Jonathan Kellerman - Blood Test

I took a different tack.

“What kind of relationship was there between the Touch and the Swopes?”

“None, I would imagine. Garland was a recluse. Never came to town. Occasionally I’d see Emma or the girl out shopping.”

“Matthias told me Nona worked for the Touch one summer.”

“That’s true. I’d forgotten.” He turned away and fiddled with a container of unfiltered honey.

“Mr. Maimon, forgive me if this sounds rude, but I don’t see you forgetting anything. When Matthias talked about Nona, the sheriff got uncomfortable, as you just did. Broke in with a comment about what a wild kid she was, as if to end the discussion. You’ve been very helpful until now. Please don’t hold back.”

He put his glasses back on, stroked his chin, started to lift his teacup but thought better of it.

“Doctor,” he said evenly, “you seem a sincere young man and I want to help you. But let me explain the position I’m in. I’ve lived here for a decade but still consider myself an outsider. I’m a Sephardic Jew, descended from the great scholar Maimonides. My ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492, along with all the Jews. They settled in Holland, were expelled from there, went to England, Palestine, Australia, America. Five hundred years of wandering gets into the blood, makes one reluctant to think in terms of permanence.

“Two years ago, a member of the Ku Klux Klan was nominated for state assembly from this district. Part of it was subterfuge — the man concealed his membership — but too many people knew who he was to make the nomination an accident. He lost the election but shortly afterward there were cross-burnings, anti-Semitic leafleting, an epidemic of racist graffiti and harassment of Mexican-Americans along the border.

“I’m not telling you this because I think La Vista is a hotbed of racism. On the contrary, I’ve found it an extremely tolerant town, as witnessed by the smooth integration of the Touch. But attitudes can change rather quickly — my forebears were court physicians to the Spanish royal family one week, refugees the next.” He warmed both hands on his cup. “Being an outsider means exercising discretion.”

“I know how to keep a secret,” I said. “Anything you tell me will be kept confidential unless lives are at stake.”

He engaged in another bout of silent contemplation, the delicate features solemn and still. We locked eyes for a moment.

“There was some kind of trouble,” he said. “Exactly what kind was never publicized. Knowing the girl, it had to be of a sexual nature.”

“Why’s that?”

“She had a reputation for promiscuity. I don’t seek out gossip, but in a small town one overhears things. There’s always been something libidinous about the girl. Even at twelve or thirteen when she walked through town every male head would turn. She exuded — physicality. I’d always thought it strange that she sprang from such a withdrawn, isolated family — as if somehow she’d sucked the sexual energy from the others and ended up with more than she could handle.”

“Do you have any idea what happened at the Retreat?” I asked, though from Doug Carmichael’s story, I had a strong hypothesis.

“Only that her job was terminated abruptly and snickers and whispers circulated around town for the next few days.”

“And the Touch never hired town kids again.”

“Correct.”

The waitress brought the check. I put down my credit card. Maimon thanked me and called for another pot of tea.

“What was she like as a little girl?” I asked.

“I have only vague memories — she was a pretty little thing — that red hair always stood out. Used to pass by my place and say hello, always very friendly. I don’t think the problems started until she was twelve or so.”

“What kinds of problems?”

“What I told you. Promiscuity. Wild behavior. She started running with a bunch of older kids — the ones with fast cars and motorcycles. I suppose things got out of hand because they sent her away to boarding school. That I remember vividly because on the morning she left Garland’s car broke down on the way to the train station. Just gave out in the middle of the road, a few yards from my nursery. I offered to give them a lift but of course he refused. Left her sitting there with her suitcase until he came back with a truck. She looked like a sad little child, though I suppose she must have been at least fourteen. As if all the mischief had been knocked out of her.”

“How long was she away?”

“A year. She was different when she returned — quieter, more subdued. But still sexually precocious, in an angry kind of way.”

“What do you mean?”

He flushed and drank tepid tea.

“Predatory. One day she walked into my nursery wearing shorts and a halter top. Out of the blue. Said she’d heard I had a new kind of banana and she wanted to see it. It was true — I’d brought in several fifteen-gallon Dwarf Cavendish plants from Florida and had taken a lovely bunch of fruit to the town market for display. I wondered why she’d be interested in something like that, but showed her the plants anyway. She looked them over in a cursory manner and smiled — lasciviously. Then she leaned over and gave me a frank view of her chest, picked a banana and began eating it in a rather crude manner—” He stopped, stammered — “You’ll have to excuse me, Doctor, I’m sixty-three, from another generation, and it’s hard for me to be as uninhibited about this kind of thing as is fashionable.”

I nodded, trying to seem empathetic. “You look much younger.”

“Good genes.” He smiled. “Anyway, that’s the story. She made a production out of eating the banana, smiled at me again and told me it was delicious. Licked her fingers and ran off down the road. The encounter unnerved me because even as she vamped there’d been hatred in her eyes. A strange mixture of sex and hostility. It’s hard to explain.”

He sipped his tea, then asked, “Has any of this been relevant?”

Before I could answer the waitress returned with the charge slip. Maimon insisted upon leaving the tip. It was a generous one.

We walked out to the parking lot. The night was cool and fragrant. He had the springy step of a man a third his age.

His truck was a long-bed Chevy pickup. Conventional tires. He took out his keys and asked, “Would you like to stop by and visit my nursery? I’d like to show you some of my most fascinating specimens.”

He seemed eager for companionship. He’d unloaded a lot of alienation, probably for the first time. Self-expression can become habit forming.

“It would be my pleasure. Could being seen with me cause problems for you?”

He smiled and shook his head.

“Last I heard, Doctor, this was still a free country. I’m located several miles southeast of town. Up in the foothills where most of the big groves are. You’ll follow me, but in case we disconnect I’ll give you directions. We’ll cut under the freeway, ride parallel with it, and turn right on an unmarked road — I’ll slow down so you don’t miss it. At the foot of the mountains there’ll be a left turn onto an old utility trail. Too narrow for commercial vehicles and it floods when the rains come. But this time of year it’s a handy shortcut.”

He went on for a while before I realized he was directing me to the back road I’d seen on the county map in the sheriff’s office. The one that bypassed the town. When I’d asked Houten about it he’d said it was sealed off by the oil company. Perhaps he considered a utility trail too insignificant to be thought of as a road. Or maybe he’d lied.

I wondered about it as I got into the Seville.

The turnoff was sudden. The road, apart from being unmarked, was hardly a road at all. Just a narrow dirt ribbon, at first glance one furrow of many that cut through the vast table of farmland. Anyone unfamiliar with the area would have missed it. But Maimon drove slowly and I followed his taillights through moonlit fields of strawberries. Soon the freeway sounds were behind us, the night hushed and aglitter with moths spiraling up toward the stars, pressing frantically and hopelessly for the heat of distant galaxies.