Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

A guy who called his office space Work Land; some people never got real.

Moe walked past the Florentine fountain, murky and leaf-strewn as usual, dribbling happily under a gently setting sun. That, Mom hadn't painted, maybe in deference to Dr. Stan Guistone's memory.

Stan had lived in the house on North Corsair for four decades before marrying Mom and until he'd died, she'd changed nothing, including the photos of his deceased first wife set up like icons on an altar table in the cavernous entry hall.

During her years with Stan, Mom had Windexed Miriam Guistone's portraits religiously, pooh-poohed his offer to redecorate, held on to every stick of Miriam's clumsy Victorian Revival furniture.

She'd put up with the original gray-beige exterior that even Stan thought was dreary.

Dr. Stan was a good man. He deserved that level of consideration.

One week after he was laid into emerald-green Forest Lawn turf, the painters showed up at the house, as did the trucks from Goodwill. Bye-bye Agatha Christie, hello Georgia O'Keeffe: delivery vans bearing rooms full of the blocky, serape-draped “Southwest Revival motif” Mom had come to love during her yearly “centering” trips to Santa Fe.

Moe crossed the courtyard to the house. The front door opened and Mom trotted out in ballet slippers.

Her painting smock was a rainbow riot. Paint-pollocked turquoise leggings.

Still channeling Georgia with carefully tinted and highlighted chrome-white hair worn waist-length and French-braided, makeup calculated to look invisible, chunky silver and turquoise glinting from fingers, wrists, neck, ears.

Wind-seamed and thirty soft pounds heavier than her prime, Maddy looked ten years younger than her sixty-three. Or so she said everyone said.

Her own mother had been hale at ninety-one when she'd died in a car crash.

Genetics and lifestyle. One out of two isn't bad, boys.

She ran up to Moe, threw her arms around his waist, and hugged him hard. Stood back and touched his face, as if appraising a sculpture.

“You look great, Mosey. Vital and fit and purposeful. Despite the stress.”

Moe kissed her cheek. “You can tell all that in two seconds.”

“A mother knows.” Taking his hand, she guided him through the manse's big, vaulted rooms, into the kitchen that looked out over sycamore-studded canyons and the roofs of those less fortunate in the real estate game. Moe noticed another redo since his last visit: some of the cabinetry had been painted turquoise and drawers bore cutouts of eagle heads.

“Like it, Mosey?”

“Very appropriate.”

“Use it or lose it,” said Maddy. “I'm referring to creativity and change-shaking up the vitals. Coffee, tea, Postum, vodka, or Red Bull?”

“You've got Red Bull?”

“No, but I can have Pink Dot deliver.” She laughed. “You still take me seriously, God bless you. So what'll it be?”

“How about some water?”

“Ice or room, bubbly or flat?”

“Ice flat is fine.”

“My health-conscious baby… here you go, a nice chilled bottle of Evian. Which is naïve spelled backward, in case you haven't noticed.”

Moe sat and drank. Maddy lingered near the eight-burner Wolf range where a single pot simmered. “What are you working on art-wise, Mom?”

“Coloring within the lines.” She lifted the lid, peered inside. “Rabbinic cuisine is nearly ready.”

“Still on the kosher kick, huh?” said Moe. “Ready to convert?”

“If the sausages are an indicator, maybe I should look into it.” She straightened her braid, peered out the kitchen window at her palm garden, offering a profile to Moe. He saw new wrinkles, loosening around the jaw.

Time did its thing, no matter what.

She said, “No, darling, as you well know, nothing organized is for me, including religion. I've decided the most tactful approach is to embrace everyone's deity but not too seriously-think of it as constructive idolatry.”

“Last time you called it theologic diversity.”

“That, too, Mosey.” She sniffed the pot. “Ah, the sausages. Talk about something to pray for.”

Maddy, ever at war with conventional wisdom, lost no time telling anyone who listened how deeply she adored L.A. (“Time to stick it to all those pasty-faced New Yorkers who bash us for a hobby”) As if proving her point, she'd set out, last year, to visit every ethnic enclave in the county, sampling food, dry goods, religious gewgaws, DVDs and CDs. Over a twenty-month period, she worked her way through Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, Little India, the Cuban enclave on Venice Boulevard in Culver City, Armenian outposts in East Hollywood and Glen-dale, the heart of the Orthodox Jewish community in Pico-Robertson. It was on Pico that queues of people trailing to the sidewalk led her to the kosher sausage place. Spontaneous discussion with a yeshiva student waiting for a veal brat comprised her Semitic education.

“Boys, did you know that kosher basically means legit? Not only does the animal need to be killed quickly-we're long past the vegan thing, right?-but a qualified rabbi needs to inspect the lungs. Which in these days of global warming and smutty air seems pretty darn appropriate to me.”

The religiously sanctioned wursts quickly became “those sausages you and your brother like so much, Mosey.” Even though Maddy generally devoured three at a sitting and neither brother had ever expressed an opinion, one way or the other. The sausages were tasty enough, but at this point in Moe's life, food wasn't important.

He got up, peered into the pot. A dozen links simmered.

“Planning a banquet?”

Maddy blinked. “Just in case you're hungry. You do look a bit thin. Are you eating right, darling?”

“I've actually gained a couple of pounds and I'm fine.”

“All muscle, I'm sure. What's your approach? Three squares, or fast all day and feast at night-like the Muslims do on Ramadan.”

“There's no pattern, Mom. I try to be moderate.”

Maddy beamed up at him. “My gorgeous husky little one. So. Tell me about your life.”

“Not much to tell. I'm working.”

“Like a demon, I'm sure.”

“Just doing the job, Mom.”

“Mosey,” she said. “You'd never be satisfied with just doing anything. From first grade on, you were a little waterwheel, churning away. I've never told you about the time your preschool teacher called me in… that church school, the one I sent you to because they gave scholarships, what was the teacher's name… Mrs… whatever. Anyway, the class had just learned about the Israelites slaving away in Egypt and Mrs… whatever, thought you looked confused so she talked to you afterward and asked you if you were okay and you gave her the gravest look and said, ‘ I could be a good slave. I like to work hard.’”

Maddy touched his cheek again. “So adorably earnest. Mrs… Southwick, that's it… Helen Southwick was concerned that you were ‘overly mature.’ Whatever the heck that means.”

Moe had heard the story a hundred times, minimum. He smiled.

Maddy said, “Tell me about your life.”

♦

They sat at the table where Moe finished his Evian and Maddy sipped from an oversized mug of Postum gooped with honey.

“Everything's really routine, Mom.”

“What cases are you working on?”

“Nothing special.”

“Hush-hush confidential?” said Maddy. “Even for close blood relatives?”

“Naw, just nothing special.”

“Oh, well, I suppose it all boils down to one person killing another. Do you think you'll stick with Homicide?”

“Why wouldn't I?”

“People change, darling. People yearn for change.”

“I'm fine.”

Several moments passed. Maddy looked at her watch. Generally, time meant nothing to her.