Jonathan Kellerman - A Cold Heart

“How long?” said Milo.

“Maybe three, four months.”

“Could you please check your records and be more specific, sir?” said Milo.

“Sorry. The only records we keep are for the government. Tax-exempt status and all that. Shuffling government paper takes up a lot of my time, so I don’t add to my burden.”

“A good vocabulary,” I said.

“It was more than that- good diction. Something about the way she talked could be… sophisticated.”

“During her clear periods what did she talk about?”

Witherspoon fingered a cornrow. “Let me ask Diane.” He strode to his desk, punched a phone extension, talked in a low voice, said, “She’ll be right down.”

Diane Petrello was in her sixties, short and stout with clipped gray hair and big, round, tortoiseshell glasses even wider than her face. She wore a pink sweatshirt that said Compassion , a long denim skirt, and sneakers.

When Milo told her about Erna Murphy, she said, “Oh my God,” in a soft, high voice. Tears rolled down her cheeks as he added a few details. As she sat down opposite us and wiped her eyes, Daryl Witherspoon fixed her a cup of tea.

She warmed her hands on the cup, and said, “I hope the poor thing finally finds some peace.”

“Tortured soul,” said Milo.

“Oh, yes,” said Diane Petrello. “Aren’t we all?”

He went over some of the same ground we’d covered with Witherspoon, then repeated my question about Erna Murphy’s lucid periods.

“What she talked about,” said Petrello. “Hmm, I’d say mostly art. She could spend hours looking at pictures in art books. One time, I went out and bought some old art books for her at a thrift shop but when I brought them back, she was gone. She was like that. Restless, wouldn’t stay put. In fact, that was the last time I saw her. She never got to see the books.”

“What kind of art did she like?” said Milo.

“Well… I guess I couldn’t tell you. Pretty pictures, I suppose.”

“Landscapes?”

Julie Kipper’s pretty pictures.

Diane Petrello said, “Anything pretty. It seemed to calm her down. But not always. Nothing really worked when she was all wound up.”

“She could be pretty agitated,” said Milo.

“But she never caused problems.”

“She have any friends here at Dove House?”

“Not really, no.”

“Anyone on the outside?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“She talk about any outside friends?”

Petrello shook her head.

Milo said, “Specifically, ma’am, I’d be interested in a young man in his early twenties. Tall, thin, dark hair, bad skin, eyeglasses.”

Petrello looked at Witherspoon. They both shook their heads.

Witherspoon said, “Is he the one who did this?”

“We don’t know if anyone did anything, sir. What else can you tell us about Ms. Murphy?”

“That’s all I can think of,” said Petrello. “She was so alone. Like so many of them. That’s the main problem, really. Aloneness. Without Divine Grace, all of us are alone.”

Milo asked if we could show Erna Murphy’s picture to the other residents, and Darryl Witherspoon frowned.

Diane Petrello said, “There are only six women in residence this week.”

“Any men?” said Milo.

“There are eight men.”

Witherspoon said, “It’s been a tough couple of weeks, everyone we’ve got is kind of fragile. Those pictures you showed me would be too much.”

Milo said, “How about this: no picture, we just talk. And you come along to make sure we do it right.”

Another glance passed between Witherspoon and Petrello. He said, “Guess so. But at the first sign of trouble, we quit, okay?”

Witherspoon returned to his desk as Milo and I trailed Diane Petrello up a flight of protesting stairs. The upper floors were divided into single rooms that lined a long, bright, turquoise hallway. Women were housed on the second floor, men on the third. Each room was set up with two bunk beds. Bibles on the pillow, a tiny portable closet, more religious posters.

Half of the residents were sleepy. Erna Murphy’s name elicited only blank looks until a young, dark-haired woman named Lynnette with the face of a fashion model and old needle tracks in the crooks of her pipe-stem arms, said, “Big Red.”

“You know her?”

“Roomed with her a couple of times.” Lynnette’s eyes were huge and black and wounded. Her hair was long and dark and greasy. A tattooed star the size of a sheriff’s badge decorated the left side of her neck. A vein ran through the center of the body art, pulsing the blue ink. Slow pulse, steady, unperturbed. She sat on the edge of a lower bunk, Bible at one arm, bag of Fritos at the other. Her back curved like that of an old woman. The downturn of her mouth said she’d given up on personal safety. “What happened to her?”

“I’m afraid she’s dead, ma’am.”

Lynnette’s pulse remained sluggish. Then her eyes drooped with amusement.

Milo said, “Something funny, ma’am.”

Lynnette shot him a crooked grin. “Only thing funny is ‘ ma’am .’ So what, someone offed her?”

“We’re not sure.”

“Maybe her boyfriend did it.”

“What boyfriend would that be?”

“Don’t know. She just told me she had one and that he was real smart.”

“When did she tell you this?” said Milo.

Lynnette scratched her arm. “Had to be a long time ago.” To Petrello: “Had to be not the last time I was here, maybe a few times before that?”

“Months,” said Petrello.

“I been traveling,” said Lynnette. “Had to be months.”

“Traveling,” said Milo.

Lynnette smiled. “Seeing the U.S.A. Yeah, had to be months- could be six, seven, dunno. I just remember it cause I thought it was bullshit. Cause like who’d want her? She was a skank.”

“You didn’t like her.”

“What was to like?” said Lynnette. “She was a whack job, would start off having a conversation with you, then space out, start walking around, talking to herself.”

“What else did she say about this boyfriend?” said Milo.

“Just that.”

“Smart.”

“Yeah.”

“No name?”

“Nope.”

Milo stepped closer to the bed. Diane Petrello interposed herself between him and Lynnette, and he retreated. “If there’s anything you can tell us about the boyfriend, I’d greatly appreciate it.”

Lynnette said, “I don’t know nothin’.” A second later: “She said he was smart, that’s it. Bragging on herself. Like, he’s smart so I’m smart. She said he was gonna come take her out of here.” She puffed her lips. “Right.”

“Out of Dove House?”

“Out of here . The life . The street . So maybe he did. So look what happened to her.”

We got back in the car. Milo said, “What do you think?”

“Erna Murphy liked pretty art,” I said. “That would be a point of contact with someone like Kevin, the self-assigned arbiter of art. Julie Kipper’s paintings certainly qualified as pretty. Erna would’ve been attracted to them. Maybe he directed her to the show. Used her as some sort of distraction.”

“CoCo Barnes opens the back door and maybe she forgets to lock it.” He rubbed his face. “A psychotic advance woman. Think he could’ve used Erna for more than just that? What if he had her actually do Julie? Erna was big enough to overpower someone Julie’s size, especially in the closed confines of that bathroom. A woman would also explain the lack of semen or sexual assault. And we just heard she could be lucid.”