Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“Aw shucks.”

“Fine, you’re the gay Jimmy Stewart but why shut me out on these baby cases? What is it? My breath?”

She leaned close, exhaled noisily. “See? Minty fresh?” I was favored with a second blast of herbal aroma. “Back me up on that, Doctor.”

Milo and I laughed.

“See,” she said, “I’m a funny girl. Reward me, Milo Sturgis.”

“It’s complicated.”

“So what isn’t?” Her hand shot out. A white-gold wedding band circled one of ten bony fingers. Her nails were short, unpolished. But for the ring, she wore no jewelry.

Milo said, “Now we shake?”

“We sure do,” said Kelly LeMasters. “Seeing as we’re going to be warm, nurturing, mutually advantageous buddies.”

A car approached from Santa Monica Boulevard. Shiny unmarked, new enough to lack plates.

Milo motioned LeMasters away from the lot entrance, turned his back to the oncoming vehicle.

“Who’s that?” she said.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s not talk here.”

Kelly LeMasters said, “No prob. That Indian place you like?”

He glared at her. “ Nowhere I like, I don’t want to be seen with you. Minty fresh notwithstanding.”

“Fine,” she said. “If it means you’re going to give me something juicy.”

“No obligations.”

“That’s what they all say.”

We headed up the block into the residential area south of the station. Milo and LeMasters walked abreast as I trailed two steps behind. A few turns later he stopped in front of a dingbat apartment building. White stucco instead of aqua but stylistically not dissimilar from Melvin J. Wedd’s part-time residence.

Milo’s idea of a private joke? Nothing about him suggested mirth as he drew himself up to max height, the way he does when he’s out to intimidate.

If that was the goal, it failed with Kelly LeMasters. She took a notepad and pen out of her bag and said, “Go for it.”

Milo said, “Put that away, we’re off the record. If you guys still respect that.”

“Milo, Milo,” she said. “If nothing’s on the record, what use are you to me?”

“This may come as a shock, Kelly: Being useful to you isn’t my priority.”

“Of course not, solving nasty old murders is, yadda yadda yadda. But you know as well as I do that those things go together. How many of your closed files would still be open if you didn’t get media exposure when you needed it?”

“I appreciate the value of a free press. But my hands are tied.”

“By?”

“Off the record?”

“Regarding that small point?” she said. “Sure.”

“Bureaucracy.”

She said, “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s the staggering secret? We all deal with red tape, you think my employer’s all Bill of Rights and no bullshit?”

“Glad you empathize.”

“I don’t need you to tell me why your stupid, venal bosses closed you up on the second skeleton: politics as usual, the whole Maxine Cleveland real estate thing. You ever meet her? Brain-dead and clueless, should be a perfect fit in D.C. That ploy was stupid, where did it get her?” She removed her glasses. “Your idiot bosses let me get scooped by a damn student paper .”

“You want to complain, I can give you some phone numbers.”

“How far would that get me?”

“Exactly my point, Kelly. It’s like talking to dust.”

She studied him. “You’re a crafty one, aren’t you? Okay, we go off the record, as long as at some point it goes on the record and I don’t mean months.”

“Nope, can’t give you a deadline.”

“I don’t want a deadline, I just want you to be reasonable.” She put her glasses back on. Wrote something in her pad, angling the page so he couldn’t see. I’ve seen him do the same thing with witnesses, trying to kick up the intrigue, establish dominance.

The two of them would make an interesting bridge twosome.

“Define reasonable , Kelly.”

“Use common sense, cut the crap, however you want to define it. I am not going to remain mute for eternity only to have every moron on TV and the Internet going with the story.”

Bony hands slapped onto bony hips. “Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Fine.” Her pen poised. “Shoot.”

“Put the pad away.”

“You don’t trust me to keep it under wraps?”

“You just said your patience couldn’t be guaranteed.”

“We’re wasting each other’s time,” she said. “This is bullshit.”

“Then how about we table the proceedings? Something opens up, I promise to let you know.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re right,” he said.

She studied him. “You’re shitting me. Nice try.”

“I’m not. You’re right.”

“Admitting you made a mistake? Have you checked your Y chromosomes recently?”

“If it was up to me, Kelly, I’d have lots to tell you and it would hit the paper tomorrow. Not because I care about you or your job but because it could be in my best interest. Unfortunately, by pulling that stunt at the parking lot, you made sure anything you write is going to be traced right back to me.”

“I … maybe that was poor judgment but what was my choice?”

Milo shrugged.

Kelly LeMasters said, “Okay, fine, no notes and I swear to protect your identity.” The pad and pen returned to her bag.

Milo said, “Same for the tape recorder you’ve got in there.”

“How … fine, you’re an ace detective.” She produced the machine, switched it off.

He took it, removed a mini-spool that he pocketed, returned the recorder.

Her nostrils flared. “You’re going to keep that?”

“For both our sakes.”

“Want to check if I’ve got a nuclear-laser thought-reader in here?”

“Nah, those are so twentieth century. So what do you want to know, Kelly?”

“After all that I have to ask questions? Just tell me what you’ve learned about those baby skeletons.”

“The first skeleton may not be related to a crime.”

“What makes you say that?”

“No signs of trauma or injury.”

“Maybe it was smothered or something.”

“Anything’s possible but I need evidence.”

“A body buried under a tree is evidence,” she said. “If no crime was committed why conceal it?”

“Could’ve been a death due to natural causes that someone wanted to cover up.”

“What kind of death is natural for a baby?”

“Disease.”

“Then why cover it up?”

“Wish I knew, Kelly. I may never know.”

“Why the pessimism?”

“Too old, too cold.”

“I assume you’ve traced the owners of the house.”

“You assume correctly. No leads, there.”

“I know,” said LeMasters. “I looked into it, myself. Found that old guy in Burbank, the whole John Wayne thing, he had nothing to say. Neither did anyone in Cheviot Hills. Including that kid who blabbed to the SMC paper. Her thing was I talk to Lieutenant Sturgis, no one else .”

Milo said, “Power of the press.”

“Yeah, we’re real popular-so I should just forget about the first one.”

“Probe to your heart’s content, Kelly. You learn anything, I’ll be grateful.” Sounding sincere. Not a word about Eleanor Green, a big blue Duesenberg.

Nothing from me to either of them about Dr. Jimmy Asherwood.

Kelly LeMasters said, “Okay, let’s get to the juicy one.”

“Once again, Kelly, there’s no evidence of trauma but I’m assuming homicide, because of the dead woman who was found across the park. Also, we’ve done prelim DNA on the bones and the baby was a girl.”

Kelly LeMasters didn’t emote. “Okay, go on.”

“By the state of her dentition two or three months old.”