Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

"The usual. How'd your day go?"

"The usual."

"Heroics?"

"Hardly." Rick pointed to the empty chair across the table. The final dark hairs in his dense cap of curls had faded to gray last summer, and his mustache was a silver toothbrush. Despite being a doctor and knowing better, he liked to tan out in the backyard and his skin had held on to summer color. He looked tired. Milo sat down opposite him and began picking at orange chicken.

"There's more in the refrigerator," said Rick. "The egg rolls, the rest of it."

"No, I'll just take yours."

Rick smiled. Weary.

"Bad stuff on shift?" said Milo.

"Not particularly. Couple of heart attacks, couple of false alarms, kid with a broken leg from falling off a Razor scooter, colon cancer patient with a serious gut bleed that kept us busy for a long time, woman with a darning needle in her eye, two auto accidents, one accidental shooting- we lost that one."

"The usual trivia."

"Exactly." Rick pushed his food away. "There was one thing. The shooting was the last case I pulled. I couldn't do anything for the poor guy, he came in flat, never beeped. Looks like he was cleaning his 9mm, stared into the barrel, maybe making sure it was clear and boom. The cops who came in with the body said they found gun oil and rags and one of those barrel-reaming tools on the table next to him. Bullet entered here." Rick touched the center of his mustache, under his nose.

"An accident?" said Milo. "Not suicide? Or anything else?"

"The cops who came in kept calling it an accident, maybe they knew something technical. It'll go to the coroner."

"Sheriff's cops?" said Milo.

"No, you guys. It happened near Venice and Highland. But that's not what I want to tell you. The body had just gone to the morgue, and I came back to chart and the cops who brought the guy in were in the cubicle next door and I heard them talking. Going on about their pensions, sick leave, department benefits. Then one said something about a detective in West L.A. division who'd tested HIV-positive and put in for retirement. The other cop said, 'Guess, what goes 'round comes round.' Then they both laughed. Not a joyful laugh. A mean laugh."

Rick picked up a chopstick and seesawed it between two fingers. Looked into Milo's eyes. Touched Milo's hand.

Milo said, "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Didn't assume you had, or you'd have told me."

Milo withdrew his hand, stood, and got himself a beer.

Rick stayed at the table, continued to play with the chopstick. Tilting it deftly, precisely. A surgeon's grace.

Milo said, "It's bullshit. I'da heard."

"I just thought it was something you'd want to know."

"Highland and Venice. What the hell would Wilshire Division know about West L.A.? What the hell would blues know about D's ?"

"Probably nothing… Big guy, is there something I should know? Some tight spot you've gotten yourself into?"

"Why? What does this have to do with me?" Milo didn't like the defensiveness in his own voice. Thinking: the goddamn department rumor mill. Then thinking: Health Facilitator. You never know…

Rick said, "Okay," and started to get up.

Milo said, "Wait," and came around and stood behind Rick and put his hands on Rick's shoulders. And told him the rest of it.

Igot on the computer, typed in "Paris Bartlett" as a keyphrase on several search engines, and came up with nothing.

Next, I tried "Playa del Sol" and its English translation: Sun Beach , and connected to hundreds of resort links all over the world. Costa del Sol. Costa del Amor. Playa Negra. Playa Blanca. Playa Azul. Sun City. Sunrise Beach. Excursion packages, time shares, white sand, blue water, adults only, bring the kids. Also, a guy who'd devoted an obsessive site to the old song " Cuando Caliente El Sol ." The joys of the information age…

I stuck with it for hours, felt my eyes crossing and broke for a midnight sandwich, a beer, and a shower before returning to the screen. By 2 A.M., I was fighting sleep and nearly missed the article in a three-year-old issue of The Resort Journal elicited by yet another try at Playa del Sol. This time, I'd logged on to a pay service- a business-oriented data bank that I hadn't used since last fall, when I'd considered selling a lot of municipal bonds. I clicked my assent to pony up by credit card and continued.

What I got was a rear-of-the-magazine piece entitled "Seeking the Good Life on Distant Shores: Americans Looking for Foreign Bargains Often Find Themselves on the Losing End." The article recounted several real estate deals gone sour, among them a construction project down in Baja named Playa del Sol: high-end condos peddled to American retirees lured by American-style luxury living at Mexican prices. Two hundred units out of a planned four hundred fifty had been built and purchased. The first wave of retirees hadn't yet moved in when the Mexican government invoked a fine-print provision of an obscure regulation, confiscated the land, and sold it to a Saudi Arabian consortium who turned the condos into a hotel. The Playa del Sol Company, Ltd., incorporated in the Cayman Islands, dissolved itself and its American subsidiary, Playa Enterprises, declared Chapter 11. The retirees lost their money.

No comment from the president of Playa Enterprises, Michael Larner.

Recalling the obscure business journal references that had come up on my first search for Larner- magazines not in the Research Library's holdings- I looked for anything else I could find on the former Achievement House director and came across several other deals he'd put together during the past five years.

Larner's specialty was real estate syndication- getting moneyed people together to buy out incomplete building projects that had run into trouble. High-rise apartments in Atlanta, defunct country clubs in Colorado and New Mexico, a ski lodge in Vermont, a golf course in Arizona. Once the deal was inked, Larner took his cut and walked away.

All the subsequent articles had the rah-rah tone of paid ads. None mentioned the Mexican debacle, Playa Enterprises, or the Playa Del Sol Company, Ltd. Larner's corporate face was now the ML Group.

No mention of the Cossack brothers, either. Or any of Larner's fellow venture capitalists, though showbiz and Wall Street affiliations were implied. The only other ML staffer named was Larner's son, Bradley, executive vice president.

Using "ML Group" as a keyphrase, I retraced all the search machines and obtained the exact same articles, plus one more: a two-year-old stroke job in a glossy rag titled Southwest Leisure Builder .

Centered amid the text was a color photo: Larners, father and son, posing on a bright day in Phoenix, wearing matching royal blue golf shirts, white canvas slacks, white smiles.

Michael Larner looked around sixty-five. Square-faced and florid, he wore wide steel-framed aviator's glasses turned to mirrors by the Arizona sun. His smile was self-satisfied and heralded by overly large capped teeth. He had a drinker's nose, a big, hard-looking belly, and meticulously styled white hair. A casting agent would've seen Venal Executive.

Bradley Larner was thinner and smaller and paler than his father- barely a nuance of his father. Late thirties or early forties, he was also bespectacled, but his choice of eyewear ran to gold-framed, narrow, oval lenses so tiny they barely covered his irises. His hair was that lank, waxy blond destined to whiten, and it trailed past his shoulders. Less enthusiasm in his expression. Barely a smile at all, though to read the article, the Larners were riding the crest of the real estate wave.

Bradley Larner looked like a kid forced to sit for yet another obnoxious family snapshot.