Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

Petra said, “Sure, but from what you saw last night, Ax Dement doesn't go high-end.”

Biro said, “Maybe he's into variety. Male psychology, it's all about novelty.”

Petra laughed. “As opposed to women who crave the same darn thing over and over?” She turned to Moe. “You're looking at Dement because he hangs around with Mason Book. And you're looking at Book because he's Caitlin's boyfriend's boss?”

Moe said, “And because Book's suicide attempt came only a week after Caitlin disappeared.”

Biro said, “Crushing guilt in an addict movie star? Anything's possible, but those types self-destruct all the time. Just because they're stupid.”

Metal in his voice.

Petra grinned. “My partner loves actors.”

“What I love,” said Biro, “is when I tell people I work Hollywood and they get after me for autographs.”

“‘People,’ as in cute girls,” said Petra. “That's a problem, huh, pard?”

“The problem is, I got nothing to show 'em. Working in Hollywood doesn't mean you get Hollywood. It's Westside has all the fun.”

Moe said, “Robert Blake was the Valley.”

Biro ticked his fingers. “O.J., Hugh Grant, Heidi Fleiss, Mario Fortuno, Paris and Mischa and Lindsay and every other celebutard who DUIs for fun and profit.”

Moe said, “Hey, a lot of that was the Strip, complain to the sheriffs. Phil Spector was out in Al ta-freaking-dena.”

Petra mimed a pistol aim. “Blam. Talk about wall of sound.”

All three detectives laughed. Better than thinking about whodunits with no serious leads.

Moe shut the murder book. “Thanks for your time, guys. For lack of anything else, I'm going to try to find out how a mope like Wohr connected with a trust-fund baby like Ax. Then maybe we can backtrack to Book and/or Stoltz, then to Caitlin. And Adella.”

Biro said, “Maybe Ax gambles his daddy's money away, including at the poker palace.”

Moe said, “Or he's into buying sex and loves to slum.”

“Or Ax and Wohr hooked up at a post-Oscars party.”

Weaker laughter; no one's heart was in it.

Petra said, “If you can wait around, we'll copy the whole book for you.”

“That would be great.”

Biro said, “You busy on the Westside?”

“Not too.”

“It was like that last year for us. Months without a single murder, the Times wrote about it, hexed us. We started this year with that decapitation that linked to a serial case of Sturgis's. One week after that, two gang things go down, and they're still wide open.”

Petra said, “Four kids gunned down in front of a party and no one saw a thing. We've got a pretty good idea who's behind it. Son of an allegedly reformed banger who scored a big city grant to keep guns out of the hands of people just like him and his offspring.”

Moe said, “Meaning pretend to work it hard but don't do squat without the mayor's okay.”

“Listen to him,” said Biro. “So young, yet so cynical.”

One of Sturgis's favorite lines. Moe's appreciation for the Loo's influence climbed a notch.

He said, “I'll go with you to the copy machine.”

On the way over, Petra said, “Who's your partner on this?”

“No one.”

Aaron sat in the Opel, within eyeshot of Swallowsong Lane, listened to music on his iPod and fought the erosion of confidence.

Billing Mr. Dmitri for hours of surveillance was okay up to a point. He had to produce.

Moses being involved didn't help. Hand his brother a simple case, Aaron had no doubt Moe could close it. But a deep-freeze whodunit?

Maybe he was being too hard on bro, letting a lifetime of… relationship get in the way.

Blood ties be damned, he and Moses had turned into strangers.

Had they ever been anything else?

Complicated… well, they could always blame Mom.

One of a kind; thinking about her made him smile.

She never stopped smiling.

Except when she did.

Bagpipes and tears, so many men in blue, some of them are also crying.

Mom in black, veiled.

Big blue shapes looming over his four-year-old self, talking about Dad.

Off to one side, Jack sits there, crying harder than anyone.

All of a sudden, he's living in the house.

It had seemed like the very next damned day. Years later, when Aaron had acquired snoop skills, he went looking for the marriage certificate, found it easily enough in the County Archives.

Mom and Jack had tied the knot three months after the funeral. Civil ceremony, probably one of those deals where couples waited in line to get their ninety seconds of semi-attention from a half-asleep judge.

Despite that, he'd never think of it as anything but the next damned day. That was the point. A four-year-old needed to construct his own reality and hell if he hadn't coped. Never opening a fresh mouth to Jack, even when Jack nodded off in the middle of a chess game or Monopoly or watching TV.

Never ratting Jack out when he picked Aaron up from school, stinking of booze.

Poor little Aaron had a new daddy, everything was going to be just fine. Meanwhile, poor little Aaron's waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty and shivering, seeing his real daddy's smiling face. Getting tossed up in the air by his real daddy, tossing the football, man this feels so good, feels so damned damned good.

Then: Real daddy lying in a pool of rich, deep blood.

Smiling up at Aaron, despite the blood and the pain. Mouthing Good-bye, little man.

Aaron lived with the dream for years, never told anyone about it because that would be chickenshit.

New daddy.

New baby.

Pink and freckled as Jack, unable to do nothing but squall and crap and suck on Mom's…

As Aaron grew older, he craved details about Dad. Mom had no problem pulling out the photo albums, talking about the love they shared, what a wonderful man, a handsome man, a smart man. Jack, sitting off by himself, watching the tube, able to hear but it didn't even bother him. What kind of man was that?

When Aaron was seven, he built up his courage, got Jack alone, asked Jack what had happened.

Jack avoided looking at him. “That's just a real sad story, son.”

I'm not your son!

Jack reached for his glass of vodka. Or scotch. Or whatever was on sale at the liquor store.

Aaron walked away and Jack didn't follow. That decided it for Aaron.

He's a coward. Maybe that helped kill Dad.

Freeze him out.

Jack dealt with Aaron's rejection by being super-permissive, sometimes indulging Aaron behind Mom's back. That only decreased Aaron's respect for the intruder who slept with his mother.

No spine. The way he'd corroded his own liver was proof positive of that.

When Aaron was thirteen, Jack went out with no style.

Falling off a damned stool. No bagpipes.

Mom crying, but in a different way.

When Aaron had a year of patrol under his belt, he went looking for the original case file, finally found it at Parker Center, stashed like any other hopeless unsolved on a dusty metal rack.

Waiting until the records clerk left, he pounced, dry-mouthed, wet-eyed, heart churning like a drill-bit.

What he found was two pages of poorly punctuated cop-prose describing the basics of Patrolman Darius Fox's untimely demise, and an unsigned paragraph at the end blaming Dad and Jack for being careless.

Sitting on the cold, concrete floor of the records vault, crying silently and hoping to God no one walked in, Aaron pored over the arid memorial. Went over it again. Again.

The anonymous author of the blame-conclusion suggested that August 9, 1979, be used as a teaching tool but the case had never come up during Aaron's training.