Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“Sounds young for his age, more than happy to talk about the good old days. But it needs to be tomorrow, he’s entertaining a ‘lady friend.’ He also let me know he’d been on the job.”

“LAPD?”

“Sheriff.”

He typed some more. Commander John J. Del Rios had run the Sheriff’s Correctional Division from 1967 through 1974, retired with pension, and received a citation from his boss for distinguished service. Further cyber-snooping pulled up a ten-year stretch at a private security firm. After that, nothing.

Milo made a few calls to contacts at the tan-shirts. No one remembered Del Rios.

I said, “Entertaining a lady friend? Maybe he’s our playboy. He’d have been in his twenties, prime time for an active sexual life.”

“We’ll check him out tomorrow. Eleven a.m. After his golf game.”

“Golf, women, the good life,” I said. “A good long life.”

“The priest dies young, the hedonist thrives? Yeah, I love when justice prevails.”

The following morning, I picked Milo up on Butler Avenue and Santa Monica, just north of the West L.A. station.

The bones had made the morning news, print and TV, with Holly Ruche’s name left out and the neighborhood described as “affluent Westside.” Milo was carrying a folded Times by his side. He wore a lint-gray suit, algae-green shirt, poly tie the color of venous blood. The sun wasn’t kind to his pockmarked face; that and his size and his glower made him someone you’d cross the street to avoid.

He appreciates the value of publicity as much as any experienced detective. But he likes to control the flow, and I expected him to be angry about the leak. He got into the Seville, stretched, yawned, said “Top of the morning,” thumbed to the editorial pages. Scanning the op-ed columns, he muttered cheerfully: “Stupid, stupid, stupid, and big surprise … more stupid.”

Folding the paper, he tossed it in back.

I said, “Any tips come in from the story?”

“Nothing serious, so far. Moe and Sean are working the phones. The good news for Mr. and Mrs. Ruche is the dogs turned up nothing else, ditto for radar and sniff-tubes. Nothing remotely iffy in the house, either, so looks like we’ve got a lone antique whodunit, not a psycho cemetery.”

He stretched some more.

I said, “You’re okay with the leak.”

“That’s like saying I’m okay with earthquakes. What’s my choice?”

He closed his eyes, kept them shut as I got on the 405. By the time I was over the hills and dipping down into the Valley and the 101 East, he was snoring with glee.

Burbank is lots of things: a working- to middle-class suburb, host to film lots and TV studios, no-nonsense neighbor to the mansions and estates of Toluca Lake where Bob Hope, William Holden, the Three Stooges, and other luminaries established a celebrity outpost that avoided the Westside riffraff.

The city also also butts up against Griffith Park and has its own equestrian center and horse trails. John Jacob Del Rios lived just northeast of the park, on a street of ranch houses set on half-acre lots. Paddocks were visible at the ends of driveways. The aroma of well-seasoned equine dung seasoned the air. A shortage of trees helped the sun along and as noon approached, the asphalt simmered and a scorch, like that of an iron left too long on wool, melded with the horse odors.

Del Rios’s residence was redwood-sided, shingle-roofed, fronted by a marine-buzz lawn. An old wagon wheel was propped to the left of the door. A white Suburban with utility tires was parked at the onset of the driveway, inches behind a horse trailer. No paddock in view but a corral fashioned from metal piping housed a beautiful black mare with a white diamond on her chest. She watched us approach, gave two short blinks, flicked her tail.

I took the time to get a closer look. She cocked her head flirtatiously.

Glossy coat, soft eyes. Years ago, I’d take breaks from the cancer wards and ride up at Sunset Ranch, near the Hollywood sign. I loved horses. It had been too long.

I smiled at the mare. She winked.

Milo said, “C’mon, Hopalong, time to meet John Wayne.”

The man who answered the door was more Gregory Peck than Duke: six five, and patrician, with a shelf of deeply cleft chin, a well-aligned arrogantly tilted nose, and thick hair as snowy as well-beaten egg whites. His eyes were clear blue, his skin clear bronze veneered by a fine mesh of wrinkles, his build still athletically proportioned save for some hunching of the shoulders and widening of the hips. Nearing ninety, John J. Del Rio looked fifteen years younger.

He wore a blue-and-white mini-check long-sleeved shirt, navy slacks, black calfskin loafers. The blue-faced steel Rolex on his left wrist was chunky and authoritative. Rimless, hexagonal eyeglasses gave him the look of a popular professor. Emeritus for years, but invited back to campus often.

Or one of those actors hired by health insurance companies to play Elderly-but-Fit on their scam commercials.

He proffered a hand larger than Milo’s. “Lieutenant? J. J. Del Rios, good to meet you. And this is …”

“Dr. Alex Delaware, our consulting psychologist.”

“I was a psychology major, myself, at Stanford.” To me: “Studied with Professor Ernest Hilgard, I assume you’ve heard of him.”

I said, “Of course.”

He turned back to Milo. “I read about your ‘occurrence’ this morning. Least I’m assuming that’s the case you’re working. Is it?”

Milo said, “Yes, sir.”

“Box of baby bones. Sad. The article said they were probably old, I figure you’re here to pinpoint a likely offender using property tax rolls. Am I right?”

Milo smiled.

John J. Del Rios said, “Can’t fault you for that approach, makes sense. But if it’s an old 187, why the psych angle?”

Milo said, “Cases that are out of the ordinary, we find the input helpful.”

“Psychological autopsy?”

“Basically. Could we come in, sir?”

“Oh, sure,” said Del Rios. “No sense keeping you in the heat.”

He waved us into a lime-green, beam-ceilinged front room cooled by a grumbling window A.C. Burnt-orange carpeting was synthetic, spotless, firm as hardwood. Blocky oak furniture from the seventies, the kind purchased as a suite, was placed predictably. Horse prints clipped from magazines were the concession to art. The only sign of modernity was a wall-mounted flat-screen, hung carefully so no wires showed. A pass-through counter led to a kitchen devoid of counter equipment. The house was clean and orderly, but ripe with the stale-sweat/burnt-coffee/Old Spice tang of longtime bachelorhood.

J. J. Del Rios headed for an avocado-colored fridge. “Something to drink? I’m having a shot of grape juice. Virgin Cabernet, if you will.” He gave a bark-like chuckle. “Too early for my one-a-day booze infusion but the antioxidants in grape skin are good for you, you don’t even need the alcohol.” He brandished a bottle half full with magenta liquid. “Good stuff, no added sugar.”

“Water’ll be fine, sir.”

“ ‘Sir.’ Been a while since I heard that from someone who meant it.” Another low, clipped laugh. “Don’t miss the job but there was a nice order to it, everyone knowing their place.”

“You ran the jail division.”

“Big fun,” said Del Rios. “Keeping lowlifes locked up, making sure they knew they weren’t living at the Hilton.”

“How long did you do it?” said Milo.

Del Rios returned with two waters in one huge hand, juice in the other. We all sat.

“What’s this, small talk to gain rapport? If you know I ran it, you know for how long.”

Milo said, “Didn’t dig that deep, sir.”