Jonathan Kellerman - Evidence

“We care.”

Kaplan massaged a pearl shirt button, fought to still his hands. “Know how old I am?”

“You look good, sir.”

“Take a guess, Officer-’scuse me, Detective. You’re a detective, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s your guess? Don’t worry, I won’t be insulted.”

“Normally, I’d say seventies, Mr. Kaplan, but if you worked at the Ambassador for forty-eight years and it closed around-”

“It closed in 1989. Place gave sixty-eight years of service and they let it go stone-cold. Architectural masterpiece, designed by Mr. Myron Hunt. Know who he was?”

“No, sir.”

“Famous architect. Designed the Rose Bowl. Ambassador was a palace, drew in all the finest people. You should’ve seen the weddings, the black-tie galas, I did my share of last-minute patent-leather touchup and that’s a lost art. City bought the property, says it’s going to be a school. Just what we need, teenagers making a mess. So how old am I?”

“Eighty…”

“Ninety-three.”

“You look great, Mr. Kaplan.”

“Then appearances are deceiving. I’m missing a whole bunch of internal organs, doctors keep taking things out of me. Apparently, God gives us extra organs that can be removed without serious consequence. As to why, you’d have to ask Him. Which I’m figuring I’ll get a chance to do, soon. Care for crackers?”

“No, thanks, sir.”

“Peanuts?”

“We’re fine, sir.”

“So what about George S. Kaplan is of interest to the Los Angeles police?”

“Monte.”

Kaplan looked at his knees. “I got a Jewish name, in case you didn’t notice. Kaplan comes from Hebraic. Means chaplain. I still haven’t figured it out. Someone said my family might’ve worked for Jewish slave owners but that’s wrong, we’ve been freemen since the beginning. Came over after emancipation, from Curaçao, that’s an island in the Caribbean, lots of Jews used to live there so who knows? What do you think, Detective? Can the mystery be solved?”

“The Internet has lots of genealogy websites-”

“Tried all that. My great-grandson Michael, he’s a computer geek-that’s what he calls himself. That’s how I learned about the Hebraic origin of my name. But it led nowhere. Guess some mysteries don’t like being solved.”

“Some do, sir. Monte?”

“How’d you locate me?”

“We traced your tip-call to the pay phone.”

“Lots of people use that pay phone.”

“Not as many as you’d think, Mr. Kaplan.”

“Cell phones. Don’t want one. Have no need for one.”

“An officer watching the booth saw you approaching it yesterday. It appeared to him as if you were ready to make another call, changed your mind.”

Kaplan laughed. “And here I was, being careful.”

“You wanted to help but didn’t want to get overly involved.”

“He’s a frightening person, Monte. I lived ninety-three years, would like a few more.”

“There’s no need for him to know, Mr. Kaplan.”

“You arrest him based on my word, how’s he not going to know?”

“You’ll be listed in my notes as an ‘anonymous source.’”

“Until some lawyer pokes around and you feel the pressure.”

“I don’t respond well to pressure,” said Milo. “And I never break my word. I promise your name will never appear in any case file.”

Kaplan kept his eyes down. “Sure you don’t want a cracker?”

“It’s not food I need right now, sir.”

“You think Monte killed that girl.”

“I think I need to hear what bothers you about him.”

“Huh,” said the old man. “George S. Kaplan does his civic duty like his mother taught him and look where it gets him.”

“If Monte’s dangerous, sir, all the more reason to get him off the street.”

“I’ve never seen him do anything dangerous.”

“But he’s a scary guy.”

“I’ve lived long enough to know a frightening person when I see one. No respect for his elders.”

“He was discourteous to you?”

Kaplan’s head shifted from side to side. When it stopped moving, he said, “That girl on the TV, the pretty one who was killed in that big house near Bel Air. She lived with him. Him and his other girlfriend, the three of them going in and out of that house. Normally, you’d think they were up for hanky-panky but all the times I saw them, they didn’t look like they were having recreation.”

“Serious?”

“More than serious, I’d called it purposeful. Sneaky eyes, like they were up to something. I walk around the neighborhood a lot, good for the joints and the muscles, I notice things other people don’t. There’s a woman right down the block, been cheating on her husband with the gardener for near on six years, kisses her husband when he comes home like she’s madly in love with the poor fool, when he’s gone she’s with the gardener. People do crazy things, I could tell you all sorts of stories.”

“Tell us about Monte and the girl on TV.”

“The last time I saw her with him was maybe a week before she got killed. Monte’s other girlfriend wasn’t there, just that girl and Monte, and they were going into that house and I started thinking maybe Monte’s cheating on one girlfriend with the other girlfriend, she’s certainly a better looker. But they didn’t look up for fooling around-grim, that’s the word. Real grim. After Monte let the girl in, he turned around, gave me the dirtiest look you’ve ever seen. Said, ‘Got a problem, old man?’ I just kept on going, could feel him watching me, made the small hairs stand up. Never walked near there again. A week or so later, I’m watching the fifty-inch downstairs and the news comes on, there she is. A drawing, but it’s her. So I do my civic duty. What I didn’t figure on was having to do more.”

“Any idea what Monte’s last name is?”

“I just heard his girlfriends calling him Monte.”

“Where’s the house?”

“Two blocks east, one block north. He drives a black pickup truck. She drives a Honda. Gray, the other girlfriend. Never saw the pretty one with a motor vehicle, always riding with one of the other two.”

“You wouldn’t have the address by any chance, would you?”

“You swear on a stack my name won’t appear anywhere?”

“Scout’s honor, sir.”

“You were a scout?”

“Actually, I was.”

“I would’ve liked to be a scout,” said George S. Kaplan. “No colored scouts in Baton Rouge back then. I learned to be prepared, anyway.” Denture grin. He reached for a bureau drawer. “Let me find that address and copy it for you. Do it in block lettering so no one can trace my handwriting.”

CHAPTER 37

The house was a flat-face stucco bungalow the color of curdled oatmeal, narrow and tar-roofed and shuttered tight. Cement square instead of lawn, no vehicles parked there, no mail pileup.

Milo and I did a quick drive-by, parked half a mile up. He celled Moe Reed, asked for an assessor’s check.

Owned and managed by a Covina real estate firm, rented to a tenant named M. Carlo Scoppio.

“Looked him up, Loo. Male white, thirty-two years old, no wants or warrants, no NCIC. Owners can’t evict him but they’d like to.”

“What’s the problem?”

“He always pays his rent but does it chronically late,” said Reed. “Like he’s trying to irritate them by squeezing out every bit of delay. They say getting rid of a tenant is a hassle even when you’re faced with a total deadbeat and Scoppio makes sure not to give them grounds. Top of that, he’s a lawyer, they don’t want the aggravation.”

“What are his physical stats?”

“Five nine, one seventy-eight, brown and green. The picture makes him a guy you’d never notice. You anywhere near a fax?”