Beautiful ocean, but too many people.

He wore a top-quality, real-hair false beard, similar to the one he’d used for the German girl, a wide-brimmed straw hat, a long brown ratty raincoat over a frayed white shirt, and cheap gray cotton pants. Running shoes, relatively new, but dirtied-up to stay in character.

The gait he adopted was a clumsy, stiff-legged shuffle. When he walked, he pretended to stare at the ground but was able to sight upward without being obvious, because the hat did a good job of concealing his eyes. If someone made eye contact, he could half lower the lids and focus on nothing.

Mr. Mentally Disordered Homeless. Ocean Front Walk was full of them, sitting on benches, lurching along with the crowd, staring at the sand or the palm trees or the ocean, as if something important were happening out there. What? Imaginary whales? Mermaids with big tits flapping around on the beach?

His mother had gone crazy when he was fourteen. He’d never wondered what she thought about. Just stayed away, as if she were contagious.

He walked up and down Ocean Front very slowly. Every so often he’d sit, make like he was dozing off, while examining passersby.

No one paid attention to him. The bicycle cops were on the lookout for violence, so if you kept to yourself, they were happy to ignore you. Same with the tourists-anything to avoid being panhandled.

The problem was the quantity of people. Nice, warm Saturday, everyone flocking to the beach, the slow-cruising walkathon along Ocean Front so dense you could barely make out individuals.

Plenty of kids, but not the kid. After an hour, he was able to classify them into two groups: the well-scrubbed spawn of the tourists and clots of dark-skinned, big-mouthed local brats weaving in and out of the pedestrian stream, probably looking for pockets to pick.

Why would the kid be out in broad daylight?

Why would he be here, period, after the “anonymous tip”?

Waste of time, but considering all he’d accomplished, he didn’t feel that bad.

Beautiful day; go with it. Long time since he’d been here, and the walkway had gotten more commercial, lined with shops, snack stands, restaurants, even a synagogue-that was odd. Some of the buildings ran through to the alley and, beyond it, the Speedway. Others occupied the ground floors of multistory prewar apartment buildings. The boy could be in one of those buildings, and how could you find him?

The boy could be anywhere.

He’d give it a few more hours. The beard and hat and coat were heating him up. A cold drink would be nice, and he had ten bucks in his pocket-more back in the car, parked six blocks away. But a crazy bum fishing out money might attract attention, so he decided to settle for water from a fountain.

There was one down at the other end, near the synagogue. He’d shuffle clear to the northernmost end of Ocean Front, turn around, come back, drink, repeat it a few times, take a pseudo-nap on a bench, call it a day.

Forget about the kid. He told himself it was okay, but it stuck in his throat. Big, hot pimple full of pus, just itching to be squeezed.

He preferred to give in to his compulsions. Avoiding them built up tension.

His mother had been unbelievably compulsive before going completely bonkers. Smoking five packs a day, picking at her face, rocking when she sewed, going on food binges, then starving herself for days. When they put her in the hospital, she began to bang her head against the wall, like one of those autistic kids, and they forced her to wear a football helmet. Flowered dress and a helmet-what position do you play, Ma? She looked ridiculous, and he did everything he could to avoid visiting her.

She’d died ten years ago, and he was sole surviving kin. Through a local attorney, he’d instructed the hospital to cremate her, bury her on the grounds.

Thinking about her evoked no emotion. He was hot, discouraged, not happy about abandoning the loose end. Mostly the heat right now. That was the biggest part of what he felt.

He took an hour to cover the walkway two more times, getting more and more uptight about not succeeding.