Jonathan Kellerman - Guilt

“Let’s hope he stays that way. Onward.”

The house was a low, long box that had been stylish in the fifties. My guess was an expat architect from Europe-Schindler or Neutra or someone trying to be Schindler or Neutra. The kind of site-conscious, minimalist design that ages well if it’s kept up.

This one hadn’t been. A roof meant to be flat sagged and dipped. Stress cracks wrinkled white stucco grimed to gray. Windows were pocked with birdshit. Rain streaks and pits blemished the flat facade. Like Prema’s property, Rader’s acreage was backed by forest. But everything else was hard-pack.

We approached the house. Internal shutters blocked off the view the architect had intended. The door was a slab of ash in need of varnish. Solid, though. Milo’s knock barely sounded.

He pushed the doorbell. No chime or buzzer that I could hear.

Louder knock.

The door opened on a girl-woman in a thong bikini. Her hair was a riot of white and black and flamingo-pink. Late teens or early twenties.

She stared at us with bleary, heavy-lidded eyes. White powder smudged the space between her perfect nose and her perfect lips. The bikini was white, barely qualified as a garment with the bra not much more than pasties on a string and the bottom a nylon triangle not up to the job of pelvic protection. Breasts the size of grapefruits heaved a split second after the rest of her chest moved, the mammary equivalent of digital delay. Her feet were bare and grubby, her nails blood-red talons.

She rubbed her eyes. “Huh?”

“Police, ma’am. Is Mr. Rader here?”

She swiped at the white granules above her mouth.

Milo said, “Don’t worry about your breakfast, we just want to talk to Donny Rader.”

The girl’s mouth opened. A frog-croak emerged. Then a squeak. Then: “Don-nee!”

No need to shout, Rader was already behind her, materializing from the left, wearing a red silk robe. The robe was loosely belted, exposing a hard, tan body. The pockets bulged. A bottle of something with a booze-tax seal around the neck poked from one. The contents of the other were out of view. Maybe a bag of white powder. Or just a glass. If he bothered with a glass.

He pushed the girl out of the way, did the same eye rub. “Whus happening?”

Big man, larger and more muscular than he came across on the screen. Coarser, with a near-Neanderthal brow shelf, grainy skin, thickened nostrils that flared like a bull’s.

Long, shaggy, ink-black hair flew everywhere. His eyes fought to remain open. Described in the fan mags as black, they were actually deep brown. Just enough contrast to see the pupils. Widely dilated despite the bright afternoon light.

White powder on his face, too, a thick smear on his lips and chin. Snowy dust littered the red robe’s shawl collar. The top seam of the other robe pocket.

Milo said, “Police, Mr. Rader.”

“Whu the fuh!” Throaty growl. The iconic slur.

“Police-”

“Fuh!” Donny Rader backed away.

Milo said, “Hold on, we’d just like to talk-”

“About whu?”

“We’d like to come in, Mr. Rader.”

“Whu the fu-hey! You ain’t cops, you’re some shit from her, trying to mess with my mind-”

“Sir, I can assure-”

“Assure my asshole, get the fuh outta here!”

“Mr. Rader, we really are the police and we-”

Donny Rader shook himself off hard, hair billowing, a hyena clearing its maws of blood. The girl in the bikini had remained behind him, clutching her face and hyperventilating.

Milo stepped forward, aiming to get his toe in the door.

Howling, Rader jammed his hand into the robe pocket that didn’t hold the bottle, yanked out something metallic and shiny.

He faded back, began to straighten his arm.

The last time Milo had faced madness, he’d been caught off-guard and I’d saved his life. That didn’t fit the script of seasoned cop and shrink and despite his acknowledgment, it would scar him.

Maybe that’s why this time he was ready.

One of his hands clamped like a bear-trap on the wrist of Donny Rader’s gun-arm, pushing down and twisting sharply as his foot shot between Rader’s bare legs and kicked laterally to the left. As Rader lost balance, Milo’s other arm spun him around and by the time Tyler O’Shea was ready with cuffs and a now snarling Sally, Rader was down on the ground and the.22 lay safely out of reach.

Rader foamed at the mouth, turned dirt to chocolate soda.

The girl in the bikini whimpered.

Milo said, “Ty, take care of her.”

O’Shea checked out the tight, tan body. “You’re a pal, El Tee.”

He cuffed the girl displaying no particular reverence. Something to the left caught his eye. “El Tee, you better look at this.” Something new in his voice. Fear.

Milo hauled a struggling, howling Donny Rader to his feet. “Hold still and shut it.”

“Fuh you.”

O’Shea walked the girl out of the house. He looked stunned. “You got to see this.”

Milo said, “Check it out, Alex.”

The house was a sty. Piles of trash blanketed the floor and the furniture. The air was putrid with rotted food, body odor, weed, a medicinal smell that might’ve been poorly cut cocaine.

A cat-urine stench that might’ve been cats or crystal meth.

O’Shea had seen and smelled worse, so that wasn’t it.

Not wanting to disturb potential evidence, I stepped carefully over the garbage. Then I saw it. Hanging from a low rafter, the feet dangling a few inches from the floor.

A human skeleton, wired and braced by a steel rod running parallel to the spine.

Stripped and clean but for hair left on the head. Long hair. Dark, curly.

Full-sized skeleton. I guessed it shorter than me by at least six inches.

The pelvic arch left no doubt: female.

The jaws had been positioned to create a gaping cartoonish grin. Exaggerated glee that was the essence of horror.

I made my way through the slop-heap, got right up to the skeleton. Sniffed.

New smell.

Pleasant, sweet. Herbaceous.

Honeybees buzzing in the hive.

Milo plastic-tied Rader’s ankles and belted him into the brown van’s second row. Tyler O’Shea positioned Sally up front as a sentry. She enjoyed snapping and growling at the now cringing, weeping actor.

Allowing himself the luxury of an unlit cigar clenched between tight jaws, Milo played the phone, calling in jail transport, crime scene techs, the coroners.

The chief’s office, almost as an afterthought. The boss was out; Milo declined to leave a message.

Tyler O’Shea continued to guard the girl in the bikini.

Barbara “Brandi” Podesky, self-described as a “performer and dancer,” had no wants but a warrant did pop out of the database: failure to show up for community service on a first-offense marijuana bust. She’d be heading to West L.A. lockup. The news stunned her and she began whining that she was cold.

O’Shea checked out her body, said, “We’ll get you something soon.” Not a trace of sincerity.

Milo went to look at the skeleton, emerged seconds later and positioned himself in the doorway. Chewing his lip and wiping his face, he got back on the phone. As he waited for a connection, his facial muscles relaxed and something aspiring to be a smile stretched his lips.

“Ms. LeMasters? Milo Sturgis … yeah, I know it has been, but not to fret, how’re your ace-reporter chops this beautiful day? And are you still in love with your husband? … Why? Because trust me, Kelly, you’re gonna dig me more than him , do I have a scoop for you .”

Just as he clicked off, the chief beeped in. Milo began to supply details I already knew so I left him there, figuring to walk off some excess energy.