Jonathan Kellerman - Devil's Waltz

“A lot?”

“Enough to dull her judgment. If she had any in the first place — which is doubtful, seeing as she was traipsing around the Union District in the wee hours, all alone.”

“The landlords said she was smart — Ph.D. student in biomath.”

“Yeah. Well, there’s smart and there’s smart. The actual killing took place on a side street a couple of blocks away from the club. In that little Mazda of hers. The keys were still in the ignition.”

“She was killed in the car?”

“Right in the driver’s seat, judging from the spatter pattern. Afterward, she slumped across both seats. The body was found just after sunrise by a couple of garment workers arriving for the early shift. Blood had seeped through the door and into the street. The slant of the street made it run down into the curb and pool. It was the pool they noticed.”

The waiter brought my ale, a bowl of soup oysters, and Milo’s pea soup. He waited while Milo tasted. Milo said, “Perfect, Irv,” and the old man nodded and disappeared.

Milo took a couple more spoonfuls, licked his lips, and spoke through the steam. “The Mazda’s convertible top was up but there was no blood on the headliner, so the coroner’s certain the top was down when it happened. The spatter pattern also indicates that whoever did it was outside the car, standing on the driver’s side. Standing over her, maybe a foot or two behind her. He hit her on the head. From the skull damage it must’ve knocked her out, may even have killed her. Then he used some kind of blade to sever her jugular and her windpipe. Once that was done, he did the mechanical rape, so maybe we’ve got ourselves a necrophile.”

“Sounds like overkill,” I said. “Some kind of frenzy.”

“Or thoroughness,” he said, sipping soup. “He was cool enough to raise the top.”

“Was she seen dancing with anyone in the club?”

“Nothing on record. Only reason the bartender remembered her leaving was he was on a smoke break, just outside.”

“He wasn’t considered a suspect?”

“Nope. Tell you one thing, the asshole who did it came prepared — think about all those weapons. We’re talking a predator, Alex. Maybe someone watching the club, prowling the area ’cause he knows there’s lots of women around. He waits until he sees exactly what he’s been looking for. Lone target, maybe a certain physical type, maybe he’s just decided tonight’s the night. With the added bonus of a convertible on a quiet, dark street. With the top down. Which is like ‘You are cordially invited to assault me.’ ”

“Makes sense,” I said, feeling my gorge rise.

“A grad student, huh? Too bad she flunked Logic One-A. I’m not trying to blame the victim, Alex, but add the dope and booze to her behavioral pattern and it doesn’t sound like a lady with strong instincts for self-preservation. What’d she steal?”

As I told him, he ate more soup, used his spoon to wedge marrow out of the bone, and ate that too.

I said, “The Murtaughs said she seemed to have plenty of money even after she quit her job. And you’ve just added cocaine to her budget. So blackmail makes some sense, doesn’t it? She latches onto the fact that one Jones kid died and the other keeps coming back into the hospital with unexplained illnesses. She steals the evidence and tries to exploit it. And now she’s dead. Just like Ashmore.”

He put his glass down slowly. “Big leap, from petty pilfering to putting the squeeze on biggies, Alex. And there’s no reason, from the facts of the case, to think a psycho didn’t cut her up. In terms of where she got her money, we still don’t know her family didn’t give it to her. For that matter, the coke could have been asset, not a debit — maybe she dealt dope, too.”

“If she had family money, why would she rent a cheap single room from the Murtaughs?”

“Slumming. We already know she played roles — the whole punk bit. And the thefts she pulled on her landlords were illogical, not for profit. Exactly the kind of thing that’s likely to get discovered. She comes across disorganized to me, Alex. Not the type to plan and execute a high-level blackmail scheme.”

“No one said she was good at it. Look at the way she ended up.”

He looked around the empty room as if suddenly concerned about being overheard. He drained his ale glass, then lifted his spoon and pushed the soup bone around his bowl like a kid playing toy boat in a tiny green harbor.

“The way she ended up,” he finally said. “So who killed her? Daddy? Mommy? Grandpa?”

“Wouldn’t you say hired help? Those types don’t do their own dirty work.”

“Hired to slice her and do a mechanical rape?”

“Hired to make it look like a ‘psycho thing’ that’ll never get solved unless the psycho does it again. Hell, maybe Ashmore was involved, too, and the same guy was paid to set up a phony mugging.”

“Imaginative,” he said. “You just sat there with those people, playing with their kid, making chitchat, and thinking all this?”

“You think I’m totally off-base?”

He ate more soup before answering. “Listen, Alex, I’ve known you long enough to appreciate the way your mind works. I just don’t think you have much more than fantasy at this point.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But it sure beats thinking about Cassie and everything we’re not doing for her.”

The rest of the food came. I watched him carve up his chicken. He took a long time to section the meat, showing more surgical skill and deliberation than I’d ever seen before.

“Phony psycho job on Herbert,” he said. “Phony mugging for Ashmore.”

“He was Herbert’s boss. Owned the computers and had done a toxicology check on Chad Jones. It was logical to think he knew whatever Herbert did. Even if he didn’t, whoever killed her might have taken care of him, too, just to be careful.”

“Why would he be involved in blackmail? He was independently wealthy.”

“He invested in real estate,” I said, “and the market’s sliding. What if he was leveraged to the hilt? Or maybe he hadn’t quit gambling, as his wife believed. Lost big at the tables and needed some cash. Rich folk can get poor, right? The L.A. shuffle.”

“If Ashmore was in on it — and I’m just playing along at this point — why would he want Herbert for a partner?”

“Who says he did? She could have found out on her own — gotten hold of his computer data and decided to free-lance.”

He said nothing. Wiped his lips with his napkin, even though he hadn’t eaten any chicken.

I said, “One problem, though. Ashmore was killed two months after Herbert. If their murders are related, why take so long to eliminate him?”

He tapped his fingers on the table. “Well... another way to look at it is, Ashmore had no knowledge of what Herbert was up to at first, but found out later. From data she’d stashed in the computer. And he either tried to capitalize on it, or told the wrong person.”

“You know, that dovetails with something I saw the other day. Huenengarth — the head of Security — removing Ashmore’s computers the morning after Ashmore’s murder. My first impression was he was getting hold of Ashmore’s equipment. But maybe what Huenengarth was really after was in the machines. The data. He works for Plumb — meaning he really works for Chuck Jones. Guy’s a real corporate henchman type, Milo. Plus, his name came up yesterday when I was speaking to Mrs. Ashmore. He was the one who called to offer the hospital’s sympathies. Was coming by with the UNICEF certificate and the plaque. Strange job for head of Security, wouldn’t you say? Unless his real intention was to learn if Ashmore kept a computer at home and, if he did, to get it out of there.”