Jonathan Kellerman - Evidence

“Could you play the message again?”

When the tape ended, I said, “He knows this Monte well enough to use a name, has seen her with Monte but doesn’t know her well enough to use her name. Maybe I’ve been wrong, the two of them had no relationship and this’ll turn out to be one of those wrong-time, wrong-placers.”

“Bite your tongue, right now I’m going with Mr. Tipster being too freaked to give me everything he knows. Damn pay phone-guy was lucky to find one that works.”

“Where is it?”

“ Venice Boulevard near Centinela. Lots of apartments all around.”

I said, “He sounded elderly. The pre-cell generation.”

“Brigid’s been seen at Borodi by herself, maybe she had some connection to it-worked for one of the subs and she was the one who initiated the tryst with Backer. And maybe she knew Monte-or he knew her because your guess about a tradesman was right on. I’m going downtown, get a hands-on with all the permits for the job. Who knows, maybe it’ll be constructive.”

At two p.m., he showed up at my house, lugging his scarred vinyl attaché case. The customary kitchen scrounge produced last night’s chicken and mash, a bottle of ketchup, stalks of celery in need of Viagra. Everything ingested at warp speed while standing at the counter then chased with a carton of orange juice. When he offered Blanche a scrap she turned away.

“Picky?”

“She doesn’t want to deprive you.”

“Empathic.”

“She takes the psych boards this year. I’m predicting a pass.”

Stooping to pet, he sat at the table, unlatched the case. “The general contractor was an outfit named Beaudry, out in La Canada, they specialize in big projects, got a website full of ’em. Not including Borodi.”

“Another confidentiality agreement?”

“I pressed a V.P., couldn’t pry a damn thing out, including any subs. And no knowledge of anyone named Monte. As if he’d tell me different.”

The attaché case rattled, twitching atop the table like a frog in a nasty experiment.

He pulled out his cell phone. “Sturgis… you’re kidding… on my way.” Standing and brushing bits of chicken from his shirt. “Bit of conflict at the dream palace.”

Scraps of yellow tape blew in the breeze. Two uniformed patrolmen held Doyle Bryczinski by his skinny arms. Thirty feet up, another pair of cops restrained a well-dressed, white-haired man, who wasn’t going down easy. Shouting, one foot stomping; the uniforms looked bored.

Bryczinski said, “Hey, Lieutenant. Could you tell them this is my turf?”

Milo addressed a female officer tagged Briskman . “What’s up?”

“This one and that one took issue with each other’s presence. Loud issue, a neighbor phoned 911. We got it as a 415, possible assault. When we arrived, they were just about ready to tussle.”

“No way I tussle,” said Bryczinski. “Why would I tussle? He’s an old fart , this is my turf .”

Milo placed a finger near Bryczinski’s lips. “Hold on, Doyle.”

“Can they at least let go of me? My arms hurt and I need to get off the leg.”

Milo glanced past Bryczinski, at something big and green-handled, lying just outside the fence. “Bolt cutters, Doyle?”

“Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“An emergency.”

“I put that chain there, Doyle.”

“I wasn’t going to cut nothing. It was just in case I had to go in.”

“For what?”

“What I said, an emergency.”

“Such as?”

“I dunno, another crime? A fire?”

“Why would there be another crime or a fire, Doyle?”

“There wouldn’t, I’m just saying.”

“Saying what?”

“I like to be prepared.”

“If I search your car, Doyle, am I going to find anything criminally useful-or flammable?”

“No way.”

“Do I have permission to search your car?”

Hesitation.

“Doyle?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Let go of him, guys, so he can give me his car key.”

Milo rummaged in the Taurus, came back. “Nothing iffy, Doyle, but I’m gonna have these officers bring you to my office so we can chat some more.”

“I didn’t do nothing , Lieutenant. I can’t leave, I’m on the job-”

“The job’s temporarily suspended, Doyle.”

“What about my car? I leave it there, I’ll get a ticket.”

“I’ll put a sticker on the windshield.”

Bryczinski’s eyes watered. “If I don’t work, company’ll can my ass.”

“We’ll talk at the station, Doyle, everything works out, you’re back here today. But don’t mess with neighbors.”

“He ain’t a neighbor, he’s a maniac. Claims he owns the place and tried to hit me upside the head when I told him to buzz off.”

“Charles Ellston Rutger.”

The man cleared his throat for the third time, smoothed back thin white hair, cast a derisive look.

His houndstooth sport coat was high-grade cashmere with working leather buttons, suede elbow patches, and a cut that said tailor-made, but the lapels were several decades too wide. Knife-pressed cream slacks broke perfectly over spit-shined oxblood loafers. His shirt was once-blue pinpoint oxford faded to lavender-gray and frayed along the rim of the collar. A gold gizmo shaped like a safety pin held the collar in place, elevating the Windsor knot of a pine-green foulard patterned with bugles and foxhounds. More fabric erosion fuzzed the tie. Same for a canary-yellow pocket square.

Charles Rutger’s driver’s license made him sixty-six. Skin as cracked and dry and blotched as the seats of a convertible left open to the elements would have made me guess older. He’d lied about his height and weight, adding an inch or two, subtracting the fifteen pounds that strained the buttons of the sport coat. The white hair, slicked back, waxy and furrowed by comb marks, was topped by a yellowish sheen. Heavy eyelids were specked with tiny wens.

South Pasadena address, not the fashionable part of that city, an apartment unit. The single vehicle registered in his name was a fifteen-year-old maroon Lincoln Town Car. The very same sedan parked haphazardly near the fence.

“Bit of a drive from South Pasadena, Mr. Rutger.”

“This is my homestead, I can get here in my sleep.” Plummy voice, vaguely mid-Atlantic, explicitly disapproving.

“You say you own this property?”

“Idon’t say it, basic decency says it. When I heard about what happened, I rushed right over.”

“How’d you find out?”

“The news. Of course.” Charles Ellston Rutger tugged his lapels straight.

“The registered owner is a company named DSD.”

“Towelheads,” said Rutger. “And I won’t shrink from saying so. They bomb us and then we kowtow? Utter rubbish.”

“Arabs,” said Milo.

“Who else? Oil money, otherwise known as blood money, came into play, oh did it! In my day, they’d have been told what for .”

“Not allowed to buy property?”

“Covenants we called them, and a good thing they were.” Turning back toward the framework. “Monstrosity . This was a lovely neighborhood, put Beverly Hills and those people to shame.”

“Those people being…”

“ Beverly Hills people. Hollywood. Now it’s them with their oil.”

“Can you give us names of people associated with DS-”

“I can’t give you something I never knew,” said Rutger. “The entire transaction was manipulated by slick Jew lawyers. You’d think they’d avoid each other like the plague. Jews and towelheads. But when it comes to money, there’s common ground.”

“Sir,” said Milo, “we’re investigating a murder, so if there’s something you can-”