Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

“Better call him,” said Milo. “If Moody had a list he’d be on it. Find out the number up in Davis and check out if anything went down there — she’s still next of kin, has to be notified anyway. Have the local law go over there and read her face — see if she’s surprised by the news. Call the judge, too. Anyone else you can think of, Alex?”

“There was another psychologist involved in the case. Dr. Lawrence Daschoff. Lives in Brentwood. Office in Santa Monica.” I knew Larry’s office number by heart and gave it to them.

“What about Moody’s own lawyer?” asked Del. “If the joker thought his case had been botched he might lash out, right?”

“True. The guy’s name is Durkin. Emil or Elton or something like that.”

A grimace of recognition crossed the black detective’s face.

“Elridge,” he growled. “Fucker represented my ex-wife. Cleaned me out.”

“Well, then,” laughed Milo, “you can have the pleasure of interviewing him. Or consoling his widow.”

Hardy grumbled, closed his pad, and went into the kitchen and left to make the calls.

A crime scene tech beckoned from the door and Milo patted my shoulder and went out to talk to him. He returned in a few minutes.

“They found tire tracks,” he said. “Fat ones, like on a hot rod. Ring any bells?”

“Moody drove a truck.”

“They already looked at his wheels. No match.”

“Nothing else comes to mind.”

“There were six more gas cans in the truck, which supports the hit list theory. But it also doesn’t make sense. He was going to use three cans here. Let’s assume that he planned this out as some kind of structured revenge ritual, three cans per victim. Given a minimum of five victims — you, the other shrink, both lawyers, and the judge, that adds up to fifteen cans. Six left means nine used. Not counting you, that makes two prior attempts. If he planned on torching the family home, make it twelve and three possible priors. Even if the numbers are wrong it’s unlikely you were singled out for more gas than anyone else. Which means you probably weren’t his first stop. Why would the shooter follow him around town, watch him set two or three fires, risk being seen, and wait until the third to do the job?”

I puzzled over that.

“Only thing I can think of,” I said, “is this is a pretty secluded area. Lots of big trees, easy for a sniper to hide.”

“Maybe,” he said skeptically. “We’ll pursue the tire angle. The Hot Rod Killer. Catchy.”

He chewed on a hangnail, looked at me gravely.

“Got any enemies I don’t know about, pal?”

My stomach lurched. He’d put into words what had been fulminating in my mind. That I was the intended victim...

“Just the Casa de Los Ninos guys, and they’re behind bars. No one on the streets that I know of.”

“Way the system runs you never know whether they’re on the streets or not. We’ll run parole checks on all of them. Which’ll be in my best interests, too.”

He sipped coffee and leaned forward.

“I don’t want to raise your anxiety level, Alex, but there’s something we should deal with. Remember when you called me about the rat and I asked you to describe Moody? You told me you and he were almost exactly the same size and coloring.”

I nodded numbly.

“You’ve been in the house all day, sick in bed. Someone arriving after dark wouldn’t have known that. From a distance, the mistake would be easy to make.”

He waited a moment before continuing.

“It’s not pretty to think about, but we’ve got to consider it,” he said, almost apologetically. “In my gut I don’t think the Casa thing’ll pan out. What about the jokers you’ve run into on the Swope case?”

I thought of the people I’d encountered during the last couple of days. Valcroix. Matthias and the Touchers. Houten — did the sheriff’s El Camino have fat tires? Maimon. Bragdon. Carmichael. Rambo. Even Beverly and Raoul. None seemed remotely likely as suspects and I told Milo so.

“Of all of them, I like that asshole Canadian the best,” he said. “Guy’s a Class A bad actor.”

“I don’t see it, Milo. He resented being interrogated and could have held that against me. But resentment isn’t hatred and whoever fired those shots did it out of blood lust.”

“You told me he was a heavy doper, Alex. They’ve been known to get paranoid.”

I thought of what Beverly had said about Valcroix’s increasingly strange behavior and repeated it to Milo.

“There you go,” he said. “Cokehead madness.”

“I guess it’s possible, but it still doesn’t feel right. I wasn’t that important to him. Anyway, he seems more of an escapist, someone who’d retreat rather than act out. The peace-love-Woodstock type.”

“So were the Manson family. What kind of car does he drive?”

“No idea.”

“We’ll run it through D.M.V., then pick the guy up for questioning. Talk to the others, too. Hopefully the whole thing will boil down to Moody. When you get down to it he sounds like an easy one to hate.”

He stood and stretched.

“Thanks for everything, Milo.”

He waved it off. “Haven’t done a damn thing so don’t thank me yet. And I probably won’t be able to handle it myself. Gotta travel.”

“Where to?”

“Washington, D.C. On the rape-murder. The Saudis have one of those slick public relations firms on retainer. Been putting millions into commercials showing they’re just plain folks. Prince Stinky’s exploits could make them look like the enemy again. So there’s been pressure from the top to let him slink out of town to avoid a trail and all the publicity. The department won’t let go of this one cause the crimes were too damned ugly. But the Arabs keep pushing and the politicos have to do a bit of symbolic brown-nosing.”

He shook his head in disgust.

“Other day a couple of gray suits from the State Department came down and took Del and me out to lunch. Three martinis and haute cuisine at the taxpayer’s expense, followed by congenial chitchat about the energy crisis. I let them talk, then I shoved a bunch of pictures of the girl Stinky killed right in front of them. Foreign Service types must have delicate constitutions. They almost heaved right into the coq au vin. That afternoon I got volunteered to fly to D.C. and discuss it further.”

“That’ll be something to see,” I said. “You and a room full of bureaucrats. When are you leaving?”

“Don’t know. I’m on call. Could be tomorrow or the day after. Going first class for the first time in my deprived life.”

He looked at me with concern.

“At least Moody’s out of the way.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I wish it could have happened another way.” I thought of April and Ricky, what this would do to them. If Conley turned out to have been the one who blew away their father, the tragedy would be compounded. The entire case had a raw, primal stink that foreshadowed tragic endings for generations to come.

Hardy came back from the kitchen and gave his report.

“Coulda been worse than it was. Half of Durkin’s house is up in smoke. He and his wife suffered second-degree burns and some smoke inhalation but they’re gonna live. Worthy had smoke alarms and caught it in time. He lives in the Palisades, big property with lots of trees. Couple of ’em burned down.”

Which meant plenty of hiding places. Milo glanced at me meaningfully. Hardy kept on talking.

“The judge’s and Daschoff’s places haven’t been touched so the cans in the car were probably meant for them. I sent uniforms to check out all of their offices.”

Richard Moody had ended his tormented life in a blaze of twisted passion.

Milo whistled and told Hardy the Delaware-as-victim scenario. Hardy found merit to it, which did nothing to improve my state of mind.