Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

"Or she died."

"Find the death certificate."

He knuckled his eyes, looked up at my house. "Poison's sneaky. What was done to Janie was blatant- the way the body was dumped in an open spot. No way did a girl do that."

"I'm not saying Caroline murdered Janie by herself, but she might've been part of it- might've served as a lure for whoever did the cutting. Plenty of killers have used young women as bait- Paul Bernardo, Charlie Manson, Gerald Gallegos, Christopher Wilding. Caroline would've been the perfect lure for Janie and Melinda- a girl their age, outwardly inoffensive. And rich. Caroline could've stood by and watched as some-one else did the wet work or participated the way the Manson girls did. Maybe it was a group thing, just like the Mansons, party scene gone bad. Females are affiliative- even female killers. Group settings lower their inhibitions."

"Sugar and spice," he said. "And the family found out, put the screws on with the department to hush up the case, locked Crazy Caroline away somewhere… the ghoul in the attic."

"Big family money can furnish a really nice attic."

He accompanied me inside, where I went through the mail and he got on the phone with County Records and Social Security. No death certificate on Caroline Cossack; nor had she received a social security number or a driver's license.

Melinda Waters had received a card at age fifteen, but she'd never driven in California or worked or contributed payroll tax. Which made sense if she'd died young. But no certificate on her, either.

"Disappeared," I said. "Melinda probably died the same night Janie did, and Caroline's either very well hidden or she expired, too, and the family hushed it up."

"Hidden as in hospitalized?"

"Or just watched carefully. Rich kid like that, she'd have a trust fund, could be living in some Mediterranean villa with twenty-four-hour supervision."

He began pacing. "Little Miss Nowhere… but at some point, when she was a kid, she had to have an identity. Be interesting to pinpoint when exactly she lost it."

"School records," I said. "Living in Bel Air would've meant Palisades or University High if the Cossacks chose public school. Beverly, if they played fast and loose with residency forms. On the private side, there'd be Harvard-Westlake- which was Westlake School for Girls, back then- or Marlborough, Buckley, John Thomas Dye, Crossroads."

He flipped open his pad, scrawled notes.

"Or," I added, "a school for troubled kids."

"Any particular place come to mind?"

"I was in practice back then, can recall three very high-priced spreads. One was in West L.A., the others were in Santa Monica and the Valley- North Hollywood."

"Names?"

I recited, and he got back on the phone. Santa Monica Prep was defunct, but Achievement House in Cheviot Hills and Valley Educational Academy in North Hollywood were still in business. He reached both schools but hung up frowning.

"No one'll give me the time of day. Confidentiality and all that."

"Schools don't enjoy confidentiality privileges," I said.

"You ever deal with either of the places, professionally?"

"I visited Achievement House, once," I said. "The parents of a boy I was seeing kept holding the place over the kid's head as a threat. 'If you don't shape up, we'll send you to Achievement House.' That seemed to scare him, so I dropped by to see what spooked him. Talked to a so-cial worker, got the five-minute tour. Converted apartment building near Motor and Palms. What stuck in my mind was how small it was- maybe twenty-five, thirty kids boarding in, meaning it had to cost a fortune. No snake pit that I could see. Later, I talked to my patient and turns out what he was worried about was stigmatization. Being thought of as a 'weirdo-geek-loser.' "

"Achievement House had a bad reputation?"

"In his mind, any special placement had a bad reputation."

"Did he get sent there?"

"No, he ran away, wasn't seen for years."

"Oh," he said.

I smiled. "Don't you mean 'Ah' ?"

He laughed. Got himself grapefruit juice, opened the freezer and stared at the vodka bottle but changed his mind. "Ran away. Your version of loose ends."

"Loose ends were a big part of my life, back then," I said. "The price of an interesting job. As it turns out, this particular kid made it okay."

"He stayed in touch?"

"He called after his second child was born. Ostensibly to ask about how to handle sibling jealousy. He ended up apologizing for being a surly teen. I told him he had nothing to be sorry about. Because I'd finally learned the whole story from his mother. His older brother had been molesting him since he was five."

His face got hard. "Family values." He paced some more, finished his juice, washed the glass, got back on the phone. Contacting Palisades and University and Beverly Hills High Schools, then the private institutions. Putting on the charm, claiming to be conducting an alumnus search for Who's Who .

No one had Caroline Cossack on their files. "Little Miss Nowhere." He'd talked about washing his hands of the Ingalls case, but his face was flushed, and hunter's tension bunched his shoulders.

"I didn't tell you," he said, "but yesterday I went over to Parker Center and searched for Janie's case file. Disappeared. Nothing at the Metro office or in evidence or the coroner's, not even a cold-case classification or a notice that the file had been moved somewhere else. There is absolutely no paper anywhere that says the case was ever opened in the first place. I know it was because I opened it. Schwinn used to shove all the paperwork at me. I filled out the right forms, transcribed my street notes, created the murder book."

"No coroner's records, so much for science," I said. "When's the last time you saw the file?"

"The morning before my interrogation by Broussard and that Swede. After they worked me over, I was so shaken up I didn't return to my desk, just split the station. The next day, the transfer notice was in my box, and my desk had been cleared."

He tilted back in his chair, stretched his legs, seemed suddenly relaxed. "You know, my friend, I've been working too damn hard. Maybe that's what I can learn from old Mr. Serene. Stop and sniff the manure."

A smile, abrupt and broad, did something unsettling to his mouth. He rotated his head for several turns, as if working kinks out of his neck. Brushed black strands of hair out of his face. Sprang to his feet.

"See you. Thanks for your time."

"Where are you headed?" I said.

"Into a life of meditative leisure. Got lots of vacation time stored up. Seems a good time to cash in."

Leisure was the last thing I needed. The moment the door closed, I reached for the phone.

Larry Daschoff and I have known each other since grad school. After our internships, I took a professorship at the med school crosstown and worked the cancer wards at Western Pediatric Medical Center, and he went straight into private practice. I stayed single and he married his high school sweetheart, sired six kids, made a good living, converted his square-meal-in-a-round-can defensive-guard physique to middle-aged fat, watched his wife go back to law school, took up golf. Now, he was a young grandfather, living on investment income, wintering in Palm Desert.

I reached him at his condo, there. It had been some time since we'd spoken, and I asked him about the wife and kids.

"Everyone's great."

"Especially the Ultimate Grandchild."

"Well, as long as you asked, yes Samuel Jason Daschoff is clearly the messenger of the Second Coming- another Jewish savior. Little guy just turned two and has evolved from sweetness and light to age-appropriate obnoxiousness. Let me tell you, Alex, there's no revenge sweeter than watching your own kids contend with the crap they shoveled at you."