Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

We followed Marlene Baldassar under a rear staircase, where she pushed a door marked EXIT and let us pass through to an alley behind the building. Two Dumpsters were pushed against a cinder-block wall. Nearby stood a chesty girl with her elbows to the block, hips thrust at a tall, buzz-cut boy wearing low pants that puddled around his unlaced sneakers. He looked like a scarecrow about to come apart. Moved in for a kiss but stopped as the girl said something, turned and frowned.

Baldassar said, "Hi, guys." Expressionless, the couple ambled off and disappeared around a corner.

"Somethingus interruptus," said Baldassar. "I almost feel guilty."

Power lines were strung ten feet above the wall, and I could hear them buzzing. A pigeon soared overhead. Baldassar lit up, dragged hungrily, smoked down a half inch of her cigarette.

"Is there any chance we can talk confidentially?" she said.

"I'd like to promise you that," said Milo. "But if you've got knowledge of a crime-"

"No, it's nothing like that. And I never met the Cossack girl, though I do know that she was once a resident. But in terms of her family… let's just say they're not very popular around here."

"Why's that, ma'am?"

Baldassar smoked and shook her head. "I suppose if you dug around enough, you'd find out, anyway."

"Where should I be digging?"

"What, I should do your job for you?"

"I'll take anything I can get, ma'am," said Milo.

She smiled. "County records. I'll tell you what I know, but I can't have any of it traced back to me, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'm trusting you, Detective."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"And no more ma'ams please," she said. "I'm starting to feel like I'm in some old Dragnet script."

"Fair enough, Ms-"

Baldassar cut him off with a wave of her cigarette. "To make a long story exquisitely short, several years ago- seventeen or eighteen years ago, Achievement House ran into some severe financial problems due to bad investments. The board was comprised of stuffy old farts who were conservative with their personal fortunes but turned out to be a good deal more adventurous with Achievement House's endowment. Remember all that junk-bond foolishness? The board hired a money manager who traded Achievement House's blue chips for a whole slew of what ended up as worthless paper. At the time, the interest rates were enticing, and the income allowed the school to run at such a high paper profit that the board was starting to think Achievement House would pay for itself. Then everything crashed. And to make matters worse, the manager had taken out a second mortgage and bought additional bonds on margin. When everything hit the fan, Achievement House was way in the hole and facing foreclosure on the property."

"The rich old farts would've let that happen?"

"The rich old farts served on the board in order to feel noble and to get their names in the social pages during gala season. To make matters worse, there'd been a bit of unpleasantness with the director- your Mr. Larner. I know all this from Evelyn Luria. She briefed me before she left for Europe, but wouldn't give me details. But she did hint that it had been something of a sexual nature. Something that might've gotten the board members the worst type of publicity."

"So the school was in danger of closing down, and the board wouldn't go to bat."

"God, I hope this doesn't blow up, after all those years. I was looking at this job as a way to relax."

"Nothing will get traced to you, Ms. Baldassar. Now tell me why the Cossacks aren't popular."

"Because they came to the rescue- white knights- and then turned into something quite different."

"Caroline's father?"

"Caroline's father and brothers. The three of them had some kind of real estate business and they stepped in and renegotiated with the bank and got a better rate for the mortgage, then had Achievement House's deed signed over to them. For a while, they made payments, no questions asked. Then a couple of years later, they announced they were evicting the school because the land was too valuable for a nonprofit, they'd been buying up lots, had plans to develop the entire block."

She dropped her cigarette, ground it out with the toe of her pump.

"Achievement House is still here," said Milo. "What happened?"

"Threats, accusations, lawyers. The board and the Cossacks finally reached an agreement, but it meant dipping into some deep pockets in order to pay the Cossacks off. From what I was told, the outrage was compounded by the fact that Caroline Cossack's stay here had been a favor to the family. She didn't qualify."

"Why not?"

"She was a psychiatric case- severe behavior problems, not learning disabilities."

"Custodial care?" I said.

"Yes, the rules were bent for her. Then, for her family to do that ."

Milo said, "Do you have any records on Caroline?"

Baldassar hesitated. "Let me check- wait out here, please."

She reentered the building. I said, "I wonder if Michael Larner had something to do with the Cossacks trying to evict the school. After the board fired him, he wouldn't have been fond of the institution."

Milo kicked one of the Dumpsters. Another pigeon flew overhead. Then three more. "Airborne rats," he muttered. Barely audible, but the vibrations must have reached the birds, and they scattered.

Marlene Baldassar returned, another cigarette in one hand, a pink index card in another.

"No chart, all I found was this, listing the dates of her stay."

Milo took the card. "Admitted August 9, discharged December 22. But it doesn't say where she went."

"No it doesn't," said Baldassar.

"You don't hold on to old charts?"

"We do. It should be here." She studied Milo's face. "You're not shocked."

"Like you, I'm pretty much beyond being shockable, Ms. Baldassar. And I'm going to ask you to return the favor: Keep this visit confidential. For everyone's sake."

"No problem with that," said Baldassar. She took a deep drag, blew a smoke ring. "Here I thought it was going to be a lazy day, and it turned out to be heavy-duty déjà vu. Gentlemen, you brought back memories of my days with the county."

"How so?" I said.

"Problems that can't be solved with phonics and a credit card."

"Interesting time line," I said, as we headed for the car under the now-watchful eyes of the kids in the parking lot. "Janie Ingalls is murdered in early June. Two months later, Caroline gets checked into Achievement House and Willie shows up and works there for three weeks. Willie's fired, then he's busted for dope, gets Boris Nemerov to bail him out. When was Nemerov ambushed?"

"December 23," said Milo.

"The day after Caroline leaves Achievement House- voluntarily or otherwise. Maybe Willie took his girlfriend out, then took care of her. Or, Cossack family money found both of them a nice safe place to hide out. And one more thing: Georgie could've gotten nervous when you brought up Burns not because his men finished off his dad's killer but because they didn't. Were paid off not to."

"He accepted money to let his dad's murderer off the hook? Uh-uh, not Georgie."

"He and his mother were in severe financial straits. Maybe it took more than twenty-hour days and clever negotiating to keep the business going."

"No, I can't see it," he said. "Georgie's always been a straight-ahead guy."

"You'd know."

"Yeah, I'm a font of knowledge. C'mon, let's go over to my place, have another look at that damn book."

Rick and Milo lived in a small, well-kept bungalow in West Hollywood, on a quiet, elm-darkened street further shadowed by Design Center's alarming blue bulk. Rick's white Porsche was gone and the blinds were drawn. A few years ago, L.A. suffered through a drought and Rick had the lawn dug up and replaced with pea gravel and gray-leafed desert plants. This year, L.A. had plenty of water but the xeriscape remained in place, bursts of tiny yellow blossoms punctuating the pallid vegetation.