Jonathan Kellerman - Compulsion

“Maybe in his mind a daytime hit was safer because a night-prowl would’ve meant breaking into her house. Did she have an alarm system?”

“Dinky. Front and back doors, no windows.”

“For an old guy, climbing through windows could be a problem,” I said. “He figured that early on Sunday, most people are sleeping. We’re also talking a victim unlikely to put up serious resistance, and a silent weapon. He blitzed her so fast she never had time to scream. If Moskow hadn’t forgotten to take his Ambien last night, the whole thing might’ve gone unnoticed. Any other neighbors have information?”

He covered his ears with his hands, repeated the gesture with his eyes and mouth.

“Moskow come up clean?”

“Spotless.” He pushed his plate away. “Wiping the blade on his pants. What’s that all about?”

“Could be an expression of contempt,” I said.

“Those arterial wounds, no way he’d avoid leaving some trace in the car.”

“He cleans up the obvious, the Benz gets steamed by the company, he’s home free.”

“I’m definitely buying contempt,” he said. “Lotta rage, here. The question is what did a seventy-three-year-old retired schoolteacher do to incite that.”

“People have secrets.”

“Well, none of hers have turned up, so far. The house was neat, clean, real grandmotherly.”

He drew his plate closer, began bolting his food.

I said, “Hot rage but cool planning. Maybe he wasn’t quite so careful last time.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stain in the Bentley.”

“No body associated with the Bentley, Alex. I’m not ready to connect the two.”

I kept quiet.

“Yeah, yeah, there are parallels,” he said. “Now give me another homicide that ties it together and explain to me how such a careful guy could leave a stain in full view.”

“It was dark when he brought the Bentley back and he missed it. Or something made him nervous and he left quickly.”

“That’s weak, Doctor.”

“Another possibility is he left it there on purpose.”

“Another contempt message?”

“ Look what I got away with. Maybe the Bentley was a rehearsal for today.”

“A senior-citizen psychopath who likes to play games.” He drummed the table with his fork. “Or the Bentley has nothing to do with Ella.”

“Or that.”

“You don’t believe it.”

“Do you?”

He sighed. “I’ve got Records checking violent crime reports during the hours the Bentley was missing. Nothing so far.”

Spooning lentils into his mouth, he said, “Someone that old. Weird.”

“You know what they say. Seventy’s the new fifty.”

He reached for a lobster claw. “And up is down and low is high.”

I said, “If we are talking some kind of organized crime link, that could mean teamwork. One person steals the car, passes it along to the killer, and is available to help scrub it down afterward, maybe drive it back. Combine all that with the killer making sure to limit his contact to the front seats, and the time pressure would reduce.”

“Homicidal pit crew,” he said. Cracking the claw along the joint, he sat motionless, as if taking in the sound. “The goodfellas haven’t been a major factor since Mickey Cohen, but there are some loan sharks floating around the Valley and over in that arcade on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills.”

“Canon’s also close to the rental lot.”

“So it is.” He pulled a tube of meat from the claw, ate, repeated the process with another leg. “So what, our nice little retired schoolteacher has a dark past as a moll?”

“Or a hidden vice. Like gambling.”

“She managed to rack up a big enough debt on her pension to get sliced and diced? Make no sense, Alex. The last thing a shark wants to do is snuff the minnow and end any hope of getting paid.”

“Unless the shark has given up on collecting,” I said. “Or she wasn’t the gambler, someone else was, and they used her as an example.”

I described the unhappy exchange Moskow had witnessed between Ella and the blond man he assumed was her son.

“Arguing,” he said.

“Nothing causes conflict like money. Maybe Junior asked Mom for money and she turned him down.”

“What I don’t see is even a big-time shark butchering an old lady just to strike terror into her mope kid’s heart.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “But it is a new, cruel age.”

“Meaning?”

“Turn on the news at random.”

He dove back into his food.

I said, “Here’s another way to spin it: The blond man’s not her son, he’s the collector.”

Removing a blue plastic binder from his attaché, he handed it over. Inside was a prelim crime report form yet to be filled out, a few of what looked to be Ella Mancusi’s personal papers, and an envelope that held a three-by-five color photo.

In the snapshot, a tiny white-haired woman in a belted floral dress and high heels stood next to a flabby-looking fair-haired man in his forties. Behind them was mint-green stucco. Ella Mancusi had a bird-face and sparkling dark eyes. Her lips were rouged and her nails were polished. Smiling, but something was missing from the upturn of lip.

The blond man stood with his arms at his sides. Tight around the shoulders, as if posing for the picture had been an imposition.

I said, “Fits the guy Moskow described.”

“Read the back.”

I flipped the photo.

Anthony and me, my birthday. I baked a chocolate cake. The writing was elegant cursive. The date was December, two years ago.

“Devoted son lets her bake her own birthday cake,” I said.

I studied Ella Mancusi’s smile some more and realized what was missing. Maternal pride.

Milo said, “I’m figuring he’s an only child because the few photos in the house were all of him, mostly when he was a kid, all the way back to grade school. She held on to his birth certificate and twelve years of report cards. C minus student when he applied himself. There’s one Anthony Mancusi in the county and the only thing on his record is a DUI six years ago, pled down to misdemeanor. If he’s got a drinking problem, doesn’t look to be genetic. The only booze Ella had was a bottle of sherry, unopened, dust all over it.”

He rubbed his face. “She didn’t own much, Alex. All her important papers were in three cigar boxes near her bed. Eighteen years ago she retired from L.A. Unified. Her last job was teaching social studies at Louis Pasteur Junior High, they wrote her a nice letter. She was widowed way before that – when Anthony was a teenager. Husband was Anthony Senior, supervisor at a dairy in Santa Fe Springs, died on the job of a heart attack. The house has been paid off for eleven years, between her pension and Senior’s she did okay. Your basic upstanding, middle-class lady living out her days in a low-crime neighborhood. Why the hell would she end up this way?”

I took another look at the photo. “It’s his mother’s birthday but he wants to be anywhere else. Toss in Moskow’s account of the irate conversation and there’s some kind of issue here. Was there a will in the box?”

He thought. “No. Junior bumps her off to inherit?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“Sure, it has, but what kind of beast would have his mother carved like a holiday roast?” He motioned for the check. The smiling, bespectacled woman who always serves him hurried over and asked how the meal was.

“Everything was delicious,” he said, slipping her some bills. “Keep the change.”

“This is far too much, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I give you credit,” she said. “For next time.”

“Don’t bother.”