Jonathan Kellerman - Victims

I said, “All the killer needed to do was incapacitate Quigg then tie the dog’s leash to a branch or pin it under a rock. If Louie did react to seeing his master die horribly, that could’ve heightened the pleasure.”

“A sadist.”

“With a captive audience.”

“Think the dog’s dead or a live trophy?”

“Could go either way.”

“Either,” he said. “God, I hate that word.”

Dr. David Feldman sat on the edge of the hotel bed. Dr. Sondra Feldman sat so close the two of them looked glued together. The room was compact, tidy, air-conditioned frigid.

He was thirty or so, tall, thin, and long-limbed as an egret, with wavy black hair and the anxious nobility of a Velasquez prince. His wife, pretty and grave with nervous hands and straight black hair, could’ve been mistaken for his sib.

They’d insisted that Milo slip I.D. under the door before unlatching. The chain had remained in place while two sets of eyes checked us over through the crack.

After letting us in, Sondra Feldman bolted and rechained and David Feldman double-checked the strength of the hardware. Both Feldmans wore jeans, sneakers, and polo shirts, hers a pink Ralph Lauren Polo, his a sky-blue Lacoste. Their white coats were draped individually over separate chair-backs. A bowl of fruit on a nightstand was untouched. A bottle of Merlot had been touched to half empty.

Sondra Feldman saw me looking at the wine. “We thought it might help but it was all we could do to hold it down.”

Milo said, “Thanks for getting back to me.”

David Feldman said, “We’re hoping you can protect us. Or is that unrealistic?”

“You think you’re in danger?”

“A neighbor gets murdered right above us? Wouldn’t you consider that danger?”

Sondra said, “There’s no alarm system in the apartment. That always bothered me.”

“Have you had security problems?”

“No, but we’re into prevention not treatment. We talked to Stanleigh-Mr. Belleveaux. He was reluctant to install anything for a one-year lease.”

David said, “For lack of contradictory data, we’re assuming we’re in danger. We’ll be moving soon as we find another place but at some point, we’ll need to go back to retrieve our stuff. Is there any way we could receive some sort of police escort? I know we’re not celebs and the city’s tight financially, but we’re not asking for anything extensive, maybe one cop.”

Milo said, “Until you find a new place, you’ll be staying here?”

Sondra frowned. “The cost is crazy and we get what, two hundred square feet?”

David said, “We both have tons of loans. Stanleigh’s place seemed like a great deal because he was friendly and honest and it was reasonably close to both our work. But after this? Not a chance.”

“You’re a resident at Cedars?”

“And Sonny’s at the U.”

The mention of work seemed to relax them. I said, “What are your specialties?”

“I’m in medicine, want to do a gastro fellowship. Sonny’s pediatrics.”

Sondra Feldman said, “Can we interpret your not answering the request for an escort as a no?”

Milo said, “Not at all. Once you’re ready, get in touch. If I can’t accompany you myself, I’ll get someone else.”

“You’d do that?”

“Sure. I’ll be back to the scene several times, anyway.”

The Feldmans exchanged quick rabbity looks. Sondra said, “Well, thank you.”

Milo said, “Hey, a neighbor murdered is heavy-duty, I don’t blame you for being on edge. But is there some specific reason you feel you might be targeted?”

Another exchange of jumpy eye-language.

David said, “We may just be paranoid, but we think we might have seen something.”

Sondra said, “ Someone. The first time was around three weeks ago. Davey saw him-you tell them, honey.”

David nodded. “I can’t be sure exactly when this was, given our sleep patterns, time blurs. We get home, take Ambien, collapse. The only reason I noticed him in the first place was the neighborhood’s generally quiet, you never see anyone out past five. Not like Philly, we lived in City Center, there was street life all the time.”

Sondra said, “The second time was maybe two weeks ago and I was the one who saw him. Davey hadn’t told me he saw him so I never mentioned it. It was only after what happened to Vita that we compared notes.”

Milo said, “Who’s him?”

She said, “Before we get into it, Lieutenant, we need to feel certain we’re doing the right thing.”

“Believe me, Doctor, you are.”

“We don’t mean morally, we mean personal-safety-wise. What if it gets back to him that we played a role in his apprehension and he comes after us?”

“Dr. Feldman, we’re a long way from that.”

“We’re just saying,” said Sondra. “Once we pass along information we’re part of the process. There’ll be no way to get un involved.”

Milo said, “I appreciate your concern but I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never had someone in your situation harmed.”

David said, “Please excuse us for not finding that comforting. There’s always a first time.”

I said, “You returned Lieutenant Sturgis’s call. That wasn’t just to ask for a police escort to pick up your stuff.”

“That’s true,” said David. “We wanted to do the right thing. But then we got to discussing it.”

“A criminal investigation is a complex process. Before anyone’s apprehended, let alone charged and brought to trial, there’ll be thousands of bits of data added to the pile. Your contribution won’t stand out.”

Sondra said, “You sound like my father. He’s a psych prof, always dissecting things logically.”

“What does your father think you should do?”

“I haven’t told him! Neither of us has told anyone.”

David said, “If he knew, he’d be here on the next plane. Trying to run things, telling us, See, I was right, you should’ve stayed in Philly.”

She smiled. “Your mom, too.”

“In spades. Meddle-city.”

They held hands.

I said, “Who’d you both see?”

Sondra said, “If our contribution’s so insignificant, you probably don’t need us in the first place.”

“Not insignificant,” I said. “But not conspicuous, either. Isn’t medicine like that? You don’t always know what will work?”

David said, “We’d like to think medicine can be pretty scientific.”

“We’d like to think criminal investigations can be scientific but reality doesn’t always cooperate. The information you have may turn out to be irrelevant. But if it narrows things down, it could help.”

Sondra said, “Okay, fine.”

“Sonny?”

“It’s the right thing, Davey. Let’s just get it over with.”

He inhaled, massaged the little crocodile snarling at his left breast. “I was coming home from work around a month ago, saw a guy across the street. It was at night but I could see him, I guess there were stars out, I really don’t know. My initial impression was he was staring at our building. Up, at the second story.”

I said, “Vita’s apartment.”

“I can’t swear to it but from the way his neck was tilted that’s what it seemed like. I found that curious because in all the time we’d been there, we never saw Vita have a visitor. I suppose it’s possible she entertained during the day when we were gone. But all the times we were home during the day, we never saw anyone.”

“Total loner,” said Sondra. “No surprise.”

“Why’s that?”

“Her personality.”

“Abrasive, combative, obnoxious, pick your adjective,” said David. “She’s on top, we’re on bottom, if anyone’s going to hear footsteps it’s us. But we never complained and trust me, her steps were heavy, she wasn’t exactly a fashion model. Sometimes, after we’d been on call, it was hell being woken up by her clomping around.”