Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

He chomped. “Nice to see you’re buying good healthy food again.”

“All for you,” I said. “Nutrition for a growing boy.”

He patted his belly and sat down, scowling.

The camera drew back from Dobbs’s rubber face. The psychologist was stroking his beard, had put on a sad, sanctimonious expression- part mourner, part huckster.

Milo snorted and began humming “Jingle Bells.”

I said, “Yeah, the resemblance is striking, but this guy’s no saint.”

“Better be careful. He knows if you’re naughty or nice.”

Dobbs’s pronouncements on spirituality dissolved into a commercial.

Milo stretched his feet out and said, “Okay, you promised me strange. Time to deliver.”

I started with my encounter with Massengil and Dobbs.

He said, “I don’t know that I’d classify any of that as strange, Alex. Seems like good old politics as usual: the asshole feels the school is his turf, wants his boy in on anything that goes on there. You have to think like these guys do- power’s their dope. You’ve infringed. Of course he’s gonna get offended.”

“So what should I do about it?”

“Not a goddam thing. What can he do to you?”

“Not much,” I said, “but he might be able to do something to you . He talked about how your promotion had caused resentment.”

“I’m quaking,” Milo said, and wiggled his hand. “But he’s right in one regard. The troops are not happy with my ascension up the administrative ladder. One thing to tolerate a faggot; whole other ball of wax to take orders from one. Make things worse, the other D-Threes are getting antsy with my ‘approach to the job.’ Most of them are your basic desk jockeys, marking off time. My wanting to work the streets makes them look like the comatose slugs they are. The only other guy who stays active is the Homicide D-Three out in West Valley. But he’s a born-again, doesn’t like deviates, so there’s no bonding potential there. Still, no sense pissing and moaning, right? Don’t do the crime if you can’t hack the slime. Besides, getting rid of me would be more trouble than it’s worth- Department’s like one of those dinosaurs with the pea-sized brains. Impossible to budge, real easy to get around if you watch your step. So don’t worry about me, do your job, and forget it.”

“That’s exactly what Linda said.”

He grinned. “Linda? We’re on first-name basis, hoo-hoo.”

“Down, Rover.”

“ Linda . All that fluffy blond hair, the southern accent. But feisty - gives her an appealing edge. Not a bad choice at all, pal. Time for you to be getting back into the social swing, anyway.”

“No one’s made any choice.”

“Uh-huh.” He made rude sounds. “Leenda. Muy leenda.”

“How’s Rick?”

“Fine. Don’t change the subject.”

I said, “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” I told him about the silver Honda. He looked unimpressed.

“What did it do other than stop for a few minutes?”

“Nothing. But the timing was weird. It was there when I arrived, driving by when I left.”

“Maybe someone thinks you’re cute, Alex. Or could be it’s just one of the locals, playing paranoid posse, checking out the neighborhood for strangers, thinking you’re the weirdo.”

“Could be.”

“If it would make you feel better,” he said, “give me the license number.”

I did and he copied it down.

“Service with a smile,” he said. “Anything else I can do for you?”

I said, “Massengil seemed sure he was the target. You hear anything backing that up?”

“Nothing- not that Frisk has opened his files to me. Maybe the old coot knows something, but what’s more likely is that he’s got an inflated sense of self-worth, thinks he’s actually worth shooting. Or maybe he’s the paranoid one and that’s what Santa’s treating him for.”

He ate more pear, said, “Some milk would go well with this,” and went to get some. He returned, drinking out of the carton.

“Something else you should know about,” I said, and told him about the hate mail.

“Your basic bedbugs,” he said. “Too bad she has to go through it.”

“She said Frisk didn’t take it too seriously.”

“To tell the truth, Alex, there’s not much you can do with that kind of garbage. Now if it turns out the Burden girl was affiliated with some racist group, that’ll be different.”

“Would Frisk tell you if she was?”

“Not until after he put on his Giorgio suit, smiled into the camera, and told the greater metropolitan area first. But chances are, if she was highly political he’d know already. ATD’s got everything computerized, would have moved on her known associates and I would have heard it through the old interoffice rumor transport system.”

“Is there anything now you can tell me about her , Milo? The kids are asking.”

“I’ve learned a few things by way of my source at the coroner’s but I doubt it’s the kind of info that’ll help you. She was wearing black- jeans, sweater, shoes, everything down to the undies.”

“Sounds like a commando getup.”

“Or ninja nutcase. Or her taste in couture ran to basic black and a string of bullets. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be seen in the dark- who the hell knows? What else- yeah, she was clean, drug-wiso and booze-wise, an intact virgin, in excellent physical health prior to being perforated. Stomach contents showed she’d eaten around six the previous evening. There was a paper cup with urine in it in the shed. The chemical composition of the pee implied she’d been camped out there some time during the night, sipping and waiting. Sound like something you want to tell the kids?”

I shook my head. “I learned something too. She had a black boyfriend.”

He put down the milk carton. “Oh, yeah? Where’d you hear that?”

“One of the teachers at Hale lives in the neighborhood, taught her years ago. She told Linda about the boyfriend and Linda told me. Linda told Frisk but he wasn’t any more interested than he’d been in the hate mail.”

He ran his hand over his face. “Boyfriend, huh? Active or ex?”

“That’s what I wanted to know. If he was recent, he might know something, right? But the teacher never said.”

“Not that active, anyway,” he said. “The intact virgin part. Got a name?”

“No. Just what I told you.”

“Well,” he said, “interracial dating’s no crime. Officially.”

I thought back to the hate mail. Racemixer biches. “Even casual interracial dating would be considered a felony in Ocean Heights, Milo. Meaning she might have gotten a lot of social punishment for it- nasty comments, ostracization, or worse. And it also implies she was anything but a racist- wouldn’t have been likely to be shooting at those kids.”

“Unless she and the boyfriend had a nasty breakup and she started resenting all minorities.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Here’s a more likely scenario: What if coming face to face with local racism radicalized her and turned her against someone she viewed as racist. A racist authority figure.”

“Massengil?”

“Maybe she and Massengil even had some kind of confrontation before the shooting. Something he’d never admit to. You should have seen how he reacted when I accused him of drawing a killer to the school, Milo. It definitely struck a nerve. With his temper, even a minor confrontation with her could have gotten ugly. Combine that with her history of psychological problems… By the way, where did Frisk come up with that?”

He shook his head in disgust. I resolved to stop evoking feelings of impotence.