Jonathan Kellerman - Victims

Stepping out onto her lawn, she bent to pluck a dead bud from an azalea bush. She wore a skimpy black top, leggings in a curious shade of green that took on pink highlights when the sun hit the fabric at a certain angle, pink Vans. Her hair was huge, dark, artfully mussed. A diamond chip pierced her left nostril.

“I don’t know what I can add to what I told that young cop. Didn’t know you guys could be so hip. Spiky hair, that whole surfer thing, Doc Martens. Someone brought that to me in a script I’d tell them to get authentic. But apparently I need to be more broad-minded.”

“You’re a director?”

“Producer.” She name-dropped a comedy series that had been off the air for five years, added the fact that she had three pilots in development for three separate networks.

“Glad Detective Binchy was helpful,” said Milo. “I’m his boss.”

Erica Vail flashed blindingly white teeth. “I merit the boss? Flattered. Maybe you’ll be a little more forthcoming. Who exactly got killed?”

“A man who lives nearby.”

“How nearby?”

“Couple of miles.”

“By lives do you mean actually lives, like in a house? Or one of those homeless guys who congregate at PCH?”

“He had a home. His name was Marlon Quigg.”

“Never heard of him,” she said. “I’d figured it for a homeless guy, once in a while they wander in. But when one of us asks them to leave we’ve never had a problem-did one of them kill Mr. Quigg?”

“Too early to say, Ms. Vail.”

“The guy I saw didn’t impress me as homeless. Too healthy-looking. Even a little on the heavy side.”

“Tell us about it.”

“Sure,” said Erica Vail, bright-eyed, cheerful. “Three nights ago, must’ve been close to ten, I came out and there he was.” Pointing to the berm. “I was just about where I am now and I could see him because the moon was fat, it created kind of a halo around him.” She smiled. “Almost a special-effects thing, forgive me, I tend to think in terms of movie frames.”

Milo said, “You don’t seem upset.”

“About the murder or seeing him?”

“Either.”

“The murder doesn’t bother me because it’s too abstract and back in a former life I was a surgical nurse, including duty in Afghanistan. So it takes a lot to gross me out. Seeing him didn’t bother me because of Bella.”

“Who’s Bella?”

She jogged back inside her house, returned moments later with a beast in tow.

At least a hundred fifty pounds of defined blue-gray muscle was graced by a massive, blunt-nosed head. Spots of gold accented the brow above the small, watchful eyes, same for the bottoms of the legs. A color-morphed rottweiler. But bigger and leggier than a rottweiler with a tail docked to a stub and ears cropped to pointy remnants. Circling a tree-trunk neck was a stainless-steel pinch collar tethered to a stout leather leash.

“Say hello to the nice policemen, Bella.”

The dog’s lips drew back, baring lion-sized fangs. A low but thunderous noise-abdominal, menacing-emerged from its maws.

Erica Vail said, “Apart from me, Bella doesn’t like people.”

As if on cue, the dog lunged at us. Even with a pinch chain, Erica Vail had to labor to hold her at bay.

Erica Vail laughed. “Men, in particular. She was my present to myself after my divorce.”

“What’s her breed?” I said.

“Cane Corso. Combination of Roman war dog and some sort of Sicilian hound. Back in the old country they guard Mafia estates and hunt boar.”

Bella growled.

“I am woman, hear me roar,” said Milo.

Erica Vail laughed. “You can see why Mr. Lurker didn’t bother me. Bella smelled him when she was still in the house. That’s why I came out, she was getting all restless, whining near the door. Once we got out she went straight for him, would’ve had him for a snack if I hadn’t been able to hold her back.”

“How’d he react?”

“That’s the funny thing,” she said. “Most people see Bella coming, they cross the street. This idiot just stood there. Maybe he was trying to prove how macho he was. But it was stupid, Bella pulls hard enough, I’m not sacrificing my shoulder.”

She tossed her hair, loosened her grip on the dog. Bella edged closer. I tried a closed-mouth smile; some dogs view teeth as a threat. She cocked her head, not unlike Blanche when she’s thinking. Favored me with a long stare and settled for aloof condescension.

Erica Vail said, “I was about to warn the fool when he finally got smart and split.”

Milo said, “Which way did he go?”

“Down the street, that way-south. If he’d disappeared into the berm I’d have called you guys.”

“Anything else you remember about him?”

“I figured him for a perv because he was wearing a coat. You know, a yanker, Joe Raincoat.”

“Exhibitionist,” said Milo.

“Exhibitionists I’m used to,” said Vail. “See ’em every day on the set. So what, you think he killed Mr. Quigley?”

“We’re just starting to investigate. How big was the guy you saw?”

“Average size.” Tapping my shoulder. “More like him than you.”

“What about the coat?”

“Knee-length. He wore it open, that’s another.”

“You could tell it was open because-”

“The shape, too wide to be zipped up. I got the impression of bulk, so nothing like microfiber. Hope you catch whoever killed that poor man. Bella and I are going back inside to read scripts.”

The dog had sidled close. I ventured a pet of her head. She purred.

Erica Vail stared at me. “Unbelievable, she never likes guys.” Smiling. “You married?”

Milo said, “What kind of scripts does Bella like?”

“She’s eclectic,” said Vail. “But discerning. If she doesn’t whine at a page of dialogue, I give it a second look. The caliber of stuff I’m getting lately, she whines plenty.”

Over the next few days, data trickled in.

Neither of Marlon Quigg’s daughters had any idea who’d want to harm their father. The same went for family friends Milo and Reed and Binchy interviewed. Belle Quigg, requestioned through a fog of sedation, repeated a mantra: Everyone loved Marlon, this had to be a maniac.

Animal Control reported thirty-three dead canines collected across the county since Quigg’s murder. Milo and the young D’s took the time to check each one. None was Louie.

Most of the dogs had been abandoned and had died of malnutrition or disease or from being hit by cars. A golden retriever mix discovered on a Canoga Park side street had been shot in the head, execution-style, and Milo took the time to contact its owners. Two college girls had shared Maximilian; both were bereft and guilt-stricken. The ex-boyfriend of one young woman was their prime suspect and a background check revealed a husky thirty-year-old with a misdemeanor record of assaults and disorderly conduct.

Milo grew excited and looked for the man. He turned out to have been on the open sea for seven months, working as a deckhand on a commercial freighter on its way to Japan.

The shelter where Marlon Quigg had adopted Louie employed no one who matched the description of the broadly built white man seen lurking near both murder scenes. With the exception of a Vietnamese American high school student and two octogenarian retirees, the staff was exclusively female.

The woman who’d handled Louie’s paperwork recalled Marlon Quigg because he’d been so easy to deal with and opined that he’d seemed the perfect match for Louie: quiet, laid-back, no-fuss kind of guy.

I thought: Easy victim.

Binchy and Reed visited other shelters with no better results.

Inspection of Quigg’s phone and financial records revealed nothing suspicious. An additional search of the campgrounds and interviews with a score of homeless people congregating near PCH and Sunset were futile, though one of the panhandlers, a wild-eyed, gap-toothed woman named Aggie, was certain Quigg had once driven by and given her fifty dollars.