Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

A woman in her sixties sat at a wooden table in front of a pair of oversized doors that were rounded and banded like the one out front. Above them was a wooden sign that said SANCTUARY. The woman’s hair had been tied back in a ponytail and fastened with a leather thong. She wore a sack dress of raw white cotton and sandals on her feet. Her face was weathered, bland and pleasant, and free of makeup or other pretense. Her hands were in her lap and she smiled, reminding me of a well-behaved schoolchild. The teacher’s pet.

“Good afternoon, Sheriff.”

“Hello, Maria. Like to see Matthias.”

She rose gracefully. The skirt reached below her knees.

“He’s waiting for you.”

She led us to the left of the sanctuary down a long hallway unadorned except for potted palms placed at ten-foot intervals. There was a single door at the end, which she held open for us.

The room was dim and lined with books on three walls. The floor was pine plank. The incense smell was stronger. There was no desk, only three plain wooden chairs arranged in an isosceles triangle. At the peak of the triangle sat a man.

He was long, lean, and angular and wore a tunic and drawstring trousers of the same raw cotton as Maria’s dress. His feet were bare, but a pair of sandals lay on the floor by his chair. His hair was the waxy, amber-tinted white that is the heritage of some blonds grown to maturity, and was cropped short. His beard was a shade darker — more amber and less snow — and hung across his chest. It curled luxuriantly and he stroked it as if it were a pet. His brow was high and domed and I saw the crease just below the hairline, an indentation you could rest your thumb in. The eyes, cradled in deep sockets, were gray-blue in color, not dissimilar from mine. But I hoped mine gave off more warmth.

“Please sit.” His voice was powerful and somewhat metallic.

“This is Dr. Delaware, Matthias. Doctor, Noble Matthias.”

The imperial title sounded silly. I searched for mirth on Houten’s face but he looked dead-serious.

Matthias kept stroking his beard. He sat meditatively still, a man not uncomfortable with silence.

“Thanks for cooperating,” said Houten stiffly. “Hopefully we can clear this thing up and move along.”

The white head nodded. “Whatever will help.”

“Dr. Delaware would like to ask you a few questions and then we’ll take a stroll around.”

Matthias remained in repose.

Houten turned to me.

“It’s your show.”

“Mr. Matthias,” I began.

“Just Matthias, please. We eschew titles.”

“Matthias, I’m not here to intrude upon you or your—”

He interrupted me with a wave of his hand.

“I’m well aware of the nature of your visit. Ask what you need to ask.”

“Thank you. Dr. Melendez-Lynch feels you had something to do with the removal of Woody Swope from the hospital and the family’s subsequent disappearance.”

“Urban madness,” said the guru. “Madness.” He repeated the word as if testing it for suitability as a mantra.

“I’d appreciate hearing any theories you might have about it.”

He inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, opened them, and spoke.

“I can’t help you. They were private people. As are we. We barely knew them. There were brief encounters — passing each other on the road, perfunctory smiles. Once or twice we purchased seeds from them. In the summer of our first season the girl worked for us as a scullery maid.”

“Temporary job?”

“Correct. In the beginning we were not yet self-sufficient and we hired several of the local youngsters to help. Her duties were in the kitchen, as I recall. Scrubbing, scouring, readying the ovens for use.”

“How was she as a worker?”

A smile vented the cotton-candy beard.

“We are rather ascetic by contemporary standards. Most young people would not be attracted to that.”

Houten broke in. “Nona was — is a live one. Not a bad kid, just a little on the wild side.”

The message was clear: she’d been a problem. I remembered Carmichael’s story about the stag party. That kind of spontaneity could wreak havoc in a place that prized discipline. She’d probably come on to the men. But if that had anything to do with the issue at hand I couldn’t see it.

“Anything else you could tell me that might help?”

He stared at me. His gaze was intense, almost tangible. It was hard not to look away.

“I’m afraid not.”

Houten shifted restlessly in his chair. Nicotine fidgets. His hand went up to his cigarette pocket then stopped.

“I’m gonna take some air,” he said and walked out. Matthias didn’t seem to notice his exit.

“You didn’t know the family well,” I went on. “Yet two of your people visited them at the hospital. I’m not doubting your word but it’s a question you’re bound to be asked again.”

He sighed.

“We had business in Los Angeles. Baron and Delilah were assigned to handle it. We felt it would be gracious for them to visit the Swopes. They brought the family fresh fruit from our orchards.”

“Not,” I smiled, “for medicinal purposes.”

“No,” he said, amused. “For nourishment. And pleasure.”

“So this was a social call.”

“In a sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not sociable. We don’t make small talk. Visiting them was an act of good will, not part of some nefarious scheme. No attempt was made to interfere with the child’s medical care. I’ve notified Baron and Delilah to join us momentarily so you’ll have a chance to obtain additional details.”

“I appreciate that.”

A vein throbbed in the center of the crater in his brow. He held out his hands as if to ask, What next? The remote look on his face reminded me of someone else. The association triggered my next question.

“There’s a doctor who treated Woody by the name of August Valcroix. He told me he visited here. Do you remember him?”

He twirled the ends of his beard around one long finger.

“Once or twice a year we offer seminars on organic gardening and meditation. Not to proselytise, but to enlighten. He may have attended one of those. I don’t remember him specifically.”

I gave him a physical description of Valcroix but it didn’t evoke recognition.

“That’s it, then. I appreciate your help.”

He sat there, unblinking and unmoving. In the stingy light of the room his pupils had expanded so that only a thin rim of pale iris was visible. He had hypnotic eyes. A prerequisite for charisma.

“If you have any more questions you may ask them.”

“No questions, but I would like to hear more about your philosophy.”

He nodded.

“We are refugees from a former life. We’ve chosen a new life that emphasizes purity and industry. We avoid environmental poisons and seek self-sufficiency. We believe that by changing ourselves we increase the positive energy in the world.”

Standard stuff. He rattled it off like some New Age pledge of allegiance.

“We’re not killers,” he added.

Before I could reply, two of them came into the room.

Matthias stood up and left without acknowledging their presence. The man and woman took the two empty seats. The transaction was oddly mechanical, as if the people were interchangeable parts in some smoothly functioning apparatus.

They sat, hands in laps — more good schoolkids — and smiled with the maddening serenity of the born-again and the lobotomized.

I was far from serene. Because I recognized both of them, though in quite different ways.

The man who called himself Baron was medium-sized and thin. Like Matthias, his hair was cut short and his beard left untrimmed. But in his case the effect was less dramatic than untidy. His hair was medium brown and wispy. Patches of skin showed through the sparse frizzy chin whiskers and his cheeks were covered with soft fuzz. It was as if he’d forgotten to wash his face.