Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“Needs me for what?”

“Keeping her kids safe.”

“All of a sudden Devil Princess is a saint?”

“Think of it this way,” I said. “You may get out of garbage detail.”

“She came to your house alone? No paparazzi in the bushes?”

“Not her style, anymore,” I said.

“Just a simple gal. Your new best friend.”

“Love to chat, Big Guy, but you need to get over here.”

He grumbled. I heard a door slam. “On my way.”

“Good man.”

“So few of us left.”

Back in the office, I poured Prema herb tea, gave her some playtime with Blanche, allowed her to drift into abstract discussions on child-rearing. Then I got back to the questions.

She offered no resistance, was answering freely when the bell rang.

She blinked. “That’s him? We really need to do this?”

“We do.”

“Only time I’ve ever dealt with the police was in London, a bunch of us got busted for smoking hash in a park. Rich little twits, everyone had connections, we got off with a warning.”

“You’ve got connections, again.”

“Do I …?”

“Prema, there’s a reason you decided to come here.” I got to my feet. “Ready?”

Standing slowly, she teetered for a second, hooked her arm in mine.

“No red carpet,” she whispered. “But here we go.”

Introductions were brief. Both of them were wary. When they shook hands, Prema used both of hers, as if wanting to prolong contact. Milo offered only his fingers, pulled away soon.

I led Prema to the living room sofa, sat down next to her. Milo settled in a facing chair. His suit was one I’d seen for years, a baggy green-brown hopsack worn over a white shirt and a muddy blue tie that Prozac couldn’t fix.

One thing was different: He’d slicked down his hair. Two-hundred-forty-pound kid waiting for communion.

Prema said, “You look just like a cop should.”

Milo said, “You look just like a movie star should.”

“I meant that as a compliment, Lieutenant. I find it reassuring.”

“So taken.” His expression was unreadable. “What can I do for you, Ms. Moon?”

She turned to me.

I said, “Just go for it.”

She inhaled. “Okay … all right … Donny Rader smokes meerschaum pipes.”

“Does he.”

“Do you know what meerschaum is?”

“Some kind of carved stone.”

“It’s a mineral, Lieutenant. It washes up on the beach and people carve it into smoking pipes. Donny Rader has lots of carved meerschaum smoking pipes, I don’t know how many. He smokes weed in them, not tobacco. He’s a compulsive collector, loves things . To my mind, it’s just greed. Like cars: He’s got a dozen, maybe more, even though he hardly ever drives them. He has more clothing than I do.” One hand kneaded the other. “He collects women. But we don’t need to go there.”

“Sounds like your husband leads a busy life, Ms. Moon.”

She flinched.

I said, “There’s another collection.”

“Yes,” she said. “There is. He has a closet full of guns. When we were living together I made him lock them up in a big safe. That I paid for. For the children’s safety.”

“Where are the guns now, Ms. Moon?”

“At his place.”

“You don’t live together?”

“He lives in the adjoining property. I bought all of it years ago but I only use part of it.”

“You know about his gun closet because-”

“I saw it. Not recently, we don’t have much … I stay at my place, he’s at his.”

“When did you see the gun closet?”

Her chest heaved. “Maybe half a year, I really can’t be sure.”

“You went to visit-”

“Not a visit, an obligation. He needed to sign a tax form from our accountant. Our life is complicated, you can delegate a lot of things but at some point you still need to sign your name to papers. All the financial forms come to me because he’d neglect them.”

“So around six months ago-”

“Could be seven months, eight, five, I don’t know. What I do recall is he was still in bed, the place was a mess, as usual. There was a woman. I asked her to leave for a moment. So he could sign the tax form. The safe’s in a closet in his bedroom. The closet door was open, there were also loose guns. On shelves. And big ones-rifles-propped up on the floor of the closet. I got out of there.”

“Has he ever threatened you with a firearm?”

“Not yet.”

“You think he might.”

“At this point, Lieutenant, I don’t know what to think.”

I said, “About the meerschaums …”

Milo’s eyebrows rose.

Prema said, “Yes, of course. The meerschaums. The lovely meerschaums … when you collect them, the big deal is to get them to color gradually as you smoke them. From white to amber. For that to happen, the pipes are coated after they’re carved. Then the owner recoats them from time to time.”

Her hands clenched. “What’s used for the coating, Lieutenant, is beeswax.”

Milo’s lips pursed. “Really.”

“Specifically, confectioner’s beeswax, Lieutenant. With all those pipes, Donny Rader must go through the stuff like crazy because he buys pots of confectioner’s beeswax. Back when we were living together, I saw it in his workshop. He builds things. Birdhouses, ashtrays. Not very well.”

“You’ve seen him work with beeswax.”

Nod. “One time he called me in to watch him work on a pipe. Showing off. He heated up the beeswax, brushed it on, waited for it to cool, then buffed it shiny. About a month ago, he ordered six fresh pots of beeswax. I know that because instead of going through his purchasing assistant-a gopher at Apex, our management firm, we each have one-he ordered it online himself. Using my personal credit card, the package ended up on my desk. It came from a baking supplies outfit, my first thought was the cook had bought it, someone had screwed up and used my personal card instead of one of the household cards. Then I opened it and realized what was inside and called him to take it. We met at the gate to his place. I asked him why he’d bought it using my name. He didn’t really have an answer, was pretty much loaded on weed or whatever. As usual.”

“He say anything at all?”

“He mumbled something about not being able to find his own card. Which made sense, he’s always losing things. It didn’t explain why he hadn’t gone through Apex, but I didn’t push it, this was wax, no big deal, and frankly the less contact we have with each other the better. I forgot about the whole incident until I learned today that he’d bought something else saying it was for me. Only this time he had contacted my purchasing assistant at Apex, probably using one of my email addresses, and bought … those terrible things.”

“You know the order came from him because-”

“Because I didn’t buy them, Lieutenant. He’s obviously trying to cover his tracks. By casting suspicion on me.”

Milo studied her.

She said, “I know it sounds crazy, but, Lieutenant, I will take any lie-detector test you want me to take. I have never once in my life bought beetles or surgical tools. Or beeswax. Nor have I ever asked anyone to buy those things for me. Check out every single computer in my house including my personal computer. I’m sure you’ve got specialists who can do that.”

“Do you know for a fact that he bought the wax online?”

“How else?”

“Maybe he got on the phone and ordered.”

She thought. “Okay, good point, maybe-so examine our phone records, we’ve got I don’t know how many lines between us, go ahead and trace them all. Then do the same thing for his phones and see what you learn.”