Jonathan Kellerman - A Cold Heart

Poor choice of neighborhood for a woman alone. Too isolated, too far from help. Not that crowds kept you safe…

He wondered how the tight-bodied women would react when they found out they’d been neighbors to a very bad person. He imagined the usual, horrified newspaper quotes: “I had no idea.” “I can’t believe it, he seemed like a nice person.”

Believe it, ladies. Anything’s possible.

The night sky gelled and turned shiny- purplish black, like boysenberry jam. Black napalm. Stahl ate a ham sandwich and drank from his thermos of espresso and risked a couple of forays across the road so he could pee in the bushes. Then back to his car, where he kept his eyes out for either of the two vehicles registered to Shull: a one-year-old BMW and a two-year-old Ford Expedition.

The Beemer was probably Shull’s show wheels. The four-wheeler was what he used for exploration. Not a van- guys like Shull loved vans because you could turn one into a prison-on-wheels easily enough. But a trendy guy like Shull, living up here in the hills, would view a van as déclassé and the oversized SUV provided some of the same benefits: big, unobtrusive.

Lots of storage space.

A hundred to one Shull had blackened the windows.

Headlights brightening Stahl’s rear window made him slink down and turn his head.

Small vehicle.

A dark car- there it was, the BMW grille, zipping toward the end of the cul-de-sac. The BMW passed too quickly for Stahl to make out the driver in the darkness but when it stopped at the bleached gates, he sat higher and watched.

Electric gate. The car passed through. Exactly thirty seconds later, the gate closed- some sort of time-release mechanism.

Stahl waited until 11 P.M. before exiting his car. Figuring even a hip guy like Shull was probably buttoned down for the night. Had he arrived alone? No way to know.

Checking out the street and finding it dead, Stahl crossed the road again, peed, continued. Sticking close to the foliage; if anyone did appear, he could conceal himself in the brush.

He proceeded slowly, with rubber-soled silence, feeling loose, the old prowl-zen kicking in. Good trackers and snipers were born with it.

A neighborhood this remote should’ve been silent, but an insistent hum filtered up from the base of the foothills. The sounds of Hollywood, the real Hollywood, percolating a couple of miles below.

He got within yards of the bleached gate. Through the big trees fronting Shull’s property, distant lights sparked and blinked. A few stars in the sky, too, struggling to be noticed through the smog.

Guy had a terrific view.

The good life.

Stahl made it to the gate, surveyed the street again, got his nose up close and was able to inspect the gate’s construction without using his penlight. Two-by-fours, tongue-and-groove, arranged in a pretty chevron design and framed by heavier boards. The frame bottom was stout and steady, provided a nice toehold. He put his foot in place, lifted himself up high enough to peer over.

On the other side was a round brick courtyard surrounded by greenery. Plants in pots. Tiled fountain off to the left; no drip. Soft lighting revealed the house, a split-level Spanish design, tile-roofed, with nice arched windows.

Very good life.

No sign of the BMW or the Expedition, but the courtyard terminated in an attached three-car garage that sat under a wing of the house. A low-wattage bulb revealed a trio of bleached wood chevron doors that matched the gate. To the right, an iron-railed staircase led up to what Stahl assumed was the house’s main entrance. Hard to say how big the place was, it looked good-sized.

He thought about the layout. The door up the stairs would be where you had your guests enter, if you wanted to make an impression. First thing they’d see would be a windowful of city lights.

With no one to impress, Shull would drive in through the garage, take an interior staircase into the house. No BMW in sight said that’s what he’d done tonight. Meaning, he was alone.

Or with someone he didn’t care to impress.

Stahl stood there, perched on the gate frame, figuring this would be another uneventful night. Then a rustle of leaves- several rustles- tightened the back of his neck, and he got down and pressed himself against the ivy-colored wall.

More noise. More than a rodent scurrying. Someone sniffing the air.

Stahl waited. Nothing happened.

Then the sound repeated itself, louder, and twenty feet down, the brush parted and a deer- a smallish doe- began prancing across the road.

The animal stopped in the middle, stood there twitching. Stahl’s heartbeat was way slow- the way it always was after it had been tweaked. Quick recovery… from some things…

The deer considered her options, finally bounded off and ran down a driveway, disappearing between two houses.

A regular; she knew who was home and who wasn’t. Now someone’s garden would be a late-night snack. And, eventually, the doe would be some coyote’s dinner. Or maybe a puma would get her. Stahl had heard that the mountain lions were making a big comeback- wildlife, in general, was inching its way toward the urban jungle. That had certainly been true near the base. All sorts of critters turning up in the strangest places- his favorite was the snake who chose a colonel’s wife’s bidet as a drinking fountain. She squats in the dark, gets a slithery surprise…

Stahl felt himself smiling.

Noise on the other side of Shull’s gate wiped his face clean.

Ignition rumble.

He ran to the gate, regained his foothold, chanced a quick look. The center garage door slid open, and he jumped down, sprinted back to his car.

He barely made it back as the gate swung back.

Headlights, a new set, higher up than the BMW.

The Expedition nosed its way out, paused, sped away.

Black SUV. Blackened windows.

One-man tails were impractical, often impossible, but with an arrogant guy like Shull, the job was easier. Why would the bastard even imagine he was being followed?

Stahl drove with his lights off as Shull sped down the hill way too fast. The Expedition headed north on Cahuenga and over to a jazz club just south of the Valley. Not far from Baby Boy’s apartment. Shull left the Expedition with a parking valet, stayed inside for forty minutes, and retrieved the SUV. Now it was nearly 1 A.M., and with the traffic thinned, Stahl had to keep his distance.

Shull didn’t go far, just a quick jaunt into Studio City, where he had coffee and a burger at an all-night coffee shop on Ventura near Lankershim. No valet, here. Stahl parked in the half-empty lot, observed the window.

Four cups of coffee, black. Shull inhaled his burger.

Fueling up.

Shull paid in cash, got back in the SUV.

Back to the city on Laurel Canyon, a right turn on Sunset. A few blocks up, Shull pulled in front of a bar called Bambu. Neo tiki-hut décor, bored bouncer in front. Another valet situation.

Stahl drove a block, hung a quick U, watched from across Sunset as Shull got out of the SUV smoking a cigar.

Dressed in a black leather jacket, black jeans, black T-shirt. Swaggering, shmoozing with the parking attendant.

No nerves; obviously, Delaware’s showing up at his office didn’t worry him. Just the opposite: Shull had taken Delaware’s questions about Drummond as proof he was safe.

If Drummond had been Shull’s partner in crime- if Drummond had known anything- Delaware’s asking about him had probably accomplished something else: Drummond was now a severe liability, bye bye, Kev.

Sturgis had opined as much at the last meeting. Drummond’s car near the airport meant Shull had probably taken care of the kid, used the Honda to pick up Erna Murphy, then planted it to imply Drummond’s long-distance rabbit. And it had worked. All those days wasted checking out airline rosters. All the time Stahl had spent watching Drummond’s apartment.