Jonathan Kellerman - True Detectives

Guilt and atonement. That crazy woman…

Aaron stopped, listened. Just the traffic buzz, a little louder now.

No parties tonight.

Not the type anyone enjoyed.

He completed another forty yards before the drive finally straightened and the cypresses ended and he was facing a wide, unadorned circular driveway of the same ugly concrete.

No vehicles in sight.

Nothing remotely Tuscan.

Nothing remotely Golden Age.

The house was one-story, free-form, a long, low knife fashioned of iron girders and glass.

Glass-on-glass, no apparent seams. Wedge-like-a spaceship, perched on the edge of a cliff, pointy snout extending well over the precipice.

Prepared to launch.

Below oblique steel struts fastening the structure to the cliff, miles of light. Free fall into oblivion. Staring at it made Aaron feel dizzy and he looked away to clear his head.

Not a trace of green anywhere around the house. A cold, deliberate structure.

Nowhere to hide once he set out across the motor court.

All that glass. Lights on in room after transparent room.

White, wide rooms, the kind of low, black leather furniture Aaron liked.

So cold; maybe it was time to reconsider his décor.

Empty.

Then it wasn't.

♦

Mason Book, wearing a too-large black robe, face gaunt, yellow hair wild, appeared around a white wall and walked-more like hobbled- toward the front of the house-right into the wedge that hovered above empty space.

The actor stood there, staring straight ahead.

Protected by darkness, Aaron jogged forward, positioned himself ten feet from the house, with a side view of the knife-point.

He peered under the building. Just enough backyard for a bright blue infinity pool.

Still no dogs, no alarms and all those interior lights put Mason Book on full display-like one of those performance art pieces.

Book had no clue someone could be watching. Let's hear it for false confidence. Too many years being buffered from reality.

He stumbled, barely caught his balance. His robe fell open.

Lousy skinny body. The actor sat down with apparent pain. Continued staring out at what had to be black, blank space.

Like a kid ready for takeoff.

Aaron edged closer.

Sad kid, weeping.

Moe was driving home, talking to Liz on his cell, when Call Interruption beeped. He said, “Can you hold for a sec, honey?”

Liz laughed. “Something tells me you won't be dropping by after all.”

If it's a lead, from your mouth to God's ears. He said, “Nah, it's probably something stupid.” It wasn't.

Raymond “Ramone W” Wohr sat in yellow psych-ward pajamas in one of the therapy rooms used by the jail shrinks.

A little nicer than the usual County interview space, but not by much.

Moe and Petra gave Wohr the upholstered chair they'd jammed in a corner, pulled up the pair of plastic seats, and faced their quarry.

Wohr was one of those long-legged types who shrank when seated. A rash had broken out on his bald head. The side fringes hung greasy and limp. In less than a day, jail pallor had set in. Moe wondered if it was some sort of fear reaction, not absence of sunlight.

Or the overhead fluorescence wasn't being kind to Ramone's seamed, sagging, bleary-eyed, gap-toothed, addict face. The huge mustache was ragged, more gray than brown. His hands shook. A gray-blue tat ran up his neck. Crude blue band fashioned of circles and squares and X's. Like a tie gone awry.

It was just after one a.m. and Petra's tenth call of the evening had finally annoyed the sheriff's jailers sufficiently for them to really dig through their paperwork.

Ramone had been booked nearly twenty-four hours ago, shoved right into the general population. News of his pedo bust had arrived before him and though Wohr's cellmates were nonviolent types, a flurry of less-than-veiled threats from a couple of hypermuscular gangbangers in the adjoining cell had caused Wohr to whine, bitch, and moan. Finally the mope had attracted the attention of a jailer who really didn't want to have to deal with another in-house death-stomp.

The problem was where to put Wohr. High Power and the psych ward were full up and the felony charge didn't qualify him for trustee status. Finally, he was stashed in temporary quarters: a tiny reading room in a far corner of the jail's inmate library, where he was tossed a blanket and told to go to sleep.

The space was vacant because furniture could be used as weaponry. Jailers doing pass-bys woke him up every few hours with flashlight glare and foot nudges. Your basic solitary confinement and Ramone W was an empty-eyed wraith by the time a psych bed emptied after an agitated bipolar rapist stroked out.

The transfer had taken place twelve hours ago, but the paperwork lagged.

“Anyway, we've got him,” Petra told Moe. “Meanwhile, I've got Vice guys looking for Delishus. Where are you?”

“Turning right around and heading for the freeway.” After hours of futile traces on bar pay phones, he ached for sleep. “I can be there in twenty.”

“I'll meet you in front.” A beat. “This is your baby, I'm just there for backup.”

He couldn't figure out if she'd said that out of good manners, or relief.

Raymond Wohr said, “I still don't get why I got busted.” Not even convincing himself.

Moe said, “No one told you the charges?”

“Yeah, but…”

“You molested a minor, Ramone.”

Wohr didn't answer.

“Pedo is serious stuff, Ramone.”

Wohr scratched an eyelid.

“You made our job easy,” said Moe. “Put on quite a show for Officer Kennedy.”

“Aw, man.” As if he was the aggrieved party.

Moe said, “Aw, man, what?”

“She said she was twenty.”

“Who did?”

“Deli-whatever she calls herself.”

“Too bad she looks ten.”

“Not to me,” said Wohr. “It's a case of… how you see things.”

“You wear glasses, Ramone?”

“Huh?”

Moe repeated the question.

“No.”

“To you she looked twenty. To everyone else, she looks ten. She's a minor and you got caught with your dick in her mouth.”

Wohr's scratching hand lowered to the crook of his arm. Old tracks, but no fresh punctures. Along with the bag of weed, granules of what was sure to be cocaine had been scraped from a pocket of his jeans. Along with a pay-as-you-go cell Petra had already submitted for analysis.

Moe smiled at Wohr. Wohr sat there. Not a trace of emotion and so far the mope hadn't even come close to asking for a lawyer. That could be a problem with these idiots: not enough anxiety.

Moe put forth a lie: “Delishus informs us the two of you have a long-standing relationship. Real long-standing, and that you know darn well how old she is.”

Liking the sound of his treachery. Instinct.

Wohr said, “Aw, man-sir. I didn't mean nothing crazy. Just tryin’ to get off.”

“Basic human need.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“We understand human need, Ramone. Unfortunately, the system doesn't. Courts are coming down real hard on child molesters. I mean, we're talking some serious time.”

“I din't molest no one. She got paid.”

“Your basic business transaction.”

“Exactly.”

“How many other look-like-twentys you generally do business with?”

Silence.

“Maybe you don't go that far with all of them,” said Moe. “Maybe sometimes you're happy just looking at 'em.”

One of Wohr's droopy eyelids twitched. He stopped scratching, placed his palms on his lap.

“I guess that could be thought of as good manners, Ramone. Just peeping through windows, handling your own business, no one gets hurt.”