Jonathan Kellerman - The Murder Book

"Details."

"About what?"

"The murder."

"I don't have any more details."

"Why would Chapman feel remorse for something that never happened?"

"I don't know, I'm not a mind reader! This whole thing is insane. Not a word in the papers for twenty years, and all of a sudden someone cares?"

Milo consulted his pad. "How'd you learn about Chapman's death?"

"Mother included it in her weekly letter."

"How'd you feel about it?"

"What do you think ? I felt terrible ," said Hansen. "How else could I feel?"

"You felt terrible, then just forgot about it."

Hansen rose out of his chair. Spittle whitened the corners of his lips. "What was I supposed to do? Go to the police and repeat some far-fetched, stoned-out story? I was twenty- two , for Christ's sake."

Milo flashed him a cold stare, and Hansen slumped back down. "It's easy to judge."

"Let's go over the details," said Milo. "The girl was raped in the basement. Where'd Chapman say they killed her?"

Hansen shot him a miserable look. "He said there was a big property next door to the party house, an estate, no one living there. They brought her over there. He said she was unconscious. They took her into some wooded area and started talking about how they needed to make sure she didn't turn them in. That's when it got…"

"Bloody."

Hansen covered his face and exhaled noisily.

"Who's 'they'?" said Milo.

"All of them," Hansen said through his fingers. "The Kingers."

"Who exactly was there? Names."

"Vance and Luke, Garvey and Bob Cossack, Brad Larner. All of them."

"The Kingers," said Milo. "Guys you don't see anymore. Guys you're not worried about being your neighbors."

Hansen's hands dropped. "Should I be worried?"

"It does seem odd," said Milo. "For three years you've been living in L.A. but you've never run into them."

"It's a big city," said Hansen. "Big as you want it to be."

"You don't run in the same social circles?"

"I don't have any social circle. I rarely leave the house. Everything's delivered- groceries, laundry. Painting and taking Mother to the doctor, that's my world."

I thought: Prison .

Milo said, "Have you followed the others' lives?"

"I know the Cossacks are builders of some kind- you see their names on construction signs. That's it."

"No idea what Vance Coury's been up to?"

"No."

"Brad Larner?"

"No."

Milo wrote something down. "So… your buddies took the nameless girl to the property next door and things just kind of got bloody."

"They weren't my buddies."

"Who did the actual killing?"

"Luke didn't say."

"What about the rape? Who initiated that?"

"He- my impression was they all joined in."

"But Chapman wasn't sure if he participated or not."

"Maybe he was lying. Or in denial, I don't know," said Hansen. "Luke wasn't cruel but- I can see him getting carried along. But with-out the others, he never would've done anything like that. He told me he'd felt… immobilized- as if his feet were stuck. That's the way he phrased it. 'My feet were stuck, Nick. Like in quicksand.' "

"Can you see the others doing something like that on their own?"

"I don't know… I used to think of them as clowns… maybe. All I'm saying is Luke was a big softie. A big Baby Huey type of guy."

"And the others?"

"The others weren't soft."

"So," said Milo, "the murder started out as a way to silence the girl."

Hansen nodded.

"But it progressed to something else, Nicholas. If you'd seen the body, you'd know that. It was something you wouldn't want to paint."

"Oh, Lord," said Hansen.

"Did Luke Chapman make any mention at all of who initiated the murder?"

Hansen shook his head.

"How about taking a guess?" said Milo. "From what you remember about the Kingers' personalities."

"Vance," said Hansen, without hesitation. "He was the leader. The most aggressive. Vance was the one who picked her up. If I had to guess, I'd say Vance was the first to cut her."

Milo slapped his pad shut. His head shot forward. "Who said anything about cutting, Nicholas?"

Hansen turned white. "You said it- you said it was ugly."

"Chapman told you they'd cut her, didn't he?"

"Maybe- he could've."

Milo stood and stomped his way slowly toward Hansen on echoing tiles, came to a halt inches from Hansen's terrified face. Hansen's hands rose protectively.

"What else are you holding back, Nicholas?"

"Nothing! I'm doing my best-"

"Do better," said Milo.

"I'm trying ." Hansen's voice took on a whine. "It's twenty years ago. You're making me remember things I repressed because they disgusted me. I didn't want to hear details then, and I don't want to now."

"Because you like pretty things," said Milo. "The wonderful world of art."

Hansen clapped his hands against his temples and looked away from Milo. Milo got down on one knee and spoke into Hansen's right ear.

"Tell me about the cutting."

"That's it. He just said they started cutting her." Hansen's shoulders rose and fell, and he began weeping.

Milo gave him a moment of peace. Then he said, "After they cut her, what?"

"They burned her. They burned her with cigarettes. Luke said he could hear her skin sizzle… oh God- I really thought he was…"

"Making it up."

Hansen sniffed, wiped his nose with his sleeve, let his head fall. The back of his neck was glossy and creased, like canned tallow.

Milo said, "They burned her, then what?"

"That's all. That really is all. Luke said it was like it became a game- he had to think of it as a game in order not to freak out completely. He said he'd watched and tried to pretend she was one of those inflatable dolls and they were playing with her. He said it seemed to go on forever until someone- I think it was Vance, I can't swear to it, but probably Vance- said she was dead and they needed to get her out of there. They bundled her up in something, put her in the trunk of Vance's Jaguar, and dumped her somewhere near downtown."

"Pretty detailed for a hallucination," said Milo.

Hansen didn't respond.

"Especially," pressed Milo, "for a dull guy like Chapman. You ever know him to be that imaginative?"

Hansen remained mute.

"Where'd they take her, Nicholas?"

"I don't know where- why the hell wasn't it in the papers ?" Hansen balled a hand into a fist and raised it chest high. Making a stab at assertiveness. Milo remained crouched but somehow increased his dominance. Hansen shook his head and looked away and cried some more.

"What'd they do afterward?"

"Had coffee," said Hansen. "Some place in Hollywood. Coffee and pie. Luke said he tried eating but threw up in the bathroom."

"What kind of pie?"

"I didn't ask. Why wasn't there anything in the paper ?"

"What would your theory be about that, Nicholas?"

"What do you mean?" said Hansen.

"Given what you know about your buddies, what's your theory."

"I don't see what you're getting at."

Milo got up, stretched, rolled his neck, walked slowly to a leaded window, turned his back on Hansen. "Think about the world you inhabit, Nicholas. You're a successful artist. You get thirty, forty thousand dollars for a painting. Who buys your stuff?"

"Thirty thousand isn't big-time in the art world," said Hansen. "Not compared to-"

"It's a lot of money for a painting," said Milo. "Who buys your stuff?"

"Collectors, but I don't see what that has to-"

"Yeah, yeah, people of taste and all that. But at forty grand a pop not just any collectors."

"People of means," said Hansen.

Milo turned suddenly, grinning. "People with money, Nicholas." He cleared his throat.