Jonathan Kellerman - Victims

Milo said, “C.I. said most of the blood is pooled inside the body. Let’s see what you pull up print- and fiber-wise then we’ll talk about spraying.”

Flores said, “We pulled up one thing so far, probably no big deal.”

“What?”

“A note in the bedroom. We left it there.”

After donning new gloves and foot coverings, we followed Flores in while Sakura began fiddling with his kit.

Vita Berlin’s sleeping chamber was close, dim, spare, with walls also painted apartment-beige and linens of the same characterless hue. Double bed, no headboard or footboard, no personal touches. The books Milo had described were piled high on a white fiberboard nightstand. The surface of a three-door dresser was bare. Two more beehive lamps.

She hadn’t indulged others or herself.

Flores pointed to the foot of the bed where a rumpled scrap of white paper rested. “It was underneath, I took a photo of it there, then slid it out.”

We kneeled, read. In neat script someone had written:

Dr. B. Shacker

Below that, a 310 number. A diagonal line slashed the name. At the bottom of the page, a single word in larger, darker caps: QUACK!!!

Flores said, “There’s dust and maybe crumbs down there but nothing weird.”

Milo copied down the information. “Thanks, Kenny, bag it.”

Back on the landing, he said, “Might as well talk to this doctor.” Half smiling. “Maybe he’s a surgeon.”

He 411’d, got a listing.

“Bernhard Shacker, Ph. D. North Bedford Drive, Beverly Hills. A colleague, Alex: That makes it a bit more interesting, no? Vita obviously had what you guys call issues, maybe she decided to get some help, tried out therapy, changed her mind. What’s that phrase you use about screwed-up folk resisting the most?”

“Baloney afraid of the slicer.”

“But she got sliced anyway. Maybe Shacker can educate us on her personality. Know him?”

I shook my head.

“Bedford Drive,” he said. “That’s high-ticket Couch Row, seems a little froufrou for someone who lived like Vita did.” Phoning Shacker’s number, he listened, frowned, clicked off.

“Recorded spiel,” he said. “I like your way better.”

I still use an answering service because talking to human beings is at the core of my job. “You didn’t leave a message.”

“Didn’t want to scare him off, in case he gets all pissy about confidentiality. Also I figured maybe talking to him is something you could do. One mind-prober to another.”

“While we’re at it, we can figure out transmigration of the soul.”

“Wouldn’t put it past you, amigo. So you’ll do it?”

I smiled.

He said, “Great, let’s check out that restaurant.”

He left his unmarked at the crime scene and we drove west to Robertson in my Seville. Bijou: A Dining Place was a brown-brick storefront set close enough to the 10 Freeway to harvest soot on its signage. The brick was grimy, too, but a picture window sparkled.

The morning special was blueberry pancakes. Posted hours said Breakfast and Lunch Only, Closed by Three p.m.

The restaurant’s interior said it was probably a venerable diner remodeled to look even older. From the freshness of the green vinyl seating and the laminate tabletops patterned to look like Formica, a recent upgrade. The kind of movie-star headshots you see in dry cleaners hung on the walls, along with black-and-white shots of pre-freeway L.A.

An old man reading The Wall Street Journal sat at the counter, nursing coffee and a sweet roll. Three of seven booths were occupied: Up in front, two young moms tried to chat while tending to bibbed, squirming toddlers in booster chairs. Behind them, a husky apple-faced man in his thirties ate steak and eggs while penciling a puzzle book. At the back, a brown-uniformed parcel driver small enough to be a jockey worked on a mountain of pancakes while grooving to his iPod. Both men looked up when we entered, returned to their recreation. The women were too busy with their kids to notice.

A waitress, young, blond, shapely, sleeve-tattooed, had the shift to herself. A short-order cook with an Incan face sweated behind the pass-through.

Milo waited until the waitress had refilled Wall Street’s coffee before approaching.

She said, “Sit anywhere you like, guys.”

Her badge chirped Hedy! Milo’s badge ruined her smile. The old man put his paper aside and eavesdropped.

Hedy said, “Let me get the owner.”

Milo said, “Do you know Vita Berlin?”

“She eats here.”

“Regularly?”

“Kind of,” she said. “Like two times a week?”

The old man said, “What’d that one do, now?”

Milo faced him. “She died.”

Hedy said, “Omigod!”

The old man, unperturbed, said, “How?”

“Unnaturally.”

“What does that mean? Suicide? Accident?” A bushy white eyebrow compressed to the shape of a croquet wicket. “Worse? Yeah, probably worse if the constabulary’s bothering to show up.”

Hedy said, “Oh, Sam.”

The old man regarded her with pity.

Milo turned to him. “You knew Vita.”

“Knew enough not to like her. What happened to her-she mouthed off to the wrong guy and he hauled off and bopped her one?”

Hedy said, “Omigod, Sam, this is terrible. Can I go get Ralph, Officers? He’s in back.”

Milo said, “Ralph’s the owner?”

The old man said, “Of this gourmet establishment.”

“Sure.”

Hedy rushed toward the Exit sign.

The old man said, “They’ve got a thing going. Her and Ralph.”

Milo said, “Sam?”

“Samuel Lipschitz, certified actuary,” said the old man. “Blessedly retired.” He wore a burnt-orange cardigan over a white shirt buttoned to the neck, gray hopsack slacks, argyle socks, cordovan lace-ups.

“What was it about Vita you didn’t like, Mr. Lipschitz?”

“So you’re verifying she was murdered.”

Raising his voice on the last word caused the young mothers to look over. The driver and the puzzle-solver didn’t react.

Milo said, “That wouldn’t surprise you.”

“Yes and no,” said Lipschitz. “Yes, because murder’s a low-frequency event. No, because, as I said, she had a provocative personality.”

“Who’d she provoke?”

“Anyone she felt like. She was an equal-opportunity harridan.”

“She was disruptive here?”

“She’d come swaggering in like a man, plop down in a booth, and start glaring, like she was just waiting for someone to do something that would give her the excuse to pull a snit. Everyone was wise to her so we ignored her. She’d sulk, order her food, eat, sulk some more, pay and leave.”

Lipschitz chuckled.

“So she really pushed someone too far, ay? How’d they do it? Where’d they do it?”

“I can’t get into that, sir.”

“Just tell me one thing: Was it around here? I don’t live in the neighborhood anymore, moved to Alhambra when I retired. But I come back to this place because I like the pastries, they get ’em from a Danish baker all the way out in Covina. So if there’s something I should worry about personal-security-wise, I’d appreciate your telling me. I’m seventy-four, would like to squeeze in a few more years.”

“From what we’ve seen, sir, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“That’s ambiguous to the point of being meaningless,” said Lipschitz.

“It wasn’t a street crime. It doesn’t appear connected to gangs or a robbery.”

“When did it happen?”

“Sometime last night.”

“I come here during the day I should be fine?”

“Mr. Lipschitz, is there anything else you can tell us about Vita?”

“Other than her being abrasive and antisocial? I did hear about something but I didn’t witness it firsthand. A confrontation, right here. Four, five days ago, I was in Palm Springs visiting my son. Missed my pastry and all the excitement.”