Jonathan Kellerman - A Cold Heart

Milo remained expressionless as he inspected the body again. “No tracks that I can see.”

“There aren’t any,” said Reese. “Looks like drink was her main thing, but we’ll see what the tox screen pulls up.”

“Did you list the articles of clothing?”

“Right here,” said Reese, turning pages of the coroner’s file. “Two pairs of woman’s panties, two pairs of men’s boxers, three T-shirts, a bra over that, blue UCLA sweatshirt.”

“Was the C half gone on the sweatshirt?” said Milo.

“Doesn’t say,” said Reese. “Let me go look.”

A cardboard carton sat atop a stainless-steel counter. Reese gloved up, bent over the box, retrieved a large, paper bag that she opened.

Wrinkling her nose again, drew out a blue sweatshirt fuzzed with dirt and leaves. “Yup, half a C.”

Milo turned to Petra. “The old lady at Light and Space described her Dumpster diver as wearing that. The drawing she did was useless, so I figured cataracts. Guess she could see okay, after all, just a lousy artist. Is this officially your case?”

Petra said, “No, Digmond and Battista caught it, I just happened to hear them talking about it, and I recalled what you said about a tall redhead homeless-type nosing around. No ID yet, her prints are being run as we speak.”

Rhonda Reese said, “Can I put this back?”

Milo said, “Sure, thanks. Where are the crime-scene snaps?”

Petra said, “Dig and Harry have a set, and there’s a copy here.”

“Rhonda, if it’s no trouble, we could use some dupes.”

“I can do that,” said Reese. She left the room and returned a while later with a white envelope.

Milo thanked her, and she said, “Good luck, Detectives.”

He said, “Feel like solving a few 187s for us, Rhonda?”

Reese laughed. “Sure, why not. Do I get to talk to someone alive?”

We reconvened in the morgue parking lot.

Milo said, “Digmond and Battista gonna give you any space on this?”

“They’re booked solid, would be thrilled to shunt it to me. But I want to wait and see if it actually ties in to the others. For all we know, it’s not even homicide.”

“Petechiae?”

“She could’ve choked or had a seizure or vomited hard. Anything that bugged her eyes hard enough would do it, and you know how prone street people are to catastrophe. If the hyoid or the thyroid cartilages are messed up, that’ll be a different story. The sweatshirt says she was at the gallery, but if she’s connected to the other victims, why the lack of aggression to her body? No cuts, not even a scratch. And if it is strangulation, it doesn’t match what we saw on Kipper and Levitch. That deep ligature ring- wire biting into the neck, someone really angry. Serials get more violent over time, not less, right, Alex?”

I said, “This could be tied in with the others but result from a different motivation. This victim could mean something different to the killer.”

“Like what?” said Milo.

“She was behind the gallery casing the place for the killer.”

“Advance woman?” he said. “Drummond chooses a homeless woman for an accomplice? And now he gets rid of her?”

“He would if she became a liability. A homeless woman, alcoholic, possibly mentally ill, might’ve served a purpose for him when he wasn’t under threat. But if he knows he’s the object of investigation, he might have decided to cover his tracks.”

“He might very well know he’s the object,” said Petra. “We’ve talked to his family and his landlady. He hasn’t been seen for days, all the evidence says he’s rabbited.”

I said, “A broad ligature is sometimes used when the killer has some level of sympathy for the victim. Also, she’s a big woman. If she drank herself into a stupor, that would’ve made his job a lot easier, no need to confront or struggle. The way she was propped is almost respectful. Were her legs spread?”

Milo opened the envelope, drew out color photos, shuffled through until he found a full-length body shot.

“Legs tight together,” said Petra.

“No sexual positioning, but it could still be a pose,” I said. “Strangulation, even with no struggle, can set off spasms. This looks too orderly to be natural.”

The two of them studied the photo. Milo said, “Looks posed to me.”

Petra nodded.

I said, “There’s no intent to demean, here. Just the opposite, he’s guarding her sexuality.”

“Kevin’s gay,” said Milo. “Maybe women aren’t sexual objects to him.”

“Julie was posed sexually. Kevin may be leaning toward gay, but if he’s our guy, he’s still plenty confused.”

“That makes sense,” said Petra. “Macho dad and brothers, all that emphasis on sports and being manly. It couldn’t have been easy for him.”

She glanced at Milo, and I noticed a spark of unease in her dark eyes. Wondering if she’d offended him.

He nodded, as if to reassure her.

“Whatever the motive,” I said, “the killer took care to make this victim look comfortable. Relative to the other cases, it’s an indication of respect.”

“Accomplice but not a girlfriend?” said Milo.

Petra said, “Even if Kevin does have an interest in girls- even if he’s quirky in ways we don’t know- I can’t see a young guy associating with a diseased homeless woman. What motive would he have to hang with her?”

“Kevin’s an isolate,” I said. “Probably sees himself an outcast from way back. On top of his sexual issues, he’s set himself up as a white knight fighting a lonely battle for art in its pure form. With that kind of alienation, I can see him gravitating toward other outsiders.”

“Which means I should be scoping out the street people, not the bookstores.”

Milo said, “Hanging with the homeless, offing the talented. It’s like a war against the bright side of life.”

I said, “There’s something else I find interesting. This body showed up behind a former theater. What if that’s a sneaky little allusion to the death of the performing arts?”

“They’re still performing there,” said Milo. “The church. Isn’t that what preaching is? Or maybe, he’s being sacrilegious.”

Petra said, “This is veering into serious weirdness.” She gnawed her lip. “Okay, what next?”

Milo said, “We’re ninety-nine percent sure this is the redhead CoCo Barnes saw, but let’s see if I can get a positive ID from the old lady. Main thing is find out who she is, woman like this is gonna be in the system somewhere. When do the prints come in?”

“You know prints. Could be today or next week. I’ll talk to Dig and Harry, see if we can speed things up.”

“Once we know who she is, we trace her movements. And maybe we don’t need to wait for prints. After Barnes told me what she saw, I did some asking around, found a shelter in your bailiwick- Dove House- where they knew of a tall redhead who dropped in from time to time. Bernadine something. They also said they figured her for someone who’d lived better once upon a time, because when her head cleared, she talked intelligently.”

I said, “Maybe that’s the side the killer saw. He knew he needed to get her blind drunk to render her helpless.”

Petra said, “I know Dove House, brought kids there. They’ve got a pretty good success rate.”

Milo looked at the death shot. “No one’s perfect.”

We found CoCo Barnes spinning an amorphous pot in her garage studio. Lance the dog snored at her feet.

It took her one glance to say, “That’s her- just like my drawing. Poor thing, what happened to her?”

“We don’t know yet, ma’am,” said Milo.

“But she’s dead.”