Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

I turned off the engine, got out, filled my nose with the bite of pine and that curious maple syrup-and-rot tang of dried equine dung. Dead silence. I could see Pierce Schwinn thinking this would be heaven. But if he was like Milo and so many other people hooked on noise and evil, how long would that have lasted?

Milo slammed the passenger door hard, as if offering fair warning. But no one came out to greet us, and no face appeared in the house's undraped front windows.

We walked to the front door. Milo's bell-push set off fifteen seconds of chimes- some tune I couldn't identify, but it brought back memories of Missouri department store elevators.

Now, sound from the corral: one horse whinnying. Still no human response. The hawk had flown off.

I studied the animals. Well-muscled mahogany creatures, two stallions, three mares, manes glossy and combed. Over the corral arced a semicircle of iron soldered with vaguely Moorish lettering. Mecca. A triangle of blue had broken through the cottony sky. The foothills ringing the ranch were green-topped, gentle, a nurturant border. It was hard to imagine the murder book emanating from this quiet place.

Milo rang again, and a female voice called out, "One minute!" Moments later the door opened.

The woman who stood there was petite and strong-shouldered, anywhere from fifty to sixty. She wore a royal blue and yellow checked shirt tucked into tight jeans that showed off a flat tummy, tight waist, boyish hips. Creased but clean work boots peeked out from under the jeans. White hair that retained some of its blond origins was tied back in a short ponytail- a merest upward twist of free locks. Her features were strong in a way that made them attractive in later life, but as a girl she'd probably been plain. Her eyes were a mottle of green and brown, lacking too much of the former to be called hazel. She'd plucked her eyebrows into spidery commas but wore no makeup. Her skin was testament to everything the sun could to do to skin: puckered, cracked, corrugated, coarse to the point of woodiness. A few scary-looking dark patches danced under the eyes and crowned her chin. When she smiled, her teeth were the milky white pearls of a healthy virgin.

"Mrs. Schwinn?" said Milo, reaching for the badge.

Before he got it out of his pocket, the woman said, "I'm Marge, and I know who you are, Detective. I got your messages." No apology for not returning the calls. Once the smile faded, not much in the way of any emotion, and I wondered if that contributed to even-tempered horses.

"I know the cop look," she explained.

"What look is that, ma'am?"

"Fear mixed with anger. Always expecting the worst. Sometimes, Pierce and I would be riding, and there'd be a sound, a scurrying in the brush, and he'd get the look. So… you were his last partner. He talked about you." She glanced at me. The past tense hung heavy.

She bit her lip. "Pierce is dead. Died last year."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I. I miss him terribly."

"When did-"

"He fell off a horse seven months ago. One of my tamest, Akhbar. Pierce was no cowboy, he never rode until he met me. That's why I gave him Akhbar as a regular mount, and they bonded. But something must've spooked Akhbar. I found him down near Lake Casitas, on his side, with two broken legs. Pierce was a few yards away, head split on a rock, no pulse. Akhbar had to be put down."

"I'm so sorry, ma'am."

"Yeah. I'm dealing with it okay. It's the gone-ness that hits you. One day someone's here and then…" Marge Schwinn snapped her fingers, looked Milo up and down. "Basically, you're what I expected, given the passage of time. You're not here to tell me something bad about Pierce, are you?"

"No, ma'am, why would I-"

"Call me Marge. Pierce loved being a detective, but he had bitter feelings about the department. Said they'd been out to get him for years because he was an individualist. I've got his pension coming in, don't want funny business, don't want to have to hire a lawyer. That's why I didn't call you back. I wasn't sure what you were up to."

Her expression said she still wondered.

Milo said, "It's absolutely nothing about Pierce's pension, and I'm not here as a representative of the department. Just working a case."

"A case you worked with Pierce?"

"A case I was supposed to work with Pierce, till he retired."

"Retired," said Marge. "That's one way to put it… well, that's nice. Pierce would've liked that, you seeking his opinion after all these years. He said you were smart. Come in, coffee's still warm. Tell me about your days with Pierce. Tell me good things."

The house was spare and low-ceilinged, walls alternating between rough pine paneling and sand-colored grass cloth, a series of tight, dim rooms furnished with well-worn, severe, tweedy fifties furniture for which some twenty-year-old starlet would gladly overpay at the latest La Brea junktique.

The living room opened to a rear kitchen, and we sat down opposite a blond, kidney-shaped coffee table as Marge Schwinn filled mugs with chicory-scented coffee. Western prints hung on the grass cloth, along with equestrian portraits. A corner trophy hutch was full of gold and silk. In the opposite corner was an old Magnavox console TV with Bakelite dials and a bulging, greenish screen. Atop the set was a single framed photo- a man and a woman, too far away to make out the details. The kitchen window framed a panoramic mountain view but the rest of the place was oriented toward the corral. The horses hadn't moved much.

Marge finished pouring and sat in a straight-backed chair that conformed to her perfect posture. Young body, old face. The tops of her hands were a giant freckle interrupted by spots of unblemished dermis, callused, wormed with veins.

"Pierce thought a lot of you," she told Milo.

Milo got rid of the surprised look almost immediately, but she saw it and smiled.

"Yes, I know. He told me he gave you all sorts of grief. His last years on the force were a rough time in Pierce's life, Detective Sturgis." She lowered her eyes for a moment. No more smile. "Did you know that when you rode with Pierce he was a drug addict?"

Milo blinked. Crossed his legs. "I remember that he used to take cold remedies- decongestants."

"That's right," said Marge. "But not for his sinuses, for the high. The decongestants were what he did openly. On the sly, he was fooling around with amphetamines- speed. He started doing it to stay awake on the job, to be able to get back home to Simi Valley without falling asleep at the wheel. That's where he lived with his first wife. He got hooked bad. Did you know Dorothy?"

Milo shook his head.

"Nice woman, according to Pierce. She's dead, too. Heart attack soon after Pierce retired. She was a chain smoker and very overweight. That's how Pierce first got his hands on speed- Dorothy had lots of prescriptions for diet pills, and he started borrowing. It got the better of him, the way it always does. He told me he'd turned really nasty, suspicious, had mood swings, couldn't sleep. Said he took it out on his partners, especially you. He felt bad about that, said you were a smart kid. He figured you'd go far…"

She trailed off.

Milo tugged at the zipper of his windbreaker. "Did Pierce talk much about his work, ma'am?"

"He didn't talk about specific cases, if that's what you mean. Just how rotten the department was. I think his work poisoned him as much as the speed. When I met him, he'd touched bottom. It was right after Dorothy's death, and Pierce had stopped paying rent on the Simi house- they never bought, just rented. He was living in a filthy motel in Oxnard and earning minimum wage sweeping the floors at Randall's Western Wear. That's where I first saw him. I was doing a show in Ventura, came in to Randall's to look at boots, collided with Pierce when he took out the trash. He knocked me on my rear, we both ended up laughing about it. I liked his laugh. And he made me curious. Someone that age, doing that job. Usually it's young Mexicans. Next time I came in, we talked some more. There was something about him- strong, no wasted words. I'm a gabby type, as you can see. Comes from living alone most of my life, talking to the horses. Talking to myself so as not to go nuts. This land was my grandfather's. I inherited it from my parents. I was the youngest, stayed home to take care of Mom and Dad, never strayed very far. The horses pretend they're listening to me. That's what I liked about Pierce, he was a good listener. Soon, I was making up reasons to drive down to Oxnard." She smiled. "Bought a lot of boots and jeans. And he never knocked me down again."