Jonathan Kellerman - Compulsion

“Last time he summoned me. Seems he read that paper you published last spring, agrees that most profiling is bullshit.”

“The chief reads psych journals?”

“The chief has a master’s in psych. He suggested you should be on the payroll. I told him the department wasn’t economically competitive.”

He quoted the pay scale.

I said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Always looking out for your interests. Say hi to Coach Good. Maybe you can get tips on passing and rushing.”

“I played baseball in high school.”

“What position?”

“Utility outfielder,” I said. “Wherever they needed me.”

Wilson Good’s house was one of five crisp one-stories edging a dead-end street above the Hollywood Bowl’s cheap seats. What brokers call “midcentury architectural,” as if the fifties is a leper decade.

Close enough to the amphitheater to hear music on warm summer nights. The rest of the view was trees and brush and ozone-depleted sky.

Good’s house was peach stucco where it wasn’t redwood siding. The gray Explorer and a green VW Passat sat on a pebble-grain slab behind a full-width electric mesh gate.

I pushed the button on the call box, listened to the doorbell chime the first few notes of Pachelbel’s Canon. A mockingbird hopped from a bottlebrush tree onto a honeysuckle hedge. Off in the distance, ravens played politics. And always, the auto hum; the freeway was the real L.A. philharmonic.

Before setting out I’d found a picture of Wilson Good on the Web. Victory party after a title game. Thick-necked, good-looking man with sad eyes that seemed at odds with the celebration.

Maybe a sensitive guy. Maybe he wouldn’t mind my waking him from a sickbed.

I rang again, was contemplating a third attempt when a woman came walking up Broadmoor trailing something tiny and brown. The animal tugged and leaped and strained a spaghetti-strap leash. The woman trotted to catch up.

I guessed Chihuahua and I was wrong; this was the smallest dachshund I’d ever seen, surging and charging, head-down, like a bratwurst on a mission.

The woman was brown-haired and freckled, wore a green top the same color as the Passat, skinny black pants, black shoes. Thirties, five five, with long legs and commodious hips.

The dog surged to the end of a long leash. Developed an instant lust for my left shoe.

The woman said, “Stop, Indy,” without much conviction, got her wrist yanked, fought to hold her ground.

I said, “Indy as in the big race?”

“His engine never turns off.” She scooped the dog into her arms, wrestled with the squirming bundle. When Indy finally calmed, the woman looked at Wilson Good’s house. Moss-green eyes. Soft color, hard appraisal.

She said, “Anything I can help you with?”

I brought out my LAPD consultant’s badge. Long expired and pretty dinky, but few people bother to check. The freckled woman remained too far back to read the details, though Indy was itching for a try.

“I’m looking for Mr. Good.”

“I’m Andrea. His wife.” As if she wasn’t sure. “What do you need with Will?”

“Fifteen years ago he had a friend named Antoine Beverly who-”

“Of course. Antoine.” Indy began making gremlin noises, renewed his battle against confinement. Andrea Good gave up and lowered him to the ground. “Will and Antoine were friends since preschool. What happened to Antoine is the saddest thing Will’s ever experienced. But he doesn’t know anything that would help the police.”

“You’re sure of that.”

“Of course I am. Have the police finally learned something?”

“The case has just been reopened. Could you ask your husband if he can spare me a few minutes?”

“The police send psychologists out on old cases?”

“On specific cases. If I-”

“I’m sure Will would love to help,” she said, “but it’s not a good time. He’s got a nasty flu and a couple of big games coming up. Leave me your number.”

“The detective on the case has already called-”

“Has he? I’ll have to check the machine. Will’s been pretty out of it. High fever, not like him at all, but there’s stuff going around the school.”

Choking protest from below caught our attention.

Indy reared on his hind legs, forelegs pumping air, eyes bulging.

Semi-suspended, with the leash pulling up on his throat. Andrea Good’s hand had drawn up on the cord.

She said, “Oh, no!” and relaxed her grip. Indy dropped down, panting. She kneeled. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

Indy gave out one last yelp of protest and kissed her face.

Unconditional faith and love; maybe one day the Vatican will start canonizing canines.

“Anyway,” said Andrea Good, rising to her feet.

I said, “We’d appreciate hearing from your husband. Hope he heals up quickly.”

“Oh, he will. He’s a tough guy.”

Ella Mancusi’s murder didn’t make the six o’clock news but it was the final segment at eleven p.m., complete with pompous baritone narration and close-ups of a blood-soaked knife blade taken from stock footage.

The toll-free tip line flashed for a second, but that was enough. When I called Milo ’s office the next morning, I got a brand-new message.

“This is Lieutenant Sturgis. If you’re calling about the Mancusi homicide, please leave your name and phone number. Talk slowly and clearly. Thank you.”

I phoned Wilson Good, hoping a chat with his wife, bed rest, and civic duty might have loosened his tongue. No one answered.

Blanche was up for a walk and bounced along happily as we headed down the glen. Squirrels, birds, and cars amused her. Trees amused her. Rocks were hilarious.

A sinewy woman jogger paused to pet her. “That’s the prettiest dog I’ve ever seen.”

Blanche agreed.

At one p.m., Robin and I drove to Sherman Oaks and ate spaghetti at Antonio’s. Afterward, I asked if she could spare some time and we headed over to Katrina Shonsky’s address in Van Nuys.

Big-box complex on a treeless block. The air smelled of construction dust though no projects were in sight. All the charm of a heat rash.

Robin said, “I can see why she’d want to get away from this. Not that living in thirty rooms on twenty acres helps, if you’re lonely.”

“Thinking of someone in particular?”

She nodded. “He’s coming to town on business in a week or so. In between appointments, he intends to drop by to ‘visit my commission.’ It’s not that big of a deal but if you could be there, I wouldn’t mind.”

“He was inappropriate?”

“No, but when he talks to me he sounds so needy. Like he wants to get close – know what I mean?”

“An agenda behind the commission.”

“Maybe it’s silly,” she said.

“Conceited girl.”

She smiled. “So you’ll be there?”

She returned to her studio and I thought awhile about Ella Mancusi and Kat Shonsky. Could see no solid link beyond big black stolen cars.

I played with search engines, pairing variants of homicide and luxury car. When that came up empty, I substituted murder. Still, zero.

I began combining murder with specific automobile marques, went through Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, and BMW, with no luck.

Lamborghini and Cadillac pulled up a pair of shootings, one in L.A., the other in New York. Two gangsta rappers gunned down leaving late-night recording sessions, one alone in his Murciélago, the other caravanning with an entourage in a tricked-out Escalade. Officially, both cases were unsolved. But everyone in the hip-hop world knew whodunit.

Bentley and Aston Martin came up empty. Mercedes elicited nothing about Ella Mancusi, probably because of the lack of media coverage – and that made me question the value of the search. Benz produced photos of Hitler in both of his massive 770Ks and a rant from a Qatar-based blogger who believed Der Fuhrer had been a misunderstood “cool guy everyone thinks is a murder.”