Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

"He showed us his wares. Carried one of those men's purses and had it on the seat next to him. When we got in, he put it in his lap and after we were driving for a while, he zipped it open, and said, 'How about a taste of something sweet, ladies?' Inside were envelopes of pills and little baggies full of white stuff- I couldn't tell you if it was coke or heroin. That stuff I stayed away from. For me it was just grass and alcohol, once in a while acid."

"What about Janie?"

"Janie had no boundaries."

"Did she sample Burns's wares?"

"Not in the car, but maybe later. Probably later. Because she and Burns got something going on right from the beginning. All three of us were in the front seat, Janie alongside Burns and me next to the door. The minute he started driving she started in- flipped her hair in his face, rested her hand on his leg, started moving it up."

"How'd Burns react to that?"

"He loved it. Said 'Ooh, baby,' stuff like that. Janie was giggling, both of them were laughing at nothing in particular."

"Despite her racism," I said.

"I couldn't believe it. I elbowed her a couple of times, as in, 'What's going on?' But she ignored me. Burns drove to the party- he knew exactly where it was, but we had to park up the road because there were so many cars there."

"Did he say anything about the party?" said Milo.

"He said he knew the people throwing it, that they were rich but cool, it was going to be the finest of the fine. Then, when we got there, he said something along the lines of, 'Maybe the president'll show up.' Because the house had huge pillars, like the White House. Janie thought that was hilarious. I was pretty put out by then, felt like Janie was shutting me out."

"What happened next?"

"We went inside the house. It was vacant and rancid-smelling and pretty much trashed, with beer cans and bottles and Lord knows what else all over the place. Kids running around everywhere, no band, just loud tapes- a bunch of different stereos set up all over the place, really cacophonous, but no one seemed to care. Everyone was blasted, kids were walking around looking dazed, bumping into each other, girls were on their knees, going down on guys right in the middle of the dance floor, there'd be couples dancing and right next to them, other couples would be screwing, getting kicked, stepped on. Burns seemed to know a lot of people, got plenty of high fives as we walked through the crowd. Then this funny-looking, kind of dumpy girl showed up out of nowhere and latched on to him."

"Funny-looking, how?"

"Short, fat, zits. Odd- spaced-out. But he immediately got all kissy-kissy with her, and I could see Janie didn't like that." Waters shook her head. "She'd known the guy all of fifteen minutes, and she was jealous."

"Janie do anything about that?"

"No, she just got this ticked-off look on her face. I could read it because I knew Janie. Burns didn't see it- or he didn't care. Threw one arm around the dumpy girl, the other around Janie, and led both of them off. That little purse of his bouncing on his shoulder."

"And you?"

"I stayed behind. Someone handed me a beer and hands started groping me. Not delicately. It was dark, and whoever was doing it started to get rough, yanking at my clothes. I broke away, started walking around, looked for a quiet room to mellow out in, but there was none. Every inch of that place was party-time. Guys kept putting their hands all over me, once in a while someone would pull me hard onto the dance floor and rather than fight it, I'd just dance for a while, then make my escape. Then the lights went out and the house got even darker and I could barely see where I was stepping. The Southern Comfort in my system wasn't helping, either. I felt nauseous, dizzy, wanted to get out of there, looked some more for Janie, couldn't find her, and got angry at her for bailing on me. Finally, I told myself forget her and the next time someone pulled me onto a dance floor, I danced for a while. And when someone offered me a pill, I swallowed it. The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor of an upstairs bathroom, hearing shouts that the cops were going to roust the party and running out of there along with everyone else- it was like a stampede. Somehow I ended up in the back of someone's truck, bouncing along Sunset."

"Whose truck?"

"A bunch of guys. Surfer types. They ended up at the beach, Santa Monica or Malibu, I couldn't tell you which. We partied some more, and I fell asleep on the sand. The next morning, I woke up and I was alone. Cold and wet and sick to my stomach. The sun was rising over the ocean and I suppose it was gorgeous but all I could think about was how lousy I felt. Then I thought about my father- stationed up at Mugu and I started crying and got it into my head that I had to go see him. It took me four hitches to get up there and when I reached the base, the sentry wouldn't let me through the gate. I started crying again. It had been a long time since I'd seen my dad. He'd remarried, and his new wife hated me. Or at least that's what my mother was always telling me. Whatever the truth was, he'd pretty much stopped calling. I bawled like a baby, and the sentry made a call and told me my dad wasn't there, he'd shipped out to Turkey three days before. I just broke down and I guess the sentry felt sorry for me because he gave me all the money in his pocket- thirty-three dollars and forty-nine cents." She smiled. "That I remember precisely."

Reaching under her glasses, she fingered the inside corners of her eyes. "Finally, someone was being nice to me. I never thanked him, never knew his name. Walked back to PCH, stuck out my thumb, caught a ride with some Mexicans heading over to Ventura to pick cabbage, just kept thumbing my way up the coast. My first stop was Santa Cruz, and I stayed there a while because it was beautiful and there was this retrohippie thing going on, plenty of free food and parks to sleep in. Eventually, I moved on to San Francisco, Crescent City, Oregon, Seattle, back down to Sacramento. The next ten years are kind of a blur. Finally, I got it together- you don't want to know the boring details."

"Like I said, we want to maintain your privacy."

Melinda Waters laughed. "Thanks for the thought."

Milo asked her a few more questions- more gently, unproductively- then we left her sitting at her desk looking dazed. As I drove out of the lot, the smoke from the Italian restaurant's chimney caught my eye.

"Want lunch?" I said.

"I guess… yeah, why not."

"No fast food, though. Let's aim high. We deserve it."

"For what?"

"Making some progress."

"You think so?"

The taverna across the street was divided into four small, whitewashed rooms, each warmed by a beehive-shaped fireplace and topped by low ceilings striped with rough-hewn logs. We ordered beer, a mixed antipasto, spaghetti with capers and olives and garlic, and osso bucco from a lithe, young woman who seemed genuinely happy to serve us.

When she left, Milo said, "Progress."

"We can place Janie with Willie Burns and Caroline Cossack the night of the murder. You don't have doubts she was the dumpy girl, do you?"

He shook his head.

I said, "Melinda's story also supplies a possible motive: jealousy. Caroline had a thing for Burns, thought Janie was moving in on her territory."

"The eternal triangle leading to that ?"

"The eternal triangle combined with dope and psychopathology and a low-inhibition party scene and Janie's racism. No shortage of triggers. And something else fits: Janie's murder presented as a sadistic sex killing and we've been wondering why other victims haven't shown up. Because cold, sexual sadists don't quit. But if the murder resulted from a passion-of-the-moment flare-up, a sole victim would make sense."