Jonathan Kellerman - A Cold Heart

I dropped her at her office and was setting out for the meeting at Gino’s when Milo called.

“Canceled. Another body turned up. Similar to ours but different, because it wasn’t found near any artistic venue. Dumped outdoors, in the wetlands, near the Marina. Not buried but half-hidden by marsh plants. Some cyclists saw birds clustered, went to check. Significant decay, coroner estimates it’s been lying there two, three days.”

“Right after Erna got picked up,” I said. “Right around the time Kevin’s car was left near the airport. The Marina’s not far from the airport.”

“The dump site’s right on the way. Looks like Kevin gave himself a going-away present. The victim’s definitely an artistic type, sculptor named Armand Mehrabian. He’s based in New York, came out to audition for a big corporate project downtown. Works in rocks and bronze and running water- kinetic sculpture they call it. He was staying at the Loews in Santa Monica, had gone missing. Young, gifted, just starting to get noticed by the art world. Good shot at winning the corporate gig. He was gutted just like Baby Boy and had his neck yanked by a corrugated ligature. I told the coroner’s tech it was probably a low E guitar string. She was very impressed.”

“Marina dump site makes it Pacific’s case.”

“Two Ds I don’t know,” he said. “Schlesinger and Small. Petra says Small used to work Wilshire, she collaborated with him, he’s okay. We’re rescheduling the meeting for later so they can show up. We’re an equal opportunity organization, share the despair. Figure on tomorrow morning, so Schlesinger and Small have time to do a preliminary workup on Mehrabian. Not Gino’s, the Westside for their sakes. My Indian pals’, say 10 A.M. That work for you?”

“Like a charm.”

The same small back room at Café Moghul, the same smells of hot oil and curry.

Two more people huddled around the table made the space feel like a cell.

The Pacific detectives were men in their forties. Dick Schlesinger was big, dark, rangy, long-faced, and thoughtful, with a mink-colored mustache that crossed his face like a freeway. Marvin Small was smaller, chubby and blond-gray, his ode to facial hair a silver brush, prickly as a straw bed, bursting from under a boxer’s nose. He chuckled a lot, even when nothing was funny.

The woman in the sari brought chai and ice water and left, smiling at Milo.

Marvin Small said, “This joker, Drummond, anywhere else he could’ve rabbited other than Boston?”

Milo said, “Your guess is as good as ours.”

Dick Schlesinger shook his head. “Another whodunit.”

Petra said, “Had a few, lately?”

“Two others still on the burner. Little girl disappears from a supermarket where she’s shopping with her mom. We’re thinking one of the box boys, he’s got a molestation record. But no body, no evidence, and for a stupid guy, he’s being smart. We’re also working a shooting on Lincoln, one of the hookers who works the stretch between Rose and LAX. Whoever did it left her with a purse full of dope and cash, and this time we’ve got a pimp who actually seems to care. They had three kids together. A few city employees have been busted there recently, mostly Cal Trans losers and bus company folk heading home after the night shift, veering off for a quickie. We’re hoping it’s not the beginning of another serial. A municipal employee killer, at that.”

Small said, “But don’t weep for me, Argentina. Sounds like you guys have been plenty busy, yourselves.”

Knock on the door. The smiling woman entered with a tray of free appetizers that she placed on the table. Milo thanked her and she left.

“That one has a crush on you,” said Marvin Small.

“The old charm,” said Milo.

Petra grinned.

Everyone trying to deal with the frustration with levity. Except Stahl, he just sat there.

Detective Small eyed the food with some anxiety. “Multicultural time. This is one culture I’ve never done, food-wise.”

“It’s not bad, Marve,” said Schlesinger. “My wife’s a vegetarian, we go to Indian restaurants a lot.” He reached for a samosa, held it up, named it. Petra and Milo and Marvin Small took food. Stahl didn’t.

The remnants of a pastrami sandwich had taken residence in my gut- Milo’s call interrupting my digestion- so I stuck with the hot spiced tea.

Stahl seemed off in another world. He’d arrived with a large white envelope, placed it in front of him. Hadn’t talked or budged since the meeting had started.

The rest of them munched as Small and Schlesinger summarized the Armand Mehrabian case. Passing around death photos to the sounds of chewing. I flipped through them quickly. The abdominal wound was a horrible gape. Shades of Baby Boy Lee and Vassily Levitch.

The outdoor dump matched Angelique Bernet and China Maranga.

Flexibility. Creativity.

I said so. They listened, made no comment. Ate some more. Went over old ground for twenty minutes. Then Milo said, “So what’s up with the Murphy family tree, Eric?”

Stahl opened the white envelope and removed a computer-printed genealogy chart. “I got this from the Internet, but it seems reliable. Erna Murphy’s father, Donald, had a brother and a sister. The brother, Edward, married a woman named Colette Branigan. Only cousin there is one daughter, Mary Margaret. Edward’s dead, Colette lives in New York, Mary Margaret’s a nun in Albuquerque.”

“There’s a hot lead for you,” said Small. “Maniacal Sister Mary.”

Stahl said, “Murphy’s sister is named Alma Trueblood. I ran into her at the rest home where Murphy’s dying. She’s got two sons from a previous marriage, one’s deceased. Her first husband’s dead, but she divorced him before he died. I found a few distant cousins but none of them are local and none are Drummonds. No connection to Kevin I can find.”

“The whole cousin thing was probably nut talk,” said Small.

“A cousin who likes art,” said Schlesinger. “So what?”

Milo reached for the chart, scanned it absently, gave a disgusted look.

I took a look.

“Who’s this?” I said, pointing.

Stahl leaned across the small table and read upside down. “Alma Trueblood’s first husband. He was a real estate agent in Temple City.”

“Alvard G. Shull,” I said. “Kevin’s faculty advisor at Charter College is a guy named A. Gordon Shull. The two sons you’ve got listed here are Bradley- deceased- and Alvard, Junior.”

“A. Gordon,” said Petra. “My first name was Alvard, I’d want to use the middle name.”

“Damn,” said Marvin Small. “This professor like art?”

“As a matter of fact,” I said.

Dead silence in the room.

I said, “Shull told me he’d grown up ‘grounded’ in art and literature and theater. He’s also got red hair.”

“Big and strong enough?” said Milo.

“Easily,” I said. “Six feet, close to two hundred. Outdoorsy. Outgoing. And not at all protective of Kevin, the way you might expect from a mentor. At first, he expressed surprise that Kevin was under suspicion of anything. But as we talked, he warmed to the subject of Kevin’s eccentricities. I remember one phrase he used: ‘Kevin wasn’t the type of kid you’d want to have a beer with.’ At the time, I didn’t make much of it, but in retrospect, it’s cruel. One of the last things he told me was Kevin was a lousy writer.”

“Oh, boy,” said Petra.

Milo rubbed his face.

“Something else,” I said. “When I first talked to Shull’s department head about Kevin, she put on a full-force stonewall. Cited academic freedom, confidentiality. Exactly what you’d expect from a department head. Then she found out Shull had been Kevin’s advisor, and her attitude changed completely. All of a sudden she was more than willing for me to talk to Shull. I didn’t think much of it, but maybe she had a reason. Wanting Shull to have problems.”