Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

Melinda Waters's door was unlocked and her front room smelled of incense. Big rust-and-wine-colored chenille chairs with fringed pillows were arranged around a battered old, blackwood Chinese table. Atop the table were art books, magazines that worshipped style, a brass bowl full of hard candy, and straw baskets of potpourri. Would any of that ease the pain of bankruptcy and eviction?

Blocking the rear door, a round-faced Indian woman of thirty or so sat behind a weathered oak desk and pecked at a slate gray laptop. She wore a pink sweatshirt and big, dangling earrings- geometric and hard-edged and gold, more New York than New Mexico. As we approached her desk, she looked up without conveying much in the way of emotion and continued typing.

"How can I help you?"

"Is Ms. Waters in?"

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No, ma'am," said Milo, producing his card.

"L.A.," said the receptionist. "The police. You've come all that way to talk to Mel."

"Yes, ma'am."

Her eyes scanned the card. "Homicide." No surprise. No inflection at all. She reached for the phone.

Melinda Waters was five-five, curvy and chunky and busty in a tailored, moss green pantsuit turned greener by the wall of maroon-bound law books behind her. Her eyes were a lighter green edged with gray and her hair was honey blond, cut short and swept back from a well-formed face softened by full lips and the beginnings of a double chin. Big, round tortoiseshell eyeglasses were perfectly proportioned for the thin, straight nose upon which they rested. Her lips were glossed, her manicure was impressive, and the diamond ring on her finger looked to be two carats, minimum.

She barely looked at us, gave off an air of bored competence, but seemed to be working at that. The moment I saw her my heart jumped. Same face as in the Hollywood High yearbook. Milo knew it, too. His expression was pleasant, but cherry-sized lumps had formed where his jaw met his sideburns.

Melinda Waters stared at his card and waved us into two cane-backed chairs that faced her desk.

Her private office was rust-colored and small- tiny, really, with barely enough room for the bookcase and the desk and a red lacquer stand off to one side, set with a single white orchid in a blue-and-white pot. The walls perpendicular to the books were hung with watercolor landscapes- green hills above the ocean, live oaks, fields of poppies. California dreaming. The rest of the space bore family photos. Melinda Waters with a slim, tall, dark-bearded man and two mischievous-looking boys, around six and eight. Skiing, scuba diving, horseback riding, fishing. The family that plays together…

"Homicide detectives. Well, this is certainly different." Soft voice, edged with sarcasm. Under normal circumstances, she was probably the image of professionalism but a quaver at the tail end said she wasn't pretending this was routine.

"Different from what, ma'am?" said Milo.

"From what I thought I'd be doing right before lunch. Frankly, I'm confused. I'm not working on any L.A. cases at all, let alone homicide. I specialize in tenants' rights and financial-"

"Janie Ingalls," said Milo.

Melinda Waters's sigh stretched for a very long time.

She fiddled with papers and pens, closed her laptop, tamped her hair. Finally, she punched an intercom button on her phone, and said, "Hold my calls please, Inez."

Wheeling her chair back the few inches that remained between her and the law book backdrop, she said, "That's a name from a long time ago. What happened to her?"

"You don't know?"

"Well," she said, "your card says homicide, so am I safe in assuming?"

"Very safe."

Melinda Waters removed her glasses, made a fist, knuckled one eye. The glossy lips trembled. "Oh, damn. I suppose I knew it all along. But… I didn't really- damn. Poor Janie… that is so… obscene."

"Very," said Milo.

She sat up straighter, as if drawing upon a reserve of strength. Now her eyes were different- searching, analytical. "And you're here, after all this time, because…?"

"Because it remains an open case, Ms. Waters."

"Open or reopened?"

"It was never closed, officially."

"You're not saying the L.A. police have been working on this for twenty years?"

"Does that matter, ma'am?"

"No… I suppose not. I'm rambling… this is really… this takes me by total surprise. Why are you here?"

"Because you were one of the last people to see Janie Ingalls alive, but no one ever took your statement. In fact, it was only recently we learned you hadn't been a victim, yourself."

"A victim? You thought… oh, my."

"You've been hard to locate, Ms. Waters. So has your mother-"

"My mother died ten years ago," she said. "Lung cancer, back in Pennsylvania, where she was from. Before that, she had emphysema. She suffered a lot."

"Sorry to hear that."

"So was I," said Waters. She picked a gold pen from several resting in a cloisonné cup, balanced it between the index fingers of both hands. The office was a jewel box, everything arranged with care. "All this time you really thought I might be… how strange." Weak smile. "So I'm reborn, huh?"

The pen dropped and clattered to the desk. She snatched it up, placed it back in the cup.

"Ma'am, could you please tell us everything you remember about that night."

"I did try to find out where Janie was. Called her father- you've met him?"

"He's dead too, ma'am."

"How'd he die?"

"Car accident."

"Driving drunk?"

"Yes."

"No surprise there," said Waters. "What a lowlife, always plastered. He couldn't stand me, and the feeling was mutual. Probably because I knew he'd grope me if he had a chance, so I never gave him one- always made sure to meet Janie outside her building."

"He came on to you?" said Milo.

"I never gave him a chance, but his intentions were obvious- leering, undressing me mentally. Plus, I knew what he'd done to Janie."

"He abused Janie sexually?"

"Only when he was drunk," said Waters, in mocking singsong. "She never told me until shortly before she was… before I last saw her. I think what made her talk about it was she'd had a bad experience a month or so before that. She was hitching, got picked up by some deviant who took her to a hotel downtown, tied her up, had his way with her. When she first told me about it, she didn't seem very upset. Kind of blasé, really, and at first I didn't believe her because Janie was always making things up. Then she pulled up her jeans and her top and showed me the rope marks where he'd tied up her ankles and her wrists. Her neck, too. When I saw that, I said, 'Jesus, he could've strangled you.' And she just clammed up and refused to say any more about it."

"What did she tell you about the man who did this?"

"That he was young and nice-looking and drove a great car- that's why she said she went with him. But to tell the truth, she probably would've gone with anyone. A lot of the time Janie was out of it- stoned or drunk. She didn't have much in the way of inhibitions."

She removed her glasses, played with the sidepieces, glanced at the photos of her family. "Some lawyer I am, running my mouth. Before we go any further, I need your assurance that anything I tell you be kept confidential. My husband's a semipublic figure."

"What does he do?"

"Jim's an aide to the governor. Liaison to the Highway Department. I keep my maiden name for work, but anything unsavory could still be traced back to him."

"I'll do my best, ma'am."

Waters shook her head. "That's not good enough." She stood. "I'm afraid this meeting is adjourned."

Milo crossed his legs. "Ms. Waters, all we came here for are your recollections about Janie Ingalls. No assumption was made of any criminal involvement on your part-"

"You bet your boots no assumption was made." Waters jabbed a finger. "That didn't even cross my mind, for God's sake. But what happened to Janie twenty years ago isn't my problem. Safeguarding my privacy is. Please leave."