Jonathan Kellerman - Dr. Death

Gaining access to the pines wasn't very difficult. The same road that had swept us past the property with the broken mailbox continued its climb for another mile before forking. The right fork reversed direction, descending back down toward the coast, but never completing the journey as it dead-ended at a forest preserve named after a long-dead California settler. A state-printed sign said scenic views were up ahead, but no path was provided, the curious were proceeding at their own risk.

The party fanned out, weapons ready. An hour later, it reconvened roadside. No sign of the shooter. One of the deputies, an experienced backpacker who let us know he'd walked the John Muir Trail twice and could navigate without a compass, estimated where the shooter had stationed himself, thought he probably had the exact spot.

We followed him to the far end of the forest, where the outermost trees, granted the best light, grew tallest and thickest. Nice clear view of the ugly little cabin and adjoining acreage. Nice view of the ocean, too. As the cops talked, my eyes drifted toward blue. I spotted a steamer gliding across the horizon, dust specks in the sky that were probably gulls.

Waiting up here wouldn't have been that bad. How long had the shooter been waiting?

How had he figured it out? Coming across the same detail I had? His copy of the file-the original file. The case of Marissa Bonpaine.

He'd claimed to be flying up to Seattle. Just a few hours ago, I'd taken him at his word, figured he wanted to review the details of Marissa's murder, cross-reference with Michael Burke's med-school schedule, what he knew about Mate's murder. Discovery by hikers.

Had he flown back to L.A. to trail the "hiker," gotten here a wee bit faster than Milo and me?

Or had Seattle been a lie and he'd never left. Figuring it out by doing exactly what I'd done: harnessing the power of obsession. Then watching, stalking, waiting… He was a patient man, had persisted so many years, another few days wouldn't matter.

Kill-spot with a view.

Had he laid his rifle down lovingly on a rectangle of oilcloth while he ate a sandwich? Drank something from a thermos? Made sure the lens of the scope was clean?

His own little picnic. The irony…

The cops kept talking, convincing themselves they needn't search any further, no one else was going to get shot today. I turned away from the ocean, looked down at the cabin, now fronted by coroner's vans and squad cars, tried to see it as Leimert Fusco had seen it.

"Yeah, this has got to be it, the angle's perfect," said the Muir walker. "Look how it gets flat, and there's that rock he could prop his gear against. Maybe he left some trace evidence, let's get the techies up here."

The techies came. Milo told me later they found nothing, not even a tire track.

That didn't surprise me. I knew Fusco couldn't have parked too far from his vantage point and been able to make his escape that quickly. Driving to the left-hand fork and disappearing into hills laced with side roads, most of which ended in box canyons, a few feeding to the Valley, the freeway, alleged civilization.

He'd known which road to take because he was a planner, too.

The main risk had been leaving his car at the side of the road. But even if someone had seen it, recorded the license plate for some reason, no big deal. It would end up traced back to a rented vehicle, hired with false I.D.

So, sure, he'd parked close.

No way he could've hiked far carrying all that gear- the military rifle, the high-grade scope.

Not with that limp.

"Easy shot," said another deputy. "Like picking off quail. Wonder what this guy did that pissed someone off so bad."

"Who says he did anything?" said another cop. "Nowadays, it doesn't take anything to get some nut going."

Milo laughed.

The men in tan stared at him.

He said, "Long day, fellows."

"It ain't over yet," said Muir-man. "We've still got to find the dude."

Milo laughed again.

NOVEMBER is L.A. 's most beautiful month. Temperatures get considerate, the air acquires the squeaky, scrubbed flavor of a world without hydrocarbons, the light's as sweet and golden as a caramel apple. In November, you can forget that the Chumash Indians called the basin L.A. sits in the Valley of Smoke.

Late in November, I drove out to Lancaster.

A month and a half after the slaughter of Eldon Mate. Weeks after Milo had finished cataloging the contents of four cardboard cartons located in a Panorama City storage locker rented by Paul Ulrich under the name Dr. L. Pasteur.

A key found in Ulrich's bedroom nightstand led to the locker. Nothing very interesting was found in the house itself. Tanya Stratton vacated the premises within days of the shooting in Malibu.

The cartons were beautifully organized.

The first contained newspaper clippings, neatly folded, filed in chronological order, tagged with the names of victims. The details of Roger Sharveneau's suicide had been preserved meticulously. So had the death of a teenage girl named Victoria Leigh Fusco.

Number two held meticulously pressed clothing predominantly women's undergarments, but a few dresses, blouses and neckties, as well.

In the third box, Milo found over a hundred pieces of jewelry in plastic sandwich bags, most of it junk, a few vintage costume pieces. Some of the baubles could be traced back to dead people, others couldn't.

The fourth and largest carton held a styrofoam cooler. Layered within were parcels wrapped in butcher paper and preserved by dry ice. The attendant at the storage facility remembered Dr. Pasteur coming by every week or so. Nice man. Big mustache, one of those old-fashioned mustaches you see in silent movies. Pasteur had only spoken to offer pleasantries, talk about athletics, hiking, hunting. It had been a while since his last visit, and most of the dry ice had melted. The largest carton had started to reek. Milo left it up to the coroner to unwrap the packages.

In a corner of the storage locker were several rifles and handguns, each oiled and in perfect working order, boxes of bullets, one set of Japanese surgical tools, another made in the USA.

The papers presented it this way:

Victim in Police Shooting Believed Responsible for Eldon Mate's Murder

MALIBU. County Sheriff and Los Angeles Police sources report that a physician shot in a police-involved shooting in Malibu is the prime suspect in the murder of "death doctor" Eldon Mate.

Paul Nelson Ulrich, 40, was shot several times last week in circumstances that remain under investigation. Evidence recovered at the scene and in other locations, including surgical tools believed to be the murder weapons in the Mate case, indicate Ulrich acted alone.

No motive for the slaying of the man known as "Dr. Death" has been put forth by authorities yet, though the same sources indicate that Ulrich, a licensed physician in New York State under the name of Michael Ferris Burke, may have been mentally ill.

November found me thinking about how wrong I'd been on so many accounts. No doubt Rushton/Burke/Ulrich would've been amused by all my wrong guesses, but teaching me humility would've ranked low on his pleasure list.

I called Tanya Stratton once, got no answer, tried her sister. Kris Lamplear was more forthcoming. She didn't recognize my voice. No reason to, we'd exchanged only a few words when we'd met and she'd assumed I was a detective.

"How'd you know to call me, Doctor?"

"I consult to the police, was trying to follow up with Tanya. She hasn't called back. You're listed as next of kin."

"No, Tanya won't talk to you. Won't talk to anyone. She's pretty freaked out by all those things they're saying about Paul."

"She'd have to be," I said.

"It's-unbelievable. To be honest, I'm freaked, too. Been keeping it from my kids. They met him… I never liked him, but I never thought… Anyway, Tanya has a therapist. A social worker who helped her back when she was sick-last year. The main thing is she's still in remission. Just had a great checkup."