Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

Lem Dement's new fundamentalist leanings might be at odds with Westside sensibilities, but rich and famous trumped everything.

The puff piece was illustrated by a photo of the entire clan posed in front of a log-sided building. Dement looked relaxed, wearing his fishhook hat and a plaid shirt. Wife Gemma, a fair-haired stick-figure whose pretty-but-pinched features contrasted with Dement's ruddy, porcine mug, looked stiff and uncomfortable.

The two of them flanked the kids, standing as far from each other as possible.

The three youngest kids were towheaded, bronzed, and prepubescent, with that easy smile that came from being brought up soft.

Ambrose, Faustina, and Marguerite glowed with optimism.

Not so Mary Giles and Paul Miki, the skinny, sullen teenagers posed behind them.

At the back, scowling, were a pair of long-haired, bearded hulks in black T-shirts. Pug-pusses and barrel torsos shouted No paternity test required.

Japhet and Ahab Dement could've been twins. Moe would've cast them as evil twins-hillbilly pig-farming mutants lurching down from the hills in one of those family-gets-lost-in-the-hinterland splatter flicks.

Japhet waving a chain saw, Ahab swinging grappling hooks. You wouldn't even need to change their names.

Moe clicked for a long time before finding the picture of Ax that Aaron had described. Yup, Ahab “Ax” Dement, son of director Lem did appear to be horning in on Mason Book's body contact with a tall, starved blond beauty.

Another half an hour produced something that had eluded Aaron: Mason Book had been spotted by one of the free weeklies in a club named Ant during a gig by Ax's band, Demented. The actor's presence was deemed the most memorable aspect of a “drearily predictable, Prozac-inducing, thrilling-as-lettuce attempt to meld the least redeemable aspects of Metal and Emo.”

The date was three weeks prior to Caitlin's disappearance. Moe searched for info on the band. Nothing. Same for the club.

Logging onto the LAPD search engine, he entered his password, got okayed, asked DOJ, NCIC, and every other satellite of the Big Cop in the Sky what they knew about Ahab Dement.

DMV reported the guy's middle name-Petrarch-as well as a couple of speeding tickets and six parkers issued to a Dodge Ram pickup registered at a Solar Canyon address in Malibu.

If Ax was a felonious bad boy, he'd gotten away with it.

The letdown brought on a wave of fatigue. Moe checked on Liz again, saw scurrying motion beneath her eyelids, a faint smile on her lips. Dreaming away at warp speed. Maybe even about him.

Settling on the floor, he watched her for a while. Then, thinking about chain saws and grappling hooks, he covered her feet, dimmed the lights, let himself out.

Mr. Dmitri folded his reading glasses, slipped them into his shirt pocket along with Aaron's expense accounting. Taking a bite out of his kebab pita, he studied Aaron.

“Wish there was more to report, sir, but these things take time.”

“Russian trains take time, Mr. Fox. Sometimes they don't arrive.”

“This train will arrive.”

Dmitri sipped orange soda through a straw.

Aaron eyed his own lunch. Billed as a burger, looked like a burger, how could you go wrong? But the seasoning was weird, cumin or something, smelled like an old person's closet.

Dmitri's secretary had woken him at seven a.m., calling for a lunch appointment with the boss. Some place called Ivan's, Burbank Boulevard, North Hollywood.

Aaron put on a good suit for what he expected to be some Russian hangout, thick-necked guys in black leather jackets listening to balalaika music, feasting on blinis, caviar, whatever those types liked.

Ivan's turned out to be a take-out falafel joint with two outdoor benches for seating and now Aaron was looking out to a pigeonspecked parking lot as clunkers drove in and out. The air was hot and noxious, reeked like a snot-clogged nose.

The good old Valley. He wondered if Moe ever ate here. Nah, not healthy enough.

Dmitri said, “You think this actor could be involved.”

“It's worth pursuing.”

“Because there is nothing else.”

“The timing of the suicide attempt and the fact that the boyfriend now works for Book is suggestive.”

“Maybe the actor and maybe Dement's son. Maybe the son is a nasty bigot like his father.”

“Wouldn't surprise me,” said Aaron.

“But that is maybe not relevant, the girl was white.”

“At this point it's hard to say what's relevant and what isn't.”

Dmitri chomped, got hummus on his meaty chin, swiped himself clean. “Five hundred dollars for ‘special communications.’”

The bribe for that weasel O'Geara at the cell phone company. Two-year relationship and the lowlife ups his rate fifty percent.

The excuse: Mario Fortuno's bust had “kicked up the danger level.”

Aaron said, “I don't think you want to know the details.”

Dmitri was amused. “You are engaging in KGB tactics?”

Aaron laughed. Dmitri's pudgy forefinger nudged the waxed paper beneath Aaron's burger. “You don't like All-American food?”

“It's great.” Aaron bit down to demonstrate, earned himself a moldy-laundry tongue. “Sir, has Mr. Frostig talked to you since I started on the case?”

“No. Why?”

“For the time being, I'd keep him out of the loop-not give him any details.”

Dmitri's brow furrowed. “You suspect him of something?”

“No, sir, I just want to be careful-truth is, when I talked to him he seemed… almost ambivalent. Like he wasn't sure how he felt about reopening the investigation. In my experience, that's an unusual response.”

Dmitri tented his fingers. “Okay, we will keep him out of the loop.” Tiny smile. “Perhaps the loop will turn into a parabola. Or a hyperbola. Or a Fibonacci series.” Rising to his feet, Dmitri waddled to his Volvo, drove away fast.

Leaving Aaron to clean up.

Merry Ginzburg had told Aaron to meet her at a place on Hillhurst, near her office at the ABC studio on Prospect. He got there on time. Fifteen minutes later, she still hadn't shown.

The ambience at Food Tube made up for all the self-conscious I'm-so-hip vibe Ivan's had lacked. Lime-green walls inlaid with glass tiles listed at weird angles. The ceiling was crimson vinyl, the floor was chartreuse cement. Aaron felt trapped in the guts of some giant reptile.

Gaunt, black-clad servers huddled in a corner, trying to avoid three middle-aged women tackling food that looked as if it had been reclaimed from a compost heap. Aaron and the trio made up the lunch crowd.

No one had offered to seat him, so he picked a corner table, waited a good five minutes until a six-two redheaded girl deigned to come over. His mint tea order made her grimace.

“Something wrong?”

“I just hate all kinds of that stuff.”

“Tea,” he said.

“Yeah.”

He sat there for another seven before the mug of hot dishwater arrived. Not his day for cuisine. Boredom was cramping his head.

When out to pick up women, he played coy if they asked what he did for a living, then dropped the truth strategically. What he never let them know was how much of the job was phoning and schmoozing and waiting around.

He wanted to get out there and do something.

Maybe he'd call someone tonight, go out for a decent meal.

He was still trying to figure out who the lucky girl would be when Barret O'Geara phoned from a number Aaron didn't recognize.

“Prepaid, what do you think? I'm gonna leave a trail?”

“What did you learn?”

“That maybe Mason Book's got social problems.”

“What kind of problems?”